Trash article

Very interesting read but I think it mischaracterizes how academic psychologists/neuroscientists understand the problem. Our system is like Beccaria's because it has to be given the current state of knowledge. We have to define mental illnesses in terms of syndrome (behavioral effects), rather than underlying pathology (causal biological mechanisms), because we don't understand the underlying pathology yet. People need help, SSRI's save lives, and if you're a clinician it doesn't matter if you know why they work or not—they work often enough. And we have to apply general diagnostic labels because our understanding of individual differences is not nearly precise enough (yet) for idiopathic tailoring of interventions.

I cannot wait for the day when we can understand the mechanisms that produce depression or OCD well enough to target our interventions more precisely (or understand why current treatments work and in whom). But we're not there yet. The root of the problem is scientific, not philosophical. I grant that while we wait for better scientific understanding (which could be a long time), we need to be clear-eyed about what these diagnostic categories actually represent. I don't love the DSM either. But I wouldn't go so far as the author, suggesting that "scientists appear to be confused" and are trying to solve the problem by "aimlessly throwing data at the wall." That is not my experience of clinical neuroscience at all.

I think that society provides people with the means to fulfill themselves. No matter how individualistic a person is, it is society that gives them the resources for their purposes. Therefore, we must all contribute to maintaining this society.

capitalism at its finest

Seriously?!

How is it the scientific method?

This categorization and atomization problem is pervasive throughout society right now.

I think this boils down to the relationship between duality and reality, and is best viewed through the lens of Tarski's undefinability theorem or Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

TLDR: to create meaning out of the abstract, we have to define things in increasingly atomistic ways, and then separate those definitions into various categories. But this process is also inherently, foundational, false. It’s an approximation.

And yet, there is something of objective reality. Things do exist. It’s a phase change problem where language (and even thoughts) are always going to be a step down from truth.

Dogma —around philosophies, gender, etc— tends to come from believing in the platonic reality of a concept on its own rather than letting that concept exist as a proxy for the bigger gestalt truth.

In relation to this article, mental illness designations are proxies. They are only useful insofar as they keep pointing us to better truth. Few or even none of them represent discreet things that we will still consider true in 100 years. And everyone knows that. Which leaves us with an entire academic discipline that is somehow both our best attempt so far at understanding a lot of really complex truths, and justifiably able to be second guessed at every turn by even moderately educated lay persons.

yea but that NS categories are even more of a clinician thing, because its too easy to put everything into that "non specified" bag

I guess some practitioners don’t put that into practice, but as a practitioner myself, I certainly do. I’m glad you’re working with someone you feel can assist you, and is giving you a helpful treatment.

The Tao [Way] that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named is the mother of all things.

This is the most important thing about Taoism, minus the mythical things.

Its basically the scientific method and accepting the vastness of reality, antithesis to certainty and religion.

I find myself leaning towards the constructivist approach more and more. Not only are diagnostic criteria far from perfect (ADHD criteria for example has been mostly created using only white men) but there are also biases in society that bleed into diagnosis processes. I‘ve heard multiple times that ADHD is such a trend diagnosis right now, from psychiatrists who should know it‘s the most common neurodevelopmental disorder. I‘ve had one certified expert tell me that women almost never experience ADHD and that I can‘t have it, because I could sit still in a chair. The overdiagnosis myth has also made its way to many professionals, resulting in more stigma being put onto patients when they ask for an evaluation.

As someone who studies social sciences it never seized to amaze me with how much confidence these doctors proclaim you can or can‘t have X,Y,Z before even taking tests. I know that this results from their positivistic education but as a patient, it‘s hurtful to be seen as needing a box to fit rather than looking specifically at your individual symptoms and the best treatment for them.

There are categories called other than or not otherwise specified type which basically means we are calling it X but also labeling that you don't me the normal criteria for the diagnosis. I have some diagnosis like that. I tend to smile and get chatty when meeting people and I am also well spoken, polite and with good manners so I don't present as someone with chronic Major Depression amongst some other stuff. Its basically a combination of long time masking of my mood and how my anxiety presents itself. I smile a lot and get very talkative and "social" but its anxiety. I also isolate a lot so I get fairly lonely and when I am in a situation I have to interact with people all the above happens.

