Mental Illness

[Aleister Granger]

As one who's seen later stage paranoid schizophrenia firsthand, I'd like to see some people's opinions on this phenomenon. I've heard some say that mental illness is actually the natural state of humans (:confused:) and others claim that 60% of it is actually caused by the capitalist structure (:unsure:) and a few claimed that it's the mentally ill's fault there is capitalism (:laugh:) but at the end of the day it comes down to neurons.
So how do you, the proletariat, deal with mental illness? The one illness you often can't see until it's too late?

[Quail]

In general, I think that capitalism (and associated structures of oppression) creates conditions which make mental illness more likely - people, especially the poor, live in stressful, miserable conditions. It's hardly surprising people feel low or anxious.

From a more personal perspective, I think that capitalism and patriarchy have seriously impacted on my mental health. I have suffered from anxiety issues, depression and eating disorders. There's quite an obvious link between patriarchy and my eating disorder, but also when I was poor and I had debt collectors harassing me on a daily basis it made me want to kill myself because there seemed to be no other escape.

[Fred]

There are those in the field of psychiatry that have argued that mental illness is a social construct and does not exist in any veridical sense (e.g., Szaz). Having worked closely with many seriously mentally ill people, I don't think that is quite right. Also there are those that try to normalize psychotic states and the syndromes that tend to foster them (Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder) such as the British psychiatrist R.D. Laing. My thinking is that NO ONE would ever choose to have these disorders so calling them anything other than pathological does not make sense.

Under socialism, there will still be mental illness. But I agree that there will be far less -- in part because life will be so much less stressful. People will not have to worry about feeding, clothing, housing themselves and their families. In fact, who knows to what extent people will live in nuclear families? In a world of tremendous material abundance, we will also be able to provide humane, respectful care to individuals that suffer from MI, whatever the etiology.

[nominal9]

I've seen Alzheimers run its course, entirely. Disease and medical treatment is a physical fact (I don't credit the word "phenomenon")... How society deals with it, whether socialistically or capitalistically, may speak to the provision or allocation of resources and services, but the basic "ontological" medical questions are much the same all over. As someone said or suggested above... if "one" is poor... better off with Socialism, no doubt.... better "one Dollar" than "No Dollars, at all".....

[argeiphontes]

As one who's seen later stage paranoid schizophrenia firsthand, I'd like to see some people's opinions on this phenomenon. I've heard some say that mental illness is actually the natural state of humans (:confused:) and others claim that 60% of it is actually caused by the capitalist structure (:unsure:) and a few claimed that it's the mentally ill's fault there is capitalism (:laugh:) but at the end of the day it comes down to neurons.
So how do you, the proletariat, deal with mental illness? The one illness you often can't see until it's too late?

I'm a Jungian, and though I haven't read any R.D.Laing, I think mental illness is largely a pathological result of a poor mental environment. (e.g. abuse, alientation, etc). Theorizing it as the result of malfunctioning brain chemistry no longer "blames the victim" like in the 19th century, but it does imply that the victim is somehow "broken." Yet, the human brain has been subject to millions of years of evolution (brains in general) and mental illness is increasing at faster rates than any biological changes could account for.

Capitalism and perhaps scientism are part of the problem. Capitalism favors a medical model of mental illness for cost reasons, while scientism takes as evidence only the most stringent and statistical studies, ignoring any knowledge that could be gained with 'softer' methods. So the whole 'technology' of psychology ends up barking up the wrong tree and psychology doesn't make any real progress. Medications don't cure any mental illness. They're messing with the hardware when it is really a software problem.

Even if "genetics loads the gun" (as in "genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger"), you can't change genetics, only create a better environment that doesn't result in so many problems for so many people. That's another reason to want communism.

edit: In some ways it's similar to the obesity epidemic. Check out all the victim blaming and talk about genetic predispositions, and trying strategies that are doomed to fail because of biological factors, when the real solution is to change the environment back to one that we evolved to live in.

edit2: Look at the DSM. To me, a cornucopia of different diagnoses is a hint that there is an underlying issue not being addressed.

[Nakidana]

As one who's seen later stage paranoid schizophrenia firsthand, I'd like to see some people's opinions on this phenomenon. I've heard some say that mental illness is actually the natural state of humans (:confused:) and others claim that 60% of it is actually caused by the capitalist structure (:unsure:) and a few claimed that it's the mentally ill's fault there is capitalism (:laugh:) but at the end of the day it comes down to neurons.
So how do you, the proletariat, deal with mental illness? The one illness you often can't see until it's too late?

