Healthcare has been gathering interest in the public eye, especially with the push through Congress of new healthcare legislation. It has also been gathering increasing interest from the IT sector – and articles such as this one are a reflection of that increasing interest. I’d encourage you to take a few minutes to read through Oram’s entire article if you are a techie, and if not to read through the first half in which he covers some of the less technical features of VistA that are revolutionizing healthcare.

You can also visit the official open source page for VistA here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Author Phillip Longman Takes ‘Best Care Anywhere’ Message on the Road in June, Champions VistA/OpenVista as Nation’s Best Hope for Improving Healthcare While Controlling Costs (eon.businesswire.com)
• VA approaches open source day of reckoning (zdnet.com)

Related posts:

1. Zeo – I Want It! Image via Wikipedia Okay folks, I haven’t gotten my hands...
2. Community Health Data Initiative. I’m a big fan of open source and am excited...
3. Healthcare Reform and Technology. Image via Wikipedia Disclaimer: When it comes to discussions about...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

iChange, like so many other sites, offers guidance on losing weight and eating well…but it goes so far beyond what other sites are currently offering with a number of unique features. Let me just highlight a few:

• When you register with iChange you can choose a personal nutritionist to assist you. Right now this is either Diana Young (registered dietitian, specializes in ADA methods, served as Chief Clinical Dietitian at two major hospitals) and Linda Miner (registered nutritional counselor, specializes in metabolic typing, holistic and alternative medicine approach). These folks are really available to you – ready to answer questions and give you counsel on how to progress towards better health.
• iChange takes a really holistic approach. Many sites focus on weight loss, mood monitoring, nutritional diets, and so on – but very few talk a full-fledged and well-rounded approach. iChange offers nutritional/meals modeling, weight loss / exercise, fluids, calorie, mood, energy, sleep and stress monitoring.
• They offer a simple checklist that only has three items on it at a time that encourage you to take small steps towards increasing your health. As you finish a step you are given another task. You can bang these out or take your time.
• There is an incentive system – its minor (e.g. web-based “awards”) – but still pretty cool. We all like “earning” awards or achieving accomplishments (why else do so many people play farmville)?
• The community is proactive in reaching out. Within hours of registering I received a contact from another member (a SuperCharger) who asked how I was, introduced herself, let me know how she’d successfully used iChange, and generally provided encouragement to continue on. This is unlike other communities for health I’ve been involved in, where there isn’t that sort of proactive effort to reach out to new members.

You might think a site like this would cost something – many other health sites with more limited functionality do – or have a freemium model. But iChange is entirely free.

So, my advice – go register. Give it a try. It takes ten minutes to get yourself through the initial setup and its very intuitive. I think you’ll find it well worth your time.

In closing, I’d like to make a list of some enhancements I’d like to see in iChange. While these are enhancements that should be implemented – I’ll reiterate again that iChange is far ahead of any competitors I’ve seen thus far.

• The ability to monitor medication intake.
• Eventually, the site will need a profit model – they have a few links to Amazon associate products tucked away, but this really should be tightly integrated into the system.
• There is a nice row of boxes along the top with checkboxes that show you your progress in various areas, unfortunately they aren’t clickable!
• The iChange site is a bit slow sometimes. Need to ramp up the server power.
• Links in emails to attached documents take you to the main iChange page – not very helpful.
• When you download a document, its name is just a string of random letters and numbers, it’d be nice if the PDFs had names reflecting their purpose. Of course, I can rename them, but still…
• Create a Facebook app. – this will be a huge marketing item. It will provide individuals who view an iChange profile with a quick and convincing advertisement to use the program – e.g. when they see we’ve lost ten lbs using the service and so on.
• Eventually, it’d be pretty cool to see it allow us to “schedule” things we should be doing on a semi-regular basis – e.g. do we need to make an appointment with the dentist, doctor, or optomologist? I’d like to see this expanded to include more general task management – I used to use a service (whose name I can’t remember and has since closed) that reminded me of things I needed to do around the house and with my automobile – allowing me to take better care of my house and belonging – things like changing furnace filters, checking batteries in smoke alarms, and taking the car in for inspection/maintenance.
• I’ll add more as I think of them.

