Addressing Depression through Psychotherapy, Medication, or Social Change: An Empirical Investigation
AbstractWomen are diagnosed with clinical depression at twice the rates as men. Treating depression through psychotherapy or medication both focus on changing an individual, rather than addressing socioecological influences or social roles. In the current study, participants read of systemic inequality contributing to differential rates of depression in either American men or women, or in two fictitious Australian First Nation groups. Participants then considered the acceptability and efficacy of treating depression through psychotherapy, medication, or social change. When socioecological inequities and unequal social role...
Source: Neuroethics - November 23, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Free Will, Black Swans and Addiction
AbstractThe current dominant perspective on addiction as a brain disease has been challenged recently by Marc Lewis, who argued that the brain-changes related to addiction are similar to everyday changes of the brain. From this alternative perspective, addictions are bad habits that can be broken, provided that people are motivated to change. In that case, autonomous choice or “free will” can overcome bad influences from genes and or environments and brain-changes related to addiction. Even though we concur with Lewis that there are issues with the brain disease perspective, we also argue that pointing to black swans c...
Source: Neuroethics - November 20, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
If Addiction is not Best Conceptualized a Brain Disease, then What Kind of Disease is it?
AbstractA modest opposition to the brain disease concept of addiction has been mounting for at least the last decade. Despite the good intentions behind the brain disease rhetoric – to secure more biomedical funding for addiction, to combat “stigma,” and to soften criminal approaches – the very concept of addiction as a brain disease is deeply conceptually confused. We question whether Lewis goes far enough in his challenge, robust as it is, of the brain disease conce pt. For one thing, the notion that addiction is a disease (especially within the behavioral realm) is challenging to refute or confirm because the di...
Source: Neuroethics - November 16, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
What Is Wrong with the Brains of Addicts?
AbstractIn his target article and recent interesting book about addiction and the brain, Marc Lewis claims that the prevalent medical view of addiction as a brain disease or a disorder, is mistaken. In this commentary we critically examine his arguments for this claim. We find these arguments to rest on some problematical and largely undefended assumptions about notions of disease, disorder and the demarcation between them and good health. Even if addiction does seem to differ from some typical brain diseases, we believe contrary to Lewis, that there are still good reasons to maintain its classification as a mental or beha...
Source: Neuroethics - November 14, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Is Addiction a Brain Disease?
AbstractWhere does normal brain or psychological function end, and pathology begin? The line can be hard to discern, making disease sometimes a tricky word. In addiction, normal ‘wanting’ processes become distorted and excessive, according to the incentive-sensitization theory. Excessive ‘wanting’ results from drug-induced neural sensitization changes in underlying brain mesolimbic systems of incentive. ‘Brain disease’ was never used by the theory, but neural se nsitization changes are arguably extreme enough and problematic enough to be called pathological. This implies that ‘brain disease’ can be a legiti...
Source: Neuroethics - November 6, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
