Psychiatry Turns On to Drugs Psychiatry, a branch of medical science that tries to correct

Psychiatry Turns On to Drugs
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  Psychiatry, a branch of medical science that tries to correct mental
disorders is in the process of changing the way it treats its patients.
Previously, patients who had undergone psychoanalysis would relate their
past experiences so that the doctor could try and understand and treat the
particular mental disorder.  Today, with new technological advances in
measuring brain activity, psychiatry is hoping that drugs may also help in
psychotherapy (according to Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune, 5/10/87,
"Dialogue vs. Drugs").

  According to Dr. Herbert Pardes, the director of the National Institute of
Mental Health in the late '70s says, "This is a time of enormous research
excitement.  Almost weekly our laboratories are finding clues  to diseases,
like schizophrenia, that until now have proven difficult to understand."

  The new discoveries, put into practice, means that psychiatrists are
claiming to be able to help solve mental stress and depression through a
treatment of drug therapy.  Their theory holds that mental disorders which
result in symptoms of lack of energy, lack of sexual desire, etc., stem from
chemical deficiency.

  The Vedas also recognize the problem of mental stress and anxiety but it
recommends that the root problem is a lack of knowledge about the identity
of the living being.  When the living being forgets that he is part and
parcel of the Supreme Lord, he takes birth in this material universe and
tries hard to enjoy life without following the laws of God.

  The result is what psychiatrists could call schizophrenia, amnesia, manic-
depression and paranoia.  Schizophrenia because the living being is at heart
an eternal servant of God.  But due to his desire to forget God, being
affected by lust and envy, he acts as if haunted and possessed by ghosts.
Amnesia affects the soul's pure consciousness because one cannot remember
his eternal identity as servant of the Lord until he voluntarily agrees to
surrender all ambition for material gain.  Manic-depression is caused by the
temporary happiness of material acquisition such as the attainment of ones
material desires and the consequent loss of that which is enjoyable.
Paranoia is due to our false acceptance of an identity which is godless and
our desire to maintain and protect that identity.  Other phobias and manias
all have their root in our present lack of Krishna consciousness.

  Western experimental sciences are based on the theory that scientific
discoveries will ultimately lead to the treatment of all mankind's maladies.
This recent euphoria in the psychiatric field is due to another theory that
mental health is caused by a biological deficiency only rather than a lack
of God consciousness as suggested by Vedic philosophy.

  The announcement of scientific breakthrough after breakthrough suggest
that there is definite progress along the path of curing all types of
ailments.  Dr. Roy Menninger, president of the Menninger Foundation in
Topeka, Kansas, recalls when the Nazis forced many European analysts to seek
refuge in America, they bought with them a theory that suddenly made sense
out of all sorts of 'strange behavior'.  He says, "The unconscious mind, the
role of sexuality in personality formation, and other of Freud's ideas
seemed a key to unlocking lots of psychiatric puzzles.  To my generation,
that seemed tremendous."

  "As a treatment method, psychoanalysis was the only game in town" during
the first two decades after World War II notes Dr. Jerrold Maxmen, associate
professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and author of "The
New Psychiatrists".  "So we became intoxicated with its powers to solve
social problems and help us understand the arts."

  During the late '60s, when the first generation of mood-altering drugs
impressed psychiatrists, they thought it was time to close the doors of the
asylums and return patients to their communities.  Says Maxmen, "Once again,
it was a case of psychiatrists saying:  'We can do everything.'"  The result
of this experiment was that some big-city neighborhoods, like Chicago's
Uptown became neighborhood mental wards.  American Psychiatric Association's
medical director, Dr. Melvin Sabshin says, "There is no doubt about our
culpability.  The problem of the homeless came about partially because
psychiatry's over-optimism in the '60s coincided with the civil
libertarians' campaign to correct the iniquities of the state asylums.
Problem is, now there are lots of people out there living in the streets and
dying with their rights on."  Because of psychiatry's unfulfilled promises
to cure man's mental condition, by the end of the '70s the proportion of
medical graduates entering psychiatry had fallen from 10 to about 2 or 3
percent.

  Today, the new optimism over drug therapy is tempered with concern by Dr.
Menninger.  Where yesterday's analysts would try and consult at length about
a patients past psychological difficulties, today's psychological
prescription calls for a medical cure.  He therefore wonders, "My own fear
is that we're going to turn out a whole generation of psychiatrists who are
up to date on the lab sciences, but can't even talk to a human being."  Dr.
Maxmen's book, "The New Psychiatrists," echos the fact that his younger
colleagues are sometimes too quick to take out their prescription pads.  The
new trend is to fit all mental illness into a pharmacological model.

