How come there is so much more mental illness these days.?!
Question: or is it that there are just names for them now.
IE Bipolar seems to be a fairly new mental illness (correct me if I am wrong). Did Bipolar always exist?
Answers: or is it that there are just names for them now.
IE Bipolar seems to be a fairly new mental illness (correct me if I am wrong). Did Bipolar always exist?
I know I had read on this topic of ancient understanding of bipolar disorder before, here is what I found on bphope.com:
Oops, cut out the year that Aretaeus wrote his book, but I think it was before 500 AD.
In his scholarly work, On Etiology and Symptomatology of Chronic Illnesses, Aretaeus identified mania and depression; he felt they shared a common link and were two forms of the same disease. The ancient Greeks and Romans coined the terms ?mania? and ?melancholia? and used waters of northern Italian spas to treat agitated or euphoric patients?and in a forecast of things to come?believed that lithium salts were absorbed into the body as a naturally occurring mineral.
Clearly, there were people suffering from mental disorders in some of Shakespeare's plays. People used lead makeup in I think it was 1600's and 1700's Europe, and it ate up their faces. After awhile, you'd think they would know, right? But they did it anyhow. In ancient egypt, women used belladonna (a natural drug) to dilate their pupils so they looked more attractive, but went blind from UV as a result. But. . . they kept doing it! What would have happened if they had plastic surgery available? Some women would have gone to extreme measures, as some do today.
Anyway, many mental illnesses have a very large genetic component, especially bipolar disorder ( about 60% genetic, 40% environment, from identical twin studies) and people just don't evolve that fast.
Also, I read someplace, or many a social worker told me, that due to drug use, more mental illnesses are developing. I think there are social forces causing more mental illnesses MAYBE, and one of your answerers listed them, plus increased diagnosis. (Hard to imagine how divorced parents would increase mental illness more than losing 2/3 of your village to bubonic plague, though, or compared to war atrocities).
It is a mistake to think today's times are unique. People have always been much as they are today. I remember reading a piece from Aristotle, complaining how today's generation of young people are lazy and shiftless and rowdy etc. When my college class read it, we did not know who wrote it, and everyone thought it was just like things are today. There are other examples, including from even more ancient Sumer (3500 BC). We gain more knowledge and technology, but people don't change.
I guess people went undiagnosed and just learned to live with there problems. Or they committed suicide.
I learned in my psychology class that more mental illness is starting to develop. Especially in young kids. They think that its linked genetically. I think bipolar is fairly new. I Also think that there is more research on the mental illnesses now because we have more tools to reasearch with, and because more people are develpoing them now.
Actually it's quite the contrarty...Bipolar disorder is perhaps one of the oldest known illnesses. But yes, it is a product of our advance in medicine. Also, our drive towards classifiable disease, etc. We don't just consider someone depressed and help them...They are /classified/ as depressed and are put into those statistics. WE also have much more advanced systems of case study and documentation now. It seems that the statistics are high because 1) Medical advancement. 2) Over-prescription. 3) Proper documentation of such cases.
***Yes I am also adding a number 4 (I agree with M