Philosophy Discussion Forums

Memaw18 wrote: ↑November 7th, 2021, 11:44 am I'm working as a social worker. Stress is nature. It depends on the individual on how much they were affected by stress. Too much stress/pressure will cause an imbalance which is bad. However, stress can be something that makes us more human, it makes us learn and it makes us be more than what we think we are. So they are probably referring to TOO MUCH.

I think every being is subjected to various stresses. Even getting hungry is a stress to the body and mind. But as humans we face many more stresses than such basic stresses. So maybe stresses do not make us humans, but being humans make us more prone to be exposed to a lot of stresses.

Yes, too much stress can affect a person badly. But I think all that depends on the individual's coping skills. Two individuals can face same stress levels differently and at the end one can totally go down while the other get out from it successfully.

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 9th, 2021, 3:30 pm

Sushan wrote: ↑November 9th, 2021, 4:54 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:51 am

Sushan wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:37 am

I agree. Both components are there. But what is having more potential to break someone? I think most of people can tolerate immense stress for a short time rather than tolerating relatively low levels of stress for a longer duration. Depression can be found in people who are exposed to low stress levels for a long duration, but not in people who experience stress from time to time.

Well sadness is commonly caused by sad situations, which are by definition typically stressful. Depression is classically cause by neurochemical imbalance.

When we look at the history of psychology and psychiatry, clinicians thought of some illnesses as problems of thoughts and some as issues with the brain. But nowadays all the psychiatric disorders are considered as having a brain related etiology. So the chemical imbalance part has a validity. And for such a change to occur some time is needed. To such a change to become irreversible further more time is needed. So effect to the person will be determined more by the time than the severity as I see it.

If you are hypothesizing that prolonged exposure to stress can cause clinical depression independent of further stress in someone without previous mood disorder, I am unaware of data to support it.

There are psychiatric disorders that need more genetic predesposition to occur. But some like depression are related more with environmental factors. That does not totally exclude genetic factors and personality traits. But there are people (whom I have met in my clinical practice) that succumbed to depression without any history of mood disorders or a known genetic predesposition (no known family history). I agree that there is a high chance that their brains have been acting differently from the beginning. But we currently have no methods to check such things, and also we usually don't do such tests since we diagnose people depending on their physical and mental outcome in psychiatric disorders (this does not include organic psychiatric disorders).

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:55 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 9th, 2021, 3:30 pm

Sushan wrote: ↑November 9th, 2021, 4:54 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:51 am

Well sadness is commonly caused by sad situations, which are by definition typically stressful. Depression is classically cause by neurochemical imbalance.

When we look at the history of psychology and psychiatry, clinicians thought of some illnesses as problems of thoughts and some as issues with the brain. But nowadays all the psychiatric disorders are considered as having a brain related etiology. So the chemical imbalance part has a validity. And for such a change to occur some time is needed. To such a change to become irreversible further more time is needed. So effect to the person will be determined more by the time than the severity as I see it.

If you are hypothesizing that prolonged exposure to stress can cause clinical depression independent of further stress in someone without previous mood disorder, I am unaware of data to support it.

There are psychiatric disorders that need more genetic predesposition to occur. But some like depression are related more with environmental factors. That does not totally exclude genetic factors and personality traits. But there are people (whom I have met in my clinical practice) that succumbed to depression without any history of mood disorders or a known genetic predesposition (no known family history). I agree that there is a high chance that their brains have been acting differently from the beginning. But we currently have no methods to check such things, and also we usually don't do such tests since we diagnose people depending on their physical and mental outcome in psychiatric disorders (this does not include organic psychiatric disorders).

So these folks had no history of depression, suffered a stressful situation, naturally felt sad, then later after the stress was lifted continued on to clinical depression?

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:08 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:50 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:51 am

Well sadness is commonly caused by sad situations, which are by definition typically stressful. Depression is classically cause by neurochemical imbalance.

No. Depression IS a chemical imbalance.

It can be triggered by adverse circumstances, or other conditions.
You might was well say that the chemical imbalance is caused by depression as the other way round.
Its really about perspective.

The argument depends on the belief of the presence of 'mind'. Some say there is a seperate thing called mind. But some say mind is also a result of chemical reactions that occur in our brain cells. If the latter is correct, whatever the emotions we feel will be a chemical balance or an imbalance. But if mind and brain are two seperate things then the relationship in between and the affect from one to the other has to be considered.

There is no empirical basis for a non corporeal "mind", or "soul".
How would such a thing be affected by or have an effect upon the physicality of the world.
It seem to me that it makes more sense to say the "mind" is what the brain does.

