INSTITUTIONAL DENIAL ABOUT THE DARK SIDE OF LAW SCHOOL

[Jumboshrimps]

Yes, but there is a problem when the medical community is not only supportive of the trend, but directly profiting from it in unprecedented dollar amounts. Add to this the tradition in our culture of unquestioning trust of medical providers with our health, and you get a conflict of interest which the vicims themselves willingly feed. Add to THAT the fact that all drugs are addictive, and you've got a society of addicts who's only barometer of caution comes from the drug dealers themselves, who are completely indistinguishable from the people delivering babies and setting broken bones.

I'd like to say "hands-off" and just let this thing run its course so that it comes to a head and we see the folly of it all, but I'm not sure there will be much of a culture left to save at that point. Therefore, I choose to fight this battle.

Doctors, patients, and the stock market desperately need these drugs. Only common sense gives us pause. But common sense and a dollar won't buy you a cup of coffe these days. God help us, but I think the law must unleash its wicked, reaching hand here.

[BigTex]

Plenty of people who truly need help with their mental and emotional problems rely on medication to help them.  It's not the best way to solve the problem and drug companies are surely in it for selfish reasons, but for you to call everyone who relies on medication lazy or whatever just goes to show that you have a very weak grip on the bigger picture. 

Sandwiched between the ad hominem statements was an actual point. You seem to agree medication isn't the best solution. I'm not sure what your method is to promote a better, healthier choice. My strategy - afford no comfort or solace to people who choose medication to solve their problems rather than the coping methods humans have naturally evolved over centuries of life. I don't condone taking the pills away from those who choose to medicate away their emotional/psychological problems, but I do condone an honest recognition that such people have chosen to medicate themselves rather than engage in the difficult self-introspection necessary to confront the underlying psychological and emotional problems causing the issue in the first place. I think any honest appraisal would recognize the second approach as more courageous.

But functionally, I pose no contrary opinion to your view. I have no problem with the legal status of the current situation. But apparently, you feel that I must not only afford others the legal right to medicate their emotional problems, but I should also tell them they're peachy-keen for doing so and how wonderful it is they've chosen a self-medicated course of action (or, more appropriately, inaction). I decline to do so.

[law is an ass]

People who try to medicate away their emotional problems are precisely the sort of people I don't like and don't get along with anyway. They're also not the sort of people likely to be vibrant, driven, and creative in the first place. In a way, the drug companies are doing us a favor by allowing these people to voluntarily self-select themselves onto the short-bus of medicated zombies. Creative, driven, ambitious, intelligent people do not hand over their mental destiny to a bottle of pills. That is not to say that they don't have mental/emotional problems, but they work out their problems with family, friends, conversations with a professional psychologist, or other introspective techniques (a walk alone in the woods, whatever) that take hard work and dedication to unravel and correct the underlying psychological problems. The mentally lazy jump for the magical solution of a bottle of pills. So, in my view, it's not much of a loss to either society as a whole or me personally. It's a case of a sinister (or arrogantly deluded) group of drug companies taking advantage of grotesquely lazy people who are too fearful to engage in genuine introspection. I just don't care much when bad people take advantage of lazy cowards.

I guess being "creative" and "ambitious" is more like a synonym for being an arrogant prick in your case.

Plenty of people who truly need help with their mental and emotional problems rely on medication to help them.  It's not the best way to solve the problem and drug companies are surely in it for selfish reasons, but for you to call everyone who relies on medication lazy or whatever just goes to show that you have a very weak grip on the bigger picture. 

Of course, this is all funny coming from the "creative" white guy who tried to get URM status to help him get into Michigan with a 162 LSAT.

hahaha! You hit the nail right on the head!

[eray01]

People who try to medicate away their emotional problems are precisely the sort of people I don't like and don't get along with anyway. They're also not the sort of people likely to be vibrant, driven, and creative in the first place. In a way, the drug companies are doing us a favor by allowing these people to voluntarily self-select themselves onto the short-bus of medicated zombies. Creative, driven, ambitious, intelligent people do not hand over their mental destiny to a bottle of pills. That is not to say that they don't have mental/emotional problems, but they work out their problems with family, friends, conversations with a professional psychologist, or other introspective techniques (a walk alone in the woods, whatever) that take hard work and dedication to unravel and correct the underlying psychological problems. The mentally lazy jump for the magical solution of a bottle of pills. So, in my view, it's not much of a loss to either society as a whole or me personally. It's a case of a sinister (or arrogantly deluded) group of drug companies taking advantage of grotesquely lazy people who are too fearful to engage in genuine introspection. I just don't care much when bad people take advantage of lazy cowards.

That's one way to look at it. Another way is to see the net productivity happiness of our culture suffer. I can only look out for numer one to the extent that number one doesn't look around and see a world full of zombies, I'm afraid. What bothers me about all this is that the solution is antithetical to my core libertarian disposition. I feel that drug companies need to be regulated, but just typing that made me a little sick.

