From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sun Jul 16 2000 - 11:51:37 MDT
GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> I can attest from close personal experience that those
> deaths had a biochemical cause just as surely as the ones that were caused by
> cancer.
Michael asked, Greg, " why pick out exogenous ones for attention?".
Now you both know why I asserted this qualification, i.e. to exclude
from my analysis e.g. serotonin deficiency based disorders, especially
bipolar mood disorders whose etiology is neurological.
That is, my remarks were not directed to illnesses resulting from
neurochemical defects. I am not inclined to consider these or any
other biochemical disorders as emotional illnesses. Yes, Michael, I
am procrustean to the extent that I regard all psychological illness as
exclusively psychogenic, e.g. those depressions which do not respond
to lithium, monoamine oxidase inhibitors and similar agents. It is as
absurd to regard suicide as an immediate consequence of endogenous
depression as it is to administer psychotherapy to an OBS patient
with senile psychosis.
Finally, depression and suicide are weakly correlated but not
coextensive. Suicide may, for example, proceed from a perfectly
rational decision to terminate a life reduced to chronic, intolerable
and incurable physical pain. Likewise note that the vast majority
of cases of depression, whether symptomatic of neurochemical
defects, situational reactions or psychoneuroses do not result in
suicide.
=====================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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