There is a massive sleight of hand in the medical profession in which practicioners fool the patient into thinking that they know more than then. Like many experts they rely on a more detailed lexicon. "Bulsh.. Baffles the Brains" as the saying goes.
For example a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis sounds like the doctor knows what he is talking about, yet the phrase is no more than a literal description of scarring of the lungs and the word idiopathic means cause unknown.
Macroglossia might sound like a specific disease but its just a literal description. Swollen Tongue.
I had a friend who got an ear "disease" when she was a child. For years she thought she had had a disease otitis media until she was told 25 years later that otitis media just means inflamation of the inner ear.

"Chemical Imbalance" is just a catch all phrase for a brain state that is undesirable and points to no cause, no diagnosis and no specific treatment regime.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 11th, 2021, 4:58 am

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:08 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:50 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:51 am

Well sadness is commonly caused by sad situations, which are by definition typically stressful. Depression is classically cause by neurochemical imbalance.

No. Depression IS a chemical imbalance.

It can be triggered by adverse circumstances, or other conditions.
You might was well say that the chemical imbalance is caused by depression as the other way round.
Its really about perspective.

The argument depends on the belief of the presence of 'mind'. Some say there is a seperate thing called mind. But some say mind is also a result of chemical reactions that occur in our brain cells. If the latter is correct, whatever the emotions we feel will be a chemical balance or an imbalance. But if mind and brain are two seperate things then the relationship in between and the affect from one to the other has to be considered.

There is no empirical basis for a non corporeal "mind", or "soul".
How would such a thing be affected by or have an effect upon the physicality of the world.
It seem to me that it makes more sense to say the "mind" is what the brain does.

There is a massive sleight of hand in the medical profession in which practicioners fool the patient into thinking that they know more than then. Like many experts they rely on a more detailed lexicon. "Bulsh.. Baffles the Brains" as the saying goes.
For example a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis sounds like the doctor knows what he is talking about, yet the phrase is no more than a literal description of scarring of the lungs and the word idiopathic means cause unknown.
Macroglossia might sound like a specific disease but its just a literal description. Swollen Tongue.
I had a friend who got an ear "disease" when she was a child. For years she thought she had had a disease otitis media until she was told 25 years later that otitis media just means inflamation of the inner ear.

"Chemical Imbalance" is just a catch all phrase for a brain state that is undesirable and points to no cause, no diagnosis and no specific treatment regime.

Speaking of sleight of hand, you are implying deceit where there isn't any. You are pointing out symptoms, conditions, diagnoses and diseases as if they are all diseases.

IPF as you correctly noted means the cause of the fibrosis is unknown, not everything is known. Conditions with unknown causes commonly have diagnostic tests and treatments, that's what most patients care about.

Macroglossia is a symptom. So is headache. Not controversial.

Otitis media is a condition, commonly caused by bacterial infection secondary to eustachion tube malfunction, treated with antibiotics and ear tubes if recurrent. Not a disease.

Chemical imbalance is a lay term (used for simplistic conversations), not a medical term.

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 12:18 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 11th, 2021, 4:58 am

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:08 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:50 pm

No. Depression IS a chemical imbalance.

It can be triggered by adverse circumstances, or other conditions.
You might was well say that the chemical imbalance is caused by depression as the other way round.
Its really about perspective.

The argument depends on the belief of the presence of 'mind'. Some say there is a seperate thing called mind. But some say mind is also a result of chemical reactions that occur in our brain cells. If the latter is correct, whatever the emotions we feel will be a chemical balance or an imbalance. But if mind and brain are two seperate things then the relationship in between and the affect from one to the other has to be considered.

There is no empirical basis for a non corporeal "mind", or "soul".
How would such a thing be affected by or have an effect upon the physicality of the world.
It seem to me that it makes more sense to say the "mind" is what the brain does.

There is a massive sleight of hand in the medical profession in which practicioners fool the patient into thinking that they know more than then. Like many experts they rely on a more detailed lexicon. "Bulsh.. Baffles the Brains" as the saying goes.
For example a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis sounds like the doctor knows what he is talking about, yet the phrase is no more than a literal description of scarring of the lungs and the word idiopathic means cause unknown.
Macroglossia might sound like a specific disease but its just a literal description. Swollen Tongue.
I had a friend who got an ear "disease" when she was a child. For years she thought she had had a disease otitis media until she was told 25 years later that otitis media just means inflamation of the inner ear.

"Chemical Imbalance" is just a catch all phrase for a brain state that is undesirable and points to no cause, no diagnosis and no specific treatment regime.

Speaking of sleight of hand, you are implying deceit where there isn't any. You are pointing out symptoms, conditions, diagnoses and diseases as if they are all diseases.

