[Newsbot]

Title: 'Dozens of mental disorders don't exist'
Category: Health
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2013-10-09 07:00:30
Canadian

[Benn]

Well I'm sure the drug companies love the modern DSM though. I did find it dumb to hear how some things are taken out then put back in or cross combined then taken apart again from DSM version to version. Never gave me much confidence in it when I took my psych courses.

[desertdude]

Dozens of mental health disorders don't exist, tell me something I already don't know. Its just easy to blame it on a disorder than to take responsibility for oneself.

You're an asshole. Sorry can't help it, I have Assholes syndrome and taking medical pot to fix it.

[BartSimpson]

"F*cked up" is a readily-diagnosed mental condition and when I look at Gary Greenberg's biography it seems that he suffers from it in spades.

[Zipperfish]

Yeah, the entire field of psychology and psychiatry is in the Dark Ages. Most neuroscience these days points to the fact that humans have no free will, so that immediately obliterates the line between "choosing" to do something and "having a compulsion" to do something.

Once that sinks in they'll have to change their approach.

[Thanos]

How about anyone who feels like telling someone with depression to "tough it out" without their medication goes and says the same thing to a diabetic about taking their insulin. Or a cancer patient with their chemo. Or an AIDS patient with their AZT. Or a person without COPD with their oxygen. Or a person in the range to be killed by a massive heart attack to not take their nitroglycerin, and have their arterial stent taken out because, y'know, only wimps need those silly things.

Anyone who hasn't been there or gone through it but has the arrogant gall to tell someone who has to "tough it out" deserves to have their fucking face slapped off their goddamn skull.

[andyt]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Yeah, the entire field of psychology and psychiatry is in the Dark Ages. Most neuroscience these days points to the fact that humans have no free will, so that immediately obliterates the line between "choosing" to do something and "having a compulsion" to do something.

Once that sinks in they'll have to change their approach.

You would think it would also have to sink in to the justice system. What do we do about mens rea if there's no free will involved. I'm guessing the situation is more complicated than you make it seem here.

[Curtman]

Thanos Thanos:

How about anyone who feels like telling someone with depression to "tough it out" without their medication goes and says the same thing to a diabetic about taking their insulin. Or a cancer patient with their chemo. Or an AIDS patient with their AZT. Or a person without COPD with their oxygen. Or a person in the range to be killed by a massive heart attack to not take their nitroglycerin, and have their arterial stent taken out because, y'know, only wimps need those silly things.

Anyone who hasn't been there or gone through it but has the arrogant gall to tell someone who has to "tough it out" deserves to have their fucking face slapped off their goddamn skull.

I don't think that is what the article is really about though.

$1:

Gary Greenberg recounts that, in 1850, a physician called Samuel Cartwright reported a new disease in the highly respected New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. Cartwright named it drapetomania, from the ancient Greek drapetes for a runaway slave; in other words, here was a disease that "caused Negroes to run away". It had one primary diagnostic symptom - "absconding from service" - and a few secondary ones, including "sulkiness and dissatisfaction just prior to flight".
...
homosexuality was listed as a "sociopathic personality disorder" when the DSM was first published in 1952, and remained so until 1973. "Doctors were paid to treat it, scientists to search for its causes and cures," he writes in The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry. "Gay people themselves underwent countless therapies including electric shocks, years on the couch, behaviour modification and surrogate sex."

This sort of thing is.

[Jabberwalker]

'Dozens of mental disorders don't exist'

That's just crazy!

[Freakinoldguy]

$1:

Greenberg's language may at times sound overblown but he isn't alone. DSM-5, 14 years in the writing, has been criticised by many for the unhealthy influence of the pharmaceutical industry and its tendency to medicalise behaviours and moods that many would argue fall within the normal range.

You just had to know that big pharmaceutical would be involved.

In some cases I'm inclined to agree with this assumption but in others not so much.

Example. Alot of kids would be better off with a swat on the ass rather than a lifetime prescription of Ritalin that turns them into the living dead but, because a lot of the medical community have swayed by promises of quick cures and minimum cost for the health care system they've become accomplices in turning our mental health issues into big business and we're becoming over medicated in a lot of cases, which is just downright scary.

[Public_Domain]

[Headstrong]

Thanos Thanos:

How about anyone who feels like telling someone with depression to "tough it out" without their medication goes and says the same thing to a diabetic about taking their insulin. Or a cancer patient with their chemo. Or an AIDS patient with their AZT. Or a person without COPD with their oxygen. Or a person in the range to be killed by a massive heart attack to not take their nitroglycerin, and have their arterial stent taken out because, y'know, only wimps need those silly things.

Anyone who hasn't been there or gone through it but has the arrogant gall to tell someone who has to "tough it out" deserves to have their fucking face slapped off their goddamn skull.

Same thing could be said about medicinal cannabis, but most around here would say otherwise.

[Curtman]

Headstrong Headstrong:

Thanos Thanos:

How about anyone who feels like telling someone with depression to "tough it out" without their medication goes and says the same thing to a diabetic about taking their insulin. Or a cancer patient with their chemo. Or an AIDS patient with their AZT. Or a person without COPD with their oxygen. Or a person in the range to be killed by a massive heart attack to not take their nitroglycerin, and have their arterial stent taken out because, y'know, only wimps need those silly things.

Anyone who hasn't been there or gone through it but has the arrogant gall to tell someone who has to "tough it out" deserves to have their fucking face slapped off their goddamn skull.

Same thing could be said about medicinal cannabis, but most around here would say otherwise.

I don't think it's most. There's a few vocal opponents around here who don't seem to have any idea why they are opposed. Some of them even support outright legalization, but argue against it anyway.

OTI is the only one around here who is adamantly against it. But even he at times claims to be for legalization.

[Yogi]

"Doctors were paid to treat it, scientists to search for its causes and cures,"

[Zipperfish]

andyt andyt:

You would think it would also have to sink in to the justice system. What do we do about mens rea if there's no free will involved. I'm guessing the situation is more complicated than you make it seem here.

In a sense, it is built into our justice system, in that it is ostensibly designed to rehabilitate, not punish.