Talk:Mental illness denial/Archive1

Since this was getting an airing in the SB, I've whacked on the sources needed template. I think it could just do with better referencing throughout as it's quite rhetorical at the moment. ^theist 20:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Most of the info can be found in the antipsychiatry and Novella articles, so I just dropped them in external links. Could use something on CCHR, though. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I just prefer specific citations rather than "hey, just read through this link at the bottom". It both encourages people to grab multiple sources where possible to attribute better, and doesn't seem as much like straight plagiarism. ^theist 20:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Fixed a few incorrect dates, but I think it checks out. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Nature of Things

Yep, can't see it outside of Canada. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:47, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Damn, I'll see if I can find a transcript. Do you know of a program that can transcribe audio? Thanks for any help -- EWildman (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

ADHD denial

I'm just curious, does this include people who think that ADHD/ADD are over-diagnosed? My question, of course, comes with follow-ups depending on the answer. The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 09:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It's kind of a vague scale, but from what I can tell by reading this, the topic's aimed at people who say ADD is just a lack of discipline or whatever. Saying it's over-diagnosed could be inspired by that idea, a legitimate concern about loose prescription, or some of both. 99.50.98.145 (talk) 10:17, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Point well taken. Let me elaborate: people who believe in ADD/ADHD, but think that it is over-diagnosed as a means of correcting typical childhood issues. Let me speak from personal experience (and I know this qualifies as anecdotal evidence); people who think that teachers/parents look to things like ritalin to deal with bored students in lieu of looking for underlying issues such as not being challenged enough in class (i.e: goofed off because they knew the material and wished they could move onto something more interesting), having a brilliant imagination and think outside the box (AKA: day-dreaming about a topic), and kids who got so excited about a topic that they talked out-of-turn because they felt so strongly about it. Hope this helps my question a little, though I admit I don't want to be overtly specific. The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 10:26, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Since I wrote that part, I can tell you that I intended it to refer to people who deny the existence of ADHD and think it's just a case of kids needin' a paddlin' or a conspiracy by Big Pharma. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 10:42, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

This page reads like it was written by some spotty Anonymous teenager with an personal irrational grudge against Scientology. If one reads the wikipedia entry for anti-psychiatry then there is no mention of L Ron at all. Quite rightly, he is not accepted as person with any academic credibility. As far as ADHD is concerned even Allen Frances, (chair of the DSM-IV) has complained about the DSM being used by school teachers and administrators to get further funds and services for 'problem' children. With the result that, in the US, one in five are now stigmatised with having an incurable 'brain disease' and forced to take Schedule II stimulant drugs. Therefore many outside the field of psychiatry/Pharma marketing, (who benefit financially from this arrangement), including educational psychologists and sociologists have become major critics of the label ADHD. This page reads as a joke and should be changed - unless RationalWiki wants to remain the laughing stock of any true intellectual or scientific endeavours. --Dirk Steele (talk) 18:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm diagnosed with ADHD, i don't feel stigmatized, infact i embrace it. Also, when did you decide RW should stop being snarky? --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 18:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Many people embrace it because it gives them extra educational advantages and access to legal speed. It does not make it a scientific concept. Just because you can blame your 'bad' behaviour on your brain disease does not make it real. What are your symptoms of ADHD and were you diagnosed using a scientific empirical test? Which one? Can you please undo the undo on my changes unless you can cite evidence to the contrary. Otherwise you come across as an ignorant spotty teenager. What are your credentials? Apart from wearing wigs, looking stupid and playing the Xbox. Aside from writing such absolute crap as http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/User:Mikal/Penguinism. Jeez you are an utter nutter knobhead. Is this site a joke or what? --Dirk Steele (talk) 19:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

... What?--Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 19:17, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Also; I've made it a point to avoid using any of the advantages given to me because i'm diagnosed with it, so no "embracing it cause of educational advantages/legal speed" for me. Also, what do you have against penguins? --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 19:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Why 'embrace' it then? Why spout off how ADHD you are? Why even mention it except to gain some kind of sympathy. So.. what scientific test was done to diagnose you? What are your symptoms? According to the DSM one is 'running and climbing trees inappropriately'. Is that what you do? I claim to be Bi-polar. Almost an Aspie too. Dirk Steele (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Because why not? And do you really thinki remember what tests or anything i had when i was in third grade? I havent even taken medication for it since... sometime in junior year. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 20:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

For the record, we've gone from "people with ADHD shouldn't be stigmatized" to "people with ADHD are just faking it to get drugs" to "this person trying to help explain to me what ADHD is necessarily runs around everywhere doing it for attention and sympathy." Szaszian rhetoric at its finest. -Bonzo

The article says: "the existence of autism and ADHD do have solid empirical evidence backing them.[12]". Reference [12] is not a primary source, just an opinion piece. It explains: "a disorder is an alteration or deficiency of a typical feature or function that results in demonstrable harm". This definition is doubly fallacious on two accounts: (1) Reference to "a typical feature" - euphemism for "normality" - exposes the definition as a tautology: "disorder is an alteration of normality". A fallacious appeal to the majority is being made to decide whether a behaviour is pathological or not. (2) The standard of "harm" is also arbitrary, because the same behaviour carries different consequences in a different settings. In a school setting - where most ADHD diagnoses come from - an attention span below the average is contrived as a "harm" because the objectives of the teachers won't materialize. But humans haven't evolved in school settings, just as monkeys haven't evolved in cages. Expecting a child to sit quietly or doing just one thing for long periods of time is not a reasonable criteria for disorder. Treatment amounts to drugging a monkey to fulfil the expectations of caretakers at the zoo. The "normality" and "harm" used to diagnose ADHD are arbitrary and shouldn't be mistaken with a scientific diagnosis. --Brasov (talk) 17:08, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Lunch meat

"Of course, the editors of the journals thought the idea of the Reactive Mind and the state of Clear was bologna and they all rejected his submissions." Did they try to make a bologna sandwich out of it?Fdof (talk) 20:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

David Gerard

Please explain why you have deleted my entries on this. I have not deleted any text but added info for accuracy. Dick. Dirk Steele (talk) 15:54, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

And now Stabby the Misanthrope... wanker. Dirk Steele (talk) 16:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

http://electrotek.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/feynman-and-psychiatrist/ Dirk Steele (talk) 16:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course Secret Squirral changes to state that people deemed mentally ill are more violent gets left alone despite this http://www.samhsa.gov/mentalhealth/understanding_Mentalllness_Factsheet.aspx Dirk Steele (talk) 16:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Eh? All I did was fact-tag that assertion since it looked (to me, anyway) like crime hysteria material of the sort the Drudge Report likes to cherry pick. That statement was already in the article. If someone can find a source supporting it add it, and if sources don't support it, remove it. Secret Squirrel (talk) 23:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Irrational stigmatisation of psychiatric survivors on this site is really horrendously prevalent. Homophobes and rascists must seem at home too... Dirk Steele (talk) 16:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

What the fuck does that even mean? How many "psychiatric survivors" (I can only assume that like "rape survivor" you mean they survived the psychaitric experience, and not people who have survived psychosis, depression, etc.) do you think we have here, and are bashing daily?--Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 23:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Feynman

Your comment about Feynman's view of mental illness is unlinked (bad form, given that we have an article on the dude) and unsourced. I highly advise you to stop editing this article. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Er.. I have given you the link above. Can you not read? You advise me to stop editing else what? Dirk Steele (talk) 16:46, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I can read. Putting a source in a talk page is not sourcing an article.

If anything, this quote is probably more relevant to your argument:

It's a great game to look at the past, at an unscientific era, look at something there, and say have we got the same thing now, and where is it? So I would like to amuse myself with this game. First, we take witch doctors. The witch doctor says he knows how to cure. There are spirits inside which are trying to get out. ... Put a snakeskin on and take quinine from the bark of a tree. The quinine works. He doesn't know he's got the wrong theory of what happens. If I'm in the tribe and I'm sick, I go to the witch doctor. He knows more about it than anyone else. But I keep trying to tell him he doesn't know what he's doing and that someday when people investigate the thing freely and get free of all his complicated ideas they'll learn much better ways of doing it. Who are the witch doctors? Psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, of course.

Even so, this has NOTHING to do with the article, which is about denial of the existence of mental illness, but rather the bad science behind early attempts at treating mental illness. Lobotomies and electrostatic shock therapy would be included in this assessment. In the same regard, alchemy would be considered a "cargo cult" science, until it grew up and became chemistry. Feynman's strong opinions on the subject had to do with the methodology.

It is has been made REPEATEDLY clear that you are a one-trick pony and this article is your shtick. Go somewhere else. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:53, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk Steele

I'm going to address your gripes for you so that you will understand why this crap keeps getting deleted.

• Feynman referred to psychiatry as cargo cult science.

• Good for Feynman. That doesn't mean its pseudoscience, especially since he included physics as a cargo cult science.

