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Comment by kristianp | Hacker News Reader

One mental health problem not mentioned here is schizophrenia. Having a family member afflicted, I don't think having a label makes things much better. The schizophrenia treatments available just make me feel that we understand so little about it. The drugs used are such blunt weapons that can be debilitating in themselves.

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We’re trapped once we believe a common set of symptoms means the same cause- it just ain’t so. It helps even less to confuse biological correlations to the mental/behavioral symptoms as the causes of those symptoms, as if seeing a state of love in an MRI leads use to think it’s a brain disease

> The schizophrenia treatments available just make me feel that we understand so little about it. The drugs used are such blunt weapons that can be debilitating in themselves.

It's interesting to point out that this is also true in most health fields. For example, dentists still base their practice around drilling and pulling teeth. Wooden dentures have been replaced with the same concept using fancier materials.

my theory is that schizophrenia is so difficult that most people prefer not to think about it. People seem to have a mental block or resistance about the fact that some people have the disease of schizophrenia, and about what its symptoms and prognosis look like.

if true, maybe that’s why it’s usually not mentioned in discussions about the politics of mental health, and why people don’t even consider “schizophrenia” when they see someone behaving strangely.

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