Depression - TalkSport Diagnosis

[worm]

Milgram got it right

[eFestivals]

And what is deemed healthy and unhealthy is a matter of socialisation. This is why the individual must come forward with the problem and request help with it.

why do they, and in many examples, what benefit does it give (aside from an income to the 'expert')?

As I keep trying to point out but which fails to go into your head, what proof is there that 'expert' therapy gives a benefit? Yes, a person might 'recover' while in therapy, but they might have done anyway without therapy, and might have done sooner.

And while the fact of having therapy itself (rather than what the therapy might achieve) might make the subject feel better, that's no proof of any psychological significance. It's only proof of feeling better.

The only thing that professional 'expertise' has been able to 'prove' is that many more people need 'professional expertise' than are getting it - which is little different to someone being sold a car with a holed petrol tank and then becoming dependent on filling stations.

Psychological processes are known though.

only in so far as they exist.

Being free to choose your psychological process without any pre-existing issue is what we have guessed at as being well-being.

corrected for you.

[worm]

why do they, and in many examples, what benefit does it give (aside from an income to the 'expert')?

Edited August 8, 2012 by worm

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I get your ooint, I know this is an option, but in doing so I leave behind me others to be treated the same. I have to make this stand, to fight for meritocracy or this pattern will continue.

I believe that the world is waking up at the moment, that unfettered capitalism and the freedom to bully and harass will be seen to be not the answer, I feel that I have to fight to do my bit in this or my time was for nothing.

An army of right wingers are posting lies on the internet daily now, because the world woke up to the lies of the media, they want us divided and use tactics of fear to do so. Milgram got it right, they make decent people the tools of suppresion, who do so blindly because authority tells them to, then they themselves feel devalued, realising that, having done this if they stop then they are next. Having been part of the bullying you look at the victim differently, really because you know in your heart what you have done is wrong, but also because you fear they will start on you next.

[eFestivals]

It gets people over their traumas. It frees them from their past issue that is determining their failures in some way.

Why do some people form abusive relationships time and time again? Psychiatry will reveal that. It will help them overcome their trauma and move on.

all of which can happen without professional involvement, and where there's no proof that that professional involvement has put things right sooner than it would have otherwise got to be right.

The facts. Psychotherapy works.

there's another fact which you're choosing to ignore: and that's that doing nothing does too*.

(I'm not trying to claim it does in all instances, but then again psychotherapy does not work in all instances either)

Eh? This makes no sense.

it makes far more sense than your own words.

Psychological processes are known to exist. What cannot be not known is their psychological significance.

No we haven't guessed at well-being. You are well when you are able to choose how you are (or how you 'be', in philosophical money). It's all about freedom of mind. Freedom to choose.

except of course "freedom to choose" might be the illness and not the well-being.

Prove otherwise. You can't (without referring back to the unprovable idea that it is right). Which is the point.

It's all guesswork at the end of the day, and guesswork that proves itself as not universally correct because it's not universally applicable.

So you might as well toss a coin. It has the same random chance of getting the right outcome.

Edited August 8, 2012 by eFestivals

[worm]

all of which can happen without professional involvement, and where there's no proof that that professional involvement has put things right sooner than it would have otherwise got to be right.

Edited August 8, 2012 by worm

[worm]

except of course "freedom to choose" might be the illness and not the well-being.

[eFestivals]

You can build a house without a professional builder. You can make fine cuisine without a professional chef. You can go to court without a professional solicitor.

So you've a problem with professionalism then, not psychiatry. Aye, well, good luck fixing people with deep-routed psychological traumas without the help of an expert.

People get houses built by professionals because they're more effective at building houses.

People get fine cuisine from a professional chef because they're more effective at producing fine cuisine.

People use solicitors for court because professional solicitors have a more effective knowledge of the law.

Care to show me the proof of psychological practitioners being more effective than the alternatives?

You cannot, because there is none.

[worm]

Care to show me the proof of psychological practitioners being more effective than the alternatives?

Edited August 8, 2012 by worm

[eFestivals]

What? Freedom to choose your psychological thought process is freedom from a psychological thought process. How can that be a psychological illness or psychological anything? It can't. It's absolute peace of mind. You aren't being attacked by thoughts. You aren't being driven to do things. You aren't tormented.

