By KRISTEN BUEHNER, Of The Globe Gazette
If you happened to be watching the "Today" show Friday, June 24, you may have witnessed — as I did — the interview by Matt Lauer of movie star Tom Cruise.
Cruise, who was promoting his latest movie, came out against the field of psychiatry and the prescription of medications for mental illness.
He was responding to a question by Lauer in reference to Cruise's recent criticism of actress Brooke Shields, who publically acknowledged taking the antidepressant Paxil for postpartum depression.
Cruise, a well-known member of the Church of Scientology, hotly declared there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and suggested anyone who believes otherwise, or who even believes in psychiatry, is uninformed, or "glib," as he called it. He said depression can be treated with vitamins and exercise.
I don't know about anyone else, but as someone who regularly covers mental health issues and has seen first-hand the benefits of modern psychiatric advances — including medications prescribed for mental illness — I was appalled.
The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill has condemned Cruise's remarks, which it says are false and only serve to perpetuate stigma about the nature of mental illness and its treatment.
"Mental illnesses involve biological brain disorders, no matter what Tom Cruise says," NAMI reported. "Medication and proper therapy often make a difference between life and death."
I called on Dr. Robert Powell, now retired, Mason City's first psychiatrist, who came here in 1956.
I remember him once sharing with me that there was a time when he did not believe in the use of medication to treat mental illness.
"I was having difficulty believing there was a place for anti-depressants," he said. "I didn't believe in the chemical imbalance theory. But I saw the effects of using medications, and today I'm a believer."
When he was being trained in the early 1950s, Iowa had four mental hospitals, each housing 1,500 to 1,600 patients, he said.
Along came Thorzine, a heavy tranquilizer, an antipsychotic medication, Powell said. It enabled the vast majority of people who were formerly institutionalized for mental illness to live among society by removing their hallucinations and delusional thinking.
Today's medications, many of which have been approved since Powell retired in 1991, have few, if any, side effects, he said. And they are enabling people to lead normal lives.
"If the medications work, they're correcting something," Dr. Powell told me. "There is some kind of an imbalance. I think it speaks for itself. I see no need to defend it."
source:
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2005/07/06/feature/doc42cb412a9e6b3179072404.txt 
Boos for Cruise (article) 
