Chemical Incarceration

A woman I’ll call ‘Sandra’ came in for an appointment after a hiatus of over a decade. Originally, she had been successfully treated for some menstrual issues as well as skin rashes, but I lost touch with her after she moved away. With the prospect of moving back into the area plus the advent of Skype (which is a wonderful tool to do consultations at a distance), she decided to get back in touch regarding some more recent health concerns.

It seems that in the interim, Sandra had experienced some difficult times, and had gone on a psychoactive drug for a number of years. At a certain point, she decided it was time to be in the world without the assistance of this pharmaceutical and began to wean herself from it. It was a slow process, but she was in fact able to withdraw completely from the medication.

Having done that, she felt quite ‘moody’, swinging between various emotions without much rhyme or reason. She ‘didn’t feel herself’ – this was certainly not the way she felt while on the medication, nor was it similar to the way she felt before being medicated.

At our first consultation after having re-established contact, I spent several hours with Sandra updating her history and discussing her condition in great detail. This, in and of itself, was not unusual. It had been a long time and to reacquaint myself with her it was necessarily to pretty much start from scratch again. But what was unusual was the fact that her case wasn’t very coherent from a homeopathic perspective.

The process of a homeopathic consultation – and the reason that it can take several hours (or more) – is generally designed to culminate in a fairly comprehensive, integrated understanding of the patients state, physically, mentally and emotionally. The remedy is then chosen to reflect this state of the entire person.

Naturally, it isn’t always possible to arrive at this goal in one sitting. But as a rule, an experienced homeopath will get a somewhat coherent picture of the patient. Unfortunately, in Sandra’s case, that picture seemed quite muddled and inconsistent.

After we finished, I gave quite a bit of thought to Sandra’s case – reviewing my notes, organizing and reorganizing the information, and consulting reference material. This, too, is not an unusual process for a conscientious homeopath. Sometimes the remedy selection for a particular patient is quite straightforward and requires little time beyond the consultation itself, but there are always cases where the selection of an appropriate remedy is a more involved, even arduous, process.

Despite these efforts, my investigation into Sandra’s case provided little direction from a traditional or classical homeopathic perspective. But I did have a hunch as to why this so, and rather than consult once more with Sandra herself to try to further my understanding, I decided to act on my hunch.

I sent her a homeopathic prescription of Venlafaxine (Venlafaxine Hydrochloride, to be more exact). While this might not ring any bells in the mind of most people, its more common appellation ‘Effexor’ might.

Venlafaxine HCL has been around for about 20 years, and is an antidepressant – one of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants in the country – belonging to a class of drugs known as ‘serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors’. (Cymbalata is another well-known member of this group.) It is used for ‘major depressive disorder’ often combined with anxiety.

Now, just to be absolutely clear, what I gave Sandra was not Effexor itself, but a homeopathic dilution of the drug. That is, through the homeopathic dilution process, the material aspect of the drug – the molecules represented by the formula C17H27NO2 – where removed and what remained was an energetic pattern or vibrating memory of the substance.

The use of a homeopathically diluted substance or potency to remove the toxic effects of the actual physical substance is not a new or unusual concept. Casual users of homeopathic remedies know that one of the treatments for a bee sting is Apis mellifica – or the potentized form of honeybee, and that rhus toxicodendron, the homeopathic dilution of poison ivy, can be effective for poison ivy rash.

Strictly speaking, this is not a classical homeopathic approach, but a related form of treatment known as ‘tautopathy’. ‘Tauto’ is a Greek word meaning ‘the same’, and tautopathy is a method using a substance in diluted or potentized form to alleviate or remove the residues and toxicity the actual crude substance has caused.

Venlafaxine can cause a host of side effects – increased risk of suicide, sexual dysfunction, amnesia, sleepiness or sleeplessness, nausea, dizziness, weakness, dry mouth, constipation and nervousness to name only the most common. It can also cause a potentially fatal reaction called ‘serotonin syndrome.’ In addition, there can be long-term consequences after terminating the drug, a phenomena known as ‘discontinuation syndrome.’

In the short term, the symptoms associated with discontinuation include disorientation, fatigue, headache, poor coordination and nausea. More insidious, are the long-term effects. Drugs like Venlafaxine alter the way the brain works – and the effect remains after the drug itself is withdrawn. Thus a person no longer ‘feels theirself’ – just as Sandra verbalized.