IPF as you correctly noted means the cause of the fibrosis is unknown, not everything is known. Conditions with unknown causes commonly have diagnostic tests and treatments, that's what most patients care about.

Macroglossia is a symptom. So is headache. Not controversial.

Otitis media is a condition, commonly caused by bacterial infection secondary to eustachion tube malfunction, treated with antibiotics and ear tubes if recurrent. Not a disease.

Chemical imbalance is a lay term (used for simplistic conversations), not a medical term.

I can tell you now that you have an odd idea what a disease is. An infection is a disease.
Chemical imbalance is not a lay term, but one invented by psych medicine to assure lay persons that they know what they are talking about, when in fact they are mostly clueless. It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments.

Sculptor wrote:

------ An infection is a disease.
Chemical imbalance is not a lay term, but one invented by psych medicine to assure lay persons that they know what they are talking about, when in fact they are mostly clueless. It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments.

I'd define as a disease any constant syndrome, whether or not it was acute or infectious or both.

I have very limited experience of so called mental illness. My best friend got what was called manic depression at the age of nineteen following heatstroke. He had it all his life Electric shock treatments did him no good but the specific mood stabiliser lithium seemed to stop the most damaging mania. All sorts of talking therapies did him no good but owning his life's purpose helped him quite a lot.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 7:21 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 12:18 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 11th, 2021, 4:58 am

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:08 pm

The argument depends on the belief of the presence of 'mind'. Some say there is a seperate thing called mind. But some say mind is also a result of chemical reactions that occur in our brain cells. If the latter is correct, whatever the emotions we feel will be a chemical balance or an imbalance. But if mind and brain are two seperate things then the relationship in between and the affect from one to the other has to be considered.

There is no empirical basis for a non corporeal "mind", or "soul".
How would such a thing be affected by or have an effect upon the physicality of the world.
It seem to me that it makes more sense to say the "mind" is what the brain does.

There is a massive sleight of hand in the medical profession in which practicioners fool the patient into thinking that they know more than then. Like many experts they rely on a more detailed lexicon. "Bulsh.. Baffles the Brains" as the saying goes.
For example a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis sounds like the doctor knows what he is talking about, yet the phrase is no more than a literal description of scarring of the lungs and the word idiopathic means cause unknown.
Macroglossia might sound like a specific disease but its just a literal description. Swollen Tongue.
I had a friend who got an ear "disease" when she was a child. For years she thought she had had a disease otitis media until she was told 25 years later that otitis media just means inflamation of the inner ear.

"Chemical Imbalance" is just a catch all phrase for a brain state that is undesirable and points to no cause, no diagnosis and no specific treatment regime.

Speaking of sleight of hand, you are implying deceit where there isn't any. You are pointing out symptoms, conditions, diagnoses and diseases as if they are all diseases.

IPF as you correctly noted means the cause of the fibrosis is unknown, not everything is known. Conditions with unknown causes commonly have diagnostic tests and treatments, that's what most patients care about.

Macroglossia is a symptom. So is headache. Not controversial.

Otitis media is a condition, commonly caused by bacterial infection secondary to eustachion tube malfunction, treated with antibiotics and ear tubes if recurrent. Not a disease.

Chemical imbalance is a lay term (used for simplistic conversations), not a medical term.

I can tell you now that you have an odd idea what a disease is. An infection is a disease.
Chemical imbalance is not a lay term, but one invented by psych medicine to assure lay persons that they know what they are talking about, when in fact they are mostly clueless. It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments.

And why wouldn't "psych meficine" folks (who are commonly paid fee-for-service) choose to not be paid more?

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 2:33 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 7:21 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 12:18 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 11th, 2021, 4:58 am

There is no empirical basis for a non corporeal "mind", or "soul".
How would such a thing be affected by or have an effect upon the physicality of the world.
It seem to me that it makes more sense to say the "mind" is what the brain does.

There is a massive sleight of hand in the medical profession in which practicioners fool the patient into thinking that they know more than then. Like many experts they rely on a more detailed lexicon. "Bulsh.. Baffles the Brains" as the saying goes.
For example a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis sounds like the doctor knows what he is talking about, yet the phrase is no more than a literal description of scarring of the lungs and the word idiopathic means cause unknown.
Macroglossia might sound like a specific disease but its just a literal description. Swollen Tongue.
I had a friend who got an ear "disease" when she was a child. For years she thought she had had a disease otitis media until she was told 25 years later that otitis media just means inflamation of the inner ear.

"Chemical Imbalance" is just a catch all phrase for a brain state that is undesirable and points to no cause, no diagnosis and no specific treatment regime.

