Drugs to Assist Mental Illness:To Treat or Not toTreat

Modern drugs can cure and manage many of today's diseases, but are they more of a problem than a solution? In the novel One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest readers are forced to look at a system of medicine that was created to cure people of their disease, and make us second guess our methods after the main character, McMurphy loses his identity from treatment. After every commercial that advertises a new wonder drug there is a quick follow up listing of all the possible side effects, which can include heart attack, stroke, or even the more plain approach of saying death. If these drugs are such a miracle, then why are there so many people that still suffer from diseases? Is an attempt to cure someone be worth the risk? As a current psychology major I decided this essay would be a good time to check it out. Obviously this is a horribly broad subject, so I decided to research drugs that were used in mental institutions such as the Camarillo State Mental Hospital, and were mentioned in One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest.

Possibly the first drug ever created to cure the mentally ill was Chlorpromazine. Chlorpromazine is an incredibly strong depressant still commonly used to cure Schizophrenia, severe Manic-Depression, and severe behavioral problems in children. It is also used to treat nausea , vomiting, anxiety before surgery, chronic hiccups, acute intermittent Porphyria, and symptoms of Tetanus. It was, and still is widely accepted as a drug that may be used to return the mentally ill back into society. Obviously the plus side of this drug is phenomenal, and it almost seems too good to be true. Unfortunately, as with most things in life, it is. Firstly the drug says stop it immediately if you start twitching uncontrollably. That should be enough to give you a second thought about any sort of drug. Side effects also include heart failure, sudden death, or Pneumonia in older adults with Dementia-related conditions. Is the chance of heart failure, death, and pneumonia worth the chance of curing a mental illness?


Obviously Chlorpromazine was only one of the original cures in battling mental illness, so there are many more modern drugs. Antidepressants as a whole are being used more and more in modern psychology, so I felt they would be appropriate to add to this list. Before I get started on the subject of antidepressants I feel I should point out the fact that before any resource I read said anything about the drugs they stated antidepressants are not a cure, and sometimes the side effects can be worse than the benefits. From the very beginning I could tell this was not going to be pretty. Firstly, nobody really knows with absolute certainty what causes depression. Many scientists have a very strong idea, but the actual cause of depression is yet to be proven despite what the antidepressant commercials want you to believe. Drug companies seem to enjoy sugar coating things, because there is no solid number as to how many people are actually cured by antidepressants. Every source has different numbers, but the average seems to be around half the people that take up to two different antidepressant drugs end up symptom free.

Seems like pretty decent results right? I thought so too until I read the downsides of these drugs. Many who take the drugs and become cured slip right back into depression immediately after being taken off of them. Unless you have severe depression, most doctors suggest exercise, or self-help strategies since they seem to be more effective than the drugs. Side effects tend to be quite common, and many of them are significant enough for people to come off the drugs once they notice them. There are so many different types of antidepressants that it is virtually impossible for me to list them all, but the most common side effects include sexual problems, drowsiness, sleep difficulties, nausea, fatigue, weight gain, nervousness, dry mouth, and blurred vision. The risk of suicide also highly increases. With only around a fifty percent success rate is it worth taking an antidepressant that increases your risk of suicide?


Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately depending on your opinion on the subject, drugs are not
the only means of curing patients of illnesses. Our hero McMurphy was a tough dude. Drugs obviously could not even phase our hero. Instead he was dehumanized by more dramatic means, so lets talk about one of the more severe and dark subjects. In One flew over the Cookoo's Nest all of the patients feared the electro shock therapy, or more specifically Electroconvlusive Therapy, or ECT for short. ECT in modern day is used only as a last resort to cure severe Major Depression, Schizophrenia, Mania, and Catatonia which has not reacted to any other means of treatment. Most modern countries highly frown upon the treatment and discourage it if at all possible, but a few other countries such as India still use it more freely. Essentially they electroshock someones brain with the same power as a cellphone battery can produce in varying ways depending on what it is they are trying to cure, and force their body into electrically induced seizures for therapeutic results. Sixty to seventy percent of people given ECT are at least temporarily cured, though many people relapse over time.
Contrary to what the media wants you to believe, people who receive ECT treatments are very rarely forced. Many volunteer because they believe the side effects to be worth curing their depression. As many as one million people in the US receive ECT treatments every year. Many of these people have stated that the ECT has been given a bad name by the media, and it is actually very safe. Due to the fact that many states do not require mental hospitals to report anything about the patients who have been forced into ECT, there is no solid number as to how many people are given ECT against their will. Every source I found via website or otherwise simply said that very few people are ever forced into receiving treatment. Most of these people were diagnosed with severe depression and needed treatment so as to avoid being a danger to themselves or others.


Before we go into the side effects I need to make it very clear that ECT is usually voluntary, and only forced once all other options have been exhausted. It is a last resort to save someones life. Somewhere between thirty-five and forty percent of people given ECT suffer from a significant loss of intelligence, and virtually everyone given treatment suffer from various forms of amnesia. It seems that in a desperate attempt to cure mental illness they very well may be causing more or worse problems. Even as a last resort I personally believe amnesia is a very high price to pay to be “cured.”

Lastly we get to talk about what really destroyed our hero McMurphy. Lobotomies were originally developed as a way to tame dogs, and became widely accepted. As time went on Psychologists then tested on chimps as a means of making them better behaved, and eventually moved on to using them on humans. By removing the frontal lobe of the brain it was believed that an unruly person could cured and become a fully functional member of society without suffering from a loss of memory. Unfortunately slicing open someones head to remove a part of their brain proved too tedious, and left scars. A new method was developed where they essentially took an ice pick and shoved it into the lower part of someones eye, and swished around to disconnect the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain. This surgery became so easy it became performed alarmingly frequently.

Tens of thousands of people were given lobotomies before real research could be done. People who underwent the procedure frequently came out like zombies, unable to show any emotion of joy, sadness or enthusiasm. Around the year 1950 people realized one out of three people given lobotomies were actually cured, which turns out to be the same number of people who would get better on their own without the procedure. Many countries completely banned the procedure after all the research had been done. In the United States it eventually became “experimental” and is still carried on today, just on a much smaller scale.

While I was researching lobotomies I came across a curious number which I stated above. One out of three people get better on their own? Is that a real number? What is the range of diseases that cure themselves, and how often does it occur across the board? Unfortunately, after hours of research I came up empty handed as far as the specifics, but the number itself proved true. One out of three people with mental illnesses get better on their own. On this note I decided to delve further into the subject. What can cause someone to be cured of a mental illness without taking any medication? Many sources had countless different “cures,” but the
most common of which included exercise, being outdoors, and eating right. All of which can stimulate the body and mind allowing chemical imbalances and deficiencies to fix themselves. The best part is there are no side effects to eating right and exercise. Unfortunately this does not cure everything, and in many cases it just alleviates symptoms. However since proper diet and exercise is overall good for your health, I believe it should be a starting point for any treatment.

Everything comes at a cost. No matter what drug is taken, or what method is used to assist with a mental illness there are risks involved. Unfortunately, sometimes people have no choice. As much as I would love to say drugs should be avoided at all costs, in the year 2004 suicide ranked as the 11^th highest cause of death in the US. As a last resort I believe drugs should be used to save lives, but if there is any way to pull through without them I believe they should be avoided.

Drugs do not always cure diseases, nor do they even always help. Sometimes they make the very thing you are trying to cure worse, cause new problems, or cause death. I can not speak for everyone who has taken drugs and been cured, but I personally do not find them worth the risk.

Reference Page

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