mental illness doesn't exist

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i don't see how it's valid.

what template is there for mental illness?

how does one define a mentally ill person?

is it just because of the beliefs of some doctor?

i find most practitioners are highly selective of who meets this template. they often stereotype people as "normal" and just use their pre-defined stereotypes to promote normalcy.

a hot blonde merely gets written as well because she is hot and blonde.

and i've had people tell me that the DSM is bull and there is nothing about mental health treatment.

it's all a scam and little else.

There is no real basis for mental illness, it's pathetic.

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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 1,329 • Replies: 28

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Get a job serving the public- any kind of counter work or anything that requires interaction with lots if people.

Volunteer at your local outreach center or homeless shelter.

Then you will change your mind.

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@PUNKEY,

i've donne such. I do such right now for my line of work.

I've still not "changed my mind".

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@PUNKEY,

Good idea.

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@PUNKEY,

besides, this doesn't even make sense.

but that's assumptions for you.

1 Reply

@coa999,

It's a discussion that needed to be brought up, and I haven't really directly had experience dealing with "mentally ill", people, but I've had periods of severe depression in my life. I don't know if that qualifies as "mentally ill", but it was very debilitating and insightful as well.

Where do you place hallucinations, both aural and visual, and antisocial behavior? Of course I realize that aural hallucinations might be useful for a composer, and visual hallucinations for a painter, and there is always a place in our violent society for anti-social people during wartime or the CIA, or even politics. And it's possible that so-called mentally ill people are just out of context in our modern contemporary, patriarchal society.

Back in pre-renaissance days aural hallucinations might have been considered messages from God or a demon and might have been considered quite acceptable or, at least, normal.

During the Third Reich millions of people considered Hitler and Goering and Joseph Goebbels not only sane but epitomes of mental health and sanity and even saviors. And many people consider Trump to be totally same too.

2 Replies

@coluber2001,

i don't think it's a viable label at all. it's complete nonsense, and only designed to push dark agendas and morals.

1 Reply

@coa999,

I wish you would elaborate more on this subject, which warrants deep discussion.

0 Replies

@coa999,

If you want to discuss a doctor's diagnosis, another doctor or a counsellor may assist in verifying your contention.

1 Reply

@coa999,

Mother was considered mentally ill. A form of schizophrenia according to reports.

Even some of her voices agreed. Then again, some of them argued amongst themselves, so, who really knows?

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@coa999,

Found this when I did a search on Thomas Szasz — his book, The Myth of Mental Illness, written in 1961, has been very influential.

Larry Silverstein wrote:

The case against psychiatry.

It isn't a science. It isn't even close. It's a hoax.

The bible of the profession, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM), lists some 300 separate and distinct mental disorders.

However, none of the 300 has a defining physical test for diagnosis. No blood test, no urine test, no hair test, no brain scan, no genetic assay.

Here's another huge nail in the coffin. It was hammered by exactly the kind of establishment honcho people like to quote when they defend the establishment. Only this time...

On April 29, 2013, at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) website, Director Thomas Insel, the highest ranking federal mental-health official in the US, published a blog commentary: "Transforming Diagnosis." Insel wrote:

"In a few weeks, the American Psychiatric Association will release its new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)...

"The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been 'reliability' - each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure."

Not any objective laboratory measure.

That's called a death sentence.

If anyone paid attention to it.

It's on the order of the US Attorney General holding a press conference and admitting that every one of its criminal prosecutions, going back 70 years, was based on fraudulent cooked evidence.

If you or your child is ever in the presence of a psychiatrist who gets up on his high horse, makes a diagnosis, and tries to foist drugs on you, you might pay attention to Thomas Insel's statement, tell the shrink who Insel is, and read his statement out loud, in the sober and somber style of a mortician.

Ditto if you're dealing with a teacher, school counselor, psychologist, or principal who thinks he knows anything at all about "mental health."

