Proposal

 

Title: The Effectiveness of Psychiatric Medications on Depression and Anxiety

Statement of Purpose:

My purpose in undertaking this project is to determine the effectiveness of a variety of psychiatric medications from a diagnostic perspective. How much of a drug’s effectiveness is produced by the placebo effect? Are the side effects of these medications more manageable than the actual illnesses they treat? About specific medications, what are the subcategories and what distinguishes them? What is their function in the human body and how does that relate to their successes as drugs?

Background: I have taken biology and psychology advanced placement classes that brushed on the subject of psychiatric treatment. Over the last summer, I took a Psychology of Religion class taught by a Harvard psychiatrist. He often discussed the merits of the medications he worked with and specifically mentioned the strength of the placebo effect. I am interested in pursuing psychiatry as a career but I am skeptical that the raw data will show psychiatric drugs to be of real value to society and I do not want to go into a field that is not genuinely helping people.

On a more personal level, my diagnosed anxiety disorder has given me some experience with SSRIs, a family of drugs often used to treat depression but also used for anxiety. When I was told this about my medication, I found it to be strikingly interesting. Unfortunately, neither of the SSRIs I tried helped me. Instead, they left me grappling with unpleasant side effects on top of panic attacks and general anxiety.

Significance: My personal experience with psychiatric medication has made it clear to me that useful or useless medication can drastically change an individual’s life. According to an article written by Bob Murray, PhD, “antidepressants work for 35 to 45% of the depressed population, while more recent figures suggest as low as 30%.” Yet the same article states, “depressive disorders affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year.” If psychiatric drugs cannot exhibit true effectiveness, policies and regulations made by the FDA towards the medicine should reflect that. Finally and most importantly, the effectiveness of medication directly affects a doctor’s decision whether or not to prescribe a drug in the first place. I think that it is important that society never stops examining medicine, even established techniques, so that we can use our scientific tools and different perspectives to improve the general welfare of mankind.

Description: While I will primarily be doing library and internet research for this project, I will also conduct interviews. The subject of having a medicated disorder seems too personal to speak to people about so I would not conduct that type of interview. Instead, I will supplement my research with direct testimonials from psychiatrists and, if possible, strong anti-psychiatry advocates for the purpose of developing a balanced point of view.

Methodology: Most of my work will be basic research. I would especially like to include studies done on the various drugs, including the information from early studies that allowed the medications to be approved if that can be found. I would also like to look into any laws and regulations made that effect the distribution of psychiatric drugs.  I would like to contact my former professor Dr. Wes Boyd and consult his knowledge of psychiatry and get his opinion on the anti-psychiatry debate. I also intend to send emails or meet with psychiatrists here in the valley. I will synthesize this information into research paper that will not only detail the scientific effectiveness of a variety of psychiatric drugs but will also explore the bioethical questions brought up by the results, whether good or bad. I will address the specific families of drugs according to the basic outline attached to this proposal.
            My specific topics per classification of drug (for example, SSRIs) would be:

Side effects, case study, biological functioning, history (including entrance onto the market), data related to success

                       

Problems: I cannot address every single psychiatric medication in existence so I devised a clear, though limited, way of classifying and managing them as groups so that I can cover as much of the material as possible. Currently, I would like to classify the drugs by the disorder they treat and compare them further by examining their biological functions and successful or unsuccessful treatment data, as mentioned in my methodology. However, I will have to limit myself to a certain amount of disorders so that I can go into more detail about each medicine. Due to time constraints, I will not address the effectiveness of medication cocktails.

I will contact a wide array of experts in psychiatry for interviews in order to make sure that I get at least a handful of people to respond and lend me their time and knowledge. It may be hard to come up with personal testimonies to each drug because of the personal nature of medication; however, due to the comforting anonymity of the internet, I am confident I can find people who discuss their medication experiences online. If not, I will simply exclude individual accounts.

Bibliography: More sources will be found, examined and, if used, added to this list as the project progresses.

 

       Works Cited

Angell, Marcia "The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?” The New York Review of Books." Home | The New York Review of Books. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/>.

Breggin, Peter Roger. Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock,

and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex. New York, NY: Springer, 2008. Print.

Carlat, Daniel J. Unhinged: the Trouble with Psychiatry--a Doctor's Revelations about a Profession in Crisis. New York: Free, 2010. Print.

Fogelson, David L. "Can the Efficacy of Psychotropic Drugs Be Measured? - Psychiatric Times." Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/anxiety/content/article/10168/1787598>.

Kirsch, Irving. The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth. New York, NY: Basic, 2010. Print.

"Mental Health Leaders to Discuss Use of Psychiatric Medication | The Lund Report." The Lund Report | Unlocking Our Healthcare System. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.lundreport.org/resource/mental_health_leaders_to_discuss_use_of_psychiatric_medication>.

Moncrieff, Joanna. The Myth of the Chemical Cure: a Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.

Murray, Bob. "Depression Fact Sheet: Depression Statistics and Depression Causes." Depression Solutions with the Uplift Program: Depression Self Help, Relationship Help, Depression and Anxiety Resources, Treatment and Information. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. <http://www.upliftprogram.com/depression_stats.html>.

NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness - Mental Health Support, Education and Advocacy. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.nami.org>.

"NIMH · Mental Health Medications." NIMH · Home. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://mentalhealth.gov/health/publications/mental-health-medications/complete-index.shtml>.

"Psychiatric Drugs: Cure or Quackery?" The Antipsychiatry Coalition. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.antipsychiatry.org/drugs.htm>.

"Psychiatric Drugs: Magic Bullets Or Pharmacological Sledgehammers." The Critical Psychiatry Website. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.critpsynet.freeuk.com/models0904.htm>.

"Psychiatry: Force of Law." Law Project for Psychiatric Rights. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://psychrights.org/force_of_law.htm>.

"SSRI Antidepressants May Save Lives." Mental Health - Information on Mental Health. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://mentalhealth.about.com/od/psychopharmacology/a/ssrissave.htm>.

Toy, Eugene C., and Debra L. Klamen. Case Files Psychiatry. New York [u.a.: McGraw-Hill Medical, 2009. Print.

Whitaker, Robert. Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. New York: Crown, 2010. Print.