[jaggederest]

> namely, they are defined by the symptoms.

This is what we see historically, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, in "body medicine". We're just at an earlier stage of understanding and treating psychiatric disorders. I assume in a couple hundred years we'll look back at the current state of the art as hopelessly outmoded.

> In the case of mental disorders, they're essentially defined by the symptoms. To have depression is to be depressed. To have anxiety is to be anxious. What would it even mean to have depression without being depressed?

What would it mean to have typhoid without an actual fever? The disease is something else, some causative factor that is not the actual symptom itself, but is no less real for that.

> I just don't think that treating them through a strict biological-pathological lens is as useful as people think it is.

Agreed, but that's with the current state of the art. I would be surprised indeed if by 2080 we didn't have a different lens to view these things through.

[andoando]

Completely agree.

Imo we'll come to see that these categorizations of mental disorders are far too simplistic

[treis]

I think the mind and body are fundamentally different. Like with diabetes you might have a genetic deficiency that interferes with producing insulin so you have diabetes. You inject insulin and now you don't, more or less.

The mind is much more of a complex system than that.

[kaba0]

Well, there are also slower/faster acting insulins so that system is also more complex than that, but yeah you are generally right.

I like to think of it with an analogy like you have a very intricate 3D maze and have to get a tiny ball into a hole, but you can only ever move the maze in one direction, and it resets between tries. Something like SSRI just pushes everything one way in a big swipe, and sure it might just solve a particular puzzle, but there are endless others where such low-precision method has no way of succeeding. Of course that’s why psychotherapy is a must have for any sort of medication.

[nradov]

There is no fundamental difference between mind and body. You are seriously underestimating the complexity of the endocrine system.