Resource An In-depth Analysis on Mental Illness and The Role of Modern Psychology

[Divine Trinity]

What we call depression (and most so-called mental illness, violence, and addictive behavior) I think is a measurement of society's failure to tend to the needs of its people, with suicide being a big 0 in red marker. Psychology/Psychiatry is a tool for the establishment, its primary development and current use is propaganda, hence the term "mentally ill". It's your fault you're miserable, just like it's your fault you're poor. Don't change the system, change yourself, if you take these pills, have happy thoughts (look up "positive psychology"), strive to meet our standards, and do enough yoga then you might "make it" and "get ahead" (These terms have no literal meaning). Sure there's all these things we know influence or outright determine human behavior, but in the end it's your choice, despite evidence in practically every field of science suggesting otherwise.
-That's psychiatry, its function is to deflect attention from the existing status quo, and propagate hyper-individualism to isolate us from our communities. It's a pseudo-science with an inherent political bias torward the status-quo, which for the last 50 or so years has been neoliberalism globally. Psychiatry also serves as cover for human right abuses such as: torture, censorship, invasion privacy, by-passing human autonomy, reproductive rights (eugenics programs), human experimentation, enables rape and pedophilia, seperating families, and restricting many civil rights as well.



Psychology is slightly more rooted in some sense of science, but it's more or less a trade in some ways than a profession. Psychology is the art of modern propaganda developed by the US in the early 20th century via the rise of the PR industry. Propaganda aims to control public thought, which is why psychologist are heavily reliant on polls and surveys which are used to read the public thought. When a company or political figure starts a PR campaign they search for a core group of people to target, through mass surveilance and data mining they learn this demographic's likes, dislikes, and can even predict with reasonable accuracy how this group will react to new information before airing. The propagandist through careful selection feeds a narrative to these demographics and essentially manufacture public opinion, usually against our self-interest. War, fashionable consumption, lifestyle "choices", mass surveilance, the environment, public opinion on legislation, religion, etc. Propaganda effects every aspectof our lives, and targets children at a very early age, think of the tobacco industry giving cigarettes to 2 year olds in poor countries, they know 1-6 are the crucial years in human development and I consider them child predators. When you start to question the ethics of advertisement establishment-apologist use the argument "without ads we can't make profits". Just like chattel slavery, sweat shops, child labour, andindentured servitude apologist have said today and in the past.


There are many examples throughout the political and "entertainment" industries which are the most reliant on the PR industry because they're inherently worthless and/or detrimental to society. That's scratching the surface of how US propaganda works, but sums up the purpose of psychology.


"It is known that [Joseph] Goebbels studied the way advertising companies worked in America."


"Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will."


"You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide" -Joseph Goebels




Here we see an international poll asking people which country they think poses the great threat to world peace, the US was chosen as #1 by an overwhelming majority. (this was never shown in US media)

Which Country Is The Greatest Threat to World Peace? - Brilliant Maps

Map created by Joe Hammer

brilliantmaps.com

Yet in this domestic poll by the Pew Research Center, the military is by far the most trusted instution in the country.

Trust in the military exceeds trust in other institutions in Western Europe and U.S.

Large majorities in eight Western European countries trust the military, ranging from 84% in France to 66% in Spain. Similarly, eight-in-ten Americans have confidence in the military.

www.pewresearch.org

The Gallup was done in 2013 during the Obama admin, while the Pew was done in 2018 during the Trump admin. Even I have a hard time believing it.
Chris Hedges and Matt Taibi discuss the state of jounalism today and the structure of the propaganda system both old, Manufacturing Consent 1988, and the new 90's 24/7 news cycle. (The book is referenced a lot for a reason)

Part 1:


Part 2:



I emphasize propaganda because it's the primary use of psychology, like buildings are to architects. Journalism exposes and debunksmyths and lies created by propaganda, thus are a countervailing-force to much of psychology's general consensus.

 

[Walilamdzi]

Hey, I read about this when you posted in the other topic. The first paragraph about TED talks might confuse people out of context. Otherwise agree basically.

