On the subject of mental health disorders
“Even severe mental illness is the result of society labeling unusual behavior rather than of biochemical processes” ~ Thomas J. Scheff
Many Western countries have experienced a dramatic increase in reported rates of psychiatric diagnoses and use of psychiatric drugs.
Under the label of “mental illness”, people are deprived of life, liberty, and property, which the law ought to defend. Mental health is one of the rare branches of the medical system where treatment is involuntary, baring life-threatening physical conditions, usually court-ordered. This is mostly justified by the notion that the person in question can not tell his illness, a fact that is in fact entirely manipulative, a classic, and actually most prevalent case of gaslighting. When one's arm is broken, or one suffers from any health issue, that person seeks medical help himself. I have never in my life heard of someone being ordered medical treatment by court, even cancer patients are given free choice for chemotherapy, which is due to associated health risks. Similarly, anti-psychotics and depression medication among others, have been shown to exhibit often severe side-effects worse than the diagnosed condition. What Scheff said in practice, is that there is no such thing as mental disorders at all, it is merely society that judges certain behaviors as improper and – by force, subjugates people into treatment against their will.
In most psychiatric cases, there is no objective case for a diagnosis. When a brain scan shows no damage, a documented symptom of “schizophrenia”, that fact has no bearing on court orders or diagnosis. What actually holds weight is stigmatization and conjecture of behavior that is deemed improper. Similarly, it is never properly defined whether one is “mentally ill”, labeled so without objectively fact-based diagnoses – practically an attach on character, or a social problem – leaving the line blurred with subjected people falling under the coercive nature of social programs.
At present, insurance companies and health professionals are directly- financially profiting from the sale of pharmaceuticals with no oversight, or responsibility for maltreatment.
The issue is far too complex for the state medical system to resort to court proceedings in most cases, when the person in question is mostly- in court, pitted against an “expert” who invokes no insight other than a repetition of the psychiatrist's opinion, which rests entirely on the doctor's educational rank, not definitive objective factual analysis.
The incentive for society to manage this is clear to me, since society labels actions as wrong, it ought to provide it's own faculty in response to the accusation, not rely on the state.
May he who throws the rock at glass houses pick up that rock and build a house himself.
Additionaly in most cases, there's a “penalty” where the duration of involuntary hospitalization is extended, if the patient seeks justice in court and loses. That directly obstructs due process to protect basic rights for someone already in a traumatic position.
Involuntary intervention should require clear, demonstrable impairment of decision-making capacity and immediate risk. At present the threshold is practically baseless.
We lost tradition on a massive scale. Certain replacements are inhumane and baseless, some are better, most are without a structured long-term foundation. The take here is- the current model is a reaction, hence threading backwards to see what worked before in practice remains the rational position.
Analysis—Isshin