Citation? I did not state it meant psychiatry was pseudo. But if you criticise Szasz then criticise Feynman too. --Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

• The Behaviorists were early anti-psychiatrists

• No, they weren't. They worked with mental illness as much as modern psychiatrists. They just didn't believe that what happened in the person's brain was knowable, so only physical symptoms could be accounted for in attempting diagnosis and treatment. This school of thought is no longer relevant in the modern mental health community because we can know what is happening in the patient's brain. Part of that thing with "brain imagining"

Ha! They did not believe what was happening in the persons brain was knowable. Did they work with 'mental illness' No they rejected it. Citation please. You state 'we can know what is happening in the patients brain'. So if I think you are a thick prick then you can tell this from examining my brain? Really? Or are you really a thick prick? --Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Constantly yelling "citation please" while providing none of one's own appears to be a uniquely Szaszian thing to do at this point. Beyond the ad hominem and stupid victory-strutting seen above, all this editor actually does is argue semantics. "Did pre-Hippocrates physicians work with people infected with microbes? No, because they rejected the existence of microbes!" pretty much sums up his logic here. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:01, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

• Homosexuality was listed in the DSM until the 70s

• OK? What exactly does something that happened 40 years ago have to do with the field today? Are we going to chastise modern biologists because a hundred years ago biologists didn't believe in evolution? No, we aren't, for the same reason we aren't going to lambaste modern geologists for geology only accepting tectonic theory in the 80s, and why it shouldn't matter what psychiatrists did in the past when talking about it in the present.

Does history not count at all? Ok.. what do psychiatrists do now that is different from Kraeplin? Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

No, history does not count at all towards proving why current data is wrong. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:02, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

• The concept of Ego-dystonic sexual orientation was around until the 80s

• Again, who cares? We aren't talking about the failings of the science before you were born.

Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is a current psychiatric concern. As are all sexual matters - see Paraphilias and Sexual Disorders in the DSM.Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

• There are psychiatrists today who think homosexuality is a mental disorder

• Good for them. Are we going to say that biology is pseudoscience because of the opinions of a fringe minority that think that evolution is crap? No, we aren't.

Psychiatry is the belief that all morally deviant behaviour is the result of a mental disease. If you gamble or drink too much. If you abuse drugs or eat too much or too little. If you want too much sex or too little. If you have delusions such as psychiatry is a pseudoscience. Quack quack quack. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I realize I'm talking to thin air here as this talk page stopped being active years ago, but perhaps you could provide sources for this claim as you seem to love demanding of others BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:17, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

• SS included a comment that implied the mentally ill are more likely to be violent

• This seems more like a bit of poor wording. By the time you read this, I'll have edited it for accuracy.

I await with bated breath. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

here is my edit in question. I didn't include that comment, I fact-tagged that comment. Looks like somebody has a reading comprehension problem. Secret Squirrel (talk) 00:02, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

• Tom Insel has lamented the lack of biological markers for mental disorders

• You're taking him out of context and we both know it.

No. Can you tell me how I have taken him out of context? He said “We don’t talk much about this, but when it comes to mental illnesses, psychiatrists lag far behind their colleagues in other specialties. “Diagnosis is by observation, detection is late, prediction is poor. Etiology is unknown, prevention is undeveloped. Therapy is by trial-and-error. We have no cures, no vaccines. We’re not even working on vaccines. Prevalence has not decreased. Mortality has not decreased.” How have I taken this out of context? Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

• There is a stigma related to being diagnosed with a mental disorder

• And this is the fault of mental health practioners how? Oh right, it isn't. This is a social issue, which from my understanding is mostly in the US anyways. And considering that most of the people who keep telling you're wrong the most aggresively have told you that they've been diagnosed with some mental disorder (including myself) I hardly think we're stigamizing ourselves.

If you tell someone who has suffered trauma and extreme distress that has caused behavioural issues that they just have an incurable brain disease you stigmatise. If you then state they are just 'mental illness deniers' you compound the insult. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

But of course, if you call them drug seekers who are faking it, you're apparently just telling the truth. "incurable brain disease" here is essentially the same thing as creationists making sure that you know how all evolution is "DARWINIAN evolution" to suggest that all evolutionists do is follow some religion invented by Darwin, it means absolutely nothing and isn't true. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:17, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

• There is no evidence of mental disorders

• We're getting to the point where you may want to take a psych 101 course, because we have as much evidence for a physical cause of schizophrenia as we have for the flu.

Show me the evidence. It is not accepted by the APA, the NIMH, nor pharma nor anyone. Please give a citation for your evidence. See Tom Insel quote above. You know nothing about this subject. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

--Logic and Empricism (talk) 01:44, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You're an idiot with writing style that makes it impossible to understand what is going on. Take an intro course. Blocked.--Logic and Empricism (talk) 02:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm amused that he uses the DSM as evidence to show how there's no such thing as mental illness. --Seth Peck (talk) 16:40, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Christ SS, please don't encourage his absolutely horrendous posting style by copying it. I don't think I said you did write the comment, just that it seemed like poor writing, and that I was going to fix it. Which I have.--Logic and Empricism (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Inserting comments into the middle of other comments annoys the feckuck out of me... I really can't follow any of this thanks to that. ^{d hominem} 01:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

You're not missing much.

'The problems' with defining mental illness

Some aspects of what are considered 'mental illnesses' change over time - 'uppity women who don't want to remain domesticated (or who actually enjoy s#x' and those who prefer same-sex relationships were described as mentally ill in the past - and the Viking Beserkers would be seen as mentally ill now.

The problem is that 'mental illness' is a vaguely defined field; some mental illnesses will originate in trauma, physical and genetic causes (sometimes fairly subtle); some can be cured with drugs, 'provision of coping mechanisms' and otherwise, others cannot; some people clearly do have mental illnesses, others have 'weak versions' of the illness etc. 212.85.6.26 (talk) 16:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

But that's a reality in all fields and all sciences. We did not know that little bug-a-boos caused diseases, now we know. We thought that cutting fat out of diets was a great way to lose weight. The great thing about science is this: if it really is wrong, it will get fixed. Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 00:13, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

if it really is wrong, it will get fixed. But when it's wrong on you, that feature isn't so great after all. This is why so many people are taking control of their own health rather than waiting for Medicine to self-correct.--Brasov (talk) 10:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

So instead of waiting for the right answer you just pull one out of your backside and eat that instead? This explains so much; denialists and alternative medicine advocates are just impatient and bratty. ^theist 12:01, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It's a sign of intelligence to take it up the arse and wait for something you never know when it's gonna happen, if ever, in your lifetime. Brilliant. I will wait for Pfizer to decode the genome of apples before eating one. There's a backup called "popular experience", the anonymous, self-correcting trial-and-error process science draws regularly and quietly from, shit-eater (this abuse is not gratuitios, is a response to your "pull one out of your backside and eat that".--Brasov (talk) 14:08, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

'let him hurl abuse if he can't win, it shows what he's like' states Sophie. In fact, in my experience, there are many such as Sohie Wilder and Armondikov etc etc that hurl the insults and abuse initially. If one understandably responds back with like then the original abusers go mental handing out bans like candy. In fact Sophie, your quote applies to you just as much. But hey.. 'And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?' as someone once said. --Dirk Steele (talk) 17:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

You're only saying that because you're a dribbling newt with the brains of a caravan. Shall we quote Rabelais to each other? Sophie^Wilder 18:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

And you're just a thick janner with such big loose twatflappers that your brains seep out. --Dirk Steele (talk) 18:49, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Janner? But Plymouth is miles away! You have failed in your mission. your adventure is over. Go back to the Brighton and Hove Albion forums where you belong. Sophie^Wilder 18:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it will get fixed eventually but will take a long time. Unfortunately, the psychiatric paradigm promoted since Kraeplin that unwanted human behaviors considered deviant are caused by a biological malfunction and are to be 'treated' or controlled by drugs is backed up by the propaganda of the 'scientific' psychiatric industry in conjunction with Big Pharma and the state. Unfortunately, this view has been adopted by the scientific skeptical community especially in the USA so that any who may disagree with this view are treated like cranks. But there is a growing resistance to this idea as shown by the massive revolt against the newly published DSM5. Furthermore, many groups such as MindFreedom, PsychRights, and Mad Pride have managed to find a voice over the internet to object to their forced 'treatment'. Some political libertarian groups concerned with human rights and abuses have also joined the fight. The idea that the individual's mental distress is the result of their life experience and trauma and not a biological 'disease' or malfunction is gaining ground despite organised attacks by the psychiatric industry.

