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Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

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Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#21

Post by [deleted] »

pawsforthought wrote: post #15
majormajor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might hypothesize that the most active users of Twitter might not be the most representative of the greater population, even... However, any idea along the lines of "people need help, not acceptance" needs to be very carefully discussed, because in the world I grew up in, you didn't get help or acceptance: you got punishment, you got shame, you even sometimes got violence as "treatment." A lot of people out there…

> you even sometimes got violence as "treatment." For example, electroconvulsive therapy in its early days. To quote the Mayo Clinic [1]: > Much of the stigma attached to ECT is based on early treatments in which high doses of electricity were administered without anesthesia, leading to memory loss, fractured bones and other serious side effects. [1]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsiv...

[deleted]

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#22

Post by XorNot »

darth_avocado wrote: post #18
XorNot wrote: post #9

This seems like an example of taking the giant ocean of people that is Twitter and Tiktok and pretending even 100 crazy people in a population of literally billions represents a "trend" or societal phenomenon.

You’ve either not interacted with the younger generations enough or you haven’t noticed it yet, there is an alarming number of people who claim to have some form of disability. And for a huge percentage of them, that’s their personality. Finding people with actual problems that keep it to themselves and not use it as a way to gain advantages in life is becoming harder. Though I will admit, I am largely talking about…

You haven't pointed to a single statistical survey here. This whole post is you going "nah it's totally happening" based on your feelings and social media.

Which are basically Twitter, Tiktok, and various subreddits which repost those things to criticise them.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#23

Post by TameAntelope »

Waterluvian wrote: post #3

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s chic, but this line: “…“the gentrification of disability,” how sickness became chic…“ is quite something.

See /r/adhdmeme as an example.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#24

Post by thaumasiotes »

dane-pgp wrote: post #16
thaumasiotes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-crazy-like... > Around the Meiji Restoration, when everyone was obsessed with how great foreign stuff was, Japanese medical students went to Germany, learned psychiatry, came back to Japan, and told everyone they were neurasthenic. Being neurasthenic became first a fashion, then a class marker. The idea was that neurasthenics were people who were working too…

> psychiatrists felt obligated to restigmatize this mental disorder in hopes of limiting its adoption Or, to put it another way, they felt obligated to shame people into not seeking treatment, in hopes of not having to admit that they didn't know how to help their patients. Fewer patients, happier doctors, better metrics. Everyone wins, right?

> to put it another way, they felt obligated to shame people into not seeking treatment, in hopes of not having to admit that they didn't know how to help their patients.

On the contrary, shaming people into not seeking treatment is how they were helping them. Prevention is the best cure, after all.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#25

Post by stevenhuang »

TameAntelope wrote: post #20
lr4444lr wrote: post #12

The placebo effect to my knowledge has been demonstrably shown powerful enough even to shrink cancer tumors, so why would such a question even be posed at this point? We are just beginning to understand the mind body connection, but it's clear that negativity doesn't help much more than getting one's self to an actual doctor.

> Placebos won't lower your cholesterol or shrink a tumor. Instead, placebos work on symptoms modulated by the brain, like the perception of pain. "Placebos may make you feel better, but they will not cure you," says Kaptchuk. [0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-th...

I would agree.

However I've just read Dean Radin's Real Magic and now I'm not so sure.

It would seem, if the ANOVA studies referenced in the book are real, that there really is something unexplainable about mind over matter.

It's crazy yes. But all the studies are referenced in the book, and it sounds persuasive.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#26

Post by TameAntelope »

stevenhuang wrote: post #25
TameAntelope wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Placebos won't lower your cholesterol or shrink a tumor. Instead, placebos work on symptoms modulated by the brain, like the perception of pain. "Placebos may make you feel better, but they will not cure you," says Kaptchuk. [0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-th...

I would agree. However I've just read Dean Radin's Real Magic and now I'm not so sure. It would seem, if the ANOVA studies referenced in the book are real, that there really is something unexplainable about mind over matter. It's crazy yes. But all the studies are referenced in the book, and it sounds persuasive.

