Is depression a disease? Is it more prevalent today?

[NeOmega]

There is no medical test to prove the existence of pathology in any of the 465 mental illness they claim exist.

Once again, it took decades to develop the medical tests now used, and even so doctors spend lots of time asking patients about their symptoms. Given the complexity of the brain, its hardly surprising medical tests for mental disorders are in their infancy.

This is damning, and there still is not one proof of depression besides subjective observation by either family or self-diagnosis.

Furthermore, as I have pointed out before, many "brain chemistry" arguments fail, because many people who have low amount or high amounts of these suspect chemicals, do not suffer from any depression.




To say, "give it time" is not in any way proof, it is wishful thinking.



I want to see one test, just one, that can be administered, that uses something physical, (and not the word of family or patient), that can prove someone has a disease. Meaning the test comes back positive, and the person will be guaranteed to be depressed.


It hasn't happened, and it never will.


All the other sophomoric comparisons of depression to broken legs, or cancer, or diabetes, all of these have physical tests or scans that can be run, to say without a doubt, you have this disease.

[Flip McWho]

Ummm how exactly do you test for a connection between pyschology and the physial causes in the brain when we don't understand how the causes in the brain manifest themselves pscyhologically in the most part?

[Elok]

Mm-hmm. This thread is too daft for me to invest the mental effort of reading that guy, especially after what CivMan excerpted (Auschwitz? WTF?), but exactly how many professionals has he convinced? There are some people with PhDs in biology who support Intelligent Design, after all, and a few meteorologists who deny global warming, and lots of kept scientists in various industry pockets who'll say any fool thing for the company that owns them.

In fact, judging by the insanity of this dude's rhetoric (again I ask you: AUSCHWITZ??), I wouldn't be surprised if he got monetary backing from Scientology's CCHR front-group.

[Kuciwalker]

I want to see one test, just one, that can be administered, that uses something physical, (and not the word of family or patient), that can prove someone has a disease. Meaning the test comes back positive, and the person will be guaranteed to be depressed.

This doesn't exist for any disease. Every test has a level of false positives and negatives. Even tests for something like AIDS or the flu.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by Elok
Mm-hmm. This thread is too daft for me to invest the mental effort of reading that guy, especially after what CivMan excerpted (Auschwitz? WTF?), but exactly how many professionals has he convinced? There are some people with PhDs in biology who support Intelligent Design, after all, and a few meteorologists who deny global warming, and lots of kept scientists in various industry pockets who'll say any fool thing for the company that owns them.

Hmm... I wonder if pharma companies have these people.

In fact, judging by the insanity of this dude's rhetoric (again I ask you: AUSCHWITZ??), I wouldn't be surprised if he got monetary backing from Scientology's CCHR front-group.

You wouldn't be surprised. Good for you. How nice of you to accuse him of being a scientologist, without even reading anything else he said.

Oh, and it was 3 doctors, and there are many more than that.

[NeOmega]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I want to see one test, just one, that can be administered, that uses something physical, (and not the word of family or patient), that can prove someone has a disease. Meaning the test comes back positive, and the person will be guaranteed to be depressed.

This doesn't exist for any disease. Every test has a level of false positives and negatives. Even tests for something like AIDS or the flu.

but I want to see a physical test, or physical symptoms, to prove the disease. Even with 60% accuracy, (most tests and scans for real physical illnesses are much, much more accurate)

[Dis]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢


You should have kept quiet, LOTM was breaking posts-in-a-row records here.

, and I thought I used to do that alot. I usually do it when I get +1's . JK mods. It's just sometimes I quote several different posts with slightly different content. It doesn't feel right to put them all in the same post.

[Dis]

Originally posted by NeOmega
and I forgot to add:

People ARE already suing the drug companies, claiming they cause suicide.

Just wait another decade or so, when people start getting real diseases, and blaming it on the happy pills.

Can you say breast implant lawsuit mania, part 2?

Most of it will be bull, but I am positive, a large percentage of the population cannot continue to fill themselves with hormones for decades and not have a good percentage of them suffer unwanted side effects.

It will happen, but as with breast implants. It will all be proven to be a farce concocted by the lawyers (and the quack doctors in their payroll) to make money. The serious medical community knew that breast implants weren't dangerous. But that didn't stop some damn good lawyers to get a few doctors to go their way and win lots of money.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Ecthy
I can be ambitious, aggressive all that sh!t, but I have my doldrums. Dis' theory sucks.

everyone has doldrums. Have you been in a crippling depression that lasted years?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
Some thoughts.

Dis said in the OP that depression results from the realization that one is inferior. Inferior in whose terms? Clearly, people who have the character traits of outward aggression, eloquence, ambition etc are in superior in our society, but only as a means to an end. Am I correct?

