From Laing's The Divided Self:

"One's relationship to an organism is different from one's relationship to a person. One's description of the other as organism is as different from one's description of the other as person as the description of side of vase is from profile of face; similarly, one's theory of the other as organism is remote from any theory of the other as person. One acts towards an organism differently from the way one acts towards a person. The science of persons is the study of human beings that begins from a relationship with the other as person and proceeds to an account of the other still as person."



"The other as person is seen by me as responsible, as capable of choice, in short, as a self-acting agent. Seen as an organism, all that goes on in that organism can be conceptualized at any level of complexity - atomic, molecular, cellular, systemic, or organismic. Whereas behaviour seen as personal is seen in terms of that person's experience and of his intentions, behaviour seen organismically can only be seen as the contraction or relaxation of certain muscles, etc. Instead of the experience of sequence, one is concerned with a sequence of processes. In man seen as an organism, therefore, there is no place for his desires, fears, hope or despair as such. The ultimates of our explanations are not his intentions to his world but quanta of energy in an energy system.

Seen as an organism, man cannot be anything else but a complex of things, of its, and the processes that ultimately comprise an organism are it-processes. There is a common illusion that one somehow increases one's understanding of a person if one can translate a personal understanding of him into the impersonal terms of a sequence or system of it-processes. Even in the absence of theoretical justifications, there remains a tendency to translate our personal experience of the other as a person into an account of him that is depersonalized. We do this in some measure whether we use a machine analogy or a biological analogy in our 'explanation'. It should be noted that I am not here objecting to the use of mechanical or biological analogies as such, nor indeed to the intentional act of seeing man as a complex machine or as an animal. My thesis is limited to the contention that the theory of man as person loses its way if it falls into an account of man as a machine or man as an organismic system of it-processes. The converse is also true.

It seems extraordinary that whereas the physical and biological sciences of it-processes have generally won the day against tendencies to personalize the world of things or to read human intentions into the animal world, an authentic science of persons has hardly got started by reason of the inveterate tendency to depersonalize or reify persons."

The iatrogenic burden will simply become too great. — Chisholm

When it come to the mental health field, this is no joke at all, but is rather tragically and deadly serious. At the moment, psychiatry is mainly the business of writing prescriptions, often at the request of the real mental health workers, the social workers and some psychologists. And some medicine for some illnesses is a good thing,

And not to be confused with psychoanalysis, a separate discipline.

It's a grim thought, that doctors are so keen to find a biological basis for depression, but fail to recognize and treat a hormone deficiency (thyroid) known to cloud the thoughts and cause low mood and unshakable fatigue.

Also, it is unfortunate that "depression" has become as vague a term as "fever", and that far from advancing in our knowledge of our mental states, we are reversing into ignorance. The contemporary refusal to acknowledge unconscious conflicts and a tendency to speak vaguely of "stress" and "genetics" leave us with a reduced vocabulary. What we are suffering from (among other things) is a lack of words and better ideas. Empiricism can only take us so far; it is the hidden — our unreachable secrets, which generate puzzling symptoms — that is doing the damage.

It does seem to be the case that "depression" has become a sink into which all sorts of conditions are tossed. Lots of people are lonely, angry, frustrated, tired, resentful, broke, terrified, alcoholic, addicted, unhappy, shat upon, spat upon, anxious, bi-polar, catatonic, psychotic, and just plain bitches and sons of bitches. Me, for instance.

All these various miserable people end up on psychiatry's doorstep. They might all be diagnosed as "depressed" and treated with the same medication. What's a good doctor to do? Give them a pill that might help them feel better.

I believe there are actually D-E-P-R-E-S-S-E-D people. People who are bi-polar, for instance, really do swing back and forth between mania and depression. There are people whose whole affect, mental functioning, appetite, libido, etc. are suppressed. They are properly "depressed". These people are part of the 1 in 10 people who will experience mental illness at some point in their lives. One in Ten seems about right. Most of these people will get better and do fine in the long run. Even the bi-polar, schizophrenic, and psychotic people will feel fine and will function normally at least some of the time. They need drugs. Sometimes they need a padded cell in an hospital; sometimes they just need a protective institution / mental hospital in which to live.

