Emotional Supression: Looking for a How To...

ShadowcatX wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

I'm sure that all the drugs and the therapy DO help some people. But I'm also just as sure that some other people do better by taking whatever it is that would be bothering.g them, putting it behind them, and moving on with their life...no "professional" help or drugs needed or wanted.

It always saddens me to see people with this attitude. You wouldn't dare tell someone in a wheel chair to just put their severed spinal cord behind them and move on, yet you'll say that about people with psychiatric disorders. Why? Is it because you can't see what is wrong with them?

People have with different strengths and weaknesses. Some people can do tasks easily that others struggle with daily. It is no different mentally than it is physically.

Except even the best "professional" help can offer is "might work, might not". And charges hundreds and thousands of dollars for that privilege. Seems to me at least TRYING the free solution is worthwhile. Not everyone needs to have their sore spots poked repeatedly with a flaming stick over and over and over and over and over.

have you been unable to find a place that charges on a sliding scale? Because thats a very important aspect of affordable treatment, if you are surrounded by places that only charge a set amount then something is really really wrong.

And the whole "trivialize mental illness" theme continues. When someone is depressed and what they really want to do is slash their wrists, you think that is a healthy thing? Or what if they have a dozen or more people who live in their head and take control of their body on occasion, how do they come to grips with that?

NOT with talk therapy. You do it with drugs.

Drugs, while overused in some cases (adhd among kids for example) have a known, specific mechanic that they work on, seem to work, and can be tested vs a placebo for effectiveness.

ShadowcatX wrote:

Kthulhu wrote:

I'm sure that all the drugs and the therapy DO help some people. But I'm also just as sure that some other people do better by taking whatever it is that would be bothering.g them, putting it behind them, and moving on with their life...no "professional" help or drugs needed or wanted.

It always saddens me to see people with this attitude. You wouldn't dare tell someone in a wheel chair to just put their severed spinal cord behind them and move on, yet you'll say that about people with psychiatric disorders. Why? Is it because you can't see what is wrong with them?

People have with different strengths and weaknesses. Some people can do tasks easily that others struggle with daily. It is no different mentally than it is physically.

Except even the best "professional" help can offer is "might work, might not". And charges hundreds and thousands of dollars for that privilege. Seems to me at least TRYING the free solution is worthwhile. Not everyone needs to have their sore spots poked repeatedly with a flaming stick over and over and over and over and over.

Even the best medical professional will tell you, you can die during even the most minor surgery. Shouldn't people try and get over having a severed spinal cord / burst appendix / whatever, rather than trying to get help? After all, not everyone needs to get cut open (literally).

ShadowcatX wrote:

And the whole "trivialize mental illness" theme continues. When someone is depressed and what they really want to do is slash their wrists, you think that is a healthy thing? Or what if they have a dozen or more people who live in their head and take control of their body on occasion, how do they come to grips with that?

NOT with talk therapy. You do it with drugs.

Drugs, while overused in some cases (adhd among kids for example) have a known, specific mechanic that they work on, seem to work, and can be tested vs a placebo for effectiveness.

Actually, while you can use drugs for depression (or a combination of drugs and talk therapy) there isn't a drug for DID. (Unless you know something I don't.)

Bad-enough emotional trauma can leave your emotions suppressed or even "burned out," but since you're specifying no drugs or surgery, I assume that's out, too...

Yup. It also sucks being surrounded by pain and you can NOT feel or empathize as well with the people that are hurting.

At OP: Seek real professional assistance, ignore the stigma that seems to follow doing so.

Not feeling the bad means the the good will not be as good either.

Ignoring or "compartmentalizing" your feelings or trauma will lead to a number of issues down the road.

The one thing I don't really understand is this... people who are proposing some sort of ONE TRUE WAY to solving problems.

Therapy is not the one true way.
Fishing is not the one true way.

Both work better and worse for different people. Instead of professing how one is better than the other, why not instead talk about WHY something worked for you? That way someone else can read it, and if their situation sounds similar, or something resonates, they might learn of a way of coping with their problems.

