"Besides, if these disorders were truly biologically-based, then anti-depressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants and so on would work at all times for all people"

Really now? Let's try this:

"Besides, if these cancers were truly biologically-based, then chemotherapy, radiation, extractive surgery and so on would work at all times for all people"

highly disingenuous

"...The question is how."

Well, quite. Is a phobia a mental illness/condition? Have you ever seen a Quick Phobia Cure in operation? 10-15 minutes, at the most. It works, and it's lasting. How? What is it about the methodology that causes such profound changes, and how did those who developed the methodology arrive there? How can one have another perceive themselves differently, solely with words?

The mind (my mind, anyway), is probably best visualized as an infinite honeycomb - all those binary choices: left, or right? So easy to fuck up somebody's mind, and so easy to put it right, again. Quite a responsibility, I should think, which is why stating "facts," when one cannot be sure, is a mistake, I think, because it may cause a choice to be made that is incorrect. Best always to retain things as possibilities, and no more!

Matt

I follow cancer research also. Recently they discovered the tumor cells line cells they've been using for breast cancer research for over 25 years were actually derived from melanoma cells. Also, the basic assumptions about metastasis, upon which most treatment is based, are now being challenged as a result of research on the migration of normal cells through the body.

What I'm trying to say here is that cancer research and treatment is just as prone to big business interference, arrogant assumptions and other lapses of logic as mental health. I've been meaning to say this for some time, actually, to my peers here: the field of mental health is by no means unique. I see the same issues cropping up all the time in other areas of medicine.

I'm not a fan of mental health parity. Personally, I think it only exposes more people to the fraud that is mental health "treatment". But I can see how the biological basis argument makes parity palatable to the mainstream. So...I suppose we've at least finally found a good use for this theory.
Sherry (only half joking)

Zhokuai
One You can test for cancer , you can't run a lab test for any mental illness. Diagnosing mental illness is a guess of one person.
If this person is incompetent or unscrupulous a wrong diagnosis can be made.

Second The treatment of chemotherapy, radiation, extractive surgery and so on is all VOLUNTARY.

With a wrong or unwanted diagnosis, psychiatry unlike any other medicine, can force treatment upon their patient.

There needs to be checks in place to make sure people are not exploited.

Sherry makes a great point. cancer research unfortunately is heavily influenced by money, more so than mental health research, if you can believe it. And most importantly, we have progressed very little in cancer research and effective treatments despite an unprecedented amount of money spent studying it. The prevailing gene mutation theory has been seriously challeneged recently, and it looks as if, sadly, cancer researchers have been working on a lot of faulty assumptions. And considering what we have to show for this theory, it makes sense.

And considering cancer genetics is a hell of a lot more scientific than psychiatric genetics, most psychiatrists, including Thomas Insel, are out in fantasy land when they say, one gene, or a few, or a combination can do this. There is no concensus in the cancer field and little progress to show. With psychiatric research, all the claims being spouted come very close to bordering on science fiction.

Dearest Philip:

To save time and space I will just go with that highly intellectual and smartie pants Matt on this one ( kudo's Matt {pressing applause button}, and just say the New York Times is "OUT TO LUNCH" as usual. That combo platter of biological, enviromental, unknown influences just makes more sense to the rational mind that has no big buck stakes involved in the issue or diagnosis. But who would want a dash of common sense ruining a nice piece of humble pie with or without the yummy ice cream on top. When they can sit down and actually explain and map out exactly how the brain works and how each treatment exactly effects outcome and positive direct results including any and all side effects; maybe then we can start barking up the genetics tree a little further. Until that time comes, they are doing nothing but randomly picking stars from the nighttime sky and saying GOT YA!

Yours Truly,
Stan

Can anybody tell me if there is a Furious Seasons Comments RSS feed available?

Actually I think it's thinning of the white matter (the myelin sheath in fact), not the gray matter, in schizophrenia and other disorders and these structural changes are often measured after years of psych med treatment so to blame it on the "disease" is quite outrageous. How do they even have a clue whether it's the disease or the treatment?

It is unfortunate that those of us who have reason to follow areas of real medicine find that there are similar problems there. Hysterectomies are often done unnecessarily as for that matter are cesarean sections, and studies indicate that "placebo" procedures work as well as arthroscopic surgery (http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=481&issueID=41), and recently questions have arisen about angioplasty (http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=80081). As for cancer, from what I understand, there are often valid questions about whether chemo kills quicker than it cures. And there was just a hulabaloo in the media about Lipotor and how big pharma mislead about it, very similar to psych drugs, in fact liportor (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/lipitor_suit.html).

