Essay on mind over meds

Submitted By ruby_ulzg
Words: 703
Pages: 3

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