Is Mental Illness Real? | Richard Bentall, Ann John, Lucy Johnstone

[@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas]

What do you think of this debate? Leave a comment below You can watch this debate, Is Mental Illness Real, in full at iai.tv/video/a-mad-world?KZbin&

[@darrenruben2981]

Szasz replied to theses ideas in szasz under fire

[@CaptainFrantic]

This is most refreshing to watch. I myself suffer from major depressive episodes and I've always maintained that this is in actuallity a HEALTHY response to my particular environment and NOT mental illness. Although it seems to be true that some people DO fall under the chemical imbalance theory of causes of depression, I suspect that the vast majority of depressives do not and, like me, are just responding to their environment in a totally appropriate manner. It seems to me that if we could dedicate resources to solving the external environmental factors and causes of depression we could eliminate 90% of "mental ilness" at a stroke. I would also like to make a passing reference to Johann Hari who does an excellent job in his book "Lost Connections" of outlining exactly this issue. Finally I should clarify a point. Whist depression might be a healthy response it is not therefore an optimal response (much like an emotion such as anger). This is where talking therapies, help from friends and family and assistance from support networks and groups can come in and address the depression in a more positive, pro-active and (dare I say) holistic manner.

[@declup]

Well said, CaptainFrantic.

[@globetwig4401]

I'd agree with everything you say but add that depression can cause biological affects which are an actual physical illness and vice versa. A healthy environment and empathetic connections are vital for both recovery and creating/sustaining resilience. It can be quite a difficult path.

[@harshrana3518]

When your psychological needs are not met. As quoted from his ted talk!

[@CaptainFrantic]

@M H I hear what you're saying and of course, for a number of people this is true. My point is that not everyone (whether through nature OR nuture) has high levels of resilience. To label those people as "lazy" or "weak" (a view which your post unintentionally promotes) is like saying that someone who accidently drowned because they were unable to swim "weak". Your point is well made though and it could in fact be the case that gently helping people with resilience training (stoic philosophies, whatever) may be almost universally beneficial [edit] ... to some extent.

[@bubblegumgun3292]

If a Million dollars and some vagina can solve your depression you dont have a metal illness. But a mental weakness. People weak shocking

[@risingsun3089]

"You have to know history to appreciate the absurdity of the medical model" - Thomas Szasz

[@nihil8436]

Thomas Szasz is a legend, he was a noble man with a true conscience.

[@wolfbenson]

@@nihil8436 I agree. However, he seemed to want to dismiss any kind of mental disorder as simply a daily living problem. To say that many DSM diagnosis are simply concocted in order to increase income in the pharmacy industry or to give people an excuse for their behavior (I can't help it-I've got kleptomania!), may well be true, but that is an over the top exaggeration. There are very real, treatable, mental illnesses.

[@victoriah.20]

Often times, outside of psychosis, what people label mental illness comes down to how we think, our daily lives sure and other factors. Each "disorder" is just a different way that person with that supposed (made up thing) thinks or perceives the world. If this causes struggle, stress, detriment... there's nothing wrong with seeking help. Though they may always struggle and have to use these "tools" they are taught to manage.. Do we have to lead those people to believe they're disordered/diseased/ill... could it just be that neurodivergency applies to more than just ADHD and Autism? Even those people have to find and figure out tools to navigate and manage in this world or any given scenario/situation

[@god5535]

Can we just appreciate what a mature, rational and level headed discussion this was?

[@crpggamer]

One might argue the awareness itself is what causes mental illness. Thinking that there is a correct way to be. We can make ourselves stressed by how we think of things and how we think they should be vs how they are. For instance is an aggressive person sick? Would something cause you trauma if you didn't think it was wrong due the experiences you had as a child and what you learned. I find the more I listen to peoples ideas on right and wrong the more I am judgemental and unhappy. In today world people are very quick to make judgements and play the victim including myself. Unfortunately I think a lot of human suffering is caused by the ability to think in certain ways. I also have suffered from depressive episodes and I think again it's to dd with how I perceive things should be in my life vs how they are and what I learned in my childhood.

