1. Are antidepressants taking the edge off love?

Comment #77252 by Kirby on October 8, 2007 at 9:12 pm

Hi all

My concern is this. If our morality is based in our 'wiring' - if our altruism, our love, our ability to both individuate and cooperate come from this – then 'blunting' our wiring means blunting our morality, our personal and communal growth. A'Brave New World' where fed the 'soma' pill we can 'enjoy' Utopia and escape the 'Savage Reservation'?

2. Mind Over Manual

Comment #76985 by Kirby on October 8, 2007 at 2:50 am

Hello all,

I am not a scientist. However, I am interested in the view of the thoughtful people on this thread, and put forward my thoughts in the spirit of friendly engagement.

In Roboholic I think I hear a concern with treating a disease not observed (as with a blocked artery for example), but inferred – which can end in say, Alan Turing being diagnosed with the 'disease' of homosexuality. Then there are the people who have been sent to mental asylums to be cured of their 'mental illness' as displayed in their political views. Then there is someone who is deeply sad, and this is the 'disease of depression' where the person is to be 'cured'. As a child my religious family thought there was something wrong with me because I was deeply sad in the life they were providing for me. I believe that they intended well, that they genuinely believed that physically and verbally abusing me, demanding that I believe and do what they did, would be good for me. However, the impact for me was rather different to their intention, hence my being chuffed off to the adolescent psychiatric unit – where I had the problem to be cured, which further encouraged my family's treatment of me. For me, very much like being a political prisoner as enforced by psychiatry, as I imagine witches burned at the stake may have felt. When I was able to leave their care as an adult I struggled to find happiness in the world – as I imagine anyone who what I went through would – but I did find it, and it is the story of many others too – an ending found through believing that they did not have a disease to cure – that they were actually right to feel sad because the situation they were in was not healthy for them. I am aware of course that this is anecdotal – but my concern is that some psychiatrists in their desire to help people, and in taking the disease model where there doesn't appear to be any disease reality (as per the blocked artery), can end up hurting those people a great deal instead. Religious people too have wanted to help people where they inferred 'the devil at work', and inflicted much damage in the process. I would have loved to have had help with my situation as a child, access to better education to help me too, laws that better protect children rights, social education wrt interacting with children (as per Dr Thomas Gordon for example?) – the things I needed I didn't get because people saw a disease to be cured – they didn't ask why I had the 'symptoms' that I did. They didn't give any indication of thinking that perhaps I was terrified to reveal the my view of my situation due to my family regularly voicing the idea that it would prove that I was crazier than already thought. After all, I was the one getting psychiatric 'help'. Sure there are people with brain damage, and I think Roboholic is saying that where that is to be found, by all means treat the damage. But where there is no found damage, hasn't history shown how dangerous it can be to 'cure the disease'.

Sincere regards

Kirby