Related posts:

1. Zeo – I Want It! Image via Wikipedia Okay folks, I haven’t gotten my hands...
2. My Platform as a Service (PaaS) List. Some people are going to be up in arms over...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Google Gadgets Pornographic – Beware! Google Gadgets are “Gadgets powered by Google are miniature objects...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tonight I am sadly disappointed. I finally had a chance to read the Feb. 8 2010 issue with a promising cover story on antidepressants by Sharon Begley. I had expected, in common Newsweek fashion, to find an extended report on the overall story supplemented by articles from various perspectives – I was sadly mistaken. Begley’s article used recent controversial findings to smack around the efficiency of anti-depressants rather ferociously, then there was a small, one-page response from Robert Klitzman, a psychiatrist, author, and professor at Columbia University.

Jon Meacham, what happened here? Begley’s article highlights some interesting and thought-provoking research findings, but doesn’t seem to seriously consider the issues with the research findings. Klitzman’s article, while raising some important issues, is too short to offer a resource defense against Begley’s article. Klitzman’s use of personal, subjective experience is entirely worthwhile, but in an article this short it seems to overshadow the more scientific issues relating to researchers’ methodology in acquiring these results.

I haven’t had time to read the original research publications and probably won’t…nor am I a qualified mental health professional…but as an individual who has suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Major Depressive Episodes for all of my conscious life, I’d like to share a few observations:

• One must correlate not only the effectiveness of a single drug but the effectiveness of a class of drugs on the individual. For example, this study reflects that an individual in a clinical trial for say Prozac experiences only a 1% decrease in symptoms – similar or identical to a placebo effect. What the study does not correlate is how that same individual responds to different drugs used to treat the same disorder. For example – if this individual uses Zoloft, Paxil, etc. do they experience a more significant reduction in symptoms? One of the differences (for me) between Zoloft and Prozac is weight gain versus weight loss/stability. Future studies need to consider the effectiveness of a class of drugs in treatment of an individual versus an individual drug. Thus the question is, would any drug within this treatment class significantly reduce the symptoms of the sufferer? If so, this is a victory for “anti-depressants” in general. One cannot suggest that anti-depressants as a class are ineffective without considering their effectiveness as a class on the individual. Ineffectiveness in a case study of treatment of an individual with a single drug is not evidence that anti-depressants don’t work but that that specific anti-depressant doesn’t assist that individual.
• The lumping in of the varied forms of depression is a significant issue as well. There are significant differences between the forms and intensity of depression which is further complicated by coexisting disorders. Yes, situational depression (e.g. death of a friend or family member) is likely to resolve itself – but this is very different from the depression which simply sits upon a person like a funk – with no rhyme or reason. Dysthymic Depression has different implications than a sudden Major Depressive Episode.
• I’m not aware of anyone advocating that we pop anti-depressants like tic tacs and yet the article seems to indicate that these anti-depressants are being handed out to anyone who is experiencing a bit of grief. There is little disagreement, as far as I am aware, that medications are not a panacea for depression and that they should be utilized in moderation, in combination with other approaches, and for depression which appears to be ongoing and severely limiting rather than limited and minimal.
• Begley recommends psychotherapy as an effective alternative treatment, but that is a very general class – much more general than the anti-depressants mentioned. What sort of psychotherapy is being referred to? Psychoanalysis? Cognitive-Behavioral?

I would have liked to see someone like Peter Kramer who wrote the excellent book Against Depression write a response to Begley’s article (I think Klitzman is also fully capable of writing an article of such a nature given a more extended page count…I mention Kramer because he has written extensively on this subject). In the end, I simply want to suggest that Newsweek should be more careful in how they handle topics like this. It felt extremely one-sided and was not provided the depth or breadth I’ve come to expect from Newsweek.

