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This strikes me as a pretty clumsy article. > What if mental disorders like anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder aren’t mental disorders at a
by MaxBarraclough 6y ago
This strikes me as a pretty clumsy article.
> What if mental disorders like anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder aren’t mental disorders at all?
Of course they're disorders. That's why they deserve treatment. This bears no connection to the question of whether they're adaptive. Our capacity for physical pain is adaptive, but doctors still treat pain.
> With a thorough review of the evidence, they show good reasons to think of depression or PTSD as responses to adversity rather than chemical imbalances.
Besides clueless commentators on the Internet, who is suggesting depression is simply a matter of 'chemical imbalance'? If that were the case, it wouldn't be brought on by loneliness, and it wouldn't be treated with CBT and talking therapy.
- npwr 6y ago> Besides clueless commentators on the Internet, who is suggesting depression is simply a matter of 'chemical imbalance'? If that were the case, it wouldn't be brought on by loneliness, and it wouldn't be treated with CBT and talking therapy. Most of (all?) chemical depression treatments are based on the serotoninergic depression hypothesis that has never been verified. In the recent years more and more arguments come directly against this hypothesis. Yet SSRIs are still the first line of treatment for depressive patients. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#Pathophysiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#Path...
- podgaj 6y agoAnd who is to say CBT does not effect chemicals in the brain and body! Of course it does! everything environmental effects the chemicals in our body. If you give someone meth they will have anxiety, if you drink too much you will have depression. The state of understanding the gene-environment interaction is so backwards and slow to catch up with the science it is a crime.