Can this happen with psychological disorders?!

[DaniellaElaVille1]

My AP Psych teacher was telling my class and I how there are speculations about psychological disorders. For example, people diagnosed with schizophrenia have a voice telling them to do certain things or have a certain behavior, right? well, the speculation on this is that the "voice" is really a unknown entity or "stronger force" trying to control it's 'victim' with mind control and delusions of unseen worlds and characters. what is your view or opinion on these speculations on psychological diseases?

[Quotidian]

There is a big controversy about the DSM 5 which is 'the bible' for diagnosis of mental illnesses. It is in the process of being revised and updated, and there is bitter controversy about many of the classifications in it, especially the kinds of conditions that are being defined as treatable. I make that point because there is still widespread disagreement as to what can be considered normal and what not.

My *personal* and completely non-professional opinion about 'the voices' that schizophrenics hear, is that these are aspects of their own personality which are split off from the ego and over which the subject has no control and no direct knowledge of. So these aspects will appear as 'voices in the head' and 'commanding' the subject to do things - as we know, sometimes extremely violent things. That is why it is such a scary condition. I have had experience with a couple of people undergoing psychotic episodes, and it is a frightening thing to witness.

[Spectrum]

My AP Psych teacher was telling my class and I how there are speculations about psychological disorders. For example, people diagnosed with schizophrenia have a voice telling them to do certain things or have a certain behavior, right? well, the speculation on this is that the "voice" is really a unknown entity or "stronger force" trying to control it's 'victim' with mind control and delusions of unseen worlds and characters. what is your view or opinion on these speculations on psychological diseases?

For many it is not a speculation but they are so 'certain' that it is the work of Satan and other devil.

These speculations and 'certainties' are due to ignorance and many (especially the religious) will exploit such ignorance to control their flock.
In this days and age, 'hearing voices' is can be easily explained and justified with knowledge from various fields. Hallucinations of different types can even be induced objectively in the lab and by hallucinogens by any normal person.

The interesting speculation on hearing voices from some unknown entity should be directed toward the prophets and apostles of various religions who heard "voices". They claimed God spoke to them and went on to establish religions that has benefited humanity but is also a potential threat to humanity.
At present there are so many cases of people claiming that God spoke to them, but they are certified as suffering from some kind of psychological disease from mild to extreme.
View the whole video below,

Speculation: Did the prophets and messengers of the mainstream who claimed God spoke to them, had the same experience and psychological problem as the person in the video or others who claimed the same thing?

[Greendolphin]

My AP Psych teacher was telling my class and I how there are speculations about psychological disorders. For example, people diagnosed with schizophrenia have a voice telling them to do certain things or have a certain behavior, right? well, the speculation on this is that the "voice" is really a unknown entity or "stronger force" trying to control it's 'victim' with mind control and delusions of unseen worlds and characters. what is your view or opinion on these speculations on psychological diseases?

The delusions and hallucinations (auditry, visual, tactile, etc) that schizophrenics experience are , in the finest-grained analysis, due to aberrant brain chemistry, in sections of the brain like the mesolimbic tract.

[Discards]

Studies have shown that up to 5 % of the population may hear voices. And 1 out of 3 people seek psychiatric help. The other two manage fine.

psychcentral.com/news/2013/05/25/why-he ... 55240.html

"Schneider's first rank symptoms" is the best way of diagnosing schizophrenia. Keep in mind that not all voice hearers receive commands of threats. A lot just hear commentary or derogatory remarks.

Schizophrenia can be "easily" explained in medical terms. Schizophrenia cannot be treated on the basis of these medical assumptions. I suppose Spectrum's understanding of the disease amounts to an irregularity of something in the auditory cortex. The problem with this is that "hearing voices" means "hearing thoughts". It's the same as having a song stuck in your head.

Besides all that - hallucinations extend to all of the senses. The medical explanation would need to find anomalies in all of the regions of the brain governing all five senses.

A schizophrenic who hears, tastes, smells, sees and feels things that aren't there is getting stimuli from somewhere. You could say the sufferer is producing it by their own psychology. But then you need to account for the complexity of the hallucinations. Why would someone imagine the personality of Jesus in great amounts of complexity? What aspect of their psychology allows them to smell the sandal wood in his garments, feel the love in his voice, or bask in the light of his apparition?

