»The Nature of Mental Illness«
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I thought since there was some talk of Freud in the other thread that I would bring this up again. knn you can go ahead and be a dick here if you want, it's not in my blog so I can't delete your silliness. This is a scientific rebuttal of Freud and the antipsychiatry movement. Don't read it if you hate science or psychiatry. 
Some of Freud's strongest critics in psychiatry are starting to entertain the possibility that mental illness is actually not itself inherited, but that only the tendency toward becoming mentally ill is inherited. Actually the guy whose book I mentioned in my Freud post, E. Fuller Torrey, is a major figure in that movement. There are a lot of studies that have been done of identical twins, who have identical genes, where one will become schizophrenic (or bipolar) and one will not. But there are other things too: like the fact that more people born in the winter develop schizophrenia than do those born in the summer. The winter birth phenomenon, along with the twin studies, have been taken by some as evidence that certain viruses or infections, when contracted by mothers during pregnancy or children at a young age, can cause the brain of the fetus or child to develop differently, and later cause mental illness. So the idea goes that mental illness may actually be caused by viruses or infections, which are more commonly contracted in winter, and which could infect one twin early in life, and not the other! Of course there are always varying degrees of vulnerability to viruses, and this can be caused by genetic differences that run in families. And, the danger of certain viruses to the fetuses of pregnant women is proven: obstetricians (pregnancy doctors) usually tell their pregnant patients, if they own cats, not to clean the litter box while pregnant , because there is a parasite - called Toxoplasma gondii ♣ - found in cat feces that can infect humans and cause birth defects. Toxoplasma is also suggested as being one cause of schizophrenia. Scientists have even found that some of the drugs taken by schizophrenics and bipolars have antiviral properties, meaning they help stop the action of certain viruses. This may explain the effectiveness of these drugs in alleviating symptoms of mental illness. And, for very extreme cases of schizophrenia, in which people are chronically hospitalized or incapacitated, there is talk of possibly trying antiviral drugs developed for AIDS patients. But that is a long way away, due to the side effect problems of a lot of those drugs. E. Fuller Torrey calls these theoretical viruses "schizoviruses." And the funny thing is, Torrey, as a great spokesperson for treatment of mentally ill people with medication, is faced with a great deal of criticism from antipsychiatry groups like the Church of Scientology, which are often run or founded by mentally ill people who have gone untreated, like Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Like Freud, Hubbard was a great proponent of early trauma as a cause of mental illness; however Hubbard taught Scientologists to believe this trauma happened in past lives . I found this on the Wikipedia page about Torrey:Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC says: If anyone's going to read the above two [books: The Invisible Plague, Surviving Schizophrenia], then they should also read Bob Whitaker's scathing indictment of Torrey's approach to mental illness: psychrights.org… [PDF] E. Fuller Torrey should be prosecuted for hate crimes against the mentally ill. Torrey is the USA's most vociferous supporter of forced treatment of mental patients.
There is much controversy over the status of schizophrenia as a mental illness, as well as the efficacy of treatment. Please see discussion page. I highlighted the two sentences above to show what nonsense people who are afraid of psychiatry will put out there. There is no "controversy over the status of schizophrenia as a mental illness." The only people who are involved in controversy are the antipsychiatry crowd. Ironically, even if they don't always admit it, the antipsychiatry people tend to favor the Freudian view of childhood trauma causing mental illness, and many blame their parents or even psychiatrists if they have a mental illness. This is just delusional thinking, and a lot of the Freudian early trauma theorists and psychoanalysts are guilty of promoting it as well. It seems complicated, but it's not. And again, it's not as flashy or popular as Scientology or psychoanalysis. There is no Tom Cruise or Woody Allen of psychiatry to constantly advise people to take medicine if they need to. In fact Cruise has said that psychiatry should actually be banned, and Allen is, well, look up the word malingering ♣, this post is already too long. All one can do, if one gets sick, is seek medical advice and avoid psychoanalysis (and Scientology) like the plague. 
