This is not a discussion of the various types of psychiatric medications and what each provides. Rather, this writing will confine itself with general issues and ideas about is the purpose of psychiatric medication and how does it basically work.
First, understand what is psychiatric medication. It is any medication which has the purpose of altering the emotional or psychological process. It is any medication which has the purpose of altering the neurobiology of the brain in such a way such that the brain can better produce positive or desired emotions or psychological outcomes.
Second, understand that in many cases psychiatric or neuroleptic (as it is also called) medication is often quite appropriate and necessary, and to understand why it is necessary.
All emotions, feelings, and other psychological processes are mediated through the brain. When you have a feeling or thought, a process has ocurred in the brain so that the feeling or thought becomes a reality for you.
Read on for a simple example of how this process works, and other thoughts/ideas....
While there are multiple causes of mental disorder, so called, in certain centers of the brain the electrical process occurrs as a result of chemical actions and we receive feelings of good, bad, happy, sad, angry, and the whole range of emotions. Typically the body will generate its own chemicals in order for this electrical process to occur. However there are times when the body does not generate its own chemistry adequately. This lack of capacity may result from genetic issues, from injury, from aging, from poor nutrition or from other conditions. When the brain does not produce its own chemical, those must be added externally through medication. Psychiatric medication, then, is simply adding chemicals which the brain does not produce.
When you have a feeling or thought, certain chemicals are released in certain centers in the brain. The electrical process is then triggered in the neurological system creating the experience we call emotions or thoughts. All emotions have to do with these processes in the brain. For most people, eating a reasonable diet along, proper exercise and rest, and a proper genetic basis, will allow the body to create all its own necessary and appropriate to chemicals in the brain that bring about emotions.
However, in some people and in some circumstances these typical processes need assistance by the use of medication.
These biological processes not only pertain to the “normal” emotional conditions, but they also pertain to what are considered to be disordered or the more serious conditions. For example, the belief is that the serious mental condition called schizophrenia is a condition where the brain does not produced and/or does not correctly mediate the chemical/electrical process in order to keep the person from experiencing the condition called schizophrenia.
Let me offer a very simple analogy of how this chemical/electrical process works, as when the schizophrenic “hears” voices (auditory hallucinations). Many of you are not old enough to recall the original phones that existed in the U.S. when phones first came out into usage. The phone had an ear piece or microphone (which hung on a hook) and then a mouth piece into which you talked. When the phone rang, you would take the ear piece off the hook, put to your ear, and speak into the mouth piece. When I wanted to call someone, I would dial their number, but instead of automatic switching equipment to route the call to the correct number, my call would ring into a central office where “Girdy” (or whatever the name was of the operator) would notice that I am ringing. “Girdy” would notice that my phone was ringing Girdy would plug her headset into the connection to my phone (she had a wall full of connections–one to each person’s house), and she would talk to me. I would telly Girdy to whom I wished to speak, she would connect a wire between my phone and that of the person to whom I wished to speak and make the ringer on the person’s phone to sound. But what would happen if I wanted to speak with Sally, but Girdy incorrectly connected me with Sam? Or what happens of Girdy does not hook me up to anyone, but leaves me to wonder why and to maybe worry or become distressed or to angry or fearful or...who knows what?!!
When the schizophrenic thinks he is hearing voices, what has happened is that “Girdy”
made the wrong connections. The brain has a thought that someone is talking, but the connection does not come from the brain, it comes from the ear. Girdy made the wrong connection so the schizophrenic thinks he “hears” a voice when none is there. Hence, an auditory hallucination. In somewhat more scientific terms, what occurs in the brain is the chemical process functions poorly or incorrectly so that the electrical process makes the wrong connections.
Now, if you will expand the “Girdy” example to a variety of other circumstances, it becomes easier to understand why psychiatric medication is useful.
Psychiatric medication is aimed at altering the faulty chemical process in the brain so that the electrical process proceeds correctly. Look here for a more correct scientific discussion of this chemical/electrical process. Another viewpoint is to state that medication functions similarly to food. What is food? When you get past the taste and the sensation and the chewing and the physiological pleasure (or pain), food is simply chemicals which provide the body with the needed ability to do what the body should biologically do. Psychiatric medication is simply a chemical (or several) which is directed at helping the brain do what it should do. The right kind of food and the body functions well. The wrong kind, or lack of the right kind, and the body functions poorly. The brain is no different.