[@TheColourAwesomer]

I don't think variety of opinion is the problem, on the contrary. We wouldn't be having this conversation if that were the case.

[@Ihaveanemesisalready]

Forced treatment must be abolished

[@buskingkarma2503]

I'm mentality ill have been all my life I was born slow and then drugs came the picture and made it even worse! I'm in recovery now and been very honest with professional help and I am only taking this recovery seriously because it's my last chance in life. I was hoping as well that now I'm clean it would be easier than when I was a alcoholic drug addict but I think it's too late. Best of luck to everyone.

[@rangerscoach]

Same

[@rangerscoach]

I didn’t get better until I went on a carnivore diet. There is a sadness in the grains. My preposterous diet saved me

[@ASMinor]

I am an avid #MentalHealthAwareness advocate and spoken word performer, and I love this so much. I travel the country trying to bring that awareness on stages, in classrooms, hospitals, and on my KZbin channel, so I get excited when I see other advocates. 💙❤

[@Shapelander]

Amazing exchange

[@rangerscoach]

We need to look at this stuff from three point of dis regulation the idea that if your the only person in you family to recently survive a car crash and your clinically depressed vs a person in a functioning job with a happy family and no financial strain but you are acutely sad all the time to the point of sobbing uncontrollably. The idea that they’re the same thing is causing a lot of challenges from a diagnostic standpoint in the former situation you are supposed to be depressed. Depression may be and understandable way of expressing emotion whereas the latter situation might call for a medical intervention because it’s seems as though the brain is completely dis regulated.

[@kimlec3592]

It may be more helpful to describe psychological & emotional distress & symptoms as mental injury, rather than illness. People through exposure to unhelpful/malevolent behaviour from parents, friends, co-workers, partners - can be severely impacted. Some in the recovery realm even describe emotional distress/disregulation, as having a neurological injury, if maltreatment was constant & with no beneficial support for the sufferer. It is not always safe for the sufferer of symptoms to tell the truth of their situation, due to the probability that those unhelpful people in the sufferer's life would behave even more abusively if exposed. When it is not safe to tell the truth or even to be in a situation, mental symptoms can and do appear. It is a real quandary for mental health staff who know about a person's bad situation, when they need to release the sufferer back into the "care" of abusive parents or partners. This is the reality.

[@lisamoag6548]

Yes.

[@VictorKibalchich]

Good debate, as a mental health nurse I agree with a lot of it. No mention of the c word though...capitalism. The neo liberal hyper individualist capitalist ideology of the past 30ish years has a lot to answer for.

[@jasonaus3551]

It's looks like now we are reverting to hyper Tribalistic ways of being in the world

[@shonagraham2752]

Exactly how did neo liberalism cause my dad to try hit me with a poker 50 yrs ago, cause him to get custody of my brother & sister and alter my gut biome forever! May be if we had a health service & professionals that could actually think and see the link between IBS, Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and see people as whole beings that actually are mentally ill, in the same way that children who are fed poison are ill, sick, poisoned we'd be better off!

[@VictorKibalchich]

@@shonagraham2752 your gut biome certainly didn't cause you to hit anyone

[@shonagraham2752]

@@VictorKibalchich HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF HITTING PEOPLE!!!!! Sick and vile NO MY GUT BIOME is the RESULT of having a father that tried to hit ME with a poker at 6 months! my GUT BIOME is the result of bein g seperated from my siblings before I was five! It can't change and I don't hit people not even morons like YOU!

[@VictorKibalchich]

well that was rude

[@TheodoraKimmelHello]

The brain, like any organ, can go into a disordered state. Mental illness is how the body expresses the disorder. We always feel at least a little depressed and little anxious when we have the flu or bronchitis. If you have cancer, I’m sure it’s even more of the same. So when the brain gets hurt or sick, it’s a double whammy on your mind.

[@davidregi7571]

Nah...

[@capresti3537]

Mental illness has nothing to do with the brain. It is either a biological problem in the body causing the symptoms or a spiritual problem that person cannot solve.

