I am sure that unless you're in the psychiatry sphere you're probably quite unaware of the ginormous issue it has, but as I cannot type about all of them in one blog post (either because I myself know I am not educated enough, or because I wouldn't stop talking and those are better kept for my alone ramblings), I will be referring to only one here. The, what I call and many would agree with this name, checklist approach that the DSM-III/IV/V brought to this profession.
Now, of course, I am not going against the existence of the DSM in itself, its idea is not per se wrong, and it for sure gave some much needed credibility to this profession, but the issue is the way it's being used. Now I don't know how many of you are familiar with the way psychiatric diagnoses are given, but I will make it easy. The same way you'd give a physiological diagnosis. They ask you some questions, check some symptoms, and then assign you the diagnosis that fits the criteria the best. Now you might not see the issue, but let me give you an example.
We have two patients.
The first one is a gay girl from an extremely religious and conservative country. She has experienced extreme misogyny on the daily, and gay people in her country get killed and no one does a thing. Her parents are alright but still keep these prejudices, and her father makes multiple comments about how all the gays should be killed and stuff like that, and they both believe as a woman she should never go to university and should instead find a husband and have children.
The second one is a straight boy who lives in a very wealthy town. He experienced mild bullying when he was young, and his parents while supportive, never knew how to handle the situation and belittled his feelings on the subject. He is quite shut in but he has some close friends, that he trusts more or less.
One day both of them have a mental breakdown, with no obvious trigger, where they scream "They're coming to kill me! They will get me and kill me!". When asked about who the 'they' is they do not answer.
Now I want you to tell me if these two cases are the same. Are their motivations, and reactions the same? Obviously no, yet in the eyes of the DSM-V, these are almost the same thing. If they would go to the same mediocre and uninterested psychiatrist, chances are they would get the same diagnostic. And that is the issue with how we put psychiatry in practice.
Psychiatry is in this weird spot where it bases all of its gospel on biology, without much of an actual proof that that biology actually exists. I am not one of the lunatics who believe everything is a social reaction, but the current argument that somehow all mental disorders are rooted in biology that psychiatry holds on a pedestal is... annoying at best. Psychiatrists have become basically a very educated and as accurate as you can get online "what's my mental illness" quiz that rewards you with a pill prescription at the end. And 70% of psychologists/therapists either don't believe they exist or only see them as two categories: mild depression or should be tied to a bed.
uff....sucks....
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