Psychiatric diagnosis is not a scientific endeavor, although some of the most powerful people and organizations in the mental health field assert that it is. As a result, millions of people who seek help because they are suffering have no idea that they are not being diagnosed in scientific ways and thus that their treatment largely lacks a scientific basis; nor do they know that in important ways their treatment may be experimental because they are given labels that may not stand for anything that has been proven to exist. Furthermore, although drugs can be helpful for some people, it is important for the public and their therapists to know that they are often prescribed to treat diagnostic “entities” that may not even exist. Patients have a right to try anything that might help them, including medication, but it is essential that they do so after being fully informed of the limitations of the diagnostic labels that are usually the basis for therapists’ treatment recommendations.
The absence of science creates a vacuum, and biases and distortions rush in. This happens in three ways:
1. Such biases as racism, sexism, ageism, classism, and homophobia powerfully affect psychiatric diagnosis, becoming partial determinants of who gets a psychiatric label and of the seriousness of the label that is chosen.
2. Serious problems such as depression are overlooked as people are diagnosed with unproven “mental illnesses” such as Compulsive Shopping Disorder or Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.
3. Many people who are suffering because of social problems like poverty or because they are victims of hate speech or violence are wrongly treated as though the problems come from within them.
We want to put so called Psychiatric diagnosis, with its problems and possible solutions, on the national, public agenda
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Critiquing Psychiatric Diagnosis
The late Dr. George W. Albee, a very early pioneer in the critique of psychiatric diagnosis, was fearless in this work. The following is the text of a talk he gave about that topic when in Scotland to celebrate the life of Fr. Ignacio Martin-Baro, psychology professor and Vice-Rector of the Central American University in San Salvador
The Mental Disorder Muddle
George W. Albee, PhD
Emeritus Professor, University of Vermont
Courtesy Professor, Florida Mental Health Institute
7157 Longboat Dr. N.
Longboat Key, FL 34228
Emeritus Professor, University of Vermont
Courtesy Professor, Florida Mental Health Institute
7157 Longboat Dr. N.
Longboat Key, FL 34228
There are two major errors in the current approach to “mental health”. (These may be not errors, but deliberate distortions for political / economic reasons.)
The first is the insistence that many separate, discrete, and reliable mental illnesses exist, comparable to the many genuine reliable physical illnesses. The latter result from identifiable lesions, or microorganisms, or organ failure (as originally proposed 150 years ago by Rudolf Virchow) and have recognizable markers.
Mental disorders, on the other hand, are inferred from the behavior of persons, and no objective physical cause has been found, despite years of search. The insistence by psychiatry that abnormal behavior can only result from abnormal brain functioning (not yet identified) is nonsense. We already know that abnormal behavior often occurs with normal brain functioning. We also know that so-called mental disorders often occur, or are exacerbated by, the stresses that accompany abject poverty (or other toxic, hopeless social environments).
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THIS IS PROOF IN ITSELF OF A BRANDING AND LABELLING GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM OF NO SUBSTANCE, NEITHER ANY CONCRETE EVIDENCE OF ANY LUNACY OR IDIOCY THAT HAS EVER EXISTED
A CONVENIENCE FOR WHAT IS AND IS NOT SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE !
Acute stress disorder, Adjustment disorder, Agoraphobia, alcohol and substance abuse, alcohol and substance dependence, Amnesia, Anxiety disorder, Anorexia nervosa, Antisocial personality disorder, Asperger syndrome, Attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, Autism, Autophagia, Avoidant personality disorder, Bereavement, Bestiality, Bibliomania, Binge eating disorder, Bipolar disorder, Body dysmorphic disorder, Borderline personality disorder, Brief psychotic disorder, Bulimia nervosa, Childhood disintegrative disorder, Circadian rhythm sleep disorder, Conduct disorder, Conversion disorder, Cyclothymia, Delirium, Delusional disorder, Dementia, Dependent personality disorder, Depersonalization disorder, Depression, Disorder of written expression, Dissociative fugue, Dissociative identity disorder, Down syndrome, Dyslexia, Dyspareunia, Dyspraxia, Dysthymic disorder, Erotomania, Encopresis, Enuresis, Exhibitionism, Expressive language disorder, Factitious disorder, Female and male orThe highest rates of “idiocy and lunacy” in America were first among the millions of immigrant poverty-stricken Irish after the potato crop failure of 1845 then on successive waves of the poor Swedes, then the Slavs and Russian Jews, then the Southern Italians, now the Blacks and Hispanics...as each group achieved good education and economic success their incidence of “idiocy and lunacy” fell to the population average.
THIS IS PROOF IN ITSELF OF A BRANDING AND LABELLING GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM OF NO SUBSTANCE, NEITHER ANY CONCRETE EVIDENCE OF ANY LUNACY OR IDIOCY THAT HAS EVER EXISTED
A CONVENIENCE FOR WHAT IS AND IS NOT SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE !
Which leads to the second big error: the insistence on individual one-to-one intervention. Public Health has long taught that “No disease or disorder has ever been eliminated or controlled by individual treatment”. NO DISEASE OR DISORDER HAS EVER BEEN TREATED OUT OF EXISTENCE. Only prevention is effective. But the prevention of mental/emotional disorders can only happen with the reduction of poverty and toxic social environments, and such programs would be enormously expensive in tax dollars (for minimum wages, housing, education, health etc.) So, the Establishment backs the “brain defect model,” as it is far less expensive. Research support is available for a wide range of brain research, but funds are rarely available for research into social causes.
This article has been printed in its entirity and has not been edited in any way or form
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This article has been printed in its entirity and has not been edited in any way or form
gasmic disorders, Female sexual arousal disorder, Fetishism, Folie à deux, Frotteurism, Ganser syndrome, Gender identity disorder, Generalized anxiety disorder, General adaptation syndrome, Histrionic personality disorder, Hyperactivity disorder, Primary hypersomnia, Hypoactive sexual desire disorder, Hypochondriasis, Hyperkinetic syndrome, Hysteria, Intermittent explosive disorder, Joubert syndrome, Kleptomania, Mania, Male ere
ctile disorder, Munchausen syndrome, Mathematics disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder, Narcolepsy, Nightmares, Obsessive compulsive disorder, Obsessive compulsive personality disorder, Oneirophrenia, Oppositional defiant disorder, Pain disorder, Panic attacks, Panic disorder, Paraphilias, Paranoid personality disorder, Parasomnia, Pathological gambling, Pedophilia, Perfectionism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Pica, Postpartum Depression, Post-traumatic embitterment disorder, Post-traumatic stress disorder, Primary insomnia, Psychotic disorder, Pyromania, Reading disorder, Reactive attachment disorder, Retts disorder, Rumination disorder, Schizoaffective disorder, Schizoid, Schizophrenia, Schizophreniform disorder, Schizotypal personality disorder, Seasonal affective disorder, Self Injury, Separation anxiety disorder, Sexual Masochism and Sadism, Shared psychotic disorder, Sleep disorder, Sleep terror disorder, Sleepwalking disorder, Social phobia, Somatization disorder, Specific phobias, Stereotypic movement disorder, Stuttering, Suicide, Tourette syndrome, Transient tic disorder, Transvestic Fetishism, Trichotillomania, Vaginismus