(no subject)

[cherydactyl]

One of the science news feeds I follow coughed up an interesting article about why mental illness persists and is common...specifically citing that some mental issues in lite form are very adaptive. I guess it's akin to sickle cell anemia in that way.

An excerpt:
To explain our susceptibility to poor mental health, Randolph Nesse in "The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology" (Wiley, 2005) compares the human brain with race horses: Just as horse breeding has selected for long thin legs that increase speed but are prone to fracture, cognitive advances also increase fitness — to a point.

Full article here

Aren't I the blitz-posting fool lately?

Comments

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

Aren't I the blitz-posting fool lately?

One word:
Don't stop.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks.

[the_rck]

My mother has commented that some mental illnesses benefit the tribe rather than the individual. That is, it sucks to be the anxious person who always sees dangers, but it's useful to have somebody like that around as long as they're not making all the decisions, ditto the risk takers, the compulsively ritualistic and so on.

As a person with severe anxiety, I may not be more likely to have lots and lots of kids, but I might make my siblings' kids more likely to survive.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

Also an excellent point.

[presterjon.livejournal.com]

That article is an utter load of shite. Anyone who works the mentally ill can tell you its serious and utterly maladaptive. SPMI (Severe and Persistent Mental Illness) tends to strike in the late 20s for men and the 30s or later for women. Historically this is after the breeding period for the most part and archeaologically long after. There is nothing adaptive about SPMI, these folks need care and are a drain on resources be it a tribe or a nation. (Don't read that as a problem, I think its our duty to do so and the right of an ill individual to receive help.)
Lets also add that he confuses Axis 1 and 2 disorders. The personality disorders are by definition, maladaptive personality wide behaviors that an individual has adopted usually due to extreme challenges in life early on. Borderline Personality Disorder has a generally accepted etiology of severe and persistent sexual abuse in childhood. Antisocial personality disorder tends to develop (primarily among men) in response to danger and trauma in upbringing. Of course thats not always the case, it fails to be 'diagnosed' in men with wealthy upbringings, severe entitlement, and no empathy for others. We tend to call these individuals, 'chairman, congressman, and probably president. Narcisistic Personality Disorder tends to develop among children who are ignored by their parents, and indulged in all their whims.
Anxiety and depression being adaptive? I am afraid I must disagree. If this guy is a a mental health professional he is treating the "oh woe is me crowd" and the "I can't get my ass out of bed so I am depressed" crowd. People with mental illness can tell you its not adaptive in any way and they struggle everyday with serious hardship.
Sorry cherydactyl, I can't credit this article with common sense or a real experience of mental illness. Perhaps there is something to the theory it espouses, but they writer of the articles loses any value in the journalistic adaptation.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

Huh. You have raised some fair points, and yes, livescience in general is like most science reporting in the US...watered down like crazy.

I just don't see it so easily for psychology, as opposed to some harder sciences. I think it's my linguistics training where the student's own judgment about gramaticallity is fodder for examining grammatical structure. It seemed like a logical argument, but you have poked holes, or rather shown me where the holes were that I was not seeing. I can see very light anxiety being adaptive if in a low incidence, but my thinking it logical doesn't make it so.

I think I read Psychology Today too many times (I used to have a subscription...*shudder*) and my brain is scarred for life as for evaluating pop science psych study reports.