Psychiatry's Sick Compulsion

[Darkdale]

More Illnesses Please

IT'S JAN. 1. Past time to get your inoculation against seasonal affective disorder, or SAD — at least according to the American Psychiatric Assn. As Americans rush to return Christmas junk, bumping into each other in Macy's and Best Buy, the psychiatric association ponders its latest iteration of feeling bad for the holidays. And what is the association selling? Mental illness. With its panoply of major depression, dysthymic disorder, bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, the association is waving its Calvinist flag to remind everyone that amid all the celebration, all the festivities, all the exuberance, many people will "come down with" or "contract" or "develop" some variation of depressive illness.

The association specializes in turning ordinary human frailty into disease. In the last year, ads have been appearing in psychiatric journals about possible treatments for shyness, a "syndrome" not yet officially recognized as a disease. You can bet it will be in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV, published by the association. As it turns out, the association has been inventing mental illnesses for the last 50 years or so. The original diagnostic manual appeared in 1952 and contained 107 diagnoses and 132 pages, by my count. The second edition burst forth in 1968 with 180 diagnoses and 119 pages. In 1980, the association produced a 494-page tome with 226 conditions. Then, in 1994, the manual exploded to 886 pages and 365 conditions, representing a 340% increase in the number of diseases over 42 years....

The last thing the United States needs is more self-indulgent, pseudo-insightful, overly self-conscious babble about people who can't help themselves. Better, as Voltaire would put it, to cultivate our gardens and be accountable for who and what we are.

I can't believe something this on the mark came from the LA Times!
:clap

 

[ChrisP]

You're telling me.

 

[Fluffy]

I don't agree with the labelling of what I view as just another aspect of human personality as "mental disease" either but that doesn't mean that such aspects don't exist. I personally do not understand why people have a problem with attempts to treat and cure the human condition. They seem to have some perverse ideas of how it would somehow be "better" if these people struggled on and were able to live with whatever uncomfortable aspects they did not like rather than seek help.

Any efforts to reduce suffering should be commended not held back by archaic social designs akin to men not being allowed to express emotion or sex being the ultimate repressed sin.

 

[Darkdale]

I personally do not understand why people have a problem with attempts to treat and cure the human condition.

Most of these "illnesses" don't even have a biological cause. They are fabricated. They are made up just to get you to take drugs.

 

[Sunstone]

How do you know those illnesses don't have a biological cause? There were anti-depressant drugs being used to treat depression before the biological causes of depression were understood.

 

[Fluffy]

Most of these "illnesses" don't even have a biological cause. They are fabricated. They are made up just to get you to take drugs.

I disagree. It seems perfectly logical to suggest that any change in a person's mood must have a biological cause. What else could possibly cause them?

Or are you suggesting that the actual change's do not exist and that the person is not actually feeling such sensations?

 

[Darkdale]

How do you know those illnesses don't have a biological cause?

I don't. They may exist. But I've studied this stuff. My original major was psychology and I have to say that most of this stuff just seems invented. Most of our problems can be cured by a change in behavior, a change in our habits. We don't need drugs. We aren't sick. What most people need is an honest view of themselves and a good dose of purpose.

 

[Sunstone]

Psychiatry is a relatively young discipline, and psychology is a relatively young science. No doubt there are diagnosies today that tomorrow will be considered fallacious, as the discipline of psychiatry, and the science of psychology, continue to rapidly progress. The LA Times article would seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It would lump all the diagnosies of psychiatry in the same boat, as questionable.

 

[Fluffy]

I don't. They may exist. But I've studied this stuff. My original major was psychology and I have to say that most of this stuff just seems invented. Most of our problems can be cured by a change in behavior, a change in our habits. We don't need drugs. We aren't sick. What most people need is an honest view of themselves and a good dose of purpose.

Try getting free healthcare. You get the exact opposite problem, extreme reluctance to prescribe anything that might be unnecessary because of the cost to the NHS.

What does each individual psychologist get out of prescribing drugs to his patients even when he knows them to be unnecessary? If the APA is sponsored by drug companies then I can see a motive there but where is the motive lower down the chain? There is no monetary gain for these guys and they do have consciences, they will do what they think is right unless they have a personal reason that overwhelms that.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

I don't. They may exist. But I've studied this stuff. My original major was psychology and I have to say that most of this stuff just seems invented. Most of our problems can be cured by a change in behavior, a change in our habits. We don't need drugs. We aren't sick. What most people need is an honest view of themselves and a good dose of purpose.

My concern with it is that there seem to be a lot of people who are looking for a 'cure' for every little thing that goes along with being a person, and an awful lot of people who are willing to accomodate them in their search for the cure.

 

[Ori]

I don't. They may exist. But I've studied this stuff. My original major was psychology and I have to say that most of this stuff just seems invented. Most of our problems can be cured by a change in behavior, a change in our habits. We don't need drugs. We aren't sick. What most people need is an honest view of themselves and a good dose of purpose.

I have social anxiety disorder and believe me i've tried everything to make it go away, i'm still struggling with it.

