This is something I was thinking about that I never finished. It is an approach that uses single symptom data not published in psychiatric research (they use averages of effects on single symptoms in the data in published studies) and software to create a way to do a few important things like give the patient or victim of psychiatry what they want and make for better treatment recommendations after the treatment recommendations in clinical guidelines have failed.
I’m anti-psychiatry but using the pre existing research this approach works to help patients/victims of psychiatry who choose treatment and want the best application of the scientific method possible using the existing research to solve what is important to them as well as provide better treatment recommendations after treatment failure. (There’s other pieces on this blog that covers a range of topics related to being victims of psychiatry and especially victims of the labels of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. I see the schizophrenic type not the disease of schizophrenia – I think this is so important to recognise natural mental diversity and that’s why I use the term “the schizophrenic type” because I see natural mental diversity.)
It’s here for anyone to take forward. (I do not own my ideas. They are things that someone is going to think about and, of course, there’s the complexities of my multiple consciousnesses to factor in. Take this forward.)
This piece linked to below is about the potential of this approach.
I suggest you read this piece here then read the piece linked to above. This piece in this blog post I wrote a while ago and the piece linked to above I wrote more recently. It has more justifications for this approach as well as a few more thoughts I’ve had that I haven’t put into the piece you are reading.
(This piece was a draft I never published until now. The piece linked to above was written after this draft piece was written.)
Here’s as far as I got with writing a long explanation of the approach.
Better treatment recommendations using basic technology and collecting data from existing studies + a hope for those who face the terrible effects of failures of care
Summary
The first part of the idea is collecting data from researchers about single symptom data. The other aspect is a piece of software to use the data to create better treatment recommendations. I’ve tried to cover the approach and the core of this idea. Experts can take it further but it’s up to the government how far they want to go with this and what they decide to fund.
(I use brackets to add additional comments and information and thoughts. You can skip past the bracket portions of text but I feel that it communicates better to a wider audience to use this bracketing style. I’m trying to keep it simple as well explain some of the complexity. Other pieces on this blog will add more information.)
(I’m not a doctor or connected with the medical profession except as victim of immense brutalities justified as care. This idea has taken me 10-15 years to develop and in this time doctors might already be doing what I’m talking about. 10-15 years ago the clinical guidelines for schizophrenia didn’t work like these ideas presented here works. This is a different approach to what was being used 10-15 years ago to make the best treatment recommendations in clinical practice using the available science.) (The basis of these ideas actually comes from a victim of the label of schizophrenia telling me about the failures of care to end her hallucinations – this was the most important symptom to fix for her but it is impossible to recommend the best treatment by the use of the scientific method by doctors at the time.)
The main piece
I worry that others perceive that I don’t know anything about psychiatry or I’m limited in the amount of complexities I can understand. I admit I am somewhat of a cowboy in other areas but I have spent time trying to understand psychiatry and the mental health system and laws based on seeing mental illness. I understand them from a theoretical perspective as well as being victim of those who see mental illness.
So let me try to explain something important to patients, care and scientists.
To keep things simple I am limiting these ideas solely for victims of the label of schizophrenia and the science using the measure PANSS. It is possible to apply this idea to other diagnoses and measures but I would leave that up to medical expertise. The important thing is to recognise the objectives of the care and compassion you want. For example for things that matter to you and are important to you to be on the agenda of care and the use of science to affect clinical treatment recommendations. Another point is how the scientific method should be used. There’s also an important point about treatment failures and again these ideas could help with the terrible effects of treatment failures. You might not be labelled with schizophrenia but the ideas in this piece are about a few things you want from the medical profession and medical expertise and their use of the scientific method to assign treatment recommendations whatever your diagnosis or diagnoses are.
(This idea can be only for the victims of the label of schizophrenia. You should be able to see the worth in this idea and it should be applied to other diagnoses that uses measures similar in nature to PANSS. My limitations are that I have only considered the measurement PANSS but I hope this piece makes you understand the value of this approach so experts can take the idea further to use for other diagnoses.)
(It’s up to the government to fund this. The government represents individuals and the people in a democracy.)