The article raises good questions. We need to be considering the efficiency of our antidepressants. We need to be pushing for alternative treatments that don’t require the introduction of potentially harmful chemicals into our bodies. We need to smash any mentality that considers every blue mood an instance of depression and worthy of a few pills.

But where, oh where, where the articles talking about what sorts of psychotherapy are effective for treating depression? Where was the article even defining depression? Where were the articles talking about the efficiency of these same anti-depressants for other disorders – for example Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? Where were the articles on how to improve our system?

Update 2/06/10: I’d like to thank Peter Kramer for taking the time to comment on this article and would like to point everyone’s attention to the several articles he has written in response to Newsweek’s article and the underlying research used in the article

• Here is an article for Slate that Kramer wrote explaining Irving Kirsch’s understanding of tianeptine and why it isn’t the clear-cut evidence Kirsch suggests. Kramer has some fairly strong words for Newsweek, “To set aside the testimony of animal model research, brain enzyme research, the new work on neurogenesis, and on and on—this stance has the whiff about it of science denial. It is one that a major magazine should have showcased cautiously, if at all, and only after having done some serious homework.”
• Here is another article for Slate in which Kramer evaluates the results of the recent JAMA study and demonstrates significant concerns acknowledged by the U. Penn researchers themselves concerning the efficacy of drawing conclusions on minor depression from this study.
• Finally, Kramer responds to arguments that individual responses to placebos are significant by noting that the test groups in studies reflecting this result oftentimes include a number of test subjects who don’t have the disorder – thus the apparent efficiency of placebos.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Okay folks, I haven’t gotten my hands on this device yet but after reading Andy Oram’s post on it – I want it. The Zeo is a device that monitors how you are sleeping and then offers analysis of how you have been sleeping each night. I’d love to try this and see what it says about my sleep patterns. At $250 it isn’t an inexpensive device – but I’m adding it to the wish list.

In the future I expect us to see a lot more of these devices – and then the reduction of these devices into a single device. This increase in monitoring and analysis of our lives will allow us to significant improve our health and reduce healthcare costs by proactively resolving issues before they become major (imagine people with sleep apnea finding out about it before they get into a horrific car accident or a sudden change in brain wave patterns signaling a epileptic seizure triggering an automatic emergency response from a hospital).

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m still reading it – but its so good I just could wait till I finished. What makes it so amazing?

• Chapter a Day - The chapters are of the perfect length to be read in a single 10-15 minute period, making it easy to pace through the book at a chapter a day.
• Vibrant Imagery - Max has a beautiful gift with words and can weave together encouragement and visual truths in a way that few can. Some think of his books as fluffy – I don’t – I think they are are meditative.
• Intelligent - Max fills his books with numerous quotations – from Scripture, from history, from literature, from exprience that support and illustrate his points. His ability to pull from such a diverse collection of sources always make his books fascinating and enjoyable.
• Easy - Max isn’t writing for an academic elite but for all of us. His works aren’t stupid but neither are they dry and intellectual. He aims for our hearts as well as our minds.

If you struggle with anxiety or fear – from small daily troubles to gigantic, overwhelming panic attacks – take some time to grab this library from a look bookstore (Amazon: Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear) or library and pace yourself through it a chapter a day. You won’t be sorry!

Once you have, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it – what you liked, didn’t like, and what other books you are reading and recommend.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There have been rumors for some time of the impending release of the next-generation CatGenie and today I finally received an email from PetNovations indicating the release was at hand (units become available August 1st). I’m pretty excited about this new release and hoping to get my hands on one sooner than later (::cough:: if PetNovations is reading this, they could send one ::cough::). Anyways, I figured I’d just let everyone know what has me so psyched up about this new CatGenie:

