Posted by alexandra_k on September 22, 2006, at 0:15:26 [reposted on September 25, 2006, at 0:09:07 | original URL]
In reply to Re: the brain » alexandra_k, posted by Squiggles on September 21, 2006, at 21:22:41
> I think the greater the number of interventions
> into possible causes, the greater the possibility of increasing the risk of error.Do you mean the more people try and develop inter-level models that try and take into account biological, psychological, and social causes... The more messed up the models become?
That is the main criticism of an inter-level / eclectic approach. The problem is thought to be that if you try and incorporate factors from the biological, psychological, and social levels the models become messy and either too general (so that they are not predictive or useful with respect to offering ways to interveane) or they are too specific (so that they don't apply to any individuals, or so that they apply to just one individual.
I think the first step is taking what looks rather like a brainstorm of factors and... Eliminating redundency...
> I don't understand how that could be so... Unless... You are concerned that giving more attention to the psychological and social levels will result in less attention being paid to the biological level...
> Not less, attention--more.You are concerned that a biopsychosocial approach will result in a biobiobio approach? I'm not sure I get you...
> Well, perhaps you have had success with this.
> I don't see it being done with other illnesses,
> e.g. malaria.Malaria isn't a mental illness. If there was a virus or a bacteria that caused mental illness and if figuring out how to kill the virus or bacteria cured the mental illness then of course we should do that. Perhaps you think that one day in the future neuro-biology will find viruses or bacteria that cause mental illness and will develop the medication to eliminate them and mental illness along with it. People are trying to look for such things... And I think they should keep up looking for such things... I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in the 'lets wait for the drug companies' basket, however, because that approach might turn out to be wrongheaded. Or that approach might turn out to be wrongheaded for my variety of disorder. It might be that the breakthrough comes from the sociologists. That they figure out an intervention (education and social change, for example) and that is implemented and the disorder disapears in virtue of that. It might be that the breakthrough comes from the psychologists. That they figure out an intervention (some kind of education or therapy, for example) and that is implemented and the disorder disappears in virtue of that. I would say that even more likely... A combination of such factors figure in the etiology of mental illnesses (given current taxonomy).
If medication is working I'm not suggesting people should stop taking it. If medication is helping (even just a little) I'm not suggesting people stop taking it.
I guess I'm mostly thinking of people who have been looking for that right med... Looking and looking and looking... And yet they aren't prepared to consider other types of interventions because they figure their mental illness must be treated on the biological level and they write off other treatment approaches as bogus. I'm just saying that other treatment approaches (therapy and social intervention) can change biology too. So that if people haven't found the right med... It might be worth supplimenting the medication search with other interventions. Thats all. If you have found what works for you thats great :-) I guess I'm just thinking of the people who are still searching...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:688931
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060922/msgs/688933.html