---
Title: Tweets on Psych Medication
Subtitle: >
Or: That time I went to town on Peter Leithart about psych medications.
Date: 2015-07-22 08:34
Tags: [tweetstorm]
...
Yesterday evening, I saw Peter Leithart ([\@PLeithart][leithart]) retweet this
from the [\@\_Theopolis][theo] account:
> Psych meds are a lobotomy in a bottle. -Rich Bledsoe
> [â](https://twitter.com/_Theopolis/status/623671327447248896) July 21, 2015 21:50
[leithart]: https://twitter.com/PLeithart
[theo]: https://twitter.com/_Theopolis
I responded, because I'm a theologically conservative Christian with a high view
of the value of spiritual work on our psyches, and therefore agree with much of
the *intent* of this critique---but also a Christian with a robust anthropology
(of the sort I would expect Leithart to have!) which undercuts *this* kind of
response.
Perhaps it is simply that I am more attuned to these things because my wife
deals with clinical depression, but in any case this kind of thinking is
*profoundly* destructive, and all-too common in the church.
My response:
> [\@\_Theopolis][theo] No. This is a horrifyingly misguided and indeed misanthropic way
> of stating what may be a useful critique. [\@PLeithart][leithart]
> [â](https://twitter.com/chriskrycho/status/623672572551561220) July 21, 2015 21:55
> [\@\_Theopolis][theo] It is one thing to say that we overmedicateâwe do. It is another
> to say that psych meds lobotomize usâthey do not. [\@PLeithart][leithart]
> [â](https://twitter.com/chriskrycho/status/623672684434599936) July 21, 2015 21:55
> [\@\_Theopolis][theo] To put it in these terms *at all* is to mistake at the most
> fundamental level our embodied, fallen, human nature. [\@PLeithart][leithart]
> [â](https://twitter.com/chriskrycho/status/623672770069680128) July 21, 2015 21:55
> [\@\_Theopolis][theo] We must say âNoâ to the captivity of self-medication *without*
> rejecting the gift of medicine for broken bodies. [\@PLeithart][leithart]
> [â](https://twitter.com/chriskrycho/status/623673129072762880) July 21, 2015 21:57
> [\@\_Theopolis][theo] And our bodies include our brains; we are not conveniently
> separable entities, with psyches untrammeled from flesh. [\@PLeithart][leithart]
> [â](https://twitter.com/chriskrycho/status/623673258840354816) July 21, 2015 21:57
> [\@\_Theopolis][theo] So by all means, proceed with a critique of cultural folly.
> But do so with pastoral sensitivity to damaged sheep. [\@PLeithart][leithart]
> [â](https://twitter.com/chriskrycho/status/623673467259518976) July 21, 2015 21:58