mostly Raw organic vegan diet for mental health?

[Johnny Dangerous]

The DSM doesn’t use brain science as diagnostic criteria

Correct. And as such, it's diagnostic criteria are pretty subjective, not really evidence-based.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19181456/

Evidence based medicine claims to be the paradigm for modern psychiatry. It represents proven treatments for defined diagnoses. But there are major problems with this position, starting with the fact that while they are superior to placebo, evidence based treatments too often are ineffective. It cannot be assumed that classifying psychopathology diagnostically is the best way to move forward. Established diagnostic entities, are as much wish as reality. They are the result of committee decisions so tentative that DSM III and IV refuse to use the term "diagnoses" in the diagnostic manual.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27071528/

In the 1990s, the rise of evidence-based medicine cast doubt on the reliability of expert consensus. Since then, medicine has increasingly relied on systematic reviews, as developed by the evidence-based medicine movement, and advocated for their early incorporation in expert consensus efforts. With the partial exception of DSM-IV, such systematic evidence-based reviews have not been consistently integrated into the development of the DSMs, leaving their development out of step with the larger medical field.

Depakote is also a pretty serious drug with considerable side effects. Not to say it isn’t important in some circumstances, but plenty of people have successfully controlled their OCD without it.

Indeed, if your OCD is limited to not being able to carry magazines out of the bathroom once you have brought them in, or get in a new car with dirty underwear (true story), well, probably Depakote is probably overkill.

OCD has both a compulsive behaviors component, and an “internal” component that has to do with compulsion and obsession. Plenty of people diagnosed with OCD do not have a huge component of compensatory or compulsive behaviors, but have their lives impaired by the thought patterns and obsessions themselves.

As to evidence base, I am fairly sure there is probably a larger evidence base for CBT - based interventions or more ‘standard’ OCD treatment, if only due to how often these interventions are used.

Looks like yes, exposure therapy and SSRIs are the treatment with the most evidence behind them at the moment:

https://iocdf.org/about-ocd/ocd-treatment/

There are certainly issues with the subjectivity of assessment and diagnosis for psychiatric conditions, but there are also a lot of issues with taking imaging or presumed balance of neurotransmitters or whatever and saying “this physiological sign is x disorder”.

[Malcolm]

but there are also a lot of issues with taking imaging or presumed balance of neurotransmitters or whatever and saying “this physiological sign is x disorder”.

Sure, and this results in a lot of people being treated for symptoms, rather than causes.

[Johnny Dangerous]

but there are also a lot of issues with taking imaging or presumed balance of neurotransmitters or whatever and saying “this physiological sign is x disorder”.

Sure, and this results in a lot of people being treated for symptoms, rather than causes.

Trying to connect mental health conditions to purely physical signs and symptoms would be even worse, considerably so.

Causal factors for mental health are multi dimensional anyway - biological, social, cognitive/psychological, socioeconomic etc. Finding a single “root cause” is possibly beside the point.

Similarly, treatment for them should probably be holistic rather than focusing on one particular sign or symptom. This is the direction that the more evidence-based and conscientious in the mental health and substance abuse worlds seem to be moving in.

[Artziebetter1]

I have had ocd since I was about 9 or 10 years old and it really makes my life hard and not fun.

Generally OCD is considered a seizure disorder. An adjunct to controlling that is a balanced diet that includes cooked grain and vegetables, fruits, and some amount of animal protein.

A raw diet will most certainly aggravate your condition.

Thanks Acarya.what are some sowa rigpa dietary methods to reduce or balance a wind/aggravated mind?I thought that dark leafy low oxalate green vegetables were the most Sattvic and also I know many people that got healed from physical diseases when incorporating half of their diet thru juicing of such plants,but of course I should indeed still eat grains and fruit and animal protein.is fish better than rudimentary meat for me?

as for grains,isn't gluten bad for mental health for alot of people?

I know there are tibetan herbs but I am very hesitant to use them as every herb I tried worked once or twice and then didn't again.I simply can't meditate not even samatha because my mind is simply too overactive and foggy.even though that would help alot.the reason I mentioned a infrared sauna is because it supposedly reduces anxiety and leads to a meditative like state.


last question,can ocd and other mental deformities be a result of negative spirit posession?whenever I used entheogens and the ocd went away I had the feeling of a entity hesitantly leaving my body and like I was going to die..after a few hours when it came back it felt like a spirit was posessing me against my will and I felt alot of pressure and heaviness wich I feel all the time with my normal ocd state of mind.

