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WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

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Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#31

Post by mjburgess »

Grieverheart wrote: post #22
algesten wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. modern clinical psychiatry is an evidenced-based, research-driven field which treats and forms diagnoses on the basis of decades of research into any particular condition. It isnt the 1950s. But isn't modern clinical psychiatry marred by the same problems social or economic sciences are? Ultimately you are studying/interpreting human behaviour, which doesn't lend itself well to quantisation or categorising.

Most recent studies in psychiatry and social sciences that I have read, even those published in Nature, use sample sizes of around 50 people, which should be considered insufficient. Instead they use various cooked up formulas for correcting for gender/ethnicity etc. Instead, sample sizes should be much bigger. Of course this is not practical or even perhaps impossible. I find this to be a poor excuse, though. The ma…

psychiatry =/= psychology =/= social psychology

This is more "everything is the same" anti-expertism.

Clinical psychiatry is not about p-hacking groups of 50.

The treatment of bipolar disorder hasnt been decided on the basis of what happened to the last dozen undergrad students.

>The matter of fact is, we know very little about how the brain works.

Profoundly untrue. Even if it were truth, its very truth would preclude your ability to make this assertion. If we knew nothing, how are you estimating the nothing we know?

It is no mystery what happens when you give a person lithium. Nor some speculative game to know what the effect of MDMA on PTSD patients is. Nor hocus pocus to identify the effects of repeated trauma.

How are you deciding what percentage of "how the brain works" we need to know in order to do psychiatry in a reasonably well-informed way?

Suppose, even, we know now 0.1% of the entire story. Is this sufficient for an evidence-based treatment of psychosis?

It clearly seems to be. Since the treatment of schizophrenia is overwhelmingly more effective than anything based on a study of 50 people.

Your comment may very well apply to "journalistic science" ie., the increasingly prevent, "ive just had an idea, lets get 50 undergrads and a seminar room!".

That is a tiny percentage of science, even if it is the most commonly popularized.

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#32

Post by dec0dedab0de »

mjburgess wrote: post #23
xena wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think about half the problem is that psychiatric illnesses don't make people bleed, so there's no way to universally tell something is wrong.

The bane of society, I think, is mentally healthy people. They run politics but have absolutely no appreciation for what works for non-healthy people. Which is all the people who acutally rely on politics/society. I think conservatism as a personality is a symptom of good mental health: if you arent able to do something, its lazyness. So you must just need some motivation: either a beating or some money. etc. That's…

I dont think any mentally healthy person would want to work in politics.

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#33

Post by xapata »

mjburgess wrote: post #19
algesten wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. modern clinical psychiatry is an evidenced-based, research-driven field which treats and forms diagnoses on the basis of decades of research into any particular condition. It isnt the 1950s. But isn't modern clinical psychiatry marred by the same problems social or economic sciences are? Ultimately you are studying/interpreting human behaviour, which doesn't lend itself well to quantisation or categorising.

The most reasonable thing to think about any mental health disorder is whatever the consensus in clinical psychiatry is. That is the point. It is so overwhelmingly well-researched, that even if its conclusions are wrong, no lay person is going to be in a position to have "an argument" that hasn't already been considered and researched and folded into the consensus. This isnt the case with social sciences, and it isnt…

Sounds like you're not familiar with sociology nor macroeconomics literature.

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#34

Post by iamnothere »

mjburgess wrote: post #23
xena wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think about half the problem is that psychiatric illnesses don't make people bleed, so there's no way to universally tell something is wrong.

The bane of society, I think, is mentally healthy people. They run politics but have absolutely no appreciation for what works for non-healthy people. Which is all the people who acutally rely on politics/society. I think conservatism as a personality is a symptom of good mental health: if you arent able to do something, its lazyness. So you must just need some motivation: either a beating or some money. etc. That's…

This is an interesting perspective. I would add that there may be multiple "healthy" modes of being human that are quite different, and some of these modes may be a small minority. In a small tribe these cognitive differences may have been valued (depending on the tribe of course!), but in our modern, highly systematized society these people are often considered a social "misfit" for being unable or unwilling to play along.

