I have heard both arguments in my Psych 12 class, and I favor the side that states "Mental Illness is not a disease"
Excerpt from USA Today Magazine July 2000:
Of course, a mental illness is not a disease in the pathologocial sense.
A disease is a bodily abnormality, a lesion of cells, tissues, or orgnas. The term in relation to mental illness is used purely in a metaphorical sense.
The brain is a material object, but the mind is not. The mind is an idea, and therefore cannot be diseased.
If we believe a mental illness is a disease it is on par with bodily diseases such as Cancer.
A mental illness is a pattern of personal conduct unwanted by self or others. Basically, it is abnormal behabior in a person rather than in their body.
A medical disase is discovered and then given a name, such as AIDS.
A mental disease is invented and then given a name, such as ADD.
It is not possible to die of a mental illness or to find evidence of it in organs, tissues, cells, or body fluid during an autopsy. Anthrax is a disease that is biological, cand and does, kill it's host. ADD on the other hand is socially constructed and connot kill.
No one sees a "crush" as a disease, and yes it it the same as a mental illness.
Psychiatrists have succeeded in persuading media, courts, and the scientific community, that mental disorders are diseases. But there is no empirical evidence to support this, in fact, there CAN'T be any.
Let's use this example:
John Smith has astrocytoma, it is discovered and empirically verified. Radiologists identify it and observe the lesion. Pathologists confirm by examining tissues.
John Smith is diagnosed with Schizophrenia. The psychiatrists identifies his behavior as schizo, other psychiatrists confirm it's prescence by committing him to a mental hospital where he gets his right to refuse treatment. He exercises this right. Then a judge tells him he is mentally incompetent to refuse treatment.
Psychiatrists have power over people denominated as "atients," their statems act as covert prescriptions. Psychiatrists would describe a man who says "God is telling him to kill his wife" as schizophrenic. This diagnosis is a prescription to hospitalize the patient against their will, or after he has killed his wife, to acquit him as not guilt by reason of insanity and hospitalize him against his will.
A patient who has a bodily illness may or may not be hospitalized based on his own decisions. Mental illness allows a judge to incarcerate a sex criminal who has completed his prison sentence.
Psychiatry is a vialation of legal-political principle. One that is odious because most persons trated against their will by psychiatrists are defined as legally competent-they can vote, marry, divorce, etc.
In a free society the physician's "right" to treat is not based on diagnosis but on the patient's willingness to be treated.
A mental patient is entitled to liberty unless they ahve committed a crime. Otherwise they should not be forcibly treated.
In a free society a psychiatrist should not be allowed to profit from his diagnosis and treatment of "atients"
That was a bit long, but it is a correct summary of the idea.
Is it right for psychiatrists to profit from their jobs? Considering they may forcibly treat patients who have not committed crimes, allowing them to preserve a job that they may not otherwise have?
Have psychiatrists tricked society into believe that mental illness is a horrible disease?
i say that if you have a disease that makes you metally ill then yes it does quallify. but if your just crazy because you just ARE it doesnt tecnically qualify as a disease
because they do bad things due to not being able to control themselves, and the voices confuse them, as well as making them paranoid at times (quite often at times)
And yet so far they have done nothing wrong. They haven't hurt anyone. And yet we feel as though they need to be mediated to control the way their brain works...
The potential to do bad things is not punishable. Only the action of doing them is.
that's because they're the spouse, they spend the most time with them and it's most dangerous to them. also, i don't see how a spouse could ever profit from sending their spouse (often whom they love) to a mental institution, and if they do it untruthfully, the institution will notice, and the spouse will be released to public because they'll know the guy's sane.
You are all wrong
You see the spouse talks to a psychiatrist who seems to know a lot about these afflictions. The spouse doesn't profit, the psychiatrist does, using there amazing abilities to appear like doctors who help people =P
The institution and its workers only have jobs because of the idea that these illnesses need to be cured/controlled.
Your right, mental illness should'nt be considerd as a disease. If a person has ADD then it's something you have to live with, it's sort of like cancer, but the person who does have mental illness is the person or parents fault for the cause. So I'l have to say no, mental illness is not a disease and cannot be proven.
You see the spouse talks to a psychiatrist who seems to know a lot about these afflictions. The spouse doesn't profit, the psychiatrist does, using there amazing abilities to appear like doctors who help people =P
you said the spouse turns them in for the money of it. also, public psychiatrists (provided by the state) are trained only to take those people who need help. so they can go to those people, if they can't afford sessions or don't want a for-profit organization.
The institution and its workers only have jobs because of the idea that these illnesses need to be cured/controlled.
it does need to be controlled. yes, some schizophrenics are fine without treatement, some live dependently and you could barely ever tell they had the disorder. but others' voices tell them to or influence them to do bad things, and some of those people do those bad things.
I think that if there is a problem that changes the the body physicaly or mentaly from what would be considered normal or avarage it is a disease or if the effects are undisirable like if you grew wings it would be a change but could be ok for you
