It seems to be that the way psychologists and psychiatrists diagnose mental illness is through conversation with the patient. The patient tells them what bothers them, what they feel, their thoughts, etc. So, if you have lost enjoyment in life, and experience constant sadness, you are diagnosed with depression (based on the things that you said to the mental health professional.) The way in which we diagnose depression seems to be way less reliable than the way that for example you would find a tumor on someones body, or a life weakening viral infection. The latter seems to have more epistemological validity than the former. What are your thoughts on this? And given this problem, can psychology really be called a science? — rickyk95
Psychiatrists exist, but I am not at all sure that psychiatry does in any significantly different way to psychology though! — Jake Tarragon
Uhh... yeah. If everyone was a "full-time" writer or metal-worker - meaning that is all they did, 24-7, and never possessed an inclination to eat or procreate, then I would say that they are ill, sure. Do you know anyone like this? I doubt it. So you examples are preposterous. — Harry Hindu
Read what he wrote again:I'm sure by "full time" he meant something along the lines of the standard 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. — Michael
Most people are already full time workers in that sense and still have time to have sex and raise a family, so no, that isn't what he meant.If everyone was a full time writer, or a woman, or for that matter, a metal worker, the species would die out. But these are not illnesses. — unenlightened
If someone possesses a trait that, if all members of the species possessed would mean the demise of the species - like being hostile to other members, then that would be sufficient to call that trait an illness. — Harry Hindu
David Smail, he da man. And he's got my essay on counselling on his website, so a man of taste too. — unenlightened
Every individual "out there" has, at all times, some condition/state that is not considered normal. But if we see a person walking with a limp, struggling to hear a sound, violently coughing, etc. we don't say that he/she is in any way "screwed up". We have compassion for him/her.
We recognize that some part of him/her is not functioning normally and we show compassion.
We must not really believe that mental illnesses are abnormalities, because a lot of people refer to them with words like "screwed up". Those words imply that, rather than suffering from symptoms of something that has gone wrong, a person is inherently defective, flawed, etc.
And "screwed up" is not a fact that can be confirmed by science. It is an attitude--an uncharitable attitude that sees people as less than human rather than as humans experiencing a variation of what all humans experience: suffering. If psychology is science, "screwed up" has no place in a discussion of psychology. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
The scientific basis of medicine in other departments seems to result in cures, ameliorations, a reduction in suffering. In mental health, the exact opposite seems to happen. — unenlightened
This seems like an impossible situation. How would a species even survive to make it to be an all male or all female species? There are species that are neither and can procreate just fine. Let's just say that if you are born different than the species you are part of and what makes you different would be a detriment to the species you are part of if they all had it (meaning that they wouldn't even be considered the same species), then it would be an illness to the survival of THAT species.If someone possesses a trait that, if all members of the species possessed would mean the demise of the species - like being hostile to other members, then that would be sufficient to call that trait an illness. — Harry Hindu
I'll have my own go at addressing this. What about being male and being female? If all members of the species were male, or if all members of the species were female, then that would mean the demise of the species. Therefore being male and being female are illnesses? — Michael
This seems like a bizarre thing to say. — Terrapin Station
These studies conclude that anxiety and depression are markedly higher than they were in earlier eras. They examine age groups from children to middle-aged adults and span the medical and psychological literature. Many are nationally representative samples. Most employ anonymous questionnaires asking about symptoms, which means the increases cannot be due to over-diagnosis – these are people filling out surveys for research studies, not people seeking treatment. Yet they still report more issues. And it’s not just because they think it’s more acceptable to do so – the MMPI includes two measures of this type of response bias, and it still showed increases in mental health issues among high school and college students after these scales were included in the model.
The problem is made more difficult by the complexity of the subject; the prime difficulty being emotions and thoughts can't be quantified and thus the exactitude of mathematics can't be applied. — TheMadFool
A-sociality and anti-sociality by themselves aren't mental illnesses at least in my book. They may be perceived by the subject as afflictions, in which case the person may need some assistance, and it need not be from somebody in the mental health field. People have many problems which are not mental health problems. Like they may have abysmal social skills -- a potentially significant problem and not necessarily having anything to do with mental health. Lots of people (most people? Is it a feature of humanness?) manage to be pains in the ass without having anything wrong with their mental health. — Bitter Crank
he prime difficulty is that our psychology is radically altered by our psychological theories. If this happened in biology, it would be as though as soon as we discover that rabbits breed like rabbits, the all turn celibate. — unenlightened
I'm sure this issue is a known problem to psychologists. — TheMadFool
From another angle, psychology reveals harmful behavior e.g. biases, prejudices, fallacious thinking, etc. Knowledge of such aspects of the psyche and behavior modifications arising therefrom, seem to me, a positive thing. The study itself may become outmoded the moment it becomes public knowledge BUT its effects have been therapeutic. — TheMadFool
What's your views on things like personality disorders and how they might affect social interactions in particular? — schopenhauer1
... what looks like just someone who has abysmal social skills might have an underlying personality disorder. Of course, it may be that someone just has abysmal social skills. I guess when does one look deeper and when does one say that it is just a feature of this person but no underlying issue? — schopenhauer1
So above, for example linked to some evidence that suggests to me the hypothesis that the scientific study of the psyche changes the psyche in particular ways; that it leads to objectification of the self and of others, and this tends to produce isolation, dissociation, anxiety, and depression. — unenlightened
<people are effectively told> that they are malfunctioning computers. It's not just that the theory becomes outmoded, but that it negatively impacts the way people relate to each other, and the way they see themselves. — unenlightened
Determining when "oddness" or "weirdness" is diagnostically significant requires more knowledge than I have. — Bitter Crank
Does anybody get depressed or anxious about believing that" their mind is a computer", in some sense? — Jake Tarragon
It seems to be that the way psychologists and psychiatrists diagnose mental illness is through conversation with the patient. The patient tells them what bothers them, what they feel, their thoughts, etc. So, if you have lost enjoyment in life, and experience constant sadness, you are diagnosed with depression (based on the things that you said to the mental health professional.) The way in which we diagnose depression seems to be way less reliable than the way that for example you would find a tumor on someones body, or a life weakening viral infection. The latter seems to have more epistemological validity than the former. What are your thoughts on this? And given this problem, can psychology really be called a science? — rickyk95
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