Robert Whitaker Antidepressant Analysis

In Ethan Watters’ essay, “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” he has a discussion with Dr. Laurence Kirmayer regarding Kirmayer’s invitation to the International Consensus Group on Depression and Anxiety. In their discussion Kirmayer talks about how the basis of his invitation was on the notion that he as the director of the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill could add to the answer the large pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline was looking for. The question at hand was how culture influences the illness experience, but more specifically how depression is influenced by culture in Japan. If the conference was a success, the company would be able to enter and expand into a market worth billions of dollars. The reason that the cultural aspect of depression was very important was because in countries like Japan, the American conception of depression was taken as a more serious illness, rivaling heights of diseases like schizophrenia. The company hoped that by somehow changing the Japan’s perception of the illness from being something social or moral to the American conception where expressing the illness to others is considered being strong person rather than being a weak one, that their drug Paxil would be able to sell to the market, which is where the scientific and economic aspects of depression come into effect. The scientific and economic aspects take place due to the intentions of the company to sell the drug, and the drug’s ability to help

Hello. I'm Kristy and the paper I am speaking about is Wasserman and Liao's Issues in the Pharmacological Induction of Emotions. We generally see the use of drugs to induce emotions as something that will lead to dependency (especially if it leads to dramatic change or if it used in the long term). We also presume that it will give rise to inauthentic emotions, as a cause of self-alienation (that is, distancing yourself from your own feelings), as something that will undermine self-knowledge, as a cause of narcissistic attitudes, and something that leads us towards self-instrumentalization. We also generally hold that people should be able to deal with their situations by themselves and they should not choose to take the easy way out. Battling

In her article, Brain Gain: The Underground World of “Neuroenhancing” Drugs, Margaret Talbot discuss’ the use of different drugs like Adderall, to boost their productivity. She’s writing to people from college up to people who have 9 to 5 office jobs. She uses her essay to not be on one side or the other, but to analyze both points of view. She never puts in, or implies, that she has had a personal experience, and her background doesn’t give her much credibility to speak on the matter to people who already have an opinion on it themselves. Talbot uses anecdotes to…and she uses statistics. But her thesis strays away from what she was indicating about the drugs.

The two authors similarly, both use anecdotes and research as evidence for their contention. However, the authors use two different methods of portraying their argument. Mate’s argument is strong and compelling with his research assisted evidence. He develops the majority of his argument by explaining his research findings on the psychological effects of drug abuse. He uses anecdotes from his patients at the harm-reducing, non-profit Portland faculty to provide further proof that his research findings are factual. Using an ethos approach, he persuades the reader that he can be trusted and that his evidence is compelling. He suggests that he is an expert in the field of research and treatment of addictions when he states that he is a physician

Today, people are likely to take prescription medication to cure illness. Instead of taking alternative methods to reduce the desease symptomes, many people are relying on drug and are even overusing it without carefully considering. In the article “ Medicating Ourselves”, the author, Robyn Sarah discusses how today’s people excessively use medication to alleviate depression or mental disorders. The author shows that not only the adults use drug to cure mental illness, but the children are recommended to take drug, like Ritalin, to calm them down so they do not trigger actions that disrupt the classroom. The author states that, since people are overusing the medication to reduce the psychic pain, they do not know what are the root reasons that

Young also describes a report from the Canadian Association of University Teachers which suggests that academic medicine in danger. By describing this report Young is successful in showing that researchers are interested in anti-depressants because they make more money vs. psychotherapy which Young writes have the same effect on treatment. By including this report in his essay Young is able to show his concern for the decreased attention in psychotherapy which can possibly jeopardize the ethics behind research. Once again Young shows that research advocates would rather make profit through commercialization.

