Which disease has been created so Big Pharma can sell their drugs?
An argument could be made that the massive uptick in psychological disorders being diagnosed has to do with psychiatrists being in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies. Go see a psychiatrist if you're perfectly 100% okay with your life - see if he doesn't find something that's wrong with you that he can write a script for.
There was a time when a Psychiatrists would actually try to help you, or at least do something besides medicate you. Now it's only the PhDs and Masters holders who do that, because legally they have no other option in 48 states - MDs just write you a script and send you out the door in as little time as possible to move the next paycheck into the office. I wouldn't be surprised if PsyDs and PhDs who are legally allowed to write scripts in the two states they can don't do exactly the same thing.
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Again, which disease?
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An argument could be made that the massive uptick in psychological disorders being diagnosed has to do with psychiatrists being in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies.
Not that that doesn't have something to do with it, but I think a bigger chunk is that its very hard for someone dedicated their life to helping people to see someone in pain and have to tell them "there's not much I can do". People really want to help you feel better and when the problem is someone's brain chemistry/makeup the only thing that can change that is to alter the chemistry.
The claim that diseases are "created" to fill the pockets of Big Pharma is a commonly repeated one. Yet when you ask which disease, either people can't answer, or it is about ADHD. Let us start with the first one. New psychiatric disorders are rare indeed. Most were formally described between 1800 and 1950, even if the definitions have changed to reflect a better understanding as time has passed. Also, it is important that psychiatric diagnoses are important as a tool to determine who should have what medication. If no functioning cure or relief exists (like psychoses before neuroleptics), diagnoses are far less important. Thus, when drugs or methods are found that can help, it suddenly becomes important to diagnose - leading to a sharp uptick in the diagnosis. This uptick in itself is NOT evidence of foul play.
Regarding ADHD, the easiest way to look at it is that the person is constantly in a state of over-tiredness. Thinking is difficult. They have an "engine" that keeps buzzing all the time, shredding their concentration and self-control. With central stimulants, this engine quiets down, letting the person relax and function like everyone else. They are AWAKE. Sure, you could say "well, tough s$!!, they ain't getting drugs anyway, should have thought about this before they chose to have ADHD", but is that who you want to be? Really? Also worth noting is that the first idea of ADHD is quite a bit older than people think, 1950s, I believe.
This is not to say Big Pharma is blameless, of course. They have their share of skeletons in the closet. They do really s&&$ty stuff in developing countries. They hide stuff they should go out with. They jockey to get their drugs approved for different indications, or ignore indications their drugs would help. And so on. Creating diseases, though, is not where the s#@& happens. Note also that Big Pharma often resists having their drugs tested for new diagnoses, for a variety of reasons. A second interesting viewpoint is that it was a pharma company who shut down production of death injections, causing problems to American states wanting to murder their own citizens. They are ethically complicated beasts, like most other organizations.
It is also a good idea to be very careful. In the eighties, the suicide rate shrank significantly, likely because of the non-toxic SSRIs. In 2005, the FDA demanded black box warnings on SSRI packages, leading to lower prescription among GPs. Teen suicides in America rose sharply (around 20%, IIRC). The lesson is merely this: A lack of trust can kill, just as trusting too much.
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Again, which disease?
I don't think it's a creation of diseases (I wasn't the one who argued that) so much as a hyperinflation of over-diagnosis of issues that aren't really there.
Someone may have a problem, but not nearly the problem that they're diagnosed with, or one issue may be the root source for others, and they get diagnosed with them all. I mean, really, why is it you don't see anyone with just one issue anymore? You go to see a doctor and all of a sudden it's like seven diagnoses...when it's probably the one underlying problem contributing to the multiple.
I bolded a few of your points. And while, again, I wouldn't argue that you are incorrect, I would ask this: what are the alternatives?
Humility.
No, psychology and psychiatry are by no means perfected sciences. Some might suggest that they aren't sciences at all. And yes, there have blunders. And there will continue to be blunders.
