Greased Gerbil's Quote Discussion #5 - Mental Illness

[~[ Greased Gerbil ]~]

OK, I'm back.

Time for another quote to discuss.

"The increasing trend of over-diagnosing and over-prescribing mental illnesses is slowly teaching us that it is not normal to have emotions."

[[KMA]Avenger]

what do you mean you feel depressed/sad?! thats not normal! here, have some fluoride...i mean, prozac

[Dubby_CompGamerGeek2]

The Americanization of Mental Illness
By ETHAN WATTERS
Published: January 8, 2010


Ethan Watters lives in San Francisco. This essay is adapted from his book “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche,” which will be published later this month by Free Press.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magaz ... 1&emc=eta1

[MEZZANINE]

OK, I'm back.

Time for another quote to discuss.

"The increasing trend of over-diagnosing and over-prescribing mental illnesses is slowly teaching us that it is not normal to have emotions."

Some are genuine, my Nephew is autistic and we soon found out how under-provisioned special needs education is, finding a school place was a complete nightmare.

But in general I would agree that the majority of people diagnosed with various 'new' metal illnesses having labels put on them a few decades ago would have just been forced to behave and work through discipline. Seems to me many of these new illnesses encourage dependency and the people diagnosed would lead far more normal lives if they had just been treated like everyone else.

[Psyko]

While I do agree with the idea that the medical world is now over-diagnosing and over-prescribing mental illnesses, I disagree that this teaches us that emotions are not normal.

If a child behaves differently than other children, they are taken to a doctor and diagnosed with some sort of mental illness. These days that could be anything from Aspergers to Depression or even "mild" Autism. This doesn't say that having emotions is not normal; it's saying that thinking or behaving in a way different from the norm is not good. Which is just stupid because most of the innovators from our past had something about their mental/behavioral state that set them apart from the rest of the world. They were called insane or crazy and locked up, but no one could really stop their minds from working as they did, so they still succeeded in producing important inventions or ideas for the world. Now, with the creation of medicines and chemical "treatments" doctors are stopping that alternate way of thinking and making children (and adults) dependent on medicine. At the same time, they brain wash the patients into thinking that there is something wrong with them.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of cases where the medications and diagnosis are necessary. But with all of the cases where there could easily be an alternate method of treatment or education, you have to wonder if it is necessary and if it isn't, are the doctors actually destroying a person's potential through the use of these medicines?

I've been on anti-depressants, and I probably needed them at the time. But they were easy enough to quit taking once I got my life back together. This is the way it should be with things like this; it should not be a lifetime of pill popping every morning with the idea that there will be something wrong with you if you miss a dose.

Emotions are normal. But to act in a way that is not seen as "normal" when you are feeling strong emotions is where we are finding the over-diagnosis and over-prescribing. I mean, c'mon! Beethoven heard music in his head. I would bet everything I own that a doctor would say he was schizophrenic and put him on anti-psychotics if he were alive today.

[Hitchkok]

OK, I'm back.

Time for another quote to discuss.

"The increasing trend of over-diagnosing and over-prescribing mental illnesses is slowly teaching us that it is not normal to have emotions."

anyone who suffered wither dipression or bi-polarity, can't refer to either as "having emotion".
kinda like refering to an amputated limb as a scratched one.

[Londo Mollari]

i wouldn't say that they are teaching us that having emotions is not normal, only that taking these emotions to the extremes is not healthy and should be treated

on the same hand, i also see a great number of these "disorders" as easy cop-outs which parents/doctors use to dismiss or diminish their responsibility for the persons actions.

things like ADHD which are relatively "new" disabilites/disorders would have been dismissed as bad behaviour previously, so the increasing leniency and lack of discipline of children is also a contributing factor

[Hitchkok]

i wouldn't say that they are teaching us that having emotions is not normal, only that taking these emotions to the extremes is not healthy and should be treated

on the same hand, i also see a great number of these "disorders" as easy cop-outs which parents/doctors use to dismiss or diminish their responsibility for the persons actions.

things like ADHD which are relatively "new" disabilites/disorders would have been dismissed as bad behaviour previously, so the increasing leniency and lack of discipline of children is also a contributing factor

right on the money, there.