Quote (Nathan @ 25 Jan 2016 08:49)
arbitrary and subjective, such a description has no relevance to a science with psychiatry pretends to be
what? if someone does something harmful to a society then the society defends itself. i'm not trying to advocate for thiefs or murderes or whatever.
absolute bullshit. that's just subjective opinion and can't be the basis for the DIAGNOSIS of an ILLNESS. i agree with you 100% that it's bad to murder people and people should protect themselves against murderers. i don't agree with your reasoning though. and i wonder where you draw the line? if you believe it's ok to steal from people, are yhou mentally ill? what if you're really poor or hungry? what if you're only kind of poor but not yet starving? morals are entirely subjective and although the absence of the belief that it's bad to murder people is both extremely rare and potentially dangerous, that's not the criteria for which to call someone "ill".
if you're just calling anything that's unacceptable feeling or behavior for a society "mentally ill" then admit it plain as that, but don't pretend that it's actually an "illness". it has nothing to do with the objects being described as ill and everything to do with the society he or she inhabits. and when society changes or when that person moves to a different society, he or she may not even be described as ill anymore.
i agree except i oppose calling it "medicine". drugs can be a useful tool to help people control certain behaviors and feelings. there is no illness for which these behaviors and feelings would be the "symptoms" though, so it's not medicine.
some people will hurt people because they think their god tells them to kill nonbelievers. some people will hurt people because they think THEY are god and they have to kill nonbelievers. some people have irrational beliefs that are entirely separate from any religious/spiritual idea and might go harm them because of those beliefs. and some people might randomly go one a shooting spree one day out of absolutely no understandable reason, and nobody can figure out why it happened after the fact. that doesn't mean any of these people are mentally ill. on an objective level you can't distinguish between the guy who believes he's serving god, and the guy who believes he is god.
i'm not religious and you can probably tell i find it unreasonable. society will get less religious as information spreads around faster and the phenomena in our world become more explainable through empiricism. as much as i'd like to press a button that ends all religion, there is no such thing and i'm content knowing contemporary religions will be as dead as the ones that preceded in them in the future, and it will be harder to come up with basises for new religions given greater understanding of the world.
@"different religious beliefs leading to people hurting others in their name" it's an interesting thought, but that again isn't the basis of an illness.
lol "confirmed" mental illness, i'd like you to elaborate on that if you can
if by mental illness in this case you're referring specifically to those regarding "delusions" / false beliefs, then yeah, i have noticed a similarity to. the answer is: there is no fucking difference except for how many other people in society agree with you
yes i disagree with psychiatrists
no, i do not have a more stern grasp of what a mental illness is, because there's no such thing as a mental illness
many mental illnesses just describe a set of feelings and behaviors that society judges as unhealthy to themselves, their relationships, or others, or somehow undesirable. i'm saying only the feelings and behaviors exist, but that the categories psychiatrists often arbitrarily come up with are not actual real things as if they had some root cause, and they are not actually tested for (as no such tests exist). you just describe your feelings and behaviors (or if you're unlucky a psychiatrist describes them in you) and if seven out of ten come up on a checklist, you're called ill. when of course in reality different people have different numbers and extents of these traits and they don't have to mean they are ill in some way.
the main point is: psychiatrists are describing feelings and behaviors, then concluding that these are symptoms. symptoms are just that, symptoms; they come from some root cause. the psychiatrists don't really bother with that part besides occasionally describing different chemical amounts to explain why certain feelings might happen (which is really the description of a physical illness). much of the time they just look at a group of behaviors and feelings that society finds abnormal or harmful and conclude it's a group of symptoms coming from an illness. again, they thought homosexuals were ill because much of society said "i don't like that", and not because of some empirical testing they did on people.
wtf, this is so incredibly stupid, but it's said so often. no, of course not. whatever system society has in place to deal with criminals or people who cause harm is what deals with murderers. how is this even relevant? just because i don't agree with quacks calling people ill means i think murders should be free? i'm only rejected their explanation that this harmful behavior comes from some mystical, unproven source. if you kill someone & it's proven, suffer the consequence of the legal system, having someone call you names doesn't mean anything.
awesome disscussion
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