Mental Illness: 57% Treated With Medication Alone, Psychotherapy Underemphasized - Essay Sample

Introduction

Mental illness is a behavioral pattern that leads to impairment of people's functioning. Currently, there is much psychotherapy that can assist people in solving mental health problems. But the statistic suggests that about fifty-seven percent of people with mental illness are treated with medication alone without psychotherapy. That statistic tends to move upwards, for example, in 1998, those who were treated solely on medication were forty-four percent, and in 2007 they moved up to fifty-seven. Providing mental health care that is suitable for the people looks like a reasonable objective for every health provider, but there are critical obstacles that are blocking this from working out (Parcesepe et al. 384). There are so many things that people do not understand about the causes of mental problems and how it can be treated; again people especially health providers learn and understand how mental illness can be treated, but they do not practice. Both psychology and psychiatry have tried, but as the course of treatment for malaria is ordinarily clear, depression will be treated differently depending on the practitioner who provides the health care (Corrigan, Patrick, Benjamin, & Deborah 37). The paper seeks to discuss whether the drugs are overused by the health care providers in the treatment of mental illness, especially depression or not.

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National Institute of Mental Health had enough of this problem of treating mental illness that affects close to one in five of the American people. The director of NIMH called out psychotherapy and psychotropic medications due to their extreme rate of failure, suggesting that it is time to work out on how to enhance future interventions. It has declared about Experimental Medicine Initiative, which is organized to achieve the specificity of many areas of medicine to psychotherapy and psychiatry (Corrigan et al. 42). The director argues, and some people would criticize that the available interventions today for mental problems are not enough. Those who talk about therapy can call themselves psychiatrists, who finished training on medicine, then specialized in mental health care; licensed clinical workers, clinical psychologists, among others (Parcesepe et al. 386). But all these may not be a psychiatrist. Everybody can pretend to be a therapist and begin counseling people, and some health providers who are through with their training of different lengths, cannot get instructions on which kind of research has demonstrated when and how different types of therapy are highly effective.

Prescribing drugs at the beginning of a mental problem may lead to consistent mental health that can make many patients believe that, their recovery is out of their control but under the control of health practitioners. This may allow mental health problem to be branded a disease, and this can have a critical implication on the patient's capacity to regulate and assist the illness (Corrigan et al. 63). For instance, recent research shows that the move to label obesity as a disease has a critical negative impact on proper regulation of the symptoms. Some mental problems such as depression, around fifty to sixty percent of people who take anti-depressant drugs indicate an improvement, but the treatment of drugs come with a high risk of many, and therefore, effective treatment should be to merge psychological therapies with drug treatment (Parcesepe et al., 389). Treatment of the common mental illness with drugs as from the start can effectively medicalize them, changing what can be short-term into a long-term enduring problem. For instance, every person knows those who have been using anti-depressant over a long period, but the question to ask is "does the drugs they are using have any critical impact on the symptoms over long-term?' Unfortunately, the modern diagnostic procedures for mental illness are not dimensional but are more categorical (Parcesepe et al. 393). Thus, people can be diagnosed with a mental health problem or cannot. Contrary to that, the dimensional criterion proposes that mental health symptoms differ from mild to severe. The modern model is best for perceiving mental illness as a disease. It is again the perfect condition in which pharmacological firms can foster the use of drugs in the treatment of mental illness.

Another disadvantage of using drugs in treating mental illness is that it has a crucial and stressing side-effect. These negative impacts can be physical such as blurred vision, headaches, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, and fatigue, among others. In antipsychotics, the side-effects are essential enough to form fifty percent of the people taking drugs to stop completely. Away from medical symptoms, some treatment can as well increase psychological symptoms like suicidal ideation and anxiety (Corrigan et al. 66). Many companies sell drugs to make money. Therefore, they can have incentives to discover new illnesses to generate a new market for selling new drugs. This usually leads to the medicalization of emotional processes like bereavement. More importantly, drugs cannot change the way people think or their socioeconomic status that can be the real cause of their psychological problems. Negative thinking and biased thinking can sustain mental illness such as anxiety and depression, and these should be addressed with a lot of concern using psychotherapy and not treated with drugs (Parcesepe et al. 395). It is worth noting that, assisting people with mental illness to move above socioeconomic difficulties is challenging within any treatment methodology, but a group of mental health professionals with multidisciplinary knowledge can assist people with mental illness with a wider range of socioeconomic and psychological problems.

Moreover, research has also proposed that there can be a significant publication bias in Randomized Controlled Trials, which are reported by the companies selling drugs. For instance, RCTs, while assessing the efficiency of drug action, can report a positive impact if a pharmaceutical company finances the research than when non-company sources finance it. This demonstrates that companies dealing in drugs cannot publish research that shows the ineffectiveness of their drugs (Corrigan et al. 69). This bias can over-estimate the efficiency of drugs used for mental illness. Currently, there are no rich global psychotherapy companies to compete the financial clout of the pharmaceutical companies and so selling the drugs for the treatment of mental illness, drugs will have demand irrespective of whether they are less or more efficient than psychological therapies (Parcesepe et al. 398). This can show that drugs are overused in the treatment of mental health problems.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are a lot of reasons why people should boldly oppose the rising trend of using drugs solely in the treatment of mental illness, and especially drug treatment without psychological aid. Treatment of mental health problems should not be left in the hands of drug selling companies since their interest is money and survival but not looking at the effectiveness, efficiency and the consequences of particular drugs on the life of the people with mental health problems. But the mental health professionals should acquire perfect knowledge and training, then implement practically on the treatment of the mental illness mainly focusing on psychological and socioeconomic problems of the people with mental health problems. Currently, many countries are implementing the methodology of increasing access to psychological therapies for people who want them, but as much as health care is seen basically as a medical problem in the health care system, nothing is yet to change soon.

Work Cited

Corrigan, Patrick W., Benjamin G. Druss, and Deborah A. Perlick. "The impact of mental illness stigma on seeking and participating in mental health care." Psychological Science in the Public Interest 15.2 (2014): 37-70.

Parcesepe, Angela M., and Leopoldo J. Cabassa. "Public stigma of mental illness in the United States: a systematic literature review." Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research 40.5 (2013): 384-399.