The fact that it needed political power to overturn the view that homosexuality was a disease is a model of what may happen in the future. The idea that children suffer from a mental disease called ADHD (unknown when I was at school) and to be forced to take 'drugs' (Class II illegal) is not science it is child abuse and stigmatisation. Mainly driven by the school institutions, which now have come to resemble prisons, in order to manage unruly behaviour of bored or traumatised kids. This view benefits parents (not my fault is it?), who can claim extra welfare, schools who can claim extra resources and manipulate statistics, poor teachers who cannot 'control' or get students to pay attention, and of course the Pharma industry (90% of Ritalin is prescribed in the US although other countries are now following suit). This approach does not benefit children and the toxic effects of being forced these drugs have to then be supplemented by anti-psychotics and anti-depressants which also can have severe side effects unacknowledged by Pharma. (Drug abuse and addiction of Pharma drugs are not included as a problem in the DSM!). It also does nothing to improve grades or outcomes for the individual. But of course such heroes of the skeptic movement such as the ECT promoting Steven Novella continue to refer to those who may protest as quacks and cranks. Anyone such as myself who raise such issues are deemed unscientific deniers - the new heretics! - and are ridiculed and insulted and any discussion of these issues are suppressed by some kind of groupthink mania. Dirk Steele (talk) 12:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course in the old USSR those that were depressed and unhappy with the political and economic circumstances were thrown in mental hospitals (prisons). Today those who are depressed with their political and economic circumstances in the USA are told they have a chemical imbalance in their diseased brain and who need 'medical' treatment with chemical drugs (coshes). Completely without any scientific backing. The truth is that psychiatry (mandated by the state) has always been involved in policing society. The fact that black people and immigrants are 4 times as likely to be diagnosed schizophrenic (arising from the 1960s social changes) proves that psychiatry is a racist medical pseudoscience used by authority to control unwanted behaviours and trouble makers. Of course artists and those who think differently from the prevailing herd mentality are also targeted for 'special' treatments. The psychiatric industry (and it is an industry) pretends it has 'scientific' backing and that anti-psychotic drugs cure the underlying 'medical' conditions in the same way as anti-biotics kill bacteria or that insulin helps diabetics. It is all pseudoscientific pseudomedical language to fool the population. Give a condition a latin or greek name and then it becomes a true medical disease. What bullshit this quackery promotes.

In the meantime the thousands (millions?) who feel that they have been harmed by their forced treatments have their experiences completely denigrated by being called 'mental illness deniers' by the so called skeptical 'scientific' community (mostly in the USA I might add. Europe does not have this issue. (Italy, for example, does not have mental hospitals). All psychiatrists and the many clinical psychologists are similarly criticised and their views blamed on the cult of scientology. What a pile of shit. This rationalWiki should actually be ashamed to have such blatantly unscientific and fallacious pages such as 'mental illness denial' and are actually promoting medical quackery despite 'pretending' to be against it. Dirk Steele (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

So, how long were you in for? Innocent Bystander (talk) 18:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Where? Only a couple of weeks in the hospital before being thrown out for trouble making. In prison for a bit longer. Dirk Steele (talk) 12:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Just a minor point Dirk but who exactly told you "The psychiatric industry pretends it has 'scientific' backing and that anti-psychotic drugs cure the underlying 'medical' conditions"? I've been taking anti-psychotics and mood-stabilisers for 20 years and nobody has ever told me or even suggested to me that they were a cure for anything. You're just setting up a straw-man argument that goes "They say the drugs cure mental illness but they don't so they don't work / must be toxic / it's a conspiracy by Pig Farma" and it's a lot of bollocks. I have a bare choice... take the pills and accept the vast improvement in my quality of life (I still hear voices and 'see things' they just don't upset me) or don't take the pills and be a complete fucking loon who would've topped myself years ago... But nobody has ever told me there's a cure for manic-depression and I've never heard anybody claim there's a cure for schizophrenia either. Longdog (talk) 12:16, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

use of "medical" in the first sentence

Before we start an edit war, I wanted us to take it to the talk page. Blue - Wiki (and that is my ONLY ref, so i am in over my head, just trying to get it started) coorlates medical condition/medical disese/and medical illness. In their page on mental illness, they do refer once to medical condition ("where there is a known medical condition"). I looked up diesase and found it's used two different ways. so my reverts were equally wrong. so, let's talk it out! ;-) (tying to be more grown up, here, than i usually am)Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 22:43, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

When is a disease or illness not considered to be a medical condition? I think the issue here is that most of the anti-psych brigade do not deny that the behaviours that are defined as 'mental illness' do not exist but believe that these conditions are not a medical disease but are psychological/social problems. As such the term 'mental illness denial' becomes meaningless. ^{— Unsigned, by: 81.101.244.221 / talk / contribs}

If I may interject again, the main argument appears to be a difference between psychiatry, which views 'mental illness' as a bio/chemical/genetic disease to be treated by drugs, and psychologists who view 'mental illness' more as a social/psychological 'problem in living' to be treated by talk therapies. --Dirk Steele (talk) 22:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

@Godot, I'm definitely not a psychiatrist, so I'm not speaking as an expert. I suppose it's reasonable for a mental disorder to be considered a medical condition in the broadest sense of the term. Blue (pester) 23:05, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not either. so my suggestion is this - just define "medical whichevertermweuse" in the article. :-) Cause i do think the issue is that some people do not want to acknowledge that semi mild things like depression might truly have medical causes that could have real cures. otherws want to deny that transgender people might or might not have mental issues but it's got nothing specifically to do with their sexual organs (ie., it is only a "problem" if the person sees it as such, not just defacto of being trans gender). I *think* that could fix the problem.Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 23:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Psychiatrists are fully trained medical doctors. For them to then not treat 'medical' diseases is not really logical. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:17, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

My Intro to Ab Psych book uses the phrase "medical condition" at some point. Dirk, as usual, is an idiot.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Pourquoi? Dirk Steele (talk) 23:31, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

There's a nice essay by Yvain from LessWrong about what gets labeled "disease". (This is a problem he has to deal with as a newly-minted doctor, aiming to become a psychiatrist.) - David Gerard (talk) 00:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting essay I need to read in more detail. The issue as I see it is exactly what do we, as a society define as a disease and, more importantly, how does this definition effect how it is treated.

1. I catch a cold virus. It is not my fault. I cannot 'choose' to make it go away. 2. Alcoholism. It is my choice to drink. I can stop using my willpower. It is my view that 1. is a disease. 2. Is not. It is my opinion that 'mental disease' is of a completely different category than a scientific medical disease. A 'mental illness' can be cured by talk therapy. A true medical disease such as a cold or cancer cannot. My alcoholism disease can be cured by my thoughts and willpower. I cannot say the same of a cancer. This is the dichotomy. This expresses the difference between psychiatry and anti-psychiatry. We could, I think, inflate all of the human condition into a medical issue. Szasz calls this the Therapeutic State. When 'unwanted' (and it is always unwanted) behaviour is defined as a 'disease' how do we treat it? Against someone's will even? Dirk Steele (talk) 01:33, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Anyways.. I have consumed or maybe I have been consumed by too much whiskey.. as Will says.. there lies the rub. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Conflationary argument. Move on, nothing to see here folks.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 01:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but how can one, discussing the Popperian philosophy of science, link to an essay of which the first line states 'I am going to say this right now: I am no Philosopher of Science' Madness rules. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Ha ha! Good comment.... 24.253.64.178 (talk) 19:49, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Don't want to waste my time editing any of these articles because it's obvious what the very pro-psychiatry mindset is on this website but I did want to point out that ECT isn't a thing of the past, as stated in the article. It's a very common procedure, especially with elderly women, and often done without a patient's consent. Someone might want to change the article to specify that "ECT without anaesthesia is a thing of the past." Leaving it the way it is betrays the ignorance of the general public on psychiatric "science." Francesca Allan (talk) 01:34, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia concurs. I removed the first reference to ECT (the second only refers to misuse of ECT, which is obviously bad).

Just because we disagree doesn't mean we aren't willing to listen. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 01:48, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what we disagree on. There's no question that ECT still occurs and you've changed the article accordingly, so thanks. Francesca Allan (talk) 06:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, I'd love to see any evidence that ECT happens without patient consent. That's kind of extremely illegal.-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 03:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's article has lots of citations on that. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 03:28, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to root through an wikipedia article. If it's still happening, I'd like to be aware because again illegal-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 04:12, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Would like to be aware & love to see evidence but too lazy to spend a few seconds doing an internet search on the subject? You also seem to be missing the point that not every county's laws are the same. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:42, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's still happening. It happened to me in British Columbia and it's not illegal. In fact, no forced psychiatric treatment is illegal under our Mental Health Act. Francesca Allan (talk) 06:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm assuming you live in the US? BTW, it took me less than thirty seconds to find that. Just sayin'--"Shut up, Brx." 04:21, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

What's that, the law allows for involuntary use of ECT in case of risk of harm to self or others? Well, who the fuck is surprised at this stunning revelation.-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 05:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Whoa! Who said anything about risk of harm to self or others? That's not the standard around here. Involuntary treatment requires (a) diagnosis of a mental disorder; and (b) possibility of deterioration. That's it. And I'm surprised that you have decided that forced electroshock is a good idea. Maybe you better include in this discussion the input of those of us who have been on the receiving end of the electrodes. And even if there is a risk of harm to self or others, there are far, far more effective, less brain damaging and less terrifying ways to treat mental illness. Also, even if "risk to others" was the standard, psychiatrists can't beat a coin toss in trying to guess. Also you might want to read about what the United Nations has to say about forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. It's torture. Francesca Allan (talk) 06:05, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Who said anything about risk of harm to self or others? The US Federal Government. I'm American. I don't know much about the law in BC, and I don't care, but I really doubt it's as simple as what you say. And goddamn it, can we do something about the fucking anti-psych losers?-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 06:09, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, you were the one who alleged ECT happened in the cases of "risk of harm to self or others." Mental health laws are very similar throughout North America. And if you doubt it's as simple as I have said here, then you're free to search online relevant states' and/or provinces' laws. Edifying to learn that you "don't care" what happens anywhere other than God's Own America. And why am I an "anti-psych loser"? Because I'm pro-recovery and anti-human rights abuses? Or is it because I volunteer with organizations who assist psychiatric survivors? Is there some reason for your aggressive stance? Francesca Allan (talk) 06:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, just had a look at your new and improved version. I'm afraid that's not good enough. ECT is still commonly misused. What's different is that it's under anaesthesia. Please change accordingly, thanks. Francesca Allan (talk)