Well the reason for Schizophrenia is unknown, but it has a very high heritability, so no doubt genetics play a role. Other risk factors include complications during birth, infection during pregnancy and premature birth. Also, being born in the city is a risk factor, so environment is also part of it.

Whether drug use actually causes schizophrenia is controversial. Use of cannabis is correlated with psychosis and schizophrenia, however I was told by a doc that it's not entirely certain if cannabis is the cause, or if patients with schizophrenia simply start using it to help them through their symptoms. It's the old "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" dilemma.

As for psychiatry as a whole, there is no doubt that we're some way from understanding these illnesses on a molecular level. I mean the fact that we diagnose these conditions almost entirely through ICD-10 criteria and not through testing speaks volumes. I strongly disagree though that mental illness is just a social construct to be left unattended. Most psychiatric patients benefit quite a lot from treatment and will personally tell you how their lives have improved as a result. Some are completely incapacitated by their illness and can only go about their business if they receive medication. I would like to ask what people with such viewpoints think we should do with people suffering from severe depression? Simply leave them be and when they commit suicide go "oh it was just their normal state"? :confused: I think anyone who has ever been to a psychiatric ward or had a close relative struck by such an illness would agree that's preposterous.

Sure, people will probably look back in 50 years time and be horrified at the way we're currently treating patients, forcefully strapping them to their beds and injecting them with antipsychotics, just like how we look back with horror at how psychiatry was practiced 50 years ago. But, these are the best tool we have available atm and they're being refined all the time. So for example instead of strapping patients to their beds, lots of psychiatric wards have gone over to physically "shielding" them instead. This includes using special closed off areas of the ward, where the patient can react with minimal outside stimuli and under close observation by staff. Thus providing better individual care with a much less traumatic experience, not only for the patient in question but also for the fellow patients and the staff.

[argeiphontes]

I strongly disagree though that mental illness is just a social construct to be left unattended. Most psychiatric patients benefit quite a lot from treatment and will personally tell you how their lives have improved as a result. Some are completely incapacitated by their illness and can only go about their business if they receive medication. I would like to ask what people with such viewpoints think we should do with people suffering from severe depression? Simply leave them be and when they commit suicide go "oh it was just their normal state"? :confused: I think anyone who has ever been to a psychiatric ward or had a close relative struck by such an illness would agree that's preposterous.

Suffering should be mitigated, and I think that's a strong argument for the use of psychiatric drugs, but it doesn't mean that the causes are being treated. What should be done is 1) treatments developed to treat the root causes, and 2) bring social resources to bear on the problem. But that doesn't happen.

In my case, my depression and anxiety ended after some Jungian self-therapy. I had to discover it on my own, which is a shame because of all the wasted life dealing with my problems. (The fact that n=1 is mitigated by the effect size ;) )

There aren't any molecular causes to depression to be found, and wasting time and money pursuing that path turns resources away from alleviating actual suffering. What will be found are simply proximal causes of why depression manifests as a symptom (like the serotonin hypothesis), that can be short-circuited thru medication or other interventions, but this type of "fake" cure is no substitute for therapy on semantic and psychic levels of functioning of the brain. (But it is useful to GlaxoSmithCline because they'd be more than happy to alleviate your symptoms for the rest of your life.)

I had a psychotic friend once. After meeting her family, I saw only support for an environmental etiology like "intensification of personality disorders over several generations + decompensation", like put forward in the book How to Become a Schizophrenic.

Regardless of a person's genetic predispositions, there are environments in which that person would not develop the illness, though I don't discount the possibility of outliers who would develop illness regardless of environment, but those should be a tiny proportion of all people. Nothing on the level of what you see in modern capitalist society.

[argeiphontes]

One more point on the question of psychotropic drugs, both legal (antidepressants, anxiolytics, etc) and illegal (since someone mentioned a potential to cause mental illness). The difference between a shaman and a psychiatrist is that the shaman knows how drugs work, but the psychiatrist thinks they're magical. ;)

[Hrafn]

One more point on the question of psychotropic drugs, both legal (antidepressants, anxiolytics, etc) and illegal (since someone mentioned a potential to cause mental illness). The difference between a shaman and a psychiatrist is that the shaman knows how drugs work, but the psychiatrist thinks they're magical. ;)


Also the fact that the shaman talks to the spirit world, and is generally found in tribal societies. ;)

[Fred]

Suffering should be mitigated, and I think that's a strong argument for the use of psychiatric drugs, but it doesn't mean that the causes are being treated. What should be done is 1) treatments developed to treat the root causes, and 2) bring social resources to bear on the problem. But that doesn't happen.