This thread needs less one true wayism, IMO.

Ask a medical doctor how many different ways there are to deal with a ruptured appendix or a broken leg.

Exactly, ShadowcatX. When shown what works, and that their ideas can't be consistently shown to be equally effective as the golden standard treatment, that is when people start saying "Well, what works is different for everyone. So there."

And it isn't. That is why we have research in the field. It is obviously true that not every sort of treatment works for everyone, for various reasons. But when you take a systematic look at it, you find (every single time, I might add) that certain types of treatment work far better than others on average. So... if you have two types of treatment, one of which works in 60% of the cases, and the other only helps 5% of the cases, which one should be used? Well, if neither has any dangerous side effects, neither costs prohibitively, and so on, then the reasonable thing is to try the first in EVERY SINGLE CASE, only using the second AFTER that has been tried. Like, you know, trying surgical treatment for a burst appendix before trying to treat it with yoga. Like pulling the broken leg straight and applying a cast before talking to a therapist about your childhood. Like trying radiation and chemotherapy for cancer before acupuncture. And so on. The only thing different with mental illness is that the disorder is in the person's brain - so everyone feels their opinion is more valid than what current research says. After all, so many people seem to reason, if the treatment method I am advocating based on my personal preferences is less effective than other methods, and my words make people not get the more effective treatment, the responsibility for the consequences aren't on me anyway, and if someone gets hurt who could have avoided this through proper treatment, so what? It's just a psycho freak...

Fishing is not the one true way.

Since I'm the only one i see mentioning fishing, I'd like to wonder how on earth you're getting the idea that I'm advocating it as the ONLY method.

Well, the question is does therapy work better than just bottling it up? I realize that saying "We can't know" and "might for some people, might not for others" is annoying, but I can't see any other position on the issue.

The one thing I don't really understand is this... people who are proposing some sort of ONE TRUE WAY to solving problems.

Therapy is not the one true way.
Fishing is not the one true way.

Both work better and worse for different people. Instead of professing how one is better than the other, why not instead talk about WHY something worked for you? That way someone else can read it, and if their situation sounds similar, or something resonates, they might learn of a way of coping with their problems.

This thread needs less one true wayism, IMO.

All the "one true way" in this thread is coming from the.therapy people.

Irontruth wrote:

The one thing I don't really understand is this... people who are proposing some sort of ONE TRUE WAY to solving problems.

Therapy is not the one true way.
Fishing is not the one true way.

Both work better and worse for different people. Instead of professing how one is better than the other, why not instead talk about WHY something worked for you? That way someone else can read it, and if their situation sounds similar, or something resonates, they might learn of a way of coping with their problems.

This thread needs less one true wayism, IMO.

All the "one true way" in this thread is coming from the.therapy people.

no, the critics have been throwing up "just deal"/NOTpsychology as a solution pretty adherently as well.

Everyone has an opinion. Not every opinion is equally valid. Research is clear. If you have a depression, you need medication if it's serious, because psychotherapy isn't going to work under those conditions. If not, or the pills have started working well enough that the person is not seriously depressed anymore, psychotherapy of the cognitive school works well, preferably togther with pills. EVERY other method shows worse, or no, results. Worse results mean more suffering for the depressed person, a higher risk of suicide, and more time depressed at the very least.

I think it's pretty clear what to do. Any other way to help needs to show very convincing results to be preferred to the above. And, see, it doesn't MATTER that a) some people have managed to get through a depression through other methods (depressions pass, but again, research shows that untreated depression makes the next one more likely, worse, and harder to treat), or b) that not everyone who gets the recommended treatment gets better (it's still the method most likely to work, so anything else should be tested AFTER it).

Irontruth wrote:

Fishing is not the one true way.

Since I'm the only one i see mentioning fishing, I'd like to wonder how on earth you're getting the idea that I'm advocating it as the ONLY method.

Well, the question is does therapy work better than just bottling it up? I realize that saying "We can't know" and "might for some people, might not for others" is annoying, but I can't see any other position on the issue.

