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23rd June 2016, 05:30 PM | #161 |
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I don't think the lack of success in understanding of the causes of autism is a failure for either psychiatry or genetics. Both genetics and psychiatry are very young as scientific endeavors.
But, how might we define psychiatric conditions in a manner that would exclude autism? Autism is a malfunction of the mind/brain. Ultimately, there must be some physiological difference of the brain that causes autism -- i.e.: chemistry and/or structure. It seems to be a psychiatric condition/disorder very much under the purview of psychiatric treatment and research. There are many psychiatric disorders that have a genetic link. Certainly, the genetic link to autism could lead to better understanding, but we are a long way from linking specific genetic characteristics to specific brain development and to specific structure/chemistry and understanding how such linkage is accomplished. I think the use of the word "failure" in this context is inappropriate and reveals an ignorance of the science involved. |
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23rd June 2016, 06:49 PM | #162 |
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81 mg, please!
I work with a psychiatrist for chronic depression and other issues. I am on a very low dose of a controlled substance so we do need some face time. It's not really talk therapy but he makes observations and I self-report potentially destructive behavior. He has recommended a talk therapist if I start to think I need it. Good therapists are not just "mates" and I would avoid taking medical advice from Crocodile Dundee. Re; autism etc. Isn't all "mental" illness neurological? What else is there? I recommend "Brain on Fire" as an intriguing read about a patient who presented with symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Luckily perhaps, she was in an epilepsy ward because she'd had a seizure. This might validate The Atheist's argument somewhat: Doctors were looking for an underlying physical pathology, and found one. Wilson's disease also has sent people to psychiatric hospitals. Toxoplasmosis can also alter thought. I would not say psychiatry has failed. But it does perpetuate a sort of dualism that might not make sense medically. There are brain doctors and then there are mind doctors ... which is kind of odd as most medical specialties deal with detectable things that happen in a human *body*. It's absurd to say aspirin is no longer used for pain. Of course it is and it works great. Four chewed-up aspirin with a chaser of caffeine can do a lot for a headache. Throw in a glass of water, it's probably a good idea. Aspirin also works locally in chewing gum, creams and even shampoo. |
23rd June 2016, 08:51 PM | #163 |
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Oh my GOD.
Psychiatric drugs prevent more suicides than they cause by orders of magnitude. What is needed is an improvement of this ratio by reduced careless practice and lack of support, not ******** on the hardest medical practice in the world for trying, what the **** is wrong with the world that we talk about this? |
24th June 2016, 06:59 AM | #164 |
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Behavioural. The fields of psychiatry and psychology recognize that there are two types of mental dysfunction - the neurological/neurochemical, and the behavioural. The former is inherent to the organism, and can be degenerative. It's treated primarily with medication, and supplemented with counseling to address co-morbid disorders and reactions, and provide mechanisms which enable the individual to better cope with the disorder over the long term. Behavioural disorders are learned, typically as a suboptimal mechanism for coping with difficult life circumstances. These are treated with psychological therapy and counseling, typically some variant of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, with the goal of changing the destructive behaviours, and creating productive ones. This is often supplemented with short- or long-term use of psychiatric or other mood-modifying medication to provide a measure of control over the most debilitating symptoms and enable the long-term behavioural modification to proceed more effectively. Autism isn't an "illness" in that respect, it's a developmental disorder. It's not a dysfunction in the neurons or neurochemicals; but an alteration to how the brain itself develops, and is does not change once brain development is completed. It cannot be "treated" with medication, because it cannot be altered without fundamentally restructuring the brain, which at this time is impossible. However, medication can be used to treat common co-morbid disorders such as anxiety, and digestive system disorders. Psychological counseling is very useful for Autists, in order to help learn skills to cope with the disorder and function in a social environment. |
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24th June 2016, 09:48 AM | #165 |
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Absolutely. There's always overlap... just as another analogy, there are cancers (oncology) with genetic root causes (medical genetics) that are aggravated by environmental factors (epidemiology)... so when a critic announces that the lack of a cure is arbitrarily the responsibility of only one of the fields, I develop a suspicion that there's another motive behind the special pleading.
