Would love to know where you did your psych rotation that your five attendings each gave a patient different diagnoses with different treatments. It's difficult to take your post seriously when make such claims because, as you said, we ALL rotate through psych and I have yet to hear of anyone experieincing what you say you experienced. Awaiting your example.
see above
They are not used for a million different psych diagnoses, but a lot of the medications do overlap because you're dealing with a relatively small portion of the body. Mental illness is localized to the brain, so it makes sense that the mechanism of action of the psych meds can treat a number of conditions caused by the brain. Much like antibiotics work on a number of bugs, psych drugs work on a number of illnesses.
No, come on, you can't be serious with this argument. Mental illness is localized to the brain so one class of medications can treat them all? As though the MOA of all mental illness is the same? Likening psych drugs to antibiotics? I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and let you rephrase this.
For the same reason some respond substantially to low-dose statins without problems and others just get myopathy without any significant decrease in their LDL.
No. If you switch from one statin to another you aren't likely to see a substantial difference in cholesterol lowering (there are exceptions, but generally speaking). I'm talking about say, someone will say paxil/zoloft/etc does not help, but celexa/citalopram will. Significant differences in effect.
The majority of people who have a condition indicated respond to antipsychotics. If you have to ask if the medication actually helped, then you spent a month on psych and you either didn't see someone with a condition that necessitated the use of antipsychotics (which means you had a sub-par psych rotation), you didn't understand the course of the patient's illness, or you were too busy criticizing the field to pay attention to what was happening.
As I said, I'm not talking about antipsychotics. Way to straw man anyhow. I've seen plenty of schizophrenics off their meds to appreciate the need. I DO have my doubts about the dopamine hypothesis, however.
This statement right here is why you have trouble respecting psychiatry. I hope that you are never hit with such hard blows that it leads to depression or anxiety or PTSD. These are MEDICAL problems in which the brain, the same one that tells you to spout such absurd things on a message board, stops working the way it has and promotes actions that create chaos in your life. You should be thanking God that you've never been affected by such problems.
What is your justification for "these are MEDICAL problems in the brain"? You have none. Because it is completely unknown what the etiology of depression is. Likely multifactorial. And again, you create strawmen and it is like arguing with a 12 year old. Anyone who denies that depression is over diagnosed and over treated is living in a dream world. Tell me, do you believe the incidence/prevalence of depression has changed in the last 50 years?
And no, I don't need to thank Zeus, Satan, or any other diety because I take responsibility for my mental health. You keep praying to God for cures, though. I grew up in very ghetto areas, around drugs and violence. A good 1/3 of my childhood friends are dead, some I watched die, others in jail. So kiss my ass. I've dealt with things far worse than 99% of the psych patients on rotation. I didn't sit around feeling sorry for myself. I can understand that people don't respond the same way to life stressors. I never denied the existence of depression. But keep overreacting to words unsaid. It's all you seem to be able to do.
Because you have trouble seeing and empathizing beyond your own life.
This is probably true. But then again you aren't able to consider anything except the sanctity of psychiatry.