It's all the other wretched refuse of a crazy society that I worry about. They aren't mentally ill, per se, they are just very unhappy, and they don't seem to know what to do about it. Hey, I didn't either.

I have been depressed, properly defined. But, I also have ended up in that depression sink, when what I really needed was not an antidepressant, but a clearer vision of reality, an attitude readjustment, or a major change of scenery, or something. Looking back over the last 72 years of my life, it's hard to sort it all out.

So I've taken antidepressants of several kinds and benzodiazepines over the last 30 years. The period of actual depression was fairly short (and followed a bad injury while jogging in the winter). The rest of the time I was just part of that wretched refuse blowing around in the streets. I was employed, properly housed, in relationships, had friends, was never alcoholic or addicted, etc. I was just chronically dissatisfied and unhappy.

Was there an intervention that professional could have delivered? I really don't know. What really improved things was a major change in scenery brought about by unemployment and early social security, and the death of my mate, now 10 years ago. Leaving the workforce certainly helped, and the end of my partner's suffering from cancer was, inadvertently, the shock treatment that made the difference.

The upshot? I've regained full mental functioning. I'm not chronically unhappy and dissatisfied. My mind is again firing on all 8 cylinders again, (yeah, yeah, I know; most cars don't have 8 cylinders any more). Life is not perfect of course. I'm not living in la la land. Like millions of other 72 year olds, there are challenges today and more ahead. But I feel balanced, centered, focussed, and all that.

but fail to recognize and treat a hormone deficiency (thyroid) known to cloud the thoughts and cause low mood and unshakable fatigue. — Chisholm

Thyroid dysfunction can be pretty serious, I agree, but how common is undiagnosed thyroid deficiency?

Knowing several people whose lives have been immeasurably improved by psychiatric treatment, I am very glad for the existence of psychiatry. That prescription is sometimes abused is undeniable, but that is no different from any other field of medicine. On balance, having concrete, successful treatments for illnesses is a tremendous boon to humanity, despite the fact that they can have side effects and are sometimes applied based on mistaken diagnoses.

If you convince people that their moods are merely electrochemical noise, you are also telling them what it means to be human, even if you only intend to ease their pain. — Chisholm

As a person that professionally works in the psychiatric field, I have to disagree. I don't like to use the phrase of "telling people what to do." rather, I'd like to educate the client that their understanding of reality is maladaptive and that my job is to redirect them to a course that is least harmful.

In this sense, the attempt to work out the biology of mental illness is different from the attempt to work out the biology of cancer or cardiovascular disease.

Not necessarily. Often times symptoms of mental illness can parallel biological symptoms to which is you remedy one, the other follows suit. For example anxiety disorders mimic biologically symptoms of having a heart attack. Although one can seem indistinguishable from the other, when you do a psychological assessment (asking them their mental health history0 along with a medical assessment you can make that distinction and take appropriate action usually involving giving anxiolytic medication. Of course extreme circumstances like having cancer of course is not treated the same way as a schizophrenic, however having cancer can contribute to the cause of severe depression.
— Chisholm

Then there is the idea that an entity as 'mental illness' exists. Hard to grasp. Like the flu? — Chisholm

How so?

The pharmaceutical industry has been pumping money in the education of doctors and psychiatrists alike, and with success. — Chisholm

This is speculation. How did you come to this?

Seems like this is the rant of someone who had a bad experience

Psychiatry does rest on shaky foundations. For instance the idea that psychiatry knows an absolute distinction between what is real and what is not real, and uses that distinction as a basis to categorize some people as mentally sick people that need to be treated. Without acknowledging that what is deemed to be real is what the majority deems to be real, and that different cultures have different ideas about what is real.

As an example, there is no direct evidence that other people feel, we aren't themselves to know that they feel, all we can say really is that we believe they feel because we feel and because they behave in a way similar to us. Yet someone claiming that he has no reason to believe other people feel anything would be quick to be labeled with some mental illness, simply because his distinction between what he considers real and not would not be the same as that of the psychiatrists.

