Very reasonable perspective, I appreciate you taking the time to type it out.
You’re right that most people only have access to crisis care here, which means they more often end up having pharmaceutical solutions as they are fast acting.
Biological processes definitely do influence mental states, and has been shown as such repeatedly. However, it has been known just as long that material reality influences mental states also. It is not an imbalance for someone to be depressed when they live in a cockroach infested hellhole while working 60+ hours a week and barely breaking even. It’s an expected reaction to such conditions, and while drugs will work to continue to allow that person to function in such a situation, it will do nothing about the underlying reality that is creating their feelings of depression.
So while, in the short term, drugs can be extremely necessary in ensuring the depression or other issues do not get worse, what is truly needed is a radical re-framing of society that focuses on eradicating situations and conditions that lead to despair, depression, alienation, and other materially-influenced mental states.
There are of course, individuals for who there is genuinely an imbalance that merely correcting the systemic issues would not resolve, and for those individuals such medications can be the difference between a functional life and not. I do not mean to negate those peoples experiences, and I can see how my comment could have done so, which was not my intention. I just don’t believe that everyone, or even a majority, of people experiencing mental health issues are themselves to blame for their illness.
Rather, mental illnesses are often, like many other things, the result of traumas received from society at large, and that, even were we to have literally the best mental health system we could possibly have, we would still be exposing countless individuals to future harm by neglecting the inherent systemic nature of certain illnesses like depression and alienation.
Very reasonable perspective, I appreciate you taking the time to type it out.
You’re right that most people only have access to crisis care here, which means they more often end up having pharmaceutical solutions as they are fast acting.
Biological processes definitely do influence mental states, and has been shown as such repeatedly. However, it has been known just as long that material reality influences mental states also. It is not an imbalance for someone to be depressed when they live in a cockroach infested hellhole while working 60+ hours a week and barely breaking even. It’s an expected reaction to such conditions, and while drugs will work to continue to allow that person to function in such a situation, it will do nothing about the underlying reality that is creating their feelings of depression.
So while, in the short term, drugs can be extremely necessary in ensuring the depression or other issues do not get worse, what is truly needed is a radical re-framing of society that focuses on eradicating situations and conditions that lead to despair, depression, alienation, and other materially-influenced mental states.
There are of course, individuals for who there is genuinely an imbalance that merely correcting the systemic issues would not resolve, and for those individuals such medications can be the difference between a functional life and not. I do not mean to negate those peoples experiences, and I can see how my comment could have done so, which was not my intention. I just don’t believe that everyone, or even a majority, of people experiencing mental health issues are themselves to blame for their illness.
Rather, mental illnesses are often, like many other things, the result of traumas received from society at large, and that, even were we to have literally the best mental health system we could possibly have, we would still be exposing countless individuals to future harm by neglecting the inherent systemic nature of certain illnesses like depression and alienation.