
Researchers Doubt That Certain Mental Disorders Are Disorders at All - elorant
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2020/08/11/researchers-doubt-that-certain-mental-disorders-are-disorders-at-all/#3b6d979515a6
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jonex
They seem to believe in some magical distinction between disorders and non-
disorders that I doubt can be established consistently in a meaningful manner
and is pretty far from relevant. I think the meaningful way to think about
mental disorders is that it simply means that a person have a slightly
abnormal psychological condition that affects their quality of life in a
significantly negative manner. The classification is helpful to get the right
kind of help dealing with the condition.

That some abnormal psychological conditions can be reasonable reactions to
stimuli isn't that relevant IMO. A broken leg is a normal reaction to hitting
a tree when skiing, but we still need medical care when it happens.

If scientists then wants to discuss whether it should be called unable-to-walk
disorder or a broken leg, I guess let them, but that discussion is just about
terminology and unless I see concrete proof that it's more important than the
treatment I don't think it's clinically relevant.

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ncmncm
Article repeats the thoroughly debunked " _evidence has continued to show that
antidepressants perform no better than placebo._ "

"Evidence" cited is based on gathering a crowd of people suffering from at
least a half-dozen medically-indistinguishable disorders, and giving them all
just one medication that helps only the small fraction of them who suffer only
what it treats, and then announcing that medication doesn't work.

It is like rounding up people with broken limbs of all kinds--many with more
than one break--and putting a cast on each one's left shinbone; then
announcing casts don't work, because look at all the ones it didn't help.

The "Gold Standard" double-blind trial works only if you can diagnose
accurately. But the only tool known to diagnose depression is to try and see
which medication helps. Design a plausible "gold standard" trial for that, I
dare you.

The people conducting these depression treatment trials are guilty of
malpractice and gross incompetence, and people repeating their results are, at
best, dupes.

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throwaway590007
Pretty much all of psych constructs are ill-defined, from IQ to autism to
schizophrenia. That's not to say intelligence or mental illness isn't real,
only that psychologists have done a spectacularly bad job at accounting for it
in a scientifically valid way.

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depressedCorgi
I don’t know if I completely agree with this. I’ve suffered from depression
and anxiety my whole life, and maybe sometimes this is a response to something
in my environment, but most of the time I just feel sad for not reason at all.

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ncmncm
By the evidence, they are just almost completely wrong.

Modern life is not much like what we evolved in, but that many people do fine
in it shows that environment is not determinative.