A problem with all health insurance and a risk of any socialized medicine plan is the lack of alternative care options provided. This is not to say I'm opposed to socialized medicine, I'm not, but just that it's something that would need to be watched carefully.

This is so much more pressing where psych drugs are concerned because even though all of the other instances are egregious, psych patients are the only folks that can be legally forced to take drugs that harm them.

Stan wrote:
"To save time and space I will just go with that highly intellectual and smartie pants Matt on this one ( kudo's Matt {pressing applause button}..."

;-P

You know, I just wish I could be bothered to write 10,000 words, and then find somebody willing to publish it!

Anyway, words are a manifestation of thought, as I've written before, somewhere (I think). In some sense, then, what people say and write is a verbal representation of the pictures (because we think in pictures) they are thinking (even if some people edit their verbal utterances heavily). In fact, all their behaviour, not just their speech, is a representation of their thought patterns, I would argue. Is it possible to change what a person thinks, by interspersing their own thoughts, with one's own (ie, one avoids invalidation)? Of course it is: people do it every day.

Any conversation is a form of hypnosis, where two or more parties accept the plausibility of what the others are saying. There is no mystery to this, other than to ask how it came to be that a person could believe, comprehensively, that the things that they do are stupid, or silly, for example, when it seems that they are doing the same as everybody else. If one tells a person something often enough, then they'll believe it, in the absence of sufficiently compelling countermanding message. That's how children's minds are destroyed, on a daily basis, because while society tells them to excel, they must excel whilst being stupid and doing stupid things.

You think I'm making this up? You wouldn't believe what some people believe of themselves.

Matt

**Researchers have found biological causes and effective treatments for numerous mental illnesses**

This does not say ONLY biological causes and FULLY effective treatments for ALL mental illnesses.

Given that, I consider this a manufactured controversy -- at best.

Larry, I agree. There is certainly a lot of mystery around mental illness. Some of the Pharma companies even say right on their web sites, that they have no idea how it works, it just does.

As far as people being forced to take medications, you have to look at this as a behavioral thing. If I had no mental illness, but was a threat to another person, I could be locked up for my own and their safety. I have bipolar disorder. I am thankful that there is a system in place that when I become a danger to myself or someone else they can help me get well.

There is no question that there are bad docs out there that take advantage of people. This is across the board and not limited to psych docs. The sad fact is we live in a time and place where bad people can do bad things.

"...when an overwhelming body of scientific evidence showed that 'mental illnesses represent real diseases of the brain.'"

I believe the anan overwhelming body is silent or doesn't have their works being shown by the media.

I'm quite naive! I keep on thinking that with all the data, all the harms promoted by this semi partial comprehension of the brain's functions they would finally stop claiming they know it all.

It's heartbreaking that these people keep on with these charade and refuse to see all the harm done by hypothesis being used as scientific truth.

What is known of the brain is nothing and we are on the mapping the brain era and there's not real knowledge of chemistry, electric functions and many aspects of the brain connections.
I wish I was alive in 3078 just to read how will this period of psychiatry will be explained.

If we go back on the las century there are some things... blah blah blah...

Many people swear that antidepressant medication and SSRI’s in particular have saved their lives. Most people with what is called a serious mental illness view their condition as an “illness”. We may be using illness in a metaphorical rather than a literal sense here but if the serotonin theory is bunk then how exactly do these drugs have their therapeutic effect. 80% of patients reporting a positive effect from taking SSRI medication may be experiencing a degree of placebo effect but what about the other 20%? Many people taking SSRI’s report significantly improved mood and levels of functioning, we know from reports of side effects that these medications are doing something to the brain, so what is the mechanism by which they do have a positive therapeutic effect on the individual if the Serotonin hypothesis is just an idea got up by the drug companies to sell more drugs?

Matt wrote:
"...bad people can do bad things."

I would dispute that: people do things, and the things that they do may conflict with the interests of others, that's all. It is more interesting to enquire why it is that a person feels the need to become violent. Address that, if it's an issue for one, and the issue goes away. Locking the problem up, where it can't be seen is not a solution, other than in the immediate short-term, but even then it's a finite solution, and if one relies on it on a regular basis, such that it becomes habitual, it ensures that one never learns anything.

Matt

Matt,

I don't think any distinction should be made when locking someone up for making a threat that rises to the level of a criminal act as to whether that person has some sort of brain chemistry that might supposedly excuse him from culpability. I do think that a full criminal trial should take place and that a person should never be incarcerated whether in prison or hospital past their sentence and of course that support systems should exist to reintegrate such people into society when necessary. People who break the law by making threats and even by committing more serious crimes and get caught usually with the right supports can be successfully reintegrated into society.