All self-satisfying scenarios, that prove nothing outside of the not-proven ideas that hold all the ideas together.

How can you not understand this? There is no external verification. There are only self-verifying ideas.

How can you not understand this? 'I do this because I want to' rather than 'I must do this' or 'what am I doing'.

Just because someone does something because they choose to says nothing of whether the choosing is caused by a psychologically 'damaged' mind.

To put that idea into an extreme example, a person might choose to murder.

And a healthy mind might be the one that feels driven to act on some sort of (considered to be) 'unnatural' or 'ill' thought process. Who knows? You and psychology don't.

Psychology has simply invented the ideas of itself out of nothing of substance. It's a guess at what are the 'healthy' thought processes, nothing more.

We humans choose to want material things - free thought. Who knows what psychological damage that materialism is or causes? You and psychology don't.

But it doesn't stop psychology from pretending that it does.

[eFestivals]

In my experience, most people don't give much thought to anyone's psychological conditions, even their own. Some help from people who have, at the very least, given such things more thought than most, must be beneficial some of the time

only if those thoughts are about it are right.

And who knows if they are? No one does.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I think maybe you have the wrong idea on what an "introvert" is. Many people assume it may be shyness or awkwardness in social situations but that is more than often not the case. People can still be confident and comfortable in social and work situations it is just they don't have a need for a wide range of social interaction like many others. There is no need for a wide social group as they prefer their own company or that a a very few trusted friends. An introvert gains pleasure from within their own experience rather than experiencing it with others.

[Spindles]

@Rufus, I plan to contact an advocacy organisation for this reason. Since getting home from hospital I have not yet done so.

My stance is for the good of my own mental health. I have been bullied and put upon since childhood and have never made an issue of growing up with abuse, for fear of being labelled as having a victim mentality or looking like I am making excuses. Instead I have tried to walk with my head held high (not easy with my spine ) and rise above it, to prove that I can beat them. I'm 41, have been hounded out of my last 3 jobs in the same fashion and cannot reconcile why people have always found the need to treat me with hatred and contempt and therefore have, at each point where my life has been smashed apart, determined to avoid mistakes that gave openings for these people to attack.

I could harp on about the violence of my childhood, the mental health issues within the home I grew up in, but I am the father of 2 and it is my responsibility to shown them how to avoid the same pitfalls, how to overcome hardship and to instill the values that will make them a valuable part of society.

My son is in his second year of a psychology degree, my daughter started her first job (caring for a disabled woman) today. Both have symptoms of the condition that the doctors wouldn't even discuss with me and it is vital to me that they are equipped to live a better life than has been afforded to me.

It is going to sound bleak to say I know I don't have long left, but it is realistic. I need to know that things will be better for them (since the open they have half my right lung for testing and the truth WILL out, so once I have a diagnosis they will be looked at).

I have been open and honest about my depression with my kids, that is, for me at least, the only answer.

[eFestivals]

Are you for real? Seriously dude, haway. If this is the extent of your argument then I'm off to tidy my house.

There's countless examples. People being trapped in a pathological cycle of misery for their entire life, ending up in abusive relationship after abusive relationship. Then they seek psychotherapy. All of a sudden they don't tolerate abusive relationships anymore and find happiness.

What you're saying here is absurd Neil. Absurd because it's ignorant.

Care to show me the proof that they wouldn't have wised up anyway in the same timeframe? You cannot.

The simple fact is that it might be an experience away from therapy which has made the difference. Who knows?

And care to show me the proof that that practicioner hasn't replaced one bad thought with another?

Until we know what are the 'bad' thoughts and what are the 'good' ones, there is no starting point for working up any of the ideas that are built on top of the guessed-at ideas of what is 'good' and what is 'bad'.

---

Prisons are full of people who are supposedly suffering mental illnesses (and I don't doubt that many of those people are, even tho no one is able to properly identify what is a mental illness).

But there's also the innocent in prison, who will not accept the fact that they've been deemed as guilty, and the fact they have been deemed as guilty drives them to distraction.