If, else wise, some entity, like the devil - who, as an eternal being - ubiquitous and everywhere, has and has had access to every personality in existence - acted as the source of these hallucinations, then we could account for the complexity. Otherwise we need to find the source of the complexity in the brain. The modern theory of dopamine overload is a horribly flawed theory actually stemming from a pathetic type of nursing practise that began in the early 20th century.

When a violent schizophrenic patient came in the nurses would inject him with high doses of tranquilizer. After supposedly observing the positive effect this tranquilizer had on the patients symptoms, research began into developing treatments for schizophrenia along the lines of what worked in the hospitals. So the Haldols and whathaveyou are just tranquilizer. They would make anyone less violent if you gave it to them.

Knowing that the mechanism of these antipsychotic medications was "dopamine blocking" a hasty theory about schizophrenia came about. Yet it was essentially based on unassociated techniques that nurses used for difficult patients. The fact that dopamine blockers make schizophrenics more docile doesn't imply that its "treating" the illness at any kind of source.

So, people are basically ignorant to the truth of things when they say science has any kind of conceptual or working understanding of the illness. Doctors simply treat it with dopamine blockers, support their occupational existence with assumptions about the effectiveness of this treatment, and follow that blind ally as far as it will take their careers.

Science has not yet scratched the surface if this illness. They're stuck on auditory hallucinations. The mechanism of it - not to say anything about richness of content. Essentially, if you listen to Mozart and can't get his music out of your mind you are some kind of schizophrenic. Ever hear random thoughts about the over weight person in the grocery store line up? Yeo. You're as crazy as a schizophrenic. The difference is they don't assume these thoughts are their own. They don't assume that because the content of the voices is not anything like their own.

They hold conversations with various people they often know nothing about. The personalities they speak to often come spontaneously, are from bygone times, reveal information that the listener would never have come upon in their own, and so forth. Those who know schizophrenics don't blanket the depth of this illness in the thin veil of understanding supported by science.

-- Updated June 25th, 2013, 4:10 am to add the following --

(Nested quote removed.)


The delusions and hallucinations (auditry, visual, tactile, etc) that schizophrenics experience are , in the finest-grained analysis, due to aberrant brain chemistry, in sections of the brain like the mesolimbic tract.

Like I said:

Particular attention has been paid to the function of dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway of the brain. This focus largely resulted from the accidental finding that phenothiazine drugs, which block dopamine function, could reduce psychotic symptoms. It is also supported by the fact that amphetamines, which trigger the release of dopamine, may exacerbate the psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia.[62] The influential dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia proposed that excessive activation of D2 receptors was the cause of (the positive symptoms of) schizophrenia. Although postulated for about 20 years based on the D2 blockade effect common to all antipsychotics, it was not until the mid-1990s that PET and SPET imaging studies provided supporting evidence. The dopamine hypothesis is now thought to be simplistic, partly because newer antipsychotic medication (atypical antipsychotic medication) can be just as effective as older medication (typical antipsychotic medication), but also affects serotonin function and may have slightly less of a dopamine blocking effect.[63]

If you read through that you notice that the theory was 20 years old before it received any hard supporting evidence. And also, it is now considered simplistic since newer medications are just as "effective" - but work differently.

The modern understanding of the illness coincides with technical advances in chemistry between the 1950s and the 1970s. It's all an unfortunate coincidence that people are beginning to forget about finally.

[kk23wong]

The below message may be disturbing.

Schizophrenia is actually the abuses of the power of the God. I mean, the God abuses her ability to communicate with us. The God is "all-knowing". There must be some reasons behind. For instance, the God attempted to change our fate, interifere with our life. The content of the voices, the messages, are not always good or logical. The God has no needs to threat us in an apporiate manner or seriously talking to us.

I refer the God to a Conscious Earth, which is a much longer story to tell.

Teru Wong

[Michaelpearson]

I'd suggest Clozapine. The 'gold standard' of the atypicals.

-- Updated August 26th, 2013, 12:24 pm to add the following --

Whilst entertaining (and there's nothing wrong with many forms of entertainment) I would suggest that your appraisal of schizophrenia is terribly wrong.