The likelihood of being labelled as mentally sick is correlated with how distant or incompatible your beliefs are with that of psychiatry. A big part of what psychiatry does is pushing one world view and shaping people to adhere to that world view, and it isn't clear that's the best way to make many people feel better. Some people would feel much better simply if they felt loved and supported and understood, than if they were told there is something wrong in their brain and they need to take some drug regularly to mask the disease.

Seems like this is the rant of someone who had a bad experience — Anaxagoras

When it comes to internet forums, I find personal accounts of mental struggles to be more credible (because the writer usually only has sympathy to gain) than:
1) Medical pronouncements lacking citation(s) to relevant research. And,
2) Claims like:
a) "As a person that professionally works in the psychiatric field..." Or,
b) "My background is in neuroscience."

Because the latter are usually only a prelude to Argument from Authority fallacies.
2a could be a janitor at a pharmaceutical institution, and 2b could be a popular science writer.

For instance the idea that psychiatry knows an absolute distinction between what is real and what is not real, and uses that distinction as a basis to categorize some people as mentally sick people that need to be treated. — leo

Wrong. Psychiatry/Psychology rest on the foundation of behaviors that are adaptive and maladaptive which the latter and the behaviors surrounding it, are used as classifications to make the correct diagnosis.

Without acknowledging that what is deemed to be real is what the majority deems to be real, and that different cultures have different ideas about what is real. — leo

But this is not psychiatry. Psychiatry/Psychology base its principles off science and what can be tested. Psychiatry/Psychology does not deal with the metaphysics much when it comes to defining what is real and not real.

As an example, there is no direct evidence that other people feel, we aren't themselves to know that they feel, all we can say really is that we believe they feel because we feel and because they behave in a way similar to us. — leo

I didn't understand this at all.

Yet someone claiming that he has no reason to believe other people feel anything would be quick to be labeled with some mental illness, simply because his distinction between what he considers real and not would not be the same as that of the psychiatrists. — leo

You really have no grasp on how psychiatrists/psychologist conduct their assessments do you? If someone is doing PCP or methamphetamine and the result is delusion, sure, we clinicians may call it a delusion because what they're experiencing is not independent of any substance that may manipulate areas of their brain (i.e. drugs). If someone is on drugs and they see peter pan and believe they can fly to never never land, most likely their behavior is the result of the meth and/or PCP usage. If their body is absent of hard drugs then of course we may think they are suffering from visual hallucinations, because seeing things that are a part of storytelling and folklore are not come images people see.

That is not to say people who see things are crazy but a lot of times people who see things behave in an atypical way which becomes maladaptive and eventually can lead into destructive behaviors.

Most psychology graduates end up in advertising.

In the adverts, the road is smooth, and sinuously winding through wonderful scenery. The man is master of his fate, enjoying the freedom of the road, and going places in his penis extension. That is the fantasy.

The reality of being stuck in traffic in a concrete jungle, potholed and blocked by roadworks and other people's penis extensions with the kids screaming in the back and everyone looking at you as if you're the one in their way. You're supposed to be somewhere already and you're going nowhere, breathing the toxic fumes.

The conflict between fantasy and reality cannot be resolved, and this results in frustration. Let the frustration out, and you are suffering from road rage. Keep it under control and you are suffering from chronic stress.

Everyone is insane, and everyone is on drugs - the car is just another drug we are addicted to, though it makes us sick.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. — J.Krishnamurti

Psychiatry offers pills as palliatives, when the sickness of society requires a revolution.

I could have used the fantasy of the 'social network' and the reality of social isolation, or many other addictions as my example. Slaves used often to suffer from

behave in an atypical way which becomes maladaptive and eventually can lead into destructive behaviors. — Anaxagoras

It was called drapetomania. We found a cure for that - the abolition of slavery.

Most psychology graduates end up in advertising. — unenlightened

hmm interesting...I'm curious to know where you got this information from if you could provide a link please thank you.

Psychiatry offers pills as palliatives, when the sickness of society requires a revolution. — unenlightened

If you say so.

