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Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

theguardian.com

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Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#21

Post by [deleted] »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #9
coleifer wrote: post #8

My youngest brother has schizophrenia, which started when he was 19. He just turned 31, and were it not for his family supporting and caring for him, I'm sure he would be homeless or worse. He's one of the most sensitive, gentle people I have ever known. My wife and others who have gotten to know him would agree. Although he's "stable", thanks to an injection every 3 weeks, he's not going to ever get better. In fact…

> Why don't you go to the bowling group, movie night, job placement, etc, I used to ask him. Those people are crazy, he said. It might be tempting to read something like this and think "of course the crazy person thinks normal people are crazy". But I'd argue that "sane" people's reactions to mentally ill people are frequently more irrational and scary than the symptoms of the illness itself.

[deleted]

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#22

Post by yosys »

I dislike psychiatry grossly because the victims of the field are not compensated by how the errors destroy the victim's life.

I'm a person who was medicated with the older & new generation of antipsychotics for two years of my early 20s because I was suffering religious conversion therapy "best I can describe it" from family and where I was in circumstances any other person would have great amounts of stress. The outcome of unfortunate events made me with a doctor who disliked me for desiring to be a woman (I was born a male) and attempted to convince me it's delusions & hallucinations; when I attempted to communicate I never suffered from either. The medication would result in me doubting myself but I eventually broke away from it all. It was impossible to find anyone to help sue for the tremendous pain (I still suffer to this day from it all) and it's been many years since it all happened.

Anyway I deeply believe there should be a special hell for people who go into this field but I doubt anyone had any will in the outcome for me being any different because I've read philosophy on determinism since then. I think the field has done more damage than good and is a net negative with getting away with it all because of government allowing it. People prefer to believe something is good and when it really isn't.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#23

Post by dwaltrip »

lisper wrote: post #7

About ten years ago I made a documentary film about homeless people. On my first day of shooting I had an encounter with a schizophrenic guy named Daniel, which I captured on film. I've put a clip of that encounter here: http://graceofgodmovie.com/superdanny.mp4 It's worth watching all the way through. The difference in his attitude when I stopped being afraid of him and started treating him like a human being instea…

This is a nice thought, and I do agree that we need more a lot more of this perspective in the world.

But we need to be careful not to downplay the incredibly severe difficulties involved in helping, treating, and even simply co-existing across the months and years with those who have schizophrenia.

I had a good friend stay with me for 2 months who ended up having significant schizophrenia-like symptoms (never found out the actual diagnosis). I tried my best to treat him like a human and get him the help he needed, but I was unable to. I don't want to go into details, but a lot of stuff happened. It was a very difficult time.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#24

Post by PaulHoule »

pygy_ wrote: post #20
PaulHoule wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know a lot. If there is a comprehensive theory it is that mental disorders and developmental disabilities come in layers. You might have a genetic predisposition to certain problems, have that exacerbated by traumas, but learn how to compensate for them in some ways. You might do badly at certain things or certain situations but if you have support from other people, understand the difficulty, etc. you can do O.K.…

> We know a lot. Yet we know very little, like, we knew how to make fire before Lavoiser discovered the role of Oxygen in combustion. The various paradigms we use are approximate, not unlike humor and miasma theories were of some help before we understood physiology and discovered the existence of germs. The main theories of the 20th century (psychoanalysis and chemical imbalance) have been steadily eroded by researc…

On some level.

There is a lot of social complexity that means we may not take advantage of those facts. For instance we might get better drugs and other treatments but will that really help the people who are crapping on the street in San Francisco?

Autism in particular challenges the assumptions of society. The one thing aspies really can't do is "see the emperor's clothes". In asperger's day they did not get along well with National Socialism, today they have problems with neoliberalism.

You might fantasize that getting real help for aspies would increase their productivity a lot, mean they pay more taxes and make the help profitable for society, maybe even bend the curve of our civilization.

From another viewpoint there is more talent than there is opportunity. Maybe Aspies are 1% of the people in the top 2% of IQ, salvaging them means a small increase of the talent pool, and if you at the top of some insanely competitive pyramid (etc. academia, business) why spend money to make it more competitive for your kids...

Similarly, social structures tend to constrain the performance of science. We create the script that there is a "depression gene" and people build a career around that, maybe somebody wins a Nobel Prize, but really science is "what scientists do" and is about making stories that make sense to some people at a certain time and saying that some people are winners and others are losers. Go look at a Cochraine report on this or that and you'll see that 5000 studies got done, maybe 5 of those were done right, and there aren't enough samples to really be conclusive.

Astronomy is like this. We "know a lot" but every time somebody does a new study of Cepheid variables we find the cosmic distance scale isn't what we thought it was, the cosmological models are broken, etc.

