Thoughts on this

[Merely]

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[SpongeBob DoctorPants]

Propaganda video created by CCHR, which is an organization established by the Church of Scientology (AKA Church of Anti-Psychiatry). What more could you expect? To many, mental illnesses are evident by the symptoms and behaviors seen in those suffering from them. The CCHR demands some kind of lab test to prove that a mental illness exists. So what? While there may be some biological markers for some illnesses, they are not needed to make a diagnosis. I wonder if the CCHR demands laboratory evidence for other illnesses, such as migraine headaches. This video is just an attempt by ill-informed individuals to discredit psychiatry.

 

[Stagg737]

The only thing more painful than watching that was knowing that the video now has one more view.

 

[st2205]

I made it I made it to the 38 second mark. Was there a more specific question here?

 

[Merely]

Nope but someone today told me there's been a study by a psychiatrist that took like normal people and told them to pretend to be insane and they were admitted into inpatient units then when the people stopped acting insane they weren't discharged so it showed the psychiatrists are bad at telling the sane from insane and in a way discrediting the field since it seems so arbitrary...anyone know about this study/thoughts?

 

[Amygdarya]

Nope but someone today told me there's been a study by a psychiatrist that took like normal people and told them to pretend to be insane and they were admitted into inpatient units then when the people stopped acting insane they weren't discharged so it showed the psychiatrists are bad at telling the sane from insane and in a way discrediting the field since it seems so arbitrary...anyone know about this study/thoughts?

It's a classic paper. I have to say that things have changed since 1973 when it was published, largely because of introduction of DSM-III approach to diagnosis.

 

[erg923]

Nope but someone today told me there's been a study by a psychiatrist that took like normal people and told them to pretend to be insane and they were admitted into inpatient units then when the people stopped acting insane they weren't discharged so it showed the psychiatrists are bad at telling the sane from insane and in a way discrediting the field since it seems so arbitrary...anyone know about this study/thoughts?

1. This was 40 years ago.
2. It did not do anything of the sort. It did show the damaging and problematic effects of numerous cognitive biases when working with psychiatric patients. (e.g., Confirmation Bias-interpreting normal behavior as pathological)
3. What exactly would you suggest they have done for these confederate patients? Tell them that their symptoms sounded weird, or not textbook-like and refuse to treat them despite them voluntarily asking for help? We didnt have blood tests for psychotic disorder in 1971 and we dont now either.
4. When the patients no longer showed or voiced symptoms that required hospitalization, they were summarily discharged. Seems appropriate to me.

 

[Merely]

I love this website so much because I'm inexperienced so when people tell me things I can come and ask experts and get insight...it's such a blessing

 

[Merely]

Wow so they were kept over two weeks while not showing any symptoms?? That's very interesting...

 

[deleted407021]

If you’re interested, there’s a good book out by Dr. Jeffery Lieberman on the history of psychiatry. He discusses this kind of thing, as well as how the hard-earned success of the DSM-III impacted the field for the better.

 

[hamstergang]

Wow so they were kept over two weeks while not showing any symptoms?? That's very interesting...

Well, maybe not that interesting. Today it's very hard to remain hospitalized for 2 weeks when actively symptomatic, but not so back then. Also, the ability to fake symptoms isn't so unique to psychiatry. You could fake your way to a pair of glasses. You could fake all sorts of pains and neurological symptoms that would lead to extensive testing.

Which brings us to your video. There are tests (various brain scans for example) that show some biological process involved in mental illness, at a population level. These scans are not useful for any individual patient, but differences are still seen when you average many people together (suggesting lots of overlap between those categorized as having the particular psychiatric disorder and those categorized as not having it, yet a difference existing nonetheless).

Even with such tests, the question is rather loaded. It implies that without a blood test or radiological test, something doesn't exist. We can show the existence of many things without such 'biological' tests. Many psychological tests, for example, are rather rigorously studied. Many other conditions people tend not to doubt, like migraines as already mentioned, don't have diagnostic tests, so the whole basis for this question seems misguided.

I'm curious to know how much editing was done in that video. The psychiatrists may have added more than what we saw.

 

[Amygdarya]

Stating that something doesn't exist because there is no test for it is obviously a flawed argument. So infectious diseases didn't exist before microscopes, cultures and Gram stain, and then they suddenly appeared?

If there's no test for something all it means that there is currently no test for it, no more, no less.