What Are Mental Disorders?

[ExploringReality]

@Leo Gura will you make a video on this topic in the future? The world of Mental health and Disorders is so important and fascinating, what is schizophrenia, ect??? It makes me question my own mental health and my own experiences when trying to look at what's going on with someone that has a disorder. It goes back to the question, what is consciousness? This question goes so deep especially in the world of understanding Mind.

Also psychedelics, they produce these mental states or do they merely draw out what is already there? Hallucinations, and psychosis, why do psychedelics put one in states that can be interpreted as mental disorders? It can be frightening for someone having a strong trip that feels psychotic but an extremely expanded state of consciousness but you know you can't tell someone, especially a psychiatrist because they will tell you that you are having a episode and put you on drugs ironically.

Edited Wednesday at 07:11 AM by ExploringReality

[TheCloud]

I prefer coming from the perspective of a psychological model called Internal Family Systems (IFS), which has the basic assertion that we are not unified individuals, but rather a collective or family of coexisting systems.  When a particular system with a particular responsibility gets overwhelmed by an external circumstance that it lacks the capacity to organically respond to, it forms a trauma which sort of buds off into a separate persistent unit (Part).

This Part maintains the memory of that trauma, with another Part forming to remember whatever forced solution you arrived at for the time;  in IFS, these are called Exiles and Protectors.  These Parts then become persistent throughout your life, taking note of situations that resemble the original trauma and confronting or avoiding them according to the original forced solution.  They are generally stagnant and inflexible, never learning or growing unless directly addressed and healed, either by accident or intention.

If enough of these Parts form, and the traumas and/or responses are extreme enough, this manifests as mental illness, whether it be depression, anxiety, dissociation, addiction, etc.  These Parts always have the intention to do good, but they tend to be completely myopic and ignore all kinds of collateral damage as long as they can achieve their principle objective of avoiding or assuaging their formative trauma.

For example, if you have an Exile who feels depressed, its Protector may come in and pour you a drink or ten.  You might end up an alcoholic with liver cirrhosis, but as long as you're too drunk to feel depressed, the Protector considers it a job well done.  It's only when you go in there to the depressed Exile and resolve it that the Protector will start looking for other ways to behave.

Anyway, that's my understanding of mental illness.  Other than strictly physical issues, I believe its possible that IFS explains most psychological issues, possibly even including things like schizophrenia and sociopathy (though I wouldn't dare say that's a certainty).