Re: CHAT: Profile of Mental Illness

On Sat, 15 May 1999, Abrigon Gusiq wrote:

> I know enough Americans (US) are on a variety of perscription drugs, some I
> wonder if it is not cause it is fadish to be "mentally ill" either in the
> social circles, or the mental health profession..
No.  What is faddish around here is to claim to be "bisexual".  It is not
faddish to claim mental illness.  What *is* the case is that people may
have undefined malaise or just be ordinary jerks.  Since these behaviors
and feelings can bear some superficial resemblance to mental illnesses of
various types, and since these behaviors can be altered with prescription
drugs, doctors are prone to prescribing.  Let's put it another way:
Suppose someone consistently acts grumpy and gets fired from several jobs.
Said person goes or gets sent to a shrink.  Shrink can either say "maybe
you're just a jerk and need to stop being so self-centered", at which
point grump in question leaves and stops paying the shrink, or shrink can
say "have some pills".  Now el grumpo is a constant source of income for
the psychopharmaceutical industry.

A lot of the newer psychoactive pharmaceuticals are much lower in "side
effects" than the older ones, and they can produce their "therapeutic
effects" even in people who are not mentally ill (which means that we
probably need to re-examine what we mean by "mentally ill").  Thus, there
is far less immediate danger in over-prescribing.

Valium used to be the over-done drug of choice, but it had the benefit of
sufficiently severe side effects that it didn't get the incredible boom
of prescription as the current medications.