If you operate as a science, and give it the same power and authority that you do as a science when it's not then the list of errors you've given are not blunders relegated to the annals of history they are instead the inevitable result of putting too much power behind not enough sense and they're still happening. You may have toned it down a little but its going to keep happening unless you change the fundamental operating paradigm.
But what is the alternative, other than stagnancy?
Recognize that it is NOT surgery. You are trying to fix a finely tuned watch with what is, sadly at this point, a sledgehammer. What that means is if you know that all you have is a sledge hammer, NOT trying to fix it becomes a more viable option in a lot of cases and you save the sledgehammer for when you really need it.
We aren't lobotomizing women and children because they misbehaved.
We're not as far off with some of the meds doing that as i would like to be.
That's progress. It's some of the most depressing progress ever, but we are moving forward.
Without realizing why they keep smashing into trees they're not going to be able to stop.
Persons with MPD are like foxes. You could have a fox in your neighborhood and not know it.
1: Only one personality goes to the psychologist.
2: There are a lot of possible reasons why they have memory blackouts.
3: Some of the alien abduction cases might really be MPD.
4: They dress and act so differently, they might never be recognised as the same person.
5: MPD may be diagnosed as a delusional malady, especially if the other personality is a different sex, race, or species.
What's diagnosed as MPD is generally an exaggeration of how the mind works. The human mind DOES operate much like the film "Inside Out"
Or perhaps the better model is that the human mind operates like a contentious Board of Directors, each with their own agenda, who are adept at presenting an illusion of unity to the outside world. What we see as a disorder, is the illusion breaking down.
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It's amazing how many people still believe in the pseudoscience party game bull crap that is the MBTI.
I know what my Zodiac sign is as well. Doesn't mean I put stock into either.
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Recognize that it is NOT surgery. You are trying to fix a finely tuned watch with what is, sadly at this point, a sledgehammer. What that means is if you know that all you have is a sledge hammer, NOT trying to fix it becomes a more viable option in a lot of cases and you save the sledgehammer for when you really need it.
* The psychiatric medications have, with a few older exceptions, only temporary side effects. Stop taking them, and the side effects cease. Of course, there are no absolutes in biologic systems. And yes, this is a risk - the same risk you take when you buy sudafed over the counter, or any other drug you haven't taken before.
* The sledgehammer is by now rather well researched. Current antidepressants have something around 30 years' widespread experience behind them. The older versions have more. Neuroleptics have sixty years, the more modern twenty-five or so. Bensodiazepines have fifty. Lithium has seventy, IIRC. All of them have millions and millions of doses taken. At some point, the cautionary principle becomes merely backwards striving.
* Not trying to fix the "finely tuned watch" means that: PEOPLE. WILL. DIE. Read that again. Suicides are common enough. Depressions are lethal things. Most other psychiatric disorders come with an increased risk of suicide. I know you see the issue as "should we really risk giving this person medicine, considering the side effects may not be fully known after only a few decades of widespread use?", but maybe, BNW, the question you should ask yourself is "can I in good conscience work against people getting medication that could help them not commit suicide?" and "If I do that, can I still look myself in the mirror?"
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Nobody is forced to take meds. I currently don't. I preferred having the choice to do so or not more than the lack of ability from no insurance and insufficient funds to self pay that I do now. Just because I think our society is overdiagnosed doesn't mean I think we should get rid of medication entirely.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Here in Florida if you're Baker Acted they can refuse to let you leave the hospital for a LONG time if you don't take the meds you're given. That's strong coercion. It's your word against the doctor if there's a dispute and I'll give you one guess who the courts tend to side with... I know. I have worked at such an institution, and been hospitalized in two others, once voluntarily, once Baker Act due to a case of mistaken identity.
The worst part is if they BA you against your will you have to pay the hospital bill.
It is also worth noting that many of the problems people experience in psychiatry is caused by strange laws, strange policies for GPs, strange insurance/funding systems, and so on. It may well be so. To an outsider, much of what you describe in America sounds positively arcane. It is NOT, however, a problem primarily with psychiatry.
