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Mental Illness is a social construct
    #12451177 -

"Mental illness must be understood not as a natural fact but as a cultural construct, sustained by a grid of administrative and medico-psychiatric practices.
The history of madness properly written would thus be an account not of disease and its treatment but of questions of freedom and control, knowledge and power."

"Psychiatry is conventionally defined as a medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases. I submit that this definition, which is
still widely accepted, places psychiatry in the company of alchemy and astrology and commits it to the category of pseudoscience."

"Medical men and their supporters have been involved in a self-serving ‘manufacture of madness’, by affixing psychiatric labels to people who are social pests, odd, or challenging. And in this orgy of stigmatization, organic psychiatrists have been no less to blame than Freud and his followers, whose invention of the Unconscious (Szasz alleges) breathed new life into defunct metaphysics of the mindand theologies of the soul."

Discuss


quotes taken from "Madness: A Brief History"

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: morrowasted]
    #12451240 -

morrowasted said:
"Mental illness must be understood not as a natural fact but as a cultural construct, sustained by a grid of administrative and medico-psychiatric practices.
The history of madness properly written would thus be an account not of disease and its treatment but of questions of freedom and control, knowledge and power."

"Psychiatry is conventionally defined as a medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases. I submit that this definition, which is
still widely accepted, places psychiatry in the company of alchemy and astrology and commits it to the category of pseudoscience."

"Medical men and their supporters have been involved in a self-serving ‘manufacture of madness’, by affixing psychiatric labels to people who are social pests, odd, or challenging. And in this orgy of stigmatization, organic psychiatrists have been no less to blame than Freud and his followers, whose invention of the Unconscious (Szasz alleges) breathed new life into defunct metaphysics of the mindand theologies of the soul."

Discuss


quotes taken from "Madness: A Brief History"



You've obviously never talked to 30 year old woman who thinks people are watching them. This lady would go on walks around town, wander into a high school, wander into the office and begin yelling at people that they "are coming to get you".

Which, I mean, is totally normal behavior right? I mean, of course people are actually watching her buy groceries and 'they' really are going to come get the office people at the high school right? This lady is a hero for warning those folks not insane, right? Oh wait, she was totally bat shit crazy.


--------------------
"Life sucks but in this really beautiful way" - Axl Rose
"Life's a bitch and then you die that's why we get high cuz you never know when you're gonna go." - NAS
"When people don't know what you're about they put you down and shut you out" - Black Sabbath
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Gandhi
"Look up at me I am God, look down on me and I am evil, look at me I am you." - Charles Manson.
"Don't question my reality." - Me (as far as I know)

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: SlashOZ]
    #12451269 -

Mental illness may be a social construct.

But it's a construct that we as society have created to describe mentally ill people.

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: SlashOZ]
    #12451290 -

SlashOZ said:
morrowasted said:
"Mental illness must be understood not as a natural fact but as a cultural construct, sustained by a grid of administrative and medico-psychiatric practices.
The history of madness properly written would thus be an account not of disease and its treatment but of questions of freedom and control, knowledge and power."

"Psychiatry is conventionally defined as a medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases. I submit that this definition, which is
still widely accepted, places psychiatry in the company of alchemy and astrology and commits it to the category of pseudoscience."

"Medical men and their supporters have been involved in a self-serving ‘manufacture of madness’, by affixing psychiatric labels to people who are social pests, odd, or challenging. And in this orgy of stigmatization, organic psychiatrists have been no less to blame than Freud and his followers, whose invention of the Unconscious (Szasz alleges) breathed new life into defunct metaphysics of the mindand theologies of the soul."

Discuss


quotes taken from "Madness: A Brief History"



You've obviously never talked to 30 year old woman who thinks people are watching them. This lady would go on walks around town, wander into a high school, wander into the office and begin yelling at people that they "are coming to get you".

Which, I mean, is totally normal behavior right? I mean, of course people are actually watching her buy groceries and 'they' really are going to come get the office people at the high school right? This lady is a hero for warning those folks not insane, right? Oh wait, she was totally bat shit crazy.


What the author is suggesting is that it is a new phenomenon to say that "abnormality = illness"; that the illnesses we talk about are only relevant within the context of the metaphysical understanding of the culture in which they are created

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: morrowasted]
    #12451308 -

"metaphysical understanding of the culture"

what kind of understanding about culture could be metaphysical?

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: appleorange]
    #12451321 -

appleorange said:
"metaphysical understanding of the culture"

what kind of understanding about culture could be metaphysical?


the predominant metaphysical understanding of the culture

as in, the understanding of metaphysics which is predominant among the people of a culture.

in our case, materialism

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: morrowasted]
    #12452967 -

Some ones never been to a physic ward.
My favorite one was the break dancing 50year old women who though her pillow was a boom box. The scary thing is she was crazy good  :breakdancing:


--------------------
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.


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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: trekie]
    #12452974 -

trekie said:
Some ones never been to a physic ward.
My favorite one was the break dancing 50year old women who though her pillow was a boom box. The scary thing is she was crazy good  :breakdancing:


a psychic ward?

actually, I have been to four of them. that's why I care enough to make this thread

because I know I am not crazy.

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: morrowasted]
    #12452991 -

Yeah it is a social construct in some ways.  That doesn't mean it's inappropriate to label people who leave consensus reality as "mentally ill." But I definitely think a new understanding of mentally disturbed people is needed in our society.

