Mental Illness is a MYTH : Witchcraft and Power Politics in Medicine

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
No, mental illness is not a myth.

Crap like this only further stigmatises those who live with mental illness and to be quite honest with you has the potential to be dangerous for those who are venerable to suggestion due to their mental illness to read something like this.

The OP quite obviously has never worked or cared for individuals with mental illness.

As such like I say, thread like this are really quite irresponsible and in my view have the potential to be dangerous.

The OP should be ashamed of this load of pseudo-BS that he has posted.

After reading through the OP there is nothing, zero, to back up this preposterous claim that mental illness is a myth, all this thread demonstrates is how little about the topic the OP knows and how little respect he has for those who are living day by day with horrendous debilitating mental illness that the OP has just dismissed as a "myth"

Shameful.

Your post amounts to shaming and ad-hominem attacks.
You actually didn't make a single valid argument against my claims.

You can talk crap all you want but it's just ignorance and hate that is dangerous and shameful from my perspective.

Go ahead, keep justifying the poisoning of millions of children and the extrajudicial imprisonment of people who are unlawfully stripped of their constitutional rights over total BS fabricated 'illnesses'.

I'm standing diametrically opposed to that tyranny.

originally posted by: muzzleflash

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Wait until you meet someone with depression before and after getting help or before and after a relapse. Then you'll sing a different tune.

Mental illnesses may be over diagnosed, but that is a symptom of a lack of more nuanced mental science. If we know more, we can diagnose a lot more efficiently, but mental illnesses DEFINITELY exist.

I have ADD. I KNOW this for a fact because I've dealt with it all my life and exhibit the symptoms all the time. I don't take adderal or other ADD medicine for it, but that doesn't mean I don't have it.

You don't have Attention Deficit Disorder - there's no such thing.

You're just impatient and need to exercise better self control and learn how to focus more effectively.

Well that settles it. Some internet random tells me how I think and that must be the end of it. I've only dealt with my thinking my whole life, even attempting to self-medicate from time to time to help me think like others, but you telling me I don't have it ends that quest.

But don't focus too effectively - they'll start saying you have obsessive compulsive than! Hahah.
See what I'm saying?

No of course not, you've been conditioned and trained to live a victim mentality and rather than face your deficiency and overcome it - you want to just pretend it's an illness for whatever reasons.

Uh... AGAIN. I'm not taking medication for it. I'm overcoming it through willpower alone, or at least living with it. Stop telling me how I think. You sound very arrogant and condescending right now.

a reply to: muzzleflash

You actually didn't make a single valid argument against my claims.

My argument is quite simply that you don't have a argument.

You are saying mental illness is a myth, yet have zero evidence of this. The arguments of Szsaz, which I think is what you have based your op on, come from the 1960's and do no fit with modern medicine. Its like you found that YouTube Video and figured you would just transcribe it into your own words and now claim to be such a expert on mental illness that you can now categorically claim it as a fact that mental illness is a myth.

Do you not see how stupid that line of thinking is?

out of intent where are you from, I only ask because I am quite well read on UK therapeutic jurisprudence and it would be applicable to the claims you have made in the OP.

Mental disorders are real, however our current MO as a society gets an "F", in attempting to deal with these issues.

We seem to have a few types of mental illness these days.

1) People that shows signs outwardly and have difficulty functioning

2) People that shows signs, but cope with drugs and alcohol

3) People that show no signs, and have a hard time dealing and functioning.

4) People that show no signs, but cope with drugs and alcohol

5) People that show no signs and are actually stable for short periods in their lives

6) And the rare few ( Unicorns) People that show no signs, and are actually stable their entire lives.

no myth. i've suffered mental issues for the last 30+ years. would that it were a myth.

a reply to: muzzleflash

I thought this subject through many times because I have had to deal with many forms of other people's mental disorders. While I agree with you that the stigma and abuse in the mental health care system in America is horrible that is until you have met people who are truly a danger to themselves and others.
Although many psychiatrists are using people as guinea pigs with hit-or-miss medication strategies that does not mean that neurological chemical adjustment is totally useless. Many people have found help by controlling their out of whack neuroreceptors or lithium or Gabapentin or Ritalin. Unfortunately over prescription and misdiagnosis has run rampant in the system and put many people through much unnecessary suffering and side effects. What you posted in your updated posts was not necessary for me to read as I am quite familiar with the United States mental health system and have many friends who went through it. One of my friends who is now deceased was even the psychotherapist for the Son of Sam in prison.
Just try and convince anybody that David Berkowitz is a normal misunderstood guy

originally posted by: muzzleflash
Suggested reading materials from a few psychiatrists and psychoanalysts:

Thomas Szasz :
The Myth of Mental Illness (1961)
The Manufacture of Madness (1970)

Except for a few identifiable brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, there are "neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying or falsifying DSM diagnoses", i.e., there are no objective methods for detecting the presence or absence of mental illness.[5]

His views on special treatment followed from libertarian roots, based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others

R. D. Laing:
The Divided Self - An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (1960)
Self and Others (1961)
The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise (1967)

Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder.

And a Youtube vid to get you started on all the videos you can find out there:

Are you serious with this tripe? All your sources are 40 years old or more. Who listens to ANY science that is 40 years old?

originally posted by: muzzleflash

originally posted by: OtherSideOfTheCoin
a reply to: muzzleflash

I'm talking about 'mental illness' as an actual disease that can be diagnosed and treated chemically, like heart disease or a fungal infection on your foot.

There's no such thing.

Bollocks!

I know you didn't actually read my OP now.

Sigh....
If you can't read my OP than I'm thinking you should get lost.

I did read it and I think its bullocks.

