The Myth of Mental Illness

[Iwannaplato]

Not a bad set of proposals for a Philosophy Forum. OTOH, of little practical value for patients and practitioners.

You seem to be assuming here and below in this utterly uncharitable response of yours, that I have no on the ground experience. I do and in a number of different roles as a professional and lay person.

Firstly, folks who have the resources or the luxe insurance policies to see mental health professionals most commonly are in therapy, with or without medications. [/quote]There's a very large population of middle and upper class people who primarily get medication after an interview session with occasional follow ups.

Your comments apply to the vast majority of people who have scanty or no mental health coverage and can't afford to pay out of pocket to see a MH provider long term.

They apply to anyone who is pathologized for their emotions, by laypeople and professionals alike. We are swimming in the paradigm created by not well supported ideas and very poorly supported applications schemas. And the pharmaceutical companies use their incredible advertising funds and revolving door relationship with oversight and campaign contributions to maintain that paradigm's seeming scientific gloss.

They are left with a primary care provider who is not compensated for and isn't prepared to provide therapy. Their options are: advising patients that their problem is a natural reaction to an abnormal life situation so change your life situation (your advice) or write for meds.

False dilemma and strawman. One, I never said anything about banning psychotropics. Two, one can frame the situation differently and in collaboration with the client, decide on a plan. It's the framing I am primarily aiming at and how this is passed on and assumed by both professionals and laypeople alike.

Just so you know the average patient hearing the former is going to walk out of the appointment grumbling "that a55hole said it's all in my head and didn't help me, what a jerk".

Implict strawman and ironic in the extreme. I don't know if you are insulting the hallucinated professional the client or both. First of all the current emotional problems are based on chemical imbalances in your head paradigm is, well, it's all in your head. I honestly can't believe that when you decide to have an uncharitable read/implicit strawman, you make one that includes precisely the opposite message. That the issues for many people are in fact there because of the social/political/economic/paradigmatic situations that people are in. And, of course, I would suggest it be worded differently by the professionals meeting people in non-philosophy forum meetings.

As an aside, you know what folks do when they are paying copays for meds long term for symptom relief that in their opinion are not helping? They stop paying for it (and therefore stop taking it). Thus pretty much the only folks taking MH meds long term feel that they're of some value, (but you know better?)

[my emphasis added] OK, so you want to make this personal.

Nowhere in what I wrote did I say that psychotropics don't relieve symptoms. If you were being polite, reasonable and not making this personal and making up stuff, I'd give you a longer explanation of what you just left out of that 'analysis.'

Lastly putting aside the value of legislators getting involved in the practice of medicine (see: abortion),

Politicians are supposed to be involved in oversight. The government via the FDA already approves of drugs and for specific purposes. And it is actually easily demonstrable to legislators, that the pharmaceutical industry has too much power over it's own oversight. Further legislators also decided, recently in my lifetime, to allow direct to customer advertising. You're responding as the government is in some kind of hands off relation to this industry. Au contraire. And this has affected the number of prescriptions. Somehow you assumed, uncharitably, a couple of rather large ideas: 1) that the intention was to ban drugs as anti abortionists have sought to and recently with success again ban abortions. That's a simplified view of both me and the relationship already there before I even made a suggestion, between legislators and medicine. Beyond that it'd be cool if the government looked into the way pharmaceutical companies control media. 2) you seem to be assuming that I want some immediate stop. Actually, I assume that this process will take many, many years, given how entrenched the current paradigm is and given the power of some of the players. There are two time issues: how fast could it in some optimistic estimation actually shift and then how fast should the actual practices shift to make for a healthy, participatory transition for all agents. I have no idea how long the process could take, especially given how people react to something new. And I don't think it would be healthy to just shift everything really fast. We can also focus on some of the egregious systematic abuses and I would definitely suggest everyone take a good look at the medicalization of children and how schools, teachers, social workers, and yes parents are being swayed indirectly and directly by propaganda, and then what is kept out of the media, and/or marginalized in media.

Medical professionals conflate FDA conclusions with science. And, of course, philosophy has a role in all this: causation, epistemology, doctrine of internal relations, systems and so on.