Autism is more squarely in the medical genetics 'zone' than mood disorders and schizophrenia, because it's so clearly a developmental disorder and ultimately architectural. This is why there are no 'transient' versions of autism, as compared to schizophrenia, where most patients only have one brief episode in their lives that resolves from natural compensation. The physiology is fine, but the biochemistry is out of sync. A comparison is my godbrother (godmother's son?) who had a head injury as a child. The presentment from the brain lesions is behavioral, which puts management in the purview of psychiatry, but if his continued challenges are a 'failure' I'm not sure psychiatry deserves more blame than the surgical specialty that couldn't repair the damage. |
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24th June 2016, 11:24 AM | #166 |
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Good spot. 81 g of aspirin looks like being fatal.
Very good post - much appreciated to see a voice of reason. (The only note I'd make is that I did not say aspirin was no longer used for pain, just that it was a minor usage, which apart from being hyperbolic, is still correct, but that red herring is buried, hopefully.) |
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24th June 2016, 11:48 AM | #167 |
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There are other categories... this was the purpose of the axes in DSMIV. Another one is Axis III 'medical'. eg: Down's Syndrome (Trisomy 21 &c), brain lesions from trauma or surgery.
Autism has been moved around on the axes, from II to I, and the DSMV committee discussed migrating it to III for the reasons I described earlier, but that became moot when they scrapped the Axes model entirely. |
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24th June 2016, 01:11 PM | #168 |
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When you say that fascists should only be defeated through debate, what you're really saying is that the marginalized and vulnerable should have to endlessly argue for their right to exist; and at no point should they ever be fully accepted, and the debate considered won. |
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24th June 2016, 01:52 PM | #169 |
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"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." - Terry Pratchett |
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25th June 2016, 10:10 AM | #170 |
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25th June 2016, 11:12 AM | #171 |
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That's a horrible analogy. Humans can't grow back limbs, but the brain is plastic
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...ticle22608412/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4563147/ http://discovermagazine.com/2013/oct/12-brain-benders It must be noted that the evidence for improving the lives of people with autism with novel approaches is far from perfect, but, at least they are pursuing such exciting avenues... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_therapies |
25th June 2016, 05:19 PM | #172 |
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Not that plastic.
Quote:
As someone on the autistic spectrum myself, the idea of a "cure" is... problematic verging on unpleasant at best. There is certainly a need for treatment and assistance to enable people with autism, particularly those with the more severe forms, to improve their ability to function in mainstream society, but that's a long way from a "cure". There has been too much misinformation promulgated, and outright abuse of autistic people, in some cases resulting in death, in the name of "curing" them. It's not a pathogen that can be "cured". It's a developmental disorder. |
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When you say that fascists should only be defeated through debate, what you're really saying is that the marginalized and vulnerable should have to endlessly argue for their right to exist; and at no point should they ever be fully accepted, and the debate considered won. |
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25th June 2016, 05:24 PM | #173 |
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I don't disagree, didn't say there was a cure or that plastic meant you can shape any part into whatever you want.
No one can improve the functioning of a limb that has been chopped off or regain or grow any of that ability. Pretty solid point, I thought. |
25th June 2016, 05:51 PM | #174 |
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Anyone who read my last few posts, here's someone who is slightly more worth your time to read on the same subjects I posted on.
