Colin Powell Lectures at Butler

As readers will remember, I posted the announcement of Colin Powell’s lecture at Butler University. Well, last night was the big night and it was apparently quite interesting. Here is how the Indianapolis Star covered the event:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had no plans to seek an office in the next presidential administration while speaking to a packed auditorium at Butler University today.

“But if any president — if he or she comes up to you — you have to think about it, you have to take it seriously,” he said. “But I am not currently seeking a position in any administration.”

The retired four-star general peppered with anecdotes an hour-long speech that touched on diversity, immigration policy and international diplomacy.

During a question-and-answer session with the audience he said the U.S. needs to pursue talks with Iran over that country’s disputed nuclear program.“We’re the strongest nation in the world — why should we be afraid to talk to them?” he said. “I think our policy is shortsighted.”Powell also said he endorsed an immigration policy that would protect America’s borders, regularize the some 12 million people who are here illegally and devise a plan to allow immigrant workers to enter the country “legally and with dignity.”

He lauded the increased openness and economic growth of China, and predicted the country would be the world’s largest economy in 20 years and an important U.S trading partner.

“Don’t expect them to become Jeffersonian democrats in our lifetime,” he said. “But the only thing they’ll be fighting us for is more shelf space at Wal-Mart.”

Powell also told the some 2,000 people gathered for the speech that U.S. leaders need to unify with other countries to address global warming, increase jobs for the poor and to fix the country’s troubled schools.

“I didn’t expect him to have such a sense of humor,” said 57-year-old Indianapolis resident Joyce L. Moore. “I also expected him to be more toward his party but he was more for humanity.”

Mental Health: Meds, Therapy, or Both?

In a story by the UPI, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, said consumers spent 17 billion dollars on Anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs.  Accounting for just over 13 percent of the 127 billion U.S. consumers spent on prescription drugs in 2005.

However, in another UPI story today;

In a speech at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Jason Robert of Arizona State University said that while understanding biology is crucial to the understanding of psychosis, “there is more to psychosis than mere biology.”

Robert said claims that genetics and neuroscience will revolutionize medicine and elaborate predictions about new diagnostic tools and new treatments are not being borne out “because they fail to grapple with the complexity of human beings — as brains, bodies, and, embedded in culture, steeped in history, and dynamically creating their own worlds. If we’re really going to have personalized medicine, we have to be focusing not just on the genome, but the person.”

Rather that having a caricature of culture in mind, “what’s really critically important is understanding cultures dynamically, as complex, historic, social and political structures that dramatically influence people’s lives.”

Ignoring all except biology may mean never having the capacity “to actually influence the well-being of the patient,” he said.

Mental health professionals have long known of their patients propensity to want an easy way out of their difficulties by just taking a pill to address their mental health needs.  However, while medication is a wonderful way to feel better and treat the biology of a disorder, almost no one recommends pharmacology alone in the treatment of mental health difficulties.

When I was in school, the prevailing thought about how one develops some of these biologically based disorders was some people are more than likely born with the predisposition to develop these disorders, BUT it was an individual’s life experiences that brought these predispositions out.  Of course, I’m not including things like adjustment disorders (where the environment, social and otherwise, are to blame) or Developmental Disabilities (which are entirely biologically based).

Medication does not address any of the underlying experiences leading to a disorder.  Nor does it help develop new coping mechanisms for situations affecting the disorder.  Americans need to see psychotherapy as they do physical, occupational, speech, and/or other therapies that work in conjunction with medicine.   For example, if one breaks their leg, they would see a physician to set the leg, then begin working with a physical therapist to teach them how to use the newly set leg now and in the future.  They would probably also address what may have happened in the past to cause the fracture.  If Americans used this same rationale with psychiatrists and mental health therapists, we would probably see dramatic “cure” rates for those afflicted with mental health issues.

However, because of stigma, time constraints, or whatever else, we see more people taking medications to feel better about what is going on in their life, which never really seems to change.  Conversely, we also see people who spend years in therapy never getting better either, because, for one reason or another, they don’t want to see a psychiatrist.  However, the people who, in my experience, seem to get better faster and go on to live well adjusted lives are those who employ the services of both professionals.