5 ms·

Sorry, that makes no sense. Mentally ill people aren't expected to become famous billionaires -- it's just not part of the social expectation. The fact that the

by lutusp 13y ago

Sorry, that makes no sense. Mentally ill people aren't expected to become famous billionaires -- it's just not part of the social expectation. The fact that there are similarly successful people without a mental illness diagnosis only adds to the perception that the diagnosis has no meaning.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
From the old standby, wikipedia: > In 1947, after his near-fatal aircraft crash in 1946, [Howard] Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. Hughes stayed in the studio's darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He subsisted exclusively on chocolate bars, chicken, and milk, and relieved himself in the empty bottles and containers. He was surrounded by dozens of Kleenex boxes, which he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides on yellow legal pads giving them explicit instructions not to look at him, or speak to him unless spoken to. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continually watching movies. When he finally emerged in the spring of 1948, his hygiene was terrible, as he had not bathed or cut his hair and nails for weeks
- lutusp 13y ago
  Yes, but obviously unrelated to Asperger's or any similar behavior.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Mentally ill people aren't expected to become famous billionaires -- it's just not part of the social expectation. Mental illness basically means durable patterns of behavior well outside of those expected of the majority of the population that causes adverse impacts in some areas of life. Honestly, I'd be pretty surprised if there weren't particular forms of it that were disproportionately common at the high as well as low end of the social heirarchy, though the adverse impact at the high end probably would be in areas that don't relate to social status.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > I'd be pretty surprised if there weren't particular forms of it that were disproportionately common at the high as well as low end of the social heirarchy ... Yes -- and my point is there's some serious logical shortcomings in labeling such behaviors as mental illnesses meriting treatment.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    There's certainly something wrong with externally compelling treatment if there is no harm to others, OTOH, if the person involved wants to address the dysfunction in other areas of life -- even if the source of the dysfunction also helps them attain high social status -- why shouldn't treatment be available?
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > even if the source of the dysfunction also helps them attain high social status -- why shouldn't treatment be available? The answer is, or should be, obvious. Doctors regularly rise from their microscopes and Petri dishes to announce the existence of real diseases, and get public support for treatments and cures. Psychologists would like to posture as doctors (which is why there are psychiatrists, who are psychologists with M.D. degrees), so they can rise from their notebooks and therapy sessions and announce the existence of new mental illnesses and get public support for treatments (there are no cures). But psychologists are not doctors, and the majority of conditions that psychologists treat are hopelessly subjective conditions on which different practitioners cannot agree. The public doesn't understand this -- they don't understand that mind diseases don't have the standing of body diseases, and the reason this is true is because of a largely successful public relations campaign waged by psychologists to make themselves appear as doctors who treat objective medical conditions. But "sluggish cognitive tempo", this week's illness du jour, is not a disease, it's a way for psychologists to feather their nests. Asperger Syndrome was in the same position ten years ago, but has been retired by a vote of the DSM-5 editorial committee after a public relations debacle of overdiagnosis. About "sluggish cognitive tempo": http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/health/idea-of-new-attention-disorder-spurs-research-and-debate.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/health/idea-of-new-attenti...

by lutusp 13y ago

thaumasiotes 13y ago

From the old standby, wikipedia: > In 1947, after his near-fatal aircraft crash in 1946, [Howard] Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. Hughes stayed in the studio's darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He subsisted exclusively on chocolate bars, chicken, and milk, and relieved himself in the empty bottles and containers. He was surrounded by dozens of Kleenex boxes, which he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides on yellow legal pads giving them explicit instructions not to look at him, or speak to him unless spoken to. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continually watching movies. When he finally emerged in the spring of 1948, his hygiene was terrible, as he had not bathed or cut his hair and nails for weeks

lutusp 13y ago
Yes, but obviously unrelated to Asperger's or any similar behavior.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Mentally ill people aren't expected to become famous billionaires -- it's just not part of the social expectation. Mental illness basically means durable patterns of behavior well outside of those expected of the majority of the population that causes adverse impacts in some areas of life. Honestly, I'd be pretty surprised if there weren't particular forms of it that were disproportionately common at the high as well as low end of the social heirarchy, though the adverse impact at the high end probably would be in areas that don't relate to social status.

lutusp 13y ago
> I'd be pretty surprised if there weren't particular forms of it that were disproportionately common at the high as well as low end of the social heirarchy ... Yes -- and my point is there's some serious logical shortcomings in labeling such behaviors as mental illnesses meriting treatment.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  There's certainly something wrong with externally compelling treatment if there is no harm to others, OTOH, if the person involved wants to address the dysfunction in other areas of life -- even if the source of the dysfunction also helps them attain high social status -- why shouldn't treatment be available?
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > even if the source of the dysfunction also helps them attain high social status -- why shouldn't treatment be available? The answer is, or should be, obvious. Doctors regularly rise from their microscopes and Petri dishes to announce the existence of real diseases, and get public support for treatments and cures. Psychologists would like to posture as doctors (which is why there are psychiatrists, who are psychologists with M.D. degrees), so they can rise from their notebooks and therapy sessions and announce the existence of new mental illnesses and get public support for treatments (there are no cures). But psychologists are not doctors, and the majority of conditions that psychologists treat are hopelessly subjective conditions on which different practitioners cannot agree. The public doesn't understand this -- they don't understand that mind diseases don't have the standing of body diseases, and the reason this is true is because of a largely successful public relations campaign waged by psychologists to make themselves appear as doctors who treat objective medical conditions. But "sluggish cognitive tempo", this week's illness du jour, is not a disease, it's a way for psychologists to feather their nests. Asperger Syndrome was in the same position ten years ago, but has been retired by a vote of the DSM-5 editorial committee after a public relations debacle of overdiagnosis. About "sluggish cognitive tempo": http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/health/idea-of-new-attention-disorder-spurs-research-and-debate.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/health/idea-of-new-attenti...