In “Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's
Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness,” historian and Harvard
professor, Anne Harrington has written that the use of psychiatric drugs is a
trial and error thing. It is not even know if the clients’ problems are
psychological or biological:
·
We don't know enough about the biology of these
mental disorders to know whether or not some of the reasons are biological — in
the sense that medicine likes to think of these things as diseases — and
whether it's just because they're having terrible problems,"
In an NPR.org interview, Harrington expressed doubts even
about the effectiveness of psychotropics:
·
“The huge developments that happen in the story
of depression and the antidepressants happens in the late '90s, when a range of
different studies increasingly seemed to suggest that these antidepressants —
although they're helping a lot of people — when compared to placebo versions of
themselves, don't seem to do much better. And that is not because they are not
helping people, but because the placebos are also helping people. Simply
thinking you're taking Prozac, I guess, can have a powerful effect on your
state of depression. In order, though, for a drug to get on the market, it's
got to beat the placebo. If it can't beat the placebo, the drug fails.”
Simply put, we need to have hope, whether through the drug
or the less costly (and probably less damaging) placebo. Interestingly, belief
in a God who loves, protects, and forgives us is the ultimate “placebo.” However,
our Savior promises to be far more than a placebo but an ever-present and
omnipotent Parent who takes care of all our needs and for all eternity.
Why then aren’t psychiatric professionals encouraging their
patients to go to church? Why the growing disdain for Christ, especially in view
of the many who claimed to have been transformed by Him? The late psychiatrist,
former Buddhist, and author of “The Road
Less Traveled,” had become a Christian while observing his Christian
patients improve over the years. He explained:
·
The quickest way for you to change your attitude
toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been
designed for our spiritual growth.
·
Now what better news can there be than we cannot
lose, we are bound to win? We are guaranteed winners once we realize that
everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us what we need to
know on our journey. (Further Along the
Road Less Traveled)
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