Thank you so much, this was really good info. Totally recommend it. Very helpful and great insights. I am asking myself the question: "does the path I was taking in regards to my sons transition enlarge me or diminish" -- Totally diminishing me. I am so happy that I am now on a path that totally feels enlarging thanks to Stoicmom.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share these thoughts and recommend a listen to this Q&A with Dr. McFillin! Such great community questions and his responses were rich and thoughtful. I love the way you've applied that question to your own situation and are seeking to shift your approach from diminishing to enlarging!
I've read this one! Wild, isn't it? If you'd like more people to see it, best to link it in the main interview. Q&As can only be accessed by paid subscribers. ;)
I think these quotes from the article say it all (and I've heard Sasha Ayad talk about this):
"Hacking's books ... are about "dissociative" disorders, or what used to be called hysteria. He has argued, I think very persuasively, that psychiatrists and other clinicians helped to create the epidemics [of fugue in nineteenth-century Europe and multiple-personality disorder in late-twentieth-century America] simply by the way they viewed the disorders, by the kinds of questions they asked patients, the treatments they used, the diagnostic categories available to them at the time, and the way these patients fit within those categories."
"I am simplifying a very complex and subtle argument, but the basic idea should be clear. By regarding a phenomenon as a psychiatric diagnosis—treating it, reifying it in psychiatric diagnostic manuals, developing instruments to measure it, inventing scales to rate its severity, establishing ways to reimburse the costs of its treatment, encouraging pharmaceutical companies to search for effective drugs, directing patients to support groups, writing about possible causes in journals—psychiatrists may be unwittingly colluding with broader cultural forces to contribute to the spread of a mental disorder."
Also books by Robert Whitaker, including Anatomy of an Epidemic, highlight the corrupt profit motive. Crazy Like Us is a good one too that describes how we've "infected" cultures around the world with our (misguided) ideas about mental illness/health.
Thank you so much, this was really good info. Totally recommend it. Very helpful and great insights. I am asking myself the question: "does the path I was taking in regards to my sons transition enlarge me or diminish" -- Totally diminishing me. I am so happy that I am now on a path that totally feels enlarging thanks to Stoicmom.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share these thoughts and recommend a listen to this Q&A with Dr. McFillin! Such great community questions and his responses were rich and thoughtful. I love the way you've applied that question to your own situation and are seeking to shift your approach from diminishing to enlarging!
I've read this one! Wild, isn't it? If you'd like more people to see it, best to link it in the main interview. Q&As can only be accessed by paid subscribers. ;)
I think these quotes from the article say it all (and I've heard Sasha Ayad talk about this):
"Hacking's books ... are about "dissociative" disorders, or what used to be called hysteria. He has argued, I think very persuasively, that psychiatrists and other clinicians helped to create the epidemics [of fugue in nineteenth-century Europe and multiple-personality disorder in late-twentieth-century America] simply by the way they viewed the disorders, by the kinds of questions they asked patients, the treatments they used, the diagnostic categories available to them at the time, and the way these patients fit within those categories."
"I am simplifying a very complex and subtle argument, but the basic idea should be clear. By regarding a phenomenon as a psychiatric diagnosis—treating it, reifying it in psychiatric diagnostic manuals, developing instruments to measure it, inventing scales to rate its severity, establishing ways to reimburse the costs of its treatment, encouraging pharmaceutical companies to search for effective drugs, directing patients to support groups, writing about possible causes in journals—psychiatrists may be unwittingly colluding with broader cultural forces to contribute to the spread of a mental disorder."
There have been a few in the psychiatric field encouraging a move away from the medical model. See this 2012 editorial in the The British Journal of Psychiatry for some ideas. https://psychrights.org/2012/121201bjpbeyondcurrentparadigm.pdf
Also books by Robert Whitaker, including Anatomy of an Epidemic, highlight the corrupt profit motive. Crazy Like Us is a good one too that describes how we've "infected" cultures around the world with our (misguided) ideas about mental illness/health.