• Auto-Sense Cleaning! Numerous self-cleaning litter boxes have had a sensor that allows them to detect when a cat has utilized the litter box and automatically launch a cleaning cycle a few minutes thereafter. This was one of the most significant features missing from the CatGenie and it has now been rectified. Further, Petnovations did a great job remembering to add a sleep cycle so that the CatGenie doesn’t run in the middle of the night.
• Double-Life Cleaning Cartridges. Previously the cleaning cartridges were fairly expensive and lasted only 30 days in my multi-cat household (around sixty cleanings). With the new CatGenie, cartridges will last 120 cleanings – quite the improvement!
• Better Software/Displays. They rewrote the software from the ground up, and being a techie this excites me just from the get-go. I love new software. But add to that better error handling (less annoying beeps reporting errors) and the display of actual error codes rather than using beep codes (beep beep beep = error 1, beep, beep, beep beep = error 2, etc.) – this is a significant upgrade.

I could go on, but instead I’ll let those who really have more interest read the original email from PetNovations:

“Dear Cat Lovers and Loyal CatGenie Owners,
Over the years, thousands of you have offered suggestions, insights, and feedback about your CatGenie.

You asked and we listened, evaluated, and acted. Thanks to you, we now introduce the CatGenie 120.
It has everything, and more, that you wished for. And while the CatGenie 120 may look the same on the
outside, on the inside it is a very different CatGenie. Here are some of the 120 benefits and features.

•   Greener, More Economical Cartridges
•   Economical, Eco Friendly Cat Activation
•   SaniSolution Level Indicator
•   Brand New, Smarter, Better Software
•   Save the Washable Granules
•   Easier Maintenance

Greener, More Economical 120 SaniSolution Cartridge
You asked and the Cartridge is now made with Biodegradable and Recyclable translucent material. And you’ll
now use 1/2 as many Cartridges. Because, with the reformulated, more concentrated SaniSolution, instead of 60
SaniSolution doses, the 120 Cartridge dispenses 120 washes. And when set on Cat Activation, it smartly adjusts
to 240 washing doses. Note: The 120 SaniSolution Cartridge won’t work in the original CatGenie and the 60
Cartridge can’t work in the CatGenie 120.

Economical, Eco Friendly Cat Activation
Your Wish: After the cat goes, have the CatGenie clean.  Our Challenge: To make it economical and earth
friendly. We designed new software that adjusts the SaniSolution dosage from 120 to 240 washes because in
Cat Activation your CatGenie could clean more often. Cat Activation has two modes, 14 hours on ready-to-
clean, and 10 in sleep, when it doesn’t clean. However, if it’s used while sleeping, it immediately cleans when it
wakes up. During its 14-hour work time, CatGenie is cat and earth friendly and also cost effective. After your
cat does his business, your CatGenie waits 10 minutes before cleaning. In a multi cat household, that gives the
next cat time to come in. It then resets and waits another 10 minutes, to allow another cat to use it. CatGenie
does this until every cat has done its business. And you still have Auto Start and Manual Start options.

SaniSolution Level Indicator
In the new Control Panel, LEDs show you how much SaniSolution remains in the Cartridge, so you’ll always
know when to order more. The LEDs also show the error number, so you don’t have to just count the beeps.
And the beeps are softer and have shorter warning times to keep cats calm and happy.

Brand New, Smarter, Better Software
Based on your feedback, we started with a clean slate and created all brand-new software. This more robust
software is designed to stop false errors and to self-correct an error before bothering you with beeps and blinks.
The smart software can learn your CatGenie habits, its usage, and then adjusts to your home environment. I.E.
water pressure and water flow variables.

Save the Washable Granules
CatGenie 120 has a new Brim & Base. Both have been reengineered to greatly reduce Granule loss. No more
Granules in the gears. Smoother operation. Some other improvements include direct access to the Water Sensor
so no need to remove Brim for cleaning. The GenieScrubber is now in all units. Keeps the Base bottom clean
and germ free.

Easier Maintenance
No more taking CatGenie apart for a deep cleaning. Instead slip in the Machine Maintenance Cartridge
(available 9- 09) and run it 4 times a year. Other specialty programmed Cartridges are in the works.

