a human being or a number?

i saw a topic a second ago titled '80% cured with drug + theropy combo' and i dunno why this just really pissed me off. i think stuff like this just feeds on peoples insecurities tbh, people who are trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel.

but dont feed into this bullshit, 'cure' the more i say 'cure' the more it sounds ridiculous. cure for what??? theres nothing actualy wrong with you folk to be cured!! ur all fine how you are, and i think u give urselfs harder times than you need to. some posts ive read...u drive yaselfs nutts thinkin your some sorta monsters!!

love ya selfs people, we live in a lovely world full of lovely people and animals to share it with, and thats all that matters!!!

lawl.

I saw the same post and wondered if you can be "cured" in such a way, or is the 80% being treated?

Does anyone know whether these social problems, anixeties, phobias etc can be cured? My understanding was that they can treated, very sucessfully, then I guess that is the cure. However, if you always have to take medication for the condition, surely that is treatment as opposed to cure?

All this sounds quite picky and petty I know, I was just wondering.

Peace xxx

I just want to add and example:- Diabetes is treated as is asthma, there is no cure. As opposed to an infected finger which can be cured. Hmm, I seem to have got mentally bogged down in this! :lol:

Peace xxx

Your right Fairy, from all the accounts I have read Social Phobia simply cannot be cured, it can be treated sure... but it's something to live with, it's not a mindset or a by-product of low confidence as Marie seems to assume.

theres nothing actualy wrong with you folk to be cured

Click to expand...

*sigh*

well i dont think it can be 'cured' as such, because if u scanned the brain of a social phobic and a non social phobic they would be pretty much identical. i suppose the only difference would be maybe low levels of dopamine and neuro transmitters that r abit rusty ( physcial of depression) but then social phobia is closely linked with depression and im sure many SA people also have depression. buts its like the chicken and the egg thing, which came first?

faulty cognitive fuctioning causing biological symptoms?

or faulty biologicaly functions causing impaired cognitve function?

how can social phobia be anything else but as a result of low self esteem and learned behaviour when u look at it like that.

if were gonna look at more psychological approaches like freud, and even behavioural psychology, they would suggest that somewhere in your childhoods you used this sort of retreat to deal with social interactions as a child, which was ok as a child. but now as a adult they dont work for your benefit and then we have a problem coz thats all you know!

research has proved that cognitive and behavioural psychological explainations provide the best all round explaination (that can be applied to more of the general population) than biological explainations when it comes too mood disorders and anxietys. biological would be your memory loss disorders etc which arent 100% curable. where as people who have had SA have been 100% cured with 20 something % (cant remember) provailence rates.

research has proven women are most likely to suffer from mood and anxiety disorders and highter rates in women than men to be introverts. there is a correlation in all these figures.

in conclusion to a very basic not well written psychogical arguement. SA cant be 'cured' because there is no physical damage to be cured off, just phyiscal symptoms similair to that of stress, which is when you, in your mind, cant cope, and more shit to do with the hypothalamus and how that reacts to percieved stress, and it is the hypothalamus and the chemicals that it will release that will result in the physical symptoms. so to break it down -

cognitive impairment (wrong image of the world around them). personally i belive that SA is extreme shyness which causes ongoing stress.

like a toaser and bread makes toast. shyness (cognitive) and stress (physical symptoms) creates the phycal symptomed condition which is social phobia.

btw i could go on lol

It is an interesting point, to scan the brains of an SA sufferer and someone without these issues. However, would a scan show chemical imbalance? Is SA a chemical imbalance or a phobia? I think it is a phobia, which will, as you write, often co-exist with depression, which is a chemical imbalance.

I agree that social problems are often learnt in childhood, fine then, problematic in adult life. Or copied behaviour from parents or carers. I think SA is a cognitive problem, but, can it be cured with cognitive therapy? Or is it treated with cognitive therapy? Having now given this some thought, I would think it could be cured with cognitive therapy, but not cured, treated with medication. Hope this makes some kind of sense!

As for the hypothalmus, my understanding is, this is the part of the brain that processes emotion. In your formative years, age 0-2, if you suffer abuse or excess stress, the hypothalmus may not grow correctly. Therefore you may suffer with mental health problems as a child or adult. Now if parts of your brain are impaired, this could not be cured, only treated. Is SA alone linked to impaired brain function?

I suppose I could say, panic attacks whilst having physical symptons are mentally induced, so, physically there is nothing to treat. Whilst you feel like you are having a heart attack, it is the natural survival instinct of fight or flight.

Hmm, I hope this makes some kind of sense, I am feeling a little out of my depth here. I realise I have reiterated some of what Nikki has written, I guess my questions are quite subtle, and I don't feel I have a complete understanding. Also, there is so much about the human mind that remains a mystery, not just to me, the experts also! :lol:

Where does labotomy fit into this?

I am NO expert on this (you may have guessed!), please let me know if what I have written is complete rubbish.

Peace xxx

nah what u wrote werent complete bull crap mate lol i get what ur saying its hard to work out where exactly something started and why, like what u said about truama to the hypothalamus aged 0-2, its nearly impossible to know to a SA sufferer at 30 to work out cause and effect maybe? if there was damage, was it caused early in life or later in life? as a cause of SA or a effect?

and this is why the subject is so huge, because no matter how much research u do, u can never be 100% correct. or so it applies to everyone!

i do firmly believe though that we are all in control of our own destinys. even though i do psychology i also believe its a heap of shit also.

read up on schizophrenia and how thats formed and treated. it helps u to understand why SA is a cognitive condition and why its treated so well in cognitive behavioural theropy.