[@victoriah.20]

When it comes to things regarding the brain who gets to decide what is disorder and what is order though? It's HIGHLY subjective and too open to interpretation in comparison to other organs where the damage from X Y or Z can actually be seen. When people look at brain scans through a lens of looking for "disorder"/"disease" (they literally already have a bias regarding what they're looking for anyway, they have started with the premise that mental illness is an actual thing that exists) it's just too open to interpretation.

[@PhillipYewTree]

Illuminating. But if the funding is increased, will things change for the better, or will there be more of the same. “The same” having been largely dismissed by the panel as a flawed and largely an inappropriate model.

[@RubenWhitter]

Why is it cut short

[@TheodoraKimmelHello]

The brain is an organ that can malfunction or struggle just like any other organ and may need medicinal support or another form of treatment to regain proper functioning. The issue with mental illness not being real, if you don’t mind my saying so, is that it can be invalidating to the pain someone might genuinely be feeling, on top of the illness, and that being from a real place and just a mere malfunction. Depression is like a wounded or wounded sadness, it is definitely a traumatized or painful reaction to the world around you that the brain as organ cannot mend without help.

[@victoriah.20]

Who gets to decide what IS or ISN'T a malfunction? Homosexuality used to be in the DSM, that should be scary that other people get to make decisions like that regarding other human beings

[@victoriah.20]

People can be stressed suffer and struggle in various different ways due to how they think or perceive the world, and it not be a "mental illness". Their suffering and struggles still being valid as well despite no diagnostic labels

[@jessicastrat9376]

Is it frowned upon to discuss the heritable component to these conditions?

[@theepitomemedia1573]

God this sounds crazy but I’m starting not to believe in general mental disorders or perhaps we’re diagnosing it wrong. I’m a therapist by a way working towards a PHD, these are thoughts I keep to myself.

[@yemek4684]

What has caused you to believe this? I can understand if you think anxiety and depression might be blown up a bit but what about illnesses like schizophrenia? Does that exist? I just want to see what you think.

[@longschlong846]

Haha how wonderfully ironic.

[@ariellemandara1483]

I don't think so. Most of the methods used to diagnose are coorect. But professionals are failing to give accurate diagnoses. That's something true that I'm seeing too. It's not just diagnosis procedures but the professionals as well.

[@DarkestWinterNight]

it is crazy

[@user-hc4ls5of3g]

Right here with you. Ever since szasz, I don't believe in any of this big pharma scheme. Logic is the best medicine

[@FreeJulianAssange23]

I know for a fact I am not mentally ill. I told my Psychiatrist my ex mother in law paid off my last Psychiatrist and set me up to get diagnosed. She did everything to drive me crazy to take my children and no one believes me.

[@yemek4684]

What were you "diagnosed" with?

[@FreeJulianAssange23]

@@yemek4684 After my father died in an mvc on the way to my grandfathers funeral and my best friend was murdered I was diagnosed with Depression, GAE, and Panic Disorder, then after the birth of my son I had post-partem but was diagnosed with Bipolar, then I was okay for a few years but after a terrible divorce I was diagnosed with DDD then PTSD. I socially isolated for four years doing meditation, shadow and chakra work and did not take my prescriptions, plus did 2 yrs of online education and got a mental health diploma. I am at a place mentally, emotionally, spiritually now that is better than before. It took four yrs because I gave up using defence and coping mechanisms such as benzos (8 yrs) alcohol, meth, cocaine, numbing my feelings, denial, and more.

[@SocialBandit555]

I too have lost my child and labels of supposed mental illnesses have been used as weapons against me in court. It's only a matter of time before the sickness of psychiatry gets exposed.

[@souxcasa]

Do you not think it was the meth use that contributed to having your children taken away?

[@chriscantor6852]

IMO Bentall and John spoke a lot of sense, but Johnstone simply repeatedly insisted she was right. With respect to her total rejection of mental illness and diagnosis,I have some sympathy, in that I believe the illness concept has major problems and that DSM-5, the most recent diagnostic classification scheme is a disaster. However, would we really want to treat a person with dementia the same as someone with say depression or anxiety? Counselling for depression and anxiety requires clients/patients to take home messages and work on them between sessions. Most patients with even mild dementias would not remember what they are supposed to be working on. Broad diagnoses seem helpful for the time being until something better comes along.

