I though this deserved its own thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzNcY-gZdiA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJUGM2mi9I&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsh6-GN-9Q0&feature=relmfu

Wow, what a pile of propaganda. The narrative is this - game theory has equations that rest on the assumption that humans are self-interested and this assumption leads to the belief that society can self-organize (you don't need government) but only at the cost of becoming paranoid. The assumption that humans are selfish, avaricious, etc. becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the structures for social assistance (government bureaucracies) are dismantled by the ideologues of this self-organized - yet paranoid - social order.

The last segment takes on psychiatry. Here's the wonderful Dr. Szasz taking on psychiatry:

Clayton -

I took something different from it, although I not sure it was the intended conclusion. I thought of it as: humans have goals, these goals are strived after in order to have personal gain, this striving after goals benefits everyone.

Even things like charities can be thought of as self-interested because they are the personal goals of some individuals, people feel good by giving.

I also thought that it was a more scientific way of looking at problems. They took, what I thought to be, a approach very similar to praxeology. They used the assumption that people are self-interested and behave likewise.

As for Szasz, watch all 6 parts of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk691rHIrkE&feature=relmfu

The film seems to ignore or at least fails to emphasise cooperative equilibria that arise from selfish action.  On this and its relation to economics and ordered anarchy, see in particular Anthony de Jasay, Social Contract, Free Ride and Political Philosophy, Clearly.  He draws upon game theory to demonstrate that activities in these cooperative equilibria lead to the creation of self-enforcing customs.

As for the supposed 'paranoia', I suppose this is nothing more than the old comment that 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilence'.

As for the supposed 'paranoia', I suppose this is nothing more than the old comment that 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilence'.

Yeah, it's the consequence of self-ownership. Sure, a slaveowner has an interest in protecting you so that you will not need to protect yourself. He may not even mistreat you even though he is able to. But you're still a slave. It is true that if you own yourself, you are completely responsible for your own life. I think that's a fair trade and I think almost everyone in history who's ever been given this choice has agreed.

Clayton -

As for Szasz, watch all 6 parts of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk691rHIrkE&feature=relmfu

He makes a clearly false comparison near the end by claiming that scientology coerces treatment despite explaining that there is a consent form in advance.  Psychiatry requires no consent for forced treatment under any circumstance whatsoever.  As terrible as scientology is, psychiatry is a far greater threat.

He completely skips addressing the main issue despite noting it at the beginning.  There is no theoretical limit to the range of behaviour that psychiatry can use as excuse for forced treatment.  Given that the World Federation for Mental Health still claims to be based on its original principles, there is no reason to suspect that a limit is intended.  Steve Wiseman may not subscribe to that doctrine; but, he is not an important person compared to those at the top in the psychiatric associations.

 The narrative is this - game theory has equations that rest on the assumption that humans are self-interested and this assumption leads to the belief that society can self-organize (you don't need government) but only at the cost of becoming paranoid.

If the cost of freedom is paranoia, the cost of pronoia is servitude.

Pronoia:  The delusional belief that a grand, benevolent conspiracy exists to aid you.

He makes a clearly false comparison near the end by claiming that scientology coerces treatment despite explaining that there is a consent form in advance.  Psychiatry requires no consent for forced treatment under any circumstance whatsoever.  As terrible as scientology is, psychiatry is a far greater threat.

I don't think scientology was the main point of his argument. Although I agree with you on one level, rather than being pedantic and calling out every single one of his errors, look at his mmain argument and try to critique that. As he showed by Szasz's definition of mental illness makes it impossible to have mental illness, and Szazs's argument is circular. As for scientology I don't see it as being any better or worse than any other religion.

He completely skips addressing the main issue despite noting it at the beginning.  There is no theoretical limit to the range of behaviour that psychiatry can use as excuse for forced treatment.  Given that the World Federation for Mental Health still claims to be based on its original principles, there is no reason to suspect that a limit is intended.  Steve Wiseman may not subscribe to that doctrine; but, he is not an important person compared to those at the top in the psychiatric associations.

As for forced treatment, I do not agree with it, but it is not a very common thing, and pretty much everything that can be done to prevent it is. Also, you must be deemed an imminent danger to your own life, or the life of others. But this was not really the main point of his argument. The main point he was trying to get across was that mental health is not a myth.

 

 

 

The main point he was trying to get across was that mental health is not a myth.

I don't have a criticism of that.

Also, you must be deemed an imminent danger to your own life, or the life of others.

That is the boundary of current law, not a principle of psychiatry.  The WMFH concerns itself with all social behaviour.

I don't know much about Szasz' views.  Wiseman's argument here reduces simply to that Szasz is committing a continuum fallacy.  In making that case, he appeals to pure situational sense as the basis for defining mental illness.  That begs the question of what makes psychiatry justified as a separately defined branch of medicine, or what makes a psychiatrist better than a surgeon or a bum on the street in that regard.  My dad worked in Canada's biggest hospital for 10 years.  I know what goes on in those wards in hilarious detail.  I can see how psychiatry could be considered a specialization.  But, what goes on in a hospital and the general arc of psychiatry are different.  The general arc of psychiatry is to arrogate to itself the final word on acceptable social behaviour and inculcate that into everyone.