* Here’s the ideas – collecting data and using software to make better treatment recommendations *
This is a summary of something I was working on as the monsters who call themselves the human race force me to live to keep on making me want to die.
The ideas are about better treatment recommendations using the available data in studies using measures such as PANSS. The two elements are collecting data from researchers about the single symptom data that’s not published and the use of quite basic technology – software – to try to make better treatment recommendations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_and_Negative_Syndrome_Scale
PANSS is a psychiatric measurement used in research on the victims of the label of schizophrenia (I talk about victims because I am victim of the torments that are happily inflicted on victims of psychiatry). It is a measurement that uses multiple single symptom measures that are averaged together to show the effects of treatments. Typically it’s the average of multiple single symptom measures that’s important to psychiatrists and is published in research studies and is used to create clinical guidelines that inform doctors of the best treatment recommendations – this approach I’m talking about is a different approach to this.)
(There’s a lot of finesse and nuances to these ideas. For example to limit the efforts necessary to collect single symptom data the data collection could be limited to the last hundred studies or research done in the last decade. I’m trying to make the points as simple as I can to make you understand the potential in these ideas to create better treatment recommendations.)
1) The first idea is to provide treatment recommendations based on a single most important thing to the patient.
I’ll try to give you an example of how this PANSS measurement works. Let’s say that there’s a measurement of cakes. The measurement is like PANSS. It averages together multiple single traits (symptoms).
A doctor chooses the best cake for you based on this measurement of the average of multiple single traits. This is how doctors use the scientific method to assign treatment recommendations in the way national clinical guidelines are designed to work for those labelled with schizophrenia (and other diagnoses).
Let’s say there are five single trait measures of cakes: sweetness, chocolatey quality, size (diameter), softness and roundness. All are measures scored on a 1-10 scale.
They choose the highest scoring cake for you based on averaging together multiple single traits and symptoms. Let’s say the best scoring cake scores 9 for sweetness and 10 for size, softness and roundness but 1 for chocolatey quality. It scores 40 out of 50 – the average score from these multiple single traits is 0.8. But let’s say that what is most important to you is the chocolatey quality of the cake. They’ll give you the wrong cake when they depend on the average of multiple single traits of cakes.
In the way psychiatrists use the PANSS measure they pick the highest scoring cake, the one that has the highest average score. This is how national clinical guidelines for schizophrenia use the scientific method to assign the best treatment recommendations using the available science. The way psychiatry works is to choose the highest scoring cake for you and if you don’t like it or you refuse it then they’ll force this cake down your throat. Then when this makes you suffer because they’re forcing things on you that you refuse (forced treatment) then they blame you for suffering and feeling suicidal and your defective brain for why you are suffering.
(Forced treatment causes suicidal suffering feelings and thoughts as well as non suicidal pain. There’s terrible truths about psychiatric and mental health care you are blind to. For example psychiatric hospitals are where they do force suicidal individuals to live to keep on making the victim want to die – I’m not alone in facing massive brutalities justified as care. If they cannot get from me by my consent then they’ll force me to live to keep on making me want to die to get it – this is beyond cruel brutalities. How can you see care in this?)
What you want is a chocolate cake and this is what is going to make you happy so they don’t need to force this cake down your throat. But the most important thing to you is lost in the average of multiple single traits.
The best thing to give you that is what is important to you is not by a measurement that averages together multiple traits of cakes. You want them to make a choice by factoring the one trait of cakes most important to you but this is not important to psychiatrists and their use of the scientific method and how research is used to create clinical guidelines.
(I’m sure that certain psychiatrists will argue that it’s not important what is important to the patient especially when the individual is a victim of the label of schizophrenia. It’s possible to use this idea to factor in what is important to the individual as well as the doctor – I’ll touch upon this later on.)
So to do the right thing it’s important to get the single symptom or trait measures but typically these are not reported in published psychiatric research studies.
The first part of the idea is to go back through the existing research (by contacting the researchers) to get the single symptom scores that aren’t usually published in research studies. By getting these single symptom scores then it’s possible to give treatment recommendations based on what is the most important thing to the individual. This data about the effect on single symptoms from many studies can all be collected together. In the example a lower scoring cake that has high chocolatey quality is the best thing for you. It’s the same with symptoms.
