stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
It's about the choice you assume I should make in one category of things as opposed to another. Yet, you offer no real logical reason why I should.
Mental Disorders and Religious Sentiment...
- Thread starter stamenflicker
- Start date
It's about the choice you assume I should make in one category of things as opposed to another. Yet, you offer no real logical reason why I should.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
It comes down then to the philospohy of science and the defintion of theory.
a. I state there is no observable immaterial component to emotions.
b. you state that there might be.
Okay.
But in the case of the two theories describing human behaviors.
we have
a. a person reports a persistant sad mood.
b. a person reports an experience of god.
Theory A1
There is a physical brain state which creates a persistant sad mood, wether the state is created by an internal imbalance or external stress is irrelevant, there is a persistant state that does not elevate.
Theory A2
There is a sad mood , it is called depression for the sake of human communication.
Between theory A1 and A2, what predicatble outcomes are there which might verify either?
There is no discernable difference, unless we take A2 to mean, there are no physical states involved in a persistant sad mood.
Then we come to the experience of god.
Theory B1
There is some sort of immatterial 'divine' being capable of creating changes in the material world, although his being is immatterial.
Theory B2
There are human experiences which are a consequence of having an organic brain. this experiences are human induced states and they are related to brain states solely.
What about these two theories?
As of yet there is no evidence for a divine being, although any violation of the natural progession of physics would be a clear demonstration of god.
a. I state there is no observable immaterial component to emotions.
b. you state that there might be.
Okay.
But in the case of the two theories describing human behaviors.
we have
a. a person reports a persistant sad mood.
b. a person reports an experience of god.
Theory A1
There is a physical brain state which creates a persistant sad mood, wether the state is created by an internal imbalance or external stress is irrelevant, there is a persistant state that does not elevate.
Theory A2
There is a sad mood , it is called depression for the sake of human communication.
Between theory A1 and A2, what predicatble outcomes are there which might verify either?
There is no discernable difference, unless we take A2 to mean, there are no physical states involved in a persistant sad mood.
Then we come to the experience of god.
Theory B1
There is some sort of immatterial 'divine' being capable of creating changes in the material world, although his being is immatterial.
Theory B2
There are human experiences which are a consequence of having an organic brain. this experiences are human induced states and they are related to brain states solely.
What about these two theories?
As of yet there is no evidence for a divine being, although any violation of the natural progession of physics would be a clear demonstration of god.
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
You miss my point. I'm not making any claims that God exists in this thread.
I'm making the case that when it comes to moods, we change our logic mid-stream sometimes. Something like "depression" is much more likely understood via inductive reasoning than deductive.
Once again, I don't need to outline the defintion of "depression" to understand what sadness means anymore than I need to outline the existence of a specific deity to understand a divine experience.
My point is that the world seems comfortable using inductive reasoning to create some "states," while rejecting others via deduction.
Blutoski has tried to point out that all cultures know what depression is, even if they don't have a name for it. I'm just noting that they also likely all know what the experience of god is as well, even if they don't have a name for it. And I would make a pretty safe bet that more people in the world have had the experience of god, than the experience of depression-- giving us a much safer "sample size" from which to draw our inductions.
As to your theories, I obviously lean toward A2. I didn't really follow the B1 or B2 theories.
People have consistently pointed out to you your own changes in logic mid-stream, and you have yet to explain why you do so. But putting that aside for now...
On the one hand, you insist that depression is "nothing more" than a social construct. On the other hand, you seem to be viewing depression as something that happens in isolation from the rest of the person's life. In other words, you consistently ignore the fact that we know that certain mental states affect people's lives in predictable ways.
If a person says "I believe in God," or even, "I have experienced God's love," do you have any idea what that implies about that person's life? No, you don't, because religion is entirely a social construct, and therefore, you can't tell which behaviors (and other beliefs) will follow from a belief in God, unless you know which God that person believes in. The consequences of a Christian Fundamentalist's belief in God versus the consequences of a Maasai tribesman's belief in God(s) will be very different, even if they are both experiencing the same state of religious feeling.
The same cannot be said of mental disorders. Yes, people are different, and their social circumstances are different, and therefore, everyone will experience, a particular mental disorder a little differently. However, we can predict with a high degree of certainty that someone in the state called depression will behave in ways designed to minimize expended energy, and will have some associated beliefs (hopelessness, for instance). And this will happen no matter the person's social circumstances. That's the difference.
