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Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

psychologytoday.com

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Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#231

Post by jjbiotech »

ars wrote: post #155
blisse wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really is the exact opposite here? That depression has nothing to do with your environment and only to do with your body?

> That depression has nothing to do with your environment and only to do with your body? Yes. Exactly. And until you experience such a thing for yourself, or interact with someone like that you will 100% never believe it to be possible. Yet it is.

Yeah, you're incorrect on this one. You as a human aren't somehow totally disconnected from your environment. The environment you live in, is a part of yourself, the two can't be separated.

You have more foreign bacteria living in your body than human cells. "life flows on within you and without you".

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#232

Post by cairo_x »

erdojo wrote: post #174
warmfuzzykitten wrote: post #162

The comments here are depressing. People who are actually depressed are saying that the author is completely wrong about their depression, while others with no experience of depression are nitpicking at them with for what passes for logic on the internet. The truth is, this PhD is not a psychiatrist, appears to have little clinical experience except whatever his "practice" has thrown his way, and, tellingly, refers t…

Depression isn't the disease, it's a symptom. Perhaps he should have clarified that the cause of the symptom might be situational, or it might be the result of another medical problem, e.g. brain malfunction/chemicals, genetics, nervous system disorder, cortisol issues, thyroid, hormone disorders etc., all shown to correlate with high levels of depression. Most people who I've talked to who say it's a disease seem to…

You are wrong. Many mental illnesses, over the past decade, have been proven to be diseases. They can be tested for. Currently there are a whole hosts of tests and treatments going through the phases.

Gregg and his ideas run parallel to a line of thought associated with The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group hell bent on denouncing mental illness as a disease. CCHR are/were a nonprofit organization established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz.

I can't believe people are still pushing these ideas, but this thread is rife with them. Please review your position, and make an effort to update yourself to the state of the art.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#233

Post by cairo_x »

Many mental illnesses, over the past decade, have been proven to be diseases. They can be tested for. Currently there are a whole hosts of new tests and treatments going through the phases.

Gregg and his ideas run parallel to a line of thought associated with The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group hell bent on denouncing mental illness as a disease. CCHR are/were a nonprofit organization established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz.

I can't believe people are still pushing these ideas, but this thread is rife with them. Please would ya'll make an effort to update yourselves to the state of the art.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#234

Post by jacalata »

brador wrote: post #178
jacalata wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rates are higher could you explain this? I've never heard about it.

The simplest example would be welfare per month from (disability + unemployed) > unemployed only.

Hm, I didn't think you could claim both.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#235

Post by jjbiotech »

jim-greer wrote: post #33

While there's truth to this, it's a generalization. Twin studies show that there's a moderate genetic factor in depression, and a strong one for manic depression http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/558030 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16390897

Maybe these individuals with genetic "risks" evolved to live in an environment different from our modern society. Everyone has a different optimal operating environment. These studies don't really conflict with anything the author said.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#236

Post by zxcvvcxz »

This is a fantastic article.

> Depression is a way the emotional system signals that things are not working and that one is not getting one’s relational needs met. If you are low on relational value in the key domains of family, friends, lovers, group and self, feeling depressed in this context is EXACTLY like feeling pain from a broken arm, feeling cold being outside in the cold, and feeling hungry after going 24 hours without food.

Exactly, it's a signal, not a disease. A signal a lot more people I know are having as they grow into their desk jobs with bleak outlooks for advancement and fulfillment. Anecdotally, when I talk to depressed men I know, lack of romantic prospects is by far the biggest factor. We've never had more single men: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/bachel... I'm sure women are much happier either with these circumstances. Somehow modern society has us further apart in this regard.

I've written before about being prescribed SSRIs after a 45 minute meeting with a college psychiatrist. Absolute rubish. The real solution was to cut out a failing romantic relationship, stop living with this person, and start cultivating new, healthier relationships. I've never been depressed since, but I got a great experience dealing with SSRI withdrawal symptoms in a foreign country.

