Schizophrenia - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Provision of the two UN HDI indicators other than GNP.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
By Agent Steel
#15034028
I don't believe there really is such a thing as "schizophrenia". I think it's kind of like "ADD", "PTSD", and a whole host of other made up illnesses by corporatized pharmaceutical companies just to try to maximize their profits.

People with schizophrenia say they hear voices in their head. WE ALL DO. That's totally normal. I hear my thoughts all the time. It doesn't mean I have a "disease".

Who's to say what is reality and what isn't? We all are prone to misconceptions and illusions. It's part of being human.

But if some corporate asshole tries to tell you that you are diseased and need medication we fall for it. Not me though. I call bullshit.
By Reichstraten
#15034032
Hearing voices isn't an important aspect of schizophrenia.
Actually there are a lot of schizophrenics who don't have this.
It's a part of the broader delusional thinking that all schizophrenics have.
There are delusions of grandeur ("I'm God"), delusions of persecution ("People want to kill me"), delusions of being controlled by foreign powers, referential delusions (hearing messages on tv that are directed to you), etc.
These are so called positive symptoms. To be diagnosed with schizophrenia there also have to be negative symptoms (like depression, anhedonia, lack of emotions).
Schizophrenia Symptoms
Last edited by Reichstraten on 15 Sep 2019 17:35, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15034034
Agent Steel wrote:I don't believe there really is such a thing as "schizophrenia". I think it's kind of like "ADD", "PTSD", and a whole host of other made up illnesses by corporatized pharmaceutical companies just to try to maximize their profits.

People with schizophrenia say they hear voices in their head. WE ALL DO. That's totally normal. I hear my thoughts all the time. It doesn't mean I have a "disease".

Who's to say what is reality and what isn't? We all are prone to misconceptions and illusions. It's part of being human.

But if some corporate asshole tries to tell you that you are diseased and need medication we fall for it. Not me though. I call bullshit.


I listened to pod cast about this.

Many people that suffer from schizophrenia are able to function normally with it. It's just a matter of recognizing when you hear/see something that isn't reality. Many people will know "oh, that thing I thought I heard, isn't real".

Reichstraten wrote:schizophrenics


This is considered an offensive word now, by the way.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15034035
Agent Steel wrote:I don't believe there really is such a thing as "schizophrenia". I think it's kind of like "ADD", "PTSD", and a whole host of other made up illnesses by corporatized pharmaceutical companies just to try to maximize their profits.

People with schizophrenia say they hear voices in their head. WE ALL DO. That's totally normal. I hear my thoughts all the time. It doesn't mean I have a "disease".

Who's to say what is reality and what isn't? We all are prone to misconceptions and illusions. It's part of being human.

But if some corporate asshole tries to tell you that you are diseased and need medication we fall for it. Not me though. I call bullshit.

The 1960s called. They want their hippie bullshit back.
User avatar
By Rancid
#15034036
Agent Steel wrote:Who's to say what is reality and what isn't?


Reality is really just the world that we all agree to be true. That is, if someone in a room farts, and we all agree someone farted, that is reality. :lol:

If only one person believes there is a fart int he room, and the rest do not believe this to be true. The fart smeller could suffer from schizophrenia.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15034039
Rancid wrote:Reality is really just the world that we all agree to be true. That is, if someone in a room farts, and we all agree someone farted, that is reality. :lol:

If only one person believes there is a fart int he room, and the rest do not believe this to be true. The fart smeller could suffer from schizophrenia.

Reality is simply that thing which doesn't go away even when we stop believing in it. Lol.
By B0ycey
#15034040
AS probably has continued side effects from some shrooms he took a while back and wants clarification things are normal for him. You hear voices in your head or suffer from distorted reality this isn't normal. Hence the diagnosis.

Not everything is bullshit.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15034042
To be fair, there is an epistemological problem with the whole concept of a psychiatric 'diagnosis'. As RD Laing pointed out, psychiatric diagnosis is epistemologically back-to-front - psychiatrists examine an individual's behaviour, and then infer a biological disorder for which they prescribe biological treatments. The basic problem is that we cannot examine the mind. It is invisible, and may not even exist at all. If someone has a broken leg, we can examine their physical body and directly observe that they do indeed have a broken leg. If someone has 'schizophrenia', there is nothing to actually examine, nothing to actually see. Yet we treat it as though it is a biological illness, like a broken leg. This is why Susan Sontag referred to the whole concept of mental 'illness' as a metaphor. We have a body, which can become ill. We have a mind, which (we think) can also become ill in the same sort of way that the body becomes ill. But to say that is to speak metaphorically, not logically and certainly not scientifically.
By B0ycey
#15034046
Mental illness is just that Pote. You can treat it with drugs and observe the behaviour because chemical processes within the brain act and do certain things which are known through experimentation. You may not see a 'healing' like a broken leg, but like all things that are not visual, effects can take other forms and in terms of mental illness that is usually with behaviour.

