The Philosophy of Mental Illness

Whatever box you try to put mental illness into, try very hard to consider it a mere piece of the puzzle, not the end all be all. Each of the various philosophies capture a part of the whole, and its very important to be able to change hats whenever doing so assists those of us who are suffering. A complete person is DNA, congenital stuff, the effects of environment, enculturation, our unique experiences that happen to us, and the choices we make.

Take depression for example. My first few depressions were triggered by life events, although my pain was disproportional to what happened. However, after the third bout of depression, it kind of took on a life of its own, activating for specious reasons like the seasons changing or not getting enough sleep--even for no identifiable reason at all.

I really get along okay with most of the theories out there, as each of them is true to some extent. The only people I really hate are the ones who think there is no such thing as mental illness and that its just a plot by pharmaceutical companies, or if I only had enough faith in G-d I'd be healed.
 
Interesting... The idea of diagnosing someone with a disorder has always been interesting to me. For instance, anyone that deviates from the norm of society, according to certain psychological standards (I think), could easily be diagnosed with a disorder. It seems like there are an increasing amount of kids with ADD nowadays. And this brings back your question in the article, are they actually mentally unstable or is that just their true nature? I feel like intuitive types could also be classified to have some sort of disorder seeing as there is a majority of sensors. I'd have to say that I agree pretty much everything you said.
 
GracieRuth said:
Whatever box you try to put mental illness into, try very hard to consider it a mere piece of the puzzle, not the end all be all. Each of the various philosophies capture a part of the whole, and its very important to be able to change hats whenever doing so assists those of us who are suffering. A complete person is DNA, congenital stuff, the effects of environment, enculturation, our unique experiences that happen to us, and the choices we make.

Take depression for example. My first few depressions were triggered by life events, although my pain was disproportional to what happened. However, after the third bout of depression, it kind of took on a life of its own, activating for specious reasons like the seasons changing or not getting enough sleep--even for no identifiable reason at all.

I really get along okay with most of the theories out there, as each of them is true to some extent. The only people I really hate are the ones who think there is no such thing as mental illness and that its just a plot by pharmaceutical companies, or if I only had enough faith in G-d I'd be healed.
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I do make the point in the article that mental disorder is hard to classify. There exist four different conditions:

Healthy brain + healthy mind
unhealthy brain + unhealthy mind
Healthy brain + unhealthy mind
unhealthy brain + healthy mind

All of these occur. It makes it hard to pin down exactly what is going on.
 
The evolution of mental illness is something in which I take great interest. I would recommend you wife look into this as well, as it will help in her overall perception of mental illness. I recommend the book "Sybil Exposed", a book that I have finished. It outlines the story of multi-personality Sybil from the 1970s. It delves into her life, past history on "hysteria" (pre-pharmeceutical era) ... the loads of medications administered to her, what we know of those medications today and their effects. It's gives a pretty decent historical outlook based off of one person.
 
Sriracha said:
The evolution of mental illness is something in which I take great interest. I would recommend you wife look into this as well, as it will help in her overall perception of mental illness. I recommend the book "Sybil Exposed", a book that I have finished. It outlines the story of multi-personality Sybil from the 1970s. It delves into her life, past history on "hysteria" (pre-pharmeceutical era) ... the loads of medications administered to her, what we know of those medications today and their effects. It's gives a pretty decent historical outlook based off of one person.
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Thanks, I'll check it out. I'm familiar with the Sybill story. It was a big deal back then, I remember it. My wife won't be reading it. She has her hands full with traditional philosophy literature.
 
For me a definition of a mental disorder is fairly simple. Mental disorders are behavioral and cognitive aberration which are harmful to the person experiencing them or the person's environment, and which may or may not arise from or influence the nervous system and by extension the rest of the body. I believe cognition in whichever form is a direct product of the physical body, not necessarily inborn, but also acquired. There are studies suggesting changes to the brain of children exposed to certain stimuli, which later predisposes them to various mental disorders. The big problem of psychiatry is that more attention is given to classification of external symptoms of disorders, than it is focused on finding biological causes, as medicine would. It's dealing more with emergent properties and secondary consequences or causes. People ought to undergo blood tests, EEG, neuro imagining and other empirical tests to be properly diagnosed, but before that the disorders themselves need to be mapped better, and their causes precisely established.

We need to make sure a disorder is something that is actually harmful, not merely unconventional or weird to the general public.
 
The bits about how profits are the most important thing in the industry are pretty terrifying… and I do think it's interesting that they focus only on the brain and not the rest of the body.

