this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024

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Unpopular Opinion

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"Mental Illness" are not just "Mental" (self.unpopularopinion)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by mecfs to c/unpopularopinion

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mental illnesses are real. But the construct of “mental illness” isn’t. There is no such thing as an “illness” that is completely psychological in nature, ie. only “caused by thoughts and behaviours”.

What are called mental illnesses belongs into three broad categories instead:

Biological Illnesses

Many “mental” illnesses are genuine biological illnesses that have been shunned from fields such as neurology and stigmatised by calling them mental.

Ie. Schizophrenia (part genetic, several brain changes), Bipolar (genetic, HPA axis dysregulation + structural signs), Major depressive disorders etc. I’d like to remind that many genuine illnesses that dont even affect the brain were called mental illnesses before we fully figured the pathology out. From peptic ulcer to lupus.

difficult living conditions manifesting through changes in behaviour

ie. Some cases of anxiety disorder (maybe its normal to be anxious in the case you’re living, ie. stressful 9-5 with lots of responsibilities), reactive depression (it isn’t a mental illness to be depressed when your spouse dies, its completely normal)

Normal behaviours that society chooses to brand as deviant

ie. Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, it is NORMAL, Same thing as homosexuality was called a mental illness in the past

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah "everything psychological is biological" is the first thing they teach you in psychology class. Nothing unpopular about that opinion.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That’s only in some schools of thought of psychology.

There are plenty of praticing psychologists and psychiatrists (some of my colleagues) who genuinely believe and publish research along the lines of “all mental illness are caused by thoughts and behaviours”. Research that in my opinion is heavily flawed, but still published and peer reviewed, so a lot of people in the field think this way.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Working on my dissertation titled "Bipolar disorder? Just think better, stupid".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah thats how it sounds to me 😂

Its patient blaming all the way in my (non-official) opinion

[–] calcopiritus 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thoughts and behaviour are biological though. They both are caused by biological processes and they cause biological results.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That’s not how these collegues treat them.

They act like you can basically “think yourself out of” most mental illnesses.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I've never heard that, but thanks for it!