That is, science manufactures a certainty that isn't there. "Reason" is often a label people use to attack other people. "Reason" magazine for instance has that name to say that socialists, labor unions, regulators, etc. are not "reasonable" and shouldn't be listened to.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#25

Post by asveikau »

codingslave wrote: post #16
coleifer wrote: post #8

My youngest brother has schizophrenia, which started when he was 19. He just turned 31, and were it not for his family supporting and caring for him, I'm sure he would be homeless or worse. He's one of the most sensitive, gentle people I have ever known. My wife and others who have gotten to know him would agree. Although he's "stable", thanks to an injection every 3 weeks, he's not going to ever get better. In fact…

I have a brother who went through about a decade of off and on psychosis, had probably over 20 hospitalizations, multiple suicide attempts, he had schizophrenia. So I moved home and lived with him, I never fully believed the diagnosis. He was on such a cocktail of medicine, I don't think anyone could stay sane on all of that. We started getting him off the antipsychs, off the mood stabilizers, no wellbutrin etc. A ye…

> hes a real person, not a schizophrenic.

Schizophrenics are real people first of all.

Congrats to your brother. I have heard it's possible for psychotic episodes to be a one-time thing and not recur. I have also seen people not get better. The whole thing is tough. It can be legit to get off the medications, but some people will need it for life. So how do you tell which situation you or a loved one is in?

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#26

Post by lisper »

dwaltrip wrote: post #23
lisper wrote: post #7

About ten years ago I made a documentary film about homeless people. On my first day of shooting I had an encounter with a schizophrenic guy named Daniel, which I captured on film. I've put a clip of that encounter here: http://graceofgodmovie.com/superdanny.mp4 It's worth watching all the way through. The difference in his attitude when I stopped being afraid of him and started treating him like a human being instea…

This is a nice thought, and I do agree that we need more a lot more of this perspective in the world. But we need to be careful not to downplay the incredibly severe difficulties involved in helping, treating, and even simply co-existing across the months and years with those who have schizophrenia. I had a good friend stay with me for 2 months who ended up having significant schizophrenia-like symptoms (never found…

Oh, absolutely. I'm not saying that you can just treat schizophrenics like normal people and everything will be hunky-dory. All I'm saying is that not being afraid of them (because most of them (though not all) are totally harmless) is a good first step.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#27

Post by mindgam3 »

> Importantly, what we call psychosis can also be a response to extreme stress or trauma. For many people it might best be understood as... a coping strategy gone awry or a form of storytelling carried out within the mind as a response to unbearable life events.

This. The day that mental health professionals realize this is the day that we start improving outcomes.

> there is no uncontroversial language when talking about mental illness – and that includes the phrase “mental illness”

Glad the author brought up this important point. “Illness” is bogus because it implies disease/biomarkers for which there is no evidence as the article states.

A more useful term would be “mental injury” as it frames the symptoms as a result of trauma. But I think the best term is simply “trauma” or “developmental trauma” when it goes back to childhood.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#28

Post by theArdvart45 »

mindgam3 wrote: post #27

> Importantly, what we call psychosis can also be a response to extreme stress or trauma. For many people it might best be understood as... a coping strategy gone awry or a form of storytelling carried out within the mind as a response to unbearable life events. This. The day that mental health professionals realize this is the day that we start improving outcomes. > there is no uncontroversial language when talking…

I cringed and abruptly stopped reading your comment at "This."

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#29

Post by codingslave »

asveikau wrote: post #25
codingslave wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a brother who went through about a decade of off and on psychosis, had probably over 20 hospitalizations, multiple suicide attempts, he had schizophrenia. So I moved home and lived with him, I never fully believed the diagnosis. He was on such a cocktail of medicine, I don't think anyone could stay sane on all of that. We started getting him off the antipsychs, off the mood stabilizers, no wellbutrin etc. A ye…

> hes a real person, not a schizophrenic. Schizophrenics are real people first of all. Congrats to your brother. I have heard it's possible for psychotic episodes to be a one-time thing and not recur. I have also seen people not get better. The whole thing is tough. It can be legit to get off the medications, but some people will need it for life. So how do you tell which situation you or a loved one is in?

Sorry, real person was harsh language, but in the depths of psychosis, it sometimes seems like the old person is no longer there.

I was just trying to emphasize that the diagnosis is never final, even after doctors have concluded it to be. In our case we never gave up. I think that the antipsychotic drugs make recovery extremely difficult, which is where alot of patients get trapped. The withdrawl symptoms themselves cause psychosis.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#30

Post by ordu »

yosys wrote: post #22

I dislike psychiatry grossly because the victims of the field are not compensated by how the errors destroy the victim's life. I'm a person who was medicated with the older & new generation of antipsychotics for two years of my early 20s because I was suffering religious conversion therapy "best I can describe it" from family and where I was in circumstances any other person would have great amounts of stress. The ou…

There is a book "A Road Back from Schizophrenia: A Memoir"[1]. Arnhild Lauveng came back from schizophrenia, got a degree in psychology and wrote the book, describing how it feels to have a schizophrenia. She describes doctors too. A bad ones and also those, who helped her to get back from schizophrenia.

I believe you would like that book, her experiences are like yours.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Road-Back-Schizophrenia-Memoir/dp/161...

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