Depression
September 28, 2006
pseudoscience con’t.
- Recovered memory therapy, day care sex abuse, MPD (full of shit)
- What happens to those who stand up? (shunned)
- A study showed that sexually abused kids turn out ok
- Congress passed resolution against the study
- Keep an open-mind, but question them too
Despression
- What good is feeling bad?
- Why is pain painful?
- Benefits of jealousy (cuckoldry)
- Benefits of anxiety (pass up things with immediate reward)
- Benefits of sadness
- Is nature overly sensitive? We’re not monkeys anymore
- we’re not ment to be happy, we’re designed to be alive
Mood Disorders and Etiology
- Despression
- 60% at some point in their lives
- most common in 15-24
- Why rare among older adults?
- more stable, more coping skills, become less self focus
- depressed people are more likely to die before they get old
- possibly gets harder to diagnose because you aquire more medical problems
- Presentation
- Tearfulness
- rhumination
- aches and pains
- Anhedonia (can’t feel happy)
- worthlessness/guilt
- biased interpretations
- Cultural differences?
- psychotic symptoms (thinking you’re responsible for all the word’s pain)
- Insomnia (more common)/hypersomnia
- Appetite changes
- Psychomoter changes
Do you think that it’s possible that in fact we are looking at psychology from a very wrong angle? Instead of looking at why some people are defective and instead of us looking at ways to make them again able to join and live in society; why don’t we just ask the big question? Is it not the case that society is malfunctioning if it does not allow for individuals who are different in one or more aspects to live peacefully as a part of the society?
I believe that the only way to cure modern society is to look at it as a whole and find the reasons for the sudden growth of mental disease and anti-social behaviour. Curing individuals instead of the society that produces them is simply the curing of symptoms where it is the cause that needs to be addressed.
Try to remember though, these people aren’t just the product of society. Twin studies show that there is an important genetic component. If we look at bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, we notice that these things can’t happen to just anyone, but very certain people. No amount of “curing society” will change that.