My biggest problem is just how easy it is for doctors to slap a label on a person, "you're schizophrenic," when the nature of the mind is inherently transitory and subject to change, but all the while a person is just stuck with some label. That's why schizophrenia is a bullshit term, it's just an umbrella label for crazy shit that doctors don't really understand.


--------------------
check out my music!
drowse in prison and your waking will be but loss

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: morrowasted]
    #12453030 -

The real problem is that doctors are starting to categorize personality traits into disorders and illnesses. It is getting to the point where any given normal sane individual could be diagnosed with multiple mental "illnesses" and be prescribed a cocktail of pharmies to "fix" their supposed problem, when there is nothing "wrong" with them.

People hallucinating and talking to things that are not there, wearing boxes on their feet, etc etc imo can be considered ill and should receive proper treatment. (before they go on a rampage, or hurt themselves, or incubate the next plague) they should be given showers first and foremost IMO. you can't have good mental hygiene until you have good bodily hygiene imo.


--------------------
You are at once
both
the quiet
and
the confusion
of my heart.
-Franz Kafka

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: trekie]
    #12453041 -

trekie said:
Some ones never been to a physic ward.
My favorite one was the break dancing 50year old women who though her pillow was a boom box. The scary thing is she was crazy good  :breakdancing:


:ilold:


--------------------

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: Bridgeburner]
    #12453127 -

A good part of my job is dealing with these types of people. I am by no means saying lock them all up but there are people out there who are bat shit insane. To say otherwise is just :retawed:

The sad thing is so many of them have no place to go so they rotate from homelessness to jail to mental wards instead of just being institutionalized  like they should be. Thanks Regan for getting rid of that  for us.

Others just need a middle ground  either like a halfway house or Just having someone check on them every once in awhile would save tons on our health care/prison system plus its the right thing to do.
I would say my quality of life would improve if I wasn't sleeping under a bridge shitty myself scream bin lidens in that house over there


--------------------
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.


Edited by trekie (04/25/10 11:12 AM)

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: g00ru]
    #12453131 -

I think the product of having someone labeled to is, them fulfilling such a label, say someone is vaguely depressed, goes to the shrink and bam he's labled as depressed, gets rx'd pills, attends therapy, and is constantly told he/she is depressed. The mind is a powerful thing, subject to influence, and can be manipulated in ways that which we are not fully aware of sometimes. Labels are powerful things, and dangerous in ways, we should be more careful how we go about these things. Sometimes they can be more harmful then medicinal., just seems like alot of times once that label is applied, there is no longer any investigation into what might be wrong, just more motivation to cure this 'illness', that which we've labeled. The sad thing is that most times drs will just label people so quickly to sell Rx drugs. Its sad that drug companies have so much influence in how we treat people.  :cryariver: :thumbdown: I agree tho, the way in which we apply and come about these labels, needs to be redeveloped, learn from what we know, learn from our mistakes. The thing is however, that none of this will really change, so long as these companies are allowed to continue to grip the proverbial ballsack. :facepalm:


--------------------


∞
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
- Simone de Beauvoir -

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: trekie]
    #12453143 -

trekie said:
Some ones never been to a physic ward.



a physic ward sounds intense. :banana:


--------------------


∞
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
- Simone de Beauvoir -

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: snoot]
    #12453159 -

I agree with the author, but there's a problem. If abnormality doesn't equal illness that's fine, but these people cannot function normally in the dominant society. Is it wrong for a person to go around murdering children? Perhaps not, but what is the answer? Should we let that person go about their day so that we do not infringe on their rights as a person?

I've always found it interesting when people like Christ are argued to be Schizos because to me it makes a lot of sense. In a world before psychology such things could be seen and often were seen as "the voice of God". If there's a voice in your head why wouldn't it be God 5,000 years ago? When you look at it that way its interesting to see that the "abnormal" persuaded the general public.

Look at people like Nikola Tesla; The man was an absolute genius, perhaps one of the smartest men of all time and yet he was "insane". He thought that aliens were talking to him and people called him crazy for it, but maybe they were communicating with him?

The line between genius and insanity is thin, but does there have to be a line? People of history who have been "overachievers" seem to be on another level than the rest of the world. Even a person like Mozart makes an average human's intelligence seem closer to an Ape's. If you've seen "Waking Life' you'll recgonize the line which pretty much states, "People like Neitzche and Aristotle are more evolved from man than man is from Apes". Many struggle to understand music theory on a basic level. Mozart could compose symphonies in his head while holding a conversation.

I feel I've gotten off track with this, but I thought it was worth pointing out.


--------------------
With Allure I Look to the Sky With Awakened Eyes

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Re: Mental Illness is a social construct [Re: morrowasted]
    #12453229 -

In my hometown, there is a vietnam vet who walks around humping telephone poles and having imaginary conversations with people, things and objects that aren't really there.

I'm sure he's fine and that his mental illness is simply a "social construct".

I bet the best thing for him, would be to try and figure out what is really bothering him, and to fix his "inner soul". 

Or maybe some should remind him that mental illness isn't real.  It's just a way for big pharma to make money.  Hey, now that I think about it, I bet big pharma is paying him to act that way.


--------------------
...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge.  It is an indellible experience; it is forever known.  I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.

Smith, P.  Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.

...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.

Osmond, H.  Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436

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