tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3125132926699584358.post5511784916220345962..comments2024-03-28T09:59:51.779-05:00Comments on Family Dysfunction and Mental Health Blog: Book Review: A Disease Called Childhood by Marilyn WedgeDavid M. Allen M.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06280912088483192599noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3125132926699584358.post-38229543845903292702015-04-21T13:39:41.648-05:002015-04-21T13:39:41.648-05:00Right, I agree with much of what you just said.* ...Right, I agree with much of what you just said.* Still, I wonder whether the word "illness" might not be more meaningful. <br /><br />I don't care very much for the phrase "semantic trivia." I happen to think that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics#Linguistics" rel="nofollow">semantics</a> is an incredibly important are of study. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3125132926699584358.post-25562085777152274062015-04-21T10:53:18.995-05:002015-04-21T10:53:18.995-05:00Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for your comment. People ha...Hi Anonymous,<br /><br />Thanks for your comment. People have been going around and around with defining "disease" forever (is alcholism a disease, or is it merely self-destructive behaviror?), and one can get lost semantic trivia. And of course all behavior is "biological," including me writing this sentence.<br /><br />The way I'm using it (and of course it's hard to prove one way or the other so I'm sure someone could easily get me in some sort of a semantic trap), a psychiatric "disease" is a problem with the basic wiring of the brain, while a "psychological" or "functional" problem falls within the range of a normal brain's neuroplastic adaptation to ones social (particularly interpersonal and family) environment.<br /><br />Since we don't really understand the wiring of the brain, we have to rely on indirect evidence to tell what is probably one from what is probably the other. The key issue is pervasiveness.<br /><br />When someone is in a psych hospital, for instance, you can see how someone is behaving when they don't think anyone is looking. Someone in a acute schizophrenic break, for example, looks pretty much the same no matter what they are doing and whether someone is watching or not. That is definitely NOT the case with, say, borderline personality disorder, whose behavior differs widely over the day depending on who they are with and who they think is their audience.<br /><br />Someone in a true melancholic depression isolates themselves and looks like the world is coming to an end 24/7 no matter who is around. A patient with a more functional depression may look that way at first, but when they aren't aware of being observed, can be seen out socializing on the ward, laughing and joking. True brain pathology (as opposed to physiology) does not just appear and the suddenly evaporate from moment to moment like that. David M. Allen M.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06280912088483192599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3125132926699584358.post-6567472420494839032015-04-21T09:05:08.989-05:002015-04-21T09:05:08.989-05:00So just because we do not know the precise cause o...<i>So just because we do not know the precise cause of something like schizophrenia, that does not prove that it is not a brain disease. That's like saying we didn't know that the bubonic plague was a disease until after germs were discovered.</i><br /><br />How are you defining disease here? Do you make a distinction between illness and disease? I ask, because--depending on how you use the word--it's not so far off to say that we didn't know that Bubonic Plague was a disease until we had the germ theory.<br /><br />Saying something is a brain disease or biological doesn't tell me anything much, because, as far as I'm concerned everything having to do with living beings is, by definition, biological. Biological, pace Dawkins, does not mean merely genetic. Until we can prove that our mental life is determined by the bacteria in our guts, then that leaves us with our brains.<br /><br />Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and autism are no joke, but without a known etiology, it seems to me that it might be more useful to call them illnesses or (in the cases of autism) developmental disabilities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com