Further there is the whole adjust the humans to fit society aspect of this. I remember as a kind being told by teachers, with some definite accuracy that in the soviet system the people are made to adjust to the government's idea of society' and this was in contrast, rather the government and its ideas of society being adjusted to fit the people and what they needed and desires. The US was supposed to be in contrast to this. And I do think it was, though not as neatly or simply as it was presented to us - and with some horrible systemic issues that were getting glossed over. Part of what I see happening is that we are adjusting people to fit society through pharmaceuticals. We individualize the problems and pathologize reactions that have causes, yup, outside of their heads.

I'm not interested in rushing around grabbing lithium out of the hands of working class people with bipolar disorders. I am interested in challenging the paradigm, depathologizing what are normal responses (and nowhere suggesting it is easy to tease out what is an individual's issue and what can be eased and or is primarily caused by toxic facets of society), and seeing how much people decide or stop deciding to accept/take psychotropic cures for what may well not be problems in their heads.

I frankly hope that more patients are like your hallucinated victim of my proposals and question the 'it's all in your head' and 'you've been sad too long' and all the poor science and philosophy around the vast, use of psychotropics.

if you think politicians care about the opinions of health professionals, you didn't pay attention during the pandemic.

yes, the government didn't listen to health professionals. I'm not even sure what this point is and by this time I'm not interested, but it seems like a very odd summation, given the amount of money, organization, active speaking and legislating politicians did in support of health professionals opinions in that time. But perhaps I've missed the point. In any case, as seems to be the case of much of your post, it has little to do with me or what I said. I do believe my post led to associations that led you to write what you wrote. I mean, I can see how it relates to the general topic.

This was a terrible response to my post. I missed it earlier and happened to notice it now. I wish I hadn't noticed it.

Perhaps you've had run-ins with scientologist so you see their outline in every shadow.

But regardless, I will ignore you from here on out.

[LuckyR]

But perhaps I've missed the point.

This was a terrible response to my post.

I wish I hadn't noticed it.

But regardless, I will ignore you from here on out.

I want to personally sincerely apologise to you. There is no subject matter on this (or any other) Forum that I want to provoke the response you wrote.

I certainly didn't intend to imply anything other than a (I thought) minimal to modest difference of experience.

I do regret the phrase you bolded, as it is counter to my usual style, all I can say is I likely had a small emotional irritation on an unrelated life subject when I wrote it.

And as I wrote in an earlier post to you on this Thread, I believe we are in basic agreement or at least differ in only a minor way.

Again, sincere apologies.

[Iwannaplato]

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in which the author criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness. It received much publicity, and has become a classic, well known as an argument that "mentally ill" is a label which psychiatrists have used against people "disabled by living" rather than truly having a disease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_ ... al_Illness

In my "continental philosophy" classes (in my college days), it was called "psychologism" if I recall correctly, the attempt to discredit ideas by calling them "unhealthy" or whatnot. It's an interesting concept, and I agree to whatever extent with the ideas in your post above. Good summation.

Szasz pointed out hypocrisies, for example, between what was diagnosable and what was not. Religious beliefs generally did not lead to diagnoses, but other beliefs that were considered delusional were. It was an interesting critique - and that was one tiny piece of it - but I think he swung too far in the other direction. I think the disease model is overused and he was right about that. But his position ends up with a denial that there are patterns that cause people incredible pain and don't resolve of themselves. A similar position was held by R.D. Laing, who believed that, for example, schizophrenics might actually be more in touch with reality and that they psychoses would resolve themselves. I think that's also swinging way to far in the other direction.

I think some people are helped by some drugs. Many people have issues that do not resolve of themselves if you just leave them, for example, in psychosis, even with support.

Overdiagnosis, oversimplication of the causes of emotional pain, overprescribing has been very problematic. But swinging binarily to the other extreme is also a problem.

I would suggest starting with the most egregious overprescibing and shifting away from the current pharmcological fix all mentality slowly. I would guess once Pharma no longer has control of its own oversight and other ways of dealing with emotional pain are explored that a significant amount
medicalization of emotional pain would be eliminates. But I doubt this would work for everyone. I think the full range of solutions should be available and patients/clients should have a role in their own treatment where possible, which would be most cases. Also, that things are out of balance. Right now we individualize and pathologize emotional pain. As if it is happening in general in isolation from the social/political world and toxic aspects of modern life. We treat people as isolated monads.

