It seems that social ills have become a universal phenomenon threatening the very foundation of hope and happiness almost in all societies. During our daily encounters with others, we often experience certain unpleasant, unexpressed emotions that will never die and are buried alive in our subconscious coming forth later in destructive ways. such state of affairs have been mitigating the true essence of human values giving rise to what Nietzsche calls "social decadence". These days, the ordinary citizen is in great despair because s/he is unable to give meaning to his/her meaningless life. The decadence is unavoidable and the politicians and moralists cannot control its damaging consequences , and most surprisingly, they have been principal culprits in promoting it. Therefore, the society and the individual should be considered two sides of the same coin. In point of fact, they have a symbiotic relationship. On this basis, investigating our societies may be a good starting point for fathoming out the true causes of individual angst and despair.

But repositioning it as mental illness I believe gives it an economic factor that individual angst does not have. That is one of my arguments about describing responses to society as illnesses.

Added to this: by describing feelings of different kinds as illnesses it means the individual should or must be dealt with by others, that they cannot deal with it themselves. Therefore illness means umpteen new or relocated members of staff to deal with this illness. People tend to be caught up in a dichotomy of being either well or ill, not taking variable positions or none at all.

Many diagnostic episodes are subjective anyway, not scientifically based.

Dear Stanley Wilkin,

"The obsession with mental health is evident here as elsewhere, but what if its apparent reality is merely an expression of social ills?"

Eradicating social ills will probably reduce stress rate to some extent - but in the end, in my option, each person has to work with his or her own inner habits and patterns. Mental imbalance in most cases is not an illness. Among other things, mental imbalance can be brought about through inadequate eating habits (probably much more than people think), habitual ways of thinking, ways of viewing the world (e.g. our cup is half full or half empty), and lack of training in how to work with our attention. Training in meditation on the deeper Self is a great way of becoming aware of inner mental habits and patters and learning to centre our "I ego awareness" linked to our thinking mind.

Warm regards Tina

Tina, I'm with you on this. Medical services are complex in intention and motivation. Its not straight forward as people seem to believe, and there exists a unreasonable belief in the talents and efficacy of doctors. Psychiatry for centuries operated as an abusive set-up using and devising many methods of healing now equated with torture, water-boarding for example. We need to get away from this simple and simplistic mental health model and go back to proper analysis.

Dear Stanley

"We need to get away from this simple and simplistic mental health model and go back to proper analysis"

Yes I totally agree with you. I also feel that people (scientists or otherwise) who know how to work with and train the mind need to be consulted so that a deeper grasp of the topic can be obtained. That Psychiatrists do not know know a way out of the problems of their patients except through the use of drugs , does not mean that other solutions do not exist.

How the topic (including what is classed as psychiatric disorders) is handled in other cultures is also a way of learning about these aspects and maybe discovering possible alternative solutions.

In a paper I wrote about emotions, I suggest how the stories we tell ourselves affect and activate our bodies in different areas. This is a beginning in understanding how our thoughts (especially of an emotional nature) affect our bodies

Article Emotions Including Anger, Bodily Sensations and The “Living Matrix”

Warm regards Tina

The noble values have disappeared, the material values have been disseminated, generations have been created that have not adapted to the contradictory values that are used, the standards have been mainstreamed, the communication methods have been updated, many of them play an inventive roles that are not at the core of their practices as an attempt at tradition, and what is the role of the doctors, As part of the community, who are themselves involved in consciousness and even unconsciousness in applying these contradictions.

Tina, look at my recent paper placed here on the Monoamine Hypothesis. So called Scientists may actually know very little on the subject and that immortal equation (I'm always a little surprised people so readily believe it given psychiatry's history) of medicine-scientist may be pulling woolly hats over many eyes.

I'll read your paper, Tina, especially given how psychiatry understands emotion, as merely triggers. I've tried to point out the absurdity of this but its simplicity carries, for many, conviction. Psychiatry completely omits the mind-ambition, glory, love, hope, wonder, faith, passion.

Houda, I think people have to go back to thinking more clearly. There is immense work done on the mind and then, let me go back immediately to the above refrain, the ideas of psychiatry which entails the employment of dangerous drugs. The poverty of psychiatric thinking is a symptom of less malaise, than non-thinking, of providing basically absurdly generic, reductionist answers to complexity.