How about a position of knowledge rather than a position of ignorance? This isn't life after death, this is a knowable, quantifiable thing. And no, psychological methods aren't always 100% effective, but you know what, nothing else in life is either, and yet you don't see people running around saying "might for some people, might not for others" or "we can't know".

But let us try a different comparison. Sex education and access to birth control have not entirely limited teenage pregnancy. Even when used properly, every time, they do not have a 100% success rate. That does not mean that sex education and access to birth control isn't effective, and should be considered a take it or leave it.

I was gonna leave this thread alone, seeing as how it was one dude asking for advice before it exploded into an all-on-all war about psychotherapy, medication and Stoicism. But, now that it is an all-on-all war about psychotherapy, medication and Stoicism, I highly recommend smoking pot. I haven't had to deal with issues of depression (to which my family are prone) in seven years.

[Bubble bubble bubble]

I was gonna leave this thread alone, seeing as how it was one dude asking for advice before it exploded into an all-on-all war about psychotherapy, medication and Stoicism. But, now that it is an all-on-all war about psychotherapy, medication and Stoicism, I highly recommend smoking pot. I haven't had to deal with issues of depression (to which my family are prone) in seven years.

[Bubble bubble bubble]

Self-medicating for the win eh?

Irontruth wrote:

The one thing I don't really understand is this... people who are proposing some sort of ONE TRUE WAY to solving problems.

Therapy is not the one true way.
Fishing is not the one true way.

Both work better and worse for different people. Instead of professing how one is better than the other, why not instead talk about WHY something worked for you? That way someone else can read it, and if their situation sounds similar, or something resonates, they might learn of a way of coping with their problems.

This thread needs less one true wayism, IMO.

All the "one true way" in this thread is coming from the.therapy people.

Indeed. Notice they absolutely do not want anyone to go for or try anything beyond the therapy and medication way? Obey the system as it currently stands, and don't critique it, lol. Did they not get taught critical thinking in school I wonder?

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

I was gonna leave this thread alone, seeing as how it was one dude asking for advice before it exploded into an all-on-all war about psychotherapy, medication and Stoicism. But, now that it is an all-on-all war about psychotherapy, medication and Stoicism, I highly recommend smoking pot. I haven't had to deal with issues of depression (to which my family are prone) in seven years.

[Bubble bubble bubble]

Self-medicating for the win eh?

"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me."

--Hunter S. Anklebiter

Kthulhu wrote:

I'm sure that all the drugs and the therapy DO help some people. But I'm also just as sure that some other people do better by taking whatever it is that would be bothering.g them, putting it behind them, and moving on with their life...no "professional" help or drugs needed or wanted.

It always saddens me to see people with this attitude. You wouldn't dare tell someone in a wheel chair to just put their severed spinal cord behind them and move on, yet you'll say that about people with psychiatric disorders. Why? Is it because you can't see what is wrong with them?

There seems to be a persistent attitude that conditions that don't involve physical broken bones, organ failure, tumors, virus, or bacteria aren't the same kind of "real" medical problems... because they're "all in the head". There's also the particular American bias against being diagnosed with a psychological condition.

Everybody thinks mental health problems are bogus until they are hit. 50% of all women will have a clinical depression. 30% of the men. 3-5% will become bipolar. 1% will develop schizophrenia. 10-15% will have substance abuse disorders. There is also anxiety disorders (don't remember the exact frequencies, but I would guess somewhere around 25%). Dementia is a common problem. Suicides are the leading cause of death for men between 19-45, IIRC. Now... That is just you. Add in the risks for each of your loved ones. Now do you still think it is an area you can safely ignore, because "it won't happen to you"?

Irontruth wrote:

Fishing is not the one true way.

Since I'm the only one i see mentioning fishing, I'd like to wonder how on earth you're getting the idea that I'm advocating it as the ONLY method.

Well, the question is does therapy work better than just bottling it up? I realize that saying "We can't know" and "might for some people, might not for others" is annoying, but I can't see any other position on the issue.

In broad statistical terms, I agree, it's difficult to know, but on individual terms I think it's pretty easy to tell.