Evidence of abuse or shut the hell up.-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 06:16, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Evidence of abuse? Do you want me to post my medical records? Do you want me to send you a copy of Linda Andre's "Doctors of Deception"? What do you want me to do exactly? Just shut up and behave myself? Not going to happen. Do you care at all that human beings who haven't been convicted of any crime are strapped down and given the needle in 2013, solely because the psychiatric industry designates them unworthy of their civil rights? Does that even filter into your sanctimonious small mind? Francesca Allan (talk) 06:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

What you don't seem to get is that forced electroshock is ABUSIVE by its very nature. Forced electroshock happens -- that's alarming enough. Francesca Allan (talk) 06:42, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I think a reliable third party reporting abuse would be enough for our purposes. While forced electroshock therapy is indeed alarming, not everything that's alarming is necessarily abusive. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 07:06, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course something simply being alarming doesn't mean it's abusive. But we're not talking about forced ECT simply being alarming. We're talking about irreversible brain damage being perpetrated against innocent civilians. That is abuse, very serious abuse. Do you really need me to find for you confirmation that forced electroshock goes on regularly? Or do you need me to convince you that inducing seizures in human brains by coercion isn't abusive? Francesca Allan (talk) 07:29, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

WebMD writes that "ECT is among the safest and most effective treatments available for depression" and that it "might be used when patients pose a severe threat to themselves or others and it is too dangerous to wait until medications take effect."

Great. Let's call devastating memory loss and cognitive decline "safe." "Might be used" in extreme cases? Horseshit. It IS used in many cases, some of which have nothing at all to do with danger. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Now, I'm no doctor. I hardly know anything about this topic. In my experience WebMD is generally a reliable source for medical knowledge, and I feel comfortable deferring to their judgment. That being said, if you can find a reliable source that confirms that ECT causes irreversible brain damage on a regular basis, I'd be perfectly willing to add both your source and WebMD in a "this debate is ongoing" sort of way. Note, however, that news articles about patients saying "this hurt my brain!" are not reliable sources for anything but penultimate paragraph syndrome in action. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 08:04, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Here's a very preliminary start: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/electroshock-treatment_b_1373619.html And please don't diminish the damage that I and thousands of others have suffered from this "therapy." We're not merely saying "this hurt my brain!" We're confirming that entire years of our memory has been permanently wiped out, that reading concentration and retention is severely restricted, among other deficits. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, accidentally moved these two snippets and I'm not sure where they go:

"This from 1982] surveys effects and finds "mostly no". Procedures have changed to be safer in the last thirty years."

[http://www.ect.org/effects/templer.html

Actually, ECT isn't safer beyond anaesthesia and muscle relaxants preventing broken bones from the seizures. Brain damage with a unilateral electrode (as is often done now) is actually more severe than the standard procedure. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:31, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

It's important to keep in mind that (a) ECT is a last ditch treatment when nothing else seems to work (b) the Hollywood version (strongly influenced by Scientology) bears pretty much no resemblance to what actually happens - David Gerard (talk) 10:29, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Wrong!!! It's often pretty much a front-line procedure, especially for elderly women. And yeah, yeah, yeah, it doesn't look like it did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- that doesn't make it any less disgusting. And, if you're going to contribute here, please give some input into the involuntary treatment issue. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Equating legitimate criticism of psychiatry with Scientology is offensive, unfair and inaccurate. It is, however, a common slur from the psychiatric industry. There are many legitimate scientists who question aspects of psychiatry, including ECT. Writing them off as a bunch of religious wackos does nothing to get at the truth and improve patient outcomes. That is our goal here, after all. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:21, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Here you go: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16856307 So much for effectiveness. And would somebody please address this: Even if it WERE effective, what's your feeling on involuntary electroshock? Francesca Allan (talk) 13:26, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

My feeling is that if it were effective, and if the patient posed a threat to themself or others, and there were no alternative, then (and only then) it would be acceptable.

I removed the other reference to ECT. Honestly I see no reason to dwell any further on this issue in this article, since the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of ECT has no bearing on the actual topic at hand, which is the denial of the existence of mental illness. If you like, you can start a new article on ECT, bring in that last citation, and explain there what you've explained here. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 17:02, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the respectful dialogue. Please keep in mind that "posing a threat to yourself" isn't a crime and neither is "posing a threat to others," unless and until you are actually breaking a law such as stalking or conspiring to assault or attempting to commit assault, etc. Being thought more likely than the average person to commit an assault (for one example) is an absurd rationale for invasive and damaging treatment. Here's an analogy: You could make a case that young, black, urban males are statistically more likely to commit a violent crime than old, white, suburban females. Would you support a legal system that promoted separate laws and rights for these two groups? Well, the USA did in fact support such a program. It was the brainchild of the National Institute of Mental Health (they wanted to force drug urban youth in the absence of both psychiatric symptoms and criminal activity -- it was Big Pharma's wet dream) and was just barely shot down by the work of psychiatric reform advocates. I'm out of here as I don't find the intellectual level of debate here very stimulating. In fact, if the general public were as right-wing and thick as some of the commenters I've run across here, I'd want to shoot myself. Would you please consider talking to Token Conservative about his aggressive and bullying "contributions" to this page? Francesca Allan (talk) 23:37, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Nope!

I am not going to try to sift through that fucking nightmare of anti-psych stupidity to make a post. I read what happened, and here's the parts that need to be kept in mind:

• Bitching about ECT is a common Anti-Psych practice, mostly because it has a bad history. When it is used without consent (atleast in the West) I can pretty much guarantee you that "threat to self or others" is included, worded one way or another
• Oh no, there are side effects! Welcome to medicine. Shut the fuck up.
• "It's a very common procedure, especially with elderly women, and often done without a patient's consent"
  • Every part of this statement is a lie.
• "no psychiatric treatment is illegal under our Mental Health Act"
  • Good. Why would it be? If it's a psychiatric treatment, that means by definition that it works, so why would it be illegal?
• "there are far, far more effective, less brain damaging and terrifying ways to treat mental illness."
  • Long term, yes, there are more effective treatments, but for immediate treatment, no there really are not. And ECT does not cause brain damage
• "psychiatrists can't beat a coin toss in trying to guess."
  • Oh, this old canard "psychiatry isn't science because sometimes people are diagnosed wrong"
• "Also you might want to read about what the United Nations has to say about forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. It's torture"
  • Ah yes, the internet, where any damn fool can say any damn fool thing they want, no more how much of it is a lie or taken so far out of context it might as well be a lie
• "if you doubt it's as simple as I have said here, then you're free to search online relevant states' and/or provinces' laws"
  • I am not going to look up evidence of your claim. If what you say is true, you should be the one providing evidence.
• "There are many legitimate scientists who question aspects of psychiatry, including ECT"
  • Sure there are. You represent none of their opinions.
• "Brain damage with a unilateral electrode (as is often done now) is actually more severe than the standard procedure. "
  • Evidence

And your sources are an opinion piece and an article that you clearly misunderstood. The bottom of the abstract says "there is no controlled evidence demonstrating any benefit from ECT at 1 month posttreatment", which is actually fine. ECT is used mostly in short term treatment of psychotic patients who are posing a risk to themselves or others so that they stop posing a risk to themselves of others until drugs have an opportunity to start taking effect (usually 3-4 weeks), so that ECT does not have any significant impact past a month is actually quite alright. But hey, leave it to the Anti-Psychs to completely misunderstand a study.-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 17:59, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Token Conservative, if you're so f@#$%!-ed up that you think strapping people down and shocking them when they haven't committed a crime is acceptable, then there's really no point in talking to you. ECT causes brain damage; that's how it works, the same way a punch to the head works. Your ignorance is appalling. ECT is common and is not reserved for "imminent danger" cases. It happened to me and it shouldn't have. Your rationalization is the kind of "Oh, well, they're crazy so they have no rights" attitude that allows this pseudo-science we call psychiatry to continue. Your hatred and your bigotry is stunning. Stay in America, where you belong. Francesca Allan (talk) 23:27, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

And you're just making shit up.-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 23:29, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Really? What did I make up? That I lost years of my memory to this barbaric practice? That I can't remember getting married? Can't remember all my travels? Can't remember most of the things I read? Can't remember some of my friends? Wasn't coerced into electroshock? Didn't suddenly develop epilepsy? That I spent months unable to be indoors for any length of time because I developed a crippling phobia of electricity? Invented the myriad studies showing ECT doesn't beat placebo? Invented that running electricity through your brain causes damage, as any rational person would expect it would? Really??? All of this I made up? Guess my medical records are faked and I must have one wild imagination. I'm done talking to know-nothings like you. If you had your way, I'd spend the rest of my life in an institution? Please don't respond; you have absolutely nothing to add. The only thing you've done is re-affirm my faith in Canada and respect my mother even more for giving up her US citizenship as she couldn't stand to be associated with you any more. Francesca Allan (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