Aside from cases of coercion, psychiatry tries to circumvent having to directly coerce people by (a) elevating its sheer opinion on what is healthy behaviour to persuade adoption of its "treatment" and (b) surreptitiously controlling general government policy* under the auspices of "mental health".  In government programs in previous decades, they used appeal to authority to convince masses of people to volunteer for sterilization.  In other programs, all over the west, not just Germany, people were forcibly surgically sterilized.  As I said in your previous thread, the elephant in the room with Wiseman is that psychiatry acts like a proselytizing religion, imposing its doctrine about what is healthy on everyone else, rather than only responding to people that seek help.

*Women and Mental Health

As we have noted above, investing in the health, education, and well-being of women is of high priority for improving the mental health of populations in low and middle income countries. The World Bank's 1993 World Development Report clearly demonstrates that educating women to primary school level is the single most important determinant of both their own and their children's health. World Mental Health (1995) indicates women's education is an equally valuable investment for the mental health of women, men and children. Such education also renders women less likely to tolerate domestic violence and abuse, or the spending of substantial portions of the family income on drinking or gambling by their spouses. Educated women are also more likely to be receptive to and engaged, as equal partners, in public health programs.

As you can see above, Wiseman's examples of mental illness don't quite capture the essence of mental health to psychiatry as a whole.

That is the boundary of current law, not a principle of psychiatry.

It might be the current law, but, as far as I know, it is also a rule among psychiatrist.

That begs the question of what makes psychiatry justified as a separately defined branch of medicine, or what makes a psychiatrist better than a surgeon or a bum on the street in that regard.

What justifies neurology being defined as a seperate branch of medicine? It deals with different problems than gynocology, etc.

psychiatry tries to circumvent having to directly coerce people by (a) elevating its sheer opinion on what is healthy behaviour to persuade adoption of its "treatment" and (b) surreptitiously controlling general government policy* under the auspices of "mental health".

This is not true. Psychiatrists are often reluctant to ''treat'' people. They don't merely have a set of behaviours which they classify as abnormal. They will only treat someone if people meet a certain criteria and claim that the ''illness'' is preventing the from functioning. If someone complains to a psychiatrist about having hallucinations they will not necessarily be treated for it. they may be made aware that the problem could escalate and begin to affect the functioning but would not be forced if they were indeed telling the truth. The psychiatrist may ask to see a friend or family member with the patients permission. Now, if the friend or family member claims that the person has been seen conversing with hallucinations and committing acts under the order of hallucinations, and their level of efficiency has deteriorated; well then it is obvious that the person is not functioning and need help.

Finally, I don't believe that psychiatrists are part of some conspiracy to subdue the population. I think maybe in North America doctors are much quicker to hand out medicine and diagnose, but this should be considered mal-practice, rather than believing psychiatry is a pseudo science.

 

 

What justifies neurology being defined as a seperate branch of medicine? It deals with different problems than gynocology, etc.

Wiseman leaves open the question of whether treatment should be prescribed without any specific physiological understanding of symptoms such as in his example.  A psychiatrist should only act as a researcher in such cases until there is a physiological understanding upon which to base treatment, unless we understand it as common sense treatment rather than esoteric voodoo.  He doesn't say whether the advancements over the past 50 years involved that change in principle, which is rather important given the history.  I don't buy ye olde psychiatrist's couch therapy.  I don't know enough about neurology to know what that leaves remaining.

Psychiatrists are often reluctant to ''treat'' people. They don't merely have a set of behaviours which they classify as abnormal. They will only treat someone if people meet a certain criteria and claim that the ''illness'' is preventing the from functioning.

That is only in cases where someone goes to a psychiatrist on his own initiative.  10% of kids don't claim dysfunction.  They are indoctrinated into thinking they are dysfunctional by schools and their psychiatric lapdogs.

Finally, I don't believe that psychiatrists are part of some conspiracy to subdue the population. I think maybe in North America doctors are much quicker to hand out medicine and diagnose, but this should be considered mal-practice, rather than believing psychiatry is a pseudo science.

It's a systematic mal-practice based on a principle unifying a class of psychiatrists everywhere.  If the international and national psychiatric associations were honest, they would admit that much of what they do is not specialized and requires a medical education no more than a junky requires one to know that snorting cocaine will get him high.  "Getting an education and a good job will improve my mental health.  Hurr Hurr."

Wiseman leaves open the question of whether treatment should be prescribed without any specific physiological understanding of symptoms such as in his example.  A psychiatrist should only act as a researcher in such cases until there is a physiological understanding upon which to base treatment, unless we understand it as common sense treatment rather than esoteric voodoo. 

Well doctors don't know what the cause of migraines is, yet they treat them. Do you think that medication for migraines should be taken off the market.

I don't buy ye olde psychiatrist's couch therapy.  I don't know enough about neurology to know what that leaves remaining.

CBT some of the best results for certain disorders. Why don't you buy it?

That is only in cases where someone goes to a psychiatrist on his own initiative.  10% of kids don't claim dysfunction.  They are indoctrinated into thinking they are dysfunctional by schools and their psychiatric lapdogs.

No they aren't.

It's a systematic mal-practice based on a principle unifying a class of psychiatrists everywhere.  If the international and national psychiatric associations were honest, they would admit that much of what they do is not specialized and requires a medical education no more than a junky requires one to know that snorting cocaine will get him high.  "Getting an education and a good job will improve my mental health.  Hurr Hurr."