Psychology deems them as mentally ill. The truth proves them not to be.

Which of course gets to mean that in such instances it's psychology that is the nutter. Psychology is the one causing the mental illness, and not curing.

Edited August 8, 2012 by eFestivals

[feral chile]

In the right situation (at work, where I am comfortable in my surroundings and the people around me) I am considered an extrovert by some and, with the wind behind me can be positive, outgoing and confident. Take away that comfort, make me stressed, put me in strange situations, company, locations and the other me becomes visible, cowering beneath.

Over the last 10 years I pushed everyone away from my life, to the point that for a long time now it has just been me on my own, never going out,curtains closed and hiding from the world. My kids understand me and have stuck by me.

My GP won't even enter into a discussion about it. I have never received help (spent some time in hospital following suicide attempt and they discharged me without speaking to me directly, they spoke to my estranged family instead and all medical decisions since have been based on this). When I go to the gp he asks the same 2 questions: 'what is wrong with you?'' and 'What do you want me to do about it?'' then does nothing.

The physical problems started 2 years ago, since then, like with the depression it has been the opinion of the gp that there is nothing wrong with me. I have got more and more frustrated and the lead gp at the practice has taken an interest and started to help rather than fobbing me off. Following my surgery I was very up, couldn't sleep etc and, after 4 days in the hospitsl had come to believe that all the medical staff were against me and resented me being there taking up the bed as they didn't believe anything was wrong. I discharged myself and ended up in the carpark of a hospital 20 miles from home, with no money in a distressed state. Luckily a friend who understands (training in counselling atm) rescued me.

I have still yet to have a diagnosis, I have been this way since I was a child and have a history of self harm, which on my last spell in hospital they declared I had made up. The consultant at the hospital told me there was nothing wrong with me, to stop worrying about rubbish and get a job (I was working at the time, but he never took the time to know this).

20 odd years of disinterested doctors not even listening makes me very cynical about the state of the health service, as I say, even with surgery booked my gp simply shrugged his shoulders and explained 'sometimes these things just happen' and wouldn't countenance actually investigating why my lungs collapse several times a year, why my pancreas screams with pain on a 3 week cycle or why I get random kidney pain and pee blood for a few days every few months, what hope is there that he would bother with depression.

I am really low with all of this, really angry at the small minded people who seem to have been allowed to have power over me and most of all pissed off that no one ever listens (even now they talk about me being short of breath as the problem when it is not, it is unbelievable, agonising pain).

Depression/mental illness makes it harder to communicate, which contributes to the downward spiral. I am currently trying to work up the courage to contact an advocacy organisation to help with this (I worked part time for 3 years and received housing/council tax benefit, when I returned to full time work they cancelled the claim and I was stuck with a bill for £4700 and my appeal timed out as I was in hospital on the day of the hearing and buried my head in the sand when I came out, meaning I am paying double and more than 60% of my take home pay goes directly to the council every month).

Sorry to rant/vent/whatever, just this thread couldn't be more relevant to me right now.

[eFestivals]

there might not be a right or wrong. Which is something that people who have given it some more thought than others are likely to be aware of

in which case it's not psychology that's giving it the greatest thought.

[Spindles]

I will certainly consider them, I am going to ask my daughter to make the call, people have difficulty understanding me when I speak, more so when I am in this condition (which I call being "eh gig a deh deh" as I basically am incapable of doing more than rapidly babbling incoherently). As you can tell there is a mind in here, fully functioning, but if you were to look at me or talk to me the likelihood is you would not feel the same way as if you read my written text. This has compounded the problem for years and might explain why people think I am mentally subnormal or on drugs.

[feral chile]

why do they, and in many examples, what benefit does it give (aside from an income to the 'expert')?

As I keep trying to point out but which fails to go into your head, what proof is there that 'expert' therapy gives a benefit? Yes, a person might 'recover' while in therapy, but they might have done anyway without therapy, and might have done sooner.

And while the fact of having therapy itself (rather than what the therapy might achieve) might make the subject feel better, that's no proof of any psychological significance. It's only proof of feeling better.

