But I'm not a robot...

[naditala]

Hello all. I'm making this post to get some opinions on the topic of Psychotropic medications. E.g. benzodiazepines, anti-depression medicine, Ritalin etc. I'm writing this after watching a Youtube video on depression. In the video I heard things like "our focus should be on making drugs that directly attack the problem" "chemical imbalance" "genes" "serotonin" "brain cell growth" blah blah blah. Now this really shook me, modern society seems to hold this view (intentionally or accidentally) that humans are mechanical beings with on and off switches for there ailments. Not once during the whole video did they even mention anything to do with human thought or feelings, like they completely over looked the human element in the problem! To be honest this saddens me greatly to know millions of people across the globe are suffering from depression and in turn are being told to "take a pill". I say this from personal experience with both Psychotropic medication and insight meditation and from being on benzodiazepines and anti depression medicine for 2 and a half years (not using them anymore) to doing insight meditation for 8 months, insight meditation has helped in a way pills never could. While on the medications I would feel like I was chained, as in I couldn't go to far without having them on me just in case a situation came up I would constantly worry as to whether I would have enough to last me until next month so I didn't have a stroke from withdrawal. I would feel cloudy minded like I was living in a dream and my memory would constantly escape me, in short it was hell. But on the other hand meditation has made me feel free and happy. I'm going to make a determination to promote meditation over traditional medicine anytime I can, I want to expose the pharmaceutical industry any chance I get. They are profiting off of peoples desperation and suffering giving false hope and making there life's worse in the process. Please tell me someone on here understands and agrees with me that this a bad approach to mental health I look forward to reading your opinions on the matter. We are not robots! We are fire, earth, water and air elements wandering through samsara... >:(

[chownah]

Seems like you are saying that everyone is just like you and what works for you will work for everyone. If this was true life would be very simple and easily understood. Perhaps I misunderstand you.
chownah

[Sanjay PS]

Hi Nanditala ,

One cant give a blanket blame to the pharma/other kinds of industries of exploiting money making opportunities of depression and other mental traits of frailty, that each one of us have , in varying degrees . Not all of our challenges can be addressed by walking on the path of Dhamma . Just as one needs sufficient food to be healthy, before or while walking on the path of Dhamma , just so , will we need to take proper medication depending on the severity and duration of the illness . Once healthy and strong , as you have rightly put, its insight into to the brokenness of the corporeality and of the mental structure that holds us in good stead .

Battling depression , is not easy . Good to know that you have looked through the play of the senses.

Warm regards ,
sanjay

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Take a chill pill.

You could say the same about the alcohol industry or the entertainment industry. Foolish people prefer to have a beer or watch a show, rather than facing up to the root cause of suffering.

The Buddha's path is hard to find, and harder still to follow. Just do your utmost to follow it well, and the changes that the practice brings about in you will inspire others to follow suit.

The ignorant majority will remain as deeply immersed in ignorance as it has since the time of the Buddha.

[naditala]

Seems like you are saying that everyone is just like you and what works for you will work for everyone. If this was true life would be very simple and easily understood. Perhaps I misunderstand you.
chownah

I know what I wrote here is a very bold statement but regardless, I stand by it. Pills are not the answer.

[naditala]

Take a chill pill.

You could say the same about the alcohol industry or the entertainment industry. Foolish people prefer to have a beer or watch a show, rather than facing up to the root cause of suffering.

The Buddha's path is hard to find, and harder still to follow. Just do your utmost to follow it well, and the changes that the practice brings about in you will inspire others to follow suit.

The ignorant majority will remain as deeply immersed in ignorance as it has since the time of the Buddha.

Thank you for your input on this Bhante. And yes, you definitely could say such a thing. A shame it is though.

[martinfrank]

There is a thread about Depression and Meditation at

http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21634

At Dhamma Wheel, I guess we all agree that meditation is better than pills. Unhappily, Meditation is not practical as First Aid against acute depression:

[naditala]

Meditation is not practical as First Aid against acute depression

Who says it shouldn't be? I was diagnosed with severe depression...and look at me now, depression free....

[lyndon taylor]

That's whats called a survey of one!!

[Sanjay PS]

Meditation is not practical as First Aid against acute depression

Who says it shouldn't be? I was diagnosed with severe depression...and look at me now, depression free....