Are you actually serious? Do you know how much training psychiatrists need? The need to have an indepth knowledge of mental disorders aswell as all the various medications. The are often well over a dozen medications for one disorder aswell a several therapies to help them.

Well doctors don't know what the cause of migraines is, yet they treat them. Do you think that medication for migraines should be taken off the market.

Migraine medication is based on changes in blood vessel tone.  It would be impossible to create a medication without that starting point unless they threw random chemicals into a beaker.  There's really no excuse for medication without physiological basis these days.

CBT some of the best results for certain disorders. Why don't you buy it?

If you can't point to anything physiological you are essentially engaging in heuristics and anyone can do that.  If there is substantial difference between the control group and treatment group for a particular tchnique, that speaks for itself.  Until then that technique should be advertised as research.

No they aren't.

*Shrug* I go by the enormous amount of people that report otherwise, including people that I've known.

Are you actually serious?  Do you know how much training psychiatrists need?

I'm as serious as WFMH is serious.  I can only hope that their crankery does not feed into the training in schools.

Mon. 12/06/18 20:24 EDT
.post #172

Vladimir Ulyanov:

As for Szasz, watch all 6 parts of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk691rHIrkE&feature=relmfu

Transcript of Dr. Wiseman’s talk about Dr. Thomas Szasz


Up until 2:50 of part 1, Wiseman does a tolerable job of representing some of Szasz's ideas.
But then, at 3:20, Wiseman says this:

In fact, what he (Szasz) talks about, what he's talked about his entire career, as far as I can tell, are simply words and definitions.

Wiseman's vista doesn't extend very far, then. Wiseman's ignorant statement suggests to me that he hasn't even read one of Szasz's books, let alone all thirty-five of them. By trying to trivialize something he hasn't even taken the time or trouble to understand, he tells us more about his own lack of knowledge than he does about Szasz's ideas.

Szasz doesn't deny psychiatric symptoms.

Szasz neither denies nor affirms "psychiatric symptoms."
Szasz doesn't couch discussion of behavior in medical terminology.

What Szasz denies is that behaviors labelled "psychiatric symptoms" are, in fact, symptoms. Psychiatrists (like Wiseman) use medical-sounding language ("diagnose," "symptom," "disorder," "treat," "medicate") to create the impression that behavior is illness/disease or somehow the province of medicine/doctoring.


Not only does Wiseman misunderstand what Szasz says, he mispronounces Szasz's name (and also Descartes's name). It underscores a fundamental lack of scholarship concerning the subject on which he pontificates.

Vladimir Ulyanov:

As he showed by Szasz's definition of mental illness makes it impossible to have mental illness, ...

Vladimir, there is no "Szasz's definition of mental illness."

Szasz does not attempt to define "mental illness."
Szasz recognizes that some people have strange ways of behaving, but rejects the idea that such behavior is illness, "mental" or otherwise. Behavior can never be illness (or, for that matter, health); the two things are entirely and categorically different.

As he showed ... Szazs's [SIC - It's spelled "Szasz"] argument is circular.

Wiseman's actual words are "It's an entirely circular logic." But has Wiseman "showed" this, or merely asserted it? And has Wiseman "showed" that the behavior he calls "mental illness" is, in fact, illness, or has he merely assumed it? Has he questioned this assumption? Can Wiseman tell me how "the mind," which is just a concept, an abstraction, can possibly be "ill"?

Illness is an affliction of the body; illness does not, indeed can not, "afflict" concepts and abstractions like "the mind."

Tues. 12/06/19 17:20 EDT
.post #174

Steve Wiseman:

In Szasz’s world, hypertension is not an illness.

Thomas Szasz:

It's used in metaphoric ways also - well life is complicated, but the fact is if you are an average person and you decide you should have a check up, you know you're 55 and your family history is not so good and you decide to make an appointment with a good doctor. The chances are that you will be sent two or three weeks before the appointment to a laboratory where they will take four or five tubes of blood and all kinds of routine tests are done. Possibly you will be sent to a radiologist to have your chest X-ray taken. Only then will the doctor see you. Now what is he looking for? He's looking for whether you have tuberculosis, or do you have AIDS, or syphilis, or hypertension, diabetes and so on. He is examining your body, your body fluids. But this is not what psychiatrists do.

Wiseman is clearly flat-out wrong here. As this easy-to-find quote makes manifest, Szasz most assuredly does consider hypertension to be illness. But I knew that before even looking up the quote. Why? Because, unlike Wiseman, I understand the difference between a literal disease and a metaphor.

Steve Wiseman:

(Szasz) also has nothing to say about pain.

"Nothing to say"? Szasz wrote an entire book on pain, in 1957: Pain And Pleasure.
Wiseman didn't have to read the book to know this; all he had to do was look at Szasz's bibliography.
Did he even do that much? Evidently not.

Steve Wiseman:

We haven't talked about Dr. Thomas Szasz’s hypocrisy, however, and that, in my opinion, is probably the most egregious issue against him that is coming up as we look at this topic. ... he’s merely stated in public that he is not a Scientologist, ... So we would, getting back to Dr. Szasz, we would challenge Dr. Thomas Szasz right now to identify any meaningful way that the Introspection Rundown of Scientology differs morally from traditional coercive psychiatric practice. We would ask him why he has given his support, legitimacy and sustenance to this organization for over forty years when this policy has been on the book, this IR policy has been on the books and has been very publicly practiced by Scientology for many, many years.