 

[Divine Trinity]

This whole argument is heavily reliant on disproving the notion of "free-will", at least the commonly held version of it. I choose to use the physics side seeing how it offers the most fundamental answer. Biology, anthropology, sociology, taxonomy, chemistry, medicine, psychology, and so on all have no general consensus supporting the idea that we are capable of creating thought or are able to control biological reflexes or functions at-will. Essentially, we don't live in the Matrix, we can't bend spoons with our mind or choose to not be depressed or hurt.

This offers a barebones answer, I'll look for a more in-depth physics answer later.



Note: notice that he (and most academics) pivots near the end when he gives a rather fallacious argument that because we (humans) currently cannot precisely predict human behavior, we may have some degree of free will. It's a pretty absurd statement seeing how if we are bounded by the laws of physics, which he just spent the whole video claiming, then naturally there is some limit to human cognitive ability. Meaning there is a limitation to our perception of the natural world, which means there will be variables/forces we are innately incapable of perceiving.*

Academia is not yet willing to essentially debunk institutional religion yet, as "free-will" is a fundamental assumption to western philosophy.


Here we see a debate not so much on free-will but "human nature". Which for discussion sake I'll take the liberty of defining as "universal cognitive and/or behavorial similiarities found in Homo S. Sapien".

Universal does NOT mean unique, humans and several other apes have a +90% genetic similiarity. And evidence shows neanderthals mixed with humans* (if someone could find that paper).

There is also the argument we are not capable of observing our own behavior, so even if there is a human nature (I'm inclined to believe so) we may not have the cognitive capacity to know what it is or how it functions.

My last piece for now is more detail on social pathology, which pre-dates the "chemical imbalance" hyopthesis which was debunked decades ago*.

I'm still reseaching Durkheim but I'd consider Hedges knowledgeable on the topic given his background.


Guess this isn't really "brief" anymore, I'll change the title

 

[not_a_robot]

Modern psychology is completely subjective and it's only purpose is to make the patient please the "therapist".
It is not just fake bullshit, but harmful fake bullshit.

 

[Divine Trinity]

Modern psychology is completely subjective and it's only purpose is to make the patient please the "therapist".
It is not just fake bullshit, but harmful fake bullshit.

To be pointlessly technical, it's psychiatry. And not so much fake, moreso ineffective. Imagine a toddler trying to give you a hair cut and only equipped with a screw driver, while attempting to hold a discussion on geopolitics in eastern-europe... That's what psychiatrists are doing, nevermind the drug company's influence in all this.

 

[RM5998]

The express purpose of medicine is to treat or manage aberrations from what is considered normal. Having a collapsed lung is almost universally considered abnormal, so we have medical professionals trained to treat that. The same applies for medicinal psychology and psychiatry, and thus any arguments a minority might have are inherently pointless - the job of a psychiatrist isn't to make you feel better, it's to bring your state in line with the normally accepted perception of 'better'. If you have a collapsed lung, your perception of 'better' is one that can be trusted, since it's in line with the common standard. When you have a mental illness, your perception is inherently untrustworthy until it's whatever the majority thinks is the norm to be adhered to - and this has changed a lot over time.

It might feel great to rail against an unsympathetic machine, but the fact remains that anybody whose perception is aberrant is not to be trusted with perceiving whether their condition has improved. The only available standard is the normal majority, and thus their perception of 'treatment' is, by definition, correct. We might be the ones trampled upon, but our concept of 'better' or 'ideal' will remain unreliable until we are the majority.

 

[Divine Trinity]

The express purpose of medicine is to treat or manage aberrations from what is considered normal. Having a collapsed lung is almost universally considered abnormal, so we have medical professionals trained to treat that. The same applies for medicinal psychology and psychiatry, and thus any arguments a minority might have are inherently pointless - the job of a psychiatrist isn't to make you feel better, it's to bring your state in line with the normally accepted perception of 'better'. If you have a collapsed lung, your perception of 'better' is one that can be trusted, since it's in line with the common standard. When you have a mental illness, your perception is inherently untrustworthy until it's whatever the majority thinks is the norm to be adhered to - and this has changed a lot over time.

It might feel great to rail against an unsympathetic machine, but the fact remains that anybody whose perception is aberrant is not to be trusted with perceiving whether their condition has improved. The only available standard is the normal majority, and thus their perception of 'treatment' is, by definition, correct. We might be the ones trampled upon, but our concept of 'better' or 'ideal' will remain unreliable until we are the majority.

