The Role of Culture in Mental Illness

Great Debates
1

I recently read the following article in Atlantic Monthly (warning - this article is about the obsession with becoming an amputee and is not for the easily disturbed):

(I really have two questions, but will put the second one in another thread.)

In the third part of the article, the issue of how culture may create or define a mental illness came up. An example used in the article is the sudden epidemic of multiple-personality disorder in the 1970’s. By classifying this disorder, attaching it to the rising awareness of child abuse, developing a treatment, and especially by making it a high-profile disorder, did psychiatry and the popular culture create a niche, an environment in which a previously rare/unknown condition could spread? Did it merely bring an already existing condition to light? Did it create a new diagnosis that psychiatrists and other doctors could slap on a wide variety of pathologies? Did people find a new way to “go mad”, developing symptons they would not otherwise have manifested if they did not hear of them?

I’d be interested in hearing from dopers in the mental health field or educated laypersons. I found this article fascinating and disturbing, and the conclusions made sense to me, but I have little education in field and would like to get other opinions.

2

I’m not making claims about being an educated layperson but my Psychology class I’m taking this semester (and yes, it is beginning Psychology) covered this to a small degree. The book we used felt it was a combination of both: those who are hungry for attention claiming a disorder and those who can be correctly classified. (This is my paraphrase).

It’s been an interesting class.

3

Yeah, in the same sense that Jack the Ripper and Charles Manson “created a niche” in which murder “could spread”.

4

Well, I just read most of the article and if I was a truly disabled person, the idea of someone actually wanting to become disabled would offend me to the core.

Reading through some of the stories, you’ve got to wonder if some of it isn’t a conditioned response some how (behavioralism). I’m thinking of the guy in the story that said since the age of 17, he’s been highly aroused by women’s deformed feet. That’s a very sexual age; I wonder what the circumstances are surrounding that experience.

Again, I’m no expert and make no claims to be. Our resident experts will confirm that! :). Interesting article.

5

In my mind there is some doubt as to the veracity of most claims of Multiple Personality Disorder. A pretty good article with links to articles on both sides of the debate can be found here:

http://www.skepdic.com/mpd.html

Much of what can be said about MPD sounds a lot like the criticisms that have been leveled against the repressed memory phenomenon. These, along with other “illnesses” give me a very dim view of psychology as a discipline. It is often extremely subjective, non-rigorous, and very liable to causing as much damage as it helps alleviate.

6

Phthalia:

You said that really well! Mind if I use that?

7

I wonder if there is a similarity to hypochondia. I’ve heard of (but not being in the field I cannot confirm) that a hypochondiac may hear about the symptoms of a new disease and claim to have the symptoms, and in extreme cases even develop the symptoms. I was intrigued by the idea of a vague, unnamed, free-floating interest or desire suddenly manifesting as a full-blown textbook case of some mental illness because it now has a name and a support group. Sort of like the sugar in a solution forming crystals around a piece of string.

8

Be my guest AHunter3. Just change “causing” to “cause” so I sound better! :slight_smile:

9

Without having read the cite in the OP, I will venture to say that “culture” has had a lot to do with mental illness. Current American culture is only now emerging (and slowly at that) from many decades of totally dysfunctional mindsets. A quick glange at the wreckage due to the notion that; “If it doesn’t hurt, it can’t be love.” is all that is needed to see why so many women continue to cling to abusive relationships.

This is but a small example of a much larger malaise. The lack of a rational philosophy, as taught both in schools and at home, not to mention the all too often total lack of a philosophy of any sort, has begat a society fraught with homicidal children. The money obsessed careerists whose lives ring with the cracked and hollow belltones of vacuous existence are a sterling example.

One look at generation X and it’s almost total lack of inspiration or direction is all that is needed to affirm this notion. The recent uptick in self mutilation (“cutting”) should sound a clarion blast of warning to the adults in this world that things have gone off the rails in a drastic fashion. Too often people are willing to turn away from such pathology solely because it does not seem to intrude into their lives in any substantial manner.

Yet, these same people complain of not being able to walk out at night anymore. The connection is not being made between the almost total lack of community in the inner cities and the amount of anonymity and impersonal attitude that prevails. Culture is supposed to enlighten. Yet, with the lowest common denominator broadcasting we have, instead, there has been brought about a culture of nihilism (if such a thing is possible).

The lack of personal responsibility shown by people who drive or walk past those in distress or need is a hallmark of the festering self-absorption that so many indulge in. Until culture unites in the pursuit of knowledge and liberation from the opaque void of unenlightened self interest we will continue to be plagued by so many of the evils that modern society has bred out of the cauldron of ignorance and intentional avoidance.

In a word, yes, culture is quite capable of becoming the breeding ground of mental illness. The schistic and duplictious nature of religions that simultaneously preach altruism and intolerance are but one example of the many fractures in the bedrock of our society. Parents whose children are mere trophies of their all consuming carreers should not be too surprised when those same children manifest severe antisocial behaviors. The all too frequent emotional vacuum of broken homes and cattle yard schools that our children endure inculcate them with a mentality of “me-first” and mind games that will haunt society for many years to come.

10

Culture often determines how behaviors get diagnosed. The AMA used to consider homosexuality to be a mental disease; now it’s an alternate lifestyle. A kid with a gun used to be a disciplinary problem; now he’s a psychosocial problem. The line between odd behavior and illness can be awfully blurry.

