Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture

Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by Kalium on Sunday April 19, 2015 @07:54PM (#9405375)

> Maybe there is an element of mental illness, I don't know. I had lunch with a psychologist once and he tried saying, "Seriously, listen to me, you are mentally ill." I guess he thought I was crazy - maybe I am - but I never went in to see him. I had no interest in altering my mind with drugs. I like who I am, even when it is difficult to interoperate with the rest of society.

Err. Psychologists don't use drugs. Perhaps you should reconsider this one.

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by austenallred on Sunday April 19, 2015 @08:08PM (#9405433)

I actually think I'm using the wrong word. I don't think he was a psychologist, because he mostly talked about drugs I could take.

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by Kalium on Sunday April 19, 2015 @08:15PM (#9405453)

The word you want is probably psychiatrist.

Some things, it turns out, are best addressed chemically.

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by marincounty on Sunday April 19, 2015 @09:24PM (#9405660)

Ah--it's not so cut and dry anymore. The Psychiatry profession, along with the drug companies are trying to climb out of a deep hole of bad science. The standard chemical treatment protocol is an art. There are no hard and fast truths in Psychiatry anymore.

Efficacy of drugs used to treat seriously ill Clinically Depressed patients; slightly better than placebo, and that might be stretching the data?

Drugs used to treat anxiety; the one's that work, for awhile, are addictive.

It seems like every few months, a researcher is questioning "best addressed chemically" approach. This month is long term use of antipsychotics on Schizophrenics: maybe these drugs affect the long term quality of life?

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by cbd1984 on Sunday April 19, 2015 @09:59PM (#9405744)

> This month is long term use of antipsychotics on Schizophrenics: maybe these drugs affect the long term quality of life?

So does untreated schizophrenia.

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by anon4 on Monday April 20, 2015 @06:18AM (#9407060)

Of course. The question isn't "do we stop treating schizophrenia", it's "should we, and how can we, transition the patient off of drugs that are potentially harmful in the long term".

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by DanBC on Monday April 20, 2015 @06:24AM (#9407078)

We've known for a long time that anti-psychotic medication is pretty horrible. That's why groups like Hearing Voices Network have been campaigning to educate clinicians and people who hear voices about different causes and different treatment options. There are other groups that campaign against purely medical models of treatment for other illnesses.

A well known tension in mental health treatment teams is between the psychiatrist (who stereotypically will want to medicate everyone) and the psychologists (who stereotypically will want to talk to everyone).

http://www.hearing-voices.org/

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Re:Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture by austenallred on Sunday April 19, 2015 @09:14PM (#9405636)

That's probably right. I regrettably never paid attention to the difference

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