> Just as constitutional factors can contribute to mental disorders, so can moral factors. I agreed with you up to here. It seems like you're replacing chemica

> Just as constitutional factors can contribute to mental disorders, so can moral factors. I agreed with you up to here. It seems like you're replacing chemical imbalances with morality. Mental illness does not abide by morality. For example: > A habit of lying, for example, can contribute to depression and anxiety. Sure. People can be anxious about their lies catching up to them. Yet there are people that compulsively lie even when they've been outed and presented with material evidence to the contrary. It defies all logic and appears compulsive, like... > Denial of truths that we'd rather not face can become expressed as obsessive-compulsive disorders. I agree with this too, but two independent statements being True does not imply a causal relationship between them. This behavior is found in Histrionic and Narcissistic personality disorders too (and maybe Borderline?). It has been suggested that pathological lying is a symptom of OCD. The internet is divided on this, but in my anecdotal observations, this has held true. The worst liars I know all have OCD, but not everyone with OCD is a liar. I don't claim to understand why this overlap exists. > A hedonistic lifestyle can negatively impact cognition and lead to monomania. Sure, but what does one "get" from a Hedonistic lifestyle? I would suggest: dopamine surges. This might seem like an easy-to-reach response to Depression, but consider that monomania/ADHD (a cognitive disorder) is literally treated with...induced dopamine surges (in the form of amphetamines). So does the subject drown themselves in sex and drugs because they are a Lazy Glutton, because they are Depressed...or because there was something wrong with their ability to regulate dopamine production in the first place? My pet theory: the biggest shortcoming of modern psychiatry is that we over-extrapolate observations of small groups of people as though their traits universally apply to all humans. That some people thrived during quarantine while others went berserk should attest to how we are more different than we care to admit, but we don't have a non-eugenic way of cataloguing those differences beyond labeling everyone as having some sort of psychiatric disorder because their behavior deviates from arbitrary baselines (which is in itself a problem). Some people just can't follow orders, some are born leaders, some can't sit at a desk for 8-12 hours a day, some can live happily underground, some are liars and storytellers, some overeat. There's probably a genetic reason why individuals are wired to do each of these things, but our best guesses to date have been ridiculous and seem to be discredited with each new generation. Two cats of the same species won't behave identically either. Is either one flawed, or are both optimized for purposes we don't recognize?