Speaking of sleight of hand, you are implying deceit where there isn't any. You are pointing out symptoms, conditions, diagnoses and diseases as if they are all diseases.

IPF as you correctly noted means the cause of the fibrosis is unknown, not everything is known. Conditions with unknown causes commonly have diagnostic tests and treatments, that's what most patients care about.

Macroglossia is a symptom. So is headache. Not controversial.

Otitis media is a condition, commonly caused by bacterial infection secondary to eustachion tube malfunction, treated with antibiotics and ear tubes if recurrent. Not a disease.

Chemical imbalance is a lay term (used for simplistic conversations), not a medical term.

I can tell you now that you have an odd idea what a disease is. An infection is a disease.
Chemical imbalance is not a lay term, but one invented by psych medicine to assure lay persons that they know what they are talking about, when in fact they are mostly clueless. It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments.

And why wouldn't "psych meficine" folks (who are commonly paid fee-for-service) choose to not be paid more?

I do not understand the relevance of the question, but it looks like a prelude to a conspiraacy theory.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 6:38 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 2:33 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 7:21 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 12:18 am

Speaking of sleight of hand, you are implying deceit where there isn't any. You are pointing out symptoms, conditions, diagnoses and diseases as if they are all diseases.

IPF as you correctly noted means the cause of the fibrosis is unknown, not everything is known. Conditions with unknown causes commonly have diagnostic tests and treatments, that's what most patients care about.

Macroglossia is a symptom. So is headache. Not controversial.

Otitis media is a condition, commonly caused by bacterial infection secondary to eustachion tube malfunction, treated with antibiotics and ear tubes if recurrent. Not a disease.

Chemical imbalance is a lay term (used for simplistic conversations), not a medical term.

I can tell you now that you have an odd idea what a disease is. An infection is a disease.
Chemical imbalance is not a lay term, but one invented by psych medicine to assure lay persons that they know what they are talking about, when in fact they are mostly clueless. It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments.

And why wouldn't "psych meficine" folks (who are commonly paid fee-for-service) choose to not be paid more?

I do not understand the relevance of the question, but it looks like a prelude to a conspiraacy theory.

Well you're the one implying that "psych medicine" folk are using clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments. In other words to pay their practitioners less.

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 11:56 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 6:38 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 2:33 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 12th, 2021, 7:21 am

I can tell you now that you have an odd idea what a disease is. An infection is a disease.
Chemical imbalance is not a lay term, but one invented by psych medicine to assure lay persons that they know what they are talking about, when in fact they are mostly clueless. It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments.

And why wouldn't "psych meficine" folks (who are commonly paid fee-for-service) choose to not be paid more?

I do not understand the relevance of the question, but it looks like a prelude to a conspiraacy theory.

Well you're the one implying that "psych medicine" folk are using clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments. In other words to pay their practitioners less.

All medicine has used symptomic desriptors in place of knowking the real causes since they adotped Latin as jargon. This has been going on for 100s of years. I never said any thing about "clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments.". So I do not feel obligated to respond to an obvious baiting.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 1:12 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 11:56 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 6:38 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 2:33 am

And why wouldn't "psych meficine" folks (who are commonly paid fee-for-service) choose to not be paid more?

I do not understand the relevance of the question, but it looks like a prelude to a conspiraacy theory.

Well you're the one implying that "psych medicine" folk are using clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments. In other words to pay their practitioners less.

All medicine has used symptomic desriptors in place of knowking the real causes since they adotped Latin as jargon. This has been going on for 100s of years. I never said any thing about "clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments.". So I do not feel obligated to respond to an obvious baiting.

I believe this is a direct quote: "It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments".

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 14th, 2021, 2:15 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 1:12 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 11:56 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 13th, 2021, 6:38 am

I do not understand the relevance of the question, but it looks like a prelude to a conspiraacy theory.

Well you're the one implying that "psych medicine" folk are using clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments. In other words to pay their practitioners less.

All medicine has used symptomic desriptors in place of knowking the real causes since they adotped Latin as jargon. This has been going on for 100s of years. I never said any thing about "clueless platitudes to fool patients to pay for less expensive treatments.". So I do not feel obligated to respond to an obvious baiting.

I believe this is a direct quote: "It is a reassuring platitude, and an excuse to treat with chemicals, rather than more expensive treatments".

Yes that is what I said.
It is a no brainer that psychological and psychiatric medicine tends to reach for the drugs rather than offer group therapy, art therapy cognitive therapy, and time consuming consultancy.
I am sure you will agree.

