| Chemotherapy is actually a general term which means treatment by medicamentation as opposed to other kind of treatments. I agree that nowadays it helps, and it can stabilize patients. I was just explaining that it's not a cure nor a panacea and sometimes, the adherence has worst outcomes if it's forced despite the negative effects it can create on patients.
The issue is that some effects of the medications are attributed wrongly to the illness by clinicians. But yes, on the patient side, there can be a lack of awareness of the dangerosity of their altered behavior. Although I'd tend to believe there is (at least partial) awareness of the altered cognition. The truth of the matter is that because the chemotherapy is too crude an attempt to control/tame the neuro-transmission, it can also affect mood and cognition in ways that make the treatment difficult to sustain for the patients or can lead to worse outcomes. My point is that before medicamenting people suffering of such ailments to oblivion, there needs to be more research being done. Then again, in acute manic or psychotic phases, taming the CNS and PNS is of course the priority. It's really a delicate balance. There are a lot of psychoactive substances other than drugs that clinicians neglect mentioning (tea, coffee etc) that can in some cases be triggers.
Also, it might sound a little too edgy (although it is part of some therapies) but properly conducted meditation (neutral observation at a distance of one's own thoughts, emotional state and sensations) can help.
The rationale being that people tend to identify with their thoughts but the brain can be naturally chatty. It can help to take some distance from it as if it was someone else (not depersonalization which is something else). |