However, the medicine that some people who believe they have bipolar disorder, like you, choose to take because they feel it helps, and I hope you're right, but anyway, this medicine doesn't help people who are forced to take it and the side effects prompt these folks to actually become dangerous, also people who take these drugs have horrible, physically painful side effects which constitute a life time of punishment for no crime, so I disagree about forced care being a good thing. And while I agree that this is a behavioral issue, I think it's an issue of dangerous drugs falsely marketed causing criminal behavior which is then wrongly attributed to a pre existing genetic brain defect.

Sally wrote:
"I don't think any distinction should be made when locking someone up for making a threat that rises to the level of a criminal act as to whether that person has some sort of brain chemistry that might supposedly excuse him from culpability..."

Hmmm. The Law disagrees, hence the defence of involuntary intoxication. I think, though, that we are in broad agreement.

I've not been diagnosed with bipolar - I had an issue with anxiety and depression, brought on by bullying at work. I was prescribed fluoxetine (somewhat pointlessly, given the cause), and that made things worse, by some margin.

Anyway, the point I was making is that good and bad are relative concepts, and are always arbitary labels, assessed by the individual. It makes the most sense to me to address what underlies a person's behaviour, before they get to the point where they feel the need to do violence, in order to express themselves.

Matt

Matt,

It's a timeless argument but I'm one of the folks who has come to think your last paragraph is wrong because it's suggesting we punish people before they commit a crime, which is what we are doing when we involuntarily commit or treat, and it's unfair and immoral.

On a literary discussion mailing list I'm on a good hearted writer who believes the corrupt big pharma pr about biopsych basis of mental illness presented this anecdote in support of his argument - a boy he grew up with was arrested as a young man in his late teens for flashing a woman. His family, mortified and wealthy, had him institutionalized for the rest of his life. The writer thought this was a good idea because the man was prevented from becoming a child molester or rapist or some sort of sex criminal. Perhaps you agree with him that the guy deserved a life of imprisonment for his crime. I don't. Not the best example I can think of but an immediate one. It doesn't make sense that people who actually rape spend 5 years in jail and get out on parole while this guy rots in a psych hospital. There's laws against cruel and unusual punishment but they don't apply if you call it "treatment."

Sally wrote:
"...Perhaps you agree with him that the guy deserved a life of imprisonment for his crime..."

I should think, not! We choose to punish people who display aberrant behaviour, because we fear that it will escalate. As such, we must live our lives exhibiting behaviour that gives no indication of any violent, or otherwise unpleasant tendencies, in order to avoid punishment, or suspicion, at the very least. And if one gives rise to suspicion, then one may expect to be very closely watched, from then on. Society is paranoid, in other words.

It's a pointless discussion, because until it is accepted that there is an alternative to punishing people for aberrant behaviour (and who the fuck got to say what was "normal," anyway?), then we'll get nowhere. I've seen a range of behaviour, in my life, most of it quite grotesque (ie, to my disadvantage), which leads me to understand that only a select group of people actually get to complain.

Matt

Matt,

We should only punish people for criminal behavior. Punishment for aberrant behavior is neither legal nor acceptable, unless of course you label it mental illness. Read Szasz's The Myth of Mental Illness. You're right on point. If normal is subjective and changes over time you can't punish those who are merely perceived as abnormal. With criminal behavior it's different. Murder is an act. Rape is an act. Threatening to commit violence is an act...I think we're just on different parts of the same page. As we all know the theory that punishing the merely aberrant takes focus off of the truly criminal and society becomes something very ugly.

Sally wrote:
"We should only punish people for criminal behavior..."

And yet, people who are assessed to be a risk may be locked up, indefinitely, apparently solely on the ground of a possible future violent act, provided they fit certain mental health labels. I think it's a lazy solution, because one can claim that one has made society safer and provided proper care for the person incarcerated, and while one makes recourse to this solution, which puts full responsibility for incarceration on the shoulders of the person incarcerated, there is absolutely no motivation to seek another, more efficient, model.

Anyway, I perceive that most people feel so inadequate that they need to seek somebody whom they can indisputably claim to be superior than. It's not acceptable to be a racist, these days, but nutters and freaks are fair game. What is meant by "nutters" is probably poorly understood by those using that, and similar, labels.

If they understood what it meant, they wouldn't use the term. But until such time as those who feel the need to diminish their fellow human beings, based solely on a few minor foibles, realize how aberrant this makes them, then there seems little point in wasting one's breath in argument.

Matt