[Walker]

I would suggest starting with the most egregious overprescibing and shifting away from the current pharmcological fix all mentality slowly. I would guess once Pharma no longer has control of its own oversight and other ways of dealing with emotional pain are explored that a significant amount
medicalization of emotional pain would be eliminates. But I doubt this would work for everyone. I think the full range of solutions should be available and patients/clients should have a role in their own treatment where possible, which would be most cases. Also, that things are out of balance. Right now we individualize and pathologize emotional pain. As if it is happening in general in isolation from the social/political world and toxic aspects of modern life. We treat people as isolated monads.

I had the same discussion once. I was in school and knew everything. A close relative of mine was a mental health professional, a supervisor in a state hospital back before they were virtually emptied. The real-life professional in the trenches, who was quite intelligent and balanced as a human being, told me that in reality you do what can as a professional with the resources available, and that is to relieve suffering. With time and change in society I see the truth in that view now, that I didn't see then, since the view then being pushed in the schools as far as I could tell, was that mental institutions were not good.

[Iwannaplato]

I would suggest starting with the most egregious overprescibing and shifting away from the current pharmcological fix all mentality slowly. I would guess once Pharma no longer has control of its own oversight and other ways of dealing with emotional pain are explored that a significant amount
medicalization of emotional pain would be eliminates. But I doubt this would work for everyone. I think the full range of solutions should be available and patients/clients should have a role in their own treatment where possible, which would be most cases. Also, that things are out of balance. Right now we individualize and pathologize emotional pain. As if it is happening in general in isolation from the social/political world and toxic aspects of modern life. We treat people as isolated monads.

I had the same discussion once. I was in school and knew everything. A close relative of mine was a mental health professional, a supervisor in a state hospital back before they were virtually emptied. The real-life professional in the trenches, who was quite intelligent and balanced as a human being, told me that in reality you do what can as a professional with the resources available, and that is to relieve suffering. With time and change in society I see the truth in that view now, that I didn't see then.

Sure, I agree. I don't feel any urge to run into offices and say, don't give him those pills. 1) maybe those pills are the best option 2) the changes need to come in a variety of places in society, including the ways we view each other and how interconnected we are. 3) it would be cruel to take away things without actually having better option in place. 4) The changes are about chains of causes. How we view our emotions? How we view ourselves as in relationships: with nature, with work, with others, with God, with the universe. Once the, I think, limited model of the causes of emotional pain is no longer in control, other solutions that are already demonstrated to be helpful will be more in sight. And the pathologization of individuals (and their 'brains') is also adding to pain.

[Age]

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in which the author criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness. It received much publicity, and has become a classic, well known as an argument that "mentally ill" is a label which psychiatrists have used against people "disabled by living" rather than truly having a disease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_ ... al_Illness

The word 'mental' refers to the 'concepts' or the 'conceptual' and not to the physical brain, itself. In other words what is referred to as being 'ill', or 'sick', are the thoughts themselves, and not the brain, itself. So, 'mental illness', or being 'mentally ill', is not, necessarily, about the brain, itself.

Although, the way the brain is functioning, mentally, or in others words, the way the 'current' thinking, and/or 'current' thoughts, are effecting the new incoming information, which are being picked up, and stored within the brain, is what is 'mentally ill or sick', and what is needed to be cured and healed. In other words, it is not necessarily the physical brain, itself, that needs to be fixed, healed, nor repaired, but the actual 'thoughts' and 'thinking' that does.

And, unlike all the other organs of the human body, including the organ 'the brain', itself, the way that the sick and/or ill mental thinking/thoughts are repaired, fixed, and healed is not the same that repairing, fixing, and healing all of the organs of the body are done.

The brain, itself, does not have a 'disease'. The 'dis-ease' here is, literally, in the thinking and thought, itself.

Fixing and curing 'this illness', once, and literally for all, and forever, is done through 'prevention', itself, rather than just 'fixing nor repairing'. After all 'prevention is always better than the cure', anyway.

Also, because of all of the common 'mental dis-eases/ill-nesses' were caused from 'past experiences', the real and True cure, in Life, here, is the prevention 'mental illnesses' arising in the future, which is passed on down to the younger generation, who then pass this along to the younger generation, which gets passed on down through the generations. Which is why all adult human beings in the days when this is being written suffer some form of 'mental illness', or disease'. Unless, of course, one believes that the thoughts and thinking within 'that body' is not ill nor diseased in any way, is completely healthy, and thus is perfect, then, to others, this is a sure sign that there is a form of mental illness and/or mental instability within that one. Again, the actual and real and True remedy and cure for this, and all other, non brain acquired injury, 'mental illnesses' is not done in the same way that all other organs get and need treatment. The treatment and repair of the thoughts and thinking is different.

