Medicine's big new battleground: does mental illness really exist?

[fasttense]

13. Sounds like the nature or nurture argument all over again, or still.

There are genes that do NOT turn on, like depression, unless the person with the gene experienced psychological trauma in childhood. Then there are trends, yes trends, in mental illnesses. The hysteria women experienced during Freud's time and now the eating disorders mostly women experience today. These are obviously caused by the society at large, otherwise so many people would NOT be displaying the same symptoms at the same period. Then there are degrees of mental illness. A manic depressive (it's been relabeled but I can't remember the new name for it) personality disorder can function perfectly well in the larger society but a manic depressive psychosis will become disabling. Then there are mental illnesses we accept in society without complaint. The sociopath personality disorders displayed by very rich royals, CEOs, political and corporate leaders. We all accept their drive to control and manipulate others and even reward and encourage it. Yet that personality displayed in agrarian or hunter gatherer societies would be very dysfunctional.

So society does affect the psychological well being of people but then genetic predisposition also plays a hand. The truth is both affect a person. It just sounds like this group in the UK is reestablishing the importance of nurture and society in the psychological development of people. Nurture probably needs to be re-emphasized what with the move to drug so many illnesses.