The use of drugs to control symptoms of behavioral disorders became a primary strategy of psychiatric practice during the 1950s. Since then, therapy with psychoactive drugs has become by far the most common biomedical treatment. The use of psychoactive drugs has contributed both to a decline in the number of people hospitalized for behavioral disorders and to a significant reduction in the average duration of hospitalization. Now, hospitalization of the mentally ill is seldom measured in terms of years but is more often a matter of months or even weeks. Drugs are often so effective in controlling disruptive symptoms that many patients who might previously have required restraints or close observation in locked wards are now able to function reasonably effectively outside of a hospital setting. Even patients who still require hospitalization typically need less supervision than did their counterparts in the days before drugs were introduced. In other cases drug therapy has been successfully used to calm patients so that psychological therapies can be applied.
According to Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, professor of psychiatry at Harvard medical school, Cruise has done his research. Dr. Glenmullen agrees with Cruise’s statement that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance. He maintains that research has not positively proven that there are proven cases of chemical imbalances as widely publicized. Even though Dr. Glenmullen may agree with Cruise’s statement he takes a somewhat different approach with regard to the effectiveness of psychoactive drugs and takes a moderate position in the drug debate saying that psychoactive drugs do tend to help many people, but they are also over prescribed, they have side effects that people often aren’t told about, they have dangers that people often aren’t aware of (can make people suicidal), and he feels there are alternatives.
Dr. Stephen Sharfskin, president of the American Psychiatric Association disagrees with Dr. Glenmullen and feels that chemical imbalances do exist and maintains that psychoactive drugs actually save lives. In treating patients for over 30 years Dr. Sharfskin says that he has seen how useful psychoactive drugs are and if a person needs them, taking them is critical.
The four major categories of psychoactive drugs that are used to control or alleviate symptoms of behavioral disorders are antipsychotics, antidepressants, antimanics, and antianxiety drugs. The various widely used psychoactive drugs differ considerably in their effects: Some calm, some energize, and some provide an emotional lift. However, they all share one common feature. Generally speaking, all psychoactive drugs merely help to control or manage symptoms rather than cure the disorder. When people cease taking these medications, symptoms tend to recur.
Besides dramatically enhancing the ability of psychiatrists to treat severely disordered patients, biomedical drug therapy has stimulated an abundance of research, resulting in some important new hypotheses linking many behavioral disorders to neurochemical factors.
Most individuals are more familiar with antidepressants. While it has been widely believed that antidepressant drugs act to increase the activity of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin in certain areas of the brain, it is possible that their antidepressant effects may be related to increased sensitivity of the receptors for those two neurotransmitters. Hopefully, further research will clarify how and why the antidepressants are so effective. Perhaps Tom Cruise will research this further and enlighten us with some answers sometime in the near future.
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