Comments | lethalseethal: This one is for you, Lisa

lethalseethal

This one is for you, Lisa

Jan 29, 2006 23:12

OK, so Lisa posted about a psychological study where normal people were admitted into mental institutions because they claimed to hear certain things (they were faking), and how the doctors misdiagnosed them even after days of exhibiting normal behavior and saying that they had stopped hearing things. (Read her entry for more, because that was a ( Read more... )

Comments 6

liberalnun January 30 2006, 07:06:12 UTC

I think most people - at least, people in the medical profession - draw the line when your mental problems really get in the way of the quality of your life. If you have a relatively quirky personality but still have normal relationships and are able to keep your job and are pretty happy and generally have the life you want, you're not insane. If your brain is so far from the norm that it prevents you from having those things, you need psychiatric help.

midnightowl510 January 30 2006, 07:06:19 UTC

I guess insanity is defined as being out of touch with reality, not being able to function normally...not being able to see things as they really are, though I guess reality is defined by the rest of society? I mean, if you're weird and you realize you're weird, you're still sane, I think.

theflemsta January 30 2006, 09:06:54 UTC

Don't worry, I'm an emotional wreck, and it's not going to get any better for another two weeks at least.

Why am I reading LJ? I should be frantically writing a paper.

We should catch up.

charactershoos January 30 2006, 16:15:38 UTC

Bryan? I didn't know you have LJ! -Louise

onlisailor January 30 2006, 11:48:51 UTC

THANK YOU, Seethal ( ... )

writer1985 January 30 2006, 20:52:14 UTC

I agree with liberalnun -- it's all about the quality of life. The DSM-IV includes that in the criteria for practically all psychiatric disorders: "The condition causes significant distress to the patient" (paraphrase).

Also, in my English class last semester, we were discussing what it means to be "normal," and the professor mentioned that "normal" used to be just descriptive for average, and only in the Victorian era did it become proscriptive for normative. So that's pretty interesting -- normality varies between social groups. I think that coming out of TJ, we have a pretty good grasp of that. Example: I want to buy a metabolic map poster for my door, but my roommate thinks that is the height of dorkiness. Well, it is, but dorkiness is normal, isn't it? =)