Fortunately for Sandra, at our follow-up visit about a month after taking the homeopathic dilution of Venlafaxine, she was feeling much better. The mood swings had leveled out and a sense of wellbeing was beginning to return.

PART II

One of the most powerful incentives that motivated Samuel Hahnemann to create the medical science of homeopathy over two centuries ago was to help those suffering from mental illness. He personally witnessed the horrors of contemporary treatment – the asylums where patients were straight jacketed or brutalized in various other ways and forced to live in the most primitive conditions, usually for their entire lives.

Having successfully treated epidemic diseases and the most serious medical conditions that afflicted people in that era, Hahnemann was certain that the same principles and medicines that had made homeopathy so effective in handling physical ailments would also apply to mental ones. In fact, he was one of the first medical authorities to insist that mental illness was akin to physical illness, but just had its seat in the mind instead of another bodily organ. Today, this might sound obvious, but in 1792, it was quite an insight.

Since that time, Hahnemann, his followers and subsequent generations of homeopathic practitioners have in fact been able to help countless persons with mental illness. Our books are replete with remarkable case histories as well as detailed descriptions of many hundreds of medicines useful in this sphere of treatment.

Contemporary practitioners, though, face a new challenge in the treatment of mental and emotional disorders. Since the 1950’s dramatic changes have swept across the mental health landscape both in terms of popularized notions of what causes mental illness and the way in which it is to be treated. In a sense, it is really the story of the evolution of the profession of psychiatry into a partner with the pharmaceutical industry with a shared common goal to promote prescription medication as the most effective means to treat mental illness.

The details of this story are told in an extraordinary book entitled “Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America”, written by a medical journalist named Robert Whitaker and published in 2010. What is remarkable about it is the fact that Whitaker has not written a diatribe against psychiatry, but a steady handed review of research studies and case histories to reveal how a destructive combination of flawed assumptions, misplaced hopes and profit motive have created the contemporary ‘epidemic’ of mental illness in America.

Whitaker’s meticulous scrutiny of the facts leads to an array of significant conclusions about the interface of mental illness and conventional pharmaceutical treatment. Amongst them are the following:

One of the major incentives to establish prescription drugs as the predominant treatment modality for mental illness was a desire to legitimize the inclusion of psychiatry within the modern medical establishment. Psychoanalysis and other forms of ‘talk therapy’ were less ‘scientific’, and, in addition, could be performed by professionals who were not medical doctors. The use of pharmaceuticals was both a way to avoid being marginalized by elevating the status of the profession as well as a way to gain an advantage over the competition by offering treatment that was unavailable from non-MD therapy.

Many psychiatric drugs, especially the first generation discovered in the 1950s, were not developed to treat mental illness at all, but instead to treat some other type of physical disease. It then became apparent that as a side effect, these drugs also seemed to sedate the nervous system or otherwise modify the behavior of patients.

Thus, the treatment was not in fact addressing the cause of the problem nor rectifying the ‘chemical imbalance’, but just distorting brain function to make the patient less prone to certain forms of unacceptable behaviors. This also holds true for subsequent generations of psychoactive medications. People don’t get better per se, they get ‘different’ – and often stay ‘different’. My own clinical experience is that even after withdrawing from these drugs, many people will stay ‘different’.

In spite of this, there has been an aggressive marketing campaign to promote these medications. Various theories were put forth to promote these drugs as curative, when in fact they were not. For instance, perhaps the most well known one is the notion that serotonin deficiency is a cause of depression or other related illness. There is little to no evidence to back the claim. It is basically a myth propagated to encourage the use of SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), which are amongst the most popular and profitable drugs in the industry.

In the mid-1950’s, when the first wave of psychoactive drugs were introduced, about 350,000 persons were hospitalized in psychiatric institutions of one sort or another in the United States. One of the chief goals of prescribing these medications was to reduce this number – freeing both the individuals from incarceration and the nation of the burden of caring for them.

But the results show just the opposite effect. Over the next 30 years, the number of persons diagnosed as mentally disabled tripled. Again from the late 80’s, when the second generation of psychiatric drugs – led by Prozac - was introduced, the numbers increased again. Most startling is the fact that in this period of time the number of young Americans on mental disability has grown 35 fold.

