[lbo-talk] Thomas Szasz, R.I.P.

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 16 11:23:40 PDT 2012


Shag: "The problem is, they're never going to get help to do anything otherwise and get better treatment, unless they do it themselves because the medical community is married to the Feed 'em a Pill Model. As my doctor told me: "Sorry, I have 15 minutes for you. Let's focus on one thing. It's just the way it is. That's why most doctors will write a prescription and send you home. I don't like it, but this is the way it is."

[WS:] I am not sure what you are trying to argue here - that all medicine is crap and we should abandon it?

With due diligence, you can find examples of neglect or abuse in virtually every human activity. Medicine and psychiatry are no exceptions. But before one starts throwing stones, let us ourselves a simple question - taking a big picture pov, what is the balance between the number of people helped by modern psychiatry and the number harmed by it? The answer is clearly that the former outweigh the latter by a significant order of magnitude. For every case of misdiagnosis and mistreatment, there are dozens if not hundreds of people who really suffer from mental disorders and who benefit, at least to some degree, from psychiatric treatment (including counseling).

Keep also in mind that most patients expect something from their doctors - they do not "there is not much I can do" for an answer. That is one of the main reasons why doctors prescribe pills - this is what their patients expect. Another main reason is diagnostic treatment - the doctors try to diagnose the condition by testing, pretty much by trial and error, if it responds to known treatment. This is often seen as an alternative to highly invasive procedures, such as biopsies. So writing prescriptions is not necessarily a symptom of doctors being the pockets of big pharma.

With that in mind, I wonder what is being gained by going ballistic on the entire discipline other than creating publicity for one's book. -- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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