A central point of the article is to acknowledge the clumsiness of the categories.
It specifically mentions co-morbidities and such. It mentions that hundreds if not thousands of genes are involved and that this was pointed out by a study which contrasted the obviously genetic conditions of epilepsy and multiple sclerosis with disorders like bipolar or schizophrenia.
> This article reveals the folly of viewing a complex system (the mind) through a mechanistic lens.
Nobody is saying that current research views the mind through a mechanistic lens. The article is explicitly saying, "hey, this is a complex problem – let's observe and analyse the phenomena"
> We want to be able to look at the mind the way we look at a malfunctioning car ("ah, the timing belt's out") or computer ("one of the memory sticks died"), repair/replace that component and expect it to carry on as "normal".
Says who? The article is not saying this. The argument that researchers have an unsophisticated model of the brain/mind and its corresponding disorders is frequently put forward to justify a rejection of conventional therapy – which is what you end up doing, surprise surprise.
> The discussion in this article seems astonishingly simplistic and naïve to anyone who has read/heard any of the many researchers who have spent years examining mental "illness"
That's a gross mischaracterization of the article, which says:
“Researchers are also drastically rethinking theories of how our brains go wrong. The idea that mental illness can be classified into distinct, discrete categories such as ‘anxiety’ or ‘psychosis’ has been disproved to a large extent. Instead, disorders shade into each other, and there are no hard dividing lines — as Plana-Ripoll’s study so clearly demonstrated”
So when you say
> So, trying to categorise "disorders" into discrete definitions with distinct "causes" in order to restore the mind to some "normal" state cannot possibly work.
Yeah, nobody's trying to do that. Researchers are clearly aware of that.
I'm happy for you that whatever mental disorders you were suffering from seem to be receding but the attitude that mental health researchers are stuck is a conventional rut needs to be put to bed. If you're going to refute an article at least refute what the article says and not what you claim it says.
I understand the article is trying to convey that (some) researchers are rethinking the old approach of thinking of distinct definitions of disease.
My point is that they're still largely making the same mistakes; yes they're blurring the distinctions between "disorders", but they're not going back to first principles, nor giving due consideration to the coherent and compelling work of other eminent figures in their field.
> > So, trying to categorise "disorders" into discrete definitions with distinct "causes" in order to restore the mind to some "normal" state cannot possibly work.
> Yeah, nobody's trying to do that. Researchers are clearly aware of that.
They are still focused on identifying biological causes for disorders, rather than seeing variations in behaviour – even extreme ones – as adaptations that have been selected for by evolution.
It's articulated here:
> They have a few theories. Perhaps there are several dimensions of mental illness — so, depending on how a person scores on each dimension, they might be more prone to some disorders than to others. An alternative, more radical idea is that there is a single factor that makes people prone to mental illness in general: which disorder they develop is then determined by other factors. Both ideas are being taken seriously, although the concept of multiple dimensions is more widely accepted by researchers.
I sigh at that statement, when several prominent figures in the field, all with advanced qualifications in mainstream medicine or psychology, have been offering coherent explanations and effective treatment approaches for years or decades.
It specifically mentions co-morbidities and such. It mentions that hundreds if not thousands of genes are involved and that this was pointed out by a study which contrasted the obviously genetic conditions of epilepsy and multiple sclerosis with disorders like bipolar or schizophrenia.
> This article reveals the folly of viewing a complex system (the mind) through a mechanistic lens.
Nobody is saying that current research views the mind through a mechanistic lens. The article is explicitly saying, "hey, this is a complex problem – let's observe and analyse the phenomena"
> We want to be able to look at the mind the way we look at a malfunctioning car ("ah, the timing belt's out") or computer ("one of the memory sticks died"), repair/replace that component and expect it to carry on as "normal".
Says who? The article is not saying this. The argument that researchers have an unsophisticated model of the brain/mind and its corresponding disorders is frequently put forward to justify a rejection of conventional therapy – which is what you end up doing, surprise surprise.
> The discussion in this article seems astonishingly simplistic and naïve to anyone who has read/heard any of the many researchers who have spent years examining mental "illness"
That's a gross mischaracterization of the article, which says:
“Researchers are also drastically rethinking theories of how our brains go wrong. The idea that mental illness can be classified into distinct, discrete categories such as ‘anxiety’ or ‘psychosis’ has been disproved to a large extent. Instead, disorders shade into each other, and there are no hard dividing lines — as Plana-Ripoll’s study so clearly demonstrated”
So when you say
> So, trying to categorise "disorders" into discrete definitions with distinct "causes" in order to restore the mind to some "normal" state cannot possibly work.
Yeah, nobody's trying to do that. Researchers are clearly aware of that.
I'm happy for you that whatever mental disorders you were suffering from seem to be receding but the attitude that mental health researchers are stuck is a conventional rut needs to be put to bed. If you're going to refute an article at least refute what the article says and not what you claim it says.