The basic question that Whitaker seeks to answer is why these numbers have increased so dramatically. His conclusion becomes obvious as one reads through his analysis: psychiatric medications worsen mental illness over the long run. This runs the gamut of drugs – from the stimulants used to control children in school to powerful anti-psychotics. They may adequately control short-term behaviors, but over longer periods of time they create unhealthy distortions in brain function as well as produce systemic side effects.

This is the challenge that Hahnemann’s homeopathic descendants face today. It is no longer adequate to treat the underlying issues that psychiatric patients present. Often before a practitioner can even address those, it is necessary to deal with the disturbances caused by pharmaceutical interventions.

This can be an extremely complicated undertaking, depending on what medications – or combinations of medications – have been taken for how long, the willingness or capacity of the patient to wean off of them, as well as the cooperation of family and prescribing medical personnel. Despite these possible complications, it can be a successful and rewarding endeavour.

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

Psychotropic Drugs

Psychotropic drugs are chemicals thataffect the mind. They have been used for thousands of years for spiritual, medical and recreational purposes. Whether attained illegally, bought over the counter or obtained by the grace of a physician’s perscription, the use of psychotropics has become a pervasive habit in our society.

As illicit substances, they are used to drown hopelessness or erase boredom. As medical substances, they are employed to ease emotional pain, relieve anxiety, mask a depression, keep someone from doing him/herself in, or hold together a fractured psyche. Although not frequently utilized in the modern world as spiritual substances, they are said to bring the seeker to a deeper understanding of the reality, of God and oneself.

Up until the last century or so, psychotropics were derived from natural sources such as mushrooms or the hemp plant. Although I am not certain whether alcohol is formally considered to be in this group or not, it probably isn’t too much of a stretch to classify it as a psychotropic since it certainly affects the mind.

With the advent of modern science, the development of biochemistry and the rise of the pharmaceutical industry, psychotropic drugs have more and more become heavily regulated, proprietary items. They garner enormous profits for the manufacturers and empower a class of highly paid medical professionals as the guardians of mental well-being.

They have become our modern priesthood entrusted with the prerogative to monitor and alter our state of mind. This in large part has replaced an older tradition of priests who through the rigors of spiritual practice and personal insight offered guidance as well as protection from psychic insults.

There is absolutely no doubt that for some persons the modern psychiatric use of psychotropic drugs has been a godsend. It offers a deliverance from the hell of mental illness for people whose reality has become too fragile or shattered, or people who otherwise might be a danger to themselves or others. These are people whose condition and life circumstances dictates the necessity of employing powerful drugs that alter their chemical makeup and often shut down their emotional being.

But of the population that actually is taking prescribed psychotropic medications, I believe the above group is probably a minority. In fact, it might be a very small percentage of the total group.

Then who are the majority? They are various types of people whose situations can vary quite drastically. Here is a representative sample from my own practice: (1) An older person suffering from a chronic degenerative neurological condition. On mentioning to the neurologist that the condition is emotionally draining, a pad is whipped out and a prescription of Prozac is written without further thought or discussion. The patient turns it down saying that clarity of mind and a side-effect free body are more important. The neurologist replies, “You’re probably right”. (2) A professional person with young children feels depressed, sometimes to the extent of suicidal tendencies. Having taken medications for a year, this person is frustrated with the approach because it reduces symptoms without correcting the basic disposition. After a homeopathic prescription, the condition improves dramatically. Medication is no longer necessary.

(3) A person is seen for depression which has over 30 years history of depression. The list of medications that have been prescribed for psychological and physical complaints would run for pages. Much of the medications are needed to counter the side effects of other drugs. Over a period of one year, slow progress is made to wean this person away from all of the psychotropic drugs and some of the other ones as well. Step-by-step this person is learning to avoid a knee jerk reaction to call on the ever willing medical profession to medicate away every unpleasant feeling that is experienced. There is an increasing sense of well being, a greater sense of self and self-determination. Maybe in another year or so, this person will be drug free.

(4) A young woman has suffered from overwhelming rage before her periods. Any number of therapists have refused to work with her unless she medicates these moods away. Over many months, homeopathic care helps her resolve much of this anger.

