A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#71

Post by astazangasta » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #68

astazangasta wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about, "after decades of searching using all of the best available tools, none has been found".

We know that some mental illnesses have a genetic component. How would that happen if there were not something physical? Just because we don't know now, doesn't mean we will never know. That's how science works.

I'm obviously not rejecting materialism, I'm merely attempting to distinguish between "mental" and "physical", i.e., the cause of your 'mental illness' is "nutrient deficiency" vs. "your wife left you". If, on balance, people experience mental distress when they experience extreme emotional turmoil without any significant accompanying physical event, we can't posit a physical cause and therefore shouldn't seek a purely physical solution (drugs).

People have 'mental illness' because of mental problems, not physical problems.

Also: everything has some genetic component, this is trivially true. Genetics are what separates humans from dogs and plants. It doesn't necessarily help us to explain the phenomenon adequately.

Also also: another way science works is its inability to prove negatives. Therefore, saying, "someday we might discover this" can be said for pretty much anything that remains unproven.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#72

Post by amanaplanacanal » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 11:20 PM UTC

astazangasta wrote: post #71

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know that some mental illnesses have a genetic component. How would that happen if there were not something physical? Just because we don't know now, doesn't mean we will never know. That's how science works.

I'm obviously not rejecting materialism, I'm merely attempting to distinguish between "mental" and "physical", i.e., the cause of your 'mental illness' is "nutrient deficiency" vs. "your wife left you". If, on balance, people experience mental distress when they experience extreme emotional turmoil without any significant accompanying physical event, we can't posit a physical cause and therefore shouldn't seek a pure…

I suspect I don't understand exactly what you are distinguishing here.

If your identical twin has schizophrenia, there is a 48% chance that you will have it too. This is compared to the chance of the general population, which is something like 1%. This feels like something is physically wrong in those who are schizophrenic. I don't know how else you would get that kind of result.

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#73

Post by kian » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 3:03 AM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #5

tcj_phx wrote: post #2

The quakers figured out that most people could recover from what are now called "psychotic breaks" by being put in a safe place ("asylum") and provided 4 meals a day [2]. Much of the current problems of Psychiatry stem from the split of neurology and psychiatry [0]. Over the last 60+ years investigators have found many physiological considerations for the so-called "mental" disorders. The core of the resistance again…

Most people do not know a lot of basic but important things about stress. - Change increases stress - To-Do list items are also known as "stressors" - Implementing someone else's suggested "happiness plan" in your life could easily kill you, simply because it's new to _you_ and requires dramatic change To be "right" as per Szasz means to fit into and apply a preferred template in order to bring about that template's…

>To make all of HN go "mentally ill" simply confine its membership to Facebook fashion groups or the neighborhood butcher shop or the religious cult.

This fascinating statement makes me wonder about the rise of mental illness in children. I've tended to fall on the side of prior under-diagnosis, but I wonder if some is actually a result of the children being 'trapped' by modern helicopter parenting and educational systems by removing the time they would need to remain sane by engaging in free, unstructured, self-directed play?

Re: A psychiatrist who didn’t believe in mental illness (2013)

#74

Post by astazangasta » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 3:10 AM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #72

astazangasta wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm obviously not rejecting materialism, I'm merely attempting to distinguish between "mental" and "physical", i.e., the cause of your 'mental illness' is "nutrient deficiency" vs. "your wife left you". If, on balance, people experience mental distress when they experience extreme emotional turmoil without any significant accompanying physical event, we can't posit a physical cause and therefore shouldn't seek a pure…

I suspect I don't understand exactly what you are distinguishing here. If your identical twin has schizophrenia, there is a 48% chance that you will have it too. This is compared to the chance of the general population, which is something like 1%. This feels like something is physically wrong in those who are schizophrenic. I don't know how else you would get that kind of result.

Yes, twin studies have often been trumpeted to demonstrate that schizophrenia has a strong genetic basis. However, we've yet to find any actual genetic variation strongly associated with schizophrenia, which, with such a high rate of concordance, should be a snap. Twin studies themselves are suspect in a number of ways - the assumption of environmental equivalence between twins and the general population is suspect, for example. Fraternal twins also show higher concordance than siblings, even though their genetics should be the same.