Hw 56

Part 1:

Since the people I'm interviewing (my mom and her friend) are therapists themselves and have taught therapy in graduate school, I made no effort to simplify my questions:
-What are some of the benefits of drugs over talk therapy?
-Under what circumstances is talk therapy most effective?
-Would the addition of talk therapy be helpful in a situation that calls for drug therapy? Vice-versa?

These were just some basic starting points, since they know much more about the topic than I do.

Part 2:

I first talked to my mother, who used to have a private practice and currently teaches family systems. She said, in essence:
The use of drug therapy vs talk therapy depends largely on how entrenched the behavior is. For more recent, situational depression and anxiety, medication is likely to be unnecessary; but in the case of a patient that has chronic, chemically based emotional issues drugs will be necessary to put them in an appropriate state to change their behavior. Drugs are essentially helpful as a jumpstart, they make people motivated to and capable of change when their state was otherwise intractable, but are ultimately incapable of actually changing them. She mentioned that a lot of people take drugs to sort of stabilize themselves for talk therapy, as otherwise they probably wouldn't be able to put in the work needed to change their situation; and that ultimately a combination of both is often what is most effective.

I then talked with her best friend, who is currently running a busy private practice, she said:
Drugs treat the chemical component most quickly. While talk therapy has been shown to alter chemical composition of the brain in a more long term way, it is not as quick. She also mentioned that talk therapy has the benefit of being a form of interaction in itself, just the act of talking to someone in itself can be helpful. The purpose of therapy is to get the patient to change their behavior in a way that would help them deal with or fix their emotional problems, and drugs on their own ultimately can't teach someone the new methods they might need. She also mentioned that because of this a patient may remain dependent on drugs for their entire life because they haven't actually addressed the cause of the problem.Overall, she agrees that a combination is best.

Part 3:

Overall, it seems like my thesis has been slightly altered by these interviews: I was originally going to argue talk therapy over medication, but now it seems like it might be best to advocate for a combo approach. I may still be able to argue that drugs on their own are not as effective as talk therapy on its own or a combination, however.

Part 4:

On a scale of 'definitely true' to 'definitely false': "I prefer for an unpleasant situation to be resolved as opposed to just going away." or something.