Holistic perspective should always be taken into consideration. Yet, redefining mental health problems is another topic they have to master.
It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
91–100 of 144 posts
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Diet is extremely underrated According to your comment, it is also extremely overrated. Diet is very complex, and the behaviours associated with it are very complex as well. It is very hard to tell causality from correlation in this context. If someone’s temporary mental problems are clearing up, there may be more room to improve eating habits, and if someone is riding a negative spiral, there might be just a littl…
>> but I sincerely doubt that reducing sugar intake will cure depression And yet you can find people whose depression went away after going low carb, search twitter and youtube.
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Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#93> psychiatric models in the 20th century, centered on the notion of disease... ..mental health conditions are to a large extent, a social construct produced by lifestyles Is the problem medicalization of psychiatry, or is it "sciensification?" How much progres have we actually made in the last 100 years? Medicine, particularly "wellness" is difficult to map onto an experimental framework. Even theoretically testable,…
> how much actual knowledge has psychiatry gained over the last 100 years?
Some
Plus you are conflating psychiatry with theraputic approaches, so that muddies the water.
Overall there have been massive advances in pharmacology which have given us an arsenal of drugs
In some cases they can be very helpful.
However these have been massively over prescribed, especially in the USA
There is good empirical evidence that many cases of mental illness have roots in e.g. childhood abuse.
There have been a lot of empirical studies that show increased rates of mental illness in childhood abuse survivors, combat veterans and rape victims.
There is good empirical evidence that some theraputic approaches can improve outcomes for some people. There does not appear to be any one approach that works for everyone.
Many therapists believe in those cases where there is an identifiable cause it is better to keep drugs as a last resort and try to find a therapy that improves things.
Certain conditions e.g. schizophrenia, appear to only really respond to a pharmaceutical approach and even then, again, not for all cases.
> Even theoretically testable, Popper-esque theories are hard to formulate. For psychology/psychiatry... pretty much impossible.
There are models of the mind, of development, of response to trauma.
It is possible to test outcomes of therapies without needing a full "model of the mind"
Granted, much of the research is of dubious value but some overall trends appear to be solid. I've tried to base this answer on that
> To the extent that treatment is ever actually science-based... "Science" means a pharmacalogical framework, a drug testing framework. You can substitute exercise, talk therapy or whatnot for drugs but... that approach is going to lead you to conclude "drugs."
I don't think any of that paragraph is well founded
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% agree. You need to cook your food. You need to exert energy to move (walk, run, or cycle instead of car.) You need to communicate face-to-face, instead of with a screen. Swimming is such a great feeling that I've never seen someone worry about an email while doing it. If you drive your car to a desk job where you sit in a zoom meeting all day and then stuff your face with food you bought, you're going to crash a…
Counterpoint: I have worried about emails while swimming.
Merely 20 minutes ago a colleague was complaining to me that his smart watch popped up a distressing notification while he was swimming. I was telling him to turn off all notifications and toss that watch.
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#95I strongly believe we don't have "mental health problems", yet we have a global style of living in "modern society" that is inherently incompatible with the way we evolved: e.g. office-based daily tasks instead of walking and hunting, foods fabricated to stimulate us instead of what we could find in nature, high buildings and cities with sound/light/air pollution instead of a calm, clean nature, always trying to "opt…
Is there any evidence indicating that mental health issues have increased during this period? Or that there is higher incidence in more developed nations?
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#96I strongly believe we don't have "mental health problems", yet we have a global style of living in "modern society" that is inherently incompatible with the way we evolved: e.g. office-based daily tasks instead of walking and hunting, foods fabricated to stimulate us instead of what we could find in nature, high buildings and cities with sound/light/air pollution instead of a calm, clean nature, always trying to "opt…
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Are you really going to shit on people for failing because we've turned society to "hard mode"? Imagine it's suddenly the zombie apocalypse - are you gonna victim blame people for not having a bunker, years of saved food and an arsenal of anti-zombie arms ready to go?
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#97It does seem sort of obvious that many mental health conditions are tied up in a person’s wider life and lifestyle, not just in brain chemistry. But is this really a revolution in our understanding? Hasn’t psychiatry always taken a broad view of potential causes? People sitting on a couch talking about what’s going on in their lives and somehow being helped by conversing with the psychiatrist? Or is this about non-ps…
I think the bigger issue currently is we understand so little about the brain. For something like Schizophrenia there is very obviously biological origins - not that environment doesn't have an impact as well, but you're not solving that with behavioral therapy alone. However I think biological psychiatry has sorta thrown the baby out with the bathwater in the way it tries to study these disorders, lumping everyone with psychotic disorders into one basket and doing some one dimensional studies on that.
Since we don't really have a foundational understanding of the brain and these are complex (probably multiple distinct under 1 umbrella) diseases, it's difficult to draw many real conclusions. Unfortunately on the flip side it is rare to see professionals that focus on the human side of things think much about biology. So you get a weird gap where people with fancy biology tools are studying very ill-defined phenomena, and people who work on unpacking the psychological phenomena are entirely ignoring the critical underlying biology. Maybe one day the fields will be better bridged, but research that is currently done isn't really abstracted in a way where it's feasible for the two sides to meaningfully inform each other. Plus there are cultural barriers in place.
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#98I strongly believe we don't have "mental health problems", yet we have a global style of living in "modern society" that is inherently incompatible with the way we evolved: e.g. office-based daily tasks instead of walking and hunting, foods fabricated to stimulate us instead of what we could find in nature, high buildings and cities with sound/light/air pollution instead of a calm, clean nature, always trying to "opt…
I’m quite sure that there is (at least some) truth in this. I’ve been travelling in Italy for a month now. Around and below Napoli, there is something which I cannot grasp, which seemed very calming. It’s slower somehow, and way more enjoyable, than north Italy. Even parts of north Italy which are very “chill”, and where “nothing really happens”. One for sure: south Italy lifestyle is definitely closer to slow living than any “slow living” part of the north. Even Napoli on some level.
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#99[deleted]
Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health
#100I strongly believe we don't have "mental health problems", yet we have a global style of living in "modern society" that is inherently incompatible with the way we evolved: e.g. office-based daily tasks instead of walking and hunting, foods fabricated to stimulate us instead of what we could find in nature, high buildings and cities with sound/light/air pollution instead of a calm, clean nature, always trying to "opt…
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