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A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

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Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#31

Post by rjf72 »

dalbasal wrote: post #22
rjf72 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are an immense amount. The chess player's brain is apparently a popular topic of study! Here's a Google Scholar link for 'chess brain' which turns up lots of relevant studies: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=chess+brain

Know which of these deals specifically with the differences between amateur and titled players?

Many! The third [1] and fourth [2] links specifically talk about the physiological differences between master and amateur brains. I didn't check beyond there, but I expect you could probably find dozens of others.

And one very important third link. [3]

[1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/35088119

[2] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839321...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#32

Post by drdeca »

dragonwriter wrote: post #28
elbasti wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But mental illness _is_ different from physical illness. That's the whole point. The dangerous thing is to presume that's not true. Or even worse: to lie about it. The phrase "chemical imbalance" comes to mind. Complete and utter fabrication of a physical cause. It may be that a physical cause is discovered for some conditions which today are considered "mental illnesses"... say, schizophrenia. Well, when that happen…

> But mental illness _is_ different from physical illness. No, it's not, it's a subset of physical illness. It's not even possible for it to be otherwise without magic.

I think you might not be interpreting that in the way that it was meant.

Perhaps consider: what things would someone who calls some things “mental illnesses” and not call them “physical illnesses”, contrasted with the things they would call “physical illnesses” and would not call “mental illnesses”. What name would you give to these two categories?

I am reminded of a conversation I had with my dad, perhaps 5 years ago, where he referred to something as a plant, and I was confused because he meant that in a way that excluded trees, while I hadn’t interpreted it that way. Now, of course, in the technical sense, trees are plants, being members of the kingdom Plantae. But at the same time, if one is in an area with 5 trees, and a plant which is not a tree, and someone tells you “look at the plant”, the pragmatic way to interpret what they mean, is that they want you to look at the plant (i.e. the plant which is not a tree).

Scott Alexander said (as a paraphrase/snowclone of Christ’s “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”) “The categories were made for man, not man for the categories.”.

Edit: small formatting fix

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#33

Post by jhbadger »

elbasti wrote: post #19

Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness" is one of those works which is completely and utterly misinterpreted simply because of the title. I don't have the book available at the moment, but in the introduction he says something to the effect of "I don't regret writing this book, but I regret calling it what I did, because people judge it without reading it." The gut-reaction to such a title is to think the writer is sayi…

But it is equally true that there can be no "cure for cancer" in the sense of a cure for all cancers. Just like with bipolar disorder, "cancer" is just a broad description of symptoms. There is no shared physical cause that underlies all cancers. That's why some cancers are treatable and others are still basically a death sentence.

That being said, while "bipolar disorder" is clearly a disease, or like cancer, a set of diseases, it is true that the mental health profession has an unfortunate long history of making non-majority personality traits "mental illnesses" -- homosexuality was considered a mental illness until the mid 1970s, for example.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#34

Post by empath75 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #29
elbasti wrote: post #19

Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness" is one of those works which is completely and utterly misinterpreted simply because of the title. I don't have the book available at the moment, but in the introduction he says something to the effect of "I don't regret writing this book, but I regret calling it what I did, because people judge it without reading it." The gut-reaction to such a title is to think the writer is sayi…

As someone who has depression and anxiety, I can definitely testify that there's a certain fatalism that one experiences once they've been "diagnosed" with mental illness. However. There's a dangerous perspective held by a conservatively-minded minority of more people who say mental illness "isn't real" and you just need to "suck it up" and "have stronger character", and it amounts to victim-blaming. Arguing to elimi…

> There's a dangerous perspective held by a conservatively-minded minority of more people who say mental illness "isn't real" and you just need to "suck it up" and "have stronger character"

I don't think most cases of depression are an illness for the same reason that I don't think that hunger is an illness. It's the body and mind's natural response to a life which it wasn't evolved to cope with. Which isn't at all the same thing as telling people to suck it up. If everyone is forced to take drugs in order to thrive in what civilization has become, it's not the depressed person who is sick.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#35

Post by dalbasal »

rjf72 wrote: post #31
dalbasal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Know which of these deals specifically with the differences between amateur and titled players?

Many! The third [1] and fourth [2] links specifically talk about the physiological differences between master and amateur brains. I didn't check beyond there, but I expect you could probably find dozens of others. And one very important third link. [3] [1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/35088119 [2] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839321... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

thanks!