Wiseman is really reaching here. He wants us to think Szasz, who Wiseman admits "is not a Scientologist," has nevertheless "... given his support, legitimacy and sustenance to this organization for over forty years." Maybe Wiseman knows something about Szasz the rest of us don't? What "support, legitimacy and sustenance" is Wiseman talking about? He doesn't say.

Wiseman also "... challenge(s) Dr. Thomas Szasz right now to identify any meaningful way that the Introspection Rundown of Scientology differs morally from traditional coercive psychiatric practice." I think the difference between something that's voluntary (religion) and something that's coercive and non-voluntary (psychiatry) is pretty "meaningful."

Steve Wiseman:

We finally call on Dr. Szasz, before his death, to renounce [sic] Scientology institutional practices, ...

This is rich. Wiseman, the tax-funded advocate of psychiatric/state coercion and aggression against innocent persons, calls on Szasz to "renounce" some voluntary Scientological practice. But how can Szasz "renounce" a policy he's never in the first place embraced? Szasz has already stated he's not a Scientologist, so there is nothing to "renounce." Does Wiseman mean denounce? I would call on Wiseman to renounce his love of psychiatric coercion.

I love how Wiseman throws in the gratuitous, superfluous "before his death."
Does Wiseman think this "renunciation" could occur after Szasz dies?

There are two separate issues which are getting confused.

The first issue is competency. This is not a medical issue, it is a legal issue. Is a person competent to speak on their own behalf in a legal dispute? Children, advanced Alzheimer's patients, mental handicaps and psychotics are all examples of incompetents. Decision-making power over such individuals must be assigned to another, competent individual, who is then a trustee, advocate, guardian ad litem, etc.

The second issue is disease. Szasz's quote is like a punch to the face: behavior is not a disease. You don't go to the doctor and say "I have this tennis problem, I keep playing tennis and then I get tennis elbow", you go to the doctor and say, "I'm having this pain in my elbow" and he then diagnoses that pain and may ask if you play sports and may suggest that your sports-playing is causing the sore elbow.

Mental disease is no different. It's not something that you "get diagnosed" with. Dis-ease is something that puts you out of ease. If nothing's bothering you, you don't have a disease. Not one of the children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD would ever go to a doctor and seek relief from his "hyperactivity issues". But he will ask his parents for headache medicine or stomachache medicine.

The entire concept of behavioral diseases is a contradiction of terms. "He's not acting right. He must have a disease." No, you have parenting problem and you are either too lazy or ignorant or both to apply elementary principles of parenting and instruct and correct your child's misbehavior. But your laziness and ignorance are more precious to you than caring for the interests of your child, so you reach for the one thing that will allow you to remain lazy and ignorant: drugs. And the doctors and Big Pharma are waiting for you with wide-open embrace. "Lazy parent? Ignorant parent? We have just the cure! It's methamphetamine but we called it something different so you don't have to feel guilty for drugging your child and it's all conveniently packaged under the rubric of behavior disease. Just come in to one of our doctors who will quickly and conveniently diagnose your child with ADD/ADHD and prescribe high doses of powerful drugs that leave your child in a drug-induced stupor that his teachers will appluad as 'good behavior'. And the best part is that you get to remain lazy and ignorant!"

Clayton -

I don't think I agree with that at all, Clayton. Behavior is a product of the brain, and while it might not be classified as a 'disease' strictly speaking, it can easily be the product of an illness. Blaming the parent or environment is easy, but often wrong. For example, read 'Phantoms in the Brain' or any neuroscience book about how different brains (including damaged ones) influence behavior.

Sun. 12/08/05 22:59 EDT
.post #231

zefreak:

I don't think I agree with that at all, Clayton. Behavior is a product of the brain, and while it might not be classified as a 'disease' strictly speaking, it can easily be the product of an illness. Blaming the parent or environment is easy, but often wrong. For example, read 'Phantoms in the Brain' or any neuroscience book about how different brains (including damaged ones) influence behavior.

From page 273 of The Myth Of Mental Illness, 2010 edition:

Thomas Szasz:

I took up the profession of psychiatry in part to combat the contention that abnormal behaviors are the products of abnormal brains.

Well I obviously think he is wrong, and his conclusion doesn't really make since in the context of modern cognitive science and psychology. Decades of research has pretty strongly shown that materialism - 1, Szasz - 0

Behavior is a product of the brain, and while it might not be classified as a 'disease' strictly speaking, it can easily be the product of an illness.

 

Behavior is not a product of the brain, it is a product of the nervous system (to which the brain belongs).  And that an actual physical disorder can produce alterations in brain function does not conflict with Szasz.

For example, read 'Phantoms in the Brain' or any neuroscience book about how different brains (including damaged ones) influence behavior.

 

In the case of "undamaged" brains they can no more prove the brain to be the culprit than they can the kidneys.  The brain is the central operations station of the nervous system, the warehouse, where all sensory information is received and classified.  The brain doesn't make judgments, it recalls and processes the factors to make judgments based on its store of empirical information.  If the information you've saved to that point leads to behaviors that are not consistent with what others might deem a "healthy" set of behaviors, that is not consistent with an actual physical disorder of the brain.  Your brain is not diseased because it remembers.  That's the point.