In my case, my depression and anxiety ended after some Jungian self-therapy. I had to discover it on my own, which is a shame because of all the wasted life dealing with my problems. (The fact that n=1 is mitigated by the effect size ;) )

There aren't any molecular causes to depression to be found, and wasting time and money pursuing that path turns resources away from alleviating actual suffering. What will be found are simply proximal causes of why depression manifests as a symptom (like the serotonin hypothesis), that can be short-circuited thru medication or other interventions, but this type of "fake" cure is no substitute for therapy on semantic and psychic levels of functioning of the brain. (But it is useful to GlaxoSmithCline because they'd be more than happy to alleviate your symptoms for the rest of your life.)

I had a psychotic friend once. After meeting her family, I saw only support for an environmental etiology like "intensification of personality disorders over several generations + decompensation", like put forward in the book How to Become a Schizophrenic.

Regardless of a person's genetic predispositions, there are environments in which that person would not develop the illness, though I don't discount the possibility of outliers who would develop illness regardless of environment, but those should be a tiny proportion of all people. Nothing on the level of what you see in modern capitalist society.

Nice post, comrade. Although I would place a somewhat different emphasis on certain things. I view medication as tools that can be useful in the treatment of MI, sometimes more, sometimes less, and sometimes they are counterproductive. A professor of mine noted that while bad parenting, by itself, can cause all kinds of problems, schizophrena is not one of them. We know that genetics contribute significantly and that environment does as well. The monozygotic (identical) twins studies show that in 40 to 50 percent of the cases, if one twin has schizophrenia, the other one does too. Of course that leaves a lot of variability unaccounted for. So, environment, including exposure to toxins, illness, stress, etc. play some kind of role.

Also, we really don't have any idea of recreational (or prescription) drugs play a critical role in etiology -- I doubt they do. The rate of Schizophrenia has not gone up over the years, as far as I know.

I think the emerging field of epigenetics holds a great deal of promise in helping us understand the immensely complex interaction of genetics and environment and will help us understand how to reduce and treat mental illness.

It should also be understood that the DSM is a tremendously imperfect book -- and the personality disorders, in particular are essentially laundry lists of items that are grouped together (not randomly, of course). It is important not to reify these.

Finally, working in a psychiatric hospital, I learned that they prized being treated with simple human respect, rather than as crazy people. The system, which is incredibly demanding of the staff, doesn't foster that. However, I was often reminded of this by patients.

There was a pt. that came in totally psychotic, basically unable to speak, making animal noises. He was an older man and I was assigned to be his therapist. Every day for a week I would go into his room and say, "Mr. Doe, I am your therapist, would you like to speak with me?" For the first 7 days I first got animal noises, then he would scream curses at me. I would calmly say, "okay, maybe another time." Honestly, I was just routinely doing my job, often leaving his room thinking, "why am I bothering?"

Well, after a little while longer, antipsychotic meds took hold. He began to recompensate and he turned out to be quite a nice fellow. We would meet for psychotherapy several times a week. Several weeks later when he was about to be discharged he said something that kind of shocked me. "Dr. Comrade, even when I was so sick and so crazy, you always treated me so kindly." I was shocked that he remembered and that it had made such a difference to him. A very worthwhile lesson.

[argeiphontes]

Also the fact that the shaman talks to the spirit world, and is generally found in tribal societies. ;)


Hint: the shaman mixes his drugs with some therapeutic mumbo-jumbo. Sure, he extends this philosophy also to drugs that work on a purely biological level without touching psyche, but his philosophy toward psychiatric drugs is spot on. The fact that our therapies are based on psychological models of psychic functioning and not the spirit world is better for us, of course, but a methodology that relies only on the actions of drugs themselves is wrong, even for purely practical reasons.

That's the point I was trying to make. The psychiatrist might think that psychotropic drugs can magically cure or destroy psyche, which is an emergent property of the underlying chemistry and not directly the action of that chemistry itself, on the level that it's "illnesses" occur.