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org...ay-of-healing/ |
26th June 2016, 02:57 PM | #175 |
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You remain wrong, The Atheist:
17 June 2016: If sales revenues = usage, the numbers show that only a few % more people take Aspirin™ Cardio rather than Aspirin™. This is evidence against The Atheist's "most" (90% or 75% or "main" or whatever goal posts he moves to next) assertion. 17 June 2016: The sales revenue from aspirin for heart health were slightly less than for general health in 2013. |
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28th June 2016, 10:29 AM | #176 |
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That analogy came up before, and the defense was something along the lines of "Well, psychiatry has still failed because they haven't made progress akin to advanced prosthetics that we see in Medicine"
My argument is a bit different: why is the autism example not also a failure of Medicine, since it's a medical condition, or a failure of epidemiology, since care is a social concern. These specializations shrugged their shoulders, admitted "we got nuthin" and dumped the care on psychiatry because the presentment resembles other cognitive and behavioral conditions that fall under the scope of psychiatry. |
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28th June 2016, 10:51 AM | #177 |
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One of the other things that's probably in play with the OP example is that a lot of severe autists are polymorbid. The developmental impact can be heavily associated with mental delay / low IQ, fragile X, epilepsy, chromosomal disorders, others. This is the main reason there's a 'spectrum' - many autists have other things going on, and the presentment produces a gradient in the population, with a heavy skew toward low functionality unfortunately. The OP's example patient sounds pretty impacted, I suspect there are other medical conditions not mentioned in the article that complicate management.
ref: [Conditions comorbid to autism spectrum disorders] |
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28th June 2016, 06:02 PM | #178 |
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I am questioning whether the word "failure" applies in the first place. It is not a failure of medicine that one cannot grow or replace a missing limb.
I have an autistic nephew and a grandson with a missing missing a hand. My grandson has adapted to his difference remarkably well; there is little that he is incapable of doing that a two handed person can do. He compensates by employing strategies with his other hand, his body and his truncated limb. On the other hand, with many years of training, my nephew is limited but is able to communicate and function reasonably well. It seems to me that his training has allowed his brain to employ compensating strategies -- somewhat analogous to my grandson -- but much more limited in efficacy. Science in not even close to having some magic wand to employ in either example. In any case, calling this a "failure" is utter nonsense. |
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It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. - Richard P. Feynman ξ |
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29th June 2016, 07:01 AM | #179 |
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When you say that fascists should only be defeated through debate, what you're really saying is that the marginalized and vulnerable should have to endlessly argue for their right to exist; and at no point should they ever be fully accepted, and the debate considered won. |
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11th July 2016, 01:16 PM | #180 |
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11th July 2016, 01:31 PM | #181 |
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Some accredited doctors are cranks. Wow we should make it illegal for shrinks to support religion? Most practicing psychiatrists in the country will be appalled by this crap. Again you have made no point. Where does the academy support this? Nowhere. The title of the thread is ****.
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11th July 2016, 01:47 PM | #182 |
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Obviously you do not understand that the religious beliefs of a psychiatrist is irrelevant to this thread.
As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession. has this psychiatrist even stating that the majority of psychiatrists would not agree with his beliefs. |
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11th July 2016, 10:04 PM | #183 |
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11th July 2016, 11:53 PM | #184 |
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Not as funny as this total joke of a thread.
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12th July 2016, 01:53 AM | #185 |
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There are plenty of real doctors that also practise homoeopathy and/or acupuncture. So what is new?
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12th July 2016, 02:15 AM | #186 |
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This is what happens when you have a deep need to feel smarter than everyone else.
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12th July 2016, 02:44 AM | #187 |
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12th July 2016, 03:13 AM | #188 |
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Even if that was meant purely as a joke, really ****** joke.
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12th July 2016, 04:23 AM | #189 |
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12th July 2016, 01:44 PM | #190 |
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That is multiple nonsense, The Atheist!