 

[Darkdale]

My concern with it is that there seem to be a lot of people who are looking for a 'cure' for every little thing that goes along with being a person, and an awful lot of people who are willing to accomodate them in their search for the cure.

and I've seen people turned into zombies on some of these drugs they are put on. It really is a part of the "It's not my responsibility" culture we live in.

 

[Sunstone]

I'm highly skeptical of attempts to reduce psychological problems to moral problems. It seems to me that the burden of proving that psychological problems can be resolved by moral pep talk along the lines of "just ignore it, and it will go away" or "you're not sick, but merely suffering an existential crisis" rests on those who make the claims. If psychological problems could be solved with moral pep talks, Aristotle would have cured the world long ago.

 

[Sunstone]

I have social anxiety disorder and believe me i've tried everything to make it go away, i'm still struggling with it.

By "tried everything", do you include medications, Ori?

 

[Ori]

By "tried everything", do you include medications, Ori?

Oh absoloutely, I was on cipralex and that done nothing, then my doctor was looking at prozac , I thought bugger that.

So i'm off them for now.

 

[Darkdale]

I have social anxiety disorder and believe me i've tried everything to make it go away, i'm still struggling with it.

I've been diagnosed with that and Major Depression and I struggle with them too. However, the depression can be cured with a good diet, 8 hours of sleep and exercise (most of the times. Sometimes I just get depressed and there is nothing that helps). Anxiety is more complicated. I can get up and give a speech in front of 200 hundred people without getting anxious, but throw me into a social situation with a group of strangers in an environment I'm unfamiliar with and I fold like a cheap card table. But drugs? I don't need them. If anxiety or depression gets so bad that you become a danger to yourself or others, then I say, try drugs.

There are real mental illnesses out there. But there are a lot of BS disorders too.

For example, if your children show three of the following nine symptoms:

frequent temper tantrums
excessive arguing with adults
active defiance and refusal to comply with adult requests and rules
deliberate attempts to annoy or upset people
blaming others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
often being touchy or easily annoyed by others
frequent anger and resentment
mean and hateful talking when upset
seeking revenge

then they have OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER, also known as BEING A FREACKING CHILD! :areyoucra Science is currently looking for drugs to battle this disorder. If things keep going the way they are, all children will be on drugs.

 

[Pardus]

The problem is noone will take an issue seriously until it is given a title.

 

[michel]

How do you know those illnesses don't have a biological cause? There were anti-depressant drugs being used to treat depression before the biological causes of depression were understood.

You are quite right Sunstone, there is a biological reason for SAD;
http://www.holistic-online.com/hol_sad.htm#BrightLightTherapy
Bright Light Therapy

The main treatment for SAD is light therapy, specifically, bright light therapy. We have covered light treatment in depth elsewhere. Researchers at more than 15 medical centers and clinics in both the U.S. and abroad have had much success with light therapy in patients with clear histories of SAD for at least several years. Marked improvement is usually observed within a week, if not sooner. The bad part is that the symptoms usually return in about a week when the lights are withdrawn. So, to take full advantage of the benefits of the light therapy you should stick with it. Most users, therefore, maintain a consistent daily schedule beginning, as needed, in fall or winter and usually continuing until the end of April, by which time outdoor light is sufficient to maintain good mood and high energy. Some people can skip treatments for one to three days, occasionally longer, without ill effect, but most start to slump quickly when treatment is interrupted.

also; Oxygen, water and sunlight are the most basic life giving elements on this earth. Without them we have no existence here, but our current lifestyles being so hectic, we seem to take it all for granted and not much thought goes into the fact that we need these elements daily to survive properly. Sunlight provides us with vitamin D.


I must admit, we are fond of 'labels'; reading a medical dictionary or a compendium of ilnesses is most likely to make the healthiest of people hypochondriac - much like
Molière's "Le Malade imaginaire" 1673, 1674.

 

[Sunstone]

Oh absoloutely, I was on cipralex and that done nothing, then my doctor was looking at prozac , I thought bugger that.

So i'm off them for now.

I'm sorry to hear that you have a social anxiety disorder, Ori. I don't know anything about cipralex, but I have heard that Prozac has a better success rate with such disorders than it does even with depression.

 

[michel]

I have social anxiety disorder and believe me i've tried everything to make it go away, i'm still struggling with it.

Ori, with the greatest respect, do you think your social anxiety disorder might stem from thae fact that you are basically a person who does not want to socialize ?

I say this, because my doctor (who is a very kind and patient man) who gives me half an hour a month to discuss how I am at the present time has remarked to me on several occasions "You know, Michel, there is nothing wrong with being a recluse."

Thinking about it, I hate small talk, I hate window shopping, I am the typre of person who needs to have his mind fully engaged (hence my love of this forum). I even find that most television programs leave me cold; if I haven't got my laptop to post here with me, I tend to fall asleep, out of sheer boredom.

Of course, the downside to being a recluse is that when forced to partake in festivities, and family affairs, there is a degree of anxiety (simply from being in a situation in which I know I am not at my best) ?