>>12653059>What does /sci/ think about psychiatry?It depends. I'll give an example. If I asked everyone "what do you think about medicine?". Modern medicine, as I learned at university, is called "evidence-based medicine". Consequently, some things that most americans would say is not medicine is actually medicine, and something things that a minority of people would say is medicine is actually not medicine (such as homeopathy).
When you ask about psychiatry it is my view that you are asking about psychiatry in general, as opposed to evidence based psychiatry which uses the scientific method to establish the effectiveness of different talking therapies versus chemical therapies versus transcranial magnetic stimulation vs etc etc etc.
The part of psychiatry that falls outside of evidence based medicine I consider trash, such as hypnotherapy (which in the studies I have seen performs no better than placebo). The psychiatry (which falls within evidence based medicine) I consider legit; for example [anti-depressants] vs [antidepressants+cognitive behavioural therapy], where antidepressants+CBT is more effective than antidepressants alone.
>Is it ethical to lock people up and drug them against their will?It depends on the circumstances. People are generally only "locked up" or sectioned when they are a danger to themselves or to others.
I think people have a right to die by physician-assisted suicide. If someone wants to kill themselves, and they are not suffering from an evidence-based condition, then I think they should be allowed to have physician assisted suicide.
Say they are bipolar, and when they are not manic or depressed they state that they want to be sectioned (kept in a hospital) when they are suicidal. Is it ethical to allow them to suicide when they are suicidal? Arguably not. So it's not a clear cut case, and I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it. I'm mostly just typing up what I recall from my studies, and my own opinions.
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