Depression - TalkSport Diagnosis

[feral chile]

Just because I choose to express different opinions to your own doesn't mean that it's something I know nothing about.

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And, it's worth considering this: if tomorrow it was proven beyond all doubt that there is no such thing as depression, the 'experts' on depression would refuse to accept it. As a body of knowledge and people of that knowledge, they are more interested in ensuring their own position and power via what they claim to know than they are of investigating and utilising what knowledge there is.

[eFestivals]

But how can you prove that a classification doesn't exist?

I didn't say it could be proven. I said 'if'.

The 'being proven to not exist' isn't really the point of those words, it's trying to point out the 'experts' aversion to working just on the basis of what is known.

The medical equivalent is a bit like going to the doctor with a simple headache and the doctor deciding that you need a heart transplant (but done under his own just-invented-out-of-nothing method) as the fix.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

What would undoubtedly be wrong be wrong with it is that you would fail to recognise that happiness.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

. You need to experience one emotion to appreciate another.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I struggle with that too (I struggle a lot... ). My mum used to say that a lot, she likes the ups and owns... which sort of implies you have to be really depressed some of the time to be really happy, ever. Even if there was some truth in it, it's flaming nightmare for others to deal with.

... isn't that bi-polar (whatever that is)

[feral chile]

I'm struggling with the idea that you have to have experienced depression to have any understanding of it.

If everyone's depression is unique, then one persons experience of it is different to the other's... so ultimately, you can only understand, or comment even, on your own experience...? That can't be right...

Edited August 7, 2012 by feral chile

[Rufus Gwertigan]

But how can you prove that a classification doesn't exist? They could restructure the classification of mental illness, they could stop calling it mental illness, stop using the medical model to describe the experience etc.

what would be extremely interesting is whether the experience would change if the concept changed.

It would be impossible to measure the result though - you can't measure what you haven't categorised as separate from something else. And if the diagnosis changes, then the measurements would also change.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Rufus Gwertigan

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Imagine being devoid of a mental condition...? and the implication is that that is an aim..!

I do sometimes thing think we dwell on the unknowable sometimes*. Is it necessary to understand everything? The human condition.... we're a weird bunch

but good fun

*which isn't to suggest we're wasting our time with trying to understand why some people struggle more than others just to get through the day.

[eFestivals]

I was happy btw, but not in the way I should be apparently.

well of course.

After all, you're not a customer if he says you're happy in the right way.

[worm]

I hate being bi-polar. It's fucking awesome!

[worm]

Well, everyone does have a mental condition. At the moment, we're using a dichotomy of mental health versus mental illness, rather than a continuum, as suggested for instance by Mind.

Edited August 7, 2012 by worm

[eFestivals]

This is all regarding terms and conditions that apply to the medical model. The medical model is a load of bollocks. It's based upon the notion of 'cure', which implies that there is a disease.

and of course there's nothing from the psychological side which tells people they are suffering an illness, an abnormality.

If psychobabblists started practising the idea that emotional & mental distress and unbalanced-ness is a normal human condition which in the vast majority of cases passes with time they wouldn't fuck over their very rewarding businesses, oh no.

[worm]

I sympathise with Neil's approach as well. You have to identify with the label. The labelling process is part of our socialisation, so it has to be accepted. In reality, I suffer from depression. However, I reject the label in the medical sense and all of the help that comes with it. the reason is that I believe a depressing outlook is closer to God (not in the literal sense, of course) and so it is the world and not me that is sick. Those that are happy are deluded to some extent.

There's a great line from the film Invasion (2007) that goes something like this: 'The world is an uncivilised place full of underlying violence and fear. But if consumerism should fail to do so, then the world of psychiatry can offer me a pill to take it all away'.

But to deny people the right to seek help in matters of the psyche and to dismiss mental problems outright, I think is wrong. I strongly believe in compassion and empathy and the innate social desire to form bonds of trust and loyalty; love and care. And I know that some people have the misfortune not to get that.

