When You Can Pop a Pill, Why Bother About Therapy?

Both my husband and I felt that modern psychiatry seemed to rely too heavily on the medication side and tended to forget that our son was hearing voices. He no longer had  peace of mind and was aware of the fact that he was losing his mind. I cannot imagine what that must feel like … to wake up each day and know that you are not the same person you had once been. Our son, David had been a bright student, a surfer and was interested in things. His treatment consisted of taking pills: tablets of varied sizes, shapes and colors and I often wondered whether more therapy and less pills might have been helpful.

When psychotropic drugs were prescribed, we learned that they are chemical substances that cross the blood-brain barrier and act primarily on the central nervous system where they alter brain function resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition  and behavior. The side effects are difficult to bear.  In spite of all this ‘modern technology,’  David did not get any better. His condition worsened and maybe we were being naive, but we would have liked to have witnessed a lot more therapy. David needed some tender loving care too and if he could not get that from his attending psychiatrist, where could he find it?