Efforts are necessary to collect all the data from researchers but this is not unreasonable efforts. Meta analysis can use published data from hundreds of studies and clinical guidelines involve a substantial review of studies – so it’s not an unreasonable amount of effort to achieve this idea. The idea requires collecting single symptom data from existing studies but once the single symptom data is collected together there’s so many possibilities to create better treatment recommendations – no doubt far more possibilities than I’ve thought about or stated here.
At the same time as the simplicity of data collection required to make better treatment recommendations the way doctors work requires that the information about the best treatment for a single symptom has to be easily used in clinical practice.
This information about the best treatment for the most important thing to the individual has to be easily and quickly accessed to be practically used in clinical practice. A function of clinical guidelines is for it to be easy and quick to use the recommendations in clinical practice. (The time doctors have with their patients is limited so clinical guidelines as they are currently used requires the information to be accessed quickly.)
Using paper or an electronic document (as is how clinical guidelines are currently used) to do this idea of the right treatment for the thing most important to the individual makes it practically impossible to use in clinical practice. It would take too much time if a paper or electronic document is used to disseminate the information about the best treatment recommendations for a single symptom.
This is where software helps. A piece of software can use the data collected from researchers about the single symptom scores to allow doctors to rapidly access the information about the best treatment. In fact even in terms of how doctors are currently using clinical guidelines to guide their treatment recommendations a piece of software allows them to quickly access the information about the best treatment (many diagnoses have a variety of treatment recommendations that are unlikely to all be remembered by human value and memory and it’s even harder for GPs who deal with so many diagnoses). Software makes it easy to recommend treatments based on the one most important thing to the individual – it makes it quick to get the information versus reading through a document.
You can imagine a search box or drop down menu for the diagnosis then a second search box or drop down menu to select the symptom that’s most important to the individual. This takes minutes to do so it is practically possible to use in clinical practice.
(Lots of data about single symptoms from multiple studies can be entered into a database or spreadsheet. This then makes it easy to use the information about single symptoms in clinical practice. Basic software technology makes this easy to use the information in clinical practice.)
There’s subtlety and nuances to this idea. For example the choice of the doctor might be to first use the recommendation of the best treatment based on using the averaged scores then if this isn’t suitable then the second treatment recommendation is based on the most important thing to the individual or vice versa. Once the single symptom data is collected there’s many possibilities. (This idea creates more possibilities for psychiatrists and their clinical treatment recommendations. But the possibility is giving what the patient what they most want and need to be fixed/solved/treated – the use of averaging together multiple single symptoms cannot do this. When the application of research to guide treatment recommendations uses averages of multiple single symptoms then doctors have to rely on trial and error to give their patients what they want.)
The simplicity of the idea is to get the data from existing research and design software to make it easy and practical to use quickly in clinical practice – this is the purpose of clinical guidelines to use the available science to allow quick decisions in clinical practice. It requires no new research and the main work apart from the software is to collect data from researchers.
The benefit is that the individual gets what they want. This benefit cannot be understated. What cannot be understood by using averages is how to care about what is important to the individual. As I’ve touched upon this is even more important for the victims of psychiatry because psychiatry and the mental health system and laws are coercive and tyrannical – doctors rule over the victims of psychiatry and time and again this has ruined lives and failed to achieve anything that resembles humane care. This idea embeds voluntary choices in care, clinical practice and treatment recommendations using the available science. Psychiatrists care about averages and there’s nothing inherently wrong with this but they’re not caring about what is important to the patient. This idea is one attempt to care about what is important to the individual.
This idea was borne of a victim of the label of schizophrenia talking to me about her treatment. She withdrew from engagement with care. There are reasons why patients stop engaging with care like previous failures of care and treatment. For her it’s the brutality of mental health professionals that’s why she didn’t want to engage with care. But she couldn’t bear her hallucinations so she engaged with care. Her doctor tried and failed to resolve her hallucinations and she told me this and that’s from where this idea is borne. The effect on hallucinations is one measure among many single symptom measures in PANSS and to give her the best treatment recommendation for hallucinations is impossible to get from the average of multiple single traits and symptoms – because psychiatrists aren’t using the scientific method properly. (Psychiatrists had the information contained in research to give her the solution/treatment recommendations that would solve what is important to her but they don’t think about what is important to the individual/patient/victim to guide their use of the scientific method like I’m talking about it being used. How can you see care in this?)