[Malcolm]

whenever I used entheogens and the ocd went away...

Sounds to me like a brain chemistry issue.

[Toenail]

It is not a deficit that DSM and ICD-10 do not focus or even include etiology, it is a great advantage as it put an end to school/paradigm narcissism and focusses on what is actually observable. To claim that one mental illness is more genetic/biological/brain based than another is just ridiculous, as there are many biological correlates that come with any mental disorder. Serotonergic system, synaptic connectivity, prefrontal cortex, lymbic system, differences in brain scans, different concentrations of neurotransmitters bla bla and so on. It proves nothing and is pointless since we kind of know all of this through adoption studies of identical twins since decades. Twin studies show genetic variance proportions for any mental disorder ranging from 30% up to 60-70% depending on the disorder. DSM/ICD-10 are also only classification (diagnostic) systems, they do not give any recommendations for treatment. So criticizing them for only treating symptoms is ridiculous and unfounded since they are only for diagnostics and can be used by every school or paradigm (as they are intended to). Psychotherapy research and research into mental illness is very aware that classification systems do have mistakes and are just models to classify phenomena and so on, but they are useful.

Depakote

I worked in a psychiatric hospital for a long time. This drug is used in a whole range of mental illnesses that are very different from each other. Thats common with almost all medication for these kinds of illnesses. We wished for or should have snipers, but we fly over enemy territory and carpet bomb everything. These medications do not only work in the brain and also not just on specific points. Also taking these medications does often not help or just help a little bit. After a few years they often stop working completly, which is why the dosage is increased etc. The most common (first line recommendation) medication for OCD are SSRI's by the way. They do work the best as is expert consensus.

The state of the art treating any mental illness where communication with the patient is possible is really CBT (someone who really knows it and follows some evidence based manual).

[Malcolm]

So criticizing them for only treating symptoms is ridiculous and unfounded since they are only for diagnostics…

Proper diagnostics must account for causes.

[Toenail]

So criticizing them for only treating symptoms is ridiculous and unfounded since they are only for diagnostics…

Proper diagnostics must account for causes.

I would say that it should be included in treatment. You are taking one aspect of treatment/curing an illness (diagnosing it) and criticize it for not including other aspects of the big thing. That is unfair and really just semantics. At the end all medicine should be evidence based. You look at how patients with this problem feel before the treatment and ask them how they feel afterwards. As simple as you would check whether or not a medicine works.

[Malcolm]

So criticizing them for only treating symptoms is ridiculous and unfounded since they are only for diagnostics…

Proper diagnostics must account for causes.

I would say that it should be included in treatment. You are taking one aspect of treatment/curing an illness (diagnosing it) and criticize it for not including other aspects of the big thing. That is unfair and really just semantics. At the end all medicine should be evidence based. You look at how patients with this problem feel before the treatment and ask them how they feel afterwards. As simple as you would check whether or not a medicine works.

If you don't know the cause of an illness, you cannot treat it effectively since you have no evidence to address its causation and hence its cessation. The most you can do is give palliative treatment for symptoms, which sadly, is where most psychiatric medicine is at these days.

[Toenail]

Proper diagnostics must account for causes.

I would say that it should be included in treatment. You are taking one aspect of treatment/curing an illness (diagnosing it) and criticize it for not including other aspects of the big thing. That is unfair and really just semantics. At the end all medicine should be evidence based. You look at how patients with this problem feel before the treatment and ask them how they feel afterwards. As simple as you would check whether or not a medicine works.

If you don't know the cause of an illness, you cannot treat it effectively since you have no evidence to address its causation and hence its cessation. The most you can do is give palliative treatment for symptoms, which sadly, is where most psychiatric medicine is at these days.

Psychiatric medicine as well as all other schools of thoughts about this do believe they know the causes of these illnesses. Obviously this "OCD is a seizure disorder" thing you defended so strongly before brings no benefit for patients and your medication you referred to as evidence is a shit treatment. CBT is the best option we have to treat mental illnesses. And cbt has a very clear idea of what the causes of most mental illnesses are. It addresses them and when these causes are annihilated the illness is gone.

