[eydimork]

People are mentally ill because the food they eat is contaminated on so many levels, it's WRECKS the body and their health just declines. The best part about it is that since it's been a reality for decades, people accept the idea that as you age, your health starts to decline and it's a natural process. One of the biggest loads of shit in human history. If you're depressed, you either have some sort of imbalance that has you experiencing depression as a symptom, or you have accumulated too much toxic waste and your body cant rid of the waste because it's being overworked (Bad diet, shit in, shit out, hello.) or both. Solution: Detox.

My ex-girlfriend was into that non-processed vegan detox shit. She was a neurotic wreck beyond reasonable proportion too. It's common with non-processed vegan detox whatever people. I think they just like the hypochondria, among other things.

 

[Veggie]

Biases exist in all industries, including the alternative medicine industry. In fact, I am surprised that you are not at all skeptical of the dubious pseudoscientific alternative medicine industry, when you are highly skeptical of the heavily regulated, scientifically rigorous mainstream medical industry. On what basis do you believe the alternative medicine practitioners over mainstream medicine practitioners?

"Alternative medicine" is an umbrella with quite a few practices beneath it. Some more credible than others, but certainly no more of a pseudoscience than modern psychiatry. I work as a Massage Therapist, and in order to become licensed we had to learn kinesiology, anatomy, physiology, pathology and the attachment, origin and insertion of each muscle. There is absolutely a science to how the body is manipulated in this way - the effects of circulation of blood and lymph fluid, body temperature, etc - much of the same underlying principles as physical therapy but more commonly preventative than rehabilitative (like a lot of alternative medicine). There is a science to nutrition and how it chemically affects brain function as well.

Nutrition and Brain Function - Basic Neurochemistry - NCBI Bookshelf

Chapter 33Nutrition and Brain Function

Gary E Gibson and John P Blass.

Correspondence to Gary E. Gibson, Cornell University Medical College, Burke Medical Research Institute, 785 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, New York 10605.

Nutrition affects brain chemistry in humans and other animals. Everyone experiences the fact that food and nutrition alter mood and behavior. Indeed, food can be a strong conditioning stimulus. One exposure to an adverse stimulus coupled with a particular food can cause a lifetime aversion to that food (see Chap. 50). The neurochemical mechanisms of how diet alters brain function are beginning to be known. Alterations of diet and nutrition based on sound neurochemical and other scientifically valid observations allow the use of diet as a rational and “natural” way to deal with disabilities related to the nervous system, including certain diseases.

The brain is sensitive to changes in diet. It depends on a continuous supply of nutrients from the blood, some of which are synthesized in other organs of the body, such as choline. Others, which cannot be synthesized in mammalian systems at all, are “essential” components that must be furnished by the diet. These essential nutrients include vitamins, amino acids and fatty acids. Studies of deficiencies of vitamins and other nutrients and elements, such as iodine, provide important insights into understanding brain metabolism.

Nutrition can alter brain function in short time frames, for example, by altering neurotransmitters and neuronal firing, and in the long-term, such as by altering membrane structure. The importance of proper nutrition during brain development has been appreciated for several decades. That the nutritional requirements of the brain of mature and aged individuals may differ from those of the young was established more recently. Genetics also affects dietary needs. Although classic vitamin and other nutritional “deficiencies” are major public health concerns in underdeveloped countries, they also occur in industrialized societies. Vitamin insufficiencies can occur secondary to alcohol or drug abuse or other psychiatric disorders, as a result of genetic variation or because particular age groups have special requirements. Nutritional therapy of neurodegenerative disorders in children has been successful in the past and may eventually provide a productive approach to the treatment of common adult neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, that encompass complex interactions of genetics and the environment.

Patents and Pharmaceuticals… | Truly Organic Foods

^That reference may not have appeared in a medical journal - but it still has plenty of interesting information and history (about the pharmaceutical industry and patent process) that's food for thought, notably:

"The most popular are the drugs discovered by the Pharmaceutical industry by isolating the active ingredient from traditional remedies. Because you can not patent a natural herb, these pharmaceutical companies will invest millions of dollars into isolating the active molecules in the herbs and finding suitable chemical alternatives to match as closely as they can."

In regards to the OP, these articles are both interesting as well:

From DSM-I to DSM-5 in the Legal System: Mental Illness Issues in the Courtroom | JONATHAN TURLEY

The Definition of Insanity is... | Psychology Today

"Insanity" doesn't actually exist outside of the courtroom and is much more subjective than we are led to think.

It's legal definition:

"Insanity. n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior

Insanity is a concept discussed in court to help distinguish guilt from innocence. It's informed by mental health professionals, but the term today is primarily legal, not psychological. There's no "insane" diagnosis listed in the DSM."

Choosing to *believe* in fantasy is still acknowledging it as fantasy (although that can get quite confusing as well, as one of the definitions of reality is - 2. all that exists or happens: everything that actually does or could exist or happen in real life - which is why there are different branches within philosophy exploring it's subjectivity and what we've collectively determined as objective and why).

