jeroldharter said:
You are right that "there is not a test" to diagnose a mental illness. Perhaps there will be soon. In the meantime, do we assume that the brain is the only organ in the body with essentially no dysfunction until old age? Apart from multiple sclerosis and epilepsy there are few other brain illnesses that occur until old age. I suppose migraine headaches are a sham as well since there is "no test" to diagnose them. Why would a body's most complicated organ be so free of biological problems and so prone to existential problems? Perhaps yellow bile?
By the way, I am still waiting on my check from "the pharmaceutical industry."
"Perhaps there will be soon".
I have heard this for years. There is no such test now and there is no such test projected to be available anytime soon. This statement validates my original one on your profession. It us pure fraud, utter BS.
I can see it now-I walk into my doctor's office and he says "Well Wayne, I have your lab tests. Good news! You cholesterol is low, your liver enzymes look fine, but I'm afraid your depression coenzymes are elevated. You'll have to start taking medication now in order to maintain your neurotransmitters within the limits recommended by the American Psychiatric Association". What an unfunny joke, the entire idea is utterly preposterous.
"Do we assume that the brain is the only organ in the body with essentially no dysfunction until old age?"
We do not let wild assumptions color the evidence. Your implied premise that because some diseases were (and some remain) unproven and lack diagnostic tests, that this somehow bolsters a position that mental illness WILL BE, is transparent. There is abundant evidence to the contrary. I recommend "Blaming the Brain" by Eliot Valenstein for those who are interested in the subject. There are a lot of unbalanced books on the subject, but I think this one is pretty good. In fact its too balanced and too uncritical, IMO, but very good nonetheless.
The beauty of the position your profession holds on biological diagnosis is that 100 years from now when you still havent found it you can still say it is coming "soon" and some people will believe you. Makes for great job security. It is not coming though, because it is based on that flawed assumption (more like a religious belief) that people with different emotional experience and undesired behaviors are biologically defective, which in turn reveals an astonishingly poor, oversimplified grasp of the complexity of human experience. When a single biological diagnostic test for any mental illness becomes available ("soon", as you say) come back and I will apologize, OK?
Enough already. Bringing this back around to photography-Ansel Adams was a very troubled hyperactive child and certainly would have been diagnosed as ADHD and drugged if he was a child today. Fortunately he had a father who cared extraordinarily for him, who took him out of school and nurtured him and went far beyond the bounds of what most parents would do. The rest is history/legend. I would like to see someone argue that Ansel would have been better off or have been able to achieve more with his life if modern psychiatry had intervened.
"I often wonder at the strength and courage my father had in taking me out of the traditional school situation and providing me with these extraordinary learning experiences. I am certain he established the positive direction of my life that otherwise, could have been confused and chaotic. I trace who I am and the direction of my development to those years of growing up in our house on the dunes -- propelled especially by an internal spark tenderly kept alive and glowing by my father." ---Ansel Adams