Genie Arm & Hand now have an unbreakable connection. The weak link has been eliminated. So the
GenieHand can do its job without a break. And the Hand has teeth to grab and hold the solids. A stronger motor
now powers the Turbo Hopper, which helps it perform even better; a sharper Hair Cutter eliminates hairballs
fast and easy; and the Impeller Shaft was modified to split hairs finer.

There are about 120 reasons to upgrade. These are just a sample.

On August 1, 2009, our first large shipment of CatGenie 120 models arrives to accommodate anyone who
wishes to upgrade to the 120. This gives you a chance to use up some SaniSolution 60-wash Cartridges and to
decide if you’d like to upgrade. See column at left for upgrade directions.

Since December 08, hundreds of CatGenie owners like you have tested the CatGenie 120. The consensus is
universal. The CatGenie 120 provides an even better experience. Comments include…  “It’s always clean… My
cats are happier… A cat that didn’t use the genie before, now is a convert… Love the 120 Cartridges… I would
pay full price for the 120… Now I don’t mind tossing an empty cartridge… set it and forget it… My 3 cats have
naturally learned to go one after each other so it runs less but is always clean…120 is the magic number, it’s
greater than great…”

With all these great improvements and new features, our Customer Service Experts could be like the Maytag
repairman. Thanks to you, our loyal customers, for your interest in and suggestions for the CatGenie. Hope that
you will all soon be 120 owners.

Gigi Reynolds,
VP, Customer Services and Operations PetNovations, Inc, USA.”

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I must first admit as I review Liv Natural’s drinks that I am not an objective observer. Igor St. Phard, Sales Manager for Liv-Natural is a friend, worship at the church I attend, and is a sometimes basketball opponent. He generously gave my brother-in-law (Chris) some of the Liv-Natural drinks when Chris was on a liquids only diet after being randomnly beaten in NYC. It was during this time that I received my first taste of these drinks. On the other hand, I don’t push products I don’t believe in – so I think you will still find this review helpful.

When I first heard about these “all-natural” drinks I had my doubts. My mom is a big fan of organic foods and I oftentimes rebelled against this because I didn’t enjoy the taste (e.g. bread made with honey instead of sugar). I’d had rice milk before and didn’t like it – so I thought that these all-natural rice drinks would probably be disgusting as well. But when Chris couldn’t finish all the drinks Igor gave him – I began trying them, and I was amazed. It actually tasted good.

It isn’t every day that we find things athat are both healthy for us and tasteful. Sadly, we oftentimes must choose between a healthy lifestyle and enjoy the food we eat. But with Liv-Natural this is not true. The juice tastes amazingly like your run-of-the-mill sports drinks, except perhaps better. It uses agave nectar which is amazingly tasty and a good replacement for fructose corn syrup.

Now, I admit, I’m no expert on the benefits or dangers of rice and agave nectar and whether these ingredients may have any dangers similar to the processed ingredients found in many of todays sports drinks – but I do know  that I’d rather drink a sports drink without that fructose corn syrup and other processed ingredients any day.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Against Depressionby Peter D. Kramer is an astonishing volume. It is not your standard work on a mental disorder – in fact, the title is both misleading and exactly on point. Against Depression is not so much about explaining and treating depression as it is a polemic literally against depression. Kramer effortlessly skips across a wide variety of knowledge clusters to formulate his argument, as comfortable delving into artistic exegesis of paintings to literary analysis of any of a variety of authors – modern and past, and then again into the depths of history and the cutting edge of scientific discovery – especially in the arena of the biological and physiological nature of depression.

Synopsis:

Kramer argues that (a) humanity has a bias against the curing of depression because (b) we are afraid that some positive traits/activity will be lost if the depressed are cured (e.g. moody, brooding literary and artistic works; a deep understanding of pain; alienation (against tyranny); hope for a better world) but that (c) the result of curing depression would be a fuller humanity, not a lesser one.

