[lbo-talk] let's argue about the cause of mental illness

Andy andy274 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 28 06:37:34 PDT 2009


On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:53 AM, shag carpet bomb<shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:


>  if someone asked, as i did, "what is the state of the research on the
> causes of heart disease" i would speak to that. like I'd talk about the
> bogosity of claims about lowering cholesterol levels by eating less
> cholesterol, or about the various ups and downs of cholesterol inhibiting
> drugs and their side effects. i might speak more to the things with which
> I'm familiar and point people at whatever resources i've come to trust. i'd
> assume that people with medical conditions who belong to this list are
> inclined to be very well read on the topic because well-read and inquisitive
> otherwise, unlikely to be passive consumers of health and medical advice,
> etc.

One problem here is that talking about "the causes of mental illness" is like asking why people get sick. It's too broad not to get into specifics. Even different kinds of depression are believed to have different etiologies and are treated differently.

Also, the understanding and treatment of mental illness goes beyond even the usual complications of professional lore and experience in the medical profession -- way beyond what's gleaned from drug trials -- into interactions with psychology, the most basic of which is that people tend to be a little spooked by the thought of psychotropics (as Jeffery has noted and as Bill is demonstrating). There's no way to get the straight poop from a single source on this. It's too complicated. You have to read around, and accept that people who do this for a living may have an advantage in knowledge and experience. There's no way around it.

Rest assured that I read around like a maniac at the time, though this was before there was much in the way of academic sources on the web. I've since gotten kind of bored of the subject, and don't usually follow up sources like the book you're talking about. Maybe there's new knowledge now, but when I was getting into this some 12 years back it seemed like any source that presented itself as an expose of meds did a bad job of acknowledging the caveats that come as part of the mainstream approach, as I understood it. Like the potential for suicide early in treatment, that was already well recognized at the time, and I think independently of SSRI's. Generally speaking, I find that a bad omen for the usefulness of an argument, and I've seen that before in claims that meds are no better than placebos. It's a position with a shady history, argument-wise. Which doesn't by itself mean it's bogus, but let's just say it has an uphill battle.


> It isn't the first time I've been through this, though. Over the years, the
> causes of heart disease have shifted from one bogey to the next, and the
> remedies -- low fat! super low fat! no cholesterol! oat bran! canola oil!
> etc. -- have turned out to be bogosities one and all -- and sometimes, for
> me, actually potentially fatal, as was the case with an aunt. the super low
> fat treatment regimen ended up causing her to get worse. they now know why
> that happened, but it was an article of faith back then to treat the heart
> condition we have with super low fat diets. today we know that it
> contributed to her death.

There was an essay a while back along those lines that you viscerally dismissed.

-- Andy



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