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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.philosophy
Subject: Schizophrenia
Message-ID: <397@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Apr-86 00:06:57 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.397
Posted: Sat Apr  5 00:06:57 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Apr-86 06:47:08 EST
References: <617@kontron.UUCP> <560@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 49
Keywords: biological determinism, neurochemistry
Xref: watmath net.sci:702 net.philosophy:4933

>It's been known for some time now that therapy is of little use in the
>treatment of schitzophrenia.  

What's your source for this?  According to what I have read on the
subject, this claim is quite controversial.  My understanding is that
most psychiatrists employ both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy in
the treatment of the numerous types of schizophrenia.  Depending upon
whether the psychiatrist is more biologically or psychoanalytically
inclined, he/she will emphasize one form of treatment and regard the
other as a useful adjunct.  Milieu therapy is a third treatment mode
that is sometimes employed.  I was formerly employed at a center
which treats many children and adolescent schizophrenics without the
use of drugs, and often with impressive results.

>There are numerous other signs, including its
>responsiveness to drug treatment, which suggest that it represents a
>neurochemical problem.

Anxiety and depression also respond to drug treatment, but people do
not conclude that they are therefore "merely" neurochemical problems
(granted that there is much evidence for a biochemical factor in some
kinds of depression).  

Several points:  (i) The distinction between a "neurochemical
problem" and a "psychological problem" is unclear and getting less
clear as we understand more about the brain.  

(ii) Suppose that all the psychopathology of schizophrenia can be
explained by an excess or deficiency of chemical X in the brain.
This in itself explains nothing about the causation or the preferred
treatment of the illness.  It says nothing about whether the illness
was caused by your diet, your heredity, your experiences as an
infant, or all three.  

(iii) The history of studies of schizophrenia is rife with shoddy
methodology, if we are to believe what the psychologist Leon J.
Kamin has written in *Not In Our Genes* by R.C. Lewontin et al. and
probably elsewhere.  Lewontin and coauthors attribute this shoddiness
to the belief in biological determinism characteristic of the
Zeitgeist, and which has also blessed us with James Q. Wilson and
Richard Herrnstein's recent book on *Crime and Human Nature* arguing
that "criminals are born, not made" (yes, this simpleminded pap is an
accurate representation of their views -- see Kamin's caustic review
in a recent Scientific American, I think February).



-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes