Posted by Pennie Lane on August 26, 2001, at 12:59:22
In reply to Re: Abuse of Prescription Medication » Pennie Lane, posted by Marie1 on August 26, 2001, at 8:35:16
Marie1,
It seems that, whether adverse mental health symptoms are primarily biological or psychological, they are always both.
The nature/nurture question has been thoroughly tossed around on this board in several threads, directly and indirectly, until it seems major proponents of either view can articulate and incorporate in their own theories elements of the other view. If there is a middle ground, and I believe that there is, a loose consensus tends to evolve around the idea that inherited physiological factors can predispose some people to crumble when exposed to certain environmental stresses. Stressors can include social/family influence, nutritional deficits or disease. But a hybrid theory, I don't beleive, means any individual's symptoms can conclusively be said to be exclusively caused by nature or nurture. For all our study, we might be close to finding out, but we still don't know.
For me, the hybrid of inherited and environmental influences might provide an answer to prosecutors’ favorite line against psychiatric defenses, which says "Daddy abused Johnny's brother too, but Johnny's brother didn't go kill anybody. Johnny killed because he is bad, not because he was abused." Well, maybe Johnny's brother inherited a different genetic predisposition. Or, of course, maybe brother by chance and opportunity just developed a different coping style (or never got caught in his aggressive deeds).
If we allow for a hybrid of inherited and environmental factors, we reach another interesting question. When and where were the genetic traits introduced? An interesting lesson in genetic predisposition can be found in the population of HIV positive individuals. Some who test positive for HIV never develop AIDS symptoms and live much longer than those who develop symptoms. As a caveat, I don't believe, for all the billions in spending, that influences of lifestyle and immunosuppressive behaviors have been thoroughly documented. But what has been reported with general acceptance is that a group infected with the most common type of HIV in the United States and that is resistant to AIDS symptoms is predominately of European origin.
Well that's about a racist disease! But the genetic differences of Europeans, and of other cultures have played a major role in world history. Examples include the destruction by disease of native nations on the American continent when Europeans arrived (natives had not inherited immune sensitivity to European diseases) and perhaps the impact of tropical diseases on European travelers in more southern climes.
With HIV, the genetic trait that is theorized to predispose select individual to survive with HIV is believed to result for the era of the plague in Europe. The same trait that allowed some individuals to survive the plague is believed to predispose their descendants to survive HIV. And since they survived the plague, carriers of that trait now represent a greater portion of the European/American population than descendants of individuals who were not immune to bubonic plague.
But could this tendency toward cultural influence in natural selection apply to mental health problems? I think so. Maybe, sometime back around Charlemagne, give or take a thousand years or more, people who kept to themselves, succumbed to authority and presented other symptoms listed in the WSO list Rosa posted - maybe people genetically predisposed to those behaviors were more likely to successfully reproduce. Certainly through the Inquisition, individuals of European origin who might have been genetically predisposed to individuality, self-direction and originality were not favored in the unnatural selection process that determined matters of survival in the dungeons and fiery pyres of that day. Similar processes might have favored certain traits in other groups, but I don't want to go any further out on thin ice by suggesting specific genetic traits that might inhabit minority populations. And it is hard if not impossible at this time to determine how much of most behavioral traits might be genetic or culturally determined.
Whether symptoms are primarily a product of genetic or environmental influences, our choices of treatment might be the same. It's not like genetic causes imply chemical fixes and environmental causes imply psychological fixes. Psychological help might assist us in coping with primarily genetic traits. Medications might help us in coping with primarily environmentally induced symptoms.
The challenge, at least in gleaning some guidance from a forum such as this one, is to assimilate what can be learned from others without letting others paint you into a corner in an effort to defend their own choices. For you and I to discuss environmental causes of symptoms might be threatening to others who are convinced their symptoms are exclusively genetic and can only be treated with medications. But the goal here, I think, is to assist individuals interested in sharing some control over their choice of treatment. To that end, nobody's authoritative argument based on their own experience should outweigh your authority to reach conclusions based on the entire body of evidence available to you.
Am I a psych? …ologist or …iatrist? Sure. As payment for my services, please send a check, with the "pay to" line blank, to this anonymous New York City post office box...
Not. At least not of the credentialed (and trained) professional variety. Like many people who visit discussions such as this, I believe that I have as much right to develop opinions based on the entire body of evidence available to me as do working professionals. I think we would all do well to be better informed consumers and less trusting of elite caregivers whose interests can be directed as much by market forces (or political environment) as they are by concern for the suffering of their clients.
poster:Pennie Lane
thread:75755
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010822/msgs/76463.html