"The brain doesn't make judgments, it recalls and processes the factors to make judgments based on its store of empirical information. "

It recalls and processes the factors to make judgements AND THEN MAKES THE JUDGEMENTS. If not it, what?

I agree that 'healthy' is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, but then again that doesn't seem to be Szasz' point. After all, he isn't writing about how there is no such thing as disease or sickness.

What would Szasz say about a patient with hemispatial neglect? Would he not consider some of their behavior diseased, as it can cause delusions resulting from their illness?

If a patient believes that her own arm is her husbands, and denies all evidence to the contrary, and such a believe is the product of a brain disorder, what would you call such irrational beliefs? Irrational beliefs tend towards irrational behavior, after all.

Sat. 12/08/11 12:05 EDT
.post #232

zefreak:

Well I obviously think he is wrong, ...

What effort are you making to challenge your beliefs?
Which of Szasz's books have you read?

zefreak:

... and his conclusion doesn't really make since in the context of modern cognitive science and psychology.

In the context of sensible speaking, writing, and talking, however, Szasz makes perfect sense.

zefreak:

Decades of research has pretty strongly shown that materialism - 1, Szasz - 0

A moment's reflection on the proper and truthful use of language pretty strongly shows that Szasz - 1, psychobabble - 0.

zefreak:

What would Szasz say about a patient with hemispatial neglect?

Hemispatial Neglect

... is a neuropsychological condition in which, after damage to one hemisphere of the brain is sustained, a deficit in attention to and awareness of one side of space is observed. It is defined by the inability for a person to process and perceive stimuli on one side of the body or environment that is not due to a lack of sensation.

So, the expression "Hemispatial Neglect" refers to a symptom of brain damage.
I think Szasz would assert the simple fact that symptoms are not diseases.

zefreak:

Would he not consider some of their behavior diseased, ...

I think Szasz would assert the simple fact that behavior can only be "diseased" in a metaphorical but not a literal sense.

zefreak:

... as it can cause delusions resulting from their illness?

I'm not sure it's correct to call damage "illness" (although, it might be). For example, damage to the thumb, while impairing one's ability to grasp certain objects, isn't necessarily "disease" or "illness." We might get all fancy and call the impairment of grasping ability "Semi-Pollical Neglect," but all we're doing is creating a fancy expression for the impaired utility of the hand due to thumb damage.  It's not a name for the thumb damage itself; that's just called "thumb damage."


One of the symptoms of brain damage is "Hemispatial Neglect," or "delusions."

Body organs (such as the brain) can be literally ill, diseased, or damaged;
behavior and symptoms cannot.
Behavior and symptoms can only be "ill," "diseased," or "damaged" in a metaphorical sense.

Mental disease is no different. It's not something that you "get diagnosed" with. Dis-ease is something that puts you out of ease. If nothing's bothering you, you don't have a disease. Not one of the children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD would ever go to a doctor and seek relief from his "hyperactivity issues". But he will ask his parents for headache medicine or stomachache medicine.

thank you Clayton. Both of these are worth repeating

The entire concept of behavioral diseases is a contradiction of terms. "He's not acting right. He must have a disease." No, you have parenting problem and you are either too lazy or ignorant or both to apply elementary principles of parenting and instruct and correct your child's misbehavior. But your laziness and ignorance are more precious to you than caring for the interests of your child, so you reach for the one thing that will allow you to remain lazy and ignorant: drugs. And the doctors and Big Pharma are waiting for you with wide-open embrace. "Lazy parent? Ignorant parent? We have just the cure! It's methamphetamine but we called it something different so you don't have to feel guilty for drugging your child and it's all conveniently packaged under the rubric of behavior disease. Just come in to one of our doctors who will quickly and conveniently diagnose your child with ADD/ADHD and prescribe high doses of powerful drugs that leave your child in a drug-induced stupor that his teachers will appluad as 'good behavior'. And the best part is that you get to remain lazy and ignorant!"

I'll do the forum a favor of ignoring your snarky comments and simply comment on what I think the main issue is.

The original comment that I replied to posited that behavior was a product of bad upbringing, poor parenting or other environmental factors not including genetics or brain development. He was doing the equivelant of blaming the victim and seemingly ignoring decades of neuroscience and psychology to do so.

He attributed this position to Szasz.

Then someone posted the following:

"I took up the profession of psychiatry in part to combat the contention that abnormal behaviors are the products of abnormal brains."

Does this mean that Szasz

a) doesn't believe that abnormal behaviors exist, but believes that abnormal brains exist

b) believes that abnormal behaviors exist, but doesn't think they are caused by abnormal brains

If his contention is A, it is a poor way of wording it/was interpreted incorrectly by the person who posted it in response to my comment.

If B, I think he is wrong and that shouldn't be controversial.

 

 

"Not one of the children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD would ever go to a doctor and seek relief from his "hyperactivity issues". But he will ask his parents for headache medicine or stomachache medicine."

I have personal experience with someone who sought relief from his ADHD because he was unable to focus and his grades were suffering.

I also don't think "something that bothers you" is an accepted definition of disease. I'm pretty sure most people would consider someone with palsy to have a disease, even if they never left their computer and the symptoms didn't bother him.