Why "unexplainable" and not "thus far unexplained"?

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#27

Post by stevenhuang »

TameAntelope wrote: post #26
stevenhuang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree. However I've just read Dean Radin's Real Magic and now I'm not so sure. It would seem, if the ANOVA studies referenced in the book are real, that there really is something unexplainable about mind over matter. It's crazy yes. But all the studies are referenced in the book, and it sounds persuasive.

Why "unexplainable" and not "thus far unexplained"?

Well, that's implied. I'm certain we'll get to the bottom of it eventually, whatever it is.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#28

Post by dane-pgp »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #24
dane-pgp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> psychiatrists felt obligated to restigmatize this mental disorder in hopes of limiting its adoption Or, to put it another way, they felt obligated to shame people into not seeking treatment, in hopes of not having to admit that they didn't know how to help their patients. Fewer patients, happier doctors, better metrics. Everyone wins, right?

> to put it another way, they felt obligated to shame people into not seeking treatment, in hopes of not having to admit that they didn't know how to help their patients. On the contrary, shaming people into not seeking treatment is how they were helping them. Prevention is the best cure, after all.

I get the point that psychiatrists wanted to avoid over-diagnosing/over-prescribing, but what if they ended up over-prescribing societal shame itself, which is after all a very blunt instrument?

This is particularly likely to occur if the incentives are aligned to make the problem seem to go away rather than doing the hard work of actually fixing things. In other words, they may not have been preventing or curing anything (at least for the patients who needed the most help).

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#29

Post by fuzzfactor »

XorNot wrote: post #22
darth_avocado wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve either not interacted with the younger generations enough or you haven’t noticed it yet, there is an alarming number of people who claim to have some form of disability. And for a huge percentage of them, that’s their personality. Finding people with actual problems that keep it to themselves and not use it as a way to gain advantages in life is becoming harder. Though I will admit, I am largely talking about…

You haven't pointed to a single statistical survey here. This whole post is you going "nah it's totally happening" based on your feelings and social media. Which are basically Twitter, Tiktok, and various subreddits which repost those things to criticise them.

All I have is anecdata myself.

But it's not just the younger generation, you can go back a ways. I'm no youngster either.

My old uncle was a hypochondriac. Mom said he just acted that way to get attention.

One time he called and wanted her to fix him some chicken soup, and I ended up bringing it over to his apartment.

I asked him how he was feeling and it was headaches, tiredness, foggy mindedness, and overall malaise.

Doctor couldn't find a thing this time.

I asked him how long had it been going on now.

"In three weeks it'll be a month."

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#30

Post by Spivak »

kradeelav wrote: post #17
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s chic, but this line: “…“the gentrification of disability,” how sickness became chic…“ is quite something.

It's true. Certain circles of tumblr, tiktok, and twitter have made it "fashionable" to have mental disorders among themselves in an audience for victim points. (The uncharitable side of me would add "because physical disorders aren't so easily faked".) This obviously does not negate my sympathy for those with the real disorders - I have some as well. It's enraging to see the real stuff be treated so lightly though.

This is such the wrong take, it feels trendy because those circles of social media / younger people have destigmatized talking about mental illness and sharing their experiences leading to a huge audience having a collective “oh shit that’s not normal” / “the normal amount of pain is zero” moment. And the communities that surround them adhdmeme or edanonymemes are spaces for people to commiserate that are now more visible than they previously were.

“Teens faking mental illness” is a folk tale older than social media.

The closest allegory is that mental illness is having its “pride” where it’s no longer a big shameful thing, you’re allowed to have it be visible, and it doesn’t make you less of a person. And just like pride you get similar “teens faking for attention”, “it’s just a phase”, “trenders” or “ugh people make it their whole personality.”

If you want a not politically charged example of something being destigmatized suddenly increasing in prominence look at the graph of the percent of left handed people over time and guess when we stopped forcing kids to be right handed.

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