I Am Going to Say Something Controversial
"Mental illness is a myth and that it is therefore foolish to look for the causes and cures of such fictitious ailments."
"The physician who concludes that a person diagnosed with a mental illness suffers from a brain disease discovers that the person was misdiagnosed: he did not have a mental illness, he had an undiagnosed bodily illness."
How fascinating is this?
Look at the dopamine hypothesis for schizophrenia. Lower levels of dopamine are found in the pre-frontal cortex of schizophrenics (Davis et al 1991). This part of the brain is responsible for thinking and decision making. Lower levels could explain incoherent thought and speech - a common negative symptom of schizophrenia. Furthermore, increased dopamine levels in the mesolimbic part of the brain could explain the positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
Allen et al 2007: he got a group of schizophrenic patients and people without schizophrenia to listen to a pre-recorded speech and then asked them to say if it was their own voice or someone else's. The schizophrenic patients made more errors than the control group. They were also found to have lower levels of activity in the superior temporal gyrus and the anterior cingulate gyrus. This suggests the abnormal brain function is related to the hallucinations they experience.
Mental illnesses are misdiagnosed and do not exist. The people affected are suffering with all of the symptoms they record, but they have a physical illness, not a mental one.
"The physician who concludes that a person diagnosed with a mental illness suffers from a brain disease discovers that the person was misdiagnosed: he did not have a mental illness, he had an undiagnosed bodily illness."
How fascinating is this?
Look at the dopamine hypothesis for schizophrenia. Lower levels of dopamine are found in the pre-frontal cortex of schizophrenics (Davis et al 1991). This part of the brain is responsible for thinking and decision making. Lower levels could explain incoherent thought and speech - a common negative symptom of schizophrenia. Furthermore, increased dopamine levels in the mesolimbic part of the brain could explain the positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
Allen et al 2007: he got a group of schizophrenic patients and people without schizophrenia to listen to a pre-recorded speech and then asked them to say if it was their own voice or someone else's. The schizophrenic patients made more errors than the control group. They were also found to have lower levels of activity in the superior temporal gyrus and the anterior cingulate gyrus. This suggests the abnormal brain function is related to the hallucinations they experience.
Mental illnesses are misdiagnosed and do not exist. The people affected are suffering with all of the symptoms they record, but they have a physical illness, not a mental one.
26-30, F
