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Jul 03, 2013, 12:17 AM
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Member Since: Aug 2007
Location: West of Tampa Bay, East of the Gulf of Mexico
Posts: 14,354
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Quote:
Consider, for example, medical (i.e., applied biological) specializations such as gastroenterology or pulmonology: is it possible to imagine a physician who would be unaware that the process of digestion is necessarily affected by the nature and quantity of food the stomach digests, or the process of breathing by the nature and quantity of the air inhaled? No, because this is what our organs do: they process intakes from the environment, and these intakes have at least as much to do with our health and illness as the structure and physiology of the organs which process them. Yet, we forget this when it comes to the brain and mental processing—the mind.
The environment of the human brain is far more complex than that of the stomach and lungs, or than the environment of the brains of other animals. Most of its intakes come not from the organic and physical world, but, instead, from the world of meanings and symbolic systems which convey them, that is, culture. If digestion can be defined as what happens to food in, and what food does to, the stomach, the mind, by analogy, can be conceptualized as what happens to culture in, and what culture does to, the (human) brain. It is very likely that most mental diseases (just like most gastrointestinal or pulmonary ones) come from the intake of the processing organ, rather than from the organ itself, i.e., it is likely that they are caused by culture. Mental health professions pay no attention to it, and no revision of the DSM will make them improve their ability to help the mentally ill.
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Love this! I know the brain is a complex and fascinating organ, but I have never felt that mental health issues could be the result of brain functioning alone. I wonder who it serves to define it that way (insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies).
I also wonder about diagnosis itself. It seems that diagnosis is not only based on symptoms, but some kind of definition of 'normal'. If 'normal' is a circle, then what is abnormal is outside that circle. But how far outside? Just outside? Way outside? Where does the circle that surrounds the concept of 'normal' get drawn? Whose normal is it anyway? Mine? My therapist's? An appointed mental health academia person?
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