I was hoping you would respond Verin.
Irrelevant. What he is basically saying is that there is no known causation for any available "mental illness" and that this is contrary to any widely perceived view that it is. He is also saying that no evidence has been shown to link genetics with any mental illness and those that say that there is were already going out of their way to find some.
#1 How many forced migrants actually part of the total British population of migrants though? I can't imagine it is a huge percentage
#2 The migrant comment is a criticism of the genetic view of mental illness.
Of course it isn't a random sample of the population. That's the point - their experience of migration or experiences associated with it (loneliness, for example) are causing the problem. Yet we blindly proscribe drugs for every god damn mental problem based on a flawed purely biological approach to human beings.
Unless of course you wish to argue that migrants are somehow genetically different or more predisposed to be mentally ill than native British people. But I don't think you want to go down that road.
Again,
It is not meant to be a random sample of the population. Your point is irrelevant. He is comparing Group A "People who were separated from their parents at an early age" to Group B "those that didn't" and Group A are far more likely to be "mentally ill". While I can't point to the study in question; how is that study not properly scientific?
And note none of this mentions Biology.
See above.
Que? Relevance?
Wallbang.
Okay that last bit is certainly true. But don't you remember what you said about Correlation and Causation.
No doubt. But so are you, just a different form of "common sense".
Okay I agree that this is an exaggeration. But the point is here
Great! Rating people on a completely arbirtrary numbering system!
Okay this is a problem. But has nothing to do with scientific status of biological psychiatry. And everything to do with the perception of it by insurance firms (which gives lie to the view that the opinions of this author are "common sense").
Yes. Which just shows how "scientific" (read: not at all) these disorders actually are. Apparently there has been a several fold leap in Autism in the past 10-20 years - and new syndromes are being found all the time. But how many of these Autistics are diagnosed in a matter akin to a medical diagnosis - in cancer there are tumours, in Autism there is ??
Which of course tells us nothing at all about the accuracy of such a diagnosis
Stuff to read (just on schizophrenia for a start):
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/186/5/361http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/004467.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Protest-Psychosis-Schizophrenia-Became-Disease/dp/0807085928 (This from a professor who came by my university one day and gave a talk on this very book. Fascinating. Unfortunetly I don't have it to hand.)
Btw I will note that I am not arguing that genetics play
no role in serious mental illness, however we define it. Rather I am arguing and so is the author is that we should focus on people's actual subjectivity and conditions of life rather than just giving them drugs and trying to find what is 'wrong' with them and labelling them.
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