If I was going to research treatments then I would look for ones which cure mental illness

And in an ideal world I would first do no harm.

Schizophrenia is diagnosed by a cluster of symptoms. In a simplistic way I would measure treatments on their effectiveness and reducing the individual symptoms. In fact I would also research what patients want from treatment and ensure the reseaarch evidence allowed doctors to make those treatment decisions.

Let's take schizophrenia. Antipsychotics don't target all the symptoms. They don't regenerate lost brain matter or rectify the suppose brain deficits. The scary thing is they may not cease the delusions. There's no evidence to support medical decisions in this aspect. There's historically no attempt to find drugs which do this. The drugs were initially used because they sedated people without putting them to sleep. This is not treatment unless treatment is gagging a person who's in pain.

Depression has similar problems in that the research measures don't align with the cluster of symptoms used for clinical diagnosis. Again, they don't change the brain differences and while treatments may affect serotonin levels this may just help get people high. I'm all for that but the evidence in reviews which include unpublished data (which is usually negative) show the drugs don't work.

I'm not a psychiatrist though. I'm not interested in furthering their power. I'm not interest in their ways to manipulate research or misunderstand the human condition. I don't believe in pseudoscience either. And I'm a drunk.

My ideas must therefore be wrong and worthless. I'll find out soon enough. I applied to NICE and in my application I pointed out their evidence base on what the public and patients generally expect doesn't exist by which I mean the measures in trials of treatment bear little relation to what people expect of antipsychotics. Psychosis in lay terms means delusions and hallucinations. Treatment means the cessation of delusions and hallucinations...but the antipsychotic is in fact also know as the major tranquiliser.

I bet my bottom dollar that NICE will ignore the fact that they have no evidence base that, in lay people's terms and patient expectations, antipsychotics are antipsychotic. They probably don't even give a shit that if they bothered to reanalyse the studies they might find one of those shitty drugs which genuinely do reduce the delusions and hallucinations so patients who want this and doctors who care enough to seek this will have solutions which work. I could be wrong. I think this is the hook that will get them to do the important review of previous trials - a signifcant piece of work - so that they can offer patients what they want. I can bet they also fear that the significant effect size is based on the drug's chemical cosh ability. They may have to be honest to patients and the public if they find this to be true.

There is also the problem of a placebo controlled trial.

Why the fuck am I alone in trying to apply science to mental health? Why am I alone in pushing forth what people want?