Mental Illness

You know the one’s I mean - neurotic depression; ADHD - the one’s that take situations that substantially and genuinely disaffect less than 3% of a population - and they contort it to make it affect 30% or more people, then medicalise it; all about the same time as they declare - “Oh, wow. We just happen to have a pill/treatment here that will help you with that. Aren’t you lucky!”

It’s impossible to tell now - are the diseases and disorders we ‘discover’ ever real anymore? Are they simply new ways for psychobabblists and Big Pharma to create personal wealth? Are they reflections of our socially demoralised, desicrated disparate or disposable society in which we still live? Or do they represent some real underlying and problematic issue that needs to be addressed in a medicalised or psychotherapeutic way?

I have no idea anymore. [Life is a disease which generally cures itself eventually]

NY Times brings us news on the latest one - How to treat Money Disorder. Read the rest of this entry »

There are two main classifications of MH issues. ICD-10 and DSM-IV. ICD is a taxonomy of all health related conditions and diagnostic criteria and is varied from country to country (which kinda makes the ‘International’ nomenclature redundant). DSM is MH specific and has developed into a multi-axial tool to aide in a brief summary of clinical presentation. It is praised and criticised in equal measures.

This post is about exploring the DSM and how the axes are currently used with a proposal for a new way of using the DSM in determining need for health care interventions. I may be out of sync with other places internationally that have already taken this pathway - or similar - but I’ve not seen anything thus far to lead me to think so. Let me know. Read the rest of this entry »

Furthering the “good news” story that appeared on MN mid-August, and the notable absence of any significant media coverage in the UK of the apparent decline in mental health related homicide, I was listening to an ABC Radio presentation here in Oz which can be downloaded in podcast from here with one (maybe more?) of the authors, of the BMJ article, Matthew Large. I first thought it was odd that such a report should get better media coverage in Oz than the country of origin - but having looked - 3 of the 4 authors are Oz/NZ based.

Further resources can be found here here and the full BMJ in iPaper for - here.

As some of you may have guessed by now I am currently reading a book on “Social construction” or social constructivism or constructionism by Ian Hacking called the “Social Construction of What?”. At the risk of boring certain members of the audience even further (audience what audience?). I want to give a resume of Chapter 5 (pp 100 – 125) entitled “Madness: Biological or Constructed” and maybe draw a few conclusions of my own.

Read the rest of this entry »