Psychiatric Drugs Aren’t Always the Fix for Mental Illness
These medications can cause the symptoms that are leading to the sharp increase in mental health diagnosis, according to Robert Whitaker
May 27, 2011 -- Terry Danielson has two daughters who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Today, one is finishing her B.A., and another is doing advocacy work for a mental health organization.
Both spent many years on psychiatric medications, but it’s the therapy that’s made the difference, said Danielson. One is completely off her medication; the other is doing well with a much lighter dose.
“With trauma trained therapy, they are healing affectively from the trauma that got them into this, said Danielson, who recently participated in a Portland conference aimed at addressing the problem of over medicating mental health patients.
Robert Whitaker, author of “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” who spearheaded the two-day event, claims the public has been led to believe that the second generation of psychiatric drugs (such as Prozac and Paxyl) are the fix for mental illness, while, instead, they’ve caused an epidemic of mental illness.
Bipolar disorder, he said, was a relatively rarely diagnosed disorder 40 years ago, and today there are nearly six million people with this diagnosis. In 1987, 1.25 million adults were on disability due to a mental health diagnosis; in 2007 the number reached 3.87 million. In 1990, the number of children diagnosed with mental illness began to rise sharply as well.
It’s the “broken brain” model, he said, that’s led to the sharp increase in mental illness diagnosis and psychiatric medication, based on a belief that throwing drugs at symptoms will fix the patient. Instead, those medications often cause the symptoms that are leading to the sharp increase in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia and other diagnoses. At the same time, there’s less emphasis on the treatment of the symptoms and holistic methods of healing.
There are several reasons for the sharp increases in medication prescription and diagnosis. The profit motive by pharmaceutical companies definitely comes into play. In 2007, the American public spent $25 billion on antidepressant and antipsychotic medication.
This country doesn’t have the preventive model found elsewhere, according to Dr. Satyanarayana Chandragiri, president of the Oregon Psychiatric Association. “Our own healthcare system is very diagnosis based. The insurance industry, along with the medical system, is based on diagnosis and treatment.
We’ve created “consumers of drugs,” along with psychiatrists who prescribe them as “magic bullets,” and are getting paid by the drug companies, Whitaker said.
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The mental health system is a problem in itself, said Brian Chambers, a youth advocate for a holistic system. “It’s not a user friendly system. What we have is a “fragmented system” Some of what kids are facing is “just the ordinary pressures of being a kid.” Rather than prescribing medication, there needs to be more support systems in schools.
“People don’t understand their own ability to cope,” and expect a quick fix from medication, said Rachel Levy, a social worker who attended the conference.
Not enough is being done to make the environmental and lifestyle changes to reduce the need for medication, said Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, the chief psychiatric medical and operating officer at Cascadia Health. “It’s easier to imagine going home to take a pill than going home to exercise.”
Chandragiri emphasized the need to look at diet and mindful eating. “The system doesn’t support this. It’s a top-down approach.”
There’s also the question of what causes the chemical imbalances that have led to the development of psychiatric medication. Societal pressures, stress, a history of trauma, and depression could be causing these imbalances, said Bennington-Davis. “So it doesn’t necessarily follow that medication will fix this.”
“It’s possible to create a community with alternative treatments that will lead to recovery,” said Laura Van Tosh, a policy analyst who uses mental health services.
“It’s complicated being a healer,” said Bennington-Davis, “and having people asking for medication that they think will heal them – and telling them to try other things.” We need to remember “that people are more than a chemistry set.”
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When I was 57, I had bipolar one, with frequent episodes of mania and psychosis. I went off lithium b/c it was ruining my kidneys (I've subsequently had a kidney transplant).
To my amazement, I discovered when I went off the lithium that I no longer had manic depression. At 65, I'm absolutely symptom-free.
I encourage everyone to work w/their doctors later in life - their fifties and sixties - to see if their own bipolar has reesolved itself.
I run the support group New Directions out of Abington, PA, surburban Philadelphia. www.NewDirectionsSupport.org
Thx for publishing this important article! Whitaker is on the homepage of my website. - Ruth Z Deming, MGPGP
This is so true. I have an older brother who has been on antidepressants, and many other drugs for his entire life. He's a mess. The drugs do nothing for him but make him sleep. That in turn caused weight gain, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and the list goes on.
I too was put on antidepressants even though I was not depressed, just hormones shifting with the onset of menopause. I gained weight, lacked energy, etc. Went off the stuff on my own, lost all the weight, gained my life back but lost almost 10 years of productive work time due to those drugs. We need to get off the drugs and use more holistic approaches. Sure there are some conditions where medicine helps but for the mind..we need to teach coping skills. We do not and should not be medicating everyone into compliance and becoming zombies.
A lot of supposed unipolar depressives are actually "soft bipolar". That is they have bipolar without mania or hypomania. They have certain other symptoms. See here: http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/02_diagnosis.html#soft
Antidepressants often don't help or they don't help for long (that's one of the symptoms) and they can actually make things worse by encouraging mood cycling.
The lesson to take from this is that many people need to be on the right drugs (mood stabilizers instead of antidepressants) not that drugs are bad.
The lesson is not that the drugs are bad or good, but that we need to be aware of the possibility of bad side effects and stop diagnosing people with mood disorders when they are really experiencing side effects of medication given for some other issue or indication. I don't buy this "soft bipolar" explanation, because I've seen too many who just plain recover when the drugs are completely discontinued. Why would we assume that just because someone reacted badly to a drug that they had something wrong with them? Maybe they just had a bad reaction to the drug.
You say the lesson is that many people need to be on the "right drugs." But many people don't need to be on any drugs at all, or simply react poorly to certain drugs that should then be avoided. We should not be diagnosing people based on bad drug reactions!
---- Steve
I want to clarify that both of our daughters had been taking a prescribed antidepressant and/ or stimulant for several years before they suffered the side effects Steve talks about above, and then were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. --Terry Danielson
I work with kids in foster care and I see this every day in my work. Kids start on stimulants for "ADHD" or on SSRI antidepressants and become aggressive, stop sleeping, become irritable or withdrawn or sometimes even paranoid. They are then diagnosed with "bipolar disorder" and put on more and more medications, often with no discernible results or even worsening behavior. These kids end up on 4, 5, or even 6 or more psychiatric drugs and are still out of control.
I have also see these same kids taken off medications, and in many cases, they are CURED of their "bipolar disorder" as soon as the original medication is removed. In one case, despite strong advocacy, the child herself had to refuse taking the drugs before she was able to recover her sanity, because no one would listen to her or to us that the drugs were the problem.
There is no question in my mind that Whitaker is right - one of the big factors driving the "bipolar epidemic," especially in children, is the poorly-monitored use of stimulants and antidepressants in youth, and the blaming of the side effects of these medications on the person who has been prescribed them. I've even heard more than one person say, "The antidepressants (or stimulants) uncovered an underlying bipolar disorder!"
This kind of outrageous victim blaming has to stop! Too many kids and adults are being harmed because we want to deny that these drugs can sometimes cause harm, despite the fact that we KNOW these side effects can happen. Drugs are not always the answer, and in some cases, drugs themselves can be the problem. Thanks to Bob and to Terri and her wonderful daughters for helping open our eyes.
---- Steve
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