Now that is only my opinion but I can tell from just the first couple of pages of comments so far in this thread that very few members seem to agree with your statement that mental illness is a myth.

Question:

Are you stating as a fact, that mental illness is a myth?

a reply to: muzzleflash

Like it says on the tin "Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world".

It's the paradigm Humanity has followed throughout recorded history that's insane.

Nonsensical really, and a product of our very limited longevity thus longterm perspective.

Hence the reason the insanity is repeated time and time again, generation after generation by way of our repeated transgressions towards one another and point blank refusal to accept responsibility for our actions or learn from history.

What was it old Albert said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". That pretty much sums up Humans in a nutshell really.

As to mental health being a myth through, if only it were that easy to dispell or address such issues.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: muzzleflash
Suggested reading materials from a few psychiatrists and psychoanalysts:

Thomas Szasz :
The Myth of Mental Illness (1961)
The Manufacture of Madness (1970)

Except for a few identifiable brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, there are "neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying or falsifying DSM diagnoses", i.e., there are no objective methods for detecting the presence or absence of mental illness.[5]

His views on special treatment followed from libertarian roots, based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others

R. D. Laing:
The Divided Self - An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (1960)
Self and Others (1961)
The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise (1967)

Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder.

And a Youtube vid to get you started on all the videos you can find out there:

Are you serious with this tripe? All your sources are 40 years old or more. Who listens to ANY science that is 40 years old?

awww but come on now, a YouTuber with 26 subs said so and he used Wikipedia.

It must be true because someone on the interwebs said so

originally posted by: LookingForABetterLife

Rather than spend the thousands of hours necessary to council an individual and help them work out their problems rationally, providing proper economic, political, legal, and medical aid - they will simplify these people and their complex challenging problems under a label and then treat them according to a set of guidelines or policies. The result of this is that these individuals rarely ever solve any of their problems or resolve their mental, emotional, and Spiritual baggage - and instead are obliterated and reduced to shells of their former selves, carrying even more baggage and facing stigma in society.

Just for kicks, let's say that there is no such thing as mental illness nor professionals that can help someone who can't think like you think that they should. If that is the case then I would be dead in the gave a few months after she died. I'M NOT, however, thanks to the help of the therapists that I have seen over the past 4 years. If you believe that there is no such thing as mental illnesses then please explain the actions of people that I have known who spend several hours on the phone talking or singing with celebrities that are not on the other end? Explain why a former neighbor thought that I worked for the CIA? Since this is ATS I'll leave out the one who thought she had sex with Jim Morrison's ghost or sees and talks width shadow people as well. None of the above people had any sort of tumor or physical impairment to the brain. So what they did was caused by their imagination? Was it caused by reading too much at ATS. Sorry, that is not the case. I and the others have/had MENTAL ILLNESS What else should we call their behaviors, should we just call it Fred or Susie? There is a reason these mental illnesses have separate names.

End of rant.

I never said anything about therapists or councilors. In fact I think I implied directly that was the solution to getting people help so they can build a support base to face some of their most challenging problems that were overwhelming them.

And for what it's worth, I linked reading material from two psychiatrists, so obviously I wasn't saying that every psychiatrist is bad or wrong or whatever.

All those examples you gave don't prove someone has an illness. It just shows that people are delusional and can't tell the difference between their fantasies or factual reality. There are plenty of reasons for that. Maybe it's wishful thinking sometimes because they want to feel important and their life is boring and sucks, or maybe they simply lack information and misinterpreted various clues? Maybe they are really uneducated and make really dumb conclusions because they aren't really thinking things out that thoroughly?

None of that is an illness, it's a lack of personal development, education, stress management, and coping mechanisms behind each and every one of these instances. Pills don't fix that stuff. Learning does though.

That's why I would highly suggest people talk to others about their problems. They need to face their issues head on if they ever want to overcome them. When they start escaping and medicating (usually with alcohol or illegal drugs but other times with prescription drugs) - they are damaging their physical body and are actually becoming insane because they are unwilling to deal with reality. Insane meaning troubled, challenged, narrow-minded.

Mental illness is a Myth?

I came in for the witchcraft, now I'm just confused.



I came for the Merlot....

a reply to: muzzleflash

So a soldier going to war and coming back with PTSD is just the soldier having poor education and coping skills?

I cannot help but think the OP doth protest far too much here considering who wrote I Was Just ABDUCTED By Nordics!! Holy Crap!!?!? and swore his ex-squeeze was an ambassador to aliens.

a reply to: muzzleflash

And for what it's worth, I linked reading material from two psychiatrists, so obviously I wasn't saying that every psychiatrist is bad or wrong or whatever.

No you linked to wikipedia entries about two old psychiatrists who worked forty years ago who were skeptical about then modern approaches to mental health (this is argument from the 1960's we have moved on quite a bit since then)

Its hardly like you have the lancet backing up your claims.

a reply to: andy06shake

well said.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: muzzleflash

Mental illness shows up in people regardless of their education levels or quality of education.

Incorrect.
Everyone is just THAT uneducated.

But I would like you to show me what mental illnesses our top philosophers and scientists have - but it needs an official diagnosis - speculation isn't convincing.

Carl Sagan? Neil Degrasse Tyson? Michio Kaku? Stephen Hawking?
I'm sure you might find a few out there but you can do the research because I'm pretty sure these guys are really mentally and emotionally solid.

I don't have any mental illnesses. I deal with my problems and work them out.

Labels are irrational to put on people anyways, because anyone can be anything whenever they feel like working towards developing those skills or if they fail focus on developing those skills. Whichever way.

a reply to: JimNasium

"Confused"

Is that not Caitlyn Jenner's new Xmas scent?