Oh, that’s total crap. The fact that I’m suffering a myocardial infarct is demonstrable. The question of whether it is an “illness” is not science. Nor would we care if it was an “illness” or a “forthmagoa”; we would treat it. Try reading what I said for comprehension next time.
I prefer: “Dear God, protect us from the people who believe in you.”
Yes, it is. In fact, by admitting that it’s demonstrable that there is a condition of un-health, you’ve already admitted that the definition of “illness” is objective and perfectly scientific. You can’t have it both ways.
If the word for “illness” was “forthmagoa”, then we’d treat a “forthmagoa”. The very fact that you believe it merits treatment means that its’ an illness.
And here I thought you were talking about how you preferred a civil discussion of the facts.
Objectively, an “illness” is something that requires “treatment”.
This determination is partly based on the subjective impressions of the patient and partly based on objective measures on the part of the practitioner: hence the terms “signs” and “symptoms”.
Signs and symptoms are diagnostic “tools” which help the assessor determine the condition of the patient.
The On-Line Medical Dictionary defines them as: “Objective evidence of disease perceptible to the examining physician (sign) and subjective evidence of disease perceived by the patient (symptom.)”
In layman’s terms, “signs” are those “things” that we can see, and “symptoms” are those “things” that the patient tells us. For example: Pain would be a symptom (you can’t see it, but the patient can tell you that he/she has pain).
In the case of mental illnesses, some people are saying that the subjective experience of being mentally ill with schizophernia is not “bad”, but rather “good” in some ways: that is, that the symptoms are not those that these particular people associate with disease.
However, such a person may not be the best judge of their case. They may, for example, believe that they are having brilliant insights when everyone else believes they are shouting gibberish. This is one potential way in which mental illness differs from most other forms - in most other cases, the sick person is under no illusions that they are well (and to be fair, most mentally ill people aren’t, either).
Hence one must evaluate these symptoms together with the signs of disease, culled from years of medical experience of similar cases. That’s where the “science” comes in - it is the tool a clinican uses to evaluate the signs and symptoms.
According to what? Numbers on a lab printout? Squiggles on an EKG? The feeling that an elephant is sitting on your chest? The attending physician’s knowledge and experience compiled from hundreds or thousands of cases like yours? And none of this reflects evidence-based criteria for an illness?
Do you just not like the word “illness”, and would prefer “condition” or “demonstrable thingy”?
Or is it that (as is the case with many uninformed people) mental illness is not a real illness in your view, thus science doesn’t come into it?
While you’re looking into the basic definitions that Malthus posted, try researching “evidence-based medicine” as well.
It’ll be a revelation. 
I know autohorntootation isn’t always the best thing, but I think I in post 187 discussed the idea of how scientists relate to definitions in a relevant way, and I think folks are largely ignoring these salient points.
Noted. Though as you may recall I suggested they wanted said people to be replaced, or for them to change their way of operating (mentally, or within the boards?) to better suit Kimmy and Smashy’s preferred discussions. But I’m only speculating…if they truly thought this I wouldn’t be backing them, so you know.
Apologies, I meant for that last question to be directed at everyone in general, including Kimmy and Smashy. I have read every post in this thread, yes. And while I understand that you are merely retaliating with the same level of maturity as they, I nevertheless still see the words stupid, obnoxious, and pretentious idiocy as insults. Point and point.
~S.P.I.~
P.S.: Refer to DSYoungEsq for more coherency…
Isn’t the very notion of ‘fighting ignorance’, an attempt to change people and their perceptions?
May I have that word, please? That’s right, autohorntootation.
Part of me wants to snuggle up against it, and another part of me wants to beat it to death with a stick. 
No, I think it is more about the sharing of knowledge previously unknown to others. It isn’t a quest to support anyone person’s particular perception, but to encourage others to read up on various venues of thought. If then you feel you’re in need of a perception change, that is all you.
It could also be argued that yes, yes it is - just a very specific one.
Again, it was speculation on my part as to the motivations of Kimmy and Smashy in participating in a board so many people believe they “hate”. If only Kimmy and Smashy were here to explain what it is they are doing here. Oh well.
OK, dorkness, I looked back at your post.
I agree with this sentence.
Now maybe. But what about 50 years ago? When gays routinely went into “treatment” because many (most?) of them also thought of it as an illness. Just like everyone else back then.
Was it an illness 50 years ago or 100 years ago, but not now?
Except that in psychosis the person in question often (usually?) doesn’t think they’re sick. So if we just look at THAT subset, I tend to think they’re *even *sicker - not less sick - precisely because they don’t think they’re sick at all.
What’s worse? The person who has a stroke who knows they’re sick because can’t use the left side of their body, or the person who has a stroke who thinks they’re just fine because not only are they paralyzed, but they’ve forgotten the “idea” of left altogether?
I don’t think most serious people would argue that the definition of disease is that simple. And the ramifications of how you define disease *are *always political. You do, actually have to keep that in mind.
I think Kimmy and Smash are stupid because they’re applying that concept totally selectively. You can’t just apply it to schizophrenia, or homosexuality, or deafness. If you’re in that mode (which is legitimate) where you’re skeptical of the very concept of disease, you have to apply it to everything, not just the things that bother you.
You can’t just say, basically: “schizophrenia’s not a disease because I don’t really believe in the concept of disease. But other things are diseases, obviously.”
I think it’s simpler than that. A scientist can say “this is my definition of disease.” Then they can say “condition X fulfills/does not fulfill the criteria I put forth for a disease.”
The question of whether their definition “good” is not a scientific question, that’s true. But they don’t have to argue that point - all they have to do is be clear about what definition they are using and be consistent in applying it.
Motivation isn’t really an issue either. That defining something as a disease has political ramifications is more relevant. I have no doubt that the psychiatrists in the first half of the 20th Century who were arguing so vociferously for pathologizing homosexuality genuinely believed it was a pathology.
You have to be more clear on what you mean by “because of”. I mean if a man committed a crime that he wouldn’t have if he were a woman (say if the testosterone weren’t there or whatever the hell it is that explains the gender disparity in crimes) - how can you say that gender is *not *the cause?
Or you could turn it around with schizophrenia - even if she would not have murdered her baby without the schizophrenia, it couldn’t have been the sole reason for the murder. Otherwise all schizophrenics would be murderers. You could just as well say that the religious influence was the cause of a vulnerable schizophrenic committing infanticide who might have otherwise been perfectly harmless.
Hell, I’m a descriptivist. Snuggle it, beat it to death with a stick, whatever you want. I make up awesome words (not to autohorntootate).
It’s not the ability to diagnose the condition. It is the authority to command what is to be done about it. Nobody is saying that there isn’t a complex of symptoms that have certain predictable features and whose presence can be detected by a trained practitioner. The question is: Is schizophrenia, taken on its own and apart from social prejudices surrounding the diagnosis and the symptoms, necessarily an impairment? Or can some schizophrenics, in society that seeks to tolerate the differences schizophrenia cause, function without much intervention. Is it possible that some schizophrenics get something positive out of their condition? Does the schizophrenic ever get to override the doctor?
These challenges are just par for the course in the sociology of medicine. The example of homosexuality recurs because it was criminalized and medicalized for so long. And the change did not come from any scientific discoveries (and it certainly wasn’t because it was only in 1973 that we finally realized that homos “don’t mind their condition,” as was suggested above), it was a political or a social change. It was the recognition that not every deviation from the mean needs to be considered a problem with a medical or psychological solution.
Still today physicians and society face when we deal with people who choose not to comply with medical directives. The religious person who refuses a blood transfusion; the smoker who thinks the present enjoyment is worth a foreshortened life. You may disagree with the values that lead people to make these choices, but it seems clear than a mere M.D. does not license you to ignore them.
I’m surprised you even resist this idea as much as you do. The only way I can explain is that two themes in this thread have been conflated (1) there are other modes of knowledge acquisition beyond physical perception and scientific investigation, and (2) the limits of science do not allow us to make value judgments about bodily or mental conditions. The first was brought up with respect to the possible value of the schizophrenic’s insights. The second means that though medical science can tell us what smoking will do, it can answer the question “Is it better to be happy and smoke and die sooner, or not?” I think somewhere along the way people got in it in their heads that an argument that the could be a intuitive mode of medicine (although, don’t kid yourself, EBM is a newcomer to the scene, what do you think medical practitioners were doing before the EBM fad – what else could they have been doing). Nobody is arguing that materialist model is not essential to medical science, only that medicine, and materialism, have limitations that ought to be acknowledged.
Oh you want to argue against doctors forcing treatment on their patients. Why didn’t you say so? I don’t think anybody here wants to take the other side, but maybe we can dig up somebody for you so you can battle it out.
Really? How many psych ward inmates do you think are there voluntarily? Have you ever heard of what we call in my home state of Florida the Baker Act?
Moreover, this isn’t merely a case of saying that schizophrenics get to choose whether they submit to treatment–a liberty I again note that is not often afforded, your pat assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. It is about reconsidering the very idea of problematizing schizophrenia-without-more.
I for one am amused by StS’s view that
Combined with his politics, I can’t help but be reminded of the SPK
We go from this:
to this:
to this admission:
O.K., good to get that out of the way.
Yes, there are a lot of people with lesser degrees of mental illness who function independently, with the aid and blessing of caregivers.
As I mentioned earlier, there are cases where the “cure” is felt by the patient to be worse than the disease. This does not mean that they are happy to be schizophrenic, but that in their view the effects of medication are not worth the decrease or absence in schizophrenic thought.
The comparison with homosexuals has been beaten to death. In that instance bad science was overcome. No evidence has been presented to show that schizophrenia, notably in its full-blown form is not a severe and debilitating illness.
There is also today a great deal of respect and tolerance for beliefs and lifestyles that reject optimal medical treatment. Your example of blood transfusion is one in which alternatives are used to come up with the best results possible. Where the line is (sometimes uncertainly) drawn is with children, where parents in the grip of religious or other ideologies make decisions that threaten the lives of their kids, who don’t have a real choice in the matter.
Uh-oh, here we go wandering back into the spirit world.
If you have evidence that schizophrenia is beneficial, other than your own prejudices, bring it on. Otherwise, both medical science and a great weight of experience counter to your own will continue to overwhelm your arguments.
Havent’ read the whole thing, so forgive me if this was already pointed out (probably was) But in terms of leaving schizophrenics to decide for themselves whether they are ill or not, or comparisons to homosexuality, etc… when schizophrenia stops being identified as a fundamental cause of murder (no, of course not always, not even usually - but I don’t think that anyone has ever been driven to kill because they themselves were homosexual, for instance.) then we can discuss the possibility of leaving schizophrenics to their schizophrenia.
After all, if you’re in this thread, you’ve seen the front page of the Pit. The most alarming thread topic currently there concerns the heinous acts of a woman diagnosed as schizophrenic.
Also…is the OP a scientologist, by any chance? Certain attitudes have the general aroma of Scientology.
This is a good post. A very good one. Read it.