The Philosophy of Mental Health

[JohnJones]

@cheegster

@JohnJones

It is socially less divisive, and accurate, to describe people who have mental health problems, such as so-called clinical depression or bipolar disorder, as nutcases or crazies, etc. I always do.

Here is the philosophy of mental health - it is a category that stigmatises. Get rid of it. The stigma of mental illness is hard to combat because mental illness IS itself a deliberately created stigma. Better to be philosophically honest and use the term that mental illness is a metaphor for - nutcase, crazy.

To describe our inner life or personhood (or soul or centre if you like) as illness or “healthy” is to socially disenfranchise that personhood by relegating it to the non-social realm of a fleshy machine.

That is why it is better to say that someone who is supposedly clinically depressed, or has some other clinical myth, is crazy. For “mental health/illness” stigmatises a person by saying that personhood, right down to its soul or centre, isn’t that of a person, but is that of a machine that can be tinkered with by clinicians.

I think ‘mentally ill’ is just fine. Asides from ‘nutcase’ being a fairly harsh word for some ‘mental illness’, it’s seen as morederogatory as well. I’m not convinced there’s much more to it than that.

To describe our inner life or personhood (or soul or centre if you like) as illness or “healthy” is to socially disenfranchise that personhood by relegating it to the non-social realm of a fleshy machine.

That is why it is better to say that someone who is supposedly clinically depressed, or has some other clinical myth, is crazy. For “mental health/illness” stigmatises a person by saying that personhood, right down to its soul or centre, isn’t that of a person, but is that of a machine that can be tinkered with by clinicians.

[JohnJones]

@iambiguous

@JohnJones

It is socially less divisive, and accurate, to describe people who have mental health problems, such as so-called clinical depression or bipolar disorder, as nutcases or crazies, etc. I always do.

Here is the philosophy of mental health - it is a category that stigmatises. Get rid of it. The stigma of mental illness is hard to combat because mental illness IS itself a deliberately created stigma. Better to be philosophically honest and use the term that mental illness is a metaphor for - nutcase, crazy.

To describe our inner life or personhood (or soul or centre if you like) as illness or “healthy” is to socially disenfranchise that personhood by relegating it to the non-social realm of a fleshy machine.

That is why it is better to say that someone who is supposedly clinically depressed, or has some other clinical myth, is crazy. For “mental health/illness” stigmatises a person by saying that personhood, right down to its soul or centre, isn’t that of a person, but is that of a machine that can be tinkered with by clinicians.

Is this perchance an actual clinical observation on your part? If so, which cloud do you practice on? I’m up here on 9 and haven’t seen you around. ; o )

Seriously though, mental health and mental illness are just words we invented to describe something that can never actually be described. It’s easy enough to embrace the ideas of Thomas Szasz, RD Laing and Nurse Ratched. Just assume mental illness is a political construct.

Simply fly over the cuckoo’s nest and get on with your life?

Unless of course you really are cuckoo.

What’s “clinical” ?

[JohnJones]

@WW_III_ANGRY

@anon

@turtle

anon-----of course there is no “the” cause of depression. but there may be certain brain structures or something else that are crucial to the understanding that will come. it wont come via the drug companies.

I’m not sure it makes sense to think of depression as something “fixable” at all. Depression is a natural part of what it is to be human, and in mild form is something I wouldn’t want to do away with necessarily. But depression can be debilitating of course. I don’t know what makes depression debilitating for some people. But regardless of what the main reasons for such debilitating depression may be, I think that by understanding the complexity of all the contributing factors we can empower ourselves to learn to live with pain, loss, and imperfection. I think one significant contributing factor to depression is that we expect and want our lives to go perfectly - or at least very well. Or we want life to be fair, or to be reasonable. But life is neither of these, and our lives our bound to not go according to plan. Coming to terms with this may help.

There is depression and there is clinical depression though.

That must be one of the all-time great platitudes.

What, exactly, or even roughly, is the distinction between clinical and non-clinical? I don’t think anyone thinks about the way we parrot that bogus distinction.

[rust]

@turtle

what is the clue

Compensation, literally.

[WW_III_ANGRY]

@JohnJones

That must be one of the all-time great platitudes.

What, exactly, or even roughly, is the distinction between clinical and non-clinical? I don’t think anyone thinks about the way we parrot that bogus distinction.

So you have dubbed it a bogus distinction while asking what it is at the same time? What are you prematurely applying some defense mechanism for your own ignorance? Since you have done such already, google is your friend, if you really want to know.

[cheegster]

@JohnJones

@cheegster

I think ‘mentally ill’ is just fine. Asides from ‘nutcase’ being a fairly harsh word for some ‘mental illness’, it’s seen as morederogatory as well. I’m not convinced there’s much more to it than that.

To describe our inner life or personhood (or soul or centre if you like) as illness or “healthy” is to socially disenfranchise that personhood by relegating it to the non-social realm of a fleshy machine.

That is why it is better to say that someone who is supposedly clinically depressed, or has some other clinical myth, is crazy. For “mental health/illness” stigmatises a person by saying that personhood, right down to its soul or centre, isn’t that of a person, but is that of a machine that can be tinkered with by clinicians.

It depends if you take a physicalist appraoch. Although I generally like to think in terms of humanism, I find the physiological approach to humans pretty much spot on. So describing a person as a ‘fleshy machine’ to me is ultimately correct. To say it is relegating a person to this state…hmm that’s interesting. Not sure if I agree with that or not.

Would you generally like to regrd humans as a fleshy machine then?