"Patients first, docs second, drug companies third."

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to make out of that. For that statement does sound good and fine, but, from reading your post, didn't you really mean:

"Patients [must have all the ostensible luxury and comfort they could possibly imagine] first, docs [must never order their patients to do anything, even if it's for the patient's own good] second, drug companies [should never even attempt to save people's lives] third"?

I don't give a damn about short-term studies. I don't give a damn about long-term studies. I don't give a damn about any of it.

Becasue here's the truth: Medication helps people. Medication is good for people. Medication lets people live normal lives. Without it, we'd be right back to the pre-50's era where people with schziophrenia and severe bipolar disorder would be clothed in straight-jackets, locked in tiny rooms, only to be checked in on once every other day. They would never again be apart of society, their loved ones would never get to see them, and when they'd die, they'd be buried in the insane asylum's cementary, as if never having lived.

Why the freak do you want people to start questioning their meds???

For yes, I concur, there in an uncertainty when it comes to atypical antipsychotics. Those drugs haven't been around for very long, and no one knows for sure what kind of manifistations on the body they'll display.

And yes, I also agree that those medications can have outstandingly terrible side effects. People do suffer GREATLY from them.

My uncle for instance, he takes Clozeril and every other week he has to get a blood test. Do you know how many times over the past three decades he has been poked? His arms look absolutly aweful, all black and blue and painful. Other than that, he's not very alert, he's gained wieght, his head is all foggy and he sleeps a lot.

But here's something interesting: his doctor recently decided that the side effects were too unbarible and she decided to take him off the medication.

Within a week his side effects dissapated.

Within a week he was back in the hospital.

How dare you declare these messages to the naive public that medication may be bad for you??? Do you know how much hope it has brought to people's lives? Do you have any idea how the quality of people's lives have increased because of it? WHY DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO LIVE IN HELL AGAIN???

But I do have to admit, for people with bipolar disorder, there is more room to squeak around in terms of medication -- bipolar disorder is less severe than schziophrenia, making different meds more negotiatable.

But even with bipolar, you STILL need to be on medication to the most extreme degree. Getting all manic with no sleep in weeks, or becoming depressed to the point of suicide -- you NEED meds.

I'm going to shout it out again: Why do you want people to be more concerned about their weight or about their trembling hands, then about their happiness, their vitality, their overall wellness?

You make me sick.

I hope you don't mind me resurrecting your visionary threads, Philip, some bloggers don't like that, so just let me know. For instance, this comment seems to speak to the democratization of democracy, which I applaud:

"Like most academic journals, the American Journal of Psychiatry is a pay-to-read site. I am so sick of that. Why can't patients have easy access to the same info our docs do?"

It's paternalism. I know you don't like the term "consumer", but for me its practice does help balance the inherent paternalism of a Doctor/Mental Patient relationship, and that so many psychiatrists hate the term tells me we're on the right track.

Day by day the Internet brings us closer to the priestly caste, and that term, "Consumer" creates emotional distance; we need distancing mechanisms if we're going to get serious about our own critical development.

I only say this because I too have knee-jerk gag issues with the term consumer and have reluctantly come around, and only because I've seen such hysterical resentment on the part of shrinks in the psychosphere over injunctions that they now use "consumer" when talking about their wayward little freaks. Inch by inch it's a rhetorical battle, I'm a vindictive little freak who takes real pleasure in their capitulation. Why isn't hubris a mental illness? Because God wrote the DSM!

"Patients first, docs second, drug companies third. That's going to be the new world order."

So much of that is up to us. Honest conversations, patients talking together, open and tolerant of each others experience. But we're defensive, even with each other, of course, our entire being exists on defective ground, and we are all fucked up about correction, whether warding it off or imposing it on our kind, correction is always imminent. This is the problem. God damn us, every one.

Basically, yes, we should not be adversaries with doctors that load us up with meds to shut us up.
I have browsed psych's libraries. They all have walls of books, some have a few,some have more, but if it's in the office anything is worth a review. I've studied framed degrees, asked them how they got them, studied artifacts and looked at personal photos on display.
Hey better ways are ahead. I skimmed this post but 'consumer' pisses me off too.
Im off on a tangent now I can feel it coming on...my point is:
Im sick of the division, the 'im the doctor', the Im the professional, the im the consumer.
We are all the same.
Ben Harper: "better way(peace mix)".
The thing is we are not fucked up. Society in general has made sure we feel that way, but the ones 'in charge' are so more far gone.
God, we are tuned in so much more than the average person.
All of us in one room would be one hella good time.

Looks like my comment got lost, by Nelly. It's on the sidebar plain as paint. Hmmm...

my comments stuck in spam or what? third times a charm!