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Does psychiatry have a financial interest in expanding the definition of mental illness?
Does both the pharmaceutical industry and the psychiatry profession have strong financial interests in convincing the public that drug treatment is safe and the most effective treatment for mental illness,
The National Institute of Mental Illness reports that currently only 36 percent of those who suffer from mental illness actually seek and receive treatment but they would still like to expand the definitions. What and why should be a concern to everyone.
There is no question that among the medical profession, psychiatry is the most scientifically primitive. The latest revision to the America Psychiastric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) has drawn strong criticism. "Owing to criticism over the perceived proliferation of diagnoses in the current edition of the DSM, David Kupfer, M.D., who is the DSM-5 Task Force chair and is shepherding the DSM's revision, said in an interview: "One of the raps against psychiatry is that you and I are the only two people in the U.S. without a psychiatric diagnosis."
Dr. Daniel Carlet, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University admits, "We are no more than the most rudimentary understanding of the pathophysiology of mental illness and we have resorted to tenuous and ever-shifting theories of how ..treatments work."
Read "The Emperor's New Drugs" by Dr. Irving Kirsch or "The Anatomy of an Epidemic" by Robert Whitaker.
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Peter Law 30+
:-)
Lars Mews
The only reason why people praying to zombies get locked away, while others who believe in rebirth and virgin birth are not is simply a space issue-such a big mental asylum goes literally beyond all human imagination.
Peter Law 30+
Lars Mews
And the difference between a religious person and the behaviour of psychotic people is not that big. Like there is no big difference between a normal cell and a cancerous cell.
What is so unbelievable, that back in history without scientific knowledge about brain chemistry and behavior, mental diseases etc....what is so unbelievable that some psychotic persons back in that time were taken serious?
And you have to consider that brains develop with time. While you can fool a child that there might be a ghost under his bed, a mature person might not be fooled by this. Anyhow, if specific development was not archieved, even mature persons can believe there is a ghost under their bed.
Also the architecture of religion is always very simple structured, to fit infantile minds. A fantasy movie with the same plot would be considered total trash, because of all these contradictions and false facts. But, in a mental ill environment, with lots of behavioural disorders, such plot could be taken serious.
When you tell young children a horror story, they will take this serious and act like that. When you tell a person with development issues something, they will take it serious too.
And in an insane group, its likely to happen that sooner or later anyone will act wired, just in reference to the environment, who forces them to act insane. You can see that in strong religious cultures, if you look objective.
If someone told you, your leg was broken, would you act aggressive and ask "how can you dare to say that"? If someone tells you, you might have a mental problem, this is taken as an insult, an attack. But, this can just be an attack if people believe they are totally sane, from first breath until last breath. Such a condition is not known.
Theodore A. Hoppe 200+
The relevant point here is that social context can very often deem what is socially acceptable behavior and what is a behavioral "disorder." For example, being homosexual was in the DSM and thought to be treatable. It has since been removed.
Peter Law 30+
As Lars (above) together with his guru Dawkins, this disease is very close to the surface, & will take little encouragement to take hold again in our 'free' society.
:-)
Lee Miller 10+
This is why I don't trust psychiatry. Psychiatrist don't set social norms; they follow them. If they really knew what was best for us, they would have been the first ones to approve of homosexuality (for example). Instead they were one of the last. Their definition of "disease" depends entirely on the culture of the time.