Maite haugu, zorion
2006/04/01 Aristegi Urkia, Igor - Ikertzailea EHU Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Drugs of happiness
Huxley, with precise literary riddles, predicted the use of subsequent psychodrugs that began to be used in the 1950s. In fact, lack of happiness has been an important research topic for scientists, and today, in industrialized countries, pharmaceutical laboratories market a lot of active ingredients to solve our headaches. If we ask in the pharmacy, they will give us a list of names until boredom: fluoxetine, paroxetine, clomipramine, tradozone, desipramine, escitalopram, etc. Trade names, many others: Procac, Seroxat, Anafranil, Trazola, Norpramine, Meridian and more.
All these drugs, like soma, are often called happiness drugs, or rather antidepressants. As the name suggests, these medicines are used to treat depression. Due to the biochemical disorder of the brain, people suffering from depression are affected by the inability to cope with everyday tasks, insomnia and hypersomnia (more drowsiness), appetite disorders, nervousness, loss of sexual desire, lack of pleasure and difficulty concentrating. According to the DSM IV (canonical manual of mental illness), depression is an alteration of mood. Mental illness. These medicines, therefore, like other medicines, should be prescribed by the doctor after diagnosis. However, it is not always so.
Moderate
Man may desire many things passionately, wealth and fame, power and success, even his friend's wife, but, besides all, man wants to be happy. However, the paths of happiness are unimaginable and, despite the efforts made, there are sometimes everyday obstacles. So, without being sick, many people take antidepressants to feel a little more cheerful, thinking that will solve their frustrations and sorrows.
We cannot blame laboratories alone, but self-medication may be due to the fact that advertising has paid little attention to side effects. 30 years ago the drug was created that revolutionized the antidepressant market, with unbeatable efficiency and no damage, according to the vendors. This medicine soon conquered the hearts and heads of the sick and hypochondriacs. Your name: Process The active ingredient is fluoxetine hydrochloride, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It increases the level of brain serotonin, which gives some consumer satisfaction.
The product, which was first marketed in Belgium in 1987, appeared two years later in the United States, and later inventors extended their new discovery to everyone. The success of these decades has been such that Procac's influence has not been limited to health. It has become an icon of our time and, therefore, has had great prestige among bodybuilders, whose name has been continuously cited by narrators, singers, poets.
Over the years, the virtues of Procac have been, according to experts, efficacy and safety. The most common side effects are: abnormal dreams, ejaculation and vision, decreased sexual appetite, dizziness, anxiety, dry mouth, flu symptoms, winds, headache, impotence, insomnia, itching, lack of hunger, gut pain, nausea, nervousness, crying, sinusitis, drowsiness, sore throat, sweat, tremor, odors. And yet, although these conclusions are not disastrous, there have been numerous controversies around Probac.
Ten years ago a man who consumed that medicine committed suicide. The truth is that it is not a surprising fact knowing that he had depression, but it is serious that before doing so he killed 8 people and killed 12 injured. The Eli Lilly laboratory was tried in this case and, after a rather confusing process, the judges determined that the laboratory had no criminal responsibility. Since then, specific research has been conducted on whether antidepressants, in general, increase suicidal and aggressive trends, not reaching agreement among experts. Because the most sensitive recipients are young people, psychiatrists warn parents that just in case the antidepressant can generate abnormal behaviors in children and adolescents.
If so, knowing these suspicions about drugs, why use antidepressants without real need? In addition, the effect of the pills is not noticeable until the consumption of a few weeks. Unlike Huxley's soma, today's antidepressants have significant disadvantages and should not be used if there is no urgent need.
Positive psychology
Sometimes it seems that the contributions that science can make are rigging or medicine for health. But there are areas of research that, without generating material products, offer us favorable improvements to increase our well-being. These areas of work are mainly Humanities and Social Sciences. For example, Psychology, despite not acting with medicines, has made great scientific advances and helps us understand and heal the human mind. In addition, there are mental problems or weaknesses that do not need the psychiatrist's Procedure. Fear, shame, sadness, melancholy, dislove, who does not bear at some point such evils? Well, to cope with normal feelings there are means more suitable than medication, without side effects, one of them quite appropriate, based on current studies of Psychology: Positive psychology.
C.P. Martin Dr. Seligman is due to Positive Psychology, a new way of understanding mental health. Instead of affecting people's illnesses, this discipline takes into account healthy aspects: it investigates positive emotions, beneficial characteristics of nature. Traditional psychology aims to solve people's deficiencies and shortcomings, so it is more concerned to know the weaknesses (anxiety, depression, stress, etc. ). ), which are the topics to be addressed by psychologists according to the DSM-IV. The new psychology, rather than to overcome diseases, aims to propose ways to achieve joy. How to learn, enjoy, be generous, live optimistic... is what the new trend of Dr. Seligman seeks.
Therapy for healthy
For this expert, all we want is to stop suffering. Moreover, we want a pleasant life and an intelligent life. And although we often believe it, what brings us more well-being is not a physical pleasure, but a flow of enriching tasks through the implementation of our capabilities. That's what Seligman wants to see. In his opinion, Positive Psychology is a science that can help us achieve the best of life. Therapy for healthy people. Metaphorically speaking, since it is not enough to move from a state of less than five to zero, the goal is to rise from zero to five.
We have heard many times, especially since the rise of genetic research, that our identity is mostly innate, and that immutable rarity makes us happy or sad. However, Dr. Seligman denies this extreme thesis and in his book Authentic Happiness (2002) he states that optimistic attitude can be greatly learned.
To do this, the doctor has analyzed the adventures of the happiest people and wanted to know what makes people who live happy and happy: what values they have, how they live in everyday life, what customs they have, etc. In advance it could be thought that these individuals will be completely different from each other, since each has its own means to be happy, each seeks its reasoning to give meaning to life. It seems that reality is different. Happy human beings are very similar to each other.
According to the results of the study, moral relativity is not defensible. In addition to individuals, most cultures share the same opinion about the virtues to be preserved and about suitable customs. In addition, as Seligman says, research has actually shown happiness
that its implementation implies. But what are these virtues? Six are wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, mesura and transcendence.
To deepen its effects, Seligman has invested millions of dollars and created 50 research groups around the world, with a total of 150 researchers. In addition, it has opened four centers with clinical psychologists in Positive Psychology. Xabier Lete says in a song that happiness is a simple word invented by poets, who could not succeed. We are not going to talk about what poets can imagine here, but we can say that scientists at least try to make it accessible. On the one hand, they offer us drugs, such as Procac, that help a lot to solve the darkness of depression. On the other hand, for the more normal, so that they are not lost in the worsening of self-medication, Positive Psychology is a good option. Knowing the fruits of scientific research, we cannot say, like Lete, "happiness always of others".