11

hysteria.

that’s what it is.

in class today (its a nonfiction writing class, taught by the head of the psychiatric department at the hospital - suffice to say that while the class might not know what is going on, the professor sure as hell does) the prof was talking about this.

there is no such thing as multiple personality disorder. instead, when a disorder all of a sudden gets in the spotlight (like MPD did after “the three faces of eve” and “sybil”) some people start to manifest symptoms of the disorder. they claim they have multiple personality disorder, but in fact, they are hysterical.

hysteria is a behavioral disorder whereby sufferers unwittingly mimic (to use my prof’s words) the symptoms of a disease, or what the imagine the symptoms of a disease to be. they’re not faking it, per se - they are really convinced that they have, as an example, multiple personalitis swimming around in their head.

if the psychatrist/ologist ‘ignores’ the multiple personalties (by only recognizing the original person, for example) the other personalities will fade away into nothingness. this contrasts with a mental disorder like depression which, if ‘ignored,’ will most certainly not disappear.

another example of hysteria is found back in the old days, when people always thought they were being possessed by devils, or witches, esp. during the salem witch trials. because people who were possessed, and possession itself was receiving lots of attention, many, many young girls jumped forward as victims of possession, when, in reality, they were ‘unwittingly mimicking’ what the imagined possession to be like. [incidentally, almost all people who get hysterical in this manner are young girls. no one knows why.]
hysteria is not to be confused with hypochondria, however. in hypochondria, the person THINKS they are ill “doc, i think i have cancer.” [doc does some tests, they come out ok, tells patient he is cancer free, and then] “thank you doc, thank you.” then, of course, next week the same guy thinks he has arthritis, or something. with hysteria, the patient will be showing actual symptoms - if they say they are paralyzed, for example, they will not be able to move; self delusion can be a powerful thing.

anywho, yes, society can influence new pseudo mental disorders - whenever a new one comes into vogue, as it were, there will be people who become convinved that they have it.

12

Doctors as well as would-be patients are susceptible to this, and there is also no such thing as schizophrenia.

13

except they have found physical abnormalities in the brains of people with schizophrenia, which kind of make it seem like schizophrenia is an actual disease.

one of the biggest problems facing psychiatrists/ologists is that many of the disorders they study and treat dont have a discernable pathology, and so by finding one (or, as in the case of schizophrenia, finding some physical element of the disease) they get a step closer to bringing the field of psychiatry up to the rest of the medical field.

not to say that some people who claim to be schizophrenic aren’t suffering from hysteria, but schizophrenia is one of a very few mental disorders which they have actual physical proof of its existence.

14

:rolleyes:

Hysteria? Still hung up on Freud, are we? It’s only been, oh, about eighty years…

There is such thing as multiple personality disorder. It was renamed a few years ago, and is now known as DID-- dissociative identity disorder. It’s far less prevalent than movies would have us believe, but it does exist. A genuine case is simply rare.

And although I haven’t read very much on the treatment methods for DID, it sounds incredible to me that any psychiatrist worth his salt would “ignore” any aspect of his patients’ illness.
AHunter3-- I’m going to read your link more thoroughly in a second, but I will admit, it’ll be tough to convince me that schizophrenia doesn’t exist. As many types as there are, as long as it’s been around and been studied and treated, and as frequent and widespread diagnoses of it are, it’ll take one heck of an argument to get me thinking otherwise.

15

Sneeze:

Which is of course the goal.

16

Schizophrenia is not the same thing as Multiple Personality Disorder.

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/chapter4/sec4.html - “schizophrenia is neither “split personality” nor “multiple personality.” Furthermore, people with schizophrenia are not perpetually incoherent or psychotic”

17

I believe the physiological aspect of schizophrenia is the difficulty of dopamine uptake/use at the synapses.

::checking notes::

Yup, that’s what my class notes say.

They’ve also found a clear genetic link to the disease too (not necessarily a gene, per se, but a genetic link for the disease - did that make sense??).

Anyone read that book “I Know This Much is True”? Novel 'bout a guy whose twin brother is a paranoid schizophrenic. Got half way through and wandered away from it, but it was excellent.

18

I think culture has a big impact on mental illness. You can look into the history of psychology and find different illness proliferating at different times. The hysterias Freud was dealing with are almost unknown today while some of the disorders that are very common today, such as OCD, very virtually unknown in the past.
Here is an article that posits the explanation that all psychological disorders are all different manifestations of the same problems.
http://www.wglasserinst.com/chemistr.htm

19

What about the so-called “alien abduction” phenomenon-how could any rational person believe this crap? yet a very respected harvard psychiatrist (Dr. mack)? was totally taken in by this nonsense.
I’d say a lot of what is called “mental illness” originates in the brains of psychiatrists!

20

AudreyK said:

“And although I haven’t read very much on the treatment methods for DID, it sounds incredible to me that any psychiatrist worth his salt would “ignore” any aspect of his patients’ illness.”

ok, maybe ‘ignore’ was a bad choice of words without providing an explanation. say a girl comes in suffering from anorexia and MPD/DID. she goes on and on about her different personalities, switching back and forth, and the doctors say to her ‘well, the MPD is too hard for us to treat right now - we’ll just concentrate on the anorexia.’ so they do - they ‘ignore’ the MPD by, for example, like i said, only speaking to the original girl and not her other ‘personalities,’ and by claiming that they are only going to treat the anorexia.

so, as the weeks go by and the patient starts gaining weight, the claims of MPD slowly start to diminish until, finally, they disappear.

if no one pays attention to the MPD it goes away. that is what i meant by ‘ignore.’ like when you have a three year old throwing a tantrum, and you ignore it, you’ll stop it a lot quicker than if you pander to it.