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Dysthymia. (Melancholia... "the Blues")
Since very young...
After I had kids... OCD and Anxiety Disorders kicked in and it forced me to seek treatment.
I read Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" about the Lewis & Clark Expedition and noticed far too many common personality quirks that I shared with Meriwether Lewis than to be comfortable with...
I mean... considering he ended up committing suicide.
So I sought out treatment.
I also had a "spiritual awakening" around about the same time...
I'm not sure what the cause & effect that had on things... but I started getting invitations to "visit other churches" by Pastors in my area.
Eventually I gave up on church and sought out Fellowship with the RPG Gamer community... because I had always wanted to play as a kid... but didn't have the kinds of friends that were interested.
It worked out GREAT as therapy... I finally found a bunch of folks as effed up in the head as I was!
Soooo... THANKS you bunch of freaks.
:)
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I really hated people when I was younger. Until I found I needed people to game with you weren't all bad.
The human mind is and endlessly complex and massively ugly kludge of stuff that hasn't gotten us killed off as a species yet that when it's 'working' right is still operating based on the priorities and needs of the bit we inherited from lizards (who got it from even simpler minded things).
The board of directors or the earlier central director model are pure mythology and magical thinking. If your mind is run by a director, then that director has to be run by a director. And that director has to be run by another director. And so on and so on, to infinity and beyond.
EDIT for clarity:
If you imagine a director in your mind telling the brain what to do, that director needs to order someone to actually do it. That someone can be called Grunt I. Grunt I, equally unable to effect change, then tells Grunt II what to do. And so on, through an infinite number of Grunts. Note also that this applies equally to all sorts of complicated systems. Computers, sensors, whatever. The end result, of course, is the same: Nothing CAN EVER GET DONE. It's obvious, isn't it?
The human mind is and endlessly complex and massively ugly kludge of stuff that hasn't gotten us killed off as a species yet that when it's 'working' right is still operating based on the priorities and needs of the bit we inherited from lizards (who got it from even simpler minded things).
The board of directors or the earlier central director model are pure mythology and magical thinking. If your mind is run by a director, then that director has to be run by a director. And that director has to be run by another director. And so on and so on, to infinity and beyond.
I don't think you understand the model that you're dismissing. For time on end, the popular model of a healthy human mind was that of a single unified personality.
It's becomeing more of a core understanding that the unified "core" personality is a myth, an illusion which hides the fact that we are constantly influenced by a horde of mental aspects, many of which are in less than full agreement with each other. But somehow they manage to present a facade of unity to the outside world.
I really hated people when I was younger. Until I foundI needed people to game withyou weren't all bad.
I still hate most people, but 1% of the world not sucking is still 70 million people I don't hate. :-)
Krensky: I believe you misunderstood my point. If something can't happen without a higher level telling the lower level what to do, you get infinite levels. This is independent of the system chosen. It is obvious to everyone that a computer CAN do stuff - and thus infinite levels is not a functioning theory - a higher level ordering around a lower level is NOT a prerequisite for anything happening. But of course, feel free to say my idea is "just sad".
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Krensky, have you ever made a plan? Have you ever stuck to it? Have you made a conditional plan? Have you successfully predicted what would happen? Have you understood a complex problem and been able to find solutions you wouldn't have without that understanding?
Yes. At some level, the human brain is randomness and instincts. Ordering that into a functioning sense of self, an ability to understand the world around you, an ability to make choices, that is what is called "growing up". Most people do so. They can use their brains in an efficient, goal-oriented fashion. This would be impossible if all they had was randomness.
Except that more and more AI research is proving that wrong.
Source?
Even trickier, they seem to present a facade of unity to our own consciousness. And let us think we're making the decisions. Most of the time.I don't think you understand the model that you're dismissing. For time on end, the popular model of a healthy human mind was that of a single unified personality.
