sam jam/quote..""what if there *are* physical bases
to the mental illnesses commonly observed in clinical practice""

its undenyable that much has its origonation...resulting from actual physical abuses[ie molestation/rape..or war sickness

if your refering to physio-locical...damage
[or actual physical damage...like stroke
again i think thats all being considerd

thing is most 'events'..are sparodic
often 'set off'..by a specific 'event'..or other addictive re=action[adverse reaction to booze drugs or just certain social situations]...

""just that we don't have the science to identify them yet?"'
i think science has studied and found out
most that can be attributed[physiclly]

yet cure still seems in most cases a managment issue...
the physical treatments usually in isolating
or extracting [often compounding]..the damage
and the thing being a cure is rarely found

best we learn managment teqniques
and avoidance of that specific circumstance..
that initiates..the injuroius symtomology

with most i have taklked to/with
they seem just fine..[most of the time]
but then next it is like they have lost any ability to self control
[it can really feel demonic...and this must be included in those not cured]

as the link frequently gets 'lost'
i put up the search link to a specific pdf
[30 years among the dead]..
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=30+years+amoung+the+dead+pdf&btnG=Search&hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=

that talks of a simple exorsism teqnique
using static electricty...

that then via a 'medium'..
convinces the haunting[phycosis]..to leave..
in those 'impossable cases'

it deserves to be further studied

but dosing them up on pills
only make them worse
[allowing in more 'lost spirits']

it could prove cost affective
but wont make the legal drug merchants rich
diet is also an important aspect

"you were misdiagnosed because the doctor
was incompetent and/or just wanted you to go away".
[or get his numbers for drug perscription up to the extra bonus zone]

""I do, needless to say, have my problems
with some concepts in mental illness discourse.
After all it is still a young discipline and there is much still to learn.""

here is the guy [see link]..who tried another way
http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://new-birth.net/booklet/30_years_among_the_dead.PDF&sa=U&ei=kIQ_Ttr1KejSiAKFg_WXBg&ved=0CBMQFjAA&sig2=a93fr_eWd83n1jzWSg72sA&usg=AFQjCNFZG8_FS_h2bnk3qiTkavMMIygECA

yet many still suffer because of blind ignorance
and obstanite deneyal...that they could be decieved

""But to dismiss mental illness as a social construction is disingenuous in the extreme,..not least because it denies the reality of what millions of people suffer.""

we need to keep searching for a better way
solgers should transit over to 'peacetime activity'
not be killing one day..drunk in a bar the next
children molested must be repaired..not further trasumatised

...Posters here appear to accept the current confusion and proliferation in classification of mental illness: But Szaszs lesson was this:- …Fundamental false truths (that are a basic part of societies belief system, and that support economically and existentially important common practices) were religious in nature: Today they are mainly “Medical” in nature!...

...He observed also a direct correlation between the demise of religion and the increase in the …observers (Doctors) construction and definition of the behaviour of the persons he observes as medically disabled individuals needing medical treatment…

...“God is dead” arise “Mental Illness”!

This article is a waste of journalism and based on one person's opinion who doesn't have to live with the abnormal thinking as a result of uncontrollable mental health issues which affect every aspect of life.

I fought this for 29 years after being in denial from diagnosis' after an acquired serious traumatic brain injury in an auto accident. Looking back, I suffered on a daily basis with extreme rapid cycling of mood changes over which I had little or no control.

The first 7 years of that time I was self-medicating with alcohol and pot to the point of getting arrested for DUI or having accidents while driving a motor vehicle.

The following 30 years I've been continuously clean & sober from all alcohol & drugs, and 9 years ago I was so overwhelmed with the depression and not being able to function that I had to surrender to disability again.

Average people have no idea how humiliating this feels not to be able to be self-supporting with a useful occupation and being a contributing member of society. When I admit to new people that I'm disabled with a mental illness the greater percentage of them shun be like I'm contagious or may be a threat to them in some way.

This is a condensed version of a long story of suffering in my lifetime. 13 years ago after taking meds to stabilize my mood swings from a late-life diagnosis, I chose not to have any offspring because I didn't want them to suffer with the defective genes that I carry.

Can you handle the truth of what I really have to live with?

We are all of the same human condition. A greater amount of people live life dealing with short-term mental health issues and go on with their lives. Some of us get beaten down so many times that we are totally worn down from the suffering. And there are the ones that fake being ill, I because they're too lazy and self-absorbed to care to be a contributing member to their self and/or society.

The disclaimer - I've got no specific training or qualifications to comment

The opinion - I doubt that mental illness is a myth as most understand the term. Some people genuinely deal with serious issues which we can't pin down to a physical cause.

At the same time I think that a significant proportion of what's considered mental illness is really about beliefs and expectations that don't work in the world we live in. Kid's who have never had consistant boundaries struggle with self control and ADHD is a lot easier for the parents to hear than poor parenting.

Others who were overly pampered as children finding that the adult world does not pamper them in the same way feeling depressed because the world does not meet their expectations. Much easier to hear that they have depression caused by some imbalance than to hear that they
need to adjust their world view.

One of the downsides of the likely overdiagnosis of mental illness is that it trivialises the needs and experience of those genuinely suffering.

R0bert

R0bert, you beat me to it. The point I was making is that a great deal of what is called illness is simly a rsponse to a traumatic event, in the same way as a bruise or a broken bone.

Obvioulsy not all the things that ail humans are simple injuries: there are infections, persistent organic damage due to severe injuries, genetic miscodings, the list goes on.

We don't treat all physical ailments as though they are pathogenic in origin - that would be stupid. We don't even treat all self-reported symptoms as though they have an organic basis.

There are, it seems to me, 2 issues here. The first is the provision of symptomatic relief (perhaps a local anaesthetic for a toothache, perhaps an anti-emetic for stomach cramps, etc. We don't pretend that these treatments will do anything other than make the person feel a bit better and we understand the potential side-effects quite well. I think that most "treatment" for mental unease falls into this category.

Then there are the treatments designed to repair the injury or reduce the infection. For physical injury or illness we're pretty good at getting to the nub of the problems and our treatments are well targetted on the whole. For mental illness or injury there is a big black hole in this area, it seems to me. Such treatments that exist are crude and poorly targetted. Lobotomy is widely used and although it's a lot better today with modern imaging, it's still pretty hit and miss. ECT is very traumatic and mostly palliative rather than genuinely curative. Neurosurgery for traumatic injury and some illnesses amenable to surgery is becoming very good, but there seems to be no real understanding of how to help the brain regain its proper chemistry without long-term use of drugs that have highly variable effects.

Time to get psychiatry out of the pharmacy.