Any input would be appreciated.
You did say *any* input.
So you're going to get an earful. This is my synthesis of the information, and it's worth at least as much as you paid for it.
Warning, warning, long post ahead. Loooonnnnggg post ahead. Don't say you weren't warned.
First off, the chemistry of your brain isn't fixed. People like Dawson Church and Bruce Lipton are showing that the chemistry is dependent on the thoughts you think. Epigenetics. There are studies showing (sorry, no links, too lazy) that the brain is physically changed by meditation. And that the brain actively changes itself based on the thoughts you think. For example, if you think depressed thoughts, your brain enhances the region of the brain that thinks those thoughts, and prunes regions of the brain that you rarely use, like, say, those that think happy thoughts. The number I saw was that the number of neurons dedicated to a task can *double* in 24 hours.
Second, the response of your brain to stimuli is not fixed. Here's a quick and dirty overview of the brain. It is actually composed of three brains - the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and the primate brain.
The reptilian brain takes care of autonomous functions, and is also the source of fight, flight, or freeze response in response to stimuli. Anxiety is a result of spending time in this brain. It turns out that many 'threats' of modern life trigger this fight, flight, or freeze response.
The mammalian brain is the location of emotion, and the subconscious. The subconscious stores all our memories, and also uses emotion to create shortcuts for responses to everyday situations. Think of it as a giant look-up table. Red light? Foot off the gas, on the brake, etc.
The primate brain is the frontal cortex, and thus the seat of consciousness, of ego. Logical thought comes from here.
For the first roughly 7 years of life, the brain is in theta brainwaves predominantly. In other words, in hypnotic trance. As children, we are sponges, taking in all of our surroundings wholesale as a survival mechanism. And also putting in place all kinds of irrational traumas, because we have no filters. During adolescence many of the neural connections in our brain are pruned, and our brain shifts to beta brainwaves as its primary.
That's just all background, bare bones, and wrong and right too. The 50,000 foot picture.
What this has to do with you is that your symptom is probably not indicative of a malfunction of your brain hardware, but a malfunction of the software programming that your brain received while you were growing up. Your brain works perfectly, it's just running buggy software. So, if you correct the software, your symptom(s) will disappear.
I read the rest of this thread, and my sympathies are strongly with the arguments of just george. Psychology and psychiatry, in their present state, are primitive and ineffective.
I also agree that timeasylums raises a valid point; people have problems functioning, right here and now, what do we do about them? Throw them to the wolves?
My answer is that we teach them how to alter their brain chemistry, so they stop having their problem. That won't work for everybody, since there are people who truly have organic problems in their brains. Them, we let use drugs, and keep exploring. Genetics will eventually resolve this, probably sometime this century. Realistically, most people aren't going to be effective at self help. No inclination, no aptitude. The main thing though, is that our societal institutions shouldn't be sanctioning something as primitive and ineffective as the current state of the art as the *only* allowed method, and pretending it works. Is a person any better off if they're harmed by a sanctioned and authorized treatment than if they are harmed by an unsanctioned and unauthorized treatment? We're already experimenting on the population, let the experiment expand to include anyone who wants to participate. Yeah, there have to be safeguards, but that's detail.
Anyhow, what is this magic means for people to control their brain chemistry? The unconventional therapies that are so much more effective than conventional therapy. The group NICABM is encouraging the use of mindfulness as a therapy with some success. And that's fine. But I refer to the set of therapies listed below.
This is a list of resources that can be helpful if you want to change yourself. Most of them aren't conventional. That's because conventional or establishment therapeutic techniques in general aren't very effective (my opinion, in case there was a doubt). I recently saw a study where they had a 50% initial effectiveness rate, and thought it was OK. Huh?!?!! I think they've standardized the juice out of therapy in the name of science. I'm not interested here in satisfying regulatory board requirements, but in effectiveness. The trouble with establishment therapy, as I see it, is that they try to pretend that therapeutic interventions are like the hard sciences, like an engineering process. But each human is unique because her mental programming is unique. There is no human that has the exact same set of life experiences as another. So any psychological intervention will always have to have some art to it. The skill of the therapist matters, and the relationship of the therapist and patient. And this almost invalidates the concept of double blind studies. Is the person doing the intervention skilled? Are they the right person to be working with this client? It's like they are trying to write a mechanics shop manual for people. Sure, they do it with (mostly) the best intentions, but the result is still bad. Why do I write mostly? Because like any other union, they are trying to restrict competition for their own benefit. While cloaking their self interest in noble sounding reasons.
You can easily find such conventional therapeutic resources if that is your choice. So this is a list of alternative therapies. You are responsible for evaluating them, and deciding if they suit your needs. And you are responsible for what happens when you use them. If you don't want to be responsible, pay someone to take the responsibility. If you do go that route, and pay someone, make sure you are comfortable with him or her, that you feel a sense of trust when you are around him or her. Even the lowliest con artist can make you trust him or her, so you want to steer clear of anyone doing work on your mind that can't. This can make or break therapy. So let me stress again; if you use someone else for intervention, you need to feel comfortable with them, you need to trust them. Better no therapy than bad therapy. Bad therapy will aggravate your problems.
I call a therapy free if you can learn the basic technique without paying anything. Obviously, these people have to make a living, so they do sell materials to help you enhance your skills. Many of the people who sell self help materials will give you a grace period for you to try what you've bought, and if it isn't working for you, to return it for a full refund.