The only thing that professional 'expertise' has been able to 'prove' is that many more people need 'professional expertise' than are getting it - which is little different to someone being sold a car with a holed petrol tank and then becoming dependent on filling stations.

[feral chile]

Care to show me the proof that they wouldn't have wised up anyway in the same timeframe? You cannot.

The simple fact is that it might be an experience away from therapy which has made the difference. Who knows?

And care to show me the proof that that practicioner hasn't replaced one bad thought with another?

Until we know what are the 'bad' thoughts and what are the 'good' ones, there is no starting point for working up any of the ideas that are built on top of the guessed-at ideas of what is 'good' and what is 'bad'.

---

Prisons are full of people who are supposedly suffering mental illnesses (and I don't doubt that many of those people are, even tho no one is able to properly identify what is a mental illness).

But there's also the innocent in prison, who will not accept the fact that they've been deemed as guilty, and the fact they have been deemed as guilty drives them to distraction.

Psychology deems them as mentally ill. The truth proves them not to be.

Which of course gets to mean that in such instances it's psychology that is the nutter. Psychology is the one causing the mental illness, and not curing.

[eFestivals]

http://www.bacp.co.uk/research/resources/

obviously, it's impossible to test the same person, but they do use control groups.

The best that gets to is those people feeling they've had a benefit via therapy.

Until what is 'good' and what is 'bad' can be properly identified, it still actually tells us nothing of meaningful substance.

Everything about the area of 'knowledge' is built off unproven ideas of what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. Until that part is able to be properly nailed, everything from it is simply guesswork.

[eFestivals]

Psychology can be used to teach prisoners different strategies. If you have a violent offender, they often have a particular mindset based on revenge, machismo etc. Teaching alternatives, through a structured exploration of alternative actions and consequences, can be very effective.

and yet a wrongly convicted prisoner does not need to be taught anything about their conviction being wrong, they already know.

It's the shrink who needs to be taught that it's wrong, so that a rightful process might come from that.

The only action which is needed is for the conviction to be overturned. There is nothing else that can remove the psychological damage that is being caused by the wrongful conviction.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

I am not in a position to seek any sort of disability benefit, so no, I have yet to meet the DWP, but from my experiences with other officials I think I know what to expect.

[feral chile]

The best that gets to is those people feeling they've had a benefit via therapy.

Until what is 'good' and what is 'bad' can be properly identified, it still actually tells us nothing of meaningful substance.

Everything about the area of 'knowledge' is built off unproven ideas of what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. Until that part is able to be properly nailed, everything from it is simply guesswork.

Edited August 8, 2012 by feral chile

[Rufus Gwertigan]

@Rufus, I plan to contact an advocacy organisation for this reason. Since getting home from hospital I have not yet done so.

My stance is for the good of my own mental health. I have been bullied and put upon since childhood and have never made an issue of growing up with abuse, for fear of being labelled as having a victim mentality or looking like I am making excuses. Instead I have tried to walk with my head held high (not easy with my spine ) and rise above it, to prove that I can beat them. I'm 41, have been hounded out of my last 3 jobs in the same fashion and cannot reconcile why people have always found the need to treat me with hatred and contempt and therefore have, at each point where my life has been smashed apart, determined to avoid mistakes that gave openings for these people to attack.

I could harp on about the violence of my childhood, the mental health issues within the home I grew up in, but I am the father of 2 and it is my responsibility to shown them how to avoid the same pitfalls, how to overcome hardship and to instill the values that will make them a valuable part of society.

My son is in his second year of a psychology degree, my daughter started her first job (caring for a disabled woman) today. Both have symptoms of the condition that the doctors wouldn't even discuss with me and it is vital to me that they are equipped to live a better life than has been afforded to me.

It is going to sound bleak to say I know I don't have long left, but it is realistic. I need to know that things will be better for them (since the open they have half my right lung for testing and the truth WILL out, so once I have a diagnosis they will be looked at).

I have been open and honest about my depression with my kids, that is, for me at least, the only answer.

[worm]

Care to show me the proof that they wouldn't have wised up anyway in the same timeframe? You cannot.

Edited August 8, 2012 by worm