In the 1900’s there were automobiles, Einstein’s Theory of relativity, sophisticated mathematics, Newtonian physics, evolution theory, and then psychiatry.
No hard evidence, no statistical evidence, just observance with all the observational biases.
There was no schizophrenia but dementia praecox because of early onset and rapidly deteriorating cognitive deficits. Oh, wait! The cognitive deficits were remarkably stable.
It took tens of years when schizophrenia was measured by factor analysis (what a grateful instrument) and a 5-dimensional model emerged.
The human brain was terra incognita back when Einstein published his theories. And as Isaac Newton said: “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”
Mental patients were locked up in harsh conditions and even Einstein didn’t understand them when observing a mental hospital backyard from his Prague apartment.
Infections, high morbidity, and mortality in overcrowded mental asylums were prevalent as their buildings serve their purpose even now in the modern Czech Republic.
Obama’s czar for the agenda of mental illness uttered that the mentally ill deserved better and put 100 million dollars into brain research.
As the famous psychiatrist Allen Frances put it, they will find nothing with the ridiculously little money and they should rather give it to decent housing, getting back the mentally ill from prison, and so on.
Not so long ago, there have been voices saying low serotonin causes depression. Wrong! It is somewhat connected but we have absolutely no clue what causes depression, not to mention schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.
Frances also adds that schizophrenia may be 100 to 1000 biologically different diseases with cures needed for each of the biological cause.
And what about psychiatry? Clueless. The commercial development of psychiatric medicine has stalled because there are no low-hanging fruits. And only a few non-commercial institutions conduct research. Yes, it would be unthinkable in cases of cancer, but hey, these are just mental illnesses.
Not only psychiatry is underfunded but patients live in conditions unacceptable in different fields of medicine.
And there are 600 thousand of mentally ill people living on the street or in jail in the United States.
Oh, well, bad science and bad socio economical outcomes.
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