[@user-hc4ls5of3g]

Except dementia isn't a mental illness. It's a brain disease. Now, why separate neurology and psychology? Big pharma wants your free will.

[@jean-pierredevent970]

I lack the deep knowledge of science philosophy to explain why exactly but many have this gut feeling that things are not scientifically completely kosher. A lot is based on undisputable authority of experts. Then there is the fact that for a real biological disease, you go to a doctor and any doctor in any country will find the defect. Only when finding something is hard, impossible or impractical that you go to a psychiatrist. Since there are no clear objective biological tests, the diagnosis resembles an opinion. (you have a chemical imbalance and lack serotonin in your brain ) Somebody will in some cases draw the line on authority, if somebody is still normal or not. The concept falsifiability is not easy to understand but about many statements, I would like to ask: is this falsifiable or not?? In too many cases it's probably not and indeed do you find many entries on google " psychiatry is a pseudoscience". All this not to say that it's all rubbish but only to suggest that people don't rely too much on all these "experts" (sometimes even teachers )

[@person-centredtherapy-timh9745]

None of this is new. Carl Rogers was pointing this stuff out in the mid-twentieth century, and in many ways the medical establishment is still playing catch-up. The mind is not an organ. It is always functioning, but can be overwhelmed by its environment (which for humans, means other people). There is great danger in seeing this as a Right v Left thing. Yes, we can have more services, but we also need a society that offers meaning. Both the Right and the Left have helped to contribute to the current problem. We can often accuse the Right of neglect, but the Left has proven itself way too cynical and manipulative. ’Mental illness' has always been a favourite strategy of the Left, because it handily negates any need to actually win a debate with that person. The Soviet Union 'had no political dissidents', but it had a whole intellectual class confined to 'mental hospitals' for speaking inconvenient truths. (This seems rather analogous to today’s ‘intellectual dark web’ of thinkers exiled to KZbin by left-leaning mainstream media). Current strategies include labelling someone 'fragile' to exclude their ideas from the debate, and all those pseudo- phobias. Even the distress of living a lonely life in involuntary, hypergamy-induced, extinction-bound celibacy has been pathologised, so that many on the Left regard an incel as a figure of evil, rather than someone worthy of compassion. It gets worse - there is gigantic institutional corruption. The left-wing American Psychology Association (AP) has virtually declared maleness as a pathology. The recent epidemic of suicide coincides with the Left's domination of culture in education and beyond, and a message that 'you can be whatever you feel like being'. (May and can are not the same thing). There was much less meaninglessness when people shared values, and shared a sense of what it means to be 'male' or 'female'. And I can also mention the cynical exploitation of that Trojan horse / human shield we call Greta T. There has always been far more scope for this kind of mischief on the Left because it has always based its ideas on social constructionism - the idea that we are 'blank slates' who only need to be correctly reprogrammed to usher in the utopia. All you have to do is change what is regarded as 'true'. Those who do not say the right things are therefore, clearly, not thinking straight. If everything is socially constructed then we can reinvent and re-mould people in any way we see fit. Human nature (the dreaded ‘biology’) is to be distrusted. We can all recognize the Left doing this over the last few decades. Many of those clinicians who are caught up in this kind of thinking are in denial about their own totalitarian tendencies (yes, there is such a thing as a pc-authoritarian personality type). They will work to help the client become more authentic, yet campaign for policies which limit free speech, tell people what to think, say and do, and are in many ways anti-science. It is very fashionable in therapy circles these days to conflate distress with neo-Marxist politics, to get ‘power’-crazy. I actually had a professor tell me that therapy is a subset of Marxism! Viewpoint diversity is not tolerated at all, whether in training or in the profession itself. The average therapist is a herd animal looking to signal their virtue to radicals. Trainee therapists know more about the differences between 'gay' and 'queer' than those between male and female. The institutional 'blank slate' psychosis of the average therapist is arguably one of the most serious contributors to mental distress - how many male clients have been told by therapists that their maleness is 'traditional', or even 'toxic'! How many clients have been disempowered by a sense of victimhood encouraged by their therapist? Most clients just want to get on, yet they are being manipulated for political purposes. The Left is no more the answer than the Right. A 1% increase in unemployment leads to a 5% increase in mental hospitalization. We should not underestimate the benefits to mental health of a good job, shared values, free speech and a clear sense of who you are, and want to be. IAI needs to lift its game, get out from the Liberal elite echo chamber, and allow some real debate. It would have been fascinating if a ‘classic British liberal’ such as Jordan Peterson or a right-winger like Theodore Dalrymple had been on this panel. Certainly Peterson sees things much the same way: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pqmtq4qZrMiFmpI.