It was called drapetomania. We found a cure for that - the abolition of slavery. — unenlightened

This made absolutely no sense. Especially since drapetomania's terminology largely was reference to African slaves which in the Psychological community has been debunked as pseudoscience and its largely considered racist.

If someone is suffering from a maladaptive disorder which is causing them to ruin their job, relationships, and is affecting their way of life sometimes medication is necessary to mitigate this problem. For example look at the following story:

Mom, Teen Daughter Accused of Killing 5 Family Members Spoke of ‘Demons Being All Around’: Relative

"Damon Decree, Sr., the ex-husband of suspect Shana Decree, 45, and the father of suspect Dominique Decree, 19, told WPVI that both women had been “talking about demons being all around themthis link opens in a new tab.”

Decree said he believes the mother and daughter — charged Monday with murdering Shana’s two children, Naa’Irah Smith, 25, and Damon Decree Jr., 13, along with her sister, Jamilla Campbell, 42, and Campbell’s 9-year-old twin daughters, Imani and Erika Allen — may have been indoctrinated into an unspecified online religious group.

“Apparently, they had dissected into some type of cult that they materialized online,” he said. “I don’t know how or what kind of cult.”


Destiny Harris, the half-sister of the twin victims, also told WPVI the family had been “going through something religiously and they decided to drag the kids into it.”

See more: https://people.com/crime/mom-teen-daughter-accused-killing-5-family-members-spoke-of-demons/

Now, I understand cults and what not but what perplexes me is not that they were influenced by the cult but by the following statement in the article:

"Initially, investigators allege Shana and Dominique Decree denied having any involvement in the killings, telling cops Campbell’s boyfriend and two other men broke into the apartment and slaughtered the five victims."

Now you tell me are they simply just cult followers or are there some underlined psychological issues?

.I'm curious to know where you got this information from — Anaxagoras

D'you know I think I made it up! At any rate I cannot remember whence it came. However Over here if you add to the 5% in sales, a reasonable fraction of others involved with marketing as business managers, spin doctors, web designers, and then divide out those jobs that only use the statistical skills and not the psychological skills, then my invention is not altogether implausible.

If someone is suffering from a maladaptive disorder which is causing them to ruin their job, relationships, and is affecting their way of life sometimes medication is necessary to mitigate this problem. — Anaxagoras

Dude, I have not denied it. I bring up psychology's pseudoscience and racist past in order to encourage you and others to have a little less hubris, a little more humility, and a more careful use of language.

Have a little think about 'maladaptive disorder'. At some stage, a failure to adapt is not a disorder of the organism, but a disorder of the environment. Indeed I would suggest that at almost every stage there are both aspects in play. One might say that in the case you cite it is the successful adaptation to the cult that constitutes a maladaptive disorder wrt society in general, although there are no doubt other factors, because it is not usual even for cult victims to behave thus. But bear in mind that 'maladaptive' is necessarily relative to a particular society and being maladapted to some societies might be a sign of good mental health. If your job is torturing the enemies of the state, or indoctrinating people into a belief in demons, then losing one's job is on the road to recovery.

I bring up psychology's pseudoscience and racist past in order to encourage you and others to have a little less hubris, a little more humility, and a more careful use of language. — unenlightened

Huh? Where did I display hubris? I'm a clinician and this is my professional job.

a failure to adapt is not a disorder of the organism, but a disorder of the environment. — unenlightened

Do you even know what maladaptive means?

"Maladaptive daydreaming is a disordered form of dissociative absorption associated with vivid and excessive fantasy activity that often involves elaborate and fanciful scenarios.It can result in distress, can replace human interaction and may interfere with normal functioning such as social life or work."

On another note I'm kinda done as I don't think you and I are having a serious discussion.

Interesting. I would like to think that psychiatry has the cure for all mental afflictions. I'm sympathetic to the notion that mental states can be reduced, at least to the extent where we may modify them, to neurochemical states.

You seem to be stating that that's not the complete picture and the gaps are big enough to discredit the profession. You may be right you know.

What alternative do you have to psychiatry?