It's becomeing more of a core understanding that the unified "core" personality is a myth, an illusion which hides the fact that we are constantly influenced by a horde of mental aspects, many of which are in less than full agreement with each other. But somehow they manage to present a facade of unity to the outside world.
Something is by definition making the decision and that something is by definition part of you.
That's philosophy BNW, which by your own rules, you're not allowed to use.
Its using an MRI and my definition of You: which is everything from the skull in :)
So we're supposed to crash it somewhere then dig it up and see what made it through the crash.
Not everyone here plays for the NFL.
I don't even know why I try to keep up with you guys. :-)
The fun thing about Autism and Asperger's Syndrome is that a) Lorna Wing pretty much acknowledged that AS was autism, and b) in the literature justifying the merging of both diagnoses (along with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified - PDD-NOS), it was pointed out that the majority of people diagnosed with AS actually met the criteria for autism.
Also, as it turns out, which one anyone was diagnosed with depended more on where they went to get the diagnosis than it did on which criteria they met. Some places were more likely to diagnose AS, some autism, and some PDD-NOS.
Also, the escalating number of autism diagnoses is actually something separate from merging the categories. It was happening before the DSM-5, and continued after (at least for a year or two, I haven't kept up). Merging the diagnoses didn't escalate this.
The value of Asperger's Syndrome as a diagnosis was having a category for people who started speaking on time or early (whether or not they met the speech delay criteria in other ways), when they weren't being diagnosed with autism because of when they started to speak.
it was pointed out that the majority of people diagnosed with AS actually met the criteria for autism.
Thats a big chunk of the problem. Its stamp collecting, not science.
Also, the escalating number of autism diagnoses is actually something separate from merging the categories. It was happening before the DSM-5, and continued after (at least for a year or two, I haven't kept up). Merging the diagnoses didn't escalate this.
Which makes no sense at all...
Until you realize that Asperger's as part of the autism "spectrum" isn't an accurate reflection of reality, its just how shrinks see things. They started looking at things that way and thats why they changed the DSM , and the DSM changed how they were taught to look at things. If anything else saw this kind of uptick in reality we'd be scouring the food and water supply looking for the cause.
Reality didn't change. How people look at it did. Its a social movement, not a change in reality and thats NOT how science or anything important is supposed to work.
The value of Asperger's Syndrome as a diagnosis was having a category for people who started speaking on time or early (whether or not they met the speech delay criteria in other ways), when they weren't being diagnosed with autism because of when they started to speak.
Or you could just take that criteria off the list?
If you had a disease show a huge uptick in diagnoses when you developed a better diagnosis method, you wouldn't "be scouring the food and water supply looking for the cause." You be going "Oh, more people have this than we thought."
What makes this diagnosis better or more accurate?
it was pointed out that the majority of people diagnosed with AS actually met the criteria for autism.Thats a big chunk of the problem. Its stamp collecting, not science.
I'm afraid you'll need a more substantial argument than that. You should probably look up the relevant studies, as they played a large role in how autism shaped up in the DSM-5. Right now it doesn't look like you are all that informed about how and why it happened.
Also, the escalating number of autism diagnoses is actually something separate from merging the categories. It was happening before the DSM-5, and continued after (at least for a year or two, I haven't kept up). Merging the diagnoses didn't escalate this.Which makes no sense at all...
Until you realize that Asperger's as part of the autism "spectrum" isn't an accurate reflection of reality, its just how shrinks see things. They started looking at things that way and thats why they changed the DSM , and the DSM changed how they were taught to look at things. If anything else saw this kind of uptick in reality we'd be scouring the food and water supply looking for the cause.
Reality didn't change. How people look at it did. Its a social movement, not a change in reality and thats NOT how science or anything important is supposed to work.
Actually, I think you'll find many autistic people (who were diagnosed with any of the three DSM-IV labels) agree that autism is a spectrum and that Asperger's Syndrome was firmly on that spectrum. That this isn't a perspective restricted to researchers and clinicians, but also to people whose lives are affected by autism.
