Humans and society are messy. There aren't easy answers and we are a culture dying for easy answers. Sometimes it really does help to have an impartial person sitting there just letting you bitch once a week. Sometimes it doesn't.
Somehow enough progress is made in the real world that psychology manages to meaningfully advance.
There's a lot of neat stuff in there but no real conclusions to draw from it beyond a potential avenue for further research. I'd like to see what comes out of it.
Usually beliefs that specific have a source. Knowing a bit about the biology involved, I got curious. In this case, the source was actually interesting and mentioning it might be of value to others.
Sometimes I'll indulge in snide comments but I try not to. They tend to detract from the conversion and the people I'd reply to are usually doing a good enough job of that on their own. ;)
The confidence in their own prognoses--despite no concrete evidence whatsoever--is impressive to behold.
Also, I've noticed that psychiatrists use very precise wording to communicate and ask questions, and all their words have very well-defined meanings, but those meanings are elusive to the smartest of mental patients. What does it mean, pray tell, when a physician asks you "are you hearing voices?" How much sleep have you been getting? Oh, you haven't meticulously logged it on graph paper every day for a month? Just estimate your sleep hours, unreliable narrator.
Also, physicians are prohibited from using technical jargon when communicating with patients; they must use layman's terms only. So this leads to a wonderful cornucopia of confusion when your patient is well-informed and educated about the relevant medical terminology, but the doctor can't oblige that mode of communication, and garble garble fluzzle zinko.
Most judgements on me are passed completely based on affect and demeanor. My affect can mean the difference between a cordial 20-minute sit-down with the doc or a 3-week "voluntary, not really" hospital incarceration that will cost $60,000.
The only credible and actual effective approach is described with this fairly new book from Chris Palmer (professor assistant at Harvard university): https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Energy-Revolutionary-Understand...
If sitting and talking helps do it. If not move one to something that does.
A lot of psychiatric medications are not well understood, not the chemical pathways, not the chemical mechanisms, some of them just "work" for some people, some people require a different one, and we don't know exactly why. In that sense it's not too different from talk therapy, we know that some work but I don't think we know exactly why.
Sincere question: how would you know if this bad place was withdrawal from meds or the reappearance of your pre-existing "bad place"? (Pre meaning before you began taking prescribed psychotropics.)
Why are you implying I'm throwing around labels? Do you think I never read anything about bipolarity? Do you want to enter a citations battle, where I cite studies on bipolarity? And which scientific truth? That mood regulator help regulate mood? I mean, it's their names, I saw the results, do you want citations on that?