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Rehashing Old Myths

© John McManamy

"As if the brain were just another organ, like the heart. As if mental illness would manifest like any other disease such as measles."

This article is an expanded version of a piece that first appeared in my newsletter:

If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, is there a sound?

If some chemicals cause havoc in the brain and there is no scientist to pinpoint the exact cause and effect, is there a disease?

Rather surprisingly, there is a strong body of opinion that would reply with a resounding "no" to that second question. In a letter to the editor in the Hartford Courant, one reader, Richard Shulman, accused the paper of signing on to "the misleading assumption that emotional distress and family and personal turmoil are diseases - an unproven hypothesis that is actively promoted by drug companies, among others."

Shulman happens to be a psychotherapist, obviously with his own agenda to push. Another article, The Myth of Depression, written by a lawyer Lawrence Stevens, spells it out:

"The erroneous belief in biological causation justifies the otherwise unjustifiable use of biological therapies. And the biological therapies justify the existence of psychiatry as a medical specialty distinguishable from psychology or counselling."

If that statement is valid, of course, the converse has to apply, as well - that psychologists are touting their own theories to promote their business of talking therapy. To set the record straight, psychologists and psychiatrists have been at each other's throats ever since Freud ordered his famous couch.

And, of course, the psychological argument is half-right. Environmental factors and personal attitudes loom large in mental illness, and many times throwing a pill at the problem is not the solution. But Shulman quotes the Surgeon General out of context as saying there is "no laboratory test, or abnormality in brain tissue that can identify [mental] illness."

Ah, the tree in the forest thing. As if the brain were just another organ, like the heart or pancreas or liver. As if mental illness - were it to exist - would manifest like any other disease such as measles or diabetes. As if we needed a blood test or urine sample or MRI to validate the neuronic hurricanes playing out in our brains.

We have heard these arguments before. Back in the sixties and seventies, when forced institutionalization was the big issue, mental health advocates attempted to create a picture of harmless eccentrics needlessly locked away for the crime of being different. Apparently, the repressive forces of the state had nothing better to do than round these people up and torture them at their pleasure. Depression and mania, we were led to believe, were minor personality quirks that existed mostly in our heads.

The copyright of the article Rehashing Old Myths in Depression is owned by John McManamy. Permission to republish Rehashing Old Myths in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.