posted by holy_of_holies |
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| in-my-opinion.orgPoliticsPsychiatry and Anti-PsychiatryThe Nature of Mental Illness |
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 holy_of_holies: All one can do, if one gets sick, is seek medical advice and avoid psychoanalysis (and Scientology) like the plague. Do you have any proof that psychoanalysis or scientology do NOT work in healing mentally ill persons? Moreover, is this thread in the science section or not? I don't think you should start a thread about, say, dandruff in the science section and then state: "If you have dandruff then get medicine and avoid Jesus". The same applies to this thread here. You simply cannot state to avoid psychoanalysis or religions when actually I never heard of psychoanalysis or any religion to ACTUALLY CLAIM to actively TREAT mental illness, dandruff or sweaty hands. Religions are simply not "in the business" of going to the local spin bin and treat mad men. posted by knn |
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holy_of_holies: Like Freud, Hubbard was a great proponent of early trauma as a cause of mental illness; however Hubbard taught Scientologists to believe this trauma happened in past lives And can you disprove either Freud or Hubbard? And can you prove that either Freud or Hubbard claimed that mental illness IS NOT CAUSED by brain damage or similar? Moreover, again, this is a science thread. Let's not talk about Jesus chasing out demons. posted by knn |
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knn: however Hubbard taught Scientologists to believe this trauma happened in past lives Let me also add, that both statements "Mental illness is caused by genetical disposition" and "Mental illness is caused by past lives" do not contradict each other. It's actually a statement like "Alcoholism is hereditary" and "Jesus can heal you from your drinking". Both statements may be very valid as I wrote at IMO → Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life posted by knn |
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knn: The same applies to this thread here. You simply cannot state to avoid psychoanalysis or religions when actually I never heard of psychoanalysis or any religion to ACTUALLY CLAIM to actively TREAT mental illness, dandruff or sweaty hands. Let's take a religion that claims "Mental illness stems from the fact that the Venus ate the moon" or similar belief stuff: This cannot be proof for anything, since the religion is simply not claiming that they deal with mentally ill people. posted by knn |
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Thank you for actually making points on this issue for once  knn: holy_of_holies: All one can do, if one gets sick, is seek medical advice and avoid psychoanalysis (and Scientology) like the plague. Do you have any proof that psychoanalysis or scientology do NOT work. Given the evidence of the genetic and/or infectious nature of mental illness - in other words that these illnesses are a matter of molecules, nothing more - I think it is self-evident that Freud's "talking cure" and Hubbard's Scientology "E-meter" (i.e. biofeedback) and "auditing sessions" will not work for them. In other words, if you have pneumonia, you don't go see someone just to talk about it for hours or take biofeedback tests. No, you rest, treat yourself right, and take medicine until you feel better or, as is unfortunately the case, sometimes you die. Same goes with cancer, same goes with HIV, and same goes with mental illness. There's really no difference: only that there is a popular mystique around mental illness because mentally ill people in the modern era have caused so many problems (i.e. Hitler) or been so overwhelmingly successful (i.e. Churchill, who described severe depressions he experienced as his "black dog".) In the general public's eyes, people with mental illness are either angels or demons, with little room in the middle. And in the eyes of the few, like Freud and Hubbard, they are targets to be victimized. So really that is the only difference between pneumonia and mental illness: public perception and cult hysteria. knn: Moreover, is this thread in the science section or not? I don't think you should start a thread about, say, dandruff in the science section and then state
"If you have dandruff then get medicine and avoid Christian Science". The same applies to this thread here. You simply cannot state to avoid psychoanalysis or religions when actually I never heard of psychoanalysis or any religion to ACTUALLY CLAIM to actively TREAT mental illness, dandruff or swaety hands. You can move the thread if you wish; sometimes things don't fit exactly into categories. I put it in science because it is a scientific rebuttal of quack medicine. Also, psychoanalysis does claim to treat mental illness - that's the whole point - and Scientology claims mental illness doesn't exist as a medical problem. So those are my answers to your points.
posted by holy_of_holies |
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knn: holy_of_holies: Like Freud, Hubbard was a great proponent of early trauma as a cause of mental illness; however Hubbard taught Scientologists to believe this trauma happened in past lives And can you disprove either Freud or Hubbard? And can you prove that either Freud or Hubbard claimed that mental illness IS NOT CAUSED by brain damage or similar? Moreover, again, this is a science thread. Let's not talk about Jesus chasing out demons. Well if this is a science thread, a big part of science has always been debunking popular myths, like the Geocentric universe. And my argument against Freud and Hubbard is that they never proved their methods effective in the first place. You may have a point about Freud; I don't think he ever specifically claimed that there was no genetic basis for mental illness. However, he was the world's most famous mental-health professional and was advocating treatment methods that were empirically unfounded. Hubbard consistently denied that mental illness was a medical problem though; look on any non-Scientology site about Hubbard and you will see evidence of that. posted by holy_of_holies |
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holy_of_holies: In other words, if you have pneumonia, you don't go see someone to talk about it or take biofeedback tests. No, you rest, treat yourself right, and take medicine until you feel better or, as is unfortunately the case, sometimes you die. Same goes with cancer, same goes with HIV But that still doesn't disprove the statement that pneumonia/ cancer/ HIV are caused by past lives or demons. Demons simply may work with the help of bacteria. Thus fighting bacteria or chasing out demons may have the same value. posted by knn |
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holy_of_holies: And my argument against Freud and Hubbard is that they never proved their methods effective in the first place. How does psychiatry prove that an anti-depression medicine works? By statements of people who take anti-depressiva and say "This medicine helped. I am less depressive". The same applies to followers of religions. Especially in highly subjective matters like mental conditions, I have no reason to doubt that religions help. Just yesterday I read an article about Christians being generally less depressed and more healthy than non-Christians. holy_of_holies: Hubbard consistently denied that mental illness was a medical problem though; look on any non-Scientology site about Hubbard and you will see evidence of that. Yeah, and on anti-Jesus sites I will see proof that Jesus was a quack. Give me a break. Moreover I just checked scientology.org to see what they tell about medicines: Do Scientologists use medical doctors?
