Therapist Michael Pond has been captivated by rigorous and extensive research that argues millions of people who are prescribed psychotropic drugs derive no benefit from them and, in fact, may be making their illness worse by taking them
Vancouver therapist Michael Pond says that at least once a week a client asks him, “If I get therapy can I get off this medication?” Michael’s typical response, he writes in the Vancouver Sun, is: “We’ll need to consult with your physician. If you’ve been diagnosed with a mental disorder and you’ve been taking your meds for a significant period of time you need to continue to keep your brain chemistry balanced. Psychotherapy will help for sure, but you will most likely need some type of psychotropic medication for an indefinite time.”
But after reading Boston Globe journalist Robert Whitaker’s latest book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, Michael has begun to rethink the effectiveness of the carte blanche pharmaceutical treatment of every form of mental disorder. He’s not saying that he’s become a “medication abstinence zealot”:
I don’t view the workings of the human mind in absolutes. And after all, I am a psychotherapist. Having worked in the field of mental illness and addictions treatment for 40 years I have seen countless clients helped enormously by medication. But I’ve also seen it over-prescribed and misused. —Michael Pond
Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic examines the astonishing increase in psychiatric disability numbers during the past fifty years and raises an obvious question: Could the widespread use of psychiatric medications—for one reason or another—be fueling this epidemic? Anatomy of an Epidemic investigates that question, and it does so by focusing on the long-term outcome studies in the research literature. Do the studies tell of a paradigm of care that helps people get well and stay well over the long term? Or do they tell of a paradigm of care that increases the likelihood that people diagnosed with mental disorders will become chronically ill?
We need to be more informed about these long-term studies and other models of care, Michael Pond has concluded. He believes that psychiatry’s reliance on psychotropic drugs needs to be questioned. But Michael also says that “for those with severe, acute symptoms, we need to intervene early with evidence-based treatment that includes medication…but once the illness is stabilized, perhaps it’s in the patient’s best interest to not rely on meds forever.”
We speak with Michael Pond.
video
Watch the trailer for Michael Pond’s book, Couch of Willingness (May 9, 2014)