On the one hand, you insist that depression is "nothing more" than a social construct. On the other hand, you seem to be viewing depression as something that happens in isolation from the rest of the person's life. In other words, you consistently ignore the fact that we know that certain mental states affect people's lives in predictable ways.
If a person says "I believe in God," or even, "I have experienced God's love," do you have any idea what that implies about that person's life? No, you don't, because religion is entirely a social construct, and therefore, you can't tell which behaviors (and other beliefs) will follow from a belief in God, unless you know which God that person believes in. The consequences of a Christian Fundamentalist's belief in God versus the consequences of a Maasai tribesman's belief in God(s) will be very different, even if they are both experiencing the same state of religious feeling.
The same cannot be said of mental disorders. Yes, people are different, and their social circumstances are different, and therefore, everyone will experience, a particular mental disorder a little differently. However, we can predict with a high degree of certainty that someone in the state called depression will behave in ways designed to minimize expended energy, and will have some associated beliefs (hopelessness, for instance). And this will happen no matter the person's social circumstances. That's the difference.
Miss Whiplash
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- May 9, 2006
- Messages
- 1,574
Stamenflicker sounds like Tom Cruise spouting Sciencetology. I've suffered from chronic depression for more than 20 years. There is definately an organic reason. Psychotherapy does little but medication does. There is also evidence it is hereditary.
Stamenflicker should have the joy I experienced not long ago. A happy, seemingly well adjusted family member shot themselves out of the blue due to a break with reality. I'm sure he could explain it all away.
Stamenflicker should have the joy I experienced not long ago. A happy, seemingly well adjusted family member shot themselves out of the blue due to a break with reality. I'm sure he could explain it all away.
Last edited:
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
But there is research out there, and probably more would exist should we set our prejudices aside. I would only point you to "The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach" by Hood, et. al. as a place to begin.
The only reason that we can do anything you've posted here is because we first decided that these signs and associated beliefs indicate a state we call "depression." We fail to decide inductively anything about religious states prior to making a deductive analysis of the deity in question.
I think it's kind of categorical to say that there are no psychiatric disorders. But, I'm also skeptical about how and why quite a few are diagnosed. For example, huge numbers of people in recent years have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression) as a lifelong, chronic illness, and have been prescribed various drugs for it. Given that the diagnosis process is a checklist rather than a blood sample or an MRI, and it then effectively sentences someone to a lifetime of taking the drugs, I am a bit skeptical and suspect that the disorder is being overdiagnosed.
Diagnoses of temporary, situational depression, I'm a much less skeptical about. Medication can help smooth things over while while the person works to improve the areas of their life that are depressing them.
Diagnoses of temporary, situational depression, I'm a much less skeptical about. Medication can help smooth things over while while the person works to improve the areas of their life that are depressing them.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
So it gets back to nothing to do with sasz or wether mental illness exists or not but the validity of the report of the person being assessed as having the potential state we refer to as mental illness, in the case of a theist vs. the case of the person with a persistant sad mood the point is one of interpretation.
In the case of the person with the persistant sad mood, there is not the interpretation that an irrational being has possessed them and is creating the persistant sad mood, in the case of the theist the interpretration is that there is an irrational being intervening and doing supernatural things for the theist.
So in terms of the subjective experience, one is saying that they have a persistant sad mood and the other is saying that a divine being has interefered in thier life, the one at least contains q plausible explanation, a persistant biological state which creates a sad mood, while the other involves the biolation of the laws pf physics as we know them.
So make you point because to me , it seems that you are just saying that the report of a persistant sad mood is as ridiculous as the report of god?
This thing we term depression , and they are just terms of convinience in the DSM-IV-R, as aknoledged by the creators of said document, is very similar to pain, gastric distress and dizzyness, those are treated by doctors evrey day, pain is primarily assessed by the report of the person, with a judgement of the validity of the report and observable things that are assumed to be related to the pain, same for gastric upset and GERD or nausea and dizzyness.
It comes down to assessing the validity of the persons' report.
In the case of theism, i assume that the validity of the report is accurate, the person very likely does believe that thier religous practise is beneficial, but the interpretation of the events is where I differ.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
If you ignore the history of psychology from shamanism through it's current mix of art vs, science , yes. But in the begining the theory was demonic possesion or imbalance of spiritual powers.
