Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
The physical basis of mental illness is clear. ‘Parity of esteem’ in health services is a necessity, not a luxury.
A century ago, even the greatest mind doctor of them all, Sigmund Freud, predicted that one day mental illnesses would be explained physically, once scientific techniques for the study of the brain became possible. In a typically prescient but off-the-mark way, he even experimented with treating patients with a chemical remedy – cocaine.
All these years later, Freud’s conjecture is bolstered by firm evidence. A psychiatrist, Tim Cantopher, says that if he were to draw fluid from the spinal cord of depressed patients he would find a deficiency of two chemicals: serotonin and noradrenaline, essential neurotransmitters that regulate a host of functions in the body and brain.
“Depressive illness is not a psychological or an emotional state and is not a mental illness. It is a physical illness,” Cantopher has written. “This is not a metaphor; it is a fact.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/10/nhs-mental-illness-health-services
A century ago, even the greatest mind doctor of them all, Sigmund Freud, predicted that one day mental illnesses would be explained physically, once scientific techniques for the study of the brain became possible. In a typically prescient but off-the-mark way, he even experimented with treating patients with a chemical remedy – cocaine.
All these years later, Freud’s conjecture is bolstered by firm evidence. A psychiatrist, Tim Cantopher, says that if he were to draw fluid from the spinal cord of depressed patients he would find a deficiency of two chemicals: serotonin and noradrenaline, essential neurotransmitters that regulate a host of functions in the body and brain.
“Depressive illness is not a psychological or an emotional state and is not a mental illness. It is a physical illness,” Cantopher has written. “This is not a metaphor; it is a fact.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/10/nhs-mental-illness-health-services