An interview with Dr. Daniel Carlat -
A Psychiatrist's Prescription For His Profession
My favorite quote from the piece:
"...we don't know how the medications actually work in the brain. So whereas it's not uncommon - and I still do this, actually, when patients ask me about these medications, I'll often say something like, well, the way Zoloft works is it increases the levels of serotonin in your brain, in your synapses, the neurons, and presumably the reason you're depressed or anxious is that you have some sort of a deficiency.
And I say that not because I really believe it, because I know that the evidence isn't really there for us to understand the mechanism. I think I say that because patients want to know something, and they want to know that we as physicians have some basic understanding of what we're doing when we're prescribing medications.
And they certainly don't want to hear that a psychiatrist essentially has no idea how these medications work."
This Blog Author's Opinion (born of experience): When those of us who are educated and self-authorized call their bluff and ask for hard scientific evidence, they tell us that it doesn't matter how these drugs work, it only matters that they DO work (even though they often don't work and cause addiction and other devastating health problems). I'm guessing a doctor would never say the same thing about an awful drug like cocaine, but that's only because they can't write a prescription for it. It really is that simple.