For better or worse, the rules of society are designed by the neurotypical majority, who are often unable to see that the concept of "normal" is frequently just a fig leaf for the majority consensus. This can get wrapped up in politics through layers of metaphor but is rarely (if ever) engaged with directly in public debate.

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#37

Post by pantalaimon »

xena wrote: post #20
mjburgess wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, sigh. I was writing with ADHD in mind actually. Up to 10% children really do have ADHD which is a delay in the development of the frontal lobe. Such a delay seems "somewhat common" amongst humans. More than half catch up, leaving upto 5% of adults with some form of ADHD. ADHD is serious. It is a severe impairment to planning, self-management, emotional regulation, etc. You are likely to be impoverished without s…

Honestly I think about half the problem is that psychiatric illnesses don't make people bleed, so there's no way to universally tell something is wrong.

I think the conflict here is more in that way:

Do you want to give people medicine so they can conform to what society expects from them, or do you instead try to change society so it doesn't have this expectations in the first place.

With ADHD what a lot of people see is this: You are not being efficient, so that is a flaw that needs to be fixed. But where is the line? Should we really optimize for maximal productivity or are other forms of society possible?

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#38

Post by pantalaimon »

hhmc wrote: post #36
singularity2001 wrote: post #26

The underlying root cause often is loneliness. Many addictions are just symptoms of loneliness.

I'm unconvinced this is true for physiological addiction (e.g. opiates).

You still need a reason to regularly take them in the first place, before the physical addiction kicks in.

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#39

Post by chiefalchemist »

DanBC wrote: post #11
mjburgess wrote: post #2

Before the sceptics get in: 1. The purpose of DSM/ICD is often to justify financing treatment: > Chris Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University ... described the ICD as "the book of real diseases that you can get insurance payments for." 2. Treatment has to be mindful of the specific form of addiction: > "These are co-morbid conditions," he said. "If you just treat the depression and not gaming, the…

> Before criticizing modern psychiatry keep in mind: > 1. mental health patients are extreme in their dysfunction, never common. I agree with what you're saying, but the US does have a problem of over-testing, over-diagnosis, and over-treating illness. Not just mental ill health, but everything. In the US about 10% of children have ADHD https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/ > Based on the Heath Resour…

> "...but the US does have a problem of over-testing, over-diagnosis, and over-treating illness. Not just mental ill health, but everything."

I'd argue this is a symptom. The root disease is the profits to be made from various testing positive.

I'd add that it's aided by the fact that most people believe the doc can (and should) script you a pill for just about everything. Prevention? That's not going to happen. The patients know it, the doctors know it, and the insurance company pays for it.

Do I think everyone should have access to healthcare? Yes. But everyone should also be mindful if personal health. That isn't the case. And since soneone else is always paying for it, and the med pro are too broken to push back, we get what we have.

Illness as a badget of honor.

Re: WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

#40

Post by chiefalchemist »

taneq wrote: post #25
mjburgess wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, sigh. I was writing with ADHD in mind actually. Up to 10% children really do have ADHD which is a delay in the development of the frontal lobe. Such a delay seems "somewhat common" amongst humans. More than half catch up, leaving upto 5% of adults with some form of ADHD. ADHD is serious. It is a severe impairment to planning, self-management, emotional regulation, etc. You are likely to be impoverished without s…

Your points about ADHD requiring a pharmacological approach reminds me of the discussion here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que... Specifically, that the only distinction between 'disease' and 'character flaw' which makes sense is that you can't fix someone's disease by yelling at them.

> "...you can't fix someone's disease by yelling at them."

Actually, I think if you believe in neuroplasticity (sp?) that might not be accurate. True, yelling might not be the best approach. But it can still work if applied the right way - to some extent.

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