[Serious] The Mental Health Crisis

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Significantly mentally ill folks? I have no clue. Nothing to say there.

But for general depression and anxiety that is plaguing people today? I think the root cause is our economic system. An expansion of the welfare state would help. Mandatory 2 weeks paid vacation leave for all employees, a higher starting wage, free childcare, a comprehensive free public healthcare system... that would be a start. The less people worry about money/the less they feel they live to work, the more they'll be able to live a fuller life and I think a net increase in happiness would follow.

You think the root cause of depression is our economic system. Really?  Gee I wonder why no one else has posited that as an idea. People such as Psychologists and Psychiatrists.

As far as I'm aware the consensus is that depression/anxiety can have many causes.  I guess being one or two pays away from the streets is probably a cause for some people. Generally, I don't agree that human beings are quite that weak or shallow.

Perhaps have bit of read about the topic, as your post suggests you are completely ignorant.

[Belacqua]

You think the root cause of depression is our economic system. Really?  Gee I wonder why no one else has posited that as an idea. People such as Psychologists and Psychiatrists

He said "general depression and anxiety." Granted, these phenomena are far too varied to have a single cause. All mental health professionals, though, hold that environmental factors significantly contribute to occurrences of these problems. Constant financial anxiety, feelings that you'll never get ahead of your debts or provide properly for your family -- these things can harm mental health. 

There are any number of other environmental factors involved, too. Lack of connection with others, for example. 

While investigations into brain chemistry have provided chemical treatments, it would be dangerous to conclude, therefore, that all depression and anxiety are only caused by chemicals, and that only new chemicals are needed to treat the problem. As with all brain electrochemical events, these harmful ones are reactions to other things. Simply doing drugs may be masking the symptom while leaving the causes intact. The "medical model" makes a hell of a lot of money for powerful people, though, so we're likely to be seeing that as our only option for now. 

Or think about it the other way: imagine a much improved society, where the environment is clean, economic security is guaranteed, violence is minimal, and people care about each other. Do you really think that such a society would have the same levels of depression and anxiety as ours does? 

Good story from ancient times: Porphyry, a Neoplatonic philosopher, had serious depression. "Melancholy" in those days. His teacher advised him that depression was caused by an imbalance of cold and dry humors in the body, and the treatment was to go somewhere warm and wet. Porphyry then spent two years on Mediterranean beaches, and his depression was cured. Moral of the story: even if the medical diagnosis is wrong, a change of setting may help. Especially if it involves sitting on the beach for a couple of years. Especially in the presence of warm and wet girls.

[vulcanlogician]

You think the root cause of depression is our economic system. Really?  Gee I wonder why no one else has posited that as an idea. People such as Psychologists and Psychiatrists

He said "general depression and anxiety." Granted, these phenomena are far too varied to have a single cause. All mental health professionals, though, hold that environmental factors significantly contribute to occurrences of these problems. Constant financial anxiety, feelings that you'll never get ahead of your debts or provide properly for your family -- these things can harm mental health. 

There are any number of other environmental factors involved, too. Lack of connection with others, for example. 

While investigations into brain chemistry have provided chemical treatments, it would be dangerous to conclude, therefore, that all depression and anxiety are only caused by chemicals, and that only new chemicals are needed to treat the problem. As with all brain electrochemical events, these harmful ones are reactions to other things. Simply doing drugs may be masking the symptom while leaving the causes intact. The "medical model" makes a hell of a lot of money for powerful people, though, so we're likely to be seeing that as our only option for now. 

Or think about it the other way: imagine a much improved society, where the environment is clean, economic security is guaranteed, violence is minimal, and people care about each other. Do you really think that such a society would have the same levels of depression and anxiety as ours does? 

Good story from ancient times: Porphyry, a Neoplatonic philosopher, had serious depression. "Melancholy" in those days. His teacher advised him that depression was caused by an imbalance of cold and dry humors in the body, and the treatment was to go somewhere warm and wet. Porphyry then spent two years on Mediterranean beaches, and his depression was cured. Moral of the story: even if the medical diagnosis is wrong, a change of setting may help. Especially if it involves sitting on the beach for a couple of years. Especially in the presence of warm and wet girls.

I liked this analysis.

I think one day we will fully realize that (instead of satisfaction of consumer desires) personal wellbeing of all citizens ought to be the goal of society. Satisfying consumer desires can play a role there, but it isn't the end-all-be-all that some take it to be. Allowing everyone to spend three or so weeks at a beach if they need to... several times a year even... may even play a positive role in productivity.

