carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (04/05/86)
>It's been known for some time now that therapy is of little use in the >treatment of schitzophrenia. What's your source for this? According to what I have read on the subject, this claim is quite controversial. My understanding is that most psychiatrists employ both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy in the treatment of the numerous types of schizophrenia. Depending upon whether the psychiatrist is more biologically or psychoanalytically inclined, he/she will emphasize one form of treatment and regard the other as a useful adjunct. Milieu therapy is a third treatment mode that is sometimes employed. I was formerly employed at a center which treats many children and adolescent schizophrenics without the use of drugs, and often with impressive results. >There are numerous other signs, including its >responsiveness to drug treatment, which suggest that it represents a >neurochemical problem. Anxiety and depression also respond to drug treatment, but people do not conclude that they are therefore "merely" neurochemical problems (granted that there is much evidence for a biochemical factor in some kinds of depression). Several points: (i) The distinction between a "neurochemical problem" and a "psychological problem" is unclear and getting less clear as we understand more about the brain. (ii) Suppose that all the psychopathology of schizophrenia can be explained by an excess or deficiency of chemical X in the brain. This in itself explains nothing about the causation or the preferred treatment of the illness. It says nothing about whether the illness was caused by your diet, your heredity, your experiences as an infant, or all three. (iii) The history of studies of schizophrenia is rife with shoddy methodology, if we are to believe what the psychologist Leon J. Kamin has written in *Not In Our Genes* by R.C. Lewontin et al. and probably elsewhere. Lewontin and coauthors attribute this shoddiness to the belief in biological determinism characteristic of the Zeitgeist, and which has also blessed us with James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein's recent book on *Crime and Human Nature* arguing that "criminals are born, not made" (yes, this simpleminded pap is an accurate representation of their views -- see Kamin's caustic review in a recent Scientific American, I think February). -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu (Tom Tedrick) (04/07/86)
In article <397@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >Lewontin and coauthors attribute this shoddiness >to the belief in biological determinism characteristic of the >Zeitgeist What is Zeitgeist? -Tom tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu
mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (04/14/86)
Richard Carnes has questioned my statement about the ineffectiveness of therapy for schitzophrenia. Well, I will gracefully retract my statement; I don't remember the precise source, but it certainly wasn't a medical journal or any such authority. I agree with his other points. C. Wingate