I have personal experience with someone who sought relief from his ADHD because he was unable to focus and his grades were suffering.

more detail please. Can you honestly say this person sought relief from adhd or was he forced to go to a doctor in order to get drugs that allowed him to cope with the monotonous tasks he was forced to perform? Where did this individual live, and how many armed men were tasked with, among other responsibilities, making sure that this individual was in his assigned forced education camps for about 13 years? Or was this in college where its commonly understood that amphetamines and cannabis are an excellent combination for long bouts of study?

I also don't think "something that bothers you" is an accepted definition of disease. I'm pretty sure most people would consider someone with palsy to have a disease, even if they never left their computer and the symptoms didn't bother him.

who cares what they think, if the individual in question is happy?

It was in high school. He honestly approached his parents about getting help. The state is evil and compulsory education is brainwashing. I get it.

 

"I also don't think "something that bothers you" is an accepted definition of disease. I'm pretty sure most people would consider someone with palsy to have a disease, even if they never left their computer and the symptoms didn't bother him."

"who cares what they think, if the individual in question is happy?"

Do you like communicating with other people? If so, you might want to make it a habit to use terms in ways that are generally accepted, unless you want to spend half an hour defining your own peculiar terminology every time you meet someone. And having a disease isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the individual isn't bothered by it, he doesn't need to treat its symptoms. It doesn't mean the underlying condition doesn't exist.

You are using disease as if it held moral weight. It doesn't.

The only thing that matters is the perspective of the patient. Although I think I fell into a trap there with your example, as palsy has physical symptoms. But in order to be diagnosed, he would have to submit to an examination.

the point is a happy person doesnt need medication if they dont think the need it. As for individuals requesting performance enhancing meds in order to perform at a level to which they cannot aspire naturally, I would only say that professional athletes dont have a low-tesosterone disease, they use performance enhancing meds. Students dont have an attention span disease, they use performance enhancing meds to amplify their natural abilities.

So my family doesn't suffer from a hyperthyroid disorder, they just choose to use performance enhancing meds to dampen their natural hormone-producing abilities? This is frankly absurd. I realize you think that disease has negative connotations, but strictly speaking it doesn't. It just tends that way because on average, deviations from normal function are impairing rather than the opposite.

Speaking of which, thyroid diseases would be an excellent example of a physical disease with behavioral implications. Let alone the obvious examples from neuroscience where tumors in specific regions of the brain impact behavior in extreme ways.

Youre missing the point, I am to blame because I let the conversation come to this.

(members of) your family only have a thyroid disorder to the extent that they perceive it as such. A third party cant objectively characterize an individual's thyroid behavior as abnormal except in reference to ideal thyroid behavior. The ideal standard for human behavior is subjective, there is no medical standard for human behavior, and there cant be, because human behavior is not a medical subject.

Sun. 12/08/12 14:07 EDT
.post #233

zefreak:

I'll do the forum a favor of ignoring your snarky comments ...

...and also, apparently, the two questions I asked you.

zefreak:

The original comment that I replied to posited that behavior was a product of bad upbringing, poor parenting or other environmental factors not including genetics or brain development.

Well, my interpretation of what Clayton wrote differs from yours.

First, Clayton neither wrote nor posited that behavior is a "product" of anything, nor, as the quote I provided makes clear, does Szasz. Here is another Szasz quote, from p. 30 of The Ethics of Psychoanalysis:

If the psychiatrist is a medical specialist, which structure or function of the human organism is his domain, his area of special competence? The answer must be: the mind and behavior. But is the "mind" an organ, like the brain or the heart? And is human behavior a "function," like glucose metabolism or hematopoiesis? If we answer these questions affirmatively, we commit ourselves, morally and philosophically, to regarding human beings as machines and therefore to treating persons as things.

To speak of behavior as the "product" of mind or brain, the way (for example) bile is the product of the liver, is incorrect. Behavior is not a "product"; behavior is human choice and action. This is not to say that behavior is not influenced by many things (including the brain).

As for Clayton, he wrote (my emphasis):

The entire concept of behavioral diseases is a contradiction of terms. "He's not acting right. He must have a disease." No, you have parenting problem and you are either too lazy or ignorant or both to apply elementary principles of parenting and instruct and correct your child's misbehavior.

Clayton's point (the way I read it, anyway) is that calling a child's misbehavior a "disease" (or a "disorder") creates the illusion that the problem "resides," disease-like, in the child. This is identical to what goes on in the classroom: If the student finds the teacher and subject boring and irrelevant, the student must have a "disorder." Heaven forbid that perhaps the teacher and subject are boring and irrelevant! And heaven forbid that perhaps some parents are lazy and ignorant. No, it's much easier to slap the "mentally disordered" label on the kid, and psychiatrists are only too eager to oblige.

zefreak:

He was doing the equivelant of blaming the victim and seemingly ignoring decades of neuroscience and psychology to do so.

I'm not sure whom you think "the victim" is that Clayton is "blaming."

Some parents have problems with their kids' behavior, and some kids have problems with their parents' behavior. But, since the parents, teachers, school boards and psychiatrists are more powerful than the kid, it is they who get to slap the "mentally disordered" label on the kid, then force drugs into him.

Neuroscience is irrelevant to child/parent relationships, but psychiatrists and psychologists invoke it to justify recasting as a medical problem what is in fact a relationship problem, then pushing drugs onto and into the kid.

No, I think Clayton nailed it pretty well.