[Malcolm]

I would say that it should be included in treatment. You are taking one aspect of treatment/curing an illness (diagnosing it) and criticize it for not including other aspects of the big thing. That is unfair and really just semantics. At the end all medicine should be evidence based. You look at how patients with this problem feel before the treatment and ask them how they feel afterwards. As simple as you would check whether or not a medicine works.

If you don't know the cause of an illness, you cannot treat it effectively since you have no evidence to address its causation and hence its cessation. The most you can do is give palliative treatment for symptoms, which sadly, is where most psychiatric medicine is at these days.

Psychiatric medicine as well as all other schools of thoughts about this do believe they know the causes of these illnesses. Obviously this "OCD is a seizure disorder" thing you defended so strongly before brings no benefit for patients and your medication you referred to as evidence is a shit treatment. CBT is the best option we have to treat mental illnesses. And cbt has a very clear idea of what the causes of most mental illnesses are. It addresses them and when these causes are annihilated the illness is gone.

CBT is a management strategy only. It does not "cure" anything. But we should define what we mean by "illness" as opposed to "behavior." We will probably avoid unnecessary disagreement by doing so. For me, an illness is a disorder in the physical organism. There are many behaviors which may result from such illnesses, but not all pathological behaviors are "illnesses."

[Toenail]

If you don't know the cause of an illness, you cannot treat it effectively since you have no evidence to address its causation and hence its cessation. The most you can do is give palliative treatment for symptoms, which sadly, is where most psychiatric medicine is at these days.

Psychiatric medicine as well as all other schools of thoughts about this do believe they know the causes of these illnesses. Obviously this "OCD is a seizure disorder" thing you defended so strongly before brings no benefit for patients and your medication you referred to as evidence is a shit treatment. CBT is the best option we have to treat mental illnesses. And cbt has a very clear idea of what the causes of most mental illnesses are. It addresses them and when these causes are annihilated the illness is gone.

CBT is a management strategy only. It does not "cure" anything. But we should define what we mean by "illness" as opposed to "behavior." We will probably avoid unnecessary disagreement by doing so. For me, an illness is a disorder in the physical organism. There are many behaviors which may result from such illnesses, but not all pathological behaviors are "illnesses."

That is not true at all. CBT can cure most mental illnesses completly. Evidence? Follow-up studies. Also behavior in the phrase CBT means physical behavior as well as thought patterns and emotions etc. It does not just refer to observable behavior.

Edit: I did not expect you to be so materialistic or follow the biological paradigm in these matters to be honest. But I do not think it makes any difference. You understand neuroplasticity, I assume. In the paradigm you choose to follow here behavior/thought/emotions etc are all physical. Weird small electical impulses flying through organic matter transporting information and shit in form of neurotransmitters. No one really gets it completly and so on BUT how is it erroneous to believe in this paradigm that CBT can cure mental illness? In your paradigm since mental illness has some physical basis it means that a change of symptoms is a change of the base obviously. If you want evidence of this, there are many studies that show that after CBT interventions and part or complete symptom reduction the physical correlates of the disorders do also change. For example, an overactive amygdala does become less active in former anxiety disorder patients after CBT intervention etc.

[Malcolm]

Psychiatric medicine as well as all other schools of thoughts about this do believe they know the causes of these illnesses. Obviously this "OCD is a seizure disorder" thing you defended so strongly before brings no benefit for patients and your medication you referred to as evidence is a shit treatment. CBT is the best option we have to treat mental illnesses. And cbt has a very clear idea of what the causes of most mental illnesses are. It addresses them and when these causes are annihilated the illness is gone.

CBT is a management strategy only. It does not "cure" anything. But we should define what we mean by "illness" as opposed to "behavior." We will probably avoid unnecessary disagreement by doing so. For me, an illness is a disorder in the physical organism. There are many behaviors which may result from such illnesses, but not all pathological behaviors are "illnesses."

That is not true at all. CBT can cure most mental illnesses completly. Evidence? Follow-up studies. Also behavior in the phrase CBT means physical behavior as well as thought patterns and emotions etc. It does not just refer to observable behavior.

Yes, I understand this. My point is quite different. Mental illnesses are subjective and culturally determined, even physical illnesses, to some extent, are as well. Example—oracles, who clearly from a western diagnostic point of view are sufferers of petite and grand mal seizures, are elevated to important positions in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy. Things like cancer, infections, etc., on the other hand are recognized everywhere as physical pathologies. So, again, we are talking at cross purposes.

