RE: Psychology Addict # 27 | Discussing Misconceptions about Psychology

This is a very clear comment @kryzsec, you put your queries forward in a straight-forward manner while also making interesting, relevant observations (with no confusion). And there is one here that I liked in particular! I will let you know when we get to it! :)

Your question about a possible misdiagnosis of a patient due to him or her be concealing information from the clinician is a reality that mental health professionals diagnosing patients face everyday. Sadly, this is why sometimes the same patient receive many different diagnosis through the course of the treatment. Something that is frequently seen in cases of borderline personality disorder (as you mentioned) and bipolar. When the client fails to report, let's say, their episodes of mania and only discuss the low-mood with the clinician. Well you know about this ...

So answering your question (that contained nothing wrong in it!):

So to restake my question, could the 16 week disparity of depression treatments (with ADMs compared to CT) be influenced by the potential that some of those diagnosed with depression might have another condition manifesting itself that way?

This is indeed a possibility! But not in this particular study because after the 16 week treatment, the research continued for another 2 years, throughout which the participants were regularly evaluated; therefore, making the likelihood of any other comorbid and or different condition other than depression be dismissed rather low. Of course this is a systematically conducted experiment. In real life things do NOT work quite like that :/ This is when the contribution of family and friends becomes essential for the therapist, as it provides "other eyes" to the overall situation.

And here comes the part I like the most :)

So my question is specifically about the stress part. Has stress not existed in humans forever or have we been cultivating an environment that is more and more stressful?

What a great question this is because it comes together with an insight "Stress always existed in human existence".

Yes, and stress is one of the very components on our biology that has allowed us to thrive as a species! However, the notion that Biological Psychologists put forward is that although culturally humans have come a long way from their ancestors, the timespan of a few ten thousands years is not sufficient to allow the biological evolution that modern life demands from our species. In other words, our brains and emotional systems are still pretty much the same from back in the day when our species lived in small kin-groups as hunters/ gatherers.

Thank you very much for you incredibly kind words about my writing.
They are very encouraging :)

All the best to you always.

ps: In my view there is nothing more constructive than a respectful discussion among people with diverging opinions! I suppose that is why you liked that teacher you mentioned.