[wapapaloobop]

It's becoming increasingly taboo to suggest that depression and other mental disorders are not diseases per se but may arise purely from the use of the mind. This in turns depends to some extent on a person's ideas and not solely (or even at all) on the presence of pathogens, tissue injuries, faulty genes, etc (though there may be medical consequences).

There could be important social reasons for this taboo. Perhaps it helps people suffering from disorders to get more practical help and sympathy (instead of righteous indignation, unemployment and ostracism).

However, without intellectual honesty there's less hope in the long term of finding solutions to these problems.

[jdpigeon]

Well, it's complicated, because although you might get depressed to issues of the mind, once that switch has been flipped in your brain, then you do have a biologically-mediated disease and you're often totally fucked without some kind of medical intervention.

[mr_tyzic]

Everything in the mind is biologically mediated. That doesn't make every mind problem a disease.

[reverius42]

Doesn't it? Replace the word "mind" with "body" and it seems like the very definition of disease.

[mr_tyzic]

By that argument, if you're grieving the loss of a loved one, deciding whether to marry, struggling to write a novel, or even fixing a bug in a computer program, you have a disease. All those presumably have some biochemical correlate.

[collyw]

"Everything in the mind is biologically mediated"

Proof of that?

[mr_tyzic]

No proof, but I meant an implicit "even if you assume that" at the start of the comment.

[digi_owl]

> sympathy

Dunno. Claiming to have X, Y or Z mental issue do not nearly get the kind of response you get from walking in the door with a bandage around your hand.

[wmil]

The phrase "all in your head" is generally used to suggest that the problem is not real and person should toughen up and ignore it. Then it will go away.

Plenty of people still think that about depression. It's not a helpful attitude.

But really, something being "all in your head" is terrifying if you think about it. You can never get away from something that's "all in your head".