Do you not believe there are people who may have mental/emotional issues that are a result of a medical disorder within the brain? Those types of disorders can only be treated with medicine combined with therapy. I agree there are alot of people who should be seeking help elsewhere, but abuse medication and are taken adavantage of by the pharmaceutical industry. However, there are some people who must be medicated because they suffer from bona fide pyschiatric disorders. And, I'm not talking about the well known disorders like schizophrenia. There are alot of more subtle disorders that are incredibly destructive to an individual's life and relationships that can only be dealt with effectively through a combination of medicine and the "introspective techniques" you speak of. Many people lead apparently functional lives, yet they are hamstrung by unresolved psychiatric issues. It's sad that many of them may never find relief because they're afraid it would be considered weak if they resorted to chemical assistance. Let's face it. Our emotions, personalities, responses to life, and all of the other things that animate us on an intellectual and social level are only a product of the chemical soup inside our skulls. The brain is an organ as much as any other organ. Sometimes it breaks, and sometimes (not all the time) medicine can fix it.

[Jumboshrimps]

Do you not believe there are people who may have mental/emotional issues that are a result of a medical disorder within the brain?

Of course there are. Irrelevent.

[BigTex]

Believe me, you can't have an informed opinion until mental illness starts stealing from you or someone you love.

Been there. Watched a friend slowly decay into a zombie from years of arrogant psychiatrists prescribing prozac and lithium. After a decade on the stuff, he's beyond hope and utterly lost. His psychiatrists don't care. He's rich, pays his bills, and is easy to deal with. They don't have to dredge up any of the awful stuff involving his relationship with his father and his brother. That's too burdensome. Much easier to fill a monthly prozac/lithium prescription. So, my loathing of psychiatry and psycho-meds is founded on actual experience with a close friend.

I honestly hope that in the unlikely event there comes a time in that child's life when your love and care may not help them with what might be an unsolveable (SP?) mental problem...you aren't one of those A-hole Dads that tells them to, "rub a little dirt on it and walk it off."  

I don't believe in your premise. There are no unsolvable mental problems, or at least they exist in such a low frequency as to not even deserve much comment outside niche medical journals. What I will do as a father is spend an enormous amount of time with my child to help him figure out any problems he's having and help him work through them. If that means quitting a high-paying law job to take a more menial job to spend time with my child, then so be it. Rather than your suggestion, the real A-hole dad is the one who just gets his problem child hooked up on Ritalin b/c a few quick tosses of the baseball in the back yard didn't solve the problem and he's too busy with work to spend any more time with his child trying to figure out what's going on.

[eloisa]

I don't believe in your premise. There are no unsolvable mental problems, or at least they exist in such a low frequency as to not even deserve much comment outside niche medical journals. What I will do as a father is spend an enormous amount of time with my child to help him figure out any problems he's having and help him work through them. ...

If you truly believe that there are no unsolvable mental problems, try dealing with a relative who has acute, childhood-onset, paranoid schizophrenia.  His parents have tried everything -- individual counseling, family counseling, bailing him out of jail repeatedly, "tough love," a military-type school, religion -- and nothing has solved the problem.  This isn't a case (as you might suggest) where the family wants him on medication because they're too lazy to deal with the problem.  This is a case in which all the love and effort in the world is just not going to solve the underlying problem.  The family has spent 12 years trying to solve the problem with their love, but it isn't happening.

Do Americans overmedicate?  Sure, I'll concede that.  But there are numerous Americans (not just a handful, as you imply) suffering from severe mental illness, illness which cannot be remedied simply by a dad taking more time to spend with his children.  All fathers should spend time with their children, but this won't solve all psychiatric problems.

[eray01]

Do you not believe there are people who may have mental/emotional issues that are a result of a medical disorder within the brain?

Of course there are. Irrelevent.

How's that question irrelevant to a discussion of the utility and overuse of pyschiatric medication. As I said in my post, and perhaps I should've been more clear, I'm not talking about schizophrenia. There is no question schizophrenia is a result of a medical disorder within the brain. I'm talking about some forms of depression people suffer. I think it's important for people to understand there's depression, and then there's depression. There's the unmotivated bad attitude kind of depression some people suffer from. Usually those people need a good kick in the ass. Then there's the depression that manifests itself in a person who has previously been a highly motivated achiever. Someone who has healthy social relationships, a bright future, and a supportive network of people around them. Generally this person's life is pretty good and as normal as normal can be. But, when they reach their early twenties they notice a shift taking place. This person can't figure out what's wrong but clearly something is. They still continue to function at the same level as before for a period of time, but they have cycles of normality followed by depression. Over time the cycles of depression get deeper and longer. They lose friends, jobs, opportunities. Everyone is frustrated, especially the sufferer, because no matter how hard they try they can't break out of this rut they're in. This previously highly motivated achiever now can't muster the will to get out of bed everyday and participate in life. Many people suffer from this scenario, and alot of them end up committing suicide.

[eray01]

The scenario I laid out isn't really an extreme. That's pretty much a typical scenario of a legitimate depression sufferer. That's how it goes for alot of people with depression.

[ChlorasepticRelief]

There are unsolvable mental disorders, disorders that have to be voluntarily dealt with medicinally. An ex of mine was having hallucinations, depression, and who knows what else... she was seriously f'd up... she saw demons and sh*t Maybe the concept of life with no me was that bad?

Now, I will agree that there is a problem with overmedicating the public, but some issues have to be dealt with; and why spend years convincing yourself that the demons you see are fake when you can just take a pill and let it end? Just because one route is harder doesn't make it noble. Is it more noble to have a tiger chase you to the store than it is to just get in your car and drive there? Does that make the latter option the "lazy" option?