Literary Merit:

Kramer’s work is a piece of art. Kramer shows an almost infinite capability to string together diverse topics and observations to make cognizant arguments. He is as comfortable discussing literary and artistic analysis as philosophy, psychotherapy, and the latest cutting edge science relating to the biological and physiological nature of depression. There is the unfortunate fact that someone’s editor didn’t do the best job proof-reading in two or three chapters[1. The number of errors in these several chapters are almost stunning, especially in comparison to the rest of the volume. I am wondering if these chapters were inserted at the end and did not receive the same rigorous process as the rest of the book, though the chapters themselves are interspersed throughout the book, not appearing chronologically at the end.]. Besides this, Kramer’s writing is much more a philosophical work than anything else and it carries a philosopher’s tone. It is not the easy reading one has come to expect from lay-illness volumes – not only in its vocabulary but in the concepts it communicates and the time and space Kramer dedicates to these concepts. Still, the volume is extremely well-done and the task which Kramer has undertaken is a massive one, which we will discuss a little later, and as such one can lend little criticism against a volume that undertakes such as an impossible task.

Do We Fear The Cure?

Kramer is able to convincingly argue that we do fear a cure for depression. We believe that depression is part of our humanity – while it may not be in every person we cannot imagine some people without it. We wonder if by curing their depression we are in fact simply muting a portion of their personality, forcing everyone into a standard definition of humanity with little room for differentiation. Kramer reports repeatedly receiving the question, “What if prozac had been available to…?” (Nietzsche, van Gogh, Poe, Woolf). In other words, would we not lose the intellectual and artistic drive that this depression caused?[2. Neither Kramer, nor I in my agreement with him, believe that treatment can be pursued without any consideration for its effect on the personality. In fact, Kramer acknowledges that treatment can affect the personality - but suggests that this is because we have blunt treatments, not the fine surgical ones we need. His polemic indicates a desire to carefully advance the treatment of depression with consideration for the larger dangers of affecting personality. At the same time, he (and I, following after in his shadow) would suggest that depression itself is a disease and that the treatment of a disease with the right tools is the right thing, without question.]

But It Isn’t Honorable…

Kramer goes on to argue that we don’t give other diseases this distinction – we don’t suggest that individuals should keep their cancer or their heart disease. We don’t claim that there is something inherently valuable that adds to a person’s personality in the illness. Yes, there may be something that the individual learns, but this is not inherent in the illness itself. He suggests that we can ask the question if illness is every useful, but that this question cannot be posed to depression specifically, but must be posed across the board to all diseases. In other words, it is unfair to pick out one group of sufferers who we choose must suffer so that humanity can benefit from the lessons they learn, while all other sufferers are treated.

Kramer goes on to demonstrate from cutting edge research that depression does not advance a person’s abilities to think and create but rather dulls them and that the research indicates long-term, irreversible damage to the physiological structure of the brain is caused by depression.

A Better Future…

Kramer attempts to draw a picture of a future without depression and suggests that it would create a better humanity, not a shallower, more bland humanity. He suggests that the fullness of personality is restored in healing from depression, not caused by depression. That the characteristics we see in the depressed individual while sometimes admirable in and of themselves (e.g. unrest with the current life situation) are not valuable when they come from disease rather than a person’s own personality.

Conclusion…

A fascinating philosophical read that at its deepest asks what it means to be fully human and what role depression plays in encouraging or discouraging humanity, as well as evaluating our historical literary and artistic preference for works created by and about depressive themes to those of more brightness – and whether this indicates an inherent greater value in these works or a taint to humanity that we desire such.