[Toenail]

CBT is a management strategy only. It does not "cure" anything. But we should define what we mean by "illness" as opposed to "behavior." We will probably avoid unnecessary disagreement by doing so. For me, an illness is a disorder in the physical organism. There are many behaviors which may result from such illnesses, but not all pathological behaviors are "illnesses."

That is not true at all. CBT can cure most mental illnesses completly. Evidence? Follow-up studies. Also behavior in the phrase CBT means physical behavior as well as thought patterns and emotions etc. It does not just refer to observable behavior.

Yes, I understand this. My point is quite different. Mental illnesses are subjective and culturally determined, even physical illnesses, to some extent, are as well. Example—oracles, who clearly from a western diagnostic point of view are sufferers of petite and grand mal seizures, are elevated to important positions in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy. Things like cancer, infections, etc., on the other hand are recognized everywhere as physical pathologies. So, again, we are talking at cross purposes.

Also please read my edit in my last post.

What is the point though of writing this though? We were talking about OCD, the arguments you make about the cultural bias and so on are decades old. We are talking about some phenomena called OCD which you said was probably a seizure disorder. You also had some kind of idea of it in mind and were using the word, even giving some advice of how to eat to benefit the condition. If you are against classifying cluster of symptoms as illnesses, why do you use these concepts yourself? And what does it have to do with treatment? All the evidence shows that these are probably real conditions that can be treated.

[Malcolm]

All the evidence shows that these are probably real conditions that can be treated.

Sure, and seizure disorders are a real possibility in OCD. Many people with epilepsy have associated symptoms of OCD. There are a vast range of seizures in severity. People have mini seizures they do not even recognize. We really do not know very much about the brain. But one thing I do know, having known many people with OCD disorders, is that their conditions is aggravated by what we call vata diets and behaviors. In traditional Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda, OCD is considered a vata disorder, and that it is better for such people have vata reducing diets, etc. Vata diseases are real diseases and they can be treated.

[Johnny Dangerous]

So criticizing them for only treating symptoms is ridiculous and unfounded since they are only for diagnostics…

Proper diagnostics must account for causes.

There are all kinds of idiopathic diseases which are defined primarily by symptoms.

[Toenail]

All the evidence shows that these are probably real conditions that can be treated.

by what we call vata diets and behaviors. In traditional Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda, OCD is considered a vata disorder, and that it is better for such people have vata reducing diets, etc. Vata diseases are real diseases and they can be treated.

So now you are basically saying these diseases can be cured by adjustments of behavior?

[Malcolm]

All the evidence shows that these are probably real conditions that can be treated.

by what we call vata diets and behaviors. In traditional Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda, OCD is considered a vata disorder, and that it is better for such people have vata reducing diets, etc. Vata diseases are real diseases and they can be treated.

So now you are basically saying these diseases can be cured by adjustments of behavior?

Not alone, no. They require changes in behavior, diet, combined with herbs and physical therapies. But the Western Medical establishment does not recognize Ayurveda, etc., so...

[n8pee]

Sure, and seizure disorders are a real possibility in OCD. Many people with epilepsy have associated symptoms of OCD. There are a vast range of seizures in severity. People have mini seizures they do not even recognize. We really do not know very much about the brain. But one thing I do know, having known many people with OCD disorders, is that their conditions is aggravated by what we call vata diets and behaviors. In traditional Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda, OCD is considered a vata disorder, and that it is better for such people have vata reducing diets, etc. Vata diseases are real diseases and they can be treated.

Now I'm curious about what a vata reducing diet would entail...

[Malcolm]

Sure, and seizure disorders are a real possibility in OCD. Many people with epilepsy have associated symptoms of OCD. There are a vast range of seizures in severity. People have mini seizures they do not even recognize. We really do not know very much about the brain. But one thing I do know, having known many people with OCD disorders, is that their conditions is aggravated by what we call vata diets and behaviors. In traditional Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda, OCD is considered a vata disorder, and that it is better for such people have vata reducing diets, etc. Vata diseases are real diseases and they can be treated.

Now I'm curious about what a vata reducing diet would entail...

It is not hard to find out:

https://www.banyanbotanicals.com/info/a ... ying-diet/

There is none of the standard meats added here, but to this list one could add oily fish such as salmon, tuna, etc.; meats such as lamb, duck, and dry aged beef, buffalo, etc.