I know what would free me from my melancholy. Education. (Quality education, anyway.) One day that will be freely available to all, I think. But society needs to get its priorities straight. If each member playing his or her proper role is how we define justice, then we need to ensure each member is healthy and happy so that they may play that role to their fullest.

Depression is not an easy nut to crack. What I've found is that the mental health system strives to produce well socialized individuals to treat a broad array of mental issues. And this may help in many cases. But sometimes people are stuck in abusive situations. Insidious ones, where entire groups of people are "in on" using an abusing one individual. There are a plentitude of well documented cases where this happens with children and young adults. The funny thing is, I think depression in these particular individuals is correlated to them being "too well socialized" in a sense. If they would fight back... maybe even be "anti-social"... this might help them out. But this is something that is difficult for mental health services to endorse or foster. After all, anti-social people are a problem. Depressed people who put up with abuse silently are not. No psychological material I've encountered before has described the depths of social abuse that I've witnessed multiple times. But you don't have to take my word for it. It goes so far as to be criminal in nature on occasion. It's been documented. And when this happens people are "shocked" to see that children or others are treated in such a cruel manner (sometimes by dozens of people). But we never stop to think how it is quite common for people to be abused thusly in a more dilute (noncriminal) way. And how this, in turn, causes depression.

But all that is only one cause... albeit a rare one. Depression can come from isolation, lack of sex or romance, or a multitude of things. At the very least, the mental health profession is aware of much of this nuance.

@Oldandeasilyconfused Bro... calm down, man. I've never seen you come out swinging like this. People are just offering up ideas, not making broad generalizations.

[Belacqua]

may even play a positive role in productivity.

Yes, I think this is all well documented. Since the Reagan/Clinton administration, productivity has increased dramatically, but the people doing the work don't see the benefits of that. It all goes to the top. The whole thing has been structured for exploitation, and it gets worse every year. Society could be just as productive, economy-wise, as it is now with far less cruelty. But that would mean that Bezos wouldn't get his spaceship, for example. 

I know what would free me from my melancholy. Education. (Quality education, anyway.) One day that will be freely available to all, I think. But society needs to get its priorities straight. If each member playing his or her proper role is how we define justice, then we need to ensure each member is healthy and happy so that they may play that role to their fullest.

Strangely, when Americans talk about health insurance, they will compare themselves to the British or Canadian models, but never mention Japan. I think this is because Japan's system works so well that the corporate media are afraid to mention it.


After the war, when they needed to rebuild the economy from scratch, they knew that to get things up and running they needed the maximum number of healthy people with sufficient incomes not only to produce but to buy stuff. So they set up government-run single payer health insurance, and employed more people than they strictly needed, and focused on public education. It's actually good for the economy to have more people healthy and fulfilled, but, again, the US has chosen cruelty. 

And of course life isn't about the economy. Any sane society will set itself up for maximum human flourishing. 

where entire groups of people are "in on" using an abusing one individual.

It's not the only cause of depression of course, but the amount of unnecessary, even casual cruelty in society constantly amazes me. There will be groups that choose a person to pick on, as you point out. And there will be whole social categories that serve that function for other large groups. 

I have never been able to understand the great pleasure that people apparently feel in being cruel. In going far over and beyond the amount of attack that is necessary. 

Part of this, I think, is the American tradition of Clint Eastwood -- the self-assigned role of moral arbiter. Once a person judges, by his own standards, that someone has fallen below a certain standard, it is our right and duty to make that person suffer. You often hear a vile justification, when people say something like "I treat everybody with respect, but if you treat me like shit then I'll give it right back." It means that we can easily, always, find a justification to treat people badly. On this forum, too, verbally. 

(I've never heard this justification expressed in Japan, but probably I would if I hung out with Yakuza.) 

I agree with you that depression must have many causes. And the cases spread, I think.

There's a lovely image in Dante, where he talks about the pleasure of being good to others. He likens the good shining out of God (as the Form of the Good) to light from the sun. (This is a common Neoplatonic trope.) All the light is from one source, but each of us is a mirror, and the more we reflect of this goodness, the brighter the whole world is. So you can imagine all the mirrors, mutually reflecting, brightening the world for everyone. But the world we live in is somehow more like the opposite, with darkness spread and reflected.

[brewer]

Don't compare intrinsic and extrinsic depression. The issues and treatment approaches/outcomes are very different.

Side note: Do you know how fucked up Japans societal mental health issues are? A simple google search will show you that Japan has a great deal of unaddressed (or ignored) mental health issues.

(suicide rate Japan 17/100,000, USA 13.5/100,000)