Posted by capricorn on March 2, 2007, at 9:25:38
In reply to personality dysfunction v 'mental illness', posted by capricorn on March 2, 2007, at 7:34:26
What troubles me most is the way psychiatrists et all move the goalposts when it comes to claims that personality disorders are not mental illnesses.
The prevailing argument re so called 'mental illnesses' is that they involve the admixture of genetic and environmental factors with great emphasis being placed
on heritability of disorders like bipolar and schizophrenia.
However the heritability http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WCV-45V23CS-2&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2000&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=33ceea2f31405b6e5ab0082045769fb5 of so called PDs is ignored in favour of defining PDs in terms of 'learned behaviours' due to environmental factors.The growing body of evidence showing differences in the brains etc of those with so called PDS is making an ever inceasing mockery of the artificial
dichotomy between M.I and PD.Both so called M.I and PD appear to be products of what is called the diathesis-
stress model and yet the tendency is to still define the latter as being non mental illnesses.
This makes no intellectual sense at all. It is akin to two Bananas falling from the same tree and choosing to claim that one is a coconut.To some degree i think PD is a convenient label for shove on patients whose presentation of symptoms illustrate the all too apparent flaws inherent within the DSM or an equally convenient way of pandering to the self appointed Godlike narcissism of many pdocs.
If a patient is hard to treat then better to label him or her PDed than to take the time needed to deal with a difficult case.
Pdocs tend to like patients whose illnesses are straightforward and easier to treat and offer an easy means of reinforcing the pdocs narcissistic definition of him/herself as a paternalistic/maternalistic God like colossus.
It's akin to the tactic of dismissing difficult to solve crimes as non crimes in order to cynically boost the convinction rate and no less dishonest.
poster:capricorn
thread:737579
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070223/msgs/737607.html