Someone who is able to go through life and perform all tasks normally might not be "happy", but at least whatever method they're using is allowing them to go through life and perform all tasks normally.

The problem is when our methods breakdown or no longer work. Someone who is constantly reliving negative experiences in their mind, such as someone with PTSD can't just "bottle it up", because it makes ordinary tasks difficult or dangerous. Example...

A soldier is on patrol in their truck when an IED hits the convoy. They suffer a traumatic brain injury. It takes a while, but externally their head recovers and they're physically capable of performing normal tasks, such as driving. The problem is, when they get in a car, their brain is now wired to the "last time" they got in a car and a bomb went off. Now they're constantly on alert, scanning the roadside for bombs. Every piece of trash, roadkill, clump of grass is a potential threat. Adrenaline spikes, they're on edge, their driving can become erratic or they don't pay attention to the cars. If they become truly fearful, they start to drive dangerously.

This didn't happen to me, but I've known people who have experienced exactly this. No amount of bottling just makes it go away. The brain gets caught in a feedback loop of reinforcing the memory through fear. When you are truly afraid for your life, your brain makes an amazingly strong memory. This is an evolutionary advantage, because if you survive, you're more likely to recognize that situation in the future and be able to react to it. If the situation "repeats", even if it isn't real, as in there aren't any bombs exploding, if you experience that fear and adrenaline rush again, the memory gets reinforced and strengthened. It never goes away and you have little to no control over what happens when it comes.

This is a vivid example, but it can happen in a lot of other ways. In an oversimplified way, that's how obsessive compulsive behavior develops, along with severe anxiety and a host of other problems.

When things get severe enough for people to seek professional help, it's often because the coping methods they've developed for other problems are no longer working. Bottling works until it doesn't. Once it stops working, it basically never works again until the problem goes away.

I'm not talking about odd behavior either. Some people are "obsessive" about things, but they're small and inconsequential, like wanting an object to face a certain way in a room. The problem is when you become truly obsessive. Where you're an hour late to work because you had to keep going back into the room to check it. Then when you're at work, you get nothing done because you keep thinking about how it could be turned the wrong way. What if something moved it? What if you're remembering turning it yesterday, but you actually forgot to do it today? Now you're taking your lunch break to go home and check on the object. But if you leave it alone, something could happen and turn it, so you better just stay there.

Academically, you might understand that you're being unrealistic, but your brain can't stop thinking about it. It just gets stuck in a loop of having this thought. Everything becomes a trigger for the memory and you just live your life through the prism of this one memory, which becomes destructive to many aspects of your life.

If you're problems aren't destructive to your life, bottling is working just fine.

Indeed. Notice they absolutely do not want anyone to go for or try anything beyond the therapy and medication way? Obey the system as it currently stands, and don't critique it, lol. Did they not get taught critical thinking in school I wonder?

You resort to ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments and we're the ones with critical thinking issues? Seriously?

Kthulhu wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

The one thing I don't really understand is this... people who are proposing some sort of ONE TRUE WAY to solving problems.

Therapy is not the one true way.
Fishing is not the one true way.

Both work better and worse for different people. Instead of professing how one is better than the other, why not instead talk about WHY something worked for you? That way someone else can read it, and if their situation sounds similar, or something resonates, they might learn of a way of coping with their problems.

This thread needs less one true wayism, IMO.

All the "one true way" in this thread is coming from the.therapy people.

Indeed. Notice they absolutely do not want anyone to go for or try anything beyond the therapy and medication way? Obey the system as it currently stands, and don't critique it, lol. Did they not get taught critical thinking in school I wonder?

you might have a point if we were all Freudians and lithium was the only medication perscribed ever. We've come a long way from those days.

How about a position of knowledge rather than a position of ignorance? This isn't life after death, this is a knowable, quantifiable thing.

Its not, because you have no way of establishing a fair control group.

And no, psychological methods aren't always 100% effective, but you know what, nothing else in life is either, and yet you don't see people running around saying "might for some people, might not for others" or "we can't know".

might for some people, might not for others is VERY common in medicine. Certain nerve relaxers for back pain for example.