Lorna Wing is the woman who brought AS to the English-speaking world. She basically created the diagnostic category, and she was never anything but honest about Asperger's Syndrome being autism, which is why it was categorized under Pervasive Developmental Disorders along with the autism and PDD-NOS diagnoses. I do not think she would have agreed with your notion that autism and AS were super separate and never the twain shall meet.
Anyway, IIRC, AS diagnoses were counted with autism and PDD-NOS diagnoses when the apparent increasing diagnosis rate was catalogued. The shift to a single diagnosis didn't impact the rate of diagnosis, just what the diagnosis was called.
The value of Asperger's Syndrome as a diagnosis was having a category for people who started speaking on time or early (whether or not they met the speech delay criteria in other ways), when they weren't being diagnosed with autism because of when they started to speak.Or you could just take that criteria off the list?
Well I believe Lorna Wing said something to that effect before she died, but that's not how things turned out. If it had turned out that way, we would never have had an AS diagnosis and everyone would have been explicitly labeled autistic from the beginning. Which I think would have been a superior state of affairs as compared to what we have now, which is a lot of people taking the unscientific and often deeply emotional perspective that AS and autism have to be different things, even though they really are not.
I'm afraid you'll need a more substantial argument than that. You should probably look up the relevant studies, as they played a large role in how autism shaped up in the DSM-5. Right now it doesn't look like you are all that informed about how and why it happened.
Click. Goodbye.
Click. Goodbye.
I'm afraid you'll need a more substantial argument than that. You should probably look up the relevant studies, as they played a large role in how autism shaped up in the DSM-5. Right now it doesn't look like you are all that informed about how and why it happened.
indeed, I am surprised at your behavior here. Your criticism of the DSM V is noted, but there is no reason to snark at Belle so.
Boo BNW.
Just because you can't defend your argument without using philosophy doesn't mean you're allowed to be rude.
I'd be more than happy to defend it, unfortunately that attack was at me, not at anything I said.
I am surprised at your behavior here.
Really? Disappointed sure? But surprised?
Your criticism of the DSM V is noted, but there is no reason to snark at Belle so.
I don't like ad homs. Its not just the insult. (although that's certainly never pleasant) its dismissing all of someone's points because they said it, using that they said it as evidence that they don't have a point. Its insulting, circular nonsense that evades evidence, thought, and reason rather than using them. You can have all the best knowledge, logic, and information in the world and someone can still say/hint/imply that you're an idiot/ignoramous you need to read up on this.
No. If someone had a point to make worth inconveniencing electrons over they wouldn't need to do that.
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Except that more and more AI research is proving that wrong.
AI research is good at researching AI. So far, however it hasn't given us beans regarding the phenomena we know as conciousness and self awareness.
Too many people confuse the first item with the latter two.
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No it wasn't.
There was no attack there at all.
I have to disagree.
Right now it doesn't look like you are all that informed about how and why it happened.
What Belle basically said was "You are too stupid to argue with, go read a book."
That is pretty uncool and, as BNW said, a pretty clear use of abusive ad hominem.
Except that more and more AI research is proving that wrong.AI research is good at researching AI. So far, however it hasn't given us beans regarding the phenomena we know as conciousness and self awareness.
Too many people confuse the first item with the latter two.
And probably never will. I mean i can't "know" you're conscious. How would I ever know if a computer was? Much less know it was conscience the same way that a human is close enough to model?
Except that more and more AI research is proving that wrong.AI research is good at researching AI. So far, however it hasn't given us beans regarding the phenomena we know as conciousness and self awareness.
Too many people confuse the first item with the latter two.
And probably never will. I mean i can't "know" you're conscious. How would I ever know if a computer was? Much less know it was conscience the same way that a human is close enough to model?
There are clues that point to self awareness. Most animals who see their reflection in a mirror look at it as another animal and react appropriately, if somewhat confused by the lack of sent. There are about three animals however that demonstrate recognition of a self image. That is considered a clear cut sign of self-awareness.