Posted by munificentexegete on February 15, 2007, at 20:36:50
In reply to Re: Everything I believe may be wrong, posted by Squiggles on February 15, 2007, at 20:01:02
> >
> > That's a very tragic story. Let's be glad that we're no longer in the middle of the previous century, that we are benefiting from more treatment options and far more nuanced comprehension of mood disorders now than existed then. Maybe in the next century people will look back onto our time like that, too. But there's still a long way to go, and today's rules of thumbs could well be overturned in the future. Yes, definately a field for the best and brightest minds- let's hope they get the funding they need, and aren't wooed or forced into overly simplistic fixes which are easy to sell and fund. Also good we get to exchange information and notes. It can't hurt to be as aware as possible. And still, I think it's better to be doubtful once in awhile than to cling to any ideas or treatments which aren't working out, or to dismiss ideas that could help but aren't immediately attractive. So I still think you are doing alright to be wondering if everything you believe might be wrong- you could be keeping your door open this way.
>
> I'm always looking at all the different causes
> for mental illness. In studying the history and
> the massive collection of research, it's obvious that mental illness can have many diverse causes-- from genetic, to life tragedies, to viruses, to brain damage, to endocrinological diseases... and on; this is what makes it so complex--it is the kind of illness that requires science as well as detective work in a person's life.
>
> But the results are always miserable, and i agree with you-- we have more treatment options. I read that on "About" [i think] that on average it takes 8 different medication treatments to arrive at something tolerable-- you just don't get that kind of problem with other illnesses.
>
> Neurology may be our best bet in the future-- if we can actually scan brain disorders and get a parallel picture; alternatively, a panacea-- that's what i like-- a drug that stabilizes all mental disorders of the affective type at least :-).
>
> Squiggles
Mental Illness has been the source of much confusion and debate specifically over the last 100 years in particular.In my view Mental Illness can only be a synonym for neurological disease:
Mental = Neurological
Illness = Diseaseit is a term of the vernacular, a layman's version of a medical term, nothing further.
As such Mental Illness exists only when neurological disease is identified in a patient. We can thus distinguish illness from problems in living. If one feels depressed or anxious, one is not ill by default, if one feels scared or even commits a crime, one is not by default ill. If one feels happy and then sad one is not ill by default. If one has an overactive imagination or dresses or speaks esoterically or eccentrically one is not ill by default. Illness of any sort can only be defined by its detectable presence in an individual.
Parkinson's disease is a Mental Illness, it has a pathophysiology being the decay of the dopaminergic system. If we define schizophrenia as an overactivity in the dopaminergic system, then it too would be a Mental Illness. If we define bipolar as the overactivity followed by the under activity of the serotogenic system, then it too becomes a Mental Illness. However, without any pathophysiology schizophrenia and bipolar are meaningless, not mental illness at all, nothing more than metaphoric terms allowing doctors to define the well as diseased.
Redefine them as illnesses by all means, but don't insult our intelligence and expect us to admire the counterfeit.
poster:munificentexegete
thread:732492
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070213/msgs/733161.html