New Drug Helps to Dampen Bad Memories 255
wile_e_wonka writes to tell us Researchers at Harvard and the Montreal-based McGill University are working on a drug that would allow psychiatrists to dampen painful memories in their patients when combined with therapy. "They treated 19 accident or rape victims for ten days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of the traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some patients were given the drug, which is also used to treat amnesia, while others were given a placebo. A week later, they found that patients given the drug showed fewer signs of stress when recalling their trauma."
You don't look too happy... (Score:1, Insightful)
this just seems like a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not going to get very many good comments... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can it be used offensively? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eternal Sunshine (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:this just seems like a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great - More consciousness altering drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to say this, but you can't change the past.
Just these memories? Or all? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm always wary when I hear things like that. Drugs that change your mental framework. We don't know jack about the brain, to be blunt. LSD has been out for decades now and we still don't have a clue just how that stuff works. Yet we keep cranking out more pills for "mental" problems.
Why do I also have the feeling that this pill would only suppress the traumatic experience instead of making people deal with and resolve it? Is that the new medicine? Instead of curing, we treat. Which is incidentally also more profitable, because a cured person is just that, cured. Doesn't need more medication. Treatment, though, can take months, years, decades or however long you want. And for the whole time, he keeps swallowing tablets and gets his shots.
Re:You don't look too happy... (Score:3, Insightful)
When a trained medical professional prescribes a drug, you have to assume that the drug itself has been through a rigorous testing and approval process, that the medic is well-trained and completely aware of what they're doing, etc. (I know that's not always the case, but it's far more likely than in the self-medication scenario)
Basically, if you self-medicate, especially with alcohol or narcotics, you're far more likely to fuck up than if you take a prescribed drug.
Re:Expensive Escapism Aid (Score:3, Insightful)
"I don't see how a chemical that supresses feelings that need to be felt is going to be at all beneficial to a trauma victim"
Past a certain point, the feelings don't need to be felt - they're a barrier, not a character-builder. By reducing the associated stress, maybe the person is able to be less afraid look closer at what happened, and gain new insight?
We do it with mood-altering substances all the time, from "comfort food" to chocolate to booze, etc. All legal. Sugar has a tremedous impact on your mood - just look at any hyper kid on a sugar high - and yet I don't see people recommending we starve people because food can alter your moods.
I'd say lets do some more testing and see what happens.
PACIFY (Score:4, Insightful)
'I feel wonderful...'
'Do you still feel outraged when you think of our government controlling your life?'
'No, it really doesn't bother me that much.'
'What about this protest meeting you are organizing?'
'Oh, that. I know it should be important, but I really don't feel like going anymore. I think I'll stay home and plant some flowers.'
'Good, Mr. Jones, you may go now.'
Re:But at what cost to your soul? (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't. This is easily demonstrated by beating a coma victim to death. They won't perceive your actions, but they'll still die. If you really want to try the schroedinger's cat falling in a forest line of things, make a robot do the beating. The coma victim will in fact die without being measured.
It isn't. There are a variety of individuals with brain injuries that impede or destroy memory. They can still perceive you, and remarkably, they're often still able to function to a degree in the real world.
There's no such thing as a personal reality. Put down the Led Zeppelin, and if you're well educated in Philosophy, climb out of the barrel. You can make all the solipsisms you want, and yes, it's particularly difficult for me to convince you that I exist, when you can just claim that every sense by which you're detecting me is faulty.
That said, this isn't The Matrix, and you can be affected without being aware of it. As the old saying goes, the bullet you don't hear is the one that killed you.
This ... is a difficult point. On the one hand, yes, in many ways we are created and defined by our experiences. On the other hand, though, in many ways we aren't. Consider for example that thing that Ripley's Believe It or Not always does when they're out of material, where they find two twins who were seperated at birth, and point out how they wear the same kind of clothes and the same teeth are missing and their girlfriends both have the same weird deformities and whatever.
Are you removing part of who you are? Maybe. But, look, what about if you lose your fourth toe? You lost a little bit of who you are there, too, and you're a different person for it. Sure, it's a trivial tiny difference, but it is a difference. These things have a scale. I was changed as a person when I got my elbow injury. Not in a huge way, sure, but it's real. I stopped working out because the stress on my elbow is no longer safe. I used the scar to impress each of two different girls.
So, you remove a traumatic memory. Does that change a person? Sure. But, then, change isn't always a bad thing, and there's such a thing as changing back - or, at least, there may be now. Consider the case of someone coming back from a brief tour in war, with shell shock. They can't talk, they can't sleep, they scream every time there's a loud sound, and seeing a gun on TV leaves them crying for hours. Don't laugh; there are people who were wounded psychologically in just such a way.