Then the theory was that these people had psychogenic routes to develop mental illness, the current theories are mixed, there are a minority of practioners who still follow the psychogenic schools.
But most practioners will tell you the same thing, that mental illness has three components, a biological component , a psychological component and a social component. The vast majority of people who seek mental health treatmen recieve it for a very short time, a year or less and thier problems resolve without resort to long term medication, in fact most people seek just talk therapy(which is another issue, as I believe it should never last more than twelve sessions.)
But there are plenty of deductive indicators used in a good assesment, one should ask the person alot more than "Do you have a persistant sad mood?'
The issue in treatment is very rarely , does this person have a biological condition that causes them to have a sad mood? The good practioners will view the individual in all three realms and recomend changes in social and psychological behaviors , medication is considered to reduce the symptoms of the medicaly assumed state, wether they are palative or not is immaterial. The goal is to reduce the symptoms to improve the person's functioning. Most practioners assume that the bulk of people in treatment have exogenous states, that will occur as a result of stress. The ones who seek long term treatment are the ones who appear to have the underlying biological condition, although given the number of people with post traumatic stress disorder, there are a lot of people who have symptoms due to trauma.
And then you were talking about the Zombie Nation of Overtreated Individuals as a side bar, with no evidence that it occurs.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
The diagnosis of bipolar depressive disorder is very difficult and the problem as I see it is the number of general physicians who make the diagnosis. The checklist should always be viewed as what it is, a diagnostic and statistical tool that a physician uses to determine an appropriate label that then leads to succesful treatment.
There are a number of issues in the over diagnosis of bipolar disorder:
a. Hospitals do not recieve reimbursment for treating those with substance induced disorders, so while the correct diagnosis would be 'some condition induced by a substance', you would loose meoney for treating individuals who are at substantial risk of harming themselves or others.
(And as a side bar, it is very hard to get into the hospital in the first place.)
b. The prevalence of individuals who use alcohol, methamphetamine and cocaine. All substances can aggravtae people's lives and give them secondary features of a mental illness. A lack of co-occurrent substance abuse treatment is very detrimental, and the place where GP's often fail.
c. Lack of in depth assessment, most psyciatrists take a short time to do an assesment, 45 mins. to an hour. Something that GP's rarely have time for. There are a lot of people who have post traumatic stress, but you won't find that in a fiveteen minute interview. It usualy takes a lot of time, at least an hour , to get people to trust you enough to discuss trauma. So many people wh9o are diagnosed with bipolar disorder are actualy living with PTSD.
d. The eleventh hour syndrome, people, especialy those looking for help with thier children, almost never get help when the horse is just sticking thier head out the barn door, they usualy get help only after the horse has run away and the barn has burned down. this makea accurate assessment very difficult.
e. Denial: it is such a strong mechanism that iot intereferes in all human interactions, A just interview involves asking the person many clarifing issues, take the last flavor of the month, attention deficit hyperactive disorder', you have to ask the person alot of specific behavioral questions to get a good assessment.A child in school may be harrassed, have a parent beating the crap out of them or a learning disability and they are reffered for 'find out if they have ADHD', it helps to know how the child behaves in all enviroments before making the diagnosis.
f. The 'identified client' syndrome, very often the person seeking treatment is not the one with the actual problem.
Now, there are many bad psychiatrists who just perscribe the crap out of thier favorite meds, and if thier favorite med is a bipolar medication, then off they go.
Stamenflicker,
I'd be quite willing to classify being born again as a kind of psychological state, with a typical set of behaviors and beleifs etc. that is comparable in some ways to being in a state of depression. But as far as I can tell no one here is suggesting that depression is a real experience, adn that being born again isn't. I fail to see what your point is?
Perhaps you believe, that if a person admits that religious experiences are real, they must at the same time admit that the beleifs *behind* the experience must be real too? But this is hardly the case. Going back to depression, many severely depressed people carry negative beleifs about themselves and the world, that are obviously false, but this doesn't make their depression any less real.
Why hold religious "states" to a different standard? (and btw, I happen to beleive many religous experiences, and the beleifs behind them often do have thier origin in an objective reality.)