[Nakidana]

In my case, my depression and anxiety ended after some Jungian self-therapy. I had to discover it on my own, which is a shame because of all the wasted life dealing with my problems. (The fact that n=1 is mitigated by the effect size ;) )

I don't know the specifics of your case so I can't really comment on it, but I'm glad it worked for you. However, I would advise anyone with symptoms to go see a doctor instead of messing around with self-therapy.


There aren't any molecular causes to depression to be found, and wasting time and money pursuing that path turns resources away from alleviating actual suffering.

This is simply false, there is significant empirical evidence to show that depression has a genetic component. I'm not saying there isn't a social component, but the way people react to stressfull life events is, among other things, determined by genetics. I can start pulling studies out of my hat, but just start by reading the wiki article on it.


What will be found are simply proximal causes of why depression manifests as a symptom (like the serotonin hypothesis), that can be short-circuited thru medication or other interventions, but this type of "fake" cure is no substitute for therapy on semantic and psychic levels of functioning of the brain. (But it is useful to GlaxoSmithCline because they'd be more than happy to alleviate your symptoms for the rest of your life.)

I don't think anybody ever claimed antidepressants were a cure, but surely they're quite useful to help people live a better life instead of, in a worst case scenario, killing themselves. The fact that big pharma makes money off of selling drugs doesn't mean they don't work. And although I'm all for psychotherapy, good advice and care, I don't see how working on an actual biological cure for those who are genetically predisposed is a bad thing.


I had a psychotic friend once. After meeting her family, I saw only support for an environmental etiology like "intensification of personality disorders over several generations + decompensation", like put forward in the book How to Become a Schizophrenic.

I haven't read the book, but I know for certain that you can't determine the cause of a person's schizophrenia just by looking at him and/or talking to his family. Again, we know from research that schizophrenia both has a high heritability and that environmental factors play a role. Quite possibly it's caused by a combination of both.


Regardless of a person's genetic predispositions, there are environments in which that person would not develop the illness, though I don't discount the possibility of outliers who would develop illness regardless of environment, but those should be a tiny proportion of all people. Nothing on the level of what you see in modern capitalist society.

No doubt there would be fewer cases of schizophrenia in a communist society, not least because the amount of traumatic life experiences would be dramatically lessened. But considering how we atm don't even know the exact interplay between genetics and environment, I really think it's beyond us to say that only a tiny amount of people (relative to today) would be affected.


It should also be understood that the DSM is a tremendously imperfect book -- and the personality disorders, in particular are essentially laundry lists of items that are grouped together (not randomly, of course). It is important not to reify these.

I agree 100%, and the book is being continually changed to better reflect the conditions, but what I'm arguing is that it's the best tool we have at the moment, andpeople who are all against psychiatry are doing a great disservice to the people suffering from these illnesses, many of whom benefit from the treatment administered.

[Quail]

I'm not an expert by any means, so if I'm wrong correct me. I think psychiatric drugs are supposed to be used in conjunction with other forms of treatment. However in this country (I suspect because of a lack of funding to the NHS mental health services) a lot of people are just given drugs alone which doesn't do anything to solve the underlying problems or help people to find better coping strategies. I know that drugs are necessary to a lot of patients but I really think most people need other forms of treatment as well. I certainly did, and other people I know with mental health problems tend to feel the same.

[cyu]

http://www.youngminds.org.uk/news/blog/742_the_spirit_level_how_inequality_affects_mental _health

The Spirit Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, presents 25 years of meticulous research to show, amongst other things, that there are more mental health problems within societies with higher levels of inequality.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/depression-and-mental-t181147/index4.html

One might say that sane people are expected to be unhappy when living under oppression.

It is those who have managed to convince themselves to be happy and accept oppression, that are the ones who are truly insane.

[argeiphontes]

^ Take any healthy, functioning animal and put it in a cage. The results should be obvious.

[argeiphontes]

However, I would advise anyone with symptoms to go see a doctor instead of messing around with self-therapy.

Of course. I myself went, and received therapy and drugs.

[Art Vandelay]

^ Take any healthy, functioning animal and put it in a cage. The results should be obvious.

“Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.” - R.D. Laing.

[RedGuevara]

As a suffer of OCD, Anxiety and Depression, I would say that the current structure of society has led to an increase of mental illnesses. People are worked to death for nothing. Judgement is passed on any that's different than the "norm". Look at Russia's mental state. Suicides and alcoholism run rampant in Russia and they're a "democratic capitalist" nation. So overall I think that patriarchy and capitalism play a key role in some mental illnesses but some people are born with a chemical imbalance or neurons that don't spark together like they should.