In the absence of neutral evidence, I'm inclined to think you're making things up, especially since I've asked for evidence about eighty thousand times in this idiotic discussion and you've managed to completely fail to do so. But really, keep calling me a 'know nothing', it amuses me when someone on the intellectual level of a creationist insults me.-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 01:29, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

You think I'm making all this up? And what would be my motivation for doing so? There's plenty of neutral evidence - you could check out ect.org for a start but I guess it's easier just to berate and insult (stupid, creationist, etc.) an electroshock survivor. If this discussion is idiotic, it's because you're making it so. Glad you're amused, though. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

This year Tom Insel, director of NIMH, has stated that the DSM 'lacks validity'. In reply Jeff Leiberman, director of the APA, said back 'Well we have no biomarkers'. Of course Dr Szasz has for many years pointed out that treating human suffering, mental distress, and problems in living AS IF they were a medical disease is a bad unscientific idea. Psychiatry is a pseudoscience and like other pseudosciences such as astrology, attempts to obscure this fact using 'medical' jargon and fiction. This article has no place on a rationalwiki. 24.253.64.178 (talk) 02:17, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

And see, this is what happens when you don't kill rats when they show up: they breed!-- Token Conservative ^{Feminist Thought Police} 02:35, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a rat. I'm a guinea pig of the psychiatric industry. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I presume you are talking about yourself Token Conservative. You may want to learn about the battle to define what 'mental illness is here' http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/783/9/24.253.64.178 (talk) 03:54, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

You may also want to reread the LessWrong link, already supplied above, about the definition of a 'disease' http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/

Then you may be in a better position to explain what you mean by 'mental illness denier'. A meaningless term. I think Token Buddy it is probably fortunate for you that you are unaware of your lack of intellect. For the rest of us, well we just have to laugh. 24.253.64.178 (talk) 18:50, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Wish I could laugh but I take it pretty seriously when an uninformed member of the public swallows without question the pseudoscience of psychiatry. I agree with you, though, that Token Buddy has behaved horribly here. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Here you go, Token: http://www.ect.org/effects/templer.html Fill your boots. Francesca Allan (talk) 13:48, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Nice to have you on board Francesca. Be aware that Hamilton is so up his own ass with drivel that he will ban you at the drop of a hat. The psych criminals are now moving to this http://www.behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2013/10/02/drugs-out-brain-stimulators-in-psychiatrys-next-assault-on-our-humanity/ 24.253.64.178 (talk) 17:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Great, a BoN and some anti psychiatry crank are listing every shit source to back up their assertions. Thomas Szasz? LessWrong? You might as well list Infowars or NaturalNews; they're about as 'factual' as your sources.... TokenSkepticMagician talk 20:15 25 Dec 2013 (UTC)

I just want to hear anybody's take on this

To people like Token Conservative, give this a read https://www.aclu.org/blog/defending-targets-discrimination/shocking-kids-compliance I believe the ACLU is a pretty reliable source. I'm not making any arguments here, I just want some thoughts. As much as I value the observations made by the editors of this website, I can't help but question the ethical nature of some psychiatric treatments. Even though this case is about a school for children with mental disabilities, from what I've read their use of aversives appears to come from psychiatric research.

This is not rational at all

Is this article satirical? How can this site claim to be rational and sceptic and yet be enthralled by the obviously false pseudo-science surrounding mental illness?

There is literally not a shred of evidence to support the chemical imbalance theory (which was conjectured in the 50s I might add), only anecdotal stories from delusional people. Most of you seem to take "mental illness" on belief and good faith from psychiatrists without any proof: this is the antithesis of reason and scepticism.

How can you honestly believe that some pathogen or chemical imbalance causes bulimia or depression, and not just self esteem issues and general sadness? You people are an embarrassment to the scientific method, and to reason. More evidence surfaces each day to disprove "learning disabilities" like dyslexia and ADHD. They're simply excuses for bad parents and lazy teachers.

I ask that this article be taken down, as it is a direct affront to scepticism, and science. Attacking an established position because you find it offensive and calling its supporters crack pots, all the while falling prey to such an obviously false, populist theory? No wonder no one takes this site seriously.

ActualRational (talk) 23:21, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Drink!!! - David Gerard (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

"More evidence surfaces each day to disprove "learning disabilities" like dyslexia and ADHD. They're simply excuses for bad parents and lazy teachers."
Just no.
Rather than argue, I'm going to do the smarter thing: drink. 173.60.168.240 (talk) 19:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't drink, but I'll take a hit. --PosthumanHeresy (talk) 00:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I counted 8 examples of ad hominem, 2 united claims and 0 substantiated ones. The saddest thing is that's actually pretty good considering the track record set by other mental health denialists on this page. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:20, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Szasz

Szasz said mental illness is not a disease, not that disturbed people(mental illness) did not exist. Behaviour is not a disease.^{— Unsigned, by: 66.131.100.148 / talk / contribs} 14:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

But behaviors have underlying causes. It isn't immodest to suggest that these causes aren't always entirely within an individual's control, which is something that Szasz seems to reject. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Psychiatry and Politics

The article argues that while the diagnoses of homophilia and drapetomania are bullshit, (and are now recognized as such by psychiatrists only because of intense political pressure), the rest of the DSM is sound (because there no political pressure against it?). How can this be true, if the bullshit diagnoses were the result of the same cultrually-specific "scientific" processes that produced the rest of the DSM? If the DSM was based on real science, how could its contents be so easily influenced by political pressure?

Biologists would never revise the theory of evolution based on political pressure, and climate scientists would never respond to political pressure by publishing papers that say that global warming isn't happening or isn't man-made. But this is exactly what has happened in psychiatry when it comes to both of these diagnoses, and it also seems it will be the ultimate fate of a number of other diagnoses, such as "gender dysphoria."

When political pressure is applied to real scientists, their response is "no matter how angry you get, the evidence still says you're wrong." The reason they can respond in this way is because they're backed by an overwhelming repository of evidence. When psychiatrists turned to their repository of evidence to defend the diagnosis of homophilia as a medical disorder, they discovered that it was empty.

184.57.129.13 04:08, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

The DSM was revised, in part, due to research showing that much of the previous research on homosexuality, for example, was bullshit. (One big bump that the gay rights movement gained was science showing that gays weren't rapists, insane, pedophiles, bad parents, etc.) So it's hard to argue that the DSM revision here is (at least fully) due to political pressure. This contrasts to other disorders, which have not had similar findings that overturn present research. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 04:31, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

The idea that homosexuality was removed from the DSM due entirely to political pressure from gay groups has now become a conservative article of faith. Roger Schafly, for example, used to continually insert it onto the Wiki page for the DSM. ^{— Unsigned, by: 82.14.21.167 / talk / contribs (signed by bot)} 12:06, 08 December 2014 (UTC)

The assertion that homosexuality occurs in one's head wasn't wrong, only identifying it as an illness was. Homosexuality doesn't have any adverse symptoms, and could only be called an 'illness' to the extent that situs inverses could be. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not denial....because most of the critics of psychiatry are psychiatry survivors...so how could it be deniliesm if there are tons of cases of people who withdrew from pscy drugs and started living vs some funded basless studies hahaha

Im one of them ~ dont deny me :D psychu survivors are often denied :D there should be an article added to THIS article called how people deny psych survivors and dont want that them or their agenda will exist because it harms psychiatry haha :) --79.183.108.179 (talk) 06:03, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

If this is the best evidence for mental illness denial, I remain unmoved. FuzzyCatPotato of the Posh Microscopes (talk/stalk) 07:22, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

After reading this, I'm thinking that you just proved yourself wrong all on your own. --PosthumanHeresy (talk) 00:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, this sure proves something

Next time someone asks why America's so fucked up, I'll just link them to this talk page. While the wide availability of guns is a problem, the complete idiocy so many people believe about psychology is just as big a problem. This page is showing exactly why there's so many suicidal youth, there's so many mentally ill homeless, there's so many shootings and so many problems. Did someone invite a Scientology convention to RW? Or just the dipshit patrol? Keep denying mental illness exists, and you'll keep seeing this shit happen over and over again, and every single time, you'll all ask "How could we have prevented it?" as if you hadn't already been told. --PosthumanHeresy (talk) 00:27, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 00:38, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

It's really just one or two dipshits. I'm new here so my words likely hold very little weight, but I suggest taking what few points they make that the page doesn't already address, addressing them and deleting everything else. BonzoTheBear (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Questionable statement

"The crank conspiracy theories about psychiatrists taking over the world or Big Pharma inventing mental illness require serious attention." Obviously the strawman point would be a ludicrous conspiracy theory, but the fact that pharma invents new illnesses is an obvious fact, just look at the stream of nonsense that gets added to the DSM every new edition. Recent fake illnesses include social anxiety disorder (because shy people are now diseased) and my favorite, PMDD. Apparently some women have bad periods. Who would have known? Just a coincidence the illness was "discovered" just in time for eli lilly to re-brand their fluoxetine as "sarafem" I guess? Funny how anyone even vaguely critical of the industry that routinely practices "ghostwriting" and needs a very low standard of proof thanks to the FDA is labelled "anti-science". So what's "scientific" about marketing a "chemical imbalance" myth that has not been supported by any solid evidence (or even, any evidence) for the decades that it has been claimed to exist? 81.146.34.242 (talk) 22:51, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Not you again.