Thomas Szasz:

I took up the profession of psychiatry in part to combat the contention that abnormal behaviors are the products of abnormal brains.

zefreak:

Does this mean that Szasz

a) doesn't believe that abnormal behaviors exist, but believes that abnormal brains exist

No, it doesn't mean this.

zefreak:

b) believes that abnormal behaviors exist, but doesn't think they are caused by abnormal brains

No, it doesn't mean this either.

zefreak:

If his contention is A, it is a poor way of wording it/was interpreted incorrectly by the person who posted it in response to my comment.

If B, I think he is wrong and that shouldn't be controversial.

Szasz's contention is neither.

What Szasz asserts is:

Behavior is not disease.
Behavior is not a "product" of the brain, nor is the brain's "function" to "produce" behavior.
Behavior is not "caused" or "produced." Behavior is influenced and chosen.

Ok, that's what I originally thought but I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

There is a REASON that the vast majority of neuroscientists (and scientists in general) are not dualists. They weren't bought out by the state, there is no conspiracy. The evidence for the mind being an emergent product of the brain is overwhelming. People are machines, just made out of meat.

I can't take a psychologist (or psychiatrist) seriously if he believes in a disembodied mind/soul, or if he thinks that such a mind has choices that are not determined by the multitude of factors being processed by the brain. Determined, not influenced.

That's the most fundamental disagreement we seem to have, and is really a different discussion.

 

Sun. 12/08/12 20:02 EDT
.post #234

zefreak:

I can't take a psychologist (or psychiatrist) seriously if he believes in a disembodied mind/soul, or if he thinks that such a mind has choices that are not determined by the multitude of factors being processed by the brain.

You seem to think of Szasz as a "dualist," but he isn't. You also seem to think that one must be either a "dualist" or a "materialist," but Szasz is neither. You also use the word "mind" as a noun, which creates the illusion that there is some "thing" to which the word "mind" refers.

How dualists and materialists both err (my emphasis)

Dualists and materialists each make a mistake, and fall into conceptual confusion, when thinking about the mind-body problem. Dualists mistakenly think that there are two different entities, (mind) and body. Materialists make the mistake of identifying the mind, something that is not an entity at all but instead a set of capabilities possessed by a person, with the brain which is physical.

THE MIND IS NOT AN ENTITY

David Herman:

Dr. Szasz does not hold that "brain and mind are quite separate entities" because the mind is not an entity.

Morse Peckham says in his book, EXPLANATION AND POWER: The Control of Human Behavior:

"For twenty-five hundred years the struggle has been going on to decide whether or not the mind is an entity. No conclusion has been reached..."

"... there are a good many words, of which "mind" appears to be an excellent example, for which there is no something. It is an illusion that there is a something. The something that the word allegedly names does not exist."

(google search term: "because the mind is not an entity")

From A Lexicon of Lunacy, p. 32:

Thomas Szasz:

In fact, so profound is the popular confusion about mental illness that people no longer realize that the word mind, as a noun, is itself a metaphor. We have a liver, a heart, a spleen, and a brain - but we have no mind. Only as a verb does the word mind have a literal meaning, as in phrases such as "who is minding the store?" or "mind your own business!"

from The Meaning of Mind, p. 101 (my emphasis):

Thomas Szasz:

I am trying to clarify this muddle by taking seriously that "mind" is a verb not an entity, and that we must seek the meaning of a word in its practical uses.

From The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, p. 30:

Thomas Szasz:

Nor should this view be rejected only on ethical grounds. It also happens to be false. "Mind" is an abstraction that helps us to describe certain human experiences, in particular the experience of self-consciousness. Although we have a concept called "mind," it does not follow that there exists a physical object or biological entity whose name it is. To believe so and hence to treat the mind as an organ is to commit a "category error." To go further than this and consider psychiatry as the study and treatment of "diseased minds" is to transform a relatively simple category mistake into a grand system of category errors.

I don't disagree with any of that, although I would classify him as a materialist or at least a monist regardless of his objections. I also think he is taking the 'mind as object' too literally when discussed by materialists. Even dualists hardly think of the 'mind' as an object (they would rather keep things vague and undefined, afterall)

Tell me this, does he believe in 'free will' or contra-causal will? Your earlier quotes from him implied that he does, although now I'm not sure.

To me, saying someone has a 'mental disorder' is the same as saying someone has a brain abnormality that effects the functioning of those processes that are attributed to mental agents (thinking, acting, deciding). Is he simply disagreeing on ground of terminology? If so, I'm not interested.

Sun. 12/08/12 21:44 EDT
.post #235

zefreak:

Tell me this, does he believe in 'free will' ...? Your earlier quotes from him implied that he does, although now I'm not sure.

I would say that Szasz's preference is to regard persons as having free will. I don't know what "contra-causal" will is.

Thomas Szasz on Freedom and Psychotherapy

Thomas Szasz:

That's because they are not familiar with the history of psychiatry, don't really understand what a metaphor is, and don't want to see how and why psychiatric diagnoses are attached to people. Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, was diagnosed as schizophrenic by government psychiatrists. If people want to believe that a "genetic defect" causes a person to commit such a series of brilliantly conceived crimes — but that when a person composes a great symphony, that's due to his talent and free will — so be it.