But let us try a different comparison. Sex education and access to birth control have not entirely limited teenage pregnancy. Even when used properly, every time, they do not have a 100% success rate. That does not mean that sex education and access to birth control isn't effective, and should be considered a take it or leave it.

You can compare the two different methods there because you know when and where both are being used. You cannot do that with people bottling their emotions because they don't show up to be studied.

no, the critics have been throwing up "just deal"/NOTpsychology as a solution pretty adherently as well.

Citation?

In broad statistical terms, I agree, it's difficult to know, but on individual terms I think it's pretty easy to tell.

Someone who is able to go through life and perform all tasks normally might not be "happy", but at least whatever method they're using is allowing them to go through life and perform all tasks normally.

The problem is when our methods breakdown or no longer work. Someone who is constantly reliving negative experiences in their mind, such as someone with PTSD can't just "bottle it up", because it makes ordinary tasks difficult or dangerous.

And the people who DO Bottle it or just bury it up don't show up for study. You have no idea how many of these people there are, how well they're dealing with it, or any data on them to compare with talk therapy.

IronTruth wrote:

In broad statistical terms, I agree, it's difficult to know, but on individual terms I think it's pretty easy to tell.

Someone who is able to go through life and perform all tasks normally might not be "happy", but at least whatever method they're using is allowing them to go through life and perform all tasks normally.

The problem is when our methods breakdown or no longer work. Someone who is constantly reliving negative experiences in their mind, such as someone with PTSD can't just "bottle it up", because it makes ordinary tasks difficult or dangerous.

And the people who DO Bottle it or just bury it up don't show up for study. You have no idea how many of these people there are, how well they're dealing with it, or any data on them to compare with talk therapy.

We know how some are "dealing" with it. In gory details on the evening news, frequently taking a lot of people down with them.

If you're problems aren't destructive to your life, bottling is working just fine.

That's similar to the approach on infrastructure that seems to insist as long as the bridges haven't fallen down yet, there's no concern we need to have about them.

Freehold DM wrote:

no, the critics have been throwing up "just deal"/NOTpsychology as a solution pretty adherently as well.

Citation?

Take your pick man .

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

no, the critics have been throwing up "just deal"/NOTpsychology as a solution pretty adherently as well.

Citation?

Take your pick man .

Point to you.

Not nearly as cool as the chainsaw nc 1701 though :)

Irontruth wrote:

If you're problems aren't destructive to your life, bottling is working just fine.

That's similar to the approach on infrastructure that seems to insist as long as the bridges haven't fallen down yet, there's no concern we need to have about them.

Thats the fortune tellers trick.

We know how some are "dealing" with it. In gory details on the evening news, frequently taking a lot of people down with them.

And many of those people were in therapy- probably in a higher percentage than the average population. If we used that as our source of data we'd reach the conclusion that therapy CAUSES homicidal rampages.

But that logic is as bad as what you're using. You don't have a number or control group to work from to reach the conclusions about the efficacy of bottling.

ShadowcatX wrote:

And no, psychological methods aren't always 100% effective, but you know what, nothing else in life is either, and yet you don't see people running around saying "might for some people, might not for others" or "we can't know".

might for some people, might not for others is VERY common in medicine. Certain nerve relaxers for back pain for example.

My point was that they don't say that as a reason not to try and fix the problem, apparently I wasn't clear. Of course, if you had not split the sentence into portions you might've understood.

Quote:

But let us try a different comparison. Sex education and access to birth control have not entirely limited teenage pregnancy. Even when used properly, every time, they do not have a 100% success rate. That does not mean that sex education and access to birth control isn't effective, and should be considered a take it or leave it.

You can compare the two different methods there because you know when and where both are being used. You cannot do that with people bottling their emotions because they don't show up to be studied.

Funny, the results of studies exactly like what I'm talking about are done and their results are available online. Maybe you don't know everything in the world there is to know about how such things are accomplished and people who are trained in such things know more than you. . .

Funny, the results of studies exactly like what I'm talking about are done and their results are available online. Maybe you don't know everything in the world there is to know about how such things are accomplished and people who are trained in such things know more than you. . .

