-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
A debate on mental sickness...
- Thread starter john2054
- Start date
I haven't heard mental illnesses referred to as "diseases" before either. I thought that language was reserved for something that is actually... well... communicable?
john2054
Member
I've not heard the term "mental sickeness" before. Perhaps I'm just young. Are you perhaps referring to the vast litany of mental illnesses? If so, just what, exactly, did you wish to debate. : Firstly in reply to this. I didn't say mental 'sickeness', but mental sickness. get your spelling right, please?
second :I haven't heard mental illnesses referred to as "diseases" before either. I thought that language was reserved for something that is actually... well... communicable?: Well if you look in the dictionary the etymology for sickness/illness/disease all comes from the same source. It is to do with a maladustment/ misnomer of the mind or body of different origins. And whilst i agree that this disease is not normally talked about in this way, i am not a normal person. on account of this condition. what's more given that i have paranoid schizophrenia/ acute+chronic psychosis, which is one of the more serious versions of the disease, it is not easy for me. If you want a good breakdown of the meanings and understandings of this disease/ i would strongly recommend Paris William's Rethinking Madness. A deep and persuasive study on a baffling condition at the best of times, okay?
John Robinson.
second :I haven't heard mental illnesses referred to as "diseases" before either. I thought that language was reserved for something that is actually... well... communicable?: Well if you look in the dictionary the etymology for sickness/illness/disease all comes from the same source. It is to do with a maladustment/ misnomer of the mind or body of different origins. And whilst i agree that this disease is not normally talked about in this way, i am not a normal person. on account of this condition. what's more given that i have paranoid schizophrenia/ acute+chronic psychosis, which is one of the more serious versions of the disease, it is not easy for me. If you want a good breakdown of the meanings and understandings of this disease/ i would strongly recommend Paris William's Rethinking Madness. A deep and persuasive study on a baffling condition at the best of times, okay?
John Robinson.
They can be an illness: Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, as is anxiety disorder. I believe that schizophrenia is also caused by a chemical imbalance. These are treated with medication.
Drolefille
PolyPanGeekGirl
A) Using the quote feature will help others understand your posts better
B) Complaining about spelling instead of addressing the point - that "mental sickness" is not common terminology at least in the US - isn't conducive to discussion.
C) You haven't answered what you want to debate re: Paranoid Schizophrenia
D) While recommended reading is good, it's also not conducive to a debate or discussion as we would, in theory, want to talk to you not go read a book.
Frank Bunneh
Member
What leads you to believe that you have one or multiple mental illnesses?
What exactly about mental illness would you like to debate? Treatment methodology? Medications? Lack of empathy amongst people without a mental illness or condition?
I myself have anxiety/social anxiety. And it is difficult, and not in the least bit fun. Mine stems mostly from an inability to deal with and handle stress in a healthy manner, which is due to a decade of horrible coping skills.
I myself have anxiety/social anxiety. And it is difficult, and not in the least bit fun. Mine stems mostly from an inability to deal with and handle stress in a healthy manner, which is due to a decade of horrible coping skills.
Sure. What would you like to discuss? And how much are you aware of the creation of the biomedical models via mostly the DSM 3 and that which motivate as well as clinical (even cognitive) neuroscience and neuroimaging studies as well as the fact that the "diseases" one is diagnosed with when it comes to mental health are, in their entirety, defined into existence. This is not to say that one suffering from depression or schizophrenia can just "snap out of it". That's nonsense. However, since the adoption of the biomedical, diagnostic model by psychiatry some 30 years ago, we have more evidence against this diagnostic model and then we do for it (not the increasingly discriminating factors, genes, neurophysiological dynamics, etc., that was hoped back when the DSM-III and the switch from psychodynamic psychiatry to biomedical, diagnostic psychiatry was made.
This isn't just wrong, but almost completely so at odds with neurophysiology and neural dynamics as to equate every brain as being depressed. The brain is a complex, dynamical system far from equilibrium. Were it not characterized by imbalance, we'd be less than robots.
There is no test for depression other than diagnoses based upon reported symptoms, no method by which we can test levels of the (sometimes supposed) relevant neurotransmitters, no "balance" in the brain at all, and most importantly whatever indirect measures we use to correlate levels of neurotransmitters or e.g., serotonergic pathways, there is nothing to indicate that depression doesn't cause rather than be cause by abnormal neural activity or abnormal levels of neurotransmitters.
