Blugh

So I went to bed feeling sick to my stomach and low and behold I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. Like the bad kind of sick where you really want to vomit because you know you'll feel a lot better afterwards, but you just can't make yourself do it. I also had a really bad headache, so I called in to work and took the day off cause I could barely move and didn't want to end up being sick there. Five hours of sleep later and I feel a lot better. Or at least mostly better. I still kinda feel like I'm going to be sick to my stomach.

I ordered my books for my fall classes today. Luckily my Personality Theory class uses the same book as the Abnormal Psych class at Rice, which I already have. So that saved at least $70 and the other books were available on Amazon used. This semester is going to be a lot cheaper than this summer was because I don't have any "HCC" specific books that are only available from the online bookstore.

On the topic of books, in the hunt for my textbooks I discovered a book called, Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Mental Illness, by a Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is pretty much arguing that psychotropic drugs are vastly over used and that the mental health industry has been hijacked by pharmaceutical companies. I have two complaints about this approach:

1) Anyone who knows anything about biology and biochemistry (or even understands a little) knows that chemical processes basically run the body. When a disease attacks the body the body responds chemically (if this is completely wrong, please correct me- I realize its rather simplistic). Similarly chemicals in the brain control to some degree how we feel. Therefore the brain works chemically and just like the body sometimes needs pharmaceuticals to help it maintain balance, the brain does too.
2) Genetically speaking, we are predisposed to certain imbalances and for genetic mental disorders there isn't necessarily the default, "correct" setting without the aid of medication to rewire the brain.

That said, I do agree that as a nation we are too reliant solely on medication to solve our health problems, without approaching them with a more holistic approach. Experience does shape how we think and feel and psychotherapy does help to rewire our brain so that things process correctly. That doesn't mean that we have to choose one method or another. Like any disease the best approaches attack it from multiple angles. While we shouldn't rely only on medication as a long term solution, it is an appropriate medium to make psychotherapy more efficient. And with some individuals medication will always be present because of the nature of the disorder. Overall I'm just frustrated that people who have had so much time to explore the brain can be so narrow in understanding how treatment should hybridize.