Psychiatrists are not very good at recognising how psychologically dependent they have made people on medication

As I've said before (see eg. previous post), psychiatrists have made too many people dependent on psychiatric medication. Relying on the placebo effect can have consequences (see eg. another previous post). We might like to think that psychiatric medications can solve our personal problems. We may be suspicious initially of such claims, but if psychiatrists believe them, maybe they need to be taken seriously. After all, psychiatrists have set themselves up as experts in solving such personal problems.

As I’ve also said in yet another previous post, psychiatrists rarely think about the impact of medication on other than brain chemicals. Any initial reluctance to take medication may be overcome by feeling so desperately ill that taking medication seems a viable option, maybe thinking there is no alternative, or that it’s worth seeing if it works, especially if there do not seem to be very good alternatives. Once people have given medication a trial, they may even think it has caused an improvement, when that apparent improvement is really more due to chance or the passage of time or merely to the belief and hope of improvement. 

Over time, people may come to some sort of mental equilibrium taking medication. There may be uncertainty about how much that equilibrium is being maintained by the medication, but rather than upset any apparent balance, it may be easier just to continue taking it. Trouble is that taking medication may also leave a sense that personal problems have not really been solved, maybe because the focus has seemed to have been on treating them as a brain problem.

The problem I want to highlight is that the dynamic of taking medication may create a dependency. People can come to rely on psychiatric medication because of the fear, at least, of not being able to manage without it. Withdrawal symptoms are very common and, if experienced, may well be interpreted as physical dependence caused by the medication. Such withdrawal symptoms may even occur some time after stopping. In fact, people may initially seem to feel better after discontinuing medication, maybe relieved that they can manage without it. But over time such benefits may be lost with the need to restart medication. People can be left in a vicious cycle of wanting to discontinue medication but feeling compelled to continue (see eg. previous post). 

Psychiatric medication may therefore be started because it seemed to be the only option available; can easily become associated with the sense of being biologically flawed, if only because of such myths as chemical imbalance; leave people feeling they haven’t really returned to their true self and that their real problems have been masked; and compelled to take medication when they no longer want to (see eg. another previous post). Such dynamics of taking psychotropic medication do need to be taken seriously and into account by doctors.