Although AS had mentioned hallucinogenics already once today about how bad they are. And knowing that side effects can last a long time with them and that he said he hears voices makes me think this thread is clarification for him that things are normal. My only advice is keep off the shrooms AS.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15034070
B0ycey wrote:Mental illness is just that Pote. You can treat it with drugs and observe the behaviour because chemical processes within the brain act and do certain things which are known through experimentation. You may not see a 'healing' like a broken leg, but like all things that are not visual, effects can take other forms and in terms of mental illness that is usually with behaviour.

But this doesn't address the epistemological problem, B0ycey. All we can observe is behaviour. The mind itself is not directly accessible to observation, unlike the body. And inferring from expressed behaviour that there is a 'mind' with component parts and an internal structure (by analogy with the body) which can become 'ill' (again by analogy with the body) is actually a huge leap of logic. It's bordering on a category error.

Although AS had mentioned hallucinogenics already once today about how bad they are. And knowing that side effects can last a long time with them and that he said he hears voices makes me think this thread is clarification for him that things are normal. My only advice is keep off the shrooms AS.

As AS pointed out, we all 'hear voices'. The difference is that, to a psychotic or a schizophrenic, those voices are not under their own control, but feel alien. It is this self-alienation which is abnormal, and is probably why psychiatrists used to be called 'alienists'.
By B0ycey
#15034073
Potemkin wrote:But this doesn't address the epistemological problem, B0ycey. All we can observe is behaviour. The mind itself is not directly accessible to observation, unlike the body. And inferring from expressed behaviour that there is a 'mind' with component parts and an internal structure (by analogy with the body) which can become 'ill' (again by analogy with the body) is actually a huge leap of logic. It's bordering on a category error.


Well the point of mental treatment is to adjust behaviour FYI. On a biological level there isn't anything wrong with their brain so it doesn't need surgery and expecting it is required for some reason is absurd. But on your 'observations on the brain activity' analysis, this isn't true either. You can observe brain activity via scans. The brain and its behaviour should be separated from consciousness and as such analysing an individuals behaviour doesn't need access to their consciousness. And adjusting it can be achieved via medication.


As AS pointed out, we all 'hear voices'. The difference is that, to a psychotic or a schizophrenic, those voices are not under their own control, but feel alien. It is this self-alienation which is abnormal, and is probably why psychiatrists used to be called 'alienists'.


I don't hear voices within the confounds of my audio reality. If you do then you might suffer from schizophrenia FYI.
User avatar
By Wellsy
#15034075
I think consciousness is a legitimate object of science such that we do infer its nature through appearance of behavior. As is the case with all empirical science that we infer much about things which aren’t directly given by their appearances to develop more abstract categories of a field.

But there is an issue in which historically and still to this day psychological phenomenon are treated primarily by a chemical means. American advertising is a testament to such where i’m subject to adds where depression is treated as a chemical imbalance. This is how my mother talks of depression, but to view mental illness in this way is to view it as a biological process than in the category of mind. And hence why the proposed solution is typically a chemical one with psychiatrists. Although there are alternative approaches that have their partial views on the nature of the mind and their corresponding solution.
The fragmentation of psychology itself reflects the issues of having an essential understanding of consciousness.
I suspect there is must advancement to be made in the development of the concept of a concept in general. As this constitutes the content of the mind. Where concepts aren’t reduced to attaching attributes to physical objects and don’t exist only in ones imagination but correspond to ways of life which we have already mastered and participate in.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15034076
B0ycey wrote:Well the point of mental treatment is to adjust behaviour FYI. On a biological level there isn't anything wrong with their brain so it doesn't need surgery and expecting it is required for some reason is absurd. But on your 'observations on the brain activity' analysis, this isn't true either. You can observe brain activity via scans. The brain and its behaviour should be separated from consciousness and as such analysing an individuals behaviour doesn't need access to their consciousness. And adjusting it can be achieved via medication.

Granted. Treating 'mental illness' is rather like the Young two-slit experiment in quantum mechanics - we observe the electron at the source, and we observe it again on the detection screen, but what it does or where it goes in between is purely metaphysics. Likewise, we observe abnormal behaviour in a patient, which we adjust using psychotropic drugs until it conforms to something acceptable, and what happens in between is pure metaphysics. We can talk about the 'mind', but that's like talking about the electron when we are not observing it - irrelevant metaphysics.

I don't hear voices within the confounds of my audio reality. If you do then you might suffer from schizophrenia FYI.

We all have an interior monologue, B0ycey. :eh:
User avatar
By Rancid
#15034217
We should refer to people with Schizophrenia as Schizo's and Schiziis.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15034232
Rancid wrote:We should refer to people with Schizophrenia as Schizo's and Schiziis.

"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I'm schizophrenic
And so am I."

:excited:
Israel-Palestinian War 2023

@skinster Hamas committed a terrorist attack(s)[…]

"Ukraine’s real losses should be counted i[…]

I would bet you have very strong feelings about DE[…]

@Rugoz A compromise with Putin is impossibl[…]