Posted by med_empowered on February 22, 2005, at 22:13:47
In reply to Re: OK, I guess this is my point..., posted by banga on February 22, 2005, at 20:52:35
Here's the deal: my paper/ pet project on mental illness led me to the conclusion that the biological perspective in terms of mental illness is pretty flawed. Inquiry into alternative perspectives and treatments has been seriously hampered. This is not just bad science, this is flat-out misleading and deceptive. We do not KNOW that mental illness is a "brain disorder," though it is a popular theory. We do know that chemical/biological treatments are often effective...but to connect the two would be inappropriate. Science isn't supposed to be dogmatic; the idea is that scientific inquiry should be used to explore issues/problems and that no one explanation should be valued more than another without very strong, very compelling data. In terms of mental illness, especially schizophrenia, the US psychiatric establishment has focused single-mindedly on the "broken brain" concept. Take, for instance, the international studies on schizophrenia...there are 2 BIG ones. The first showed that patients in the United States and other western, developed countries have a tendency to become chronically ill, even with medical treatment. Poorer countries, in Africa, Asia, etc. had better results in terms out long-term outcome, despite a low (16%) level of regular medication use. The follow-up showed pretty much the same thing. Psychiatrists have tended to dismiss the study, but the data was incredibly high-quality and consistent; furthermore, the studies were done by the World Health Organization...the same Org. that has helped in massive vaccination efforts, helped fight the war on AIDS, etc. There wasn't a political motive--it was simply scientific inquiry that produced results those dogmatically attached to one explanation didn't like. The studies continue to be ignored. This is a HUGE issue...in 1994, Harvard researchers released a study in which they concluded that the outcome for schizophrenic patients was essentially unchanged since the 1800's. Schizophrenics continue to have incredibly high suicide rates (around 15%) and other problems. So, to sum all this up, I didn't start this "discussion" to say that genetics don't play a role, or that genes don't play a role, but instead to emphasize that maybe society has a role, a big role, in the entire concept of mental health. While we're looking at brain scans and investigating drugs, we also need to look at very basic questions that I simply don't think have been adequately addressed. HOW do we define mental illness? Why does this seem to change over time? WHO are the mentally ill? Why does it seem that an unusual number of them are women, minorities, and/or poor? Why do mentally ill do better in some situations and/or societies than others? How do we define "improvement," anyway?
poster:med_empowered
thread:461854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050222/msgs/462061.html