From Jonathan Turley's article:

During the 1900s, the insanity standard evolved. The Durham Rule was created in the 1950s. Durham tried to take into consideration psychiatric and medical standards for insanity. This proved unworkable. The brand new DSM-I had been published in 1952, listing 106 mental disorders. Defense attorneys began trying earn their clients acquittals if they had any of the diagnoses found in the DSM-I. It did not take long for the reaction to the highly liberalized Durham rule to come under fire. Twenty-two states rejected the Durham rule outright. In 1972, a panel of Federal Judges discarded the Durham Rule. They adopted the standard created by The American Law Institute (ALI). The ALI standard allowed for a more flexible interpretation of understanding than simple cognitive knowing. The ALI model also avoided use of diagnoses found in the DSM-I, and the later DSM-II, as a legal basis for insanity. The DSM-II increased the number of diagnoses to 182, and dropped use of the term “reaction” as a diagnosis, because that implied causality. About half the states retained the M’Naughten Rule and half adopted some variation of the ALI standard. The Federal Court system adopted the ALI standard for establishing insanity.

The DSM-III was published in 1980. It was considerably different than the two previous versions. It added more detail, along with algorithms for making differential diagnoses. There was a five-axis matrix on which to report a diagnosis, including something called the Global Assessment of Functioning, or GAF. The DSM-III contained a staggering 494 pages with 265 diagnostic categories. When the DSM-IV was published in 1994, it listed 297 disorders in 886 pages. During all these iterations of the manual, some diagnoses were removed, and new ones added. Some had their names changed. Illnesses became “disorders.” Earlier versions listed homosexuality as a mental illness or disorder. The committee voted to change that to “egodystonic homosexuality.” Later it was removed altogether.

DSM-5 (they have dropped the Roman numerals) was released this weekend, but don’t know anyone who has actually seen one. This version, unlike all previous versions, was conceived in almost total secrecy. There was a public comment period, but all members of the committee had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. As a result, there has been no transparency as was the norm in the past. What we know of this new diagnostic manual is limited to what the American Psychiatric Association has released piecemeal. The new version has 947 pages and over 300 diagnoses.

Where is this going? My interest is in the forensic psychology aspect of the new manual. Previous versions of the DSM have been criticized for lack of validity. Based on what has been released about the manual so far, it appears the newest version suffers from the same flaw. I have observed problems with inter-rater reliability, when using any version of the DSM. In other words, if ten psychologists and psychiatrists examine the same patient, how often do they come to the same diagnosis? Lack of agreement on any given diagnosis is far more common than the public…and lawyers….ever suspected. I have attended countless staff meetings where a half-dozen experienced psychologists and psychiatrists argued heatedly whether a patient was one thing or another diagnostically. They all missed the main point. The question they should have been addressing was whether the defendant was competent to stand trial and criminally responsible. It made no difference whether the defendant had a personality disorder or not. Folks, it doesn’t matter what the diagnosis is. The legal criteria are not found in any diagnostic handbook.
...

Problems with the new DSM-5 go far beyond whether it should be accepted as the definitive diagnostic manual by the legal system. Two weeks ago, Thomas R. Insel, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), delivered a sharply worded statement saying the NIMH would no longer fund research based on the DSM-5. His criticism is the same as mine,

“The weakness” [of the DSM-5] “is its lack of validity….Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure.”

Adding his voice to those criticizing the DSM-5 is Dr. Allen Frances, editor of DSM-IV, and Dr. Robert Spitzer, editor of DSM-III. Spitzer wrote an open letter to the DSM-5 committee complaining about forcing task force members to sign a non-disclosure contract, which flies in the face of proper protocols for scientific or medical projects. The DSM-5 staff rejected Drs. Frances and Spitzer’s complaints about lack of transparency, blaming their motivations as the fact both are still receiving royalties for their work on the previous editions.

In a press release three years ago, Canadian Medical Associaton Journan (CMAJ), in collaboration with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article highly critical of the DSM-5 task force and its operation. The article included the following:

Some critics of the DSM process express other concerns in addition to matters of transparency. It’s been pointed out that about 70% of current task force members have ties to the pharmaceutical industry, up about 14% for DSM-IV. A study of an earlier edition of the manual found that ties to the drug industry are particularly strong in working groups focusing on diagnostic areas in which drugs are the first line of treatment (Pscyhother Psychosom 2006;75:154–60). For DSM-IV, all of the members of the working groups for mood disorders and “schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders” had ties to drug companies.

“We recommended that they limit the number of people on these working groups with industry ties, making them a minority so they won’t dominate,” says Sheldon Krimsky, a coauthor of the study and an adjunct professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at the Tufts School of Medicine in Medford, Massachusetts. “But that hasn’t happened yet.”

As far as I have been able to determine, nothing changed since that memo. Talking with both physicians and psychologists, I hear little else but skepticism that the new DSM-5 is driven more by economics than science.

These videos are cool:

What is Synchronicity: Jung vs. Freud (kind of cute and funny):

Through the Wormhole: Are You Dreaming Right Now?

Ultimately, all that we have is our individual perception. We can certainly study empirical evidence around us, but determining probability in our reality has to have a personal component to it as well (which isn't narcissistic). If we didn't challenge the status quo we wouldn't have new ideas or concepts to back with science either. This is no more a pathway to psychosis than marijuana is a gateway drug or homosexual marriage opening the door to pedophilia - thinking that can become dangerous to freedom and individual rights.

It sounds like your friend is struggling with the issues of an omnibenevolent God, which is not necessarily synonymous with believing in a higher power or synchronicity. Jung was actually interested in non-Abrahamic religions and more collective theories in the creation of our reality (the collective unconscious, for example).

Carl Sagan - Fractal Universe

 

[MoKa]

post

Thanks for the post Veggie! My point mainly was to express the necessity for scientific evidence to back up one's claims about nutrition and health.

 

[Veggie]

Thanks for the post Veggie! My point mainly was to express the necessity for scientific evidence to back up one's claims about nutrition and health.

Yup, and it can be found.