Johnny Mac says mental illness isn't real

[Christianbookworm]

Doesn't help that psychology was not so great 70 years ago with lobotomies and insane asylums. Now, I'm more annoyed at younger folk that persist in claiming mental illness is just a moral failure. At least older people have a reason for thinking that way(everyone used to think that way back then). Granted, they could also learn differently if they were willing to, but humans can be stubborn creatures. I think mental heath stigma is influenced by people not wanting to think their brains could just glitch one day amd they have a mental illness. Or that not all misbehavior is automatically due to sin. Pretty sure sin involves intent.

[NorrinRadd]

Ok, here's this:

I knew I'd seen it online, but couldn't find it until I vaguely recalled linking to it previously. Found it via this 2019 post.

[JimL]

The Roys Report article.

Speaking recently at a church conference, popular author and pastor-teacher John MacArthur told attendees that mental illness doesn’t exist. He also implied that children who take medications due to mental health diagnoses are turned into “a potential drug addict” or “potential criminal.”

“The major noble lie is that there’s such a thing as mental illness,” said MacArthur during a Q&A session at a conference on April 20 at Grace Church of the Valley in Kingsburg, California. “Now this isn’t new. You have Thomas Szasz back in the 1950s, who was a psychiatrist, writing a book on ‘The Myth of Mental Illness.’” (Szasz’s book was first published in 1961.)

MacArthur continued: “There’s no such thing as PTSD. There’s no such thing as OCD. There’s no such thing as ADHD. Those are noble lies to basically give the excuse, in the end of the day, to medicate people. And Big Pharma is in charge of a lot of that.”

I happen to believe that mental health medicos are too quick to jump to drugs without thoroughly ruling out medical/biological issues, but J-Mac does not seem at all concerned with that aspect.

What would the medical/biological issues be. I mean medical or biological issues are factors of mental illness anyway, no?. In either case there's still mental illness, no? Its like the chicken and the egg paradox, cause and effect. What comes first the psychological issues or the biological issues.
I wonder if they measure, or if they can measure things like that, like chemical imbalances and such.

[NorrinRadd]

What would the medical/biological issues be. I mean medical or biological issues are factors of mental illness anyway, no?. In either case there's still mental illness, no? Its like the chicken and the egg paradox, cause and effect. What comes first the psychological issues or the biological issues.
I wonder if they measure, or if they can measure things like that, like chemical imbalances and such.

They've way overblown the relevance of serotonin, but docs are still quick to prescribe SSRIs and SNRIs. But things like hypercalcemia can cause anxiety, low mood, brain fog, low energy, sometimes before the high calcium is technically in the "hyper" range. If they jump on the symptoms with an SSRI, the calcium issue can go undetected and untreated longer, while the patient gets stuck on a psychotropic drug that's very hard to wean off of.

[Cerebrum123]

The transcript finally came out. Here is where John MacArthur doubles down on his statements and shows that he still believes that ADHD, OCD, Schizophrenia, and PTSD are not real. Later he reveals that he sees them all as just character flaws.

Source: John MacArthur

But I’m not saying this: I’m not saying there’s no brain disease; there is. But that’s different; that’s pathological; that can be objectively identified. Now, I don’t want to become clinical here, but I just will say enough to let you see the difference.

If you’re talking about brain disease, you’re talking about several categories. The first would be an infection in the brain. That could be meningitis, which is an inflammation of the lining of the brain; or it could be encephalitis, which is the inflammation of the actual brain tissue. Those can be discerned. Those can be seen. Those can be understood. They can be objectively identified.

A second category, next to infections, that fits into the zone of brain disease would be seizures, seizures—because something is wrong, like maybe epilepsy or some other form of seizure. Something is wrong with the electrical system; the current system is misfiring.

The third possibility of real brain disease is tumors and masses. We all know about that. They can be discerned. They can be seen in a CAT scan or in an MRI, sometimes in an X-ray, or certainly in surgical procedure.

And the fourth sort of large category of brain disease would be trauma, like a concussion or some accident or some injury to the brain that takes a toll on the brain’s ability to function because part of the brain is disconnected or taken into disuse; and birth defects could lead to that as well. But all of that can be understood and seen by objective testing.

That is not the case with mental illness. Mental illness is a term that is really not identifiable by any objective means. You can’t see it in an MRI or an X-ray or a CAT scan or a surgery. You can do brain surgery, and you’re not going to see schizophrenia. So this is a misnomer. And I went on to say in that panel discussion there’s no such thing as OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. There’s no such thing as ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There’s no such thing as bipolar disorder, where you’re low and high, and somehow this is something that’s embedded in the brain. There’s no such thing as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

© Copyright Original Source

He goes on to claim that he had "attention deficit hyperactive behavior" but no longer has it.

Now am I saying that there’s no such thing as obsessive-compulsive behavior? No. There is obsessive-compulsive behavior. Am I saying there’s no such thing as attention deficit hyperactivity? No. There is such a thing. I possessed it as a kid. I am a living illustration—you can recover. You can recover, and you can recover without medication.

There were two things that every teacher I ever had said to my mother: “Johnny doesn’t pay attention, and he never sits still.” That is attention deficit hyperactivity. That had nothing to do with something permanent existing in the fog of my brain.