Link to one.

Shadowcatx wrote:

Funny, the results of studies exactly like what I'm talking about are done and their results are available online. Maybe you don't know everything in the world there is to know about how such things are accomplished and people who are trained in such things know more than you. . .

Link to one.

You'll need a subscription to the site to read more than the abstracts, but that should be enough to establish that it happens, I'll highlight the high notes for you.

The empirical status of cognitive-behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses.

While limitations of the meta-analytic approach need to be considered in interpreting the results of this review, our findings are consistent with other review methodologies that also provide support for the efficacy CBT.

Efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders: a review of meta-analytic findings.

The efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety in adults is well established.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

And the people who DO Bottle it or just bury it up don't show up for study. You have no idea how many of these people there are, how well they're dealing with it, or any data on them to compare with talk therapy.

We know how some are "dealing" with it. In gory details on the evening news, frequently taking a lot of people down with them.

Just as many people who go on killing sprees WERE in therapy. Thus, using your logic, therapy causes people to go out and kill a bunch of people.

You'll need a subscription to the site to read more than the abstracts, but that should be enough to establish that it happens, I'll highlight the high notes for you.

Its a study that I can't access, would be a metadata study if i could, and then wouldn't let me know the methodology of the original studies. This doesn't help you.

LazarX wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

And the people who DO Bottle it or just bury it up don't show up for study. You have no idea how many of these people there are, how well they're dealing with it, or any data on them to compare with talk therapy.

We know how some are "dealing" with it. In gory details on the evening news, frequently taking a lot of people down with them.

Just as many people who go on killing sprees WERE in therapy. Thus, using your logic, therapy causes people to go out and kill a bunch of people.

** spoiler omitted **

People have been going on killing sprees for thousands of years, while therapy is fairly recent and first worldish. Are you entirely certain of your position?

ShadowcatX wrote:

You'll need a subscription to the site to read more than the abstracts, but that should be enough to establish that it happens, I'll highlight the high notes for you.

Its a study that I can't access, would be a metadata study if i could, and then wouldn't let me know the methodology of the original studies. This doesn't help you.

Yet the findings are clear as day (support for the efficacy CBT), and the methedology is, apparently approved, as it is in a journal and not debunked. And I'm not going to try and dig up illegal copies of the journals and link you to them.

Somehow though, I suspect any study I supplied would have been not good enough for you. Some people just can't admit when they're wrong. C'est la vie.

You could try finding a different study or article I could actually look at and THEN question my honesty. You can't even tell me how they got around the problems I'm bringing up.

I put forth that they do study the effectiveness, I have linked to studies that state, very explicitly, that such studies have been performed and that CBT has been shown to be effective. If you want to read those studies in depth, you have to pay for the privilege, or go find them in a library.

I put forth that they do study the effectiveness, I have linked to studies that state, very explicitly, that such studies have been performed and that CBT has been shown to be effective. If you want to read those studies in depth, you have to pay for the privilege, or go find them in a library.

Did YOU read them in depth? Can you explain how they got around the problems I'm bringing up?

How does any study get around the problem of people who have illnesses and just live with them without ever letting the medical community know?

Oh sure, we see some people with undiagnosed cancer die of it and some people get diagnosed late and it seems harder to treat them, but how do we know that there aren't millions of people out there just living with undiagnosed cancer and since they're doing just fine the doctors never find out about it?
Look at all the people who die of cancer: Most of them got treatment. That should tell you something.

How does any study get around the problem of people who have illnesses and just live with them without ever letting the medical community know?

They give 50 people with the disease medicine X and then they give 50 people with the disease sugar pills without telling either the researcher or the patient which they're getting. The 50 people taking the sugar pill should be functionally the same as people not letting the medical community know.

I've been silently enjoying this conversation, but yes, BigNorseWolf has double-blind nailed.