These are just a representative few of the many people who, with proper care, can work through much of their emotional turmoil without resorting to medication. The process is often slower and demands courage as well as determination. It certainly is not for everyone — but the rewards are enormous.

The other day an old friend from college called. Since our paths first crossed over 20 years ago (if I remember correctly, he wandered across the dorm hall to check out the music emanating from from my room), we’ve been in touch on and off, sharing the twists and turns of our disparate lives.

After studying different things in school, living in different parts of the world, and taking up different livelihoods, our professional careers have recently begun to converge on parallel tracks.

After passing through a career as a teacher, James went back to school to get himself a PhD in clinical psychology. Today, he belongs to a group practice in the midwest where he attends to the needs of a clientele that includes a lot of children.

So, we had an interesting time comparing professional notes over the phone. On the one hand, he was curious about homeopathy, its principles and efficacy, along with why I have such a fervor for it. On the other, I wanted to know how he effects changes in people’s lives and his experiences with psychotropic medications.

James’s work is talking to people, helping them come to realizations about their lives, helping them take steps to come to terms with their circumstances. Although he doesn’t prescribe medications, he often makes recommendations to his patients — or their parents. To him, drugs are an adjunctive treatment that smooths out the jagged edges in the lives of his clientele.

There were several points that James made which seemed to mirror my own beliefs and experiences. The first is that these medications are often dispensed too frequently and too easily. For some professionals, a prescription becomes an automatic response, a reflex reaction to a person’s expression of unhappiness. The sole object of treatment revolves around eliminating the symptoms of psychological turmoil as fast as possible.

But what of the the turmoil itself? Depression, anxiety, fear, hysteria and the like are “disappeared”, yet the causes are not exposed nor eliminated. As a consequence, people can end up keeping their symptoms at bay for extensive periods of time with little resolution.

Beyond the toll these drugs can exact through physiological side effects and financial cost, there is a more insidious result. In effect, through the magic of modern psychopharmacology people become separated from their own emotions, their own psyche. As a temporary aid for the acutlely distraught or a last ditch heroic effort for the seriously disturbed, this is a wonderful resource. But it induces a lack of awareness about one’s own feelings.

Our ideas about the efficacy of some of the most popular drugs were also quite similar. In fact, I was somewhat surprised to hear how little he thought of them. I am not disposed to look at them favorably on many counts, but James’s assessment was purely based on his clinical experience.

For instance, he estimated that Ritalin, the widespread pharmacological “answer” to hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder, had lasting positive effects on only about one in three children. And the highly touted “wonder drug” Prozac, he felt, was vastly over-rated. A high percentage of his patients did not respond to it well at all. Many felt agitated, overstimulated or otherwise disturbed and need to get off of it.

His experience is certainly in dramatic contrast to the glowing testimonials one often hears about Prozac. There are even popular books which suggest that anyone and everyone might benefit from it’s capacity to enhance moods and productivity.

I suppose one can understand this disparity by realizing that these two points of view represent two very different perceptions about the nature of human beings. For some people, especially in the medical and psychological sciences, life is ultimately a biochemical phenomena. Whatever happens in a living organism, be it on the physiological or psychological level, can be reduced to molecular interplay.

From this understanding, medical professionals can maintain the physical and emotional health of their patients by manipulating their chemical makeup. Thus, we have the popular notion of mental illness as “a chemical imbalance”.

Then there are people, James and myself included, who see the phenomena of life as something fundamentally different than biochemistry. Underlying the grosser physical manifestations of life are more subtle forces which are the true core of a living being. Variously called “spirit” or “vital force”, “prana” or “chi”, this is a dynamic energy responsible for maintaining the physical structure, achieving physiological balance and sustaining a sense of well-being in the organism.

When a person suffers from psychological distress, most of the time it is the disturbance of this vitality which must be addressed. The chemical imbalances are largely a result — not a cause — of chronic stresses on the organism. By clearing understanding the external circumstances that have burdened a person along with the nature of that person’s personal susceptibility to these stimuli, the possibility of real cure arises.

Treatment based on these principles, be it psychotherapy, homeopathy, body work, breath work, shamanism or any number of possible modalities, can produce very profound results. Sometimes it is agonizingly slow, sometimes it is dramatically fast, but the goal justifies the effort.