I'd be quite willing to classify being born again as a kind of psychological state, with a typical set of behaviors and beleifs etc. that is comparable in some ways to being in a state of depression. But as far as I can tell no one here is suggesting that depression is a real experience, adn that being born again isn't. I fail to see what your point is?
Perhaps you believe, that if a person admits that religious experiences are real, they must at the same time admit that the beleifs *behind* the experience must be real too? But this is hardly the case. Going back to depression, many severely depressed people carry negative beleifs about themselves and the world, that are obviously false, but this doesn't make their depression any less real.
Why hold religious "states" to a different standard? (and btw, I happen to beleive many religous experiences, and the beleifs behind them often do have thier origin in an objective reality.)
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
No. The report of a persistant sad mood as being any sort of "thing" lacks evidence, just as there is the report that a person experiences god lack evidence.
That one might be able to find more evidence, or agree on the "thing" we have dubbed depression, is a reflection of human volition, not scientific reason, logic, or empirical fact.
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
Most of this started when I said that I don't really believe in mental illness. On a skeptics board, no less. Perhaps I would have been better to say I'm a mental illness agnostic??
First came a slew of insults hurled at me as being some kind of uncompassionate person.
All that coupled with assertions that it was real-- most of the strongest defenses came from either:
a) a person who has experienced it
b) a person who works in mental health
When pointing this out, I'm accused of sounding like an ID'r. Yet, were this a religious discussion, as a Christian, I expect that my self-reports of anything spiritual in nature would be immediately recognized as biased by my experience. Naturally then, we have to assume that the poster's are trying to tell me that the discussions of religious moods and the discussion of "other moods" are somehow fundamentally different.
I reject this conclusion, and it demonstrates the kind of faulty thinking will one day become in future governments, a source of power over people and their moods. All in the name of benevolence.
If you think I'm wrong then ask yourself why do we even need a Child Medication Safety Act?????
And listen to the APA froth at the mouth over it:
http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/cmsa1170.html
So I'm told basically that these mental "states" which exist because of surveys, studies, reports from highly intelligent observers are to be given power over me by my benevolent benefactors??? Sounds like the Catholic Church of the middle ages to me.
Yes. But the fundamental difference between being born again and being depressed is not that one is a "real" state and the other is not, but that the first has a (usually) positive psychological effect, while the latter is destructive, making it a mental *illness*. and thats the issue here. You're claiming that mental illness *doesn't exist* and mood disorders *don't exist*, and the people here are (rightly so) trying to explain to you why they think you're wrong.
You're also questioning many of the assumptions and much of the authority of the psychiatric community, which I applaud, but I consider the idea that mental disorders don't exist as ludicrious as the idea that religious transformation doesn't exist or occur. Both clearly do.
ok, but whether or not mental illness's exist and whether or not those trusted to treat mental illness's are given far too much authority are two *very* seperate questions.
I agree that coercing parents into medicating their children is reprehensible, and that parents and teachers all too often resort to medicating problems that could be treated in other ways, but again to jump from this to the conclusion that mental illness is merely a social construct with no basis in reality, is way too much for me.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
If you deny the biological basis for human eistance, I don't put mood in the same category as 'free will', which is an illusion. Mood does create physiological changes, and depression does cause changes in PET scans.
I understand that there is solely a subjective report of the moods but I would say that there are observable physical corellates, I am not sure the experience of god shows on PET scans.
aggle-rithm
Ardent Formulist
Also, a depressed person has fewer dendrite connections in their neurons. It's not known whether this is a symptom or the cause, but there's a definite physiological correlation.
Of course, taking a brain biopsy is not a viable option when diagnosing depression.
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
Not really. I'm saying I don't believe in mental illness. In other words, the actuality of mental illness existence is hardly my concern. That one would expect me to put faith in some subjective experiences while simutaneously rejecting others is illogical. I have no problem with illogical beliefs. I have some myself, but no one should be telling me which ones to have when the evidence for them is on its best day, shoddy.
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
The problem with PETS is that you never know if you are seeing the presence of something, or the absence of something else. You never know if something just got switched on, or something else just got switched off.
That is the problem with moods.
stamenflicker
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2004
- Messages
- 869
I've read some of these reports. Unfortunately, they are not consistent. Some people with the same degeneration of dendrites have never been diagnosed as depressed, or shown signs of being depressed.
I hope they find a "definite physiological correlation." I sincerely do. But for now, it just doesn't exist.