The core of this idea is something that is at the core of those who love democracy and the democratic method. This idea uses the available science to give the individual what is most important to them. This one of the things that is why I see the democratic method as beautiful but it’s ruined when it’s in the hands of the monsters who call themselves the human race. (The freedom to choose is fundamental to liberty so being able to choose one most important symptom to treat then being able to get the best treatment recommendation is something democratic in nature.)
There’s a movement that by any other name is called the user involvement movement. It’s individuals, patients and victims fighting for what is important. It’s such a tragedy that this movement has to exist because it’s a movement necessary to fight against a sense of care and compassion of tyrants. User involvement is in part a movement against the medical tyranny – when once it’s only what is important to doctors and other health professionals the user involvement movement fights for the powerless patients to have what’s important to the individual on the agenda of care. It is victims fighting against the prevailing sense of care to create a humane system of care. (All I’m doing in this idea is to harness the scientific method and technology for the goals and objectives of the user involvement movement. I’m trying to put the individual and what is important to the individual on the agenda of care and that’s never possible when using averages of multiple single symptoms.)
This idea I’ve summarised here is about one voluntary choice of the individual about the most important thing to the individual (to end her hallucinations) – this ideology is fundamental to any sense of care.
(The data collection is easy. The software is easy. It’s practical to use in clinical practice. The mass effect is priceless – this idea doesn’t just work in this country but in so many others. There’s so much finesse and sophistication to this idea beyond what I have comprehended but once the data is collected then others can deal with the challenges of the finesse and sophistication. Statistical analysis techniques, for example, will be involved but this finesse and sophistication is easy and not time consuming once the efforts to collect single symptom measures is done.)
(I criticise the use of averages but the use of single symptom data in this approach involves averaging together single symptom data from many studies.)
(I’ve not spoken here about the understanding of individuals labelled with schizophrenia as part of natural mental diversity – to be perfectly honest these ideas presented here pale in comparison to the care (and laws) yet to be achieved and is going to be created once natural mental diversity and mental suffering are no longer seen as mental illnesses. I see diversity and pain not mental illness but I have also spent time understanding what comes from seeing mental illness and the science of psychiatry.)
Now let me go further.
There’s horrific consequences of the failures of doctors to care and I don’t think the government truly comprehends this horrific beyond awfulness. This idea and the next idea is part of trying to conquer this problem of the failures of care and failed treatment recommendations. When you face the effects of the failures of care then I hope that these ideas give you hope that there are possibilities to give you the right solution, albeit what you really want is the right solution/treatment on the first attempt.
2) the best treatment recommendations for a specific presentation of multiple symptoms
(This second part is about understanding the scientific method and mathematics not software – but all of these things are tools to use for the objectives of the approach I talk about here.)
This second idea is more complex and time consuming. This idea fails in being easy for doctors to use in clinical practice for one reason: the amount of effort required to score multiple single symptoms in clinical practice.
On the other hand this second idea does as much as I can see is the possibility of the scientific method to assign the very best treatment to the specific presentation and diversity of presentation of multiple single symptoms. In my understanding of the scientific method this second idea is the best way to give the right treatment recommendation on the first attempt but it’s too time consuming to make it work in clinical practice for giving everyone the best treatment recommendation on the first attempt. (It’s quick to understand the thing most important to the individual but it’s not quick to score multiple symptoms and the severity of multiple symptoms.)
There’s so many possibilities from this second idea that all comes from using the data collected to make the first idea possible.
At its worst this second idea uses the same data from single symptom measures to combine both what is the most important thing to the individual as well as the doctor. From the data it’s quite simple to use the software to not only recommend treatments based on the one thing most important to the individual but add in the most important thing to solve of the doctor.
