Hi! Lifelong experiencer of depression and several mental disorders. Am I mentally ill, or is the world really actually a horrible and callous place where most humans spend their time being negligent and abusive towards each other? At very best, psychiatrists might claim to be able to open up a wider perspective, which is why they used to be called "head-shrinkers", for their ability to humble and to remove egoist barriers, but a bit of meditation will do that too. So, is psychiatry's ability to give perspective worth the pathologizing effect that it has on people?
Why isn’t it both? There are earthy cultures around the world that don’t have a concept of ownership or the strict boundaries of western life, living in different places and cultures is easier for some and you can easily make the critical case against the western world, ill or not.
The trouble with a social intervention like therapy is the fundamental attribution error in sociology. Which character is the problem and which is the solution played out in a battle of the minds in an enclosed space. The government employed brainwashing therapist seeking to downplay any eccentricity that destabilises a social norm, or the poorly functioning client who blames others for their problems.
Therapists have a habit of dumping the responsibility for generally unsolved philosophical questions about social interaction onto the client. Where is the line between internal and external social stimuli? Who do you attribute your problems to? What is the value in a diagnosis label? Answer these questions for yourself and you’ll cure many different ailments. Fail to find the answer and remain pathologized?
Therapists routinely underserve the amount of education and philosophy required to heal. The diagnostic categories are a descriptive mess that are used as tools, yet people use them as definitions far too often.
I recommend anyone interested in therapy and ideas to see Jordan peterson’s YouTube video Self-Deception in Psychopathology (from before his fame) where he gives a quick rundown of a view above the current running mill of therapy. It tackles briefly some philosophical problems with therapy.
I like how you worded that. I definitely have my moments when cynicism takes hold and I lose most desire to do anything creative or productive. I normally power through it and double down on walking and running. It’s not a 100% fix but it certainly prevents the feeling from being my overwhelming mind state. While I guess the definition fits, mental illness seems a hard word for depression. It does seem that the tide is turning and the stigma around mental health has steadily lifted with most people.
I have mixed feelings around Psychology and Psychiatry. I still feel like there are too many doctors offering pills to cure your ailments without getting to the root of the problem. But that isn’t every doctor and I have seen things like CBT improve people’s lives. Ultimately I think that some of the “cure” must come from within and you have to want to change. I think a good doctor and therapist will help someone unload and frame things in such a way as to encourage that.
Broadly, the world is indeed arguably a horrible place. Within that context, one might hope that psychiatrists can help some with their immediate suffering.
The myopic view of treating everyone with antidepressives seems to be the result of capitalism exporting lifestyle problems and solutions to those problems, solutions that can be monetised and which create new problems. But, a big but, there is a segment of population which does need to be at some point in their life on antidepressants, clinical depression is real. These people have no reason to be depressed and yet they can’t get out of bed. We have to make sure we make this distinction though. Clinical depression cannot be denied unless one is ignorant or didn’t have first hand experience themselves or or someone close.
