Tiny survey/research question if anyone feels like helping
POSTED BY: PhoenixRose
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 01:37
VIEWED: 5670
PAGE 7 of 8
Well said, Kiki. That's something that's come to bother me, too, as evidenced by my "scientists" thread and what Sig had to say about it.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Like anything else it all depends on functionality and how it affects one's daily life, outwardly and inwardly. There are plenty of neurotypical rabid political junkies out there. If being super partisan is the only problem then one could assume that there isn't a mental illness issue. But again I guess the question I'd ask is how this rabid partisanship affects the person's life inwardly and outwardly. And if there's a mental illness present then other aspects of the person's life would be affected, not just their political ideology.
Or was that question just you teasing?
No, not teasing, I am actually beginning to honestly wonder where the breakpoint is.
Now, I know that I am heavily biased in that I consider most modern authoritarianism a form of mental illness itself - but even so I mean when it really does affect someones daily ability to function, such as violent outbursts if not attempts at physical assault versus those who challenge their beliefs...
Could it not then, be considered a mental illness, even though it is philosophical in nature rather than by other cause ?
Or perhaps, is it simply a manifestation of something deeply, deeply wrong with them to begin with ?
Questions like these have been preying on my mind lately, is all.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Could it not then, be considered a mental illness, even though it is philosophical in nature rather than by other cause ?
There have been some preliminary studies that certain political and philosophical stances show greater activity and size in certain parts of the brain.
There needs to be more research for certain things, but things like compassion practice and contemplative meditation have been widely studied and shown to thicken the cortex and mitigate certain behaviors such as selfishness and impulsiveness. Fearful behavior has been linked to an enlarged amygdala, and some other diseases and problems have been linked to the same area of the brain. Like other things, fearful thoughts can self-perpetuate once the pathways are established in the nervous system, and it can be difficult (but never impossible) to establish new pathways through something like meditative practice or other cognitive focus techniques.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Magons, you have a point about culture. Bear in mind the differences between living in Australia and living in America. Just as (to use the comparison again) the Japanese work themselves to death, as opposed to Europeans having so much more time off than we do in the States. Most of our lives here aren't healthy, which means they're not healthy mentaly as well as physically. So yes, there no doubt are differences. In some cultures, some mental illnesses are seen as witch doctors or seers or whatever.
Bear in mind, once again, that the DSM-IV (and all the DSM's before it and no doubt after it) stress that it's NOT mental illness if you can function in your life. Sure, "function" is a loose term, and there are certainly those among us who are mentally ill but "function" perfectly (at least for a time), and some who live their entire lives mentally ill and never know it (Bipolar IIs as an example). However, those who "function" well yet are mentally ill won't ever seek treatment, nor will many of those who never know it--it gets passed off, as it was for me, as just "overdramtic", or "eccentric", as it mostly was in the past. That doesn't mean it's not mental illness.
So "functioning" in one's life depends to an extent on the society within which one must function...naturally that makes it different for different cultures. The checklist you mentioned is bullshit, in my opinion; it takes far more than a checklist to determine such things. On the other hand, I did a checklist of bipolarity when I was only dx'd unipolar (depressive), and it was frighteningly right on; once properly dx'd, my life changed. I HAD been dysfunctional my whole life, I just assumed I was "screwed up" or "bad". Knowing otherwise, and knowing I wasn't alone, got me to do many things which have made my life better than I ever could have dreamed. I'm a bear about self-education for those who have been dx'd, it's one of the main things that helped me.
To be fair to Seligman, the book isn't about mental health but optimism, although there are correlations between pessimism and mental illness, which was what the checklist I did picked up. I guess my question was culturally is it more the norm to expect people to be optimistic in the US than here? It seems to be an integral value, I see it in the cultural values of a lot of mainstream movies.
If you want something enough and try hard enough and have belief in self, you will achieve what you want in life.
This is not a value that I share.
I see this concept or value seeps into treatments for mental health, such as CBT and Seligman's work. It's kind of the ultimate egoism. Change your thoughts, challenge your negative thinking and you'll feel better. Ironically, it works, at least according to statistics.
Someone once said that when expectations meet reality and they don't match, trouble follows. I wonder if the source of much mental health - particularly the prevanlence of depression is kind of a feature of this in a culture where anything is considered possible so long as you have the will, and that if you are poor and fail it is your fault.
I don't include schizophenia and bi-polar and many other disorders in this.
I feel a bit torn about the idea of overdiagnosing disorders. On one hand there are things in the DSM that really shouldn't be there. There is a terrible trend of pathologising behaviours which just don't need to be pathologised. It has become clear to me in recent years that most of my family would be diagnosed with aspbergers but have functioned normally. I agree with Frem that checklists for these kinds of things really are not appropriate and as you say Niki - the questions should be about the degree that it impacts on your managing life.
O
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Having said that I hate checklists, I will now be wildly inconsistent and post one - features of psychopathy.
1. Considerable superficial charm and average or above average intelligence.
2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
3. Absence of anxiety or other "neurotic" symptoms considerable poise, calmness, and verbal facility.
4. Unreliability, disregard for obligations no sense of responsibility, in matters of little and great import.
5.Untruthfulness and insincerity
7. Antisocial behavior which is inadequately motivated and poorly planned, seeming to stem from an inexplicable impulsiveness.
7.Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
8.Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience
9. Pathological egocentricity. Total self-centeredness incapacity for real love and attachment.
10. General poverty ot deep and lasting emotions.
11. Lack of any true insight, inability to see oneself as others do.
12. Ingratitude for any special considerations, kindness, and trust.
13. Fantastic and objectionable behavior, after drinking and sometimes even when not drinking--vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts, pranks.
14. No history of genuine suicide attempts.
15. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated seX life.
16. Failure to have a life plan and to live in any ordered way, unless it be one promoting self-defeat.
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I know you didn't post to me, but there were some things you posted and I wanted to respond.
The US view of the individual and the society is IMO a very sick one. There is this myth that ANYONE can succeed. And when we USED to have a frontier, where anyone who didn't like society's bargain could go and keep themselves at least alive for a while with minimal interaction with the larger society (trading for iron tools and utensils, seeds, dry goods like cloth etc was always a necessity) it was true to some extent. But we no longer have a frontier. The fact is that the economy (and hence the society) depends very much on a captive labor force - large numbers of people who have no choice but to work in and buy from the capitalist economy. And the economy is so structured that there is a large 'losing' class. It seems to me if you don't have an economy where EVERYONE will be able to succeed, then it's not true that ANYONE can succeed. Some will, but the many are destined to not. Simply b/c the economy doesn't have room for them.
But we keep the myth alive. Why is that? Well, for one thing, it gives the believers a sense of control, no matter how false. There is some comfort in thinking you are more than a powerless pawn of a larger system. And it works for TPTB. It is SO much better to have people blaming themselves and others like them for their lot than revolting in the streets for their share of the value they make. It is real mind control.
(I just want to point out that people with a vote DO have power - a power feared by the rich and powerful who do everything in their power to subvert, distract and undermine the voters.)
I remember maybe 15 - 20 years ago there was a lot of speculation that higher rates of depression in females might be biological. Then one psychiatrist looked at the ACTUAL life circumstances of the women he was treating for depression. Many were divorced, which meant that they were financially reduced. They were either working or working more. And they were trying to take care of the children and the household at the same time. Meanwhile, the men experienced increased finances and freedom from responsibility. The psychiatrist's conclusion - no WONDER the women were depressed and the men were not!
Depression due to circumstances accurately perceived as malign and long-term (if not unchangeable) might be the normal, healthy and sane response, even if not pleasant.
Having said that, sometime it's true that people think themselves into a box. They do this because of that, they do that because of that other thing - and so on down the line. And they can think of no way out b/c it's all linked together into one vast rationale for why things HAVE to be the way they are. In those cases CBT might work.
And then there are people who are truly biologically depressed. High calcium levels are notorious for that. Bipolar and major depressive disorders I'm thinking are another example.
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither....
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But we keep the myth alive. Why is that? Well, for one thing, it gives the believers a sense of control, no matter how false. There is some comfort in thinking you are more than a powerless pawn of a larger system. And it works for TPTB. It is SO much better to have people blaming themselves and others like them for their lot than revolting in the streets for their share of the value they make. It is real mind control.
I see that in the attitude that the poor are poor because they are lazy and/or stupid. Either way it is their fault. I was just reading that kind of mentality on the taxes thread with the bragging (as I saw it) about being debt free and having done it all off one's own back. It's there inherently between the lines (or maybe not even so much) that if you struggle in life, its your own fault and having everything you need, you wouldn't give a brass farthing to a one legged, one eyed ex vet crawling along your street.
It's the 'I'm alright Jack' mentality - maybe that is colloquial, but I hope you get what I mean.
we have it as well here, maybe just not as much, not yet. But its a growing philosophy. A friend of mine said it was 'wealth envy' to decry the fact that CEO's of failing companies are given multi million dollar golden handshakes.
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In acknowledgment of the shortcomings of checklists, I'll attempt to check-list myself honestly.
1. Depends 2. Depends 3. Depends 4. Depends 5. Depends 6. Depends 7a. Depends 7b. Depends
8. Depends 9. Depends 10. Depends 11. Depends 12. Depends 13. Depends 14. Depends 15. Depends
16. Depends
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Hey, thanks for replying.
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither....
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