Do you even know what maladaptive means? — Anaxagoras

Not only do I know what maladaptive is, I also know that

Maladaptive daydreaming — Anaxagoras

...is not the same as...

suffering from a maladaptive disorder — Anaxagoras

...or...

behave in an atypical way which becomes maladaptive — Anaxagoras

Huh? Where did I display hubris? I'm a clinician and this is my professional job. — Anaxagoras

Well right there in your appeal to your own authority, amusingly, and more generally in your non engagement with any of the critical thinking on offer, and response to it instead as if it were a personal attack.

But let me ask you a question for a change. Over all, given the huge growth in psychological knowledge and training, and all the research and advances in the field, would you say that the mental health of the world is improving?

I'm sympathetic to the notion that mental states can be reduced, at least to the extent where we may modify them, to neurochemical states. — TheMadFool

Then you must be psychologically damaged, because you obviously didn't read the article linked in the OP (or subsequent posts), and that kind of thing isn't done here without incurring the disapproval of others. Take your medication, please!

Could there be other explanations for that kind of behaviour?

Harrington ends her book with a plea that psychiatry become “more modest in focus” and train its attention on the severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, that are currently treated largely in prisons and homeless shelters—an enterprise that she thinks would require the field “to overcome its persistent reductionist habits and commit to an ongoing dialogue with … the social sciences and even the humanities.” This is a reasonable proposal, and it suggests avenues other than medication, such as a renewed effort to create humane and effective long-term asylum treatment. But no matter how evenhandedly she frames this laudable proposal, an industry that has refused to reckon with the full implications of its ambitions or the extent of its failures is unlikely to heed it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/mind-fixers-anne-harrington/583228/

That heedless refusal has played out here rather clearly. Every suggestion I have made that there is a social component has been taken by our resident professional not as a contribution to consider, but as an attack to be defended against, to the ridiculous extreme that "maladaptive" is somehow redefined to not be a term of relation of organism to environment, of individual to society.

One way to see it is that the hubris of psychology is to make every disagreement an ad hominem, not realising that there is a society of psychologists that is the legitimate subject of sociologists just as there are sociologists with psyches.

Then you must be psychologically damaged, because you obviously didn't read the article linked in the OP (or subsequent posts), and that kind of thing isn't done here without incurring the disapproval of others. Take your medication, please!

Could there be other explanations for that kind of behaviour? — Galuchat

Well, you're right. I didn't read the article. My sincere apologies. However I did get the main point that psychiatric theories based on neurochemistry may be inadequate or wrong.

To that I respond with the simple observation that pscyhotropic medications work and their pharmacology is understood even if it's only basic.

What is the alternative to pscyhopharmacology? Do you have any ideas?

What is the alternative to pscyhopharmacology? Do you have any ideas? — TheMadFool

Read the quote in this post carefully.

:up: :ok:

What is interesting about the OP's claim is that it rejects a paradigm (neurochemistry-based pscyhology) without offering an alternative. What do you think we should do then?

If you ask me the criticism reveals to us that the picture psychiatrists have is incomplete. A person getting tortured everyday will soon be depressed. A psychiatrist would do nothing more than prescribe some antidepressants to the poor fellow. Is this what's wrong with psychiatry? I know mine is a caricature of the discipline of psychiatry but it gets to the point doesn't it?

it gets to the point doesn't it? — TheMadFool

I think we can get even more to the point. Without dismantling mental health facilities or banning drug treatment there are many steps that can be taken to make societies less stressful and traumatic and more supportive and inclusive. For example 'Let the train take the strain' used to be a slogan; a really good public transport system would be hugely beneficial and incidentally far cheaper than the current every man his tin box arrangement.
Reduce stress, reduce isolation, foster cooperation, minimise trauma. These simple principles should guide social policy in housing, transport, community services education. In this regard, mental health is no different from the rest of medicine, where the greatest improvements in health have come from social and environmental factors such as clean water and sewage treatment systems, health and safety and food standards legislation and so on.

One of the things psychology has been quite good at is identifying social risk factors for mental illness. Unfortunately, it has never been seen as its business to mitigate them.

