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Re:Can Psychiatry Turn Itself Around? by pm90 on Friday August 12, 2016 @01:02AM (#12273473)
Forgive me, but it seems like you have an exceedingly negative view of psychiatrists.

> And they'd say there possibly is (such as lifestyle changes), and encourage them to pursue those changes while providing temporary medical relief.

But Psychiatrists provide prescriptions as well (drugs, therapy etc) which may or may not lead to lifestyle changes.

> But psychiatrists don't have permanent cures for anything

I think this is being too harsh on psychiatrists. The mind is perhaps the most complex and least understood component of the human body. It is an exceedingly complex organ not yet completely understood. The heart, kidney etc are all functional organs, and their mechanisms for working are pretty well understood at the present time. There is much ongoing research to understand how the brain does work though; just probably not by Psychiatrists.

Re:Can Psychiatry Turn Itself Around? by morgante on Friday August 12, 2016 @01:13AM (#12273500)
> Forgive me, but it seems like you have an exceedingly negative view of psychiatrists.

You would be correct. :)

> But Psychiatrists provide prescriptions as well (drugs, therapy etc) which may or may not lead to lifestyle changes.

Sure they do. But if I go to a doctor about my heart disease, they're going to ask me to me about my lifestyle and encourage me to make changes which would improve my condition (in addition to providing medication).

Meanwhile, in my experience psychiatrists will jump straight to medication without any discussion of the underlying lifestyle and adjustments which could improve it. At best, they encourage you to see a therapist as well. (To be honest, I'm somewhat skeptical of the hard division between the disciplines. A cardiologist is not a nutritionist, but they can give you a basic idea of the nutritional roots of heart disease and potential remedies, but psychiatrists seem to be entirely uninterested in anything besides drugs.)

> I think this is being too harsh on psychiatrists.

Is it? I don't necessarily think it's necessarily their fault. As someone else in this thread said, mental health seems to be like medicine prior to germ theory: a whole lot of confidence in symptom reducers of questionable efficacy.