Understanding Mental Illness Confuses Psychologists

Once again, I will mention that I have had struggles with depression for many years. I gave up medications and therapists years ago because they were not all that necessary. In my case, and it seems true in other cases I have read, that continuing treatment is in the best interests of clinics, but not so much for the patients. They really do not know how the mind and brain work, and the reasons some medications have an effect are not completely understood.

Pixabay / Beate Bachmann

Some years ago, I read a definition of eccentric: someone crazy that's rich. Psychologists and psychiatrists make diagnoses, but their science is constantly changing. Add to that personal biases and cultural influences. Unlike operational science and even origins science, psychology has direct impact on people's lives. There are several models for what are considered mental health problems, and sometimes they are grouped together. These professionals are admitting that they don't know how to define mental illness and mental health!

Yes, there are times when some conditions (including depression) have physiological causes such as brain chemistry imbalances. Medications, fully understood or not, can be helpful. Trained therapists can point out problems that a patient may have and offer techniques to help them cope. Those, plus time, can be helpful. But they do not get to the final cause.

It should be unsurprising that secular psychologists cannot find the answers, since most schools of psychology (there are many because none of them are right) can't find the clues in the clues closet. For the most part, psychology has an evolutionary basis — the worst is the quackery called evolutionary psychology. Biblical counselors know what the real problem is and that we are created in the image of God, so solutions can be attained.

Every once in awhile, a science news article appears that undermines confidence in a branch of science. Here’s one about mental illness that shows that psychologists and psychiatrists don’t understand their field. Can these presumed experts really do any good treating the “mentally ill” if they don’t even know what “mental health” means? Those who do achieve some success with patients might be doing it with with good old-fashioned human empathy and compassion more than methods of psychological ‘science.’

You can learn more at "Psychologists Are Schizophrenic about Mental Illness." What follows is a short video from a strictly secular psychology perspective. Notice how there is some amount of certainty, but then backtracking and mentioning how signs of these conditions overlap.