On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness • Hacker News Board

Re: On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness

#61

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 5:40 AM UTC

anon_christian wrote: post #11

rubyn00bie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a scummy reply because it is purely written to exploit vulnerable people and provide them baseless hope. You do not say how, what, or why your religion has done to help you and you make a broad sweeping statement that some thing (a god) will magically solve mental illness. If anything this sort of crap will prolong suffering, and or exacerbate the problems associated with mental illness because it's n…

A story I noticed yesterday, in times past these symptoms would have been described as an evil spirit, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40647530/should-people... , similar to the symptoms I used to experience. Carl Jung in part overturned Freud in his confirmation of the spiritual nature of experience, however he erred in confining his analysis to the mind alone, which is a small but significant component of the…

[deleted]

Re: On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness

#62

Post by jokoon » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #53

jokoon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is one of the things that normalises it. Why ? It depends, coping with the imperfection of society is also something to work on. Accepting its flaws lets you walk around it. Sometimes it's not the individual who is the problem, but it doesn't mean he should not accept how the society is flawed. Mental healthcare and therapy have an individualistic approach because that's what they do, how else? To change society yo…

> To change society you would need politics, and that's another matter entirely. That's the point - it's not another matter entirely. If society is damaging people's mental health, it's entirely unethical to look the other way and pretend it's each individual's problem. If mental healthcare professionals want to ensure the wellbeing of their patients, they need to be fighting alongside us for widespread societal chan…

I see what you mean, except mental illnesses can't be treated like a broken leg can be.

Mental health is a difficult subject.

Imagine the problem it can be to treat homosexual as equals in the political scene, it will be another story to have consideration for the mentally ill.

The more we become a society of people with knowledge rather than social norms and morals, the more we will be able to progress.

I also really believe that group therapy should be the future of therapy...

Maybe you should have a conversation with a psychologist or a therapist and talk about those things. A possibility is also that patients need to be told that nothing is their fault. It can take a lot of time to defuse the person's belief that a he/she is not "defective". There is no shame in going to therapy, it's all about talking, because that the most concrete thing you can do with a brain.

Re: On Being a Science Writer and Managing a Mental Illness

#63

Post by DanBC » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #47

ThrowawayP wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The pills were like a light switch that have simply turned off my mental illness with almost no side-effects. That means that you're in the not particularly large fraction of people that the pills work well for. Good for you. For the rest of us, well, the pills can be a hell of side-effects, tolerance, and rebound ... and that's if they have any primary positive effect at all.

> not particularly large fraction Citation?

Draft NICE guidance on depression probably has lots of information.

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/GID-CGWAVE0725/documents/dr...

Pages 38 to 45 probably most useful, especially pages 40 onwards.

(Personally, I think meds are useful, and I think good quality talking therapies are useful, and I think people should have access to both, and access to a range of psycho-social interventions.)