Epoch Times - The Wrong Approach to Mental Health | David Cohen
Aired: 2026-01-21
Duration: 02:02


=== Rule Out Physical Illness (02:00) ===

[00:00:01]  Recently, an official, a high official in Health and Human Services not so long ago asked me, what's the best way to treat mental illness?
[00:00:09]  And I didn't, my answer is not relevant.
[00:00:11]  It's what I should have answered.
[00:00:13]  I didn't quite answer it exactly.
[00:00:15]  I should have answered that the best way to treat mental illness is to first rule out medical physical illness.
[00:00:23]  First rule out that the person does not have an infection, some kind of metabolic problem, an undiagnosed brain tumor.
[00:00:33]  Rule out the physical that you say is really there, but you're never finding it.
[00:00:39]  It's so odd that we're convinced it's medical.
[00:00:43]  It's an illness like any other.
[00:00:45]  It's a disease like any other disease.
[00:00:48]  We have supposedly insurance parity for it.
[00:00:50]  Everything is like it, except where is the physical trace?
[00:00:54]  How come to diagnose it?
[00:00:56]  You have to look me in the eyes and see what's not on my lips, in my heart.
[00:01:01]  You have to have all these other theories, but to diagnose my tuberculosis, you don't even need to see me.
[00:01:07]  You just need an x-ray of my lungs.
[00:01:09]  What exactly is this disease that you don't even put your stethoscope on me?
[00:01:16]  In fact, you don't even shake my hands anymore.
[00:01:18]  You're just talking to me.
[00:01:19]  What kind of disease is diagnosed this way and is like any other disease?
[00:01:23]  It's obviously not like any other disease.
[00:01:26]  So rule out any other disease first.
[00:01:31]  Involve the medical in it this way.
[00:01:34]  And then if you cannot find the cause, you can keep searching for it, but don't put 99% of your energy saying, well, we know what the cause is.
[00:01:43]  It's physical.
[00:01:44]  We just haven't found it yet.
[00:01:45]  Enough is enough already.
[00:01:47]  Why don't you focus on what is the exact problem the person is first bringing?
[00:01:51]  And if you feel you need interpretation of that, well, then go get trained and become a psychoanalyst or a cognitive behaviorist or a humanist or a trauma specialist and dig into it.