@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD Absolutely. This (the argument that the 'mental disorder' has causal agency) is very odd logic indeed, and is oxymoronic in respect to other statements (made by the same individuals)...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... so, we're told that the diagnoses are merely 'constructs' or helpful (or otherwise) labels for observed patterns of human experience. The label, then, can't *cause* anything (other than confusion and lead to iatrogenic harm through the mistakes of clinicians)...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... we're told that they are aetiologically neutral, which again speaks to the idea of a 'social construct', and indeed we're told (with a degree of frustration) that we don't even have to point out that they're social constructs; that's a given...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... and yet, those commentators seem to have forgotten their own advice, as they're now claiming that these unequivocally 'social constructs' have different epistemological roles, as entities that have causal agency...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... my conclusion (and I'm sorry to be critical... but apparently it's OK to be critical as long as you don't have the temerity to criticise diagnoses from outside the profession) is that the underlying assumption - violating the principle of aetiological neutrality - is that...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... is that what we're *really* talking about is an assumption of an underlying pathology...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... a disorder or dysfunction in structure or process which gives rise to the phenomena listed in the diagnostic criteria, and has effects, has consequences, has agency, and which is reflected in the diagnosis...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... if so (if that assumption is right), then all the claims of aetiological neutrality, of the universally agreed idea that these are social constructs, that the diagnoses merely label patterns of observed phenomena, rather than reflecting disease are misleading...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... if I'm wrong, and all those claims for diagnosis are still held to be true, then (and coming back to the start of this thread), then the diagnosis, the 'mental disorder' can indeed *cause* nothing.
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD And so, as @JDaviesPhD so correctly pointed out, we have events and circumstances in our lives that have consequences. Sometimes, inappropriately, in my opinion, those experiences are pathologised as ‘disorders’...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... and it’s so very sad that then we start down the route of searching for dysfunction (rather than addressing the problems), medicating (with all the iatrogenic harm that follows), misleading people struggling to make sense of their experiences ...
@JDaviesPhD @AllenFrancesMD ... here, weaving intellectual Möbius strips from the philosophy of causality.
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