>
> But "Of Course" really should be implicit in almost every sentence
> written on this topic. We are not talking about a separate or
> independent phenomenon generated within and/or by a particular group of
> corporate villains. We are simply talking about one manifestation of
> capital endlessly searching for new possiblities of growth.
>
>
I for one am glad to have this point made, as I was thinking about how best
to make it, myself, and would not have done it so clearly had I tried.
(Checking the other thread after having written most of the post below, I
see Andy makes a similar point and extends it in some directions I'm trying
to go.)
Clearly the current proliferation of mental illness diagnosis is the result of a complex of factors, including both better diagnosis and a certain kind of motivation for various stakeholders to "find" mental illness. One of these latter is surely the pharma companies looking for expanding profits, but the results of this are frankly not all bad. There is no contradiction here. I think for us the issue is making sure that (a) personality as such is not pathologized, (b) disagreement or disobedience as such is not pathologized, (or, put another way, the DSM does not reduce to pacification of a population), and (c) the populace is not reduced to receptacles for pharma products. No?
That's almost a political platform. lol. But that's another thread. Heads up. :)
Anyway . . . to the matter at hand.
In my own experience (here I'm talking mainly about depression and anxiety in various forms), that is with myself and people I know, medication has always been coordinated with talk therapy. Indeed, from what I've seen, it is almost always the "patient" who resists the talk therapy, because they can't find a therapist who doesn't seem to be full of crap (or, to put it more objectively, a therapist who suits them). Anyone who has undertaken therapy knows it's a hit or miss affair to find someone, and can take several tries. But the doctor who first prescribed me Paxil (and Ativan as a back-up) for anxiety attacks (which were expensive and quite debilitating, btw), insisted that I see a psychologist or psychiatrist, and told me from the outset that in his view, the medication was what you do until you don't need it any more, and the point of the therapy was to work on not needing it any more. I'm not taking it any more, although sometimes I wish I were. I'm sure there are people who -- largely as a result of the blockbuster advertising already described -- show up at their doctor's office demanding medication, just like there are sure to be doctors happy to prescribe medication and let that "do the trick." But I have to wonder whether such combinations of patients and doctors aren't the exception rather than the rule.
Here I suppose I should ask how much of Peterson's book is anecdotal and how much is data showing that mis-treatment or over/under-treatment (depending on what we mean) is widespread. Maybe the big thing here is treatment of children -- which is surely the most extensive population for diagnoses of stuff like ODD and ADHD and so on. Isn't treatment of something like ODD, besides being meant to make the parents' lives easier (a problematic motive, but not a horrible one, in principle), also meant to keep kids out of prison? I don't actually know that, but I'm imagining. Again, a problematic motive (pacification), but not a horrible one (prison is bad). It just comes back to my points above -- there is a difference between putting someone in the position to make a judgment that would keep them out of prison (even recognizing that they are in the right or whatever), on the one hand, and putting someone in the position that they can make no choice but to be passive.
Also, now looking back at Shag's original post, it looks like what's really at stake is not so much that people are mis-diagnosed as that serotonin is seen as the problem for everything? So then the question is whether these medications work. Right? Isn't that really what it comes down to? And then isn't then answer pretty obviously, yes, at least for some things for some people -- enough that it's worth it, iyam. I guess I think we just have to watch out for over-prescription and political (in the broad sense) diagnoses, and particularly so with children, who are much more at the mercy of their parents and doctors, whereas you and I can decide for ourselves whether or not we're going to take some drug for some condition someone tells us we have.
Not to play the "who will think of the children?" card, but there it kind of is.