Of course. The Church of Scientology has always had the firm policy of not diagnosing or treating the sick . Medical doctors are trained to deal with the physical aspects of illness and injury. A Scientologist with a physical condition is always advised to seek and obtain the needed examination and treatment of a qualified medical professional. Once under medical treatment, a Scientologist then addresses his illness or injury with auditing to handle any spiritual trauma or other factors connected with the physical condition which may have predisposed him to illness or injury. There are also many medical doctors who are Scientologists themselves. I don't know if you can put it more clearly. If you want an anti-medicine religion then you should bash Christian Science that says that everything is healable with prayers. posted by knn |
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Now let me also add, that there may be a confusion between being against bad medicamentation and being against being medicamentation. You can VERY WELL like anti-heart attack medicine BUT AT THE SAME TIME be against doctors prescribing this medicine indiscriminately to everyone who comes along. And, sorry, it's simply not OK to give out millions of Ritalin pills for young kids and completely ignore other possible reasons for a lowered attention span. And if an organization (whether the Catholic church, Muslims or Scientologists) speak out against such an abuse THEN THIS IS OK, but doesn't say anything about their general attitude to medical drugs. posted by knn |
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knn: holy_of_holies: In other words, if you have pneumonia, you don't go see someone to talk about it or take biofeedback tests. No, you rest, treat yourself right, and take medicine until you feel better or, as is unfortunately the case, sometimes you die. Same goes with cancer, same goes with HIV But that still doesn't disprove the statement that pneumonia/ cancer/ HIV are caused by past lives or demons. Demons simply may work with the help of bacteria. Thus fighting bacteria or chasing out demons may have the same value. I'm not claiming that religion (or exorcism or whatever) and medical science are mutually exclusive; remember we debated this in the thread about ways of treating cancer, where I said that in a believing person, prayer may be a viable option for beating cancer. Just because my personal prejudice is against religion doesn't mean that I don't see its effectiveness in exploiting the mind-body link. All I say about treatment of mental illness is this: if somebody is telling people who complain of mental disturbances that (1) the patient is definitely sick and must come to their office twice a week and pay money be analyzed, because of some universal complex regarding maternal incest; or (2) that there is no such thing as mental illness as a medical problem, and that psychiatry is a pseudoscience...then that person who is claiming these things is a quack by general scientific consensus. Hell I once, after I was first hospitalized, went on a date with a Christian girl to see Franklin Graham ♣ preach in my town, and without hesitation I became a Christian because he threatened the "unsaved" with hell. What I only later admitted to myself is I was still recovering from my hospital stay, and had all kinds of paranoia about that event - like my belief that the Bush admnistration had sent Pastor Franklin to convert me before I would be sent to fight in World War III  . So there was a medical basis behind my "conversion." The scientific point I'm trying to make here is that religion can be a good thing or a bad thing in terms of medicine - that's why I said in the "Bush and Stalin" thread that I consider it to be a neutral force. However, bad medicine, like that advocated by Hubbard and Freud, is always harmful. Even if by some chance quackery helped somebody, that would be a bad thing because that person would go out and recruit ten more people who would all be hurt by the quack who helped the one person.