The idea Szasz is trying to impart here is that if people have free will, then they have it whether we approve or disapprove of their behavior. Suggesting that free will "disappears" when we disapprove of someone's behavior is silly and inconsistent - yet, this is essentially what psychiatrists suggest, at least implicitly.

zefreak:

To me, saying someone has a 'mental disorder' is the same as saying someone has a brain abnormality that effects the functioning of those processes that are attributed to mental agents (thinking, acting, deciding).

See here.

zefreak:

Is he simply disagreeing on ground of terminology?

Are you saying that "behavioral abnormality" ("mental disorder") is associated with "brain abnormality," or identical to "brain abnormality"? I can't opine on whether Szasz (dis)agrees with you until I understand what you are saying.


Also, what is a "brain abnormality"?
Do you mean brain damage, or "something else"?
If the latter, how is this defined? How is it measured? By whom?

 

 

Edit:

As an example, ingesting LSD might result in what could reasonably be called a "brain abnormality" (albeit a temporary one), and the ensuing behavioral changes could reasonably be described as a "behavioral abnormality."

Would you call an acid trip a "mental disorder"?

I mean abnormal brain in the most obvious way possible. A brain that, by way of genetic variation or injury, deviates from what is average.

A person with hypothryoidism has a statistically uncommon brain, one that produces a statistically uncommon amount of thyroid hormone which can result in statistically uncommon emotional responses to stimuli, which usually results in statistically uncommon behavior in a fixed environment. Statistically.

If you need further clarification, let me know.

 

Sunday, August 12, 2012 23:04 EDT
.post #236

zefreak:

I mean abnormal brain in the most obvious way possible. A brain that, by way of genetic variation or injury, deviates from what is average.

What "brain injury" means is clear, but what "genetic variation" means is not. But using "brain injury," my question becomes:

Are you saying that "behavioral abnormality" ("mental disorder") is associated with "brain injury," or identical to "brain injury"? I can't opine on whether Szasz (dis)agrees with you until I understand what you are saying.

Edit:

Your original question was:

zefreak:

To me, saying someone has a 'mental disorder' is the same as saying someone has a brain abnormality that effects the functioning of those processes that are attributed to mental agents (thinking, acting, deciding). Is he simply disagreeing on ground of terminology?

My opinion:
Szasz would not disagree that a change in behavior can correspond with brain damage.
Szasz would disagree that "change in behavior" is identical to "brain damage," and (obviously) on more than just "ground of terminology." Behavior is not physical damage or disease. For example, if I spill boiling water on my hand, I'll jump around and scream, but this behavior is not "damage or disease." It's a symptom of the damage (and pain) of spilling boiling water on my hand.

zefreak:

A person with hypothyroidism has a statistically uncommon brain, one that produces a statistically uncommon amount of thyroid hormone

This confuses me. Thyroid hormone is not produced by the brain; it is produced by the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland is not the brain, nor is it even located within the brain; it is a separate organ located in the neck. The fact that a person's thyroid might produce insufficient amounts of thyroxine is not equivalent to saying that a person has an "abnormal brain." If you call the behavior of such a person "mentally disordered," you are still talking about his behavior, not his brain or his thyroid. This is just the expression of your subjective reaction to his behavior or symptoms, and not the rendering of a medical diagnosis.

I don't think anyone, least of all Szasz, denies that brain damage, brain disease, glandular malfunction, or ingestion of drugs can correspond with behavioral changes. But calling (a changed) behavior a "disease" is incorrect; no behavior is disease. Calling a behavior a "disorder" is just another way of saying you disapprove of the behavior; behavior has no intrinsic "order."

zefreak:

If you need further clarification, let me know.

I need further clarification on what you mean by "A brain that, by way of genetic variation ... deviates from what is average."

Ok, two quick responses.

Calling a behavior a 'disease' is indeed incorrect. But different behavior can result from a diseased brain. Could not these behaviors be considered 'diseased'?

I still get the feeling that this is all just an argument over language. I am pretty sure that most people, when referring to 'behavioral disorders', simply refer to behavior that is a symptom of an actual brain disorder.

 

What I mean when I refer to a brain that deviates from the average because of genetic variation, is.. sort of hard to explain in simpler terms. For an example, there are genes that regulate the 'pruning' of neural connections in a developing brain. Defects in this gene can result in a brain that is very different from average, and is considered to be one of the causes of synesthesia.

My point was mainly that it doesn't have to be brain damage that results in 'abnormal brains'. All of our brains are different, some are just more different than others. I am not using 'normal' in a normative way, which seems to be a sticking point for you. Same with 'disorder'.

 

edit: can you give me an example of someone who thinks 'change in behavior' is identical to 'brain damage'? I feel like he is arguing against a strawman, as I can't imagine many professionals who suscribe to that belief.

"Youre missing the point, I am to blame because I let the conversation come to this.

(members of) your family only have a thyroid disorder to the extent that they perceive it as such. A third party cant objectively characterize an individual's thyroid behavior as abnormal except in reference to ideal thyroid behavior. The ideal standard for human behavior is subjective, there is no medical standard for human behavior, and there cant be, because human behavior is not a medical subject."

When I say abnormal, I am using it in a descriptive and not a normative context. Abnormal means "not normal, average, typical, or usual". It doesn't necessarily mean 'bad'.

Someone could have a brain that gives them superpowers for all I care. It would still be abnormal (and everyone would want it). Abnormal brains don't have to be 'fixed'.