(Brain acquired injuries are a whole other matter.)

[Walker]

Efforts must be properly focused.

First, get rid of the street drugs. It ain't that hard to do in theory, but they're surely entrenched in so many ways. That is the problem. With that intent, all the ducks line up.

Without street drugs, the bums quickly get sorted out from the sick, from the needy. The bums don't want to follow the rules of the government that will give them aid and comfort, so they live on the street because they can afford to, and they are captains of their own ship.

Those who need care, truly, should have a place.

[Age]

To run in related parallel, we are starting to see general acknowledgement that the chemical imbalance leads to mental health issues myth is, well, a myth.

But this is part of the problem.
Where do you start with all this?

At the beginning.

Once you also find out where , or from where, did all of the False and Wrong thinking and thoughts come from, exactly, then healing the 'sick' and 'wounded' here could and can begin.

People whose lives are damaged by modern living, by dysfunctional families, by trauma; get a chemical imbalance. THe chemical imbalance is not the start. not the be-all and end-all of a mental health crisis.

If you stick an ordinary person in prison and keep the lights on and play them Grunge Rock at full volume 24/7 they are going to acquire a chemical imbalance. No doubt.

Well this one is certainly not here OPEN to anything else, at all.

This chemical imbalance may well be the expression of problems.

When the neurochemist is asked to examine the brain chemistry of a "mentally ill" person, what would you expect him to find?? - a difference in brain chemistry as compared with other people that he is going to call "a chemical "imbalance".

This does not mean that the chemical imbalance is a cause. Nor does it mean that it will (in your words) "lead to mental health issues" IIt seems to be more accurate to say that in many cases of mental health issues there is a correlation with changes in brain chemistry.

Yes, and the correlation is after the 'ill' or 'diseased' thinking/thoughts occur, then this is when the so-called 'chemicals' are released.

Obviously chemicals do not just release themselves just because a genre of music is playing, nor just because the lights are on. Obviously, when so-called 'grunge rock music' is played, the pre-existing thoughts 'about' that genre' will influence what type of 'chemicals' are released, and how much, if any.

Altering the chemistry with drugs is not going to simply restore "normality".

Nonetheless, there are serious and real mental health problems that might be triggered by life, but cannot explain them.

Are not all and every 'mental health issue' triggered by 'Life' in one way or another?

Schizophrenia is a very real problem which comes with difficulties in certain types of cognition, in which the sufferer is incapable of certain types of discrimination we all take for granted. THis leads to the most bizarre types of pattern recognition which are blown completely out of proportion leading to paranoia and other serious delusions with high levels of complexity hard to unpack with CBT or other talking therapies.

[Gary Childress]

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in which the author criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness. It received much publicity, and has become a classic, well known as an argument that "mentally ill" is a label which psychiatrists have used against people "disabled by living" rather than truly having a disease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_ ... al_Illness

In my "continental philosophy" classes (in my college days), it was called "psychologism" if I recall correctly, the attempt to discredit ideas by calling them "unhealthy" or whatnot. It's an interesting concept, and I agree to whatever extent with the ideas in your post above. Good summation.

Szasz pointed out hypocrisies, for example, between what was diagnosable and what was not. Religious beliefs generally did not lead to diagnoses, but other beliefs that were considered delusional were. It was an interesting critique - and that was one tiny piece of it - but I think he swung too far in the other direction. I think the disease model is overused and he was right about that. But his position ends up with a denial that there are patterns that cause people incredible pain and don't resolve of themselves. A similar position was held by R.D. Laing, who believed that, for example, schizophrenics might actually be more in touch with reality and that they psychoses would resolve themselves. I think that's also swinging way to far in the other direction.

I think some people are helped by some drugs. Many people have issues that do not resolve of themselves if you just leave them, for example, in psychosis, even with support.

Overdiagnosis, oversimplication of the causes of emotional pain, overprescribing has been very problematic. But swinging binarily to the other extreme is also a problem.