That right there in bold is my quote of the day. I don't think this post is offtopic because I'm making a point about religion vs. science in the mental health area. posted by holy_of_holies |
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holy_of_holies: However, bad medicine, like that advocated by Hubbard and Freud I stand by what I have said. Neither Hubbard nor Freud do any kind of medicine, thus it cannot be bad medicine. Jesus was not a doctor. And on the other hand EVERY religious leader can claim "psychiatry is pseudo-science since they don't consider demons in their precedures" That's a religious statement and I hate to say it but: You can't really argue about religious statements. holy_of_holies: All I say about treatment of mental illness is this: if somebody is telling people who complain of mental disturbances that (1) the patient is definitely sick and must come to their office twice a week and pay money be analyzed, because of some universal complex regarding maternal incest; I don't see anything wrong with that per se. It's only wrong when proven that it doesn't work or when proven to be bogus (and you can't prove that really). holy_of_holies: (2) that there is no such thing as mental illness as a medical problem, and that psychiatry is a pseudoscience... You have yet failed to cite anything from any religion that says that IN A SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT. As a religion that can say whatever they want, e.g. that you are ill because the holy cat ate the holy elephant. Or because your karma is dislocated. Or because Shiva had a bad dream. You should only care if Christian Science suddenly runs a mental institution and ACTIVELY tries to treat mental illness with prayers AND FAILS MORE than a psychiatric treatment. Otherwise I don't think you should care what religions CLAIM. posted by knn |
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knn: holy_of_holies: Hubbard consistently denied that mental illness was a medical problem though; look on any non-Scientology site about Hubbard and you will see evidence of that. Yeah, and on anti-Jesus sites I will see proof that Jesus was a quack. Give me a break. Moreover I just checked scientology.org to see what they tell about medicines: Do Scientologists use medical doctors?
Of course. The Church of Scientology has always had the firm policy of not diagnosing or treating the sick . Medical doctors are trained to deal with the physical aspects of illness and injury. A Scientologist with a physical condition is always advised to seek and obtain the needed examination and treatment of a qualified medical professional. Once under medical treatment, a Scientologist then addresses his illness or injury with auditing to handle any spiritual trauma or other factors connected with the physical condition which may have predisposed him to illness or injury. There are also many medical doctors who are Scientologists themselves. I don't know if you can put it more clearly. Well of course they're going to put a legal disclaimer on their website saying: if you're really physically sick, we can't treat you. I couldn't get to your terms of service for this site, but I've seen it before and there are many things forbidden there that are routinely posted on IMO. And notice Scientology.org says, "A Scientologist with a physical condition ...". They DO NOT consider mental illness to be a physical condition; nor do, I imagine, most psychiatrists. It's a mental condition with sometimes physical symptoms. So I disagree that that is clear statement against quackery for the mentally ill. The most important thing I would impart is this: Scientology is by definition a legal machine, created by L. Ron Hubbard, and dedicated to making money by using star power (Cruise, Travolta) to draw new converts, who purchase and study literature, and, if they want it, quack sessions and much more. What you see with Scientology is just the vanguard of the antipsychiatry movement, so they are very careful about what they officially say. How do I know this then? Simple: I've read it from Hubbard himself. There are extreme elements in the field of psychiatry, especially in the public health system, which is why I personally am reluctant to support socialized medicine. But make no mistake: if you claim religion and communism are diametrically opposed, then I say that psychiatry and the antipsychiatry movement are mortal enemies. One will be destroyed if the other is to survive. And the only way psychiatry can win is by advocating more mandatory mental health screenings and stricter laws regarding involuntary treatment; and normal people have nothing to fear from that. A trip to any big city to meet the homeless, or to any correctional facility to meet the criminally insane who will soon be let out without continuing treatment, should clue you in to the reality that the antipsychiatry movement is doing a deadly disservice by perpetuating the outdated Freudian view of mental illness. posted by holy_of_holies |
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knn: You have yet failed to cite anything from any religion that says that IN A SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT. Let me get back to you on this, because Hubbard wrote so much that there is a ton of direct evidence for this point of Scientology dogma. Still, I can't help but think that you are throwing me a red herring by all this talk about psychoanalysis and Scientology being "undebatable" in this context because they are not medicine. There is plenty of evidence that these (as you seem to think) religions or (as I think) confidence schemes claim to treat people who could be diagnosed empirically as mentally ill or perfectly healthy. That is, I think, self-evident, using an old scientific tactic that is formidable when properly applied; in this case I think I am justified in using it. Scientology and psychoanalysis are quackery. That's self-evident, regardless of their consequences or future. posted by holy_of_holies |
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holy_of_holies: There is plenty of evidence that these (as you seem to think) religions or (as I think) confidence schemes claim to treat people who could be diagnosed empirically as mentally ill or perfectly healthy. What do you want to say now? That it's forbidden for a mentally ill person to go to a psychoanalysts or become a Christian? What's next? That I am forbidden to write that "Vitamins can prevent cancer?" because I am not a doctor? Leave religions/belief systems where they are. As long as noone forces you to be "treated" by a priest you couldn't care less what a priest claims. holy_of_holies: Scientology and psychoanalysis are quackery. That's self-evident, regardless of their consequences or future. Sorry, it's not self-evident that psychoanalysis or Scientology are quackery. And especially not in this thread since neither claim to actively treat or heal schizophrenia. So even if they were quackery regarding schizophrenia, they are not necessarily quackery regarding other things. posted by knn |
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