Mental disorders ARE NOT brain disorders.

What is your education background, Lance? I only ask because though I agree with some of what you say, I kind of feel like you don't actually have much knowledge of what you're talking about. Brain disorders (and even brain function) isn't understood nearly as well as disease of the heart and other organs because it's much more difficult to study, not because it's inherently different from the rest of the body. The brain is encased in bone, animal models for diseases such as schizophrenia are difficult to impossible to create, and the brain and nervous system are incredibly complex. You also seem to use depression (along with anxiety probably the "disease" which is most overprescribed for) as a good representative for all mental disorders when it is not. I don't think you would be saying the things you are if you knew a little about the neurobiology of addiction, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Optogenetics is already drastically improving research into function within the CNS and will likely greatly improve our understanding of these disorders.

You seem to have an understanding of these things however when you say someone cannot talk their way out of brain cancer. I completely agree that drugs are the not the best answer for many (most?) people being treated for depression, and I think even most (nearly all?) psychiatrists would say environment plays a big role in a lot of these disorders, but there is a proven genetic component to many of these disorders as well, and even when people do everything they can to treat their illness, many still require medication. It is also incredibly ignorant to say medication provides no relief in any of these diseases. As someone who knows several people with mental disorders who have gone through medication changes, I find it almost laughable that anyone would think these drugs have no more effect than placebo. Perhaps in some disorders with certain groups of people, but to broaden that to all mental illnesses and all people is about as bonafide stupid and ignorant as one can get.

I honestly don't understand how anyone with a bit of knowledge of neurotransmitters, acion potentials, and ion channels could write something like the authors of this paper did, which is why I wanted some other people's opinions. I appreciate the responses.

Randy Oldman wrote:

The brain and the body are one. Exercise can counter the effects of depression. Any holistic therapist will tell you that mental disorders can be resolved through bodywork or spiritual healing.

The brain is an organ in the body, but they are not one. Yes, exercise can counter the effects of depression. For similar reasons so can heroin. Holistic therapists can say whatever the hell they want. A chiropractor told me he could treat autism, but that doesn't make it true.

They didnt write anything that anyone who understands would disagree with. They just suggested to consider other causes than physiological ones for mental illness.

Know-it-all wrote:

One's state of mind is much more than a reflection of the chemical environment of his brain.

This is incorrect. As another poster said, it all boils down to physics. There is a physiological (and therefor a physical) reason for 'psychological problems' (i.e. anxiety/depression) which usually involves neuronal circuitry (congenital or acquired). An experience can cause re-wiring (neurons that fire together, wire together), which can then lead to 'psychological problems.' You are trying to argue against something that can (and has) be proven through experimentation with something that can't.

The claim that depression is caused by a "chemical imbalance" is self-serving propaganda for the psychiatric establishment and pharmaceutical industry, and its result is that millions of people have been falsely labeled and inappropriately medicated. Psychiatric drugs exert their mood-altering effects not by fixing a "chemical imbalance," but by inducing one.

Prove it. Objectively.

But experience does change the physical architecture of the brain. It has to and we can site examples. How else would it work? There is no self apart from the activity of the brain, no ghost in the machine. The "I" is created by the physical activity of the brain. So I am really unclear how it matters how we change the architecture, so long as it is effective. If placebos work, then bully for placebos.

Thus far on Letsrun I've read of the non existence of God, souls, free will, and now, Self, that is, that undeniable sense of being an alive and a thinking, feeling creation.

That's nothing if not consistent and quite telling too. For either all exist in truth or they are all falsehoods.

Indeed, either the essence (the beginning and end) of the universe is material or it is spiritual.