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Martin's picture

Stigma

As I mentioned last night, I think the stigma surrounding mental illness is understandable and to a certain degree legitimate. Many mental health problems, who knows what percentage, are caused by life style choices. For example, if someone chooses to live alone in order to satisfy a desire for slothful behavior it seems natural that the person might suffer from a certain kind of depression that is not necessarily biologically based. Doing something you know you shouldn't be doing can have very traumatic effects. I think St. Paul puts it quite well when he says "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate." Romans 7:15

On the flip side, there are many mental illnesses -- again, who knows the percentage--  which are not caused by personal choice but rather by biological abnormalities. 

Determining the source of the problem in any particular situation defies any sort of systematization because there is little possibility for a clinician to get to know a patient well enough to make character judgments. Therefore we have the current situation where people self diagnose and tell there doctors to prescribe them x,y, and z.

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