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
I almost agree with you.
Any mind-alteration which is produced by unconscious or conscious intent, or even by hypnosis, can be mental-illness.
This includes social-programming.
One of Doidge's books identifies that masochism is when one's mind .. I think in abstract-shapes, so remapping the concept into English, the way I remember it, is going to seem strange..
when one's mind folds such that the portion of one's mind which had been among the pleasure-brain now is among the pleasure-brain AND the pain-brain, so it's getting lit-up by both..
he said the treatment is to get people to notice pleasure that isn't having any pain in it, to try to get their mind to differentiate again..
"folds" ( sorta like crossing one's legs, compromising one's balance, while standing ), is how the abstract-shape feels, in my mind, but he cannot possibly have said it that way..
Also, differentiating between the cause ( the brain-damage of child-onset schizophrenia, e.g. which reduces the person's brain volume by 10% ) vs the effect of that brain-loss, combined with all the social-pressure to behave as though everything were fine ( I experienced this: if kids were helped, instead of bullied & gaslit, then maybe the suicide-rate would be lower than 10% for such lives )
would be better integrity than what we do.
Further, since the placebo-effect and hypnosis both work, provably, then I'd want to use mentally-induced-healing on physical/biological things which yield to it, wherever possible..
( not ignoring it, or blocking awareness of it, but actually dismantling it, like allergies for some people should be dismantlable by hypnotherapy..
a psychiatrist, who happened to be my dad, told me that it was reliable that some people with allergies would have allergic-reactions to entering his office, when he had a picture of a rose visible.
They woudn't consciously notice it, but he did. )
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