What Is Mental Illness?

[osan]

In this book "The Myth Of Mental Illness", Dr. Thomas Szasz posited that there was no such thing as "mental illness", citing the fact that all things so labeled are actually diseases of the brain, which result in cognitive symptoms. While his arguments are compelling, I believe that he missed what may be a single exception to his thesis, constituting a special case.

The case to which I refer may be broadly labeled as a brand of psychosis. Certainly there are those sorts of psychoses that are caused by problems with the brain, schizophrenia being a prime example. But there is another brand that roots not in brain malfunction, but in that which an individual comes to believe in cases where no brain infirmity can be identified. One can cite religious indoctrination, as well as that which children are taught in schools, by family, by the various media, the culture at large, and so forth.

Psychosis is defined as a disconnection from reality. Psychoses are made manifest in any of a number of ways, including those that have nothing to do with brain dysfunction, but the other ways in which people come to perceive and believe things that do not prove out as being sound and true.

An example of this might include the Heaven's Gate cult where people who were presumably intact in organic terms, were convinced to take their own lives for the sake of joining a "mother ship" awaiting them in orbit around the earth. If that does not qualify as psychosis, then I cannot imagine what might.

The point I am attempting to convey here is that it appears to me that the adoption as true those things which may be demonstrated as false may qualify as actual mental illness. What else might we call such a condition or circumstance?

It seems also very clear to me that this notion could open quite a can of worms because where then is the line to be drawn between a diagnosis of mental illness and mere mistaken belief, or is there no line? Mental illness has been used as a political bludgeon in the past as it is now. It was a political hallmark of the twentieth century. Would this make the tyrant's job easier, not that he seems to need it?

Regardless, the issue stands. There could in fact exist an illness that is purely mental in its nature. Does it matter? Perhaps not, though I cannot say either way. But I find the idea interesting and thought I'd put it out there as food for thought.

 

[Dr.3D]

Of course, anybody who doesn't believe as I do, is mentally ill.

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

A diagnosis that gets people hooked on pharmaceuticals for the rest of their life.

 

[Occam's Banana]

The point I am attempting to convey here is that it appears to me that the adoption as true those things which may be demonstrated as false may qualify as actual mental illness.

Demonstrated by whom?

According to what standards, under what presuppositions and definitions?

In service to what ends or purposes?

What else might we call such a condition or circumstance?

We might merely call it "being wrong about something" - but when we need to be more emphatic or evocative, we already have many colloquial and non-clinical (but nevertheless perfectly suitable) things to call it (e.g., "eccentric", "crackpot", "crazy", etc.).

There could in fact exist an illness that is purely mental in its nature.

There could in fact exist pink unicorns that fart flower-scented rainbows.

Human behavior is extremely complex [1], and there will always be tails of "abnormality" at the ends of the Gaussian distributions of whatever behaviors are considered "normal".

Conflating those tails with "disease" or "illness" does good service to neither medical science nor the study of human behavior. - especially given that the practice of medicine presently consists mostly of a "a pill for every problem" approach to treating symptoms, rather than actually curing diseases. Combine this with the tendency to believe that we understand things far better than we actually do merely because we have devised technical labels for those things [2], and treating human behaviors (even undesirable or problematically dysfunctional ones) as "illnesses" or "diseases" that can be "treated" or "cured" becomes an exercise in overweening and unskeptical hubris that glosses over our profound ignorance.

[1] Especially when it comes to matters of meaning and "believing things" (as distinct from mere action and "doing things").

[2] Which is the modern scientistic (sic) equivalent of the ancient thaumaturgical principle that if you know a thing's "true name", then you can exercise preternatural power and control over it.

 

[Working Poor]

I think there are several factors involved in brain function nutrition is a big factor low fat and too many carbs and sugars have a bad impact on the brain.
Head injury can affect the brain.

Believing lies can really hurt a person too.

 

[fisharmor]

Well of course they are diseases of the brain. That is axiomatic, and even allopaths admit this tacitly.

If they aren't diseases of the brain then the drugs they prescribe to treat them stand no chance of working. They could be (and IMO definitely are) as wrong in their approach to treating mental illness as they are in their identical approach to treating everything else from psoriasis to planar fasciitis. The fact that they're using the same low-brow witchcraft of throwing pills at the wall and seeing if anything sticks is proof that they are diseases like any other.

To be honest, I think the group that I credit for blurring that disease line more than any other is Alcoholics Anonymous. My recollection is that they were really the ones to champion the idea that alcoholism is a disease. Well as soon as you throw a condition in the disease category where we have thousands of examples of people who simply willed themselves out of having the disease anymore, or they simply grew out of it, it destroys the definition.

My uninformed opinion is that even though both professions are largely staffed by mountebanks, there is still an important distinction between psychiatry and psychology. I suppose the former is the study of objectively abnormal function of the brain while the latter is the study of destructive results produced by normal function. Psychoses would be in the same category as alcoholism in my opinion. Lots of people are going to get mentally scarred. Some are going to allow those scars to drive them to drink. Others are going to allow their scars to drive them to drink poisoned Flavor Aid.

I think the distinction between those disciplines is apt. I think the distinction between archaeology and anthropology is equally apt and those two are equally staffed by sheisters, too. I think the tragedy of living in the 21st century is that scientific disciplines have voluntarily fractured to the point where cross discipline communication isn't just impossible, but actively attacked. 500 years ago mankind started making its greatest leaps forward and all through the efforts of cross-disciplinarians. That all stopped 100 years ago. And I think I know why - it's because if you include all the disciplines together, you have to let theology back at the table. And they're not going to do that. They'd rather just let alcoholics and schizophrenics die.

 

[black panther]

In this book "The Myth Of Mental Illness", Dr. Thomas Szasz posited that there was no such thing as "mental illness", citing the fact that all things so labeled are actually diseases of the brain, which result in cognitive symptoms. While his arguments are compelling, I believe that he missed what may be a single exception to his thesis, constituting a special case.

The case to which I refer may be broadly labeled as a brand of psychosis. Certainly there are those sorts of psychoses that are caused by problems with the brain, schizophrenia being a prime example. But there is another brand that roots not in brain malfunction, but in that which an individual comes to believe in cases where no brain infirmity can be identified. One can cite religious indoctrination, as well as that which children are taught in schools, by family, by the various media, the culture at large, and so forth.

Psychosis is defined as a disconnection from reality. Psychoses are made manifest in any of a number of ways, including those that have nothing to do with brain dysfunction, but the other ways in which people come to perceive and believe things that do not prove out as being sound and true.

An example of this might include the Heaven's Gate cult where people who were presumably intact in organic terms, were convinced to take their own lives for the sake of joining a "mother ship" awaiting them in orbit around the earth. If that does not qualify as psychosis, then I cannot imagine what might.

The point I am attempting to convey here is that it appears to me that the adoption as true those things which may be demonstrated as false may qualify as actual mental illness. What else might we call such a condition or circumstance?

It seems also very clear to me that this notion could open quite a can of worms because where then is the line to be drawn between a diagnosis of mental illness and mere mistaken belief, or is there no line? Mental illness has been used as a political bludgeon in the past as it is now. It was a political hallmark of the twentieth century. Would this make the tyrant's job easier, not that he seems to need it?

Regardless, the issue stands. There could in fact exist an illness that is purely mental in its nature. Does it matter? Perhaps not, though I cannot say either way. But I find the idea interesting and thought I'd put it out there as food for thought.

 

[black panther]

Mental illness refers to a wide range of conditions that affect a person's thinking, emotions, behavior, or mood. It can impact daily life, relationships, and overall well-being, but treatment and support can help manage it.