Power of the Mind, Reality Creation

Is it possible that the majority of psychological diseases of the 20th century have been invented by pharmaceutical companies? We've all heard of the placebo effect and the power of expectations. Consider how these new diseases come in to being;

a certain set of symptoms is described as a particular disease.

A drug is marketed that claims to counter-act these symptoms.

The marketing includes a description of the symptoms which may or may not be related to each other, or could possibly be relatively normal conditions.

Anyone using these drugs becomes dependant on them, and withdrawal from the drugs causes an extreme resurgence of the symptoms, which affirms that the condition is real.

No research about the frequency or severity of these symptoms in the population is available for times before the disease is identified, so there is no way to objectively show that any condition is being alleviated from the general population.

Also; What other problems in our society could possibly be attributed to this kind of negative memeering?

No i don't think they invented these mental disorders in the first place.

I think psychiatrists and the likes have a very keen eye of noticing patterns in behaviour. These symptons found are made by intelligent people and different sources and have found certain
aspects of personalities that a person might have.
Wich is great , because when you can analize certain behaviour you can work on them and see where the problem started and how to fix it.

The issue i have with these disorders is that they instantly report these symptons are a cause of ur brain not fully functioning. Its been there from birth and its never going away.
Now thats really absurd to me, how can u say that about people just by giving them a list of questions and then analizing the answers?

My friend has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS / ADD by a professional psychiatrist just by filling in a list and doing some puzzles and they claim his brain is not operating the "right" way and u need to take these pills that contain opium. ( funny fact, afghanistan contained 90% of the worlds opium production and the us seized the opium in military missions )
Children have DIED as a result of taking these pills. And people make a lot of money handing out these pills to everybody. Some schools even get extra funding for every kid they sent to the psychiatrist and convince them to take these pills every day.

Point is, instead of coming to the conclusion that these symptons of people are a result of a born mental disorder is not the right way of dealing with this.
I think if you really come to understand people and the symptons they have you can always trace them back to events in life that made them the way they are. After all the mind is in my vision formed by its enviremont and the place they have in it.

Let's see.

I was depressed for a couple of years when I was 14-15. It was unpleasant. I had the inner critic constantly telling me I was worthless, suicidal ideation, that whole deal. Eventually I got treatment, and some medication - which I wouldn't say helped amazingly, but it did stabilise things a little.

I'd never taken meds before. I would thusly say from ancedotal evidence that this proposition doesn't really make sense. If there's already a large market out there for this sort of thing why actively create one?

I -do- believe that some medication is given where it's not needed - conditions are a matter of degree, a lot of the time. I've been diagnosed with mild Aspergers too - and I can see some of the symptoms in myself when I'm stressed, the groaning, etc - but it has little negative impact on my life. Overmedication stems from taking diagnosed but mild conditions like this and exaggerating their importance to be "normalised", I feel.

I think this is true with many cases of ADD and depresion, people are just experiencing normal life and drug companies tell them their reactions to it are not normal and they need drugs. But I don't know if I would go so far as to say that most psychological diseases are the creations of drug companies, maybe. 90% of people who have ADD don't have a physiological condition, we just have a retarded school system that they can't function in. I'm not so sure about depression, but I think it's the same thing. Our society is fucked up, people are treated like shit, theres agression and contradictions everywhere especially in authority figures. They can't deal with it so we tell them" Oh, your just broken, you need drugs. Your the one whos messed up not us."

I tend to favor the idea that mental illness is primarily caused by divergences in e.g. diet, behavior and social structure from our evolutionary norms.

Think about a member of another species in a cage. I know that we're supposed to be more complex than other species but I think it's still a striking parallel.

But yeah, I can see some "mental illnesses" being cooked up in the manner you're describing. ADD is a good example as stonedape pointed out.

I don't dispute that the condition of depresson (or any other condition) is real. What I am questioning is whether these conditions are diseases that can be treated with medication and not the normal consequence of certain circumstances; as Philosopherstoned said, things like diet, life events, habits, etc.. Smoking weed makes me happier. Does that mean that my previous unstoned condition was really a disease and marijuana is the proper treatment?

What I am also wondering is if these conditions are more wide spread because we as consumers are aware that they are "diseases" that other people have and are being treated for? Do you think that you would consider the possibility of having "depression" or "adhd" if nobody had ever told you that such diseases exist?

I don't think that they're really diseases, but in some cases medication can help treat them, but I really only feel this way about extreme cases of depression. Moderate cases should be treated with marijuana.

In some cases with depression I think that I might think that the person has some serious mental problems. Like when people cut themselves.

I don't think add is a real disease, some people just have a hard time concentrating on certain subjects and in certain conditions. I think if we got rid of grades and made learning(in schools) into something enjoyable that kids actually want to do they wouldn't have a hard time doing it. The reason they can't focus is because they don't wanna be there.

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Originally Posted by stonedape

i don't think that they're really diseases, but in some cases medication can help treat them, but i really only feel this way about extreme cases of depression. Moderate cases should be treated with marijuana.

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yes!!!

I think pharmaceutical companies have tragically misinterpreted and misused the findings of the psychology community. That doesn't mean psychological illness emerged from the expectation of itself but because classification of illness is so broad and vague, diagnoses can be handed out very indiscriminately with negative consequences for both psychology's credibility as well as the health of the people being misdiagnosed.

So far psychology has done well at classification to the extent of finding commonalities with patients in different shades of the psychological grade. They've gotten to the point where they can say most of these types of patients are like this. The physicians prescribing medication have taken that and used it to say "If you're like this, then you're that kind of patient," and the way they determine this is with a checklist with your score based on the average. If you score too much higher than everyone else for a certain checklist, then the wage is you're suffering from that illness. Being a doctor is like being a professional gambler. Being a pharmaceutical executive is like owning a casino.