Let me guess — you're going to imply that this is all a sham (though there's no conspiracy, "that's a strawman", but regardless it's all a sham somehow), as is most of this and likely all of this, to finally recommend that we read a book — and only that book — called The Emperor's New Drugs (and that we carefully avoid reading critically about how it was recieved). Sound about right? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

If you go on youtube you'll notice Kirsch easily refutes all of the objections the critics make. Would we make antibiotics that don't work and then spend 50 years trying to make the same type of antibiotic and repeatedly creating patents for "new" versions of the same thing because that's easier than doing any actual research? Of course not, only in the fraudulent pseudoscience of psychiatry is that an acceptable practice. I see the latest nonsense is that supposedly SSRIs cause all sorts of fascinating upstream changes the brain, i.e. "muh BDNF". Ignore the fact that people recovering from depression via placebo have exactly the same chemical changes in the brain. We have a word for "what I know is right and I'm going to spend 50 years trying to prove it rather than move on to a new hypothesis". It's confirmation bias at best but can probably be accurately described as a religion 81.146.34.242 (talk) 07:33, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

One "problem" with mental illness

... is that some aspects of what constitutes 'mental illness' change over time: so women wanting more autonomy, homosexuals and others would no longer be considered as having a problem but beserkers and 'persons with considerable religious fervour' now probably would. There can also be a continuum - from what is considered acceptable/a foible ('I have a thing about...') to something which is perceived as a slight problem (some phobias) and/or where some short term medical intervention resolves the issue sufficiently to being at a sufficient angle to what is considered normality. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

By the standards of psychiatry I've witnessed, rationalwiki is antipsychiatry, sorry.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cannabis#Relationship_with_mental_illness Such a position as you have published has earned me the accusation of being a scientologist. In order not to be antiscience and remain outside of a psychiatric ward, I do feel entitled (well kind of coerced, really...) to publicly shun you about this shameless link. It's dangerous to others, buddy! You do not know that one joint AUTOMATICALLY sends you in a schizophrenic psychosis? ALWAYS!!!! Shame on you! What evidence do I have? Duh... well, don't you know psychiatry is science, kid? It's consensus of medical authorities!

If you find that (mildly) funny, you'll know the kind of nonsense we are forced to endure and hear while drugged up under the name of science. I have names of a shitload of psychiatrists that behave like the above paragraph, and it's no way "anecdotal" in my country. Keep in mind that when we claim psychiatry is not science (which it isn't, seriously, kid), we first and foremost want this bullying to stop. It's not funny: we're way much more dead serious about the whole issue than you would-be "rational" people are. Indeed, we know such psychiatric bullying kills: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555028

By the way, if https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555028 is not a proof that psychiatry as a whole is highly questionable from a scientific standpoint, what would be? What question, empirically testable, could be a right test to answer whether or not psychiatry is "scientific"? None?... that wouldn't be a very scientific attitude...

OK, I'll wait for a better test to be provided to settle the issue. But... by the way, the burden of proof is on psychiatry's side, not ours: it is psychiatry that locks us up and that legitimises this practice by CLAIMING science mandates locking us up. Their claim, their burden of proof. Not ours. Prove us that https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555028 is wrong. (And no, spin, like in the conclusion of the mentioned article, is simply not fair game by any scientific standard).

This "rant" perhaps has points that can be attacked/discussed, but I do hope that it will give you insight in the realities at stake with this whole "psychiatry is science"/"pschiatry is not science" business. It's not, but it's besides the point. If it were science, and given the results documented in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555028, the questions would start being very awkward: if it's science, and good science, then the results of the article should likely be intentional; or proceed from some kind other mysteriously irrational force, like collective delusion.^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk}

I'm not entirely crystal clear on your point. Is your argument that rationalwiki is anti-psychiatry therefore this article is contradictory? I would agree that the way society treats the mentally ill is bad, see my subsection psychiatric hospitals on the prison page. The major issue with mental illness is that it can't be "cured", medications can be used but it's only a conditional thing. As for mental illness categorization, there is a amount of opinion involved. Psychiatry like sociology is a science that attempts to explain the mind with the limited amount of neuroscience knowledge it has. In any case, these are points worth considering.—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 21:17, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

My point is that you cannot have your cake and eat it too: that's called immanent criticism and is a fairly rational undertaking. My main point is that very often people claiming that "mental illness exists" claim something the semantics of which they are completely unaware or blinded to. In other words, they do not even really know what they are really claiming, and stick to some caricature of rationalism. This results in unacceptable and self-contradictory gaslighting in the hospital and out of the hospital, where accusations, for example, of being a scientologist are made off-handedly as soon as a critical viewpoint is voiced. This has to stop.

As you're saying, there is "an amount of opinion" involved, and while the comparison of psychiatry to sociology is valid at first glance, sociology does not make grand claims in the same way as psychiatry, which moreover operates with a greater confirmation bias than sociology because of its focus on "disease" that confines its perspective to counterproductive miserabilism (i.e. "there is no cure"). I never have any problem accepting the fact that people experience problem in their lives, and psychiatry has indeed created a shitload of them for me, for instance. But I'm still waiting for a sound argument to be made for these issues to be "diseases" rather than "problems". I can deal with "problems", whereas the "disease" concept strips me off any right to attempt to do anything else than curb my head and follow instructions. I'm not buying it.

I'm not buying the "there is no cure" concept either as I do not perceive that people claiming that as fact have any clue as to whether or not they understand what that statement could mean: Being locked up in a catch-22 self-righteously self-indulged system cannot, in a nutshell, be more productive than laying down issues pragmatically and attempting to solve them pragmatically. That's precisely what the diagnostic categories won't allow you to do: they define your problem as being something else than what is really at stake, which in turn becomes forcefully silenced. How this can mascarade as science and how the whole issue about involuntary commitment is reduced to a ridiculously stubborn dogma to conceive life problems as psychiatric illness will endlessly baffle me.

Anyhow, science or pseudoscience, I couldn't care less either way (though I do have a clear cut opinion), but one thing is sure: I will never forgive past, present and future iatrogenesis and forced commitments of situations like mine, and I'll never forget. Unfortunately antipsychiatry vs. psychiatry is not a soft-spoken "academic debate" about "care". It's a war. We haven't started it, by the way (as if that mattered in any way...)

On a more "constructive" tone, the only really serious discussion I've read and endorsed on the concept of "mental illness" has been written by Mark Cresswell. http://www.studymore.org.uk/cresssz.pdf Call that denialism if you care to, but it does highlight the real issues at stake. It's not an easy read, but goes to the heart of the problem near the end of the paper. You won't find double-blind pharmacological studies in there, but rather a discussion of Szasz's criticisms, exposition of the arguments of his critics and a discussion of the nature of their shortcomings, starting to get serious on page 37. This kind of literature cannot be ignored, in my opinion, if you want to know and understand serious "antipsychiatric" arguments before attempting to "debunk" them. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 23:14, 5 January 2017

From Wikipedia:

“”In humans, disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.

The word "disease" is a rather loaded term, thus why the alternate term is "mental disorder". I am assuming your writing is mostly an expression of distaste and distress about your own condition? If so, I assume you are mad at science because it identifies you as different from the rest. In society, having a mental condition has the stigma of being an outcast and different. But this is you. Wallowing in your own self pity isn't going to help you, you are just going to dig yourself into a deeper hole of hallow hatred. Accept who you are and consider that you do have options in life. And with these options, you can discover who you are, how you can be a better person, and how you can change the perspective of mental disorders. Life isn't easy and isn't for someone identified with a mental condition. Don't let your condition stop you.—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 00:05, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Assume what you will, it's not my responsibility. I'm not mad at science. I highly respect science (the contrary would be impossible given my personal academic curriculum), which also explains why I find it very hard to give psychiatry such an acknowledgement. This discipline is less concerned about the truth than about weaving soothing but misleading narratives for potentially anxious relatives as well as exhibiting irrational faith (yes, faith) in the progress of their discipline, and their grandiose mission. You are wrong about me on many points, and I care more about "us" (i.e. people that have experienced the same mess) than I care about "me". Psychological injunctions of being a "better person", "changing the perspective", "stigma", "life isn't easy", "deeper hole of hollow hatred" are not anymore my business: they constitute the absurd injunctions to health with which psychiatry destroys people it locks up when they did not have serious problems in the first place. Have a look at the Mark Cresswell paper to see the perspective on "mental illness" I support. Full disclosure: my mother is a psychiatrist and I've been groomed within that specific culture that I know all too well. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 23:42, 5 January 2017

I hope you realize that Mark Cresswell is arguing for mental illness by reacting to Thomas Szasz's writing; this is clearly presented in the title and first couple of sentences in the intro. Cresswell also reacts to Szasz's beaten-to-death argument "It's just a theory". I suggest you actually read the paper.—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 00:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Continue reading. Page 37 starts to get a bit more tricky by reinstating Szasz' argument "in the case of psychiatry" in a subtle way. In the end, from a purely scientific point of view, I do not care whether or not it is called "mental illness" or "chulababoo". That's public relations. What matters is the semantics. And the place of technology with respect to ethics and epistemology. This is what is systematically hijacked by psychiatry when it drools over the concept of psychiatric illness as if the concept existed in some kind of vacuum filled by unspoken psychoanalytical obsessions such as mania and narcissism. Yawn. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 01:05, 6 January 2017

Yes, I read page 37 and found this:

“”Szasz’s interlocutors resides in the fact that, in making of the difference between the physical and the mental symptom a quantitative continuum, they have reached a conclusion which is equally "absurd"

—Mark Cresswell (page 37)

Cresswell concludes that Szasz's point are absurd. I don't know why you are using a pro-mental illness essay and taking sentences out of context to support your mental illness denial. In fact, anything that you can point out to me in the essay, I can counter with content later in the essay.