The " me " is there , being cautious is always a good approach , as i keep learning it the hard way

warmest regards and metta ,
sanjay

[Alobha]

I'm going to make a determination to promote meditation over traditional medicine anytime I can, I want to expose the pharmaceutical industry any chance I get. They are profiting off of peoples desperation and suffering giving false hope and making there life's worse in the process. Please tell me someone on here understands and agrees with me that this a bad approach to mental health I look forward to reading your opinions on the matter. We are not robots! We are fire, earth, water and air elements wandering through samsara... >:(

Hi naditala =)

What a great topic!
I think It'll be helpful to clear a few things up. First of, "a video on depression" surely isn't representative of everything. Considering treating psychological disorders, there are, broadly speaking, two different approaches in modern science;

1. The clinical view of trained medics and psychiatrists:
Medics and your typical doctors go to the university and learn that the human consists of the body and that everything can be explained by bodily functions. That means, if you are coughing heavily and have a fever, there is a reason in the body for it (a virus for example that causes the body to malfunction).
The logical conclusion is that if it is a problem of the body, the solution must be something changing the body. That's where pills, medicine, surgery and so on come in. It is an approach that is very usable and aided generations of people by treating things like scurvy or other deadly diseases.
This approach has also been carried over by trained medics to the treatment of psychological disfunctions: They call them psychological diseases because, in their view, it is a disease that has a bodily cause and can be treated with making changes to the body (ie giving pills to change bodily functions).

You may not like it, but medicine is not a philosophy, but a science. Before medicine that aims to treat some form of depression is allowed to be sold and given to people, law requires companies to run several studies with hundreds and thousands of participants (who freely agreed to do so and get compensated for it). Only if the results of these tests show that the medicine is efficacious in treating the disease, the company has a change of getting the allowance to sell the medicine. Usually, the new medicine is at least empirically tested against placebo (sugar) pills and sometimes compared to the current state-of-the-art treatment (e.g. another pill that proved to be the most efficacious for the disease).

In some regards the system is not perfect (what is, really?), but it is a reasonable and intelligent approach to find objectively efficacious treatments for a whole population. As you already noticed, individual differences in responses to medicine is not a thing that can be covered very well when people look for treatments working for any human in general.

2. The clinical view of psychologists and psychological psychotherapists:
In the school of psychology, people prefer not to speak of psychological diseases but of psychological disorders or disfunctions. It's a great difference in a sense because a disease is understood to have bodily causes and bodily solutions, whereas a disorder doesn't. Now there are a few different approaches in clinical psychology to explain what causes disorders, but for disorders like depression there often is a mix of risk factors coming together for the individual: ranging from intrinsic factors (thoughts like catastrophising thoughts, "black and white" thinking, malfunctioning patterns of feeling and attribution), behavior but also sociological, environmental and yes, some biological factors. And who would have thought - psychological treatments that work without pills are more efficacious than pills for some disorders. In other cases it's just as good and then there are many disorders where people, on average, profit most from a theraphy that consists of psychological and pharmacological treatment in conjunction.

Unfortunately, because medics are trained in a field where physical medicine is often a real good solution, their view is hard to change. Although there are studies around that e.g. the amount and production of antibodies is heavily influenced by the psychological well-being of a person, it could take decades before it is a common concept that pills are not the holy grail for everything. The issue remains a difficult and complex one. For people with severe depression (acute suicidal, severe malfunctioning patterns of behavior and feeling), medicine can indeed help to stabilize people and their bodily functions enough so that they are able to work on the roots again. People with such a severe degree of symptoms might, after having a "bad sit", not live for much longer because they might blame themselves that they're "incapable of ever doing anything right", "don't deserve being helped", "are hopeless because they can't even sit straight for a minute" etc. Trained professionals don't trust on anecdotes of subjective, personal experience, but also rely on empirical studies to find reliable and safe solutions. Advising patients to meditate (or do yoga or eat a bucket of tape worms) because of personal experience would, in most cases, be unsafe and thus unethical. Only if a method has proven to be safe and effitive over a range of empirically and methodologically good studies with a sample of people representative of the population - only then using a method outside of a study context can be used by professionals responsible and safely after they're trained in the method.

And while there have been roughly two good decades of meditation research now, there are still many questions left unanswered (especially when using them to treat psychological disorders)... And that is where we are :]

Over time, I feel that trained medics also became a bit more open towards non-pill solutions. In some cases of depression, we know that meditation is as good as state-of-the-art medicine in preventing relapses (plus meditation has no nasty sideeffects, so that's even better!). In other cases like schizophrenia, meditation might even worsen things. Under what exact conditions remains a question for further research.
And it's like that with many psychological disorders. There have been meditation studies for chronical pain, sleep-disfunction and well-being and quite some for psychological disorders: But it's a step-by-step process and it will take more time before the empirical data is there for most disorders to say whether meditation is better, worse or as good as other psychological and medical treatments.

Personally, i'm concerned that meditation might prove to be not so effective because the meditationforms used and studied are stripped of the buddha's teachings and the conceptual context they belong to. That is as if the Buddha taught that samadhi alone was enough for removing the causes of all suffering. Well, he didn't and he did so for good reason. Science might find out that their form of meditation alone isn't the holy grail either and abandon meditation as a general topic alltogether. That would be really unfortunate.

Anyways. Best wishes,
Alobha =)

[martinfrank]

[lyndon taylor]

Most psychologists/psychotherapists recommend working with a psychiatrist for medications if the illness is severe enough. As would I. I've never seen a schitzophrenic that's better off without medication, you find them among homeless people, untreated, and its not a pretty sight.