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Eric Kandel, MD, a Nobel Prize laureate and professor of brain science at Columbia University, believes it's all about biology. "All mental processes are brain processes, and therefore all disorders of mental functioning are biological diseases," he says. "The brain is the organ of the mind. Where else could [mental illness] be if not in the brain?"
That viewpoint is quickly gaining supporters, thanks in part to Thomas R. Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who has championed a biological perspective during his tenure at the agency.
To Insel, mental illnesses are no different from heart disease, diabetes or any other chronic illness. All chronic diseases have behavioral components as well as biological components, he says. "The only difference here is that the organ of interest is the brain instead of the heart or pancreas. But the same basic principles apply."
I basically agree, but with caveats about the proper definition of "mental illness".
Too often, people are labeled as mentally ill because they have adopted alternate ways of being that busybodies and prudes find personally annoying or disturbing. Yet, it's hard to show how those ways of being actually harm anyone. Even if the person is driven to such modes of existence by personal limitations, they may actually be creative and/or heroic solutions to the problems thus presented.
Even if there are only some relatively mild mental health or addiction issues present, they can be seized upon and magnified by people who are more interested in "winning" arguments than in compassion and empathy.
I have seen people labeled (by laypersons or especially by doctors not trained or qualified in mental health care, who have faux authority to trade in) as mentally ill who are just not behaving the way the labeler wants them to. Or who are far less mentally ill than alleged.
Mental illness should really be defined by whether behaviors and thought patterns are maladaptive, meaning, they significantly impede one's ability to find happiness, or significantly impede or interfere with other's pursuit of happiness (in other words doing no harm to oneself or to others).
In a sense we are all mentally ill. The human mind can only imperfectly deal with the human condition, with its absurdities, dangers, tragedies and suffering. No one can claim to be 100% rational and self consistent, like some sort of dispassionate Vulcan doing the logical and efficient thing in all cases. Ultimately "mental illness" is a mode of coping that results in suffering that's significantly more intense than average for the person in question and/or the people around him, nothing more.
In this reality bordering on solipsism . . . delusion is truly in the eye of the beholder! . . . as is rationality.
Sounds very like the delusion that reality isn't real. I'll bet if a truck ran over a philosopher's foot, god forbid, he or she would recognize awfully quickly that the world we occupy is real.
i have know some very sane atheists esp my grandfather who raised me
but those are mostly not the people that post on CDF.
I'm betting the "sane" atheists were the ones who remained seated, kept their mouths shut, and let Christians run amok.
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COuld it be argued that atheist are the most sane people on Earth?
he or she would recognize awfully quickly that the world we occupy is real.