Related posts:

1. Fearless (Max Lucado). Max Lucado is one of my favorite authors. Thankfully, there...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

On Medication & Side Effects:

I do not want to discount the real concern that there are potential side effects from consuming medications that interact with our minds. Unlike many of our other organs which we understand to a great degree, the brain still resides as a major mystery and our treatments for aberrations in this mysterious and fascinating organ are far more primitive than any of us would desire. On the other hand, I’d like to share a few observations in my personal battle in deciding to consume medications:

• The damage from mental aberrations is certain, the damage from medications is small (or unknown). Peter D. Kramer in his book Against Depression
  writes, “In the aged brain, strokes cause more injury than they do in the young brain, and so do infections, blood clots, inflammation, low blood sugar, seizures–you name it. Prior exposure to stress (and to stress hormones) is the critical factor in this age-related vulnerability. More stress in the past makes an animal more brittle in old age. Both neurons and their protectors, glial cells, are at risk.” “Much of the damage done by stress hormones is to the stress-response system itself. The brain is a complex communications network, one cell reaching out to another. In the face of stress hormones, neurons lose connective wiring. In particular, cells in the hippocampus shed receptors for incoming messages about stress. The hippocampal cells also lose dendrites, the branches that connect a neuron to neighboring cells and transmit outgoing messages. Like overwhelmed people who withdraw from social contact, overwhelmed neurons in the hippocampus become isolated.” (pg. 117) Point being, while there may be unknown long-term side-effects to taking a medication there is no doubt about the health effects of untreated aberrations on the human mind.
• We have a certain fear of losing ourselves through medication. We ask ourselves, “are we just druggies, in need of a fix to make ourselves feel good?” We ponder whether there is not some good side to our illness.[1. I don't want to tackle this question in too much depth, but let me briefly summarize my position. There are lessons that can be learned while undergoing a challenge of any form - physiological, mental, familiar, economic - but these lessons are pain that is utilized by God for good, they are not in themselves good. In the Scriptures we do not find Jesus (the incarnation of God) saying to those who asked for healing, "I'm sorry. Its better for you be ill. I won't heal you." No, we find him bringing hope and healing. There is more than enough pain in this world, more than enough challenges, lets not purposely embrace unnecessary challenges - lets heal where we can and depend on the grace of God throughout.] We fear that society would lose a certain portion of itself without those who mentally struggle. We ask what would have history been like if individuals like Martin Luther, Picasso, van Gogh, Kierkegaard, George Fox, and so many others of our great minds had not suffered?[2. Peter Kramer tackles this topic extensively in Against Depression
  , a book that while to all appearances on the disorder of depression has more to do with fighting the cultural value we have given depression (and can be extended logically to other disorders).] This is the question, but we are simply asking it the same way. One does not lose depth without disorder. When one removes the disorder one finds greater ability to tap and manage depth. The disorder disables the individuals, removing capacity to innovate, it does not add to it.
• Yet, there is still a concern about the medication. There is no doubt that medication can affect us in ways we do not expect – in fact covering over portions of what we consider our personality. Sometimes the side effects are the exact opposite (though only in a very small minority) of what is expected – instead of relieving depression or anxiety it increases it. This is why I suggest the involvement of a community in the process is essential. At the most basic one’s psychiatrist, but preferrably including friends and family. These individuals can objectively help you understand the effects of the medication on your daily behavior and assist in determining whether the medication is allowing the real you to shine out or masking it (the latter is marginal, but possible).
• We assume that medical illness is a choice we face in isolation, but it is not. While we assume that refusing treatment is solely our suffering we cannot underestimate the impact of our suffering on others. The lack of energy we feel translates into a lack of energy for friends and family. The sudden bouts of rage we battle flies out at the most uncomfortable times – at work, with our wives or children. Our illness is real and affects those around us. If our worldview is twisted, we impart this twisted worldview to those we interact with to some extent. We must recognize the extent of others suffering.
• We oftentimes assume that our suffering isn’t that bad. We are resilient people in many senses. Many of us operate on a decently functional level without medication. Especially as adults we learns methods of coping with our foibles. But there is a great difference between functionally nominally well and functioning to one’s true human potential.[3. When I speak to "true human potential" I do not mean the actual perfection of mankind. I do not want to embark on a theology lesson, but it is my firm belief that we are beyond hope in (via natural means) redeeming our broken selves (and thus in need of a more than natural (supernatural) escape). When I speak of "true human potential" I mean a level of functioning which we as broken humans can embrace. It is not the full escape, but it is better than. The individual with clotted heart may need stints, this will make life better - allowing him to act to his "full potential" as opposed to without stints. At the same time the individual still is not "whole" in the sense of having a perfect heart.] Some of us have been suffering for so long that we don’t know what it is like to be free. Even after a short while in the grip of a mental illness it feels natural, as if this is the way things should be. Yet I have experienced (and proudly bear witness to) becoming more myself (and it is the self I strove for but could not be) when accepting and receiving treatment.