Although we tend to think that drugs are here to comfort and heal people, we must also take into account that behind every drug, we have a drug company that is making millions of dollars off of consumers who by their products. Behind every consumer, we have a doctor that is recommending and prescribing the medication. In “The Medicated Child,” we learn that the researchers who advocate the use of psychiatric medications, receive enormous support from drug companies. Firsthand doctors inform us that theses drug industry funded studies influence their decisions on what drugs to “push” or prescribe. This is a major conflict of interest because the decisions and results of the studies are

Does cognitive-behavioral therapy work just as well as antidepressants when treating depression? How we perceive our depression is what helps to determine the type of treatment necessary. Antidepressants treat the common symptoms of depression rather than the condition while therapy helps change the thought process so the disease is cured in the end. Many studies are done to provide necessary information to what the answer to this question should be. The following articles provided studies that explained the effects of treatment with medication, with therapy, or a combination of both.

With that, a theme builds exemplifying how drugs are acceptable and common for everyone to use, but they can lead to negative outcomes.

E. There has never been a manic episode or a hypomanic episode.” Lincoln would have most certainly been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder if he lived in the modern era where we have made unbounded advancements in medicine and treatments. Medicine was just not quite mature enough in the mid-1800’s though; medicine still had to go through the obnoxious and rebellious teenage years before it could blossom into the educated adult it is today. Yet, medicine still has not reached its peak and wise older years of sitting in a rocking chair on the porch amid a warm summers day reflecting on its life. Medicine still had much room to grow in regards to mental illness and how to treat it but it has made headway since Lincoln’s era.

Chapter two discusses how psychoactive drugs influence our behavior by it reaching the central nervous system first, the most common routes being inhalation, oral administration and injection. I found it interesting that heroin can cross the blood-brain barrier a 100 times more than morphine because it is more liquid soluble. Having stress when taking any of the psychoactive drugs only increases the effects it will have on the brain. Chemicals that normally could not go through the blood-brain barrier will now have access under stress. Combining stress with the use of psychoactive drugs can lead to more serious risk such as drug toxicity and even overdose. Another issue that I found fascinating in chapter two were the drug stimulants being

In giving these success stories he mocks them with a statement belittling the individual for having to depend on stimulant medication. The authors are clearly not going about the mature way and taking away from the serious nature of the topic, making the argument more ill-logical. He will state; children should not take these medications for example; but not give any other alternatives to a matter that is very prevalent and that effect’s many.

According to Elkins, “It (Prescription drugs) kills more people than car accidents every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classified it as an epidemic and the World Health Organization (WHO) reported it threatened the achievements of modern medicine.” The thesis question in mind that will be researched is the effects of Prescription (Pharmaceutical) Drugs have on people. One focus happens to be the core reason as to how, and exactly why, prescription medication is able to be abused, and thus, addictive. Next, a look into some specific examples as to the negative affect Pharmaceutical Drugs has on a person’s life, as well as possibly their family’s lives, for the rest of their lives’. A final avenue that will be explored will include how, prescription drugs are over prescribed causing immunity to a drug and causing people to become addicted. From my point of view I believe that prescription drugs are more harmful than they are helpful. The more those drugs are over prescribed is the more likely people are to get addicted, become immune, and cause uproar in families.

“An alternative simpler and more compelling explanation accounts for the pattern of drug use you see in this country, without resort to any gateway effects”(How Effective).

In this philosophical study, an analysis of the biases of the unconscious mind in relation to the mind of “others” will be analyzed in the context of a peer-reviewed article on the misuse of anti-depression drugs. The analogical argument of Bertrand Russell defines the example of unconscious associations part of the reason why individuals have a biased view of others, which reflects the problematic ways in which scientists are limited in their understanding of different behaviors. One problem is the inability of scientists to understand multiple unconscious motivations of drug use, which are examined in Weyandt et al’s (2016) in the misuse of anti-depressant medications in college students. In this manner, the a clinical study was done on college students, which sought to examine the motivations for the misuse of anti-depressants, which they found to have a negative impact on enhanced learning processes. Commonly, these drugs were thought to help stabilize the mind of the individual in the hope that it would help students improve academic performance,., however, they found many biases in their studies on the motivational use of these drugs: