![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by mindevolution on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:03
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by leo33 on January 19, 2007, at 17:43:40
>To just say it doesn't exist because they can't figure it out is shortsighted.
They are not saying it doesn't exist, just that they cannot diagnose it scientifically nor cure it.
what's worse is when a healthy individual is told they have a mental disease, even if they are not enduring any suffering. the disease he is told he has is voted on every year and so is fictional and could even be removed the following year, there are no medical tests to confirm his disease exists, he feels fine, and yet he has his freedom removed and he is treated with high doses of drugs or ect or surgery which maims or potentially even kills him without being offered less damaging alternatives.
why? usually it is because "he is a danger to society". how? he is healthy individual free from suffering who has committed no crime. does he get a fair trial, where he is presumed sane and evidence has to be brought to prove his illness? no. are there safeguards in the current system to stop an innocent sane person from being unnecessarily held and treated against their will? no. are there any effective limits on how long any person can be held and treated? no.
in this case it is the job of a psychiatrist to take away an innocent man's freedom and subject him to brain damaging treatments, effectively acting as jailer, torturer or sometimes even executioner, on behalf and the say so of one or maybe two other members of the public who only have to provide verbal evidence which in itself could be complete fabrication.
how many innocent people have been maimed or killed by a system that has been in existence for centuries, and has accelerated considerably since the introduction of the antipsychotics and other mental health medications? the rates of people diagnosed mentally ill has grown exponentially inline with the growth of DSM illnesses invented especially since the 1950s. Could it be worse than the holocaust?
Do you think that the existence of mental illness in the context of the current legal/medical structure corrupts the concept of an individual's right to freedom/life that is supposedly the basis of a democratic society?
on the other hand, if we deny the existence of mental illness, many people's potentially life threatening suffering would be invalidated and left untreated.
I prefer not to argue against the concept of mental illness, but to argue for reform to the current implementation of the mental health care system so that people suffering with mental illness are not denied treatment and care, and innocent healthy people accused of illness by other members of the population are not incarcerated, tortured or killed needlessly. In the same way that we developed a just system for dealing with people accused of criminal acts, so too we need a medically sound and just system capable of dealing with people accused of having mental illness.
> Does diabetes exist, hight blood pressure, demetia, alzheimers?without doubt, but these conditions do not corrupt an individual's right to freedom or indeed life itself.
> Law does not understand mental illness as it only looks at behavior, but mental illness effects behavior.
Medical science does not understand mental illness either.
> But I do understand the argument put forth in that article.
glad to hear it, but do you really?
>Personally I think most of the psychiatrists that were quoted in it should have their license pulled since they admit they have been committing fraud in treating something they say does not exist.
they didn't say it didn't exist, but indicated its cause and cure were unknown to medical science:
"We really do not know what causes any psychiatric illness" Columbia University psychiatry professor Jack M. Gorman, M.D.
"It is generally unrecognized that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists who treat disorders that, by definition, have no definitively known causes or cures." Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D
it would be untrue to suggest that we know the causes and cures for mental illness; any doctors that suggest otherwise should have their licences revoked. psychiatric medicine and treatment cannot cure, only potentially relieve suffering. the entire medical speciality of psychiatry is no more able to cure its patients than a cold remedy can cure your cold. to suggest otherwise is medical and scientific fraud. psychiatry will always be this way unless it gets redefined.
So we know that psychiatric medicine's only use is to potentially mask the symptoms of someone suffering from mental illness. So what happens if a person is not suffering? if an individual is not suffering, and that is a subjective thing known only to the individual concerned as it cannot be identified objectively, then the application of any treatment in such a circumstance is fraudulent in nature. how can treatment only capable of masking the suffering of an individual, mask suffering not being experienced by the individual?
that said it happens to millions upon millions of patients against their will everyday all over the globe. it is the most widespread fraudulent application of medicine known to man. worse still is the treatments are known to be second only to cancer treatments in toxicity and cause significant brain damage, reduce life expectancy, and death.
me
Posted by Sebastian on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:03
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by mindevolution on January 23, 2007, at 17:32:19
Thats depressing. I didn't know all that about mental illness.
Posted by hgi698 on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:03
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested! » mindevolution, posted by Sebastian on January 24, 2007, at 12:01:15
We know as much about the brain as any other organ. If you ask a doctor if they knew everything there is to know about the heart they would be lying if they told you they did. Something "simple" like the heart and the diseases associated with it are infinetely complex. Probably thousands of people with P.H.d.'s spend their life trying to discover all their is to know about it. When we give somebody a cholesteral lowering drug for instance, we have no idea how many effects downstream it has on the body. We get those wonderful commercials on t.v. telling us we need to lower our cholesteral, but are never told about the negative effects on the liver, reduction in coenzyme Q10 etc. So it is false to say that mental illness is somehow less defined than anything else. Most things we think we know are only a small part of the story. Even a "real" disease like AIDS still hasn't been figured out. My second point is that humans have been using drugs to achieve more desirable states of mind for 1000's of years. If you want to win an argument with one of these anti-psychitry people all you have to do is point out that 90% of americans consume caffeine in some form everyday. Caffeine is a psychoactive chemical (adenosine antagonist) that effects neurotransmitters like dopamine. Others smoke, others drink alcohol and others load up on eating carbohydrates (which increase serotonin). The question is then, how many people are chemical virgins?
Posted by mindevolution on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:03
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by hgi698 on January 24, 2007, at 21:49:58
> We know as much about the brain as any other organ.
that's called neuroscience and has nothing to do with mental illness. why don't neurologists or endocrinologists treat mental illness? ;)
> So it is false to say that mental illness is somehow less defined than anything else.
not only is mental illness less defined, by definition it is not defined at all. ;) of all the hundreds of mental illnesses in the dsmv, we do not know the aetiology of any of them.
>Most things we think we know are only a small part of the story. Even a "real" disease like AIDS still hasn't been figured out.
The majority of “real”diseases have their aetiology defined.
>My second point is that humans have been using drugs to achieve more desirable states of mind for 1000's of years. If you want to win an argument with one of these anti-psychitry people all you have to do is point out that 90% of americans consume caffeine in some form everyday. Caffeine is a psychoactive chemical (adenosine antagonist) that effects neurotransmitters like dopamine. Others smoke, others drink alcohol and others load up on eating carbohydrates (which increase serotonin).
I have never heard an antipsychiatrist protest about the consumption of caffeine or alcohol.
Hypothetically speaking, what happens if you are in a custody battle for your kids and your wife lies and checks you into the hospital against your will saying you have been hallucinating, delusional and aggressive, although you have been impeccably behaved. You are diagnosed psychotic and held and treated against your will indefinitely on the basis of your wifes verbal evidence which does not have to be substantiated. What do you do in such a situation?
Posted by hgi698 on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:22
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by mindevolution on January 25, 2007, at 0:44:49
On mental illness:
"of all the hundreds of mental illnesses in the dsmv, we do not know the aetiology of any of them."
This statement is wrong we DO know the aetiology of many mental illness. It is complex mix of genetic and environmental factors. Sometimes vitamin deficiencies can cause depression, psychoses. Scientists know that chronic stress activates the hypothalamus to secrete corticotroph which stimulates the pituitary to release ACTH with stimulates the adrenal gland to release cortisol. Cortisol has effects in many brain areas that are key to emotional regulation like the hippocampus. Cortisol has been shown to shrink the hippocampus. Many animal models can mimic depression. Giving electric shocks chronically to an animal causes it to reduce consumption of sucrose (anhedonia). The learned helplessness theory of depression. It is likely that depression is an evolutionary adaption and their are many theories as to why it was advantageous (such as social rank theory). Many genes have been correlated with mental illness. A deficiency in Omega 3 fatty acids (found in fish) has a profound effect on neurotransmitters, reducing serotonin and dopamine in key regulatory areas. Some scientists have correlated the rise in depression to an increase in trans-fat when compared to omega 3's. Our unhealthy lifestyle is leading to changes in brain chemistry that cause people to become depressed and even possibly psychotic. Exercise increases oxygen to the brain, raises the pleasure chemical dopamine, and the pain relieving endorphins. There are many other things that we know about specific mental illness that are too complex and long winded for me to cover here. So to say we don't know anything about mental illness and it's causes is false. The amount that we know about the brain and mental illness is enormous.
Are antidepressants or antipsychotics necessarily correcting chemical imbalance? The answer is no. But they are tools that we use to obtain more desired states of mind, just like caffeine and alcohol. Perhaps if everyone supplemented with omega 3 fatty acids, reduced their stress and exercised more the rates of depression would decrease substantially. But mental illness exists because the brain has evolved through millions of years to be good at survival and reproduction. Unfortunately this does not mean overwhelming happiness for the owner of such a brain. Psychiatry has had especially dreadful instances of quackery in the past (lobotomy anyone?) and still has its downside, but this has been the case for most fields of human endeavor. Humans have had the ability to use science and technology to their advantage throughout their existance. The brain is not magic, it can be scientifically studied just like any other organ in the body. Thus it is not outside the realm of "improvement". So one can hope that psychiatry like any other field will continue to get better in the future.
Posted by mindevolution on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:22
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by hgi698 on January 26, 2007, at 12:27:11
> On mental illness:
>
> "of all the hundreds of mental illnesses in the dsmv, we do not know the aetiology of any of them."
>
> This statement is wrong we DO know the aetiology of many mental illness.I am speaking purely from a medical point of view, rather than psychological point of view. Not only do we not know the aetiology of any mental illness, we also do not know the physiology of any mental illness. And it is that way by medical definition. When the physiology of Parkinson's was discovered, the progressive damage to the dopaminergic system (the substantive nigra to be precise), it became redefined a neurological disease and named after the discoverer, hence why it is called a disease, same with Alzeihmer's.
Neurology deals with brain diseases, psychiatry deals with psychological suffering not medical disease. Psychiatry invents the names and definitions of mental illnesses, and votes on them every year, they are not discovered and are not medically speaking real, there is no medical science behind any of them, not one.
so due to the demarcation between psychiatry and the neurological sciences, psychiatry will only ever deal with mental illnesses which from a medical perspective are undefined and unknown.
> It is complex mix of genetic and environmental factors.
If it was proved to have a genetic component, the illness would be redefined as a neurological disease and quite likely named after its discoverer.
> Sometimes vitamin deficiencies can cause depression, psychoses.
The cause and physiology of depression and psychosis is unknown and undefined. It is impossible for you to prove that statement to be true due to the medical definition of mental illness vis a vis neurological diseases.
>Many genes have been correlated with mental illness.
Not with any mental illness, a neurological disease perhaps.
>A deficiency in Omega 3 fatty acids (found in fish) has a profound effect on neurotransmitters, reducing serotonin and dopamine in key regulatory areas. Some scientists have correlated the rise in depression to an increase in trans-fat when compared to omega 3's.
Nothing has been proved, otherwise it would not still be a mental illness.
> Our unhealthy lifestyle is leading to changes in brain chemistry that cause people to become depressed and even possibly psychotic.
There is no known pathology for depression, psychosis or any mental illness.
>There are many other things that we know about specific mental illness that are too complex and long winded for me to cover here. So to say we don't know anything about mental illness and it's causes is false.
From a medical perspective we know absolutely nothing about mental illness, or they wouldn't be called mental illnesses. *sigh*
> The amount that we know about the brain and mental illness is enormous.
Sure, I agree, that is the province of the neurosciences as I said in my last post.
> Are antidepressants or antipsychotics necessarily correcting chemical imbalance? The answer is no.
not only is the chemical balance theory for mental illness unproved, any theory about mental illness is unproved. By definition, causes and physiology of all mental illness are purely speculation nothing further.
> But they are tools that we use to obtain more desired states of mind, just like caffeine and alcohol.
To compare coffee with ADs is like comparing coffee to the street drugs speed or ice. To compare APs to alcohol is like comparing alcohol to herion, except that the comparison is not really fair, APs are many times more toxic than herion. APs should be compared with substances of similar toxicity; chemicals such as MPTP, pesticides, nerve agents such as sarin or vx gas or organophosphates and chemotherapy.
> Perhaps if everyone supplemented with omega 3 fatty acids, reduced their stress and exercised more the rates of depression would decrease substantially.
I agree with you, healthy living has to be a good approach to mental health, but we still don't know what the scientific cause of depression is, let alone what cures it.
>But mental illness exists because the brain has evolved through millions of years to be good at survival and reproduction.
*sigh* there are no proved genetic links for mental illnesses, nor will there ever be.
>Psychiatry has had especially dreadful instances of quackery in the past (lobotomy anyone?) and still has its downside, but this has been the case for most fields of human endeavor.
Psychiatry is the only medical specialty that by definition deals with, and will only ever deal with, illnesses with unknown medical pathology. It is also the only medical specialty capable of taking away your right to freedom, your right to refuse treatment, and even your right to life without a single shred of medical evidence either because you self present at hospital or on the say so of one other member of the public who does not have to provide evidence that their claims are true. The medical records are then held from these “patients” so they cannot sue for damages. Imagine being treated against your will with chemotherapy without any evidence of cancer and then held potentially indefinitely against your will.
You think Lobotomy was terrible, it only reduced a persons intelligence and ability to relate to the world, placing them in a vegetative state, but they would still live out their life. Antipsychotics not only produce a vegetative state, every organ in the body not just the brain is permanently and progressively damaged, and long term use reduces life expectancy by decades, and by upping the dose at any time they are all capable of inducing sudden death by elongating the qt interval, inducing stroke, or triggering nms. Antipsychotics anyone?
> Humans have had the ability to use science and technology to their advantage throughout their existance. The brain is not magic, it can be scientifically studied just like any other organ in the body. Thus it is not outside the realm of "improvement".
I wish what you were saying was true, I really do, but psychiatry isn't a neuroscience.
>So one can hope that psychiatry like any other field will continue to get better in the future.
Based on past and present treatments, what do you think the chances of this is? Btw you didn't answer my hypothetical!?
Posted by Dr. Bob on January 26, 2007, at 23:21:00
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by mindevolution on January 23, 2007, at 17:32:19
> in this case it is the job of a psychiatrist to take away an innocent man's freedom and subject him to brain damaging treatments, effectively acting as jailer, torturer or sometimes even executioner
Please don't exaggerate.
But please don't take this personally, either, this doesn't mean I don't like you or think you're a bad person.
If you or others have questions about this or about posting policies in general, or are interested in alternative ways of expressing yourself, please first see the FAQ:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#civil
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faq.html#enforceFollow-ups regarding these issues should be redirected to Psycho-Babble Administration. They, as well as replies to the above post, should of course themselves be civil.
Thanks,
Bob
Posted by one woman cine on February 16, 2007, at 11:16:02
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by mindevolution on January 26, 2007, at 19:44:10
>>>From a medical perspective we know absolutely nothing about mental illness, or they wouldn't be called mental illnesses. *sigh*
>>>If it was proved to have a genetic component, the illness would be redefined as a neurological disease and quite likely named after its discoverer.Um, have you ever read any medical journals? Any scientific journals that are peer-reviewed - I can easily give you a dozen that prove the genetic components of "mental illness" just as much as diabetes has been "proven".
>>> the chemical balance theory for mental illness unproved, any theory about mental illness is unproved. By definition, causes and physiology of all mental illness are purely speculation nothing further.
Um, emphatic no! Are you are researcher or a layman? How did you come up with such concrete conclusions? Please give me some evidence based facts for your claims. Thanks.
By the way, what group are you representing, if any at all?
Posted by Shadowplayers721 on February 22, 2007, at 2:22:36
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by mindevolution on January 23, 2007, at 17:32:19
Personally, I defiantly believe mental illness exists from seeing and having it. My concentration is so poor right now that 1/2 the time I am not able to read all the posts and respond.
I know that I have also argued in the past with a man (in person) that simply to do not believe for any reason that schizophrenia exists. This man believed that a relative was faking her illness. His relative greatly improved with a certain medication. So much for the faking for 30 years.
I just think it's so sad that we can't explain the Hell or other are in or make another understand it - because they have to "experience it" to believe it.
Posted by Justruckn on December 19, 2007, at 12:39:33
In reply to Re: Does Mental Illness Exist? Feedback Requested!, posted by mindevolution on January 26, 2007, at 23:07:03
The concept of mental illness as brain disease is suspect but the behaviors do exist.
So what causes these behaviors and the altered mental state we call mental illness?
VisionAndPsychosis.Net has published a site on the Internet involving a five-year study of Subliminal Distraction as the source of this mental distress.
SD arises from simple facts of physiology. There are no "off switches" for the sensor cells in your eyes and ears. If stimulus strikes these cells neural impulses go to your brain over their normal channels no matrer what you are doing.
In the field of Design this term encompasses the subliminal detection of threat movement and your brain's subliminal attempts to warn you by executing a startle and vision reflex.
It is a 'conflict in the physiology of sight' that while you can successfully ignore threat movement in peripheral vision you do not have voluntary control of the brain system that subliminally detects and reacts to this movement.
This was found to cause mental breaks for office workers in the 1960's. I encountered it as an engineering student forty years ago. I heard it explained in a psychology psychophysics lecture in the 1990's.
I have been stunned to find that this problem is unknown and unevaluated related to mental illness.
Two exercises Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga both produce temporary psychotic episodes as well as fixed altered mental states that resemble schizophrenia.
When schizophrenia is viewed as an altered mental state it can be seen to be imposed on any number of physical or neurological conditions as long as the victim has competent peripheral vision and can form the vision startle reflex.
Can you cite a case of someone blind from birth having panic attacks, ICU psychosis, or schizophrenia.
Why not? Subliminal Distraction requires peripheral vision, subliminal sight.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Politics | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.