I've been trying to stay out of it because my experience with therapists has been "overwhelmingly" (2 of 3) negative, but that's hardly a fair-sized sample. To make a long and convoluted story as short as possible, a therapist saw our son once a week for 6 months, at which point our son asked to stop going because he'd finally finished reading all the comic books in the therapist's office. (Yeah, a, "He'll talk to me when he's ready," therapist who accepted $150/hour to let my son read comic books in his office.)
So after refusing to give us any kind of diagnosis, he prescribed an ADHD medication for my son.

First dose, my son got frighteningly suicidal.

So we tried an experiment: For two weeks I prepared his chocolate milk. On two days I ground a pill into it. (Other days I used ibuprofen so the traces of powder wouldn't be a dead giveaway.) Every day when he got home he'd go with my wife into the studio and talk about his mood. Most importantly, neither my wife nor my son knew which days he took the pills.
Correspondence was 100%: On the days he got the pills he was suicidal. On the days he didn't he felt "fine".

So we had "concrete" proof and stopped giving him the pills. Ever.

But the only way we could be sure was if both the person taking the medication (my son) and the person checking his mood (my wife) were unaware of which days he took the pill.

That is the nature of a double-blind test.

EDIT: And even this test would be considered invalid by a respectable journal because I interacted with my son and wife every day, and could have been giving nonverbal cues as to which type of pill I was using that day. Real double-blind tests avoid even secondary traces of bias.

Not a fan of medication options for adhd. If there is one place where both pharmaceutical options and psychology have dropped the ball outside of sexuality, its here. Im sorry you went through that, sorry your son went through that, and im damn glad he's still here today. Make a complaint regarding the therapist. Guys like that make my life harder.

TheJeff wrote:

How does any study get around the problem of people who have illnesses and just live with them without ever letting the medical community know?

They give 50 people with the disease medicine X and then they give 50 people with the disease sugar pills without telling either the researcher or the patient which they're getting. The 50 people taking the sugar pill should be functionally the same as people not letting the medical community know.

And that never happens with mental health issues?

Not a fan of medication options for adhd. If there is one place where both pharmaceutical options and psychology have dropped the ball outside of sexuality, its here. Im sorry you went through that, sorry your son went through that, and im damn glad he's still here today. Make a complaint regarding the therapist. Guys like that make my life harder.

Oh, no (permanent) harm done, and I'm not one to throw out an entire science based on one idiot (we did report him to the school district that had recommended him), but such incidents are exactly why the entire industry gets such a bad name.

It's very much like "slowest lane" syndrome: In bad traffic, everyone notices the "bad" (other cars passing them) far more than the "good" (passing other cars) because noticing the bad is an important tool for self-preservation. I had a lot of fun with my kids two weeks ago crossing the Bay Bridge when they demanded I change lanes because our lane was SOOOO slow, so I just had them mark cars in each of the other lanes.
Much to my relief, 25 minutes later the 3 cars they'd marked were no farther along than we were. Educational AND something to do in nightmarish traffic!

I've seen psychiatry work wonders for stress, anxiety, and depression in particular. Other areas I've been... let's say... less-than-impressed. But my experience is very limited, so I don't paint with broad brushes, throw stones, or start paladin threads.

But I think every single person here can cite at least one example of a "bad" therapist, and it's the "bad" examples people tend to note and remember...

DM Under The Bridge wrote:

Indeed. Notice they absolutely do not want anyone to go for or try anything beyond the therapy and medication way? Obey the system as it currently stands, and don't critique it, lol. Did they not get taught critical thinking in school I wonder?

You resort to ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments and we're the ones with critical thinking issues? Seriously?

You can wave whatever logical fallacy label you wish, but in some of these posters I see a real opposition to critique of the mental health models as they stand, and a strong discouragement of people taking the personal initiative and finding other ways of treating their problems and improving themselves to a better and more independent way of living.

I know that going solo or trying to work out problems in group associations sharing hobbies and interests and living as a social animal on a path of improvement doesn't always work; but I have seen it steadily lead to improvement in others and a range of issues be cured with time and continuous improvement--whether it be communication, anxiety, speech or identity issues, people can find their own way away from the experts. That is my stance because of what I have seen.