tom o'brien's List: psychiatry

• No longer do we seek to understand whole persons in their  social contexts -- rather we are there to  realign our patients' neurotransmitters. The problem  is that it is very difficult to have a relationship with  a neurotransmitter -- whatever its  configuration.
• ciphers in the guise of  being "helpers"
• There is  neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for  any major psychiatric disorder.

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• Soteria is a community service that provides a space for people experiencing mental distress or crisis. Based on a recovery model, common elements of the Soteria approach include primarily non-medical staffing; preserving resident's personal power, social networks, and communal responsibilities; finding meaning in the subjective experience of psychosis by "being with" clients; and no or minimal use of antipsychotic medication (with any medication taken from a position of choice and without coercion).^[1] Soteria houses are often seen as gentler alternatives to a psychiatric hospital system perceived as authoritarian, hostile or violent and based on routine use of psychiatric (particularly antipsychotic) drugs. Soteria houses are sometimes used as "early intervention" or "crisis resolution" services.