November 6, 2013
MIND OVER MEDS
MIND OVER MEDS
Health

By: Daniel Carlat
Mind over meds, tells us how Doctor Carlat decided that his psychiatry patients needed more from him than from prescriptions. Doctor Carlat during his psychiatric interviews always thought that there was a certain rhythm to his work. He would start by listening to what his patients said for the first few minutes without interrupting all while sorting through possible diagnoses. There was one patient that made his whole rhythm change, patient J.J. He was a salesman for a struggling telecommunications company. He was having trouble managing his finances and his family. J.J’s diagnosis was generalized anxiety disorder. Dr. Carlat then prescribed him with a medicine named Zoloft. J.J was curious of why he had this disorder, so he questioned the doctor. Dr. Carlat said that he was a psychopharmacologist and specialized in medication rather than psychotherapy. Dr. Carlat then opened his eyes, his daily routine had been questioned, he did not even know his patients that well. Psychiatry for him had turned into just corralling patient’s symptoms into labels and matching a drug to the disorder. He would just ask the patients the right questions and match a medication. But, all that changed Dr. Carlat decided to take some time to get to know his patients more. He knew their sleeping habits, moods, and energy levels but didn’t know what made them tick. So he began to crave out room in his schedule to get know his patients, and this did indeed work. His patients improved. He knew he made the right decision everything was not all about drugs but how you got to know the patient to better understand what they were going through.
In this article there are many points I agree with like getting to know your patient and such though this statement I did not agree to “Weekly therapy takes time and is a lot of work while if you take daily pills it can cure your depression and anxiety just as reliably, why not choose this option?”I do not fully agree with this statement. I think that yes indeed therapy takes time and in fact is a lot of work but I would say it would be better to have therapy then have so much medications going into your system. I feel that if you do more work it will pay off in the end rather than taking the easy way out and may suffer at the end. If you talk it out with someone your thoughts will be expressed rather than taking drugs to make you feel better because all that emotion will be stuck in you while if you release your emotions there not trapped but free. This can also lead to why people become addicted to certain drugs. As Dr. Carlat said in the article once the drug finishes they need more and some people get carried away with the drugs. Like a study showed when two groups of people are given pills, one group has an actual medicine while the other an ordinary pill the people with just the ordinary pill feel like they got instantly better because of the drug this shows how people become use to having drugs in them and only through drugs they seem to get instantly better.
This article is a perfect example of how it relates to societies level of wellness. It shows how people become wrapped around drugs like if they are the only cure. It also shows how addictions can get out of hand and take over people’s life. It can get people craving medication and they believe that meds are the only way to survive. Though they need to know that meds aren’t the only things, talking things out with a friend can be of great benefit, like Dr. Carlat said himself. People need to find other options other than meds. They can be helpful once in a while but there are other ways like living a healthy lifestyle and having stre

ss at its lowest so many things like work, family, money, do not become stressor to trigger the use of medications.