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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by capricorn on October 18, 2006, at 17:42:45
Are mental disorders real?
''How do the public view mental disorders? Do they see them as real entities with some kind of essence, or do they see them as the invention of human culture? And how does their take differ from that of mental health professionals?To find out, Woo-kyoung Ahn and colleagues asked 30 university undergrads and 30 experts to answer questions about the nature of a selection of familiar and unfamiliar psychiatric diagnoses, such as ADHD and undifferentiated somatoform disorder, as well as about familiar and unfamiliar medical/physical disorders, such as high blood pressure and nephritic syndrome.
In general, the students and experts believed mental disorders were less ‘real’ than medical disorders. For example, most of the participants agreed that you either have a medical disorder or you don’t, but that this isn’t true for mental disorders (although a third of the experts felt it was). The experts and students also believed more strongly that medical disorders exist ‘naturally’ in the world, than do mental disorders. The familiarity of conditions didn’t make any difference to the participants’ views.
There were also differences between the groups. The students believed both medical and mental disorders have causal features that have to be removed for successful treatment, but the experts only felt this way about medical disorders. Perhaps, the researchers said, “experts’ knowledge about symptom-oriented treatment plans or the lack of agreed upon aetiology [i.e. causes] might have made them more sceptical about mental disorders”.
Ahn and colleagues concluded that these issues could have practical implications: “patients, unlike therapists, may believe a single thing can be changed to cure their mental disorders and therefore might not follow multifaceted treatment plans developed by clinicians believing in complexly caused mental disorders”.
The findings come after a group of mental health professionals in the UK recently called for the abolition of the term ‘schizophrenia’, arguing that it is scientifically meaningless.''
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2006/10/are-mental-disorders-real.html
Hopefully these 30 undegrads and so called 'experts' are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to intelligence or we really are both 'dumbing down' and becoming more reactionary and uncivilised as a society with disastrous consequences ahead for civilisation as a whole
.
Posted by sunnydays on October 18, 2006, at 20:35:12
In reply to Are mental disorders real?, posted by capricorn on October 18, 2006, at 17:42:45
Interesting. I had a friend who said she hadn't really believed dissociative disorders existed until I told her about some of my own experiences with dissociation.
sunnydays
Posted by Phillipa on October 18, 2006, at 23:13:26
In reply to Re: Are mental disorders real? » capricorn, posted by sunnydays on October 18, 2006, at 20:35:12
Oh they are real. Who would make up misery? Love Phillipa
Posted by wishingstar on October 21, 2006, at 18:57:09
In reply to Are mental disorders real?, posted by capricorn on October 18, 2006, at 17:42:45
I couldnt get the article to load (my internet is terrible here) but I'm going to try again later. This is interesting to me. I am currently (ok, just dropped out) a grad student in a psych research program. I'm interested to see what kind of analyses they ran. 30 students is an INCREDIBLY small sample size to be making any kind of wide-reaching claims about the population in general.. and that's made worse by the fact that theyre all college undergrads (very narrow age range, educational level, ses, etc). But I'll have to read it.. maybe if the results were highly significant (statistically) it can have some reliability, but I'm always a little skeptical on these things.
Aside from that though the results dont necessairly surprise me. To me, it's right in line with the "you're depressed? why dont you just get over it?" line of thinking. I think that in itself can lead some people to not follow through with multi-faceted treatments... I dont know.
Posted by Jost on October 21, 2006, at 19:12:41
In reply to Re: Are mental disorders real?, posted by wishingstar on October 21, 2006, at 18:57:09
How did they define "experts"?
Jost
Posted by elanor roosevelt on October 22, 2006, at 21:17:41
In reply to Re: Are mental disorders real?, posted by Jost on October 21, 2006, at 19:12:41
academics conduct many small studies ann make big statements.
it's the everyday public though. i don't think they really believe that depression is a medical disorderit's a matter of character flaws in the eyes of many.
and look how we have misused the word "depression" until it has no meaning
new york times has an article (front page late edition) about young people with mental disorders.
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