Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness
Today, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about “mental disorders” and start understanding them as “brain disorders.” (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.)
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38 Comments
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Before we get too wild with science, why don't we just think of art therapy? Music? Dance? Visual Arts?
Like that has had profound changes on so many people.
the only thing to understand ts theres no such thing as mental illness, it's a design to pervert the course of justice invented by criminals
"The polarization of brain medicine into two specialties may in part reflect an intuitive Cartesian dualism in human psychology. Children intuitively accept that certain mental functions, such as perception, planning, or mental calculation, require the brain; however, other functions, such as emotion, desire, belief, or pretense, are independent of the physical organ.
Related studies have demonstrated that even adults struggle to acquire scientific knowledge that clashes with the innate intuitions of childhood, and tend to revert to intuition for unfamiliar scenarios. Thus, one intriguing possibility is that early failures to identify structural lesions for certain brain disorders, coupled with an innate human reluctance to ascribe certain mental functions to the organ itself, allowed two separate disciplines of brain medicine to emerge.
This resulted in the current situation: a Cartesian divide between neurology, for disorders of the ‘wires’, and psychiatry, for disorders of the ‘psyche’."
– Trends in Cognitive Sciences, February 2016
…………
This is the complete opposite approach we need for dealing with mental health. We need a better psychological understanding because most problems are due to childhood trauma. This idea of "brain disorders" is exactly what he says it isn`t, a reductionist approach. He gives very few scientific facts supporting his point.
I know this was posted a long time ago… but I've been saying for years that the way to overcome brain disorders is to start testing and diagnosing children as early as humanly possible. I've been told that it's unethical to diagnose children, and I staunchly disagree. If you diagnose them with something they actually have, like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or other disorders, it will give them the chance at a normal life. But we don't, we diagnose them with disorders that are allowed to give kids, like Autism and ADHD, giving these kids medication that might actually make their conditions more severe and more catastrophic. We need to learn how to accurately diagnose children, so they don't have to wait until they are 18 or older to start getting a better range of diagnosis options. Limiting a child's diagnosis is limited the possibilities of healthy outcomes.
Did Judy Rappaport really discover the changes occured in the human brains due to schizophrenia or actually rather the damage caused by the drugs used to treat schizophrenia in the brains of these unfortunate people? That's the most important question that awaits a satisfactory answer. If it's the latter rather than the former then needless to say that this creates of an issue of liabilities.
Gotta stop looking at them as diseases but as personality adaptations to external tensors in order to heal them. It's like defining any disease as chronic and then trying to "cure" the patients.
Let's stop being fools staring at shadows on the wall and start looking at the fire, shall we?
Does anyone know where he is getting these statistics from? I want to use this for a paper I'm writing but I need to cite him.
The image he shows of schizophrenic's brains at 10:29 were from people who had been taking antipsychotic drugs. This is much more likely the culprit of the brain volume loss. That's a major miss by Insel in this presentation.
false science
The issue i have with this is what about cptsd ptsd dissociative disorders etc. If you focus soley on biology and genetics what do you do about those?
Thomas Insel
Needs to take Major Tranquilisers
This is the only way he will ever learn that these drugs shouldn't be used on Humans or Animals
I have said for over 20 years that I would never want my worst enemy to take Major Tranquilisers
Because even VERY SHORT TERM USE of these poisons can screw your
Brain, Body and Nervous System up for life
If people like Thomas Insel were to screw up their own Bodies, Brains and Nervous Systems
They would then at least learn what sort of HELP we Patients and Ex Patients really need
To still have a good life.
He mentions Suicide
AKATHISIA Kills
Withdrawal Symptoms Kill
Withdrawal Syndromes Kill
Medication Spellbinding Kills
Tardive Psychosis Kills
If Thomas Insel was to try his own 'Medicine' He would know this
If Thomas Insel was to try his own 'Medicine' He would know what he was talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9jKLd4lrpk
Unfortunately his talk is based on the premise that brain malfunction simply occurs on its own without any influence from the environment; it's a massive false assumption.
This all sounds wonderful to academics and researchers, actual clinicians that sit with people just roll their eyes.
12:42 We underestimate the change in long term. – Bill Gates
– Tony Robbins
Incel
He's s a such humble man devoting his life to understand brain disorders.
Don't worry people. I'm going to find a cure for mental illness
NIH has done little to change the perspective on these illnesses. I
Lol his name is insel
political government is mental illness
mental illness is political government human will instead of God's will central authority
A " new understanding " is a nice way of saying they were wrong .
Im sure there is a disorder for every one ! doctors in general have gotten way to liberal with rubber stamping people with a mental illness stamp and prescribing of medicatons . you either wash youre hands too much or too little , either way youre mentaily ill. 🤒
Check out his book, “Healing: Our path from mental illness to mental health”.
This is merely the second "analysis" of mental illness that I've ever encountered of yours, and overall, I immensely respect your efforts to not only understand but elevate the entire spectrum, from treatment approach and resource accessibility to addressing cultural factors that influence utilization. People like you and undertakings like this are precisely why I was personally drawn to study, with he hopes of one day entering and ultimately transforming (for the better) our healthcare system. I'm just curious about/puzzled by one aspect; it seems you "dance around" specifically acknowledging that mental health is a social disease.
I have yet to read your book, though I hope to, and I absolutely understand that such claims can carry ramifications, hence your delicate approach (to my knowledge) thusfar. Again, it mostly intrigues me and I'd love/prefer to receive a first-hand elaboration on the subject, rather than be resigned to speculation.
What have hartdisorder whit problems that infect how we feel
Scare doktors
I wish he was right… Hopefully it gets better, but right now its a crises level issue
Criticizing reductionism – and projecting it onto psychosocial models – as a prelude to arguing for a ‘new’ brand of biological reductionism. Clever.
Are all of the statistics stated herein only relevant for the United States of America? Thank you so much for this video! It’s full of Hope for such a sensitive topic that’s often difficult to discuss. My thoughts and prayers are with anyone who suffers from or has been impacted by mental or behavioral disorders.
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Neighbor was a PGA golfer. Friends. Never too sure of travel or weather. I agree to mow his lawn. 15 minutes tops. Knocks one day. Not real mad but concerned. On video is me taking a $20 lawn chair out of back yard. Looks just like me. I was mortified down to my toes. Wrote him a check for $50. Apologies accepted, but took the key back to his gate. Went to Dr. MRI of brain. Nothing ! Went to a shrink. Made progress but not on the chair thing. Can’t treat what can’t remember but other issues got better. Stopped after a year.Golfer moved. Two years almost to the day, KNOCK KNOCK. Another video, another chair but they could tell it wasn’t me, besides I was 700 miles away. If he hadn’t driven to my home, I’d never known. I cried. Hugged him for driving all that way.