Phobias In DSM Are Psuedoscience

1. Con claims that the term mental disorder does not imply cause and effect, yet he contradicts himself because in the definition he provides we clearly find it in item E: E) neither deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) nor conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict is a symptom of a dysfunction in the individual. The cause is the dysfunction and the effect is the deviant behavior. 2. This is not the only thing Con has contradicted himself on. Con claims: "it is possible that people can make poor choices and behaviors under the stresses of rational fear." No it is not possible. They may begin with rational fear but the first irrational though that leads to poor behavior is irrational and then categorically becomes irrational fear. Again, in his own definition, we see that when the poor choices come we see "mental disorder" begin to rear it"s irrational head defined under Item B: B) Is associated with present distress (e.g., a painful symptom) or disability (i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning) or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom 3. Con states that science can prove that people can have the same subjective responses to real fear and irrational fear. I agree, but this does not disprove any of my points, nor contradicts my main argument. Science may prove a person has an irrational fear occurring when they are near a low elevation environment, but they cannot prove the low elevation is the cause. The reason for this is that a low elevation does not cause discomfort to the rational mind. It also doesn"t cause discomfort to the irrational mind, because low elevation can only be proven to do one thing, cause comfort. To argue other wise is like saying that sometimes the laws of physics change, that there is no conservation of energy or that if two spheres have exact collision there is more than one outcome. Laws don"t change and low elevation only causes confort. Ignorance of cause, doesn"t mean laws change. If we had a Pavlov dog and Diamond, Isaac Newton"s dog, and we rang a bell and Diamond was the only dog that didn"t salivate, it is not science to say a bell causes a dog to salivate. You could never prove the bell causes the dog to salivate, because it is not the cause and never can be the cause. Nor is low elevation when a person is filled with extreme fright and saying it"s too high. If salivation were a mental disorder in this case we would be able to track down a cause and help them to get over the disorder. Finding the cause is the solution to preventing the continuance of any problem. I am saddened to hear you say the APA and DSM committee have no interest in causes. I hope you are wrong or there is a misunderstanding. 4. Con states I have conceded that phobias that DSM list as mental disorders are pseudo-science, because I said people have irrational fears. But I didn"t say people have irrational fears, I said people have irrational fear. I never said science can prove any x-phobia. Therefore I"m nowhere near a concession. 5. Con says I did not initially clarify the statement about that which causes the disorder, is the disorder. Con says that point is still unclear and that I have conceded the topic. My whole argument extrapolated on the point of cause and effect being implicated. I showed how I came to the conclusion, gave a conceptual example as well as a specific example of how cause and effect is tied into the definition of the disorder. The most obvious address of this point was how medical doctors, who clearly practice science, name high cholesterol. After that example I went on and proved how Con"s analogy was very poor choice of comparison because it missed my point entirely, yet I showed how it could be salvaged and used properly which proves my main point: call it what it is, not what it isn"t.