  This medical optimism is another feature of the illusory energy called
maya.  Even the psychiatrists, who are supposed to bring a patient to the
platform of mental normalcy, are also suffering from various degrees of
mental deficiencies caused by the modes of material nature.  The effect of
these modes of material nature is described by Shrila Prabhupada (Bg 3.33
Purport):

  Unless one is situated on the transcendental platform of Krishna
consciousness, he cannot get free from the influence of the modes of
material nature, as it is confirmed by the Lord in the Seventh Chapter
(7.14).  Therefore, even for the most highly educated person on the mundane
plane, it is impossible to get out of the entanglement of maya simply by
theoretical knowledge, or by separating the soul from the body.  There are
many so-called spiritualists who outwardly pose to be advanced in the
science, but inwardly or privately are completely under the particular modes
of nature which they are unable to surpass.  Academically, one may be very
learned, but because of his long association with material nature, he is in
bondage.  Krishna consciousness helps one to get out of the material
entanglement....

  As described here, men such as psychiatrists are undoubtedly very
academically learned on the mundane platform of scientific knowledge.  There
are even spiritually advanced yogis, swamis and religious men of all
descriptions who are also very advanced in mundane education.  But until one
comes to realize that he is an eternal servant of Lord Krishna, the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, and acts to please the Lord by the process of
devotional service, he cannot come out of the influence of the three modes
of material nature.  The attempt to deliver patients from mental suffering
without teaching them about their relationship with Krishna, is ultimately
artificial and cannot do any lasting good.

  The material modes of goodness, ignorance and passion influence the
activities of the conditioned souls who are none other than those souls who
have taken birth in this material world.  It is the attempt of the Hare
Krishna movement to take people of the world who are mostly infected by the
material mode of ignorance (characterized by excessive sleep, madness,
illusion and intoxication) and elevate them through the mode of passion
(characterized by the intense desire for sensual gratification), goodness
(characterized by the attachment to mundane morality and mundane
intellectualism), and up to the transcendental plane of direct association
with the Supreme Lord.  Only when one is in direct contact with the Lord
through loving devotional service, he transcends the effects of the ailments
caused by the three modes of nature which results in the mental disorders
aforementioned.

  The process of Krishna consciousness is summarized as engaging the
diseased person in the devotional service of the Lord under the direct
supervision of an expert spiritual master.  The spiritual master teaches the
student how to remember and worship the Lord 24 hours a day by the process
of dovetailing all of ones activities in Krishna consciousness.

  Krishna consciousness is not an artificial adjustment on the mind; rather
it is the original condition of the living entity whose consciousness, when
contaminated by material desires, becomes covered over with a false
identification with his material body.  Everyone, without exception, has an
eternal relationship with the Lord in the mode of service.  By the process
of Krishna consciousness, which is chanting the holy names of the Lord like:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama
Rama Hare Hare; the form, instructions, pastimes, associates, paraphernalia,
etc., of the Lord are gradually revealed to him in the heart by spiritual
realization.  It is said in the Vedic literature that the mind is just like
boat on the water that is tossed about by strong wind and waves without any
resting place.  However, when one focuses the mind on the lotus feet of
Krishna by engaging in devotional service, the mind becomes anchored and is
no longer able to be tossed about by the various forces of mental
speculation.

  Prabhupada showed directly how the process of Krishna consciousness worked
even amongst the hippies and bohemians of the '60s.  Practically they were
all infected with the modes of ignorance, but by the process of Krishna
consciousness, they began to make progress in spiritual life having
renounced the sinful habits of illicit sex life, taking intoxication, eating
animal flesh and gambling and thus were able to advance in Krishna
consciousness.

  When a person cannot find any meaning or enjoyment in life due to his
attachment to illusion by thinking himself as the material body, sometimes
he becomes addicted to taking intoxication in the form of drugs and alcohol
and therefore finds a little temporary relief from the stress and anxiety of
material life.  However the quick fix of prescription or illicit drugs
cannot do any lasting good for the welfare of the conditioned soul.  The
Vedic literature suggests that sober men should avoid any artificial means
of relief from mental anxieties and take directly to the real process of
devotional service to the Supreme Lord.  The process of taking drugs to
relieve temporarily one of mental anxiety is not the ultimate cure for the
problem of man's mental distresses, whereas purification of the mind of all
dirty things involves redirecting its energies toward its personal creator,
Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.