It’s possible to rank lists of the best treatments once the single symptom data is collected together. One list uses averages and each treatment would be ranked based on using averages of multiple single symptoms. Then there’s the list of treatments that works best for a single symptom and each treatment is ranked and there are many of these lists.
Two selections in the software are achievable from the same set of data used in the first idea to give the individual the most important thing to them. It can be factored in what is important to the individual as well as the doctor using the same data collected to make the first idea possible – the compromise is possible because software makes it easy to see what scores highly in terms of what is important to the individual as well as to the doctor. I imagine that the software would use the average measurements that psychiatrists care about to create a ranking of the best treatment recommendations based on averages as well as provide the best treatment recommendations for one single symptom so there’s a choice about averages in the ranking and the single symptom treatment recommendations are also ranked – both these rankings in the software can give the opportunity to combine the averages important to psychiatrists and the single symptom most important to the individual. This worst case implementation of the second idea is easy to use in clinical practice using software and the data collected to make the first idea possible.
Let’s say the best treatment based on averages only ranks 7th for a single symptom. Let’s say that the best treatment for a single symptom also ranks 7th in the list of best treatments that is based on averages. The third best treatment based on averages might be the third best treatment for a single symptom. This is very easy and quick to do using software to use these two rankings of treatments. So it’s practical to use in clinical practice. Once the single symptom data for the first idea is collected together then there’s many possibilities.
But at best? Treatment recommendations can be (using software) made by comprehending all the symptoms and extent/severity of symptoms. The most precise treatment recommendation for the individuality of multiple symptoms is only possible by scoring all of the symptoms then knowing which treatment works for the specific presentation of multiple single symptoms and software allows for this. This is in my understanding of the scientific method the best way to provide the best treatment using measurements such as PANSS.
In the cake analogy this second idea makes it possible to discriminate between a small, round chocolate tea cake and a big vanilla square cake – by using every single trait this is possible. This is about the precision of the scientific method that makes it so great in other endeavours than in psychiatry. (I see the scientific method ruined and corrupted and broken by how psychiatrists use the scientific method.)
(An intermediary solution is that the doctor and the patient agrees on the most important symptoms to treat rather than scoring each symptom and severity of symptoms. Once the data about single symptom effects for the first idea is collected together then there’s many possibilities – possibilities impossible when relying on averages. The software makes it easy to enter the select symptoms then calculate the best treatment from the single symptom data. A few symptoms can be selected without having to score multiple symptoms and severity of symptoms.)
This second idea is much about understanding diversity and individuality (of single symptoms and traits) to then offer better solutions.
Different treatments have different effects on different symptoms and different individuals. There are different presentations of multiple single symptoms. If this diversity of treatment effects and presentation of multiple single symptoms isn’t comprehended then the recommended best treatments in clinical guidelines will fail some patients.
(Doctors will argue that they’re trying to treat the cause not the symptoms. But in psychiatry they don’t know the cause so they’re treating symptoms. Their methods of diagnosis are flawed but so is their basis for understanding the causes of what they’re treating. I don’t think they know the causes of why suicidal individuals feel suicidal. For example they believe that pain is meant to be treated by pain killers not by preventing the brutalities that causes pain – I know this truth from extensive personal experience of a tormented (and I experience abuses worse than torment) soul endlessly tormented by choices and actions justified as care.)
The existing research already contains the information about the different effects of different treatments. The time it takes to score and measure single symptoms is the hard part. But software makes it easy to use all this information to use the scientific method to assign treatment that works best not just for one symptom but for many single symptoms.
In psychiatry it’s possible for two patients who are given the same diagnosis to have few symptoms in common. This diversity leads to a diversity in the presentation of multiple single symptoms. Also, treatments have different effects on different symptoms and traits. So it makes sense to me to use the scientific method to assign the best treatment as I’ve described here. The best application of the scientific method is to assign treatment recommendations based on specific presentations of single symptoms.
(There’s a big diversity of victims of the schizophrenia label. In the diversity labelled with schizophrenia spectrum disorders there’s those who experience hallucinations. Carl Jung considered victims of the schizophrenia label as having a more internally focused mind. I see victims like me who have minds and beings made of more than one singular consciousness. I also see victims of this label in terrible states of pain. The concept of schizophrenia has much in common with the label of madness. But there’s a massive amount of diversity all lumped together in the diagnosis of schizophrenia.)