This list is not exhaustive. If you stumble across something that really turns your crank, and passes all your ripoff filters, and seems to be effective, use it.
Here's the list.
TFT, developed by Roger Callahan. rogercallahan.com Free. This is the grand-daddy of most energy techniques. People used this to then develop their own variation. Training materials are sold.
EFT, developed by Gary Craig. emofree.com Free. That's the official version, but he encouraged people to explore, and so you will find
many variations. When he took a hiatus in 2010 for health reasons, there were approximately 1 million people on his mailing list. So this is a fairly popular technique. You can find thousands of case studies on the web, of EFT being used for a huge variety of issues and interventions. Some of them can seem hard to believe, and yet they happened. This is free, easy to learn, easy to use, fast, forgiving, and beginners can expect to get around 50 to 70 per cent effectiveness. I've seen online polls of experienced practitioners that suggest they get effectiveness north of 95 per cent. The EFT Masters website is good. I think lots of practitioners I've listened to and watched are effective, as well, though I have favorites. Way too many great people to list them all. You'll have to decide for yourself who you like. EFT can be done over the phone or using skype, and there are practioners that don't charge if you don't get at least some change in your issue. Some will do mini interviews to see if you are good fit for himmer. There are free audios, tutorials, and videos. And there are paid audios, tutorials, videos, and seminars.
EMDR, developed by Francine Shapiro. emdr.com Not free. An energy technique developed by Francine to resolve her own trauma. Books and DVDs for sale.
TAT, developed by Tapas Fleming. tatlife.com Free. Another energy technique. There are paid materials available.
BSFF, developed by Larry Nims. besetfreefast.com Free. Another energy technique. There are paid materials available.
Timeline Therapy, developed by Tad James, based on NLP timelines. tadjames.com Not free. Tad James is also an NLP trainer. Sells audio recordings of his trainings, as do many NLP trainers.
Matrix Reimprinting, developed by Karl Dawson. matrixreimprinting.com Not free. Based on EFT and Timeline Therapy. Goes back to the past using visualization and resolves issues as they happen. Changes the meaning of experience.
Hypnosis, formally studied starting a few centuries ago, around since there have been people. Free and not free. Milton Erickson is one famous hypnotherapist. There are lots of effective practitioners. Works directly with the subconscious to resolve issues. A search will turn up many audios and videos for sale online. And probably some free ones as well. Lots and lots of books. You can probably go to any library and find a hypnosis book. Self hypnosis is effective, though hypnosis is usually performed by one person on another.
NLP, developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. richardbandler.com Not free. Succinctly, this is the assembly language of the brain. Very powerful, but requires significant investment to get good at it. Richard Bandler is acknowledged as the master in this field. Connirae Andreas is one of many other skilled practitioners and teachers who runs trainings. A cheap introduction to NLP is the books edited by Connirae, 'Frogs into Princes', 'Tranceformations', 'Reframing and the Transformation of Meaning', 'Change Your Mind and Keep the Change', 'Using Your Mind for a Change'. The nuts and bolts are contained in 'The Structure of Magic I & II' and 'Patterns in the Hypnotic Language of Milton H Erickson'. Seminars are costly, but are pretty much essential to really get good. Richard Bandler, among others, sells videos of trainings. Because of the direct nature of NLP, it is necessary to be concerned with ecology. In most of these other techniques, the subconscious is acting as gatekeeper, so they are naturally ecological.
Core Transformation, developed by Connirae Andreas. coretransformation.org Not free. A form of waking hypnosis that works with the subconscious to resolve issues. There is a very reasonably priced book called, what else, 'Core Transformation'. Audios and videos are for sale, as well as seminars.
PSTec, developed by Tim Phizackerly. pstec.org Free. An unconventional approach that in my opinion is based on NLP and EFT. Fast, easy to use, effective. This works, but I have some concerns about how ecological it is. It's the closest thing to not requiring anything on your part I've seen.
Sedona Method, developed by Lester Levenson. sedona.com Hale Dwoskin. releasetechnique.com Larry Crane. Not free. An emotional release technique. Sold as audios and videos, and there are books. Lester died in 1993, but there are still audio and video recordings of him available. Worth watching or listening to if you can find them.
The Work of Byron Katie, developed by Byron Katie. thework.com. Free. This is more than a therapy technique. This is a spiritual path that resolves psychological issues. Actually, that's true of most spiritual paths. ;-) The basic technique is free to learn. There are videos of her working with people one on one on her website, and also part of her book, 'Loving What Is' as well.
Long term, I suggest meditation, whatever that means to you. To me it means letting your mind tick over without following it. Observer. Mindful throughout the day.
And brainwave entrainment. Like meditation with training wheels. If you listen to this regularly, it will change your awareness. Really. And it feels wonderful to entrain. Really. If you've ever meditated in a room with someone powerful, someone who projects the kundalini, you'll recognize the entrainment experience.
I recommend that, for starters, you go to the pstec site, download the free zip file, listen to the instructions after you unzip it, and then run a click track on the incident that led to your episode and your diagnosis. Then look up the personal peace procedure, and use one of the techniques to do it.
Remember, you did say *any* input.
At least wiki.
(But it doesn't mesh with harmala. At all.) L-DOPA, on the other hand... 
)
