Loftwings and Demons

I think the course of mental disorders is partly and sometimes entirely shaped by society or environment.  I think this is especially apparent with things like eating disorders given our society's obsession with appearance and weight, and its tendency to cause the very situations it then criticizes people for.  I think it is apparent that overwork and sleep deprivation contributes to depression, and lack of social acceptance contributes to depression.  Living in a society that's actively hostile to you and has no social safety net contributes to anxiety.  

The idea that this dysfunctional society would have no impact on mental health seems the more bizarre one to me, that somehow dysfunctional socialization would have no effect on an intensely social species.  That society couldn't cause chemical or structural changes in the brain, when we know that environment otherwise deeply affects brain development.  I also think it's bizarre to believe that there are changes in the brain that aren't chemical and structural, or that the solution to any mental problem should be 'just pull yourself up by your bootstraps'.

I just think it's so awful that there's been this dichotomy built up of mental illnes either being  'just a chemical imbalance' and therefore can't possibly be caused or to any extent alleviated by society or environmental changes, or it being 'just all in your head' and somehow entirely nonphysical and so you just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps because all medication or therapy is always pointless.  Neither of these things are true, and both attitudes give society a pass for its mistreatment of us.