"I do not care whether or not it is called 'mental illness' or 'chulababoo'[...]What matters is the semantics.". Except juxtaposing 'mental illness' and 'mental disorder' is semantics. Semantics is looking at the meaning of a word. "Illness" is a more loaded term than "disorder". Using the latter over the former gives a relatively more positive connotation.

"And the place of technology with respect to ethics and epistemology. This is what is systematically hijacked by psychiatry when it drools over the concept of psychiatric illness." Better technology is the best thing that has been introduced to psychiatry. It has weakened the stigma of mental illness, offering a better understanding of these individuals. With limited neuroscience in the past, the best treatment was murder and a lobotomy.—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 01:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue with you anymore. You are using an essay that you don't even understand and don't understand what "semantics" means. If you aren't putting any effort into arguing, why should I?—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 01:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Cresswell is not claiming that Szasz's point are valid. He's discussing his points in relation to his critics and attempting to assert what his critics have been messing up. That's not defending Szasz. It's attempting to strike a theoretical balance on what is called, if I remember the paper correctly, the holism/realism issue. Attempting to assert how mental illness could be a valid concept, you do have to debunk Szasz argument as it is too wide, and still see if the reasons you've discarded the argument still hold in the case of psychiatry. That's a natural undertaking, and it's not a prejudiced position to attempt to assert what mental illness should be as a valid concept before going on to determine how realistic it is that mental illness could be valid concept. I do not see what your problem with what is written is. However, page 37, just before the discussion of "lacunae of Szazs' interlocutors", you do have the statement: "And it is this failure on all counts of the harmonious functioning of the tripartite distinctions within psychiatry (ethics/technology/epistemology)—which distinctions function harmoniously within medicine—which justifies Szaszian dualism in the case of psychiatry". Conclusion is reached page 41, second paragraph for example. (If you can counter something in the essay with something later in the essay, it's perhaps because that's a case of "dialectics" where arguments of various sides of the debate are thoroughly confronted. On all accounts its easier than reading Hegel...)

Strictly speaking, semantics is not the process of looking meaning up in the dictionary. From a logical point of view, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_of_logic Tarskian semantics is solely the process of assigning a given symbol/lexeme/word to its interpretation, nothing more, which is sometimes conflated with the interpretation itself when the symbol/lexeme/word under consideration is unambiguously identified. This has nothing to do with the dictionary. Or perhaps more precisely, I should perhaps have specified that what really matters is rather "referential transparency" from a purely scientific point of view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_and_Object#Vagaries_of_reference_and_referential_transparency

Considering murder and lobotomy as treatment is simply nonsense and should have disqualified psychiatry as medical science at that time. Moreover, that's not true in the US in the 19th century, for instance, nor for military psychiatry during first world war in France, nor during the early 19th century. Medical killing tends unfortunately to be a mid-20th specialty. The question raised is not whether better technology is a good thing or not, or gets in a narrative of scientific and human progress. It is how to position the use of technology, at a given stage of development at a given time, with respect to ethics and epistemology at a given time. If I remember the contents of the paper correctly, this interplay is a concept of Georges Canguilhem. Who wrote stuff like that: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/normal-and-pathological I'll skip the claims about "stigma" and "better understanding" which I find unconvincing. It's interesting however to note how your perception can be retrofitted in Canguilhem's framework: what has improved ethics (i.e. "reduced stigma") and epistemology ("better understanding") is the technology used in treatment. How widespread do you believe this opinion is?

Feel free not to argue (I do not coerce anyone, you know...), but the claim that this paper upholds the concept of mental illness that is popularly in use nowadays is highly misleading. It proposes the only sound way I've found about to think of what mental illness could be. It's the best effort I can identify with if I had to defend some concept of mental illness. It's my red line. As a last note, judging by Mark Cresswell's bibliography https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Cresswell/publications he's more likely to be classified in the antipsychiatry crowd than in the E Fuller Torrey groupies.

Well I'll be damned, you've gotten more rational and calmed down, thank you and I shall do the same. As for sociology, I'm personally not a fan because it tends to produce writings that unnecessarily use obscure words to sound smart; sociology writings just need to get to the point. It becomes prevalent now that you have a better understanding of the text … and that I do not.

As for lobotomies and murder, these are examples of treating mentally ill. Lobotomies were in fact used in the 20th century USA on homosexuals, see Sexual orientation change efforts for more general examples. As for murder, a psychologist (I realize it's not psychiatry) used/abused their field to justify the killing of Native Americans … Is this a stretch? Kind of.

As for proving Szasz wrong, why do I have the burden of proof? Mental illness exists no more than the concept of species, race, and ethnicity; it's a term that has a definition. Whatever falls into the definition of mental illness is a mental illness. There is real world portrayals of mental illness, schizofrenia; however, what falls under mental illness is debateable, homosexuality. Brain scans show atypical activity from people categorized with mental illness. However, it is unfortunate that mental illness is used to discriminate mentally ill people and give them inhumane treatement. If you want to talk about abstract sociology, I really don't have it in me.—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 04:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I'll deal only with the question of burden of proof, here. There is burden of proof where there is a claim made. The position you make, very roughly, is that the question of mental illness is a purely definitional one, and that we just have to agree on a definition instead of attempting to "prove" something. It is not so: mental illness are not discrete definitional items living in theoretical vacuum of unspoken and debatable moral values (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/ehpp/2010/00000012/00000002/art00009?crawler=true). Instead, you should rather consider the whole diagnostic system as a statistical estimator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimator As an estimator, the diagnostic system maps observables (symptoms, exhaustively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficient_statistic) to interventions (may they be medical or social). Mental illness (as clinical concepts/tools) are then described by the observables that lead to a given intervention. This description is perhaps simplistic and too mathematical, as happiness could be conceived as a mental illness; "observed mental condition" could perhaps be a more legitimate wording. This setting indirectly echoes the Canguilhem framework of technology as a mediator between ethics (what to maximise under the estimator) and espistemology (the set of observables we are able to understand properly). The theory of statistical estimators nowadays has a vast literature, and there is no reason that "mental illness" should be immune to criticism via this thoroughly developed science. What is claimed by proponents of mental illness, as far as I can fit it in a testable framework, is that mental illness categorisation leads to better outcomes than it would if left alone in the natural world. And here lies the burden of proof: if you want, for example, to lock up people against their will. I believe that https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555028 is a thought-provoking example of why this claim is spurious. If you fail to provide a proof, all you can claim is that people indeed have problems causing distress, now, or in the future. Not much more about the validity of the classification that would warrant the interventions.

Again, this is simplistic, but it is the first thing to prove. You may criticise it, for instance by defining illness as an observable condition statistically leading to a decrease in life expectancy (or life expectancy in good health) if it follows its natural course. But if you take simple schizophrenia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple-type_schizophrenia#Criticisms where do you find such studies? Relying on the "popper is not sufficient" argument to discard looking at the outcomes in the absence of intervention seems to me to verge on quack science. Indeed, you here have a "mental illness" that doesn't really need any symptom at all to be diagnosed (duh?), where there is no serious notion of danger to oneself or others (which IMO raises doubts on the honesty of claims made when committing patients ending with such a diagnosis to psych wards), that is mainly a response to anxious parents (how else does it get diagnosed in the real world? Seriously?), where no long term outcomes studies of this condition are known (to me at least) as it's bundled together with other hardcore situations in epidemiological studies, and that responds to psychological needs of doctors (the myth of caring for whatever comes their way and also the recycling of the psychoanalytical concept of "white psychosis" which is unscientific and dear to a lot of doctors at least in my country which uses CIM-10) and that, being the most normal type of schizophrenia, inflates the prevalence of schizophrenia. I do not see why this diagnosis should be considered in any way more valid than sluggish schizophrenia (read https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/soviet-psychiatry-on-trial/ to convince yourself that "scientific" criticism only falls flat; the terms of the debate haven't really changed...). Granted it's not included in DSM any more and not used in the US (though I do not see reasons to believe that the same people would not in the US be given another diagnostic anyway...). Nevertheless, it still gets the same "schiz" treatment in my country than vanilla schizophrenia would in the US (negation of whatever may be claimed, negation of the right to consent, antipsychotics, recurrent nightly police interventions when relatives freak out for whatever ludicrous reasons, loss of job opportunities and autonomy when making life decisions courtesy of psychiatric help, etc...). A diagnostic of schizophrenia is not about it's degree of severity but instead clearly, by the description of the interventions, a purely irrational medical freak out, and a freak show.