Hey John,
I'd readily admit I'm a lay person when it comes to mental illness. However, my wife is a mental health care worked specializing in forensic case management. If you're after an informed perspective on something, I can ask her any questions, and relay answers?
I'd readily admit I'm a lay person when it comes to mental illness. However, my wife is a mental health care worked specializing in forensic case management. If you're after an informed perspective on something, I can ask her any questions, and relay answers?
Absolutely. And if desired I will provide any and all literature/studies/etc. wished for. As much as my field concerns the brain, I turned from my intended path to clinical psychology because of issues regarding mental illnesses that were quite personal (not just my personal stuff, but those of family's), so I am deeply concerned with this topic and more than happy to learn from a specialist such as your wife (indeed, I would be grateful!).
Last edited:
MD
qualiaphile
Agreed, but the general consensus is that chemical imbalance causes depression, even amongst medical professions who aren't psychiatrists.
I think it goes deeper than simply the physical, which is where most research and treatments lie. I don't know much about psychotherapy, but it is seen as adjunct therapy rather than something essential.
Meaning, grief and other more non physical aspects of consciousness are (what I suspect) a lot more involved in the causation of depression than simply chemical imbalance
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Please forgive the typo, John. It is a fairly rare occurrence in my posts. Kudos for spotting it.
Actually not even psychiatrists express this view in the literature anymore (ok, they do, but not in the way presented to the public). I wish, also, to add a caveat: yes mental illness as it is classified, categorized, and diagnosed is largely constructed from a switch from psychodynamic models to the biomedical model (motivated by such things as the view amongst medical doctors that psychiatrists were not doctors and relatedly a decline in medical students seeking careers as psychiatrists, the frustration of insurance companies being billed for sessions that were "medical" despite any medical diagnosis, etc.).
This does not mean the mental health issues are simply "in the mind" or that one can simply "snap out of it". Quite the contrary. Rather, diagnoses have no singular pathogenesis nor singular underlying pathology. This is to be expected quite apart from psychiatry given the paradigm switch from genetics to epigenetics and the realization that the nature/nurture dichotomy was inherently flawed. Models such as the biopsychosocial model of mental illness are far more supported by the evidence, and as there is no technology that can even test so-called "chemical imbalance" (hell, even in neuroimaging the idea of a base or resting state to which others may be compared is a discarded fantasy), this description is not only largely meaningless, but untestable.
Agreed.
Tell that all to my doctor.
I would if I could. I can, however, provide you with the extensive literature/studies/reviews that have so far failed to support the semi-scientific paradigm shift with the publication of the DSM-III.
My doctor gave me medication to help regulate my dopamine levels and my seratonin levels. Maybe my explanation was rather simplistic, since I am not a doctor, but it was somewhat accurate to what is going on. I know that what I said was not as complex as the disease really is, but I wasn't totally wrong, either. Going into specifics goes over most our heads, for those of us who never studied the human brain. Here is a link: What causes depression? - Harvard Health Publications
Your doctor neither knows these levels nor the effects of such meds on them.This is absolutely known by any and all clinical researchers. It is also known that multiple drugs, particularly ecstasy, work similarly to SSRIs and such in that they vastly increase serotonin levels. In fact, there have been multiple clinical trials inidicating the efficacy of special K (the street drug ketamine). There is no neuroimaging data that can support any DSM or ICD diagnoses (which are constructed to begin with), and indeed not only strong evidence that differential diagnoses of mental illnesses are completely wrong, but an utter lack of any evidence whatsoever supporting the bio-medical model.
This does not in any way mean that mental issues are neither serious nor some clinical construct without basis. Far from it. But the fact that drugs work isn't evidence of anything. Take MDMA, and you'll feel happier. Take an SSRI, you'll feel less happy but you won't crash.
It is extremely inaccurate, but that isn't your fault and it isn't ignorance or bias on your part. It is the result mainly of dynamics that produced the DSM-III, the relatively incredible efficacy of the introduction of anti-psychotics when the state hospitals were over-flowing with patients, and the well-intentioned push towards community based programs like half-way houses and group homes rather than state hospitals. Hence prisons have become the default mental health providers for the US, all for noble reasons that has resulted in tragedy.
Last edited: