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/sci/ - Science & Math

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11309803 No.11309803 [Reply] [Original]

Thomas Szasz was a Hungarian-American psychiatrist, who wrote a famous book, "The Myth of Mental Illness".

He thought mental illnesses are not really illnesses - instead they are simply "problems in living", i.e. emotional problems, caused by the emotional stresses of modern society, with all its complexity and competition. In his words, there are "neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying DSM diagnoses" (the DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, which is the de facto standard for mental illness definitions used by American psychiatrists).

He didn't think psychiatry was useless though - he was a psychiatrist himself, and he strongly believed in psychotherapy between a consenting patient and doctor. But he strongly criticised involuntarily and coercive psychiatry, believing that it violated the rights of patients.

I agree with him a lot. The only condition I'm familiar with where I think you could say it might be a genuine illness is schizophrenia, because your risk of schizophrenia is thought to be 80% genetic, implying that physical genes are somehow causing the condition. The mechanism is of course not yet understood. As for something like depression, that's thought to only be 40% genetic, implying that 60% of your risk is outside your genetics - things like upbringing, and your life conditions. So in that case it definitely seems to me that depression is just a "problem in living". Some genes just probably make your life shitter, e.g. make you uglier or something, which in turn makes you depressed.

What do you think, /sci/?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

>> No.11309811

>>11309803
you just debunked your own theory. you admit schizophrenia is genetic. clearly there is something going on

at the same time, clearly the psychiatrists are pseuds. they don't have reliable scientific methods to label something a "disease" on par with obvious infectious diseases like e.g. staph infection or ringworm.

attacking mental illnesses like retardation or microcephaly is stupid. clearly they have known physical causes. at the same time, ADHD and """Depression""" and """""""Gender Dysphoria"""""""""""" are memes. however, this doesn't mean all mental illnesses are memes. you just need to look at the literature and think about the methodology to sort out the wheat from the chaff here

>> No.11309843

>>11309811
>you admit schizophrenia is genetic
That's why I said schizophrenia could be a candidate for being a real illness, but something like depression is less of a candidate, because only 40% of its risk is genetic. It sounds like you didn't read my post.

>attacking mental illnesses like retardation or microcephaly
Microcephaly is not a mental illness, it's a physical neurological brain defect.

As for "retardation", that's not a thing. I assume you probably mean learning disabilities. I'm not going to comment on those though because I don't know enough about them.

>> No.11309874

>>11309811
Twins have a 33% chance of sharing gender dysphoria.

>> No.11309917

>>11309874
adoptive twins? how do genetically identical twins compare to non identical (or whatever the exact name for that is)

>> No.11309991

>>11309811
Lurkerpsych here. Why do you speak about what you ignore?

>> No.11310014 [DELETED] 
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11310014

> Hungarian-American
Szasz was born to Jewish parents Gyula and Lily Szász on April 15, 1920

>> No.11310018

>>11309843
>As for "retardation", that's not a thing

have you looked in the mirror lately

j/k i agree psychiatry is a joke, good for keeping low functioning people from destabilizing the system tho. they are an extension of state authority

>> No.11310037

>>11309991
the guy you replied to here. i don’t think i ignored anything. i just tried to distinguish some meme stuff from real stuff. what do you feel i ignored?

>> No.11310148

>>11310037
It seems to me that people feel validated to share their opinions on math when they know something about the subject. Same happens with physics. But when it comes to psychiatry, everyone has an opinion, even when it's clear that they have read wikipedia tier sources. Maybe people think it is an easy field, or maybe they consider it's easy to bullshit without others noticing.

>> No.11310162

>>11310148
i mean compared to math or physics, psych is an easy field..... am i wrong?

as far as i can tell, there is nothing in the field of psychology that goes beyond what i know having studied math and physics. in fact, all their work seems a lot like what children might do, not small children but like 16 year olds

>> No.11310168

>>11310148
yes all those diagnoses in the DSM which have high inter rater reliability are good evidence for psychiatry's rigor, for instance

>> No.11310184

>>11310148
the fuck do you want nigger? i'm sure you're aware of the horrific history of psychiatry. It's a pretty fucked up field with fucked up shit going on to this day. Why should we trust you?

>> No.11310185

>>11310014
please kill yourself

>> No.11310192
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11310192

>>11310162
>all their work seems a lot like what children might do, not small children but like 16 year olds
i need to hear moar anon tell me moar

>> No.11310767

>>11310162
>compared to math or physics, psych is an easy field..... am i wrong?
Yes, the fact that it is so poorly developed after centuries of effort should be an indication of the difficulty of the field, at epistemological, clinical, traslational and therapeutic levels.
>there is nothing in the field of psychology that goes beyond what i know having studied math and physics
This is why /lit/ is considered a smarter board than /sci/.
>>11310168
>yes all those diagnoses in the DSM which have high inter rater reliability are good evidence for psychiatry's rigor
Ohh you are so edgy! Every psychiatrist knows what you ironically imply. Many do not use DSM. Neither do I.
>>11310184
Who asked you to trust me? Kys

>> No.11310773

>>11310767
>Who asked you to trust me? Kys
you did when you came onto my chans and started spewing shit as if you have a clue

>> No.11310774
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11310774

>>11310014
wow a jewish guy was profession at deceptive circular reasoning

>> No.11310777

>>11310774
>>>/pol/
GET OUT, GET THE FUCK OUT

>> No.11310778

it's more complicated than that

>> No.11310780

The only time I see Szasz mentioned is by legitimate diagnosed schizos trying to deny they are mentally ill. I think that at this point they are the only ones to trot this out

>> No.11310908

>>11310780
well you are not very cultured or have much knowledge/exposure to psych then

>> No.11310911

>>11310780
also he is big in the drug-enthusiast community for his books like "ceremonial chemistry"

>> No.11312371

>>11309803
>thought to be 80% genetic
that got btfo by the ace study
genes indicated with schizophrenia only have 3% increase in risk of a person experiencing psychotic symptoms and abuse basically jump higher than the link between smoking and lung cancer

>> No.11315168

Bump