[@MartinLewisEsq]

Great parody account

[@island5317]

Only reason this is a question is because of the HUGE amount of young people who like to confuse normal emotions with psychological disorders. Pisses me the fuck off as someone who has been experiencing multiple ever since I was conscious enough to be aware and effects every single action that I take. Fucking hell

[@souxcasa]

That's not the only reason, it's one but not the only. These questions have been coming up for decades. If you look at the history of mental health care you will see that this is the logical conclusion given how mental illness has been an iatrogenic effect of medical care since mental health care began

[@lindasmith2266]

it turns out no one was hearing voices katherine miller jr had a speaker in the house the whole time.

[@whatareyoudoingoverthere1425]

I'm faking it I think my life is fake

[@liammccann8763]

Not a single mention of the spiritual dimension from any of the speakers. Ne Timeas.

[@CesarSandoval024]

The spiritual gets manipulated throught the madness or the ill

[@archiesimpson5172]

@@CesarSandoval024 what do you mean?

[@timblackburn1593]

Collapse of, advertising funded and state controlled (BBC), mass media could radically change many people's life expectations. Indifference to traditional power should render it irrelevant and with fewer ears and eyes and fewer editors to manipulate PR may struggle to continue to mediate the agendas of the villains of the last 3,000 yrs. Could someone send an invite to Robert Plomin next time, pls?

[@ToriKo_]

13:30

[@lindasmith2266]

i found its time to guide the real katherine miller jr home. im sorry too much of a disturbance.

Nop.1 public health problem is inactivity no exercise. elderly are inactive took daily physical education out of schools 23 yrs ago now you see the results of inactivity. Inactivity creates addictive lives. Inactivity causes depression, obesity, emotional despair and brain function disorders, early onset dementia. Child abuse creates drug addicts. Child abuse is everywhere and mental health disorders are everywhere. More kids living in the streets. These will be your next criminals. Parenting is very difficult if the parents have mental disorders from Stress. All these problems solved by purposeful activity where the body and mind are on the move. Evolution taught us that Human brain made by activity so lack of exercise creates mental illness.

[@mattd8725]

What happened to those people to make them feel lethargic and inactive in the first place? You take someone with an unhealthy diet and bad sleep and force them run a mile every day, kicking and screaming every step, and they will still have problems.

[@aslihancakir6336]

What you're saying is true but it's scratching the surface. Mental health is an economic issue. Education, exercise, housing, eradication of debt, a good diet, etc all these things can be achieved with the redistribution of wealth. We need to start taking big steps toward economic equality.

[@blankspace6362]

The lady in yellow speaks the most sense.

[@mjolninja9358]

Ellie Barton but is your Yellow that same as others yellow? Is that yellow really yellow?

[@tetrahedron6574]

They all speak sense. They each have a different but valid perspective.

[@ToriKo_]

23:00

[@supermanbatmommy]

BS

[@lindasmith2266]

the new owners of the original house found lisas speaker

[@kimlec3592]

Lord knows that the ones who make money from it will tell you it's real !

[@DarkestWinterNight]

ABSOLUTELY real!!!! It is not even debatable!!!! I know, i battle it myself. And guess what? Meds and psychotherapy help me A LOT

[@shawnleong3605]

continue with your neurotoxins then

[@combos7]

drugs help alot of people from feeling down doesnt mean they need it or are sick