That's not how ADHD works. You don't just grow out of it. It is something you always have. People can learn to manage it if their case is below a certain threshold, but that doesn't mean they no longer have it. Not only that, but there are structural differences in the brain of a person with ADHD unlike his claims about how mental illness can't be detected with MRI's. Not long after he shows his ignorance of PTSD.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as post-traumatic stress. There is post-traumatic stress. You go to a battle, you lose the three guys around you, you walk away, you’ve got survivor guilt; you’ve got profound grief because your friends you are so deeply invested in and battling for survival; you’ve got deep pain, you hurt, you’re suffering, you’re grieving. That’s a very real thing. Is it a mental disorder? No, it’s life. It’s life. This is life. People have grief. Life is very difficult. It’s hard. It’s hard.

I've known numerous people with PTSD, and this is not how it works at all. Post traumatic stress is normal, but it is not the same thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is not merely grief from a traumatic event, it goes way beyond that. Sometimes it can be managed with intense therapy, but sometimes people need more than that. Like OCD, schizophrenia and ADHD, there are also structural differences that can be detected.

The United States government has a particular website talking about these mental health issues, and my favorite line is a banner that’s across the website. It says this: “Mental disorders are not caused by character flaws.” Oh. What are they caused by? They’re “not caused by character flaws.” That’s a dead giveaway.

Most mental illnesses are caused by structural changes in the brain and are indeed not caused by character flaws. A person with a mental illness can have character flaws, but so can people without mental illness. He wouldn't say someone with seizures has a character flaw, or someone missing a leg has a character flaw, but he's willing to say that those with mental illnesses are purely that way due to character flaws. That's like saying someone missing both of their legs and with no prosthesis being unable to walk is "just being lazy". The level of ableism here is pretty sickening. The rest of his diatribe against psychology is dangerous, uninformed, and absurd.

Sorry mossrose, but this sermon actually is more upsetting and disgusting than the clip this thread was started about. You are letting your bias in favor of him color your perception of what he says.

[Christianbookworm]

Yeah, he doesn't seem to realize fundy atheists use similar arguments to claim God and souls don't exist. Nothing as frustrating as a person ignorant of their own ignorance. If he worded it better, it might be he's claiming that everyone deals with the stuff that gets labeled as mental illness and is oblivious to those who legitimately struggle more with those issues. But he needs to not be a jerk and recognize that his experience is not everyone's experience.

[Cerebrum123]

Yeah, he doesn't seem to realize fundy atheists use similar arguments to claim God and souls don't exist. Nothing as frustrating as a person ignorant of their own ignorance. If he worded it better, it might be he's claiming that everyone deals with the stuff that gets labeled as mental illness and is oblivious to those who legitimately struggle more with those issues. But he needs to not be a jerk and recognize that his experience is not everyone's experience.

He is saying what you think he is saying, but also more than that. He's going further than simply that things labeled as "mental illness" are just everyone deals with. He's going so far as to say that people who have "mental illness" are morally deficient. To him, "mental illness" is just a medicalized label for character flaws.

[Christianbookworm]

Yeah, that's pretty awful. Of course, he's oblivious to his own personality flaws. Don't think he was referring to cluster B personality disorders(prime target for the person is a jerk, but hypothetically someone with said disorder could still make decent chouces to not be a jerk). Wonder if he has one? Don't want to play armchair psychologist though.

[Cerebrum123]

Yeah, that's pretty awful. Of course, he's oblivious to his own personality flaws. Don't think he was referring to cluster B personality disorders(prime target for the person is a jerk, but hypothetically someone with said disorder could still make decent chouces to not be a jerk). Wonder if he has one? Don't want to play armchair psychologist though.

We are talking about the guy who said this.

Source: John MacArthur

Why don’t they say that? I mean, it’s one thing to irritate a teacher; something else to burn the school down, right? Why do you label somebody who irritates a teacher because he can’t pay attention, and you don’t have a category for somebody who burns the school down? I mean, if you’re going to blame everything on some mental disorder, you might as well blame the really serious things on that.

© Copyright Original Source

Apparently, he's never heard of things like pyromania*. So, yeah, he's oblivious to his stupidity on this issue. I don't use the term stupidity here lightly. If this were simple ignorance, he would have at least tried to learn about the issues he is pontificating on. However, he has decided to wallow in his own stupidity and not even attempt to learn about the issue.

*Not all people who burn things down are pyromaniacs, but there are plenty of records of pyromaniacs burning various buildings to the ground.

[Christianbookworm]

Why does this guy have so many fans? Seems dangerous to get too much fame.

[NorrinRadd]

Why does this guy have so many fans? Seems dangerous to get too much fame.

There's a weird cult of personality thing with some preachers of *very* diverse beliefs and styles. J-Mac gets really passionate followers, so do many NAR and Word-Faith preachers, who are the polar opposite of him in most respects. Mike Winger is getting some really dedicated fan-boys and fan-girls.

[Christianbookworm]

Why do humans do that? We should all be fans of Jesus and follow Him only! Well, obviously more than just fans, but some fans of personality cults seem to get too close to idolatry for me.