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 11th, 2021, 2:58 am

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:55 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 9th, 2021, 3:30 pm

Sushan wrote: ↑November 9th, 2021, 4:54 am

When we look at the history of psychology and psychiatry, clinicians thought of some illnesses as problems of thoughts and some as issues with the brain. But nowadays all the psychiatric disorders are considered as having a brain related etiology. So the chemical imbalance part has a validity. And for such a change to occur some time is needed. To such a change to become irreversible further more time is needed. So effect to the person will be determined more by the time than the severity as I see it.

If you are hypothesizing that prolonged exposure to stress can cause clinical depression independent of further stress in someone without previous mood disorder, I am unaware of data to support it.

There are psychiatric disorders that need more genetic predesposition to occur. But some like depression are related more with environmental factors. That does not totally exclude genetic factors and personality traits. But there are people (whom I have met in my clinical practice) that succumbed to depression without any history of mood disorders or a known genetic predesposition (no known family history). I agree that there is a high chance that their brains have been acting differently from the beginning. But we currently have no methods to check such things, and also we usually don't do such tests since we diagnose people depending on their physical and mental outcome in psychiatric disorders (this does not include organic psychiatric disorders).

So these folks had no history of depression, suffered a stressful situation, naturally felt sad, then later after the stress was lifted continued on to clinical depression?

The stressor may have been lifted physically, but the person might have been having the mental ssuffering throughout the time despite his/her family being very much supportive.

One example was about a law student who was diagnosed with depression following a relationship breakup. She had no psychiatric history, and her traceable family history also was clear from any psychiatric illness. She was a bright student until she came to the university, fell in love, and finally ended up in a breakup. Then she started to act wierdly and all her academic performances reduced. Then it continued to become a widespread unhappiness which affected her day to life as well. Ultimately she was diagnosed with clinical depression without psychotic symptoms, and I happened to meet her in the asylum for the mentally ill people.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 11th, 2021, 4:58 am

Sushan wrote: ↑November 10th, 2021, 10:08 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:50 pm

LuckyR wrote: ↑November 6th, 2021, 1:51 am

Well sadness is commonly caused by sad situations, which are by definition typically stressful. Depression is classically cause by neurochemical imbalance.

No. Depression IS a chemical imbalance.

It can be triggered by adverse circumstances, or other conditions.
You might was well say that the chemical imbalance is caused by depression as the other way round.
Its really about perspective.

The argument depends on the belief of the presence of 'mind'. Some say there is a seperate thing called mind. But some say mind is also a result of chemical reactions that occur in our brain cells. If the latter is correct, whatever the emotions we feel will be a chemical balance or an imbalance. But if mind and brain are two seperate things then the relationship in between and the affect from one to the other has to be considered.

There is no empirical basis for a non corporeal "mind", or "soul".
How would such a thing be affected by or have an effect upon the physicality of the world.
It seem to me that it makes more sense to say the "mind" is what the brain does.

There is a massive sleight of hand in the medical profession in which practicioners fool the patient into thinking that they know more than then. Like many experts they rely on a more detailed lexicon. "Bulsh.. Baffles the Brains" as the saying goes.
For example a diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis sounds like the doctor knows what he is talking about, yet the phrase is no more than a literal description of scarring of the lungs and the word idiopathic means cause unknown.
Macroglossia might sound like a specific disease but its just a literal description. Swollen Tongue.
I had a friend who got an ear "disease" when she was a child. For years she thought she had had a disease otitis media until she was told 25 years later that otitis media just means inflamation of the inner ear.

"Chemical Imbalance" is just a catch all phrase for a brain state that is undesirable and points to no cause, no diagnosis and no specific treatment regime.

Many medical terms are of Latin origin. So even the simple terms may hear like a big term. But the specific terms are continously used because of their significance and the wide recognition by the doctors. Yes, Otitis media is an inflammation of the ear, and that is for the common people. But there is a difference to the clinicians. When it is said like otitis media then the illness is well understood and medicine can be prescribed without any more clarifications. But if it is said like inflammation of the ear then a whole lot of questions have to be asked to diagnose the illness and prescribe medication.

Idiopathic means cause not known, I agree. But that does not necessarily mean that there is no cause. Medical science is still evolving and there are lot to be found. Until then such cases will remain as idiopathic. But even such conditions are being treated though sometimes are not being cured. This is common to psychiatric illnesses as well. Many are being treated by addressing the known chemical imbalances (i.e. Dopaminergic pathway, seretonin pathway, etc) of the brain. And now the researches are expanded to look for problems at cellular level which might cause psychiatric illnesses. Then the therapies will be much more advanced.