Psychiatry/Psychology does not deal with the metaphysics much when it comes to defining what is real and not real. — Anaxagoras

Sure it does, you just haven't realized it. If your patient sees or hears things that you don't, either you will find an explanation within the range of phenomena that you deem to be real, or you will deem the patient to have delusions that cannot be explained by anything that you deem to be real other than it being some brain disorder. The diagnostic of delusion is based on your own preconceived beliefs (based in great part on your training) about what is real and what is not.

I didn't understand this at all. — Anaxagoras

I know. Do you believe other people feel? Sure you do, it's obvious to you, so much that you don't even see it as a belief but as a fact, as truth. Yet how have you come to the truth that other people feel? You are you and they are them, how would you know what it is like to be them?

Either you imagine what they feel based on what they look like and how they sound like, and you deem it to be real, so you believe that something you imagine is real, which by psychiatry's definitions makes you delusional. Or you believe you have some supernatural sense that allows you to read their minds and know what they feel, that you have telepathy, which psychiatry deems to be not real, which again makes you delusional.

So in any case according to psychiatry, you believing fiercely that other people feel means you suffer from delusions. But psychiatrists won't say that, because they're the ones implicitly deciding what is real and what is not, telling people what to believe and what not to believe, forcing their own world view onto others.

To that I respond with the simple observation that pscyhotropic medications work and their pharmacology is understood even if it's only basic. — TheMadFool

A lot of things work, exercising, eating healthily, feeling loved, supported, understood, feeling free, feeling having one's own future in one's hands, not feeling threatened, which all could be attained in various ways without having to ingest drugs, but some of it would require rethinking society and education as a whole.

I think this thread matches with an issue raised in this thread: Complexities of suicide

Psychiatry seems to exclude an important aspect, the external reality like socio-economic factors and other things you guys mentioned, which have causal import to mental health and focuses, unduly, on the inner world/self of a person.

However, a thing to note is that given any set of situations no two people will react in the sameway. Look at the holocaust. Some went into severe depression but many pulled out of it sanity intact. Doesn't this mean that psychiatrists many not be completely wrong in their outlook that mental illness is a personal issue?

Look at the holocaust. Some went into severe depression but many pulled out of it sanity intact. Doesn't this mean that psychiatrists many not be completely wrong in their outlook that mental illness is a personal issue? — TheMadFool

Of course they are not completely wrong, or even half wrong. But at the same time they are not only completely factually wrong but completely morally wrong. Imagine the insult of rocking up to the concentration camp and offering pills or CBT to help the inmates "adapt". No, close the damn camps, food and freedom first, surely? And then we can talk about mitigating the effects of the trauma.

Doesn't this mean that psychiatrists may not be completely wrong in their outlook that mental illness is a personal issue? — TheMadFool

This is partly the case, but does it mean we should consider that people who can't adapt to being tortured in concentration camps are mentally ill and ought to be medicated so they become well-adapted to the concentration camp? Do we have to be machines that always put into question the individual rather than the system the individual is in, only trying to change the individual and not the system we impose on the individual? That seems like a good road to mayhem.

Well, you're right. I didn't read the article. My sincere apologies. — TheMadFool

No worries.
Hopefully, you understood my post to be ironic for emphatic effect.

If your patient sees or hears things that you don't, either you will find an explanation within the range of phenomena that you deem to be real, or you will deem the patient to have delusions that cannot be explained by anything that you deem to be real other than it being some brain disorder. — leo

Well yes this is called an assessment, but I'm referring to actually giving credence to auditory/visual hallucinations.

The diagnostic of delusion is based on your own preconceived beliefs (based in great part on your training) about what is real and what is not. — leo

Exactly.

Well right there in your appeal to your own authority, amusingly, and more generally in your non engagement with any of the critical thinking on offer, and response to it instead as if it were a personal attack. — unenlightened

You made an assumption upon the profession of psychiatry. To think this is a clever discussion by using anecdotes and philosophical jargon and word play is meaningless to actually validating to what you're saying.