I raised the example of simple schizophrenia to counterbalance your claim of real portrayals of schizophrenia that I assume are more dire. Making distinctions is indeed the art of a diagnostic system. And they should be rationally based in studies of long term outcomes compared to the natural course of the alleged/observed condition. That is not the case: there is a tremendous pressure of practitioners to discard the scant long term epidemiological data in favour of apocalyptically inflated clinical descriptions. We're simply sick and tired of that delusional nonsense about care when data shows that it doesn't help at all, far from it. You want to claim mental illness exists the way you want it to be? Show us seriously convincing epidemiological data: We won't settle for minor short-term collective improvements of depression that comes at the price of broad coercive prophylactic practices. (Early detection of simple schizophrenia with outpatient commitment? We have that here where I live).

What I'm claiming is that whenever an antipsychiatry "crank" is raising up an argument based on real life experience (that argument may not be fully faithful to reality, I agree), it's always an argument that adresses at least indirectly what the observables of the statistical estimator are or could be (not a minor issue), what the outcome to optimise is or could be (not a minor issue either) and what the relevant intervention (medical OR social) is or should be (not a minor issue either). What we do know, without doubt, is that the opportunity to simply not do anything as an intervention (within the context of that statistical estimator) is something that is consistently being left out and considered unscientific or immoral. That attitude is plainly antiscientific bullshit, and to conclude, that is perhaps the core of the "mental illness doesn't exist" mantra: we won't consider psychiatry scientific until we at least have a proper thorough conceptualisation in statistical terms about the outcomes of the absence of interventions. We won't settle for the "well, that's immoral to study" argument. It's not.

P.S.: Brain scans are of no use in the burden of proof discussion, as difference is in no way indicative on their own of illness (women have genes in excess number than men, much like Down syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-inactivation which does not translate without further evidence into classification of female sex as being a disease: it's a condition). Depending on the illness at stake and the evidence of a given specific study involving brain scans, I'm willing to discuss the evidence, but keep in mind that IF brain abnormalities WERE correlative of an (endogenous) disease in a SUBSET ONLY of people diagnosed with a given diagnosis, you would still see a statistically significant effect in the WHOLE population under consideration with properly designed studies. As such, brain abnormalities cannot, by design, disprove that the diagnostic criteria are too large compared to what you attempt to detect. The real question, that I believe currently has a negative answer, is the reverse inference: can you, on the basis of structural brain abnormalities, discriminate ill from healthy. You can discriminate women from men based on the number of genes. It's highly dubious that you can for psychiatric illnesses with statistically significant studies of brain abnormalities since discriminating is a very different concept from "statistical significance". It's not even sure it can pragmatically add useful information to the diagnostic procedure, which is the real question at stake. What extra information does a brain scan add? Real info? Or noise? Abnormalities do exist in "normal" "healthy" people. The bottom line for disease / illness classification claims is the so-called "statistical estimator" that I've exposed before. I haven't even assumed in this criticism that the illness under consideration is schizophrenia, psychiatry's poster child, where other objections apply. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 12:25, 6 January 2017

Not going to respond to everything because you honestly type too much, so here we go:

I'll deal only with the question of burden of proof, here.

I understand what abuse of burden of proof is. I'm not a psychology expert so don't expect me to represent the entire field. And especially don't expect me to disprove an outrageous claim you've made. You could claim that there's an invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster that created the universe and that I have to disprove that. You made the outrageous claim, you prove it.

"Mental illness (as clinical concepts/tools) are then described by the observables that lead to a given intervention. This description is perhaps simplistic and too mathematical, as happiness could be conceived as a mental illness; "observed mental condition" could perhaps be a more legitimate wording."'

It sure is. Welcome to psychology. This is a valid criticism of the field.

And here lies the burden of proof: if you want, for example, to lock up people against their will.

Again, a valid argument. Instead of arguing mental illness doesn't exist, criticize how the term is applied to people.

"where there is no serious notion of danger to oneself or others" Nevertheless, it still gets the same "schiz" treatment in my country than vanilla schizophrenia would in the US

If it's not distressing to you or others, it's not a mental illness. Saying otherwise is quackery. If your country is doing this, then that's bullshit. Still, how does this prove mental illness is a myth?—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 19:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I apologise for typing too much. I do not perceive what the outrageous claim I made precisely is (I haven't talked about spaghetti monster). The outrageous claim I do not shy to fight is the scientificity of the diagnostic system as a whole, which to me is intrically linked to definitions of mental illness it's based on and ipso facto their scientificity. I do contend that there cannot be valid definitions of mental illnesses out of the blue on purely phenomenological considerations (with moral considerations mascarading behind), but that they need to be grounded in epidemiology. On this front, data is rather inconsistently collected if not inconsistent: https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-015-0578-7 for instance. I do shift the burden of proof, as, honestly, their hasn't been much evidence if any that the psychiatric system as a whole does provide better outcomes than the natural outcomes. That's why usually look out for so-called "ecological studies" of psychiatry's impact, which is indeed what I do care about to support my claim: they tend to be "no bullshit" studies when properly designed. I mentioned a paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15555028 that supports my claim, and I'm willing to read empirical evidence suggesting that psychiatry works as a whole. Here's another one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250921708_National_suicide_rates_and_mental_health_system_indicators_An_ecological_study_of_191_countries On a more general note, I'd conclude the paragraph with the following discussion about definitions of outcomes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4102275/

"If it's not distressing to you or others, it's not a mental illness." That's also simplistic: if you take high IQ people and if they achieve less in school/academia than what they could or should, then that's considered a negative outcome, no matter if it remains within perfectly acceptable social norms. If it "distresses" your parents, you're in for a free psychiatric ride. However, if it does not distress yourself, nor your parents, it still distresses mental health practitioners and public health policy makers... When locked up for such "reasons", it gets all too easy to note down on your records that you have "paranoid/paranoiac beliefs" about people manipulating you for their own psychological needs (hey! it's indeed the case!). Technically, that's iatrogenically retrofitting into established diagnostic categories the "distress" that authorities feel that you should feel on their behalf. I've witnessed similar things happening on more people than I would have cared to.

Other examples: early psychosis detection is not about whether anyone feels distressed, but rather, it's about whether or not psychiatric authorities are willing to take an epidemiological bet on whether or not you or your relatives will feel distress in the future. That's also why the Plioutch case could not be used to attack soviet psychiatry on scientific grounds. By this standard, homosexuality should also likely be classified as mental illness given that lifelong suicide rates are higher. This gives me a very queasy overall feeling... And that's also why many "difficult psychiatric patient" go into hiding from doctors https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16260819 in an uncompromising choice of freedom over "compliance". They're called antipsychiatry quacks in some circles, by the way.

To put it simply, if life problems are distressing to myself, then I'd like to deal with them on my own first and foremost, before eventually seeking help ON MY OWN. If they're distressing to others, then it's first and foremost THEIR OWN psychological problems and I shouldn't have to pay the price of their distress (which has no reason to go away by locking me up in a psych ward by the way as it may fill their need for a sado-masochistic type of parenting needs, who knows...). If it's distressing to the State, let's have an honest discussion in court so that we can AT LEAST DISCLOSE what the REAL problem is instead of dancing around some kind of unspoken totem and taboo while asking the mental patient to guess what he's accused of (i.e. the so-called "insight" problem). If that's not mental illness denialism, what is?

If people want to see shrinks and pill pushers of their own free will, I'll never object to them buying into the mental illness explanation that's provided to them. Mental illness is not a "myth", it's simply an "explanation" for real life problems: you do not need to accept nor deny brain abnormalities statistics in order to accept that CBT therapies sometimes are "statistically significantly" working without any real science into the nature of "illnesses" nor why the CBT therapy works. Medicine is supposed to be all about pragmatism. Whether or not mental illness is a myth is irrelevant to the fact that the what matters is the therapeutics associated to the diagnostic system. And it should be fixed, ASAP, and the first scientific question to be asked is: does therapeutics work better than placebo on patients who refuse treatment? If not, the whole idea of evidence-based medicine is to mandate that these therapeutics should be dropped once and for all. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 21:18, 6 January 2017

There we go. From what I'm gathering, sure mental illness exists, but the definition is not perfect and is up to interpretation. Therefore, in practice, the definition can be abused to put people in unwanted positions. This is something to bring up with the mob.—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 22:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

"This is something to bring up with the mob." I did sue some participants. Pointless. That's the point when you understand that "war" is a more accurate description of the situation than "science", "health" or "law". There's no excuse for that kind of "medical" behaviour. I'm not "sick" enough yet to involve the mob. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 23:02, 6 January 2017

Regarding cannabis and psychosis

This reflects the current scientific consensus. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Which logically implies that the french academy of medicine are cranks if not simply fear-mongerers. http://www.academie-medecine.fr/publication100035828/. Fine by me. Keep in mind that scientific consensus does not really translate into the mindset of practitioners who are nevertheless rather quick to raise the antiscience crusade flag to push their agenda. It's sad to observe, really. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.64.196.246 / talk} 13:36, 6 January 2017