I would have to agree that the cause is probably not always just a problem with the brain. I don't have any studies to cite or anything because I'm lazy, but I came down with a pretty severe case of anxiety a while back. It would sort of flair up and was always more pronounced at certain times of the day. It wasn't something that I could ever really explain and it did tend to trigger during certain situations whereas in other situations it would be fine… though it did get bad enough so that at one point I actually had a hard time leaving the house.

I was never treated for it because anti-depressants and such sort of terrify me so I always sort of just toughed it out-- but later on that year I went into the hospital for a general checkup and they ended up giving me medicine for my liver and for high cholesterol. Within a few days, my anxiety levels were noticeably lower… and after a few weeks they were pretty much nonexistent.

So yeah, I don't know if that proves anything… but it wouldn't at all surprise me if diet/not getting enough exercise were to blame. I was also smoking at the time-- not heavily, but I don't think that matters with those kinds of chemicals.

The crap that they put in most of the food nowadays (even and in some cases especially the dreck they market to kids) is really bad for you--and when you realize that you eat at least 3 times a day you start to realize that you're actually mixing together all kinds of chemical preservatives in varying amounts and forming reactions… and it's not just the food, it's also things like deodorants and shampoos and soaps and cleaning products… all of which contain chemicals that are also in the food and are building up inside your body.

And yeah, there's already a lot of other stresses being placed directly on our emotional and mental lives by all of the imagery in advertising and on TV and over the Internet. I don't want to sound like some sort of right-wing censorship advocate or paranoid conspiracist but I definitely think that a lot of what makes up our society is actually toxic-- there's a lot of food and media and other products that have absolutely no value and the whole point is to get people to compulsively buy or watch or act or whatever…

Sorry for going off like this but it's something that really freaks me out. Sometimes I think that the whole psychiatric industry is designed to help people exist more comfortably in a toxic society… sort of like deflecting the blame from the FDA for its approval of substandard and even dangerous products and projecting into onto the individual and his or her genetic makeup or whatever else makes a convenient target.
 
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Apone said:
Sometimes I think that the whole psychiatric industry is designed to help people exist more comfortably in a toxic society… sort of like deflecting the blame from the FDA for its approval of substandard and even dangerous products and projecting into onto the individual and his or her genetic makeup or whatever else makes a convenient target.
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+1

I think genetics is a factor in some cases but i think most mental health is related to anxiety

Too much anxiety leads to mania

Many people are medicated clinically and many more are self medicating in many ways. What this says to me is not that we are all sick but rather that the system is sick.

The people with the most power to change the system don't want to do so because they are empowered and enriched by the system

The public is being medicated and controlled instead of just changing the damn system
 
I'd like to read it, but I don't want to pay that much for the book. It isn't clear that it is even generally accessible, and I'm not sure what kind of preparation would be needed (in terms of readings) if it isn't.
 
NOS! Now get in the system, u!

At least that's how it looked to me with a lot of people who came through the facility I worked at. I saw lots of Schizophrenia-nos dx's, which to me meant the admitting physician was like "I don't really know wtf is wrong with this person but I'll endorse a placement/conservatorship anyway."
 
Dragon said:
I'd like to read it, but I don't want to pay that much for the book. It isn't clear that it is even generally accessible, and I'm not sure what kind of preparation would be needed (in terms of readings) if it isn't.
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I agree that it costs too much. My wife checked it out of the university library for me. I do find it very readable. It's not jargon filled.
 
Black Sheep said:
NOS! Now get in the system, u!

At least that's how it looked to me with a lot of people who came through the facility I worked at. I saw lots of Schizophrenia-nos dx's, which to me meant the admitting physician was like "I don't really know wtf is wrong with this person but I'll endorse a placement/conservatorship anyway."
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The easiest thing to do as a working professional is to refer your real problems to other professionals. And thankfully, there are plenty of psychiatrists and psychologists out there, if all else fails.

Craig Weiler said:
I agree that it costs too much. My wife checked it out of the university library for me. I do find it very readable. It's not jargon filled.
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I have so much stuff to read, but if it is in a library near me in the future, I'll get it. I hope it is really critical of mental illness.
 
Dragon said:
I have so much stuff to read, but if it is in a library near me in the future, I'll get it. I hope it is really critical of mental illness.
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The book is not critical of mental illness as far as I can tell. It is exactly what it claims to be: a philosophy of mental illness. It questions how mental illnesses are thought of even to the point of questioning whether the word "illness" is appropriate since it is so different from normal illnesses.
 
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