History of Psychiatry

i'm sorry for u mgeisel1, but i can tell for myself antidepresants saved my life. I do agree though that antidepressant do mask the symptoms of depressions, but that is what they do! They take you out from the dark so u can be able to function and look if u want for the reason of your depression. On my behalf the only thing i could say is thank god for antidrepressant , cuz other wise i would'nt be here to tell my story.

At 2:23 there is missing footage.

i was on psych drugs for over a decade... lots of suicide attemps, psych ward visits and self harm... i went off of them and returned to college at 30... 18 credit hours of nothing but As and no psych ward visits or suicide attempts in 2 1/2 years without... PSYCH DRUGS KILL!!!!

Tom Cruise just danced around the questions stating his profound knowledge of psychiatry over and over. Would be interesting to see him have this conversation with the chief of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins or UC Irvine. It would not be so one sided.

I agree

Besides, you missed my point entirely. Countless conditions can cause low dopamine levels in the brain. Malnutrition, which one out of every four Americans have, lack of exercise which has been proven to increase serotonin levels in the brain, ect.. Many people get depressed, and it has more to do with society and social standards, then any medical pathology. Brook Shields is over forty in Hollywood. She later wrote about how miserable she is seeing her wrinkles, will a pill change that?

1. I'm afraid you missed my point too. My argument was with Scientology and Tom's claim that psychiatry is pseudoscience and patients should turn to scientology instead of medical help.
2. Of course CSF tests are hardly ever provided. It's too invasive to be of prevalent use in clinical setting?
3. I agree that depression is due to variety of factors. But you can't deny that psychiatry illnees is associated with neurotransmitter (a chemical) anormaly in the brain. That's why psych meds works.

I do not think spinal taps are too invasive when checking for dopamine levels. Psychiatrist medication is more dangerous then your common spinal tap. The problem is even if they find incredibly low dopamine levels in spinal fluid, then the question is what is the cause. As I mentioned before, many many possible causes can cause these levels. Much more strict diagnostic testing should be done before medication is prescribed, and it rarely is.

One more thing, you say that psychiatric illnesses are associated with a chemical imbalances in the brain, but science is yet to establish this as fact. Both Dopamine and Serotonin levels can be affected by literally dozens of medical pathologies. One cannot just will chemical imbalance into existence, in most cases a medical pathology is the cause. Schizophrenia and extreme psychosis on the other hand is another story. But being depressed is simply being " Sad".