Abstract
This pilot survey presents for the first-time naturopathic doctors’ (NDs) perspectives on mental health and psychiatric drugs. The survey only involved NDs practicing in North American jurisdictions (i.e., Arizona, Oregon, Washington State, and the Canadian province of British Columbia) that allow for psychiatric drug prescribing. Some 80 survey requests were e-mailed, and 21 respondents (about 26%) completed the survey. The results showed that NDs see many patients having mental health complaints and tend not to favor prescribing psychiatric drugs. The results also showed that most NDs believe that psychiatric drugs work by having psychoactive effects, that psychiatric drugs are not effective long-term treatments, that they are not safe and effective when prescribed to children, and that they are not safe for pregnant women. Most NDs also reported that psychotherapy and psychosocial treatments are effective by themselves and do not require the addition of psychiatric drugs to improve outcomes. With respect to understanding psychiatric disorders, most NDs did not subscribe to the notion of brain disorders and also felt psychiatric diagnoses to be ineffective. The overarching positive outcome from this very preliminary investigation is that with these added prescriptive privileges, most NDs have maintained their holistic, humane, and ecological orientation to understanding human suffering and health, which best exemplifies and differentiates naturopathic medicine from other forms of primary and specialized mental health care.
Published Version
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