Quote:
Speaking of thinking that 1 psychiatrist is every psychiatrist - do you still think 1 company is many companies? 14 June 2016 The Atheist: How many drug companies misreported suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts events in the paper that the news article you cited reported on? Further explained in 24 June 2016 The Atheist: Even easier for you, this is the relevant part of the abstract: "In the summary trial reports on Eli Lilly’s website, almost all deaths were noted, but all suicidal ideation events were missing, and the information on the remaining outcomes was incomplete." |
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12th July 2016, 01:55 PM | #191 |
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http://theness.com/neurologicablog/i...-for-exorcism/
Instead of condemning psychiatry as a whole it just calls into question the suitability of the guy from having a job in psychiatry. Firtjermore it calls into question the Washington Post's decision to publish his op-Ed. |
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Слава Україні! **** Putin! |
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12th July 2016, 04:28 PM | #192 |
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The Atheist simply refuses to read Novella, several articles refuting his insane claims have been posted in multiple threads with no response. If the Atheist simply went to theness,com, searched for "psychiatry" and read all of those articles, that would be amazing. It's something I have personally done, so take my advice, do that, before you continue to believe and post nonsense.
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12th July 2016, 04:58 PM | #193 |
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Steven Novella lists several problems with Richard Gallagher's evidence for demonic possession. One is
A Psychiatrist Falls for Exorcism
Quote:
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17th July 2016, 12:06 PM | #194 |
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Too disgusted to comment:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=11676336 Please, don't insult anyone's intelligence by suggesting the problem is administrative rather than medical. Each and every one of the cases and facilities are managed and all actions approved by, psychiatrists. Some of the lowlights:
Quote:
Quote:
“The health of my patient will be my first consideration, and I shall act in the patient's best interest when providing medical care.” I admit, there could be a rider after that I missed. "...unless they're nuts." Caps boy in 5....4....3..... |
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17th July 2016, 03:40 PM | #195 |
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A rather irrelevant to this thread news article which is in actual fact not about psychiatry .
There is not much new in the news article - the ongoing audits of NZ mental health and disability wards, dementia units and forensic hospitals by Ombudsman’s inspectors was first mentioned on 8 June 2016: This is a follow-up to the prolonged seclusion of autistic man Ashley Peacock NZ Herald news article.
Quote:
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17th July 2016, 10:01 PM | #196 |
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The Ongoing Failure of This Thread to Make Sense
It sucks horribly.
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25th August 2016, 12:24 PM | #197 |
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There's fail, then there's fail.
I thought the psychiatric industry's dealing with troubled teens was bad, but that pales into insignificance against babies being prescribed antipsychotics. |
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25th August 2016, 02:00 PM | #198 |
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And then there is utter failure to understand the real world, e.g. what you cite !
A fantasy about the failure of the "psychiatric industry"'s dealing with troubled teens because the news article is mainly about one bad psychiatric institution (Island View). The general comments are about private residential treatment facilities (boarding schools, military-style boot camps, wilderness programs). Psychiatric Drugs For Babies? More Kids Aged 2 And Under Getting Prescribed Antipsychotics
Quote:
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NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter (another observation) (and Abell 520) Electric comets still do not exist! |
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25th August 2016, 02:26 PM | #199 |
The Grammar Tyrant
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Where's that Patrick Stewart facepalm emoticon when I need it?
Of course it's one institution, which as you note yourself, and I quote: "one bad psychiatric institution" What industry do you think should be accountable for it? The fire service? Electricians? Or maybe you think it's the only one? Now, that I do have an emoticon for: From the link: ...despite the lack of evidence that shows they are effective and safe for young children. ... “antipsychotics should be prescribed with care,” as they can cause significant physical and neurological changes, especially in the very young. Where have the drugs been shown to help babies? |
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25th August 2016, 03:10 PM | #200 |
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The simple real world fact that you are ignoring is that one private institution is not the entire psychiatric industry, The Atheist ! The news article documents the failure of that single private institution.
An inability to read my post deserves a I quoted "despite the lack of evidence that shows they are effective and safe for young children." This is a question, not an assertion: If drugs are shown to help young children with mental issues then the question becomes what is the lower limit of the age of suitable patients? |
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