We must help educate the misinformed, mustn't we? Isn't it our civic duty to lift up professional idiots and set them straight?

Psychiatry. Not a science.

It pretends to be.

By any definition, that makes it a hoax.

Imagine this: "Mrs. Jones, your son has a heart-valve problem. How do I know? A few colleagues and I looked at his eyebrows, got together over drinks, and decided we should wheel him into surgery right away. Diagnostic tests? Why no. We don't test. We chew the fat. We concur. We collude."

In the arena of "mental health," that's the method of psychiatry.

psychologytoday

1 Reply

@hightor,

I don't know if we're any closer to diagnosing and treating mental illness than we ever were. In the Middle Ages the diagnosis was possession by a demon, and it called for an exorcism. Now they say it's a chemical imbalance. They don't say if the chemical imbalance is a cause or a symptom, but they prescribe chemicals.

Now we've got a President who at least appears mentally unbalanced, but that's okay, I guess, because it fits in with contemporary politics.

Once again what is the context of the mental illness? Does mental illness fit in with the contemporary rules of the society? Mass murder is terrorism in a time of peace but heroism in a time of war. Torture is considered sociopathy unless ordered by the head of state; then it's security. But is a torturer sane in any context?

1 Reply

@coluber2001,

coluber2001 wrote:

I don't know if we're any closer to diagnosing and treating mental illness than we ever were. In the Middle Ages the diagnosis was possession by a demon, and it called for an exorcism. Now they say it's a chemical imbalance. They don't say if the chemical imbalance is a cause or a symptom, but they prescribe chemicals.

This is one of the most ignorant comments I have ever heard.

You make it sound as if “chemical imbalances” are the sole cause of mental illness, and at that, comparing it to the belief mental illness is cause by demonic possession is downright pathetic. You make it sound like physicians are no more than some filthy handed cave dwellers that look into bowls of animal entrails to determine what humours are out of balance.

You honestly aren’t aware there are a plethora of reasons one could be suffering from mental illness?

1 Reply

@chai2,

Well, there all kinds of reasons, but at least you don't say mental illness doesn't exist.

1 Reply

@roger,

Obviously it exists, that wasn’t what irked me.

Claiming our diagnostic tools are no better today than during the Middle Ages is incredible. Jesus.

Also, talking about mental illness only in the context of being a mass murderer versus killing in time of war, or terrorism vs some other form of mentally ill person that wants to harm others is belittling. Mental illness does not naturally equate to violence, extreme acts etc.

I really didn’t think that in this age anyone would think this way.

Then again, I’m not a hot blonde chick that can apparently get away with anything. I’m just so jealous that I’m not either one of those.

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@laughoutlood,

there is no discussion.

It's just the criteria for it are bull.

1 Reply

@coa999,

coa999 wrote:

there is no discussion.

It's just the criteria for it are bull.

You are an example of mental illness.

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@Linkat,

But seriously - mental illness is so wide ranged. It can be something more "minor" where a few counselling sessions can help you deal better to something significantly serious where you cannot function in everyday society.

Doesn't exist? Bill Buckner just passed away after battling dementia.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

I am? it's my medical records don't show it.

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@coa999,

I am going to sort of support Coa999. I read "The Myth of Mental Illness" in college as part of a psychology course in the University. Thomas Szasz makes some good points.

The point that I understood from Szasz is that the term "illness" which is well understood in the medical sense is not well suited for psychiatric issues.

Joan of Arc, and Moses and Shamans in indigenous cultures all heard voices. You would not say that a Native American shaman was mentally ill... they were acting in a way that was honored and appropriate in their cultural context.

That is not to say that there aren't people who need help suffering painful problems. In many cases the issue is that the way their minds work doesn't fit into modern society. People in modern America who hear voices need support and problem need help managing a fulfilling life in modern society. That doesn't mean it is an "illness".

I think the OP is misrepresenting the argument... and it is not as simple or easy to dismiss as people here think.

1 Reply

mental illness doesn't exist

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