> As if having a psychogenic illness is some kind of weakness.

Having a mental illness is not a weakness. But the problem with the term psychogenic is history teaches us it probably doesn't exist, and if it did exist, we could never truly be confident of it.

Through the history of medicine we have had illnesses come up such as Multiple Sclerosis, that contemporary medicine at the time failed to understand, and falsely believing they somehow had good enough testing at the time that if they couldn't find anything wrong with someone then there could be nothing wrong, they label it a psychogenic problem. This happened over and over and over again. You'd think medicine would learn. On top of that psychology also over history has had this weird obsession with trying to fill the void in these cases, with big psychologists/psychiatrists seemingly trying to claim new territory in the name of their field.

The idea of the functional disorder presented in the story is testable in this case. (It doesn't make sense to me given the symptoms described but assuming it did). Take these patients, send them to this magical school that they said fixes people's functional disorders, and let's see if they recover. But please do not blame any of these people if they don't recover after this treatment, as is usually what happens when the labels functional disorder and psychogenic are applied. (You're not trying hard enough, you're not believing in the cure enough, etc.)

Conversion disorder is a particularly despicable label to give someone that for some reason some neurologist still do, usually because they can't just admit they don't know what's wrong. (See Jen Brea's story.)

Any kind of illness, including a mental illness, is a weakness.

If you want to play a game with literal definitions, maybe. The problem is that this phrasing implies fault and stigma. No one should be considered weak for this.

Let's agree to disagree, then. :)

This issue is so important that you will not get agreement to disagree from me on this. I hope you don't have to deal with a loved one, or god forbid your own self, suffering from a horrible illness to see how idiotic your opinion is, because in addition to not being the fault of the suffer it is not a lot of fun. Then some jerk like you will come along and make that sufferer feel worse. So if you have it in you, please be less of a jerk.

Personal attacks are not ok on HN, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Even if someone else is being a jerk, responding in kind helps nothing. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not posting like this here in the future?

>Then some jerk like you will come along and make that sufferer feel worse

That's absolutely ridiculous. Its absurd to deny reality to preserve people's feelings. One can acknowledge that mental illness is a form of weakness without treating people poorly. The problem doesn't come from the fact that people consider mental illness as a form of weakness, but from the fact that mental illness makes people less resilient to life's trials.

Pretending there's nothing wrong with being mentally ill doesn't do anyone any favors; in fact I'd argue it's worse than acknowledgement as it may discourage treatment at least as much as the current stigma.

I think the only one being a jerk here is you. Perhaps your definition of weakness needs adjustment, since you seem to conflate it with choice.

I'm afraid you misunderstand. If popular belief is that this happens to somebody because of weakness, or because they are weak people, people will resist talking about it and letting on that they show symptoms ("showing weakness") and there will be no treatment.

Then in real life, some people do react that way when people have the courage to admit to it, and if people are made to believe their symptoms are a character flaw, then again, no treatment, only people feeling bad.

I didn't make this stuff up, I've seen it happen.

And it doesn't happen to people from "their weakness". It is a very jerk move, and absurd, to go anywhere near that phrasing. Just as we don't get cancer or a broken leg from being weak people.

I understand your point. Still I disagree. I want to call things by their name even if calling them by their name might make people feel bad (not seek help, etc).

You say you understand it but I think you do not. If someone has cancer, do you say, "I guess a stronger person wouldn't have gotten that tumor"?

There are correlations with genetics that can make someone predisposed etc. but it is absolutely wrong thinking to say it happens because of "weakness", it is, however unfortunate, a natural part of the spectrum of human condition.

It isn't "you got cancer because you were weak", it's "getting cancer makes you weaker". There's a rather critical difference there.

Well according to your philosophy if you are suffering from a horrible illness you are not weaker, so there's no reason to feel bad about your illness. I wish I could wear that kind of rose-coloured glasses.

"weakness" is a bit of a judgemental word.

> Any kind of illness, including a mental illness, is a weakness.

That's too broad to remain true in all cases. You have to defined what is a weakness to what, or you're just making a meaningless laconic statement.

I have no aorta (due to a malformed aorta at birth). It's particularly good defense against an aortic dissection and guarantees no aortic aneurysm. If you have no arms or legs, good luck getting meta-carpal syndrome.

The point is that you've made a flippant comment with the misplaced expectation that it equates to wisdom.

Although other kinds of weaknesses can be temporary while mental illness is uniquely binary and permanent.

> mental illness is ... permanent

Disagree. Some mental illnesses are temporary.

For example some people will only have a single psychotic episode that will not recur: https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/mental-health-brie...

I imagine a lot of mental illnesses that do not involve psychosis are sometimes this way too, but this is the one that came to mind where the temporary aspect is literally part of the name.

Other than that... People can respond well to treatment, and many of the disorders are episodic, with the episodes being temporary.

That's actually a permanent problem that only rears its head when the shit hits the fan. If the triggering stress was applied consistently the mental illness would be ongoing.

I think that says more about the nature of psychosis brought on by extreme stress than it does about the patient. The article says genetics can be a factor, but for this diagnosis in particular calling it a permanent attribute of the sufferer seems misguided. It seems naive to think that most of us wouldn't completely break down with the right amount of stress, maybe varying amounts for different people.