Topic: mental illness

I’m all in favor of wider access to good mental health care, and since drug and alcohol problems are included, I thought this might be an opportunity to point out some serious flaws in this approach.

This goes back to a problem in assessing pain. There’s no physical test for what is essentially a subjective experience.

Isn’t that a bit like the drinker who insists he’s fine except that he just drinks a whole lot more than other people?

It makes little sense to criticize our “system” of mental health care, when it’s only a system in some places. In the national sense, it isn’t a system at all, and never has been.

In spite of the advances, science still struggles to understand the disease process that underlies most disorders.

In a sense we’re just describing disorders that we only partly understand.

As a general rule, the better the causes of a disease are understood, the more effective the treatments will be.

Language– the words we choose for our self-talk– has a powerful influence on our brain function. Words can help us re-shape the cycle of feelings, impulses, and behaviors.

Therapy we might see as fiddling with the ‘software’. Not so different from treating a chronic disease such as diabetes, where education and counseling improve outcomes.

Another common criticism is that the diagnostic system dehumanizes clinical care, leading us to think about disorders rather than people.