Apart from there being a lot less diagnosed depression in the developing countries, what's up with this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3157570.stm

And it could indeed be that a lot of people in the industrialized countries trick themselves into believing that they are happy, though they really aren't, because of their level of material well-being, which skews the polls a bit into their favor.

one more thing. Yes inferiority is subjective. One only has to feel this way, even if they aren't. But in some cases it's pretty cut and dry. But I may be wrong in this theory. As most so called "losers" are pretty damn happy. Ignorance is Bliss as they say. Some people are just happy in their inferiority.

Another theory I have is thinking too much. Something I do. Sometimes you just think yourself into a depression (especially if you are generally a negative person). . This is why I feel it's important to stay busy. This has helped me over the years. Though not always. As my most serious depression was in the navy. And I worked my ass off there.

Perception is everything. In the navy, I was average at my job at best. I don't like just being average, I like being the best. Right now I work a job I'm overqualified for. But I love being the best worker. And I am the best. There is no doubt about it. But there is still enough challenge in my job to keep me going. Yeah it's an easy way to feel good about oneself. But whatever works. Some people aren't happy unless they are putting enormous challenges upon themselves. I'm just not that motivated. .

[Dis]

and finally (my last consecutive post, I promise ), since we were discussing depression and suicide rates in certain countries, this story may be of some use to this thread.

http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060818-103408-4805r

I'm not sure why this is. But I think this goes with the self perception thing I mentioned above. There is enormous pressure to be successful and have a good family. Especially among white men. If one cannot achieve these things, then depression, and possibly suicide may set in. Although I'm sure there are cases of men in marriages killing themselves. But I'm willing to bet there are some marital problems there.

Sometimes I bad mouth some "groups" because of their culture lacks the desire to be "successful" and place high importance on education. But I do believe there are some drawbacks on placing high importance on these things.

anyways. I'm half asleep, just waiting for my clothes to be done drying in the dryer. So I hope I'm making sense.

[phoenixcager]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

If you suffer from some of the common symptoms of unhappiness like depression or anxiety

and again, depression isnt unhappiness. And anxiety per se is not a mental illness. There ARE anxiety related disorders, including the classic, Obsessive compulsive disorder. Is this guy really claiming OCD is not a disorder?

From what I've read of Glasser, he equates mental health with happiness. He does assert that all traditional psychological/psychiatric disorders are not real illnesses except for the ones that have an organic basis. His stand is that changes in brain chemistry are not proof of a biological basis for an illness in the medical sense.

Blatant lie. No decent Psychiatrist, none that I know, would suggest you rely on meds alone. Most will insist you also be in therapy to learn ways to solve your problems, reduce stresses, etc. This makes the rest of this guys quote rather lacking in credibility.

I happen to know of many who would only use meds. But then again I don't live where you do.

[phoenixcager]

Originally posted by Elok
Mm-hmm. This thread is too daft for me to invest the mental effort of reading that guy, especially after what CivMan excerpted (Auschwitz? WTF?), but exactly how many professionals has he convinced? There are some people with PhDs in biology who support Intelligent Design, after all, and a few meteorologists who deny global warming, and lots of kept scientists in various industry pockets who'll say any fool thing for the company that owns them.

In fact, judging by the insanity of this dude's rhetoric (again I ask you: AUSCHWITZ??), I wouldn't be surprised if he got monetary backing from Scientology's CCHR front-group.

He does make some rather extreme statements, but there apparantly is a whole movement based that is out to debunk some of the beliefs about traditional psychiatry. INcludes some pretty well-known people. See the first link below.
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http://www.stopshrinks.org/reading_room/nacp/nacp.html

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/

Was at the "Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference" in Anaheim,CA last year, where many of these views were repeated by various speakers. And this was the conference touted as "the world's largest psychotherapy conference".

[phoenixcager]

Originally posted by NeOmega

You wouldn't be surprised. Good for you. How nice of you to accuse him of being a scientologist, without even reading anything else he said.

Oh, and it was 3 doctors, and there are many more than that.

Unfortunately, his Wikipedia entry seems to support this!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

[Elok]

....co-founder and current member of CCHR's board, albeit officially an atheist rather than a scientologist. And he probably isn't exactly with the church, seeing as he thinks all drugs, including crack cocaine and heroin, should be legal. I wonder what he thinks of Narconon...

And I would like to stress that I made that judgment based purely on the insane crap he spewed in that one quote. I didn't look anything up, I just had a suspicion that where irrational criticism of psychology and overblown rhetoric go, the Co$ can't be far behind. Either I'm really good at spotting this, or (more likely) I've been spending too much time laughing at stuff at www.xenu.net and suchlike.

Now, would you like to cite a source who is NOT a tool for a dead sci-fi writer?

EDIT: Oh, whoops, those two links (antipsychiatry and the other one) are unaffiliated with the Co$, and antipsychiatry goes out of its way to distance itself from them. Too bad they both seem to worship that Szasz nutjob anyway. And I like the part where schizophrenia does not exist. I wonder if that includes the rare catatonic subtype. "Yes, this man can be molded like a posable doll into the most incredibly uncomfortable positions and will stay that way for hours, staring into space--but there's nothing wrong with his head." This is quite a credible movement, I must say.