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#36

Post by gamblor956 »

elbasti wrote: post #25
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The gut-reaction to such a title is to think the writer is saying "depression doesn't exist" or "schizophrenia doesn't exist" or "manic depressives are lying." Even at the more generous level of “mental illness is different from physical illness” it is wrong, and dangerously so. > The word "illness" should be used to represent a cause-- and resolving the cause should cure the illness. This has never been what “illn…

But mental illness _is_ different from physical illness. That's the whole point. The dangerous thing is to presume that's not true. Or even worse: to lie about it. The phrase "chemical imbalance" comes to mind. Complete and utter fabrication of a physical cause. It may be that a physical cause is discovered for some conditions which today are considered "mental illnesses"... say, schizophrenia. Well, when that happen…

Many mental illnesses have been traced to underlying physical issues with the brain, especially the schizophrenia family of disorders.

Autopsies of mentally ill individuals (no history of drug use) and chronic drug users that developed mental illnesses have found many of the same structural defects in the brain.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#37

Post by yellowstuff »

elbasti wrote: post #19

Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness" is one of those works which is completely and utterly misinterpreted simply because of the title. I don't have the book available at the moment, but in the introduction he says something to the effect of "I don't regret writing this book, but I regret calling it what I did, because people judge it without reading it." The gut-reaction to such a title is to think the writer is sayi…

The book "The Emperor of all Maladies" doesn't put it in those exact terms, but makes it clear that essentially the same is true of cancer. Cancer is a symptom of many kinds of health problems, not a single disease that responds to a single treatment.

If we understood bleeding as poorly as we understood cancer, then everything from R&D for better bandages to public campaigns to reduce gun violence would be lumped together as "treatment for bleeding."

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#38

Post by _bxg1 »

empath75 wrote: post #34
_bxg1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has depression and anxiety, I can definitely testify that there's a certain fatalism that one experiences once they've been "diagnosed" with mental illness. However. There's a dangerous perspective held by a conservatively-minded minority of more people who say mental illness "isn't real" and you just need to "suck it up" and "have stronger character", and it amounts to victim-blaming. Arguing to elimi…

> There's a dangerous perspective held by a conservatively-minded minority of more people who say mental illness "isn't real" and you just need to "suck it up" and "have stronger character" I don't think most cases of depression are an illness for the same reason that I don't think that hunger is an illness. It's the body and mind's natural response to a life which it wasn't evolved to cope with. Which isn't at all t…

Right, so you're not in that group. But there are people who literally write off every possible thing that's wrong with someone's mind as a character flaw and therefore that person's fault and something they don't need any professional assistance to deal with.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#39

Post by empath75 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #38
empath75 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a dangerous perspective held by a conservatively-minded minority of more people who say mental illness "isn't real" and you just need to "suck it up" and "have stronger character" I don't think most cases of depression are an illness for the same reason that I don't think that hunger is an illness. It's the body and mind's natural response to a life which it wasn't evolved to cope with. Which isn't at all t…

Right, so you're not in that group. But there are people who literally write off every possible thing that's wrong with someone's mind as a character flaw and therefore that person's fault and something they don't need any professional assistance to deal with.

I wish we thought of depression as a disease of systems instead of of people -- and that our first response to rising numbers of depression diagnoses wasn't only to treat people, but also to reform society.

Like if a building is on fire, you don't just do first aid on people that get burned. You evacuate the building and put the fire out.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#40

Post by Red29 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #36
elbasti wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But mental illness _is_ different from physical illness. That's the whole point. The dangerous thing is to presume that's not true. Or even worse: to lie about it. The phrase "chemical imbalance" comes to mind. Complete and utter fabrication of a physical cause. It may be that a physical cause is discovered for some conditions which today are considered "mental illnesses"... say, schizophrenia. Well, when that happen…

Many mental illnesses have been traced to underlying physical issues with the brain, especially the schizophrenia family of disorders. Autopsies of mentally ill individuals (no history of drug use) and chronic drug users that developed mental illnesses have found many of the same structural defects in the brain.

That can happen. But in a significant (the majority?) number of cases of patients diagnosed with Schizophrenia there is no difference between their brains and 'normal' people when comparing MRI scans. Note this is with early onset - the "medication" provided for schizophrenia is well known to cause large structural changes in the brain.
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