Your comment goes back to the "ghost in a machine" dilemma. We (meaning intellectuals and scholars) view the world as a mechanical machine, which to sum up, is a gross oversimplification of the natural world. It's commonly believed there is 3 parts to man; mind, body, and soul/emotion. The problem is we can't prove the mind and body are seperate, the evidence suggest the opposite is true. But at the same time, the classical physics model of viewing the world as a mechanical machine has been unable to solve many fundamental questions pondered by numerous thinkers for centuries. Newton attempted to solve this dilemma, but ultimately failed. In his later years he talked about a sort of natural force that we are unable to account for, a "ghost" in the machine that scholars had been vigorously investigating. This "ghost" Newton referred to would later be partially answered by Einstein and other's work on Quantum Mechanics.

After Einstein's time, academia shifted it's goals from understanding the natural world and answering philosophical existential questions, to serving political and market interest. And the US university system reflects that change if you compare college campuses from the 1940's to the 90's and now. Universities have gone from the centers of human development to corporate enterprises designed to funnel capital from public interest to the private sector.

That's about as much as I understood from it, much of the discussion is leagues over my head.

The express purpose of medicine is to treat or manage aberrations from what is considered normal. Having a collapsed lung is almost universally considered abnormal, so we have medical professionals trained to treat that. The same applies for medicinal psychology and psychiatry, and thus any arguments a minority might have are inherently pointless - the job of a psychiatrist isn't to make you feel better, it's to bring your state in line with the normally accepted perception of 'better'. If you have a collapsed lung, your perception of 'better' is one that can be trusted, since it's in line with the common standard. When you have a mental illness, your perception is inherently untrustworthy until it's whatever the majority thinks is the norm to be adhered to - and this has changed a lot over time.

It might feel great to rail against an unsympathetic machine, but the fact remains that anybody whose perception is aberrant is not to be trusted with perceiving whether their condition has improved. The only available standard is the normal majority, and thus their perception of 'treatment' is, by definition, correct. We might be the ones trampled upon, but our concept of 'better' or 'ideal' will remain unreliable until we are the majority.

I'll add that medicine is about ending human suffering, not just treating diseases. There's prevention (holistic), treatment (mitigation), and cure (resolution). You understand that the medical institutions have been transformed into tools for the state and private sector.

 

[not_a_robot]

The express purpose of medicine is to treat or manage aberrations from what is considered normal. Having a collapsed lung is almost universally considered abnormal, so we have medical professionals trained to treat that. The same applies for medicinal psychology and psychiatry, and thus any arguments a minority might have are inherently pointless - the job of a psychiatrist isn't to make you feel better, it's to bring your state in line with the normally accepted perception of 'better'. If you have a collapsed lung, your perception of 'better' is one that can be trusted, since it's in line with the common standard. When you have a mental illness, your perception is inherently untrustworthy until it's whatever the majority thinks is the norm to be adhered to - and this has changed a lot over time.

It might feel great to rail against an unsympathetic machine, but the fact remains that anybody whose perception is aberrant is not to be trusted with perceiving whether their condition has improved. The only available standard is the normal majority, and thus their perception of 'treatment' is, by definition, correct. We might be the ones trampled upon, but our concept of 'better' or 'ideal' will remain unreliable until we are the majority.

I got called "delusional" in the deep south for being the only person who didn't believe in Jesus, and preferring to discuss current events instead of going to heaven.

The mental "health" profession can all collectively form an orderly line around the block to KISS MY FAT PINK ASS.

 

[RM5998]

Your comment goes back to the "ghost in a machine" dilemma. We (meaning intellectuals and scholars) view the world as a mechanical machine, which to sum up, is a gross oversimplification of the natural world. It's commonly believed there is 3 parts to man; mind, body, and soul/emotion. The problem is we can't prove the mind and body are seperate, the evidence suggest the opposite is true. But at the same time, the classical physics model of viewing the world as a mechanical machine has been unable to solve many fundamental questions pondered by numerous thinkers for centuries. Newton attempted to solve this dilemma, but ultimately failed. In his later years he talked about a sort of natural force that we are unable to account for, a "ghost" in the machine that scholars had been vigorously investigating. This "ghost" Newton referred to would later be partially answered by Einstein and other's work on Quantum Mechanics.