Say you could remove those memories. Say that turns them back into (almost) who they were before the war. Is that a change? Yes. But maybe you might do better to think of it as a "change back." This drug is apparently thought of for trauma. Rarely is it the case that those changes caused by trauma are beneficial. I'm no psychologist, but can see the case for this maybe becoming an important tool in repairing serious psychological damage.
Of course not. People come back from trauma every day. That there are other ways, though, doesn't mean that this way isn't important. There are something like 30 ways to remove an ulcer. Half of them are in use today. One might expect there to be only one, but the human situation is complicated; sometimes you need to do it through the mouth, sometimes through the butt, sometimes with a remote control robot, sometimes by just opening the stomach.
Different situations need different solutions.
Oh, come on, mods... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not about forgetting (Score:1, Insightful)
Some of these arguments against this type of therapy are barely better than the puritanical arguments that lead to undertreatment of pain.
Re:You're not going to get very many good comments (Score:3, Insightful)
Me and my extended family combined have been through suicide, two rapes, abortion, divorce, infidelity, homelessness, and a slew of other things that many people face, but many do not. I don't consider myself unlucky or unfortunate. You're probably thinking I come from a wrecked family or live in a poor part of the country, but the opposite is true. I come from a very solid family. We are all good, successful people that have made poor bad decisions, had bad things happen unexpectedly, or a mixture of both. Many of the ordeals we've been through are terrible to imagine, deal with, and recover from. Drugs would have temporarily aided, but they wouldn't have provided a lifelong solution to dealing with the problems.
It's the decisive moments where you put the spurs on and kick your own ass through a problem that builds character, experience, and a willingness to push forward with life. Drugs are not a solution to navigating your way through the shit life throws at you. Your compass is the willingness to use hard work, patience, forgiveness and toughness to continue moving forward.
People that fall back or remain stagnant for long periods of time after a terrible experience do not have the power to move foward; drugs will not aid in gaining this force.
Re:Right... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
No one likes to say it, but often times rape victims should have known better.
Go out with the guy that other girls warn you about? Sure, why not. They must be jealous is all.
Walk down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood? Sure, what could possibly happen?
I am not saying these things are their fault; The sick fuck who did it deserves to have his balls chopped off for it. What I am saying is that, from a rational perspective, if you can learn from your previous mistakes you won't repeat them. This obviously doesn't apply to people just minding their own walking down the street, which is a smaller subset of overall rape victims.
Women; Learn how to defend yourselves. A knee to the groin will usually disuade the most aggresive attacker, and pepper spray is always a hit at the parties. You are in control in that confrontation; The attacker has just convinced you otherwise. Don't let him.
Drug Helps to Dampen Bad Memories (Score:3, Insightful)
hum, seems to me back in college I found this.. Oh Yeah it's called Pot!
Re:You're not going to get very many good comments (Score:3, Insightful)
As a person who has a wealth of traumatic experiences, I have to say that you couldn't be more wrong. I have experienced abuse, neglect, abandonment, extreme poverty and more abuse. I have also lived with depression for most of my life. I have attempted suicide, hurt myself, and lived long stretches where I was barely functional because of this illness.
I am sick of hearing that depression, or other mental illness, is somehow a character flaw. I am beyond tired of hearing that I, and others like me, need to "kick our own ass" and get up and get moving. I am sorry that you had such difficult experiences, but it is obvious that you do/did not suffer from anything like depression or PTSD because of them. Drugs have been a form of salvation for me, allowing me to live without the lingering effects of the awful things I experienced. I am able to function normally as a husband and father today because of drugs.
Before you go spouting off your Ayn Rand self-reliance, pull yourself up by your bootstraps BS, understand that the experiences of other might be different from your own. Count your blessings that you were able to survive without medication or other intervention, but refrain from judging those of us who are "weaker", and need the help.
Re:Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as someone who has worked the doors, messed around with lots of martial arts, and known some of the foremost self-defence experts in the world, that's complete shit. You have obviously never been in such a situation.
Never been in a rape situation? True. Never been in a situation where I needed to take someone out of a fight? False. It has been my experience that, unless some serious drugs are involved, a knee to the groin and some pepper spray usually disuade any male from doing pretty much anything for the next 10 or so minutes.
It is extremely difficult for a woman to fend off a serious attacker.
Only if she believes that.
Pepper spray is also next to useless. A better option is a spray can of WD40 at the eyes. I'm told that's very nasty, and effective.
Speaking as someone who's been hit with pepper spray, I don't buy it. Even those around the initial impact area experience breathing problems and have a hard time getting their eyes open.
I can't speak for WD40; But whatever works.