My insight is that psychiatrists, and most doctors, are themselves mentally ill. The vast majority think too highly of themselves. Many think so highly of themselves they do not listen to patients because they view them as less capable. The moment something escapes their understanding, it is labeled as a disease. It's almost the way the ancients would make up gods to explain phenomena they could not explain.
IMO, schizophrenia is a great example of this. My uncle is schizophrenic, and doctors (and some in my own family) accuse him of not making sense when he talks. But he makes perfect sense, if you pay attention. Most people are just not smart enough and don't pay attention and aren't interested. Doctors especially pretend that since they don't understand him, he's certainly crazy.
I'm not saying my uncle's easy. He's not, and he needs to be 'treated' (i.e., managed specially so he doesn't go off the deep end and become so self-isolated he convinces himself he needs to stab someone), but it's unclear to me whether he's sick (i.e., has some chemical dysfunction or biological dysfunction) or whether he's just reacting in the normal human way to the pressures of life and his own experiences.
> or whether he's just reacting in the normal human way to the pressures of life and his own experiences.
R.D. Laing claimed that psychiatric disorders were a normal human reaction to a crazy world.
In my youth, I was on-board with that analysis; but R.D. Laing was discredited, and I cam around to the view that bipolar and schizo were real illnesses, very debilitating, and that make the sufferer very unhappy; and that they benefit from chemical treatment.
It seems R.D. Laing and his ideas are now back in favour.
I don't know what the treatment for schizo is nowadays; they used to treat it with major tranqs - haloperidol, chlorpromazine etc. Major tranqs == major side-effects.
If you were trapped and the only way to free yourself was to cut your arm off like that guy in 187 hours, any person could make that decision.
A sane person would verify that they are trapped, call for help, wait as long as possible in hopes of rescue, and then when it was all for naught and it came down to life or death, if they had decided they were going to live no matter what they could start cutting.
An insane person might also make that decision, but might make that decision without verifying that they are trapped first. Might make that decision in response to a feeling of being trapped, an internal one with no external verifiability.
The idea that psychotic people are sane people in a crazy world sounds poetic but doesn't hold up to examination. If you are trapped in a rushing river you can swim against it or give up and go with the flow, but psychotic people are trapped in the raging river of their perceptions and can only "go with the flow" under the effect of exogenous chemicals.
It's not a "sane reaction to a crazy world" to go crazy, going crazy is a helpless reaction to a crazy perception of the world.
It's not always forever though. I've heard of people who go crazy for a while and then return to normal, or find an outlet for it that allows them to adapt and integrate. Maybe everyone should go a little crazy every once in a while just to shake things up a bit.
Well, the terms "sane" and "insane" aren't really very helpful. "Insane" could cover almost any unusual kind of experience or behaviour. "Sane" is equally flexible in meaning.
Psychosis is not a disease or condition; it's a symptom supporting the diagnosis of a wide variety of conditions, and is sometimes a direct result of childhood trauma, which can be susceptible to complete remission through therapy.
So you're right - it's not always forever.
Apparently some psychotherapists contend that all of those conditions characterised by psychosis are the result of childhood trauma. [citation needed]
I disagree that the terms aren't "very helpful" as in this case the context should have been sufficient for any adept English reader to comprehend the meaning of my post without digging into the individual etymology of the word choices I made.
Also, psychosis can be the temporary or permanent result of foreign chemicals, injury, or diseases damaging the brain directly such as untreated syphilis.
I'm not 100% sure what meds my uncle takes, we all -- his wife and kids included -- just kinda put up with him and know how to deal.
To be clear, I encourage anyone with any condition whatsoever, including 'normal' ones, to seek help if they are making you suffer.
Here again comes to another problem with psychiatry. Suppose person A has COVID and is experiencing runny noses, pneumonia, cough, etc (whatever the symptoms are). As a society, we've decided that -- independent of person A's view of their own condition -- person A deserves medical treatment (hence all the talk about the unvaccinnated -- likely people who don't particularly mind being infected by covid -- being forced to live their life a certain way by others who are more afraid).
Can we apply this same logic to similarly debilitating disease like schizo? No... because actually none of the schizophrenia symptoms are necessarily bad. Unlike COVID, where everyone feels absolutely comfortable judging the absolute 'badness' of the symptoms without any regard to the sufferer's view, with schizo and other mental health conditions, the sufferer is required to be stressed in order to fix it. If the sufferer doesn't really mind the voices, then no one is going to step in and say anything.
Given how stark a difference it is between physical disease, where we can all observe a symptom and say whether you have it, regarless of your thoughts, with many psychiatric illnesses schizophrenia, it is impossible to do so, calling into question whether these deserve to be called illnesses.
I'll have to read about Laing... I don't know who he is.
IMO, schizophrenia is a great example of this. My uncle is schizophrenic, and doctors (and some in my own family) accuse him of not making sense when he talks. But he makes perfect sense, if you pay attention. Most people are just not smart enough and don't pay attention and aren't interested. Doctors especially pretend that since they don't understand him, he's certainly crazy.
I'm not saying my uncle's easy. He's not, and he needs to be 'treated' (i.e., managed specially so he doesn't go off the deep end and become so self-isolated he convinces himself he needs to stab someone), but it's unclear to me whether he's sick (i.e., has some chemical dysfunction or biological dysfunction) or whether he's just reacting in the normal human way to the pressures of life and his own experiences.