If anyone reading this is depressed, I strongly recommend thinking about it as a signal that something is off in your life. For most people (though certainly not all), the meds will only help you cope with whatever the underlying problems are. Get some exercise: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3674785/ and also start being more social. Practical tip for hitting two birds with one stone: join a running club.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#237

Post by namlem »

cairo_x wrote: post #233

Many mental illnesses, over the past decade, have been proven to be diseases. They can be tested for. Currently there are a whole hosts of new tests and treatments going through the phases. Gregg and his ideas run parallel to a line of thought associated with The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group hell bent on denouncing mental illness as a disease. CCHR are/were a nonprofit organization established in 1969…

I think there is some merit to these ideas, but we shouldn't go overboard. With anxiety and depression specifically, I believe we need to make a distinction between the chronic and acute forms. If you have healthy relationships and a generally fulfilling life, yet still have problems with anxiety and depression, you most likely have the chronic form and need medication. If, on the other hand, your symptoms can be explained by other factors, like those described in the article, non-medical interventions should be used. It seems that there is also a risk of the acute forms of these disorders evolving into the chronic forms, which are harder to treat.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#238

Post by zxcvvcxz »

Taek wrote: post #216
Dylan16807 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evolutionarily speaking, it seems likely that depression/anxiety are there for some purpose, and yet we treat them both like meaningless pain meant only to be banished using drugs. I believe both are signals that something in our environment is not working for us. They indicate emotional or physical needs unmet---needs for safety, autonomy, connection, etc. > Often the individual suffering is fundamentally unaware…

Depression is sometimes described a numbing experience. Everything loses color, loses that spark. Sometimes, everything hurts, nothing feels good. Making the same daily decisions is painful and slow, like walking through an ocean of glass. Depression gives you the power to make really big decisions. Everything hurts about the same. Going to work is about as painful as staying home, meaning it's easier to quit a horri…

Absolutely. See also Winston Churchill, who cultivated his ailments into strengths: http://theconversation.com/winston-churchill-and-his-black-d...

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#239

Post by kaitai »

dools wrote: post #129
anon4this1 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

each year 19,000 americans die from prescription opioid overdoses and another 10,000 die from heroin overdoses which often start with prescription opioid use. In my experience (as an anaesthesiologist), people who use opioids as a response to non-pain problems are some of the most miserable people there are. It might work for a couple of weeks, but soon you're tolerant, addicted, intermittently withdrawing and your l…

Saying that prescription opioid use is a cause of heroin overdoses ignores the fact that the reason people move to heroin is because of the paranoia about addiction which causes their prescriptions to be cut off in the first place. In the same vein (no pun intended) I've been looking for stats but not being able to find anything about what percentage of prescription opioid overdoses occur while the patient is being a…

There's a piece missing from this argument: opioids were inappropriately prescribed to start with in many cases.

Think of all those folks with back pain. Back pain is complex and difficult to treat, but huge components come from 1) the stupid chairs we sit in 2) at our stupid jobs that encourage hours of sitting 3) in our cities that discourage biking or walking to work, all in the context of 4) a food system that gives us crap to eat that makes us mildly addicted to sugar and salt and makes us unhealthy.

So the real cure for back pain for a lot of people is to go back 20 years in time, make a commitment to taking care of their physical selves, aligning their eating, transportation, work, and recreation with health. The second-best cure is physical therapy. Physical therapy right now! But that costs money and time and no one believes it works (it does!!!) so the pain med is seen as the proximate best answer.

Brings us back to the original original post, actually.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#240

Post by joncrocks »

haberman wrote: post #52
tbirdz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First let me preface this by saying that I have no training in psychology or related fields, so this comment may be complete bunk. I think that suicide could have some evolutionary advantage in a group. Say there is a member of a group who has become sick, injured, or otherwise incapacitated and is unable to contribute to the group. The group must spend more work to take care of the member than they receive back from…

From a purely mathematical perspective, how would evolution ever select for a trait that causes someone to destroy themselves for the benefit of others? It seems like any characteristic that prevents the individual from reproducing is by definition not selected for. But I could be misunderstanding something. Maybe it could work in the case of people who are already parents. Favoring the group could increase the likel…

Sometimes traits are related, or negative traits are only manifest in a recessive manner. In such a way positive traits can be selected for, which have a consequence of a negative trait being present in a population.

The example frequently citied in this area is sickle cell anaemia, which can be inadvertently selected for in areas where Malaria is common. Having one 'bad' gene protects the person from Malaria, having two means that one has sickle cell anaemia.

This means that people with a single gene are more likely to survive, and hence pass on their gene, but this sometimes manifests as someone with sickle cell anaemia. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Epidemiolo...

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