After Einstein's time, academia shifted it's goals from understanding the natural world and answering philosophical existential questions, to serving political and market interest. And the US university system reflects that change if you compare college campuses from the 1940's to the 90's and now. Universities have gone from the centers of human development to corporate enterprises designed to funnel capital from public interest to the private sector.

That's about as much as I understood from it, much of the discussion is leagues over my head.


I'll add that medicine is about ending human suffering, not just treating diseases. There's prevention (holistic), treatment (mitigation), and cure (resolution). You understand that the medical institutions have been transformed into tools for the state and private sector.

My point was more about your initial statement:

What we call depression (and most so-called mental illness, violence, and addictive behavior) I think is a measurement of society's failure to tend to the needs of its people, with suicide being a big 0 in red marker. Psychology/Psychiatry is a tool for the establishment, its primary development and current use is propaganda, hence the term "mentally ill". It's your fault you're miserable, just like it's your fault you're poor. Don't change the system, change yourself, if you take these pills, have happy thoughts (look up "positive psychology"), strive to meet our standards, and do enough yoga then you might "make it" and "get ahead" (These terms have no literal meaning). Sure there's all these things we know influence or outright determine human behavior, but in the end it's your choice, despite evidence in practically every field of science suggesting otherwise.
-That's psychiatry, its function is to deflect attention from the existing status quo, and propagate hyper-individualism to isolate us from our communities. It's a pseudo-science with an inherent political bias torward the status-quo, which for the last 50 or so years has been neoliberalism globally. Psychiatry also serves as cover for human right abuses such as: torture, censorship, invasion privacy, by-passing human autonomy, reproductive rights (eugenics programs), human experimentation, enables rape and pedophilia, seperating families, and restricting many civil rights as well.

To me, psychology has never really recovered from the pseudoscience label applied by Popper. However, that does not negate the utility it possesses for the rest of society to help it remove people who are aberrant in terms of the consensus. To them, we are not to be trusted, since our ability to perceive and judge the world around us has been hampered. My point was to illustrate the futility of saying that the term 'mental illness' is used to reflect that we do not line up with the majority since all illnesses work that way.
To me, an argument like this will always fail to win over the majority. What we need to do is convince the majority that our desires are acceptable, from a societal inclusivity standpoint. The aggressive posturing that you are adopting will only serve to illustrate that there is no 'right' stand - which does nothing but maintain the status quo.

 

[Severen]

In the year 2019, humanity is still fucking stuck in the Middle Ages...

 

[Divine Trinity]

My point was more about your initial statement:

To me, psychology has never really recovered from the pseudoscience label applied by Popper. However, that does not negate the utility it possesses for the rest of society to help it remove people who are aberrant in terms of the consensus. To them, we are not to be trusted, since our ability to perceive and judge the world around us has been hampered. My point was to illustrate the futility of saying that the term 'mental illness' is used to reflect that we do not line up with the majority since all illnesses work that way.
To me, an argument like this will always fail to win over the majority. What we need to do is convince the majority that our desires are acceptable, from a societal inclusivity standpoint. The aggressive posturing that you are adopting will only serve to illustrate that there is no 'right' stand - which does nothing but maintain the status quo.

This isn't about solutions or "winning" an argument/debate, it's some guy on the internet giving their analysis on the current state of psychology/psychiatry.

My "hypothesis" is that so-called mental illness doesn't indicate anything useful about the individual's mental state or cognitive capacity, but that it could be used as an indicator of how well social institutions are functioning to address the needs of society.

I brought up "Ghost in the Machine" because you were comparing "physical" organs to the brain. The point I was alluding to was that we understand how a liver works, we don't know how the brain works. You can't come up with an average if you have no or inadequete data to use, meaning we can't say with any confidence how the brain "should" work in a given scenario because we don't know anything about it really.

I then said how academia has shifted from figuring out fundamental questions to serving market interest. The result? We have fully mapped the human genome and can take pretty good pictures of brains, but we have no way of interacting with that data. In short, we know a lot more about fatty liver disease than we do about depression.