What About Them Psychologists/Counselors?

There is a fear of psychologists/counselors that permeates many and especially amongst those who would consider themselves Evangelical Christians (of which I consider myself a constituent). The fears are not entirely unfounded. There have been individuals who have seen a counselor/psychologist who provided bad advice and have changed their lives for the worse because of this advice[4. Probably one of the most ready examples to Christians is recommendations to divorce a spouse.]. But I would suggest that we need not fear the psychologist (or counselor) but instead the uncritical thinking and lack of contextual support that allows illegitimate beliefs to grow. In my opinion, a counselor is an individual to dialogue with about our lives and whom we allow to speak honestly and openly with us about the issues they see in our lives.[5. With Larry Crabb (Soul Talk: The Language God Longs for Us to Speak), it would be my hope that eventually this sort of "soul care" could be performed by one another. Unfortunately, at this juncture, too often this help is not available and those around us (including ourselves) are not able/willing to enter into the required depth of dialogue.] When we give someone permission to explore our life and philosophy this does not mean we give them permission to determine our beliefs. We can and should critically evaluate each suggestion for its truthfulness. Additionally, I would suggest that counseling becomes much safer when one uses it as a primary means of exposing the difficulties in ones life but then also utilizes a secondary support system to give you context to the recommendations and issues raised. While many people are not prepared to provide the depth of inquiry and feedback that a counselor can, many of them are willing to discuss with you individual subjects which the psychologist raises. Thus the danger of psychology is not that there may be false beliefs but that we uncritically and without contextual relational support accept such beliefs. No individual has perfect knowledge, every encounter is a mixture of truth and error, this is true even for professionals. We must be willing to battle for truth on our turf, not simply accept the pronouncements of others. That said, having someone challenge our belief system can help us revise and strengthen our belief systems in ways that allow us to live better lives.[6. When I speak of better lives I mean in many ways - less painful, less stressful, etc. But to me the ultimate depiction of a better life is the ability to love and know God and one another despite circumstances. Everything else is frosting on the cake.]

Are We Willing to See Ourselves?

When it really comes down to it, my argument is not so much particularly for psychological medications and treatment – but for the willingness to explore ourselves, and not solely internally. You can sit down and talk with a psychiatrist and a psychologist without taking medication and without accepting their advice. But perhaps it is worthwhile to ask the question? To open ourselves to the possibility? To ask someone else, “Do you hurt this way every day? Do you feel this anxious? Do you have this much trouble sleeping?” So often we assume our suffering is normative, when it is anything but.

Please feel free to give me some feedback on this post. I know this post has been much more ideological than many others I have posted but I want to engage you in discussion about this. I am at much risk of mixing truth with error as any other fallible human being. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why God said after creating everything else “good” that “it is not good for man to be alone.”[7. In an ultimate theological sense, even the community of mankind is not enough. We can do better by working together, but we still find ourselves to fall short. Extra-natural inspiration and revelation is needed (I could just say "supernatural" but this word is beaten to death like a horse and connotes all sorts of wishy-washy sentamentalism that so many reject without considering the underlying import of the word. By changing words I am not changing the meaning but simply attempting to force us to process those things with which we have become so comfortable (or uncomfortable).)]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.