There's some interesting science going on around regulation and the brain. My therapist specializes in infra slow fluctuation neurofeedback and his colleagues are finding our brains have a "set point" that the ISFN helps the brain learn to get back to and regulate around. Trauma disrupts the brain's ability to regulate itself optimally.

It also seems that secure attachment throughout our lifetime is a huge component of mental health. There is a lot of data on attachment theory that's replicable and solid. The issue is people not putting that science into practice.

If practical reason is an expression of what a person cares about, then they should contribute to society if they care about other people in society. A person may also benefit from contributing to society by improving their own social reputation.

I am a moral nihilist (error theorist) and this is what I think remains of practical reason if morality does not exist.

Jesus Christ what an abuse of power by a doctor I’m so sorry

After reading the article, according to Taoist philosophy, we can translate this headline to "The philosophy of Everything, minus some of the things that clearly shouldn't be a part of it because reasons."

That's delightfully illustrative and super helpful. Maybe, just maybe, there's a connection between the rise of all the "nonsense" the author discusses in the second half, and the fact that the first half is so vague that the best - least harmful - option is to do exactly what he wrote a Taoist savant might: read the quasi-maybe-non-definition of Tao, toss the book, and live one's life.

To whatever extent Tao is real and Taoism is legitimate, it'll just take care of itself. It is everything, after all. How does "everything" fail to sort itself out? Even yin and yang are illusions. Don't worry about yang poisoning. You are only very small. Imbalance is just another illusion.

If you would like a test to see whether I have a point, or whether instead I'm simply being smug and contrarian, allow me to offer a tried-and-true one that crosses all cultural boundaries: "Is he in the club, or isn't he?"

I'm not, so you can disregard everything I say. How convenient. How familiar.

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This is a really good summary of Taoism from a western perspective. Thanks for the link.

It's funny, PTSD is the one diagnosis that every mental health professional I've seen has agreed on, and it's the one that I still feel like an imposter when I say it. Some of my coworkers are veterans and the shit they've been through...it's really hard to see myself in the same category.

But from the time I was born til the time I left home, I got up every day not knowing if I would be safe. I didn't know what stability felt like til I made it for myself as an adult. And I'm still training myself to accept that I deserve it, that I'm allowed to set boundaries with people who disrupt it, and that it's perfectly OK to not make everyone around me happy. If you think your childhood was traumatic, then it probably was. Part of the abuse is being conditioned to believe that it's not abuse.

I didn't expect this, but the antidepressants cleared my head in a way that made the things I was learning in therapy click. Like I understood them rationally beforehand, but I had a really hard time practicing them or feeling them. Now I'm able to catch things in the moment, rather than hours or days later.

I'm glad you're doing well!

Good article on paraconsistent logic/dialetheism.

Praxis is key to making this philosophy an existential thing, which is the way.

Well I didn’t mean in diagnosis, but randomized control trial in psychiatric drugs/indications.

Oh thanks! I’ve seen them both use bpd, but that would lessen the confusion.

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This subreddit is not in the business of one-liners, tangential anecdotes, or dank memes. Expect comment threads that break our rules to be removed. Repeated or serious violations of the subreddit rules will result in a ban.

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One of the things the scientific method has done to us is that it has conditioned us to think in prescribed ways, largely based on empirical evidence of cause and effect which leads us to seek categories of states and a presumed standard biochemical basis to treat those categories.

The mind ... I use the term mind vs brain to steer away from it as an object ... is much more complex than that. It's states are probably not as discreet as science would want them to be. So, continuum is probably more realistic way of viewing states that be one problematic for individuals and society.

Yes, society! Let's not forget that there is a whole field of social psychology that attempts to understand states of masses of people using psychological approaches.

Makes me wonder, how many dysfunctional states are self-perpetuating and self-reenforcing. The extent to which we see a range of behaviors or continuum.

The question seems to come, how does one break these cycles of dysfunctional states, either in individuals or societies. The soukutiin would seem to be to fundamentally alter the state so that it realigns to a more harmonious one. Whether this be done internally, as in cultivation in an eastern sense, or externally by imposing a set of treatments that alter or reset the state of mind, such approaches might be more helpful.

In any event, the permutations of mind are as many as there are minds. Scientific categorization have not been very successful.