[worm]

and of course there's nothing from the psychological side which tells people they are suffering an illness, an abnormality.

[feral chile]

and of course there's nothing from the psychological side which tells people they are suffering an illness, an abnormality.

If psychobabblists started practising the idea that emotional & mental distress and unbalanced-ness is a normal human condition which in the vast majority of cases passes with time they wouldn't fuck over their very rewarding businesses, oh no.

[worm]

I sympathise with this.

Edited August 7, 2012 by worm

[eFestivals]

But to deny people the right to seek help in matters of the psyche and to dismiss mental problems outright, I think is wrong.

Neither of which I've done.

And yet it's rather purposeless to seek help from people who very much in the main are completely unable to help with their bad guesswork.

[worm]

Neither of which I've done.

Edited August 7, 2012 by worm

[eFestivals]

Who are these people? You're addressing a huge institution of help here. Social work, psychiatry, GPs, counselling, schools etc.

yep, all of them.

Everything is now seen as having an impact upon mental health.

in which direction are you meaning?

Yep, the fact of existing does. But that's simply a self-sustaining idea.

As for whether any of those 'practitioners' have any impact in addressing anyone's mental health problems, no one has the faintest idea.

[worm]

in which direction are you meaning?

[eFestivals]

Things have an impact upon the emotional well-being of an individual.

they do, but it's not possible to prove what exactly - at least, for things beyond the fleeting.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

I'm struggling with the idea that you have to have experienced depression to have any understanding of it.

[feral chile]

It's called pragmatism - theory from practice.

Before I moved locations, I used to work in a voluntary job as an assistant worker to an independent, local support group that actually dealt with helping people cope with their conditions or the conditions of people they knew. Every single person I dealt with there or who approached the group came out feeling positive and from feedback, the main two reasons they felt positive was 1. because of the immediacy of the care, but mainly 2. because being in the company of others who suffered from the same degree of mental anguish or who suffered more made them feel less alone; the concept of sharing coping mechanisms and experiences; setting achievable goals and giving each other a purpose; the overall sense that nobody was condescending to you.

Absolutely none of the people who I've ever spoken to - whether you're dealing with those who have been through the mill with psychiatrists, psychologists, CBT specialists, CPN's, GP's - have ever had anything positive to say about the services. None. Why? It's because the services simply don't work to the benefit of a science that, ultimately, can not and will not ever be understood; particularly with depression. Instead of trying to understand it, simply accept that depression is not a psychological illness but a biproduct of a sociological disease, and there are factors (and triggers) behind why people feel depressed, and triggers that can be managed, not medicated. There is no chemical in your brain that has gone 'missing'; you are not a diabetic that needs insulin.

The best 'cure' (if you can call it that) is talking with people who have been through it and survived. Support groups; discussing things with people who have 'insight' allows people the chance to feel comfortable with what they feel they suffer from but better than that, it's catering to the very basic instinct of actual physical social contact – contact that you lack in a clinical environment such as a GP's room; your doctor is not your friend. That's what we lack in today's society, and a very good measure of that is in, weirdly, online dating agencies, of which one in seven people in this country use by my last check.

Now, isn't it peculiar how this country's population (and the world's in general) is rocketing faster than our resources allow, and yet despite all of these people, one in seven of us would rather try and find a person in an environment where we can't actually physically touch, taste, smell, see or hear them? A more comforting environment perhaps? What we seek is convenience because as a western population we've become lazy, and our laziness has led to boredom, which then leads to depression. We're fucked as a society because we're starting to lose touch with everything that makes us human, and it's only until we address those sociological problems that the psychological problems will gradually become obsolete.

Edited August 7, 2012 by feral chile

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I agree that society has become artificial, but who's to say that happiness is a natural state?

[kaosmark2]

I think we are conditioned in to believing that certain behaviour, e.g extrovert, will bring us happiness and without that we will be unhappy. But I suppose that all depends on your idea or happiness (outside of the emotions like joy).