I would suggest starting with the most egregious overprescibing and shifting away from the current pharmcological fix all mentality slowly. I would guess once Pharma no longer has control of its own oversight and other ways of dealing with emotional pain are explored that a significant amount
medicalization of emotional pain would be eliminates. But I doubt this would work for everyone. I think the full range of solutions should be available and patients/clients should have a role in their own treatment where possible, which would be most cases. Also, that things are out of balance. Right now we individualize and pathologize emotional pain. As if it is happening in general in isolation from the social/political world and toxic aspects of modern life. We treat people as isolated monads.

I've been on anti-psychotics for over 30 years now. If it weren't for those pills, I'd probably be sitting in an institution right now.

I don't understand how or why my mind goes into system shock or paralysis (or whatever) when others don't seem to have that problem. I'm just 'special' I guess.

[Sculptor]

To run in related parallel, we are starting to see general acknowledgement that the chemical imbalance leads to mental health issues myth is, well, a myth.

But this is part of the problem.
Where do you start with all this?

At the beginning.

Gawden bennet

[Walker]

I've been on anti-psychotics for over 30 years now. If it weren't for those pills, I'd probably be sitting in an institution right now.

I don't understand how or why my mind goes into system shock or paralysis (or whatever) when others don't seem to have that problem. I'm just 'special' I guess.

Two specials:

- Bhagawan Nityananda would have also been insitutionalized if in the USA, however he may have adapted for he would likely behave differently in the new and different situation.
- Dostoevsky said that seizures took him to ecstasy, but he said it better than that.

[meno_]

There is a more basic organizational (structural) issue floating around which connects the prevailing myth of mental illness-disease with the view which Levi Strauss and Levi Bruhl touched upon , which is the societal arrangements imbued within the framework set by indigenous people. A loss of reason was designated as a loss of face, and such representation echoes the negative views assigned by the traditional establishment' to rearrange and modify individual behavior.

This type of linkage is often not realized in the. connection between myth and its behavioristic representation, and may be the source of prejudice currently and historically.

[Walker]

That’s the frog in the bucket situation. Any frog that tries to escape the peer paradigm gets pulled back in. Programming is definitely the cause, but the programming is caused by unavoidable conditions caused by human nature. For example, a dirt farmer a few levels up from subsistence isn’t going to brag about his prosperity down at the feed store ‘cause you never know who’s listening or what evil lurks in the hearts of men. Those close to the elements learn this early, in school. Any young student who displays too much is called a show-off and teacher’s pet, or sometimes some racial epithet denigrating the benefits of academic pursuit, which is usually the first social encounter to discourage excellence, or eccentricities, and as such is the first test of character and adaptation. For example, I've heard that in the olden days children were punished for writing left-handed.

[Walker]

Cozy chat:
There was a classmate in an elementary school. An American Indian girl, a neighbor. She was a quiet girl, didn’t cause any trouble. One day in class the teacher, a woman in her fifties, was angry at the girl for some reason. I don’t remember exactly why, but I remember it was something trivial, such as the girl’s attitude, which was stoic and probably interpreted as defiant. So the teacher called the girl up in front of class, made her face the class and bend over to hold her knees. The girl was wearing a dress, bare legs. The teacher then took a wooden yard stick and just wailed on the back of that kid’s legs. I remember her face towards the class. A mask that showed no pain or reaction. Quite impressive. That was probably the biggest F.U. to the system I had seen up until that point. And it was a girl who showed me. I remember her dress was brown and worn thin, her body was quite thin, her air was as black as crude oil, and her face was self-contained. That’s how it was not all that long ago in the history of the world since I’m still around to tell the tale, but in the USA I doubt if a teacher could get away with that in a public school these days.

[meno_]

Walker said ^: “chat”



The thing is that is descriptive of the relation between her indigenous behavior which she has no elementary process to confirm, of course she can only put on a mask, if she is out of her community, especially if she is covering intelligence beyond what’s expected of her in class,

The stereotypical appearance of peer pressured intelligent students is usually covering the face with long hair for girls, wearing a cap lower down to shield the eyes, and in a case of being on the autistic continuum and being ethnic as well , being outside the community accustomed to be, the substantianal containment of her self awareness may denigrate to self excluding levels. At that point , the look becomes preemptive of all ideas of where she thinks of what classmates think of her, and the adoption of masking relegated to the myth of identification of how he or she plays the game of believability in who he is trying to be,

The myth becomes an appearance, and if her loss of ‘face’ becomes overtly obvious, sure the cliques will start to talk behind the mask and it may have overblown even tragic consequences ranging from scopohobia to great social fears.

As this is merely a chat, there should not any allusions about it.