Some treatments are better than others when considering the average of multiple single symptoms but other treatments are better for a specific presentation of multiple single symptoms.
A piece of software can take in the multiple single symptoms data then assign the best treatment for the specific diversity of the presentation of multiple symptoms. Once the single symptom data is collected then software makes this possibility of assigning treatment based on the specific presentation of multiple symptoms easy.
The challenge is the time and effort it takes to score multiple symptoms. What I mean is that it’s quick and easy to use a diagnosis (I’m ignoring the efforts to make a diagnosis) to recommend treatments based on how clinical guidelines are currently designed to be used. It requires more time and effort to measure the specific presentation of multiple symptoms to feed into the software.
It takes time to assess the individual to go through all the symptoms measured in measurements such as PANSS. This assessment takes a lot of effort and the time of doctors is expensive so it’s an expensive method of care. (The current way clinical guidelines are used is cheap, quick and easy in comparison.)
To solve the problem one way is to use cheaper labour than the value of doctors. It doesn’t require the level of learning in medical education and training to be able to score multiple symptoms. It requires less education and training to have the skills to measure single symptoms.
Those who have less education and training than doctors can do the work to score and measure multiple symptoms – less education, training and value than doctors means they are paid less but they are trained to be experts in measuring multiple single symptoms. It’s just like how nurses are paid less than doctors so I’m factoring in the economic limitations of care. Specialists trained to do the work to score multiple symptoms could make this second idea a practical, feasible (economic) reality.
(To conduct the pre existing research the researchers need to be trained to score multiple symptoms. No new education and training needs to be created to train specialists to score multiple single symptoms. The education and training that researchers get that is how they measure multiple single symptoms already exists.)
In addition I think this idea helps most those who have already been failed too much already by the care that exists. Treatment doesn’t always succeed and when it fails then doctors have to rely on trial and error. But this second idea provides a scientific way to recommend the best treatment for those who have been failed by previous treatments. Again, this second idea is a high cost solution compared to using averages of multiple single symptoms as their basis for treatment recommendations. But the personal cost of failures of care and of failed treatment I believe outweighs the financial cost of this approach (and this approach I see as having so many benefits and so much potential).
(For the victim of the label of schizophrenia that led me to begin this thought process to come up with this approach it is invaluable. It’s a terrible thing when it’s a choice between a rock and a hard place that defines the choice to engage with and accept care. Without this approach then she was failed and there are many others who are failed by the use of the scientific method by doctors to guide their treatment recommendations that existed 10-15 years ago. As I touched upon earlier, this approach and these ideas are about the objectives of care – the scientific method, mathematics and software are tools to harness to achieve the objectives. You don’t need to be a doctor to see how important are the objectives of care I touch upon in this piece.)
Of course I would want this precision of the scientific method in the second idea to be available for all. The right solution on the first attempt is the objective. In psychiatry I cannot see any other solution but the second idea to use the existing science and research to achieve the objective. Being blind to the underlying cause means that they have to rely on treating symptoms.
But ultimately it’s up to the government to achieve this precision of the scientific method to be available to all or as many as they want to. The economic costs are why this second idea is limited because it requires not only expertise of trained specialists but more time and effort to score multiple single symptoms.
These two ideas save more – that’s the benefits of these two ideas. In the first idea there’s what lovers of democracy do – to seek to put free will and voluntary choices on the agenda of care. In the second idea there’s what lovers of the scientific method do – to use the scientific method how it’s meant to used to create the precision in comprehending the individuality and diversity of single symptoms as well as comprehending the diversity of treatment effects on multiple single symptoms.
There’s a greater cost. The government makes the choice to fund this. It’s up to politicians.
But the personal cost of failures of care and of treatment is a far more unbearable cost. If this approach works then it can give genuine hope to the hopeless. When you yourself face the extremity of hopelessness and despair that is possible to feel – when you have empathy for mental pain such as hopelessness and despair – then you will recognise that the personal cost far far outweighs the financial cost of this approach.
(There’s rightfully the question that will this theory behind these ideas work in reality? There needs to be experiments done to answer this question. This approach can be tried out for victims of the label of schizophrenia and a few other diagnoses.)
(My understanding of the scientific method is grounded in true sciences like physics and chemistry not psychiatry. Averages of multiple symptoms and traits – if this is how physicists and chemists used the scientific method then the level of advancement of science today would be no better than in Roman times millennia ago. I might be overstating this but when you look at the periodic table of elements and all the scientific progess necessary to come up with the periodic table of elements if physicists and chemists relied on averages like psychiatrists do in their use of the scientific method then there would be no periodic table of elements. One function of the pursuit of science that leads to the understanding of all matter in this world (there’s over a hundred elements in the periodic table and combining them causes the existence of the tens of thousands of materials and substances in this world) is to understand the diversity of elements and that’s never possible by relying on averages of multiple traits of elements. The amazing power of the scientific method is to understand the diversity of tens of thousands of substances that react differently – but the scientific method (and technology and other things) is a tool to be harnessed to achieve objectives.)
(There are other possibilities. For example seeing symptoms that are lacking good treatments. This can lead to new targets for research.)
(As I mentioned earlier there’s finesse to this idea but I’m explaining the core of the ideas to make you see why this approach should be funded. There’s a lot of studies. An inclusion criteria limits the amount of effort to collect data. For example limiting to randomised controlled trials and recent studies reduces the amount of work done to collect the single symptom data. I think some might argue that this inclusion criteria is too restrictive – there’s no limitation to using more studies but the efforts to collect data are greater with a wider inclusion criteria. I imagine that there’s also a limitation in the types of measurements suitable for this technique to work – my focus in this discourse is on measurement PANSS.)
(This idea can work with the different diagnostic systems eg DSM and ICD. It can work around the world. It can work with the different ways of diagnosing schizophrenia in clinical practice. I limit the idea to schizophrenia because I have looked into this.)
(There are problems and challenges to this approach of course and of course I don’t know enough about the complexities to see the problems and challenges I cannot see. Some might see the challenges of the “apples and oranges” problem with meta analysis – the metaphor is the question about measurement and whether like is being compared with like when, for example, researchers use different methods and techniques to score multiple symptoms of PANSS. Or different measurements are used other than PANSS. I have not solved the apples and oranges problem but neither have doctors in how they use averages and meta analysis to guide the national clinical guidelines for diagnoses such as schizophrenia. The approach I’m talking about here fails in changing the apples and oranges problem as much as the application of the scientific method by psychiatrists currently fails. Certainly in terms of different measurements and what one doctor might believe is the best measurement the software makes it easy to select only one measurement used in research or to use the average of the different measurements that psychiatrists use in research – in the way the pre existing research is used to create national clinical guidelines doctors don’t have the choice about the treatment recommendations being based on their preference for the best measurement. This approach and software allows for many possibilities once the efforts to collect data from researchers about single symptom effects is collected together. I admit that this approach is founded upon what is important to the individual, the patient or the victim – I think this is the strength of this approach not the weakness.)
(There’s an emotional aspect to the value of this approach. Failures of care and treatment causes pain like hopelessness and despair. This is not innate to human nature to feel empathy for the victims of psychiatry – for mental pain. If this approach works then it gives genuine hope to the hopeless – when you know the terrible torments of despair and hopelessness because of failures to care then I hope you understand why you want this approach to be there for you. It is more expensive than what currently exists in the way they use scientific method to guide treatment recommendations in clinical practice. But on so many levels and in so many different ways this approach I’m talking about creates better care – I hope I have not failed to make this point as clearly as is in my power and ability.)
(British innovation can make these ideas a reality but there’s no profit in it. There’s altruism in these ideas from putting what’s important to the victims of psychiatry on the agenda of care to using the available science by applying the scientific method the best way to guide treatment recommendations that are ordinarily made by using averages of psychiatric measures such as PANSS. If this approach is successful then it can be used in other countries.)
A tormented soul and a journey of thinking a decade old - for the truth that neither care nor science exists whenever and wherever psychiatry exists. (I wasn't born to be normal and they have never stopped brutalising me because of this.) 