Emotions treatment principles

Despite the deeply held convictions of drug proponents, there are no specific psychoactive drug treatments for specific mental disorders. There is, of course, a certain amount of biological and psychological variation in the way people respond to drugs, shock treatment, or even lobotomy or an accidental head injury. However, as a general principle, biopsychiatric interventions have a nonspecific impact that does not depend on the person s mental state or condition. For example, it will be shown that neuroleptics and lithium affect animals and normal volunteers in much the same way as they affect patients, in part by subduing their overall emotional responsiveness. 

In summary, consistent with the brain-disabling principles of biopsychiatric treatment presented in chapter 1, the neuroleptic or antipsychotic drugs produce a lobotomy-like deactivation syndrome characterized by emotional indifference or apathy, reduced spontaneity, and docility. This is the primary or therapeutic impact of all neuroleptic drugs including Haldol, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Geodon, and Seroquel. 

What is needed To begin with, mental health professionals, physicians, and the public must become more skeptical, perhaps even cynical, and certainly more sophisticated about what psychiatric drugs and electroshock really do to the brain, mind, and person. Awareness of medication spellbinding and the brain-disabling principles of psychiatric treatment is key to this understanding. Psychiatric drugs do not cure mental disorders. Instead, their primary or essential effect is to cause brain dysfunction and compromise mental and emotional acuity. 

Here are 20 principles for providing therapy to deeply disturbed persons. Many of them are elaborated in The Heart of Being Helpful (1997b), and all of them draw on the Principles of Life that I present in Medication Madness (in press). While the focus is on providing help to emotionally disturbed and disabled patients who seek individual therapy in a private practice or clinic, the same principles apply to residential and milieu treatment as well. In a more general way, these 20 guidelines can also be applied to our experiences with other people in our workplace, families, and everyday life. 

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