Study finds psychiatric diagnosis to be ‘scientifically meaningless’

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[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

I'm in a psychiatry residency and I can tell you, we all agree that diagnoses not accurate. We have to treat symptoms because we don't have the underlying pathology nailed down. Not to mention stuff that happens because people have long term traumatic shit going on. For example, consider a 23 year old female, raised by her mom who had a series of short term chaotic relationships. So she was just dumped by her boyfriend of three months and she is texting him dozens of times a day. Then she scratches her wrists with whatever is handy and sends him texts saying if he doesn't answer her she will kill herself. So he calls 911 and police and ems bring her into the hospital. Say she is pissed off and was dragged in handcuffed to a stretcher kicking and spitting and screaming, not an uncommon presentation in these matters. Now with the first encounter in the ED an assessment has to be made if she is safe to go home or not. She has been sending suicidal threats and is currently flipping her shit and needing to be restrained and medicated so no, she has to be admitted. Now she needs a provisional diagnosis to bill for the evaluation and justify the involuntary admission, there are only a few categories that can be used to justify involuntary admissions, so she gets one of them. She is sending suicidal threats, agitated, saying crazy things, displaying obsessive and arguably hyperactive behavior so she can get either major depression or bipolar, if she is saying really crazy shit she might even get unspecified psychotic disorder. Now she is in the hospital, since she is obviously flipping her on the outside, starting her on a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant can be justified so she gets abilify, an antipsychotic, and prozac, and antidepressant. She calms down mostly because she is in the hospital and a little because of the meds. She is diagnosed with something definitive like bipolar I or bipolar I with psychotic features and discharged. So what happened is someone who had a shitty upbringing with associated trauma is treated like someone with a medical problem and inappropriately diagnosed and medicated. The meds can help to take the edge off, but still the main problem is they need therapy. However, the main problem with therapy is it doesn't work if the therapists suck at it, and the good therapists charge $400 an hour and don't take insurance.

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[–] • 0 pt

So what happened is someone who had a shitty upbringing with associated trauma is treated like someone with a medical problem and inappropriately diagnosed and medicated.

I'm glad someone acknowledges how most adult behavioral problems develop out of child abuse/neglect/etc rather than diagnosing it as some type of mental illness. Something that a lot of normies don't seem to grasp is that true mental illness is going to be pretty random. The paranoid skizophrenic shouting at the sky lords on a street corner can't control their behavior and it's difficult to find a proximate cause. Whereas a child of abuse can control their behavior with therapy as you mentioned. At the very least they can manage their behavior on a budget by adopting some basic philosophical principles and adhering to them. That's certainly cheaper (free or close to it), but it does require them to (for the example you mentioned):

1) Acknowledge reality. "Mom" was a horrible parent who never bothered to teach her daughter how to handle conflict, emotional upset, relationships, etc. And since the example never mentioned "Dad", it's a pretty safe assumption that "Mom" also couldn't be bothered to keep a father in the relationship...which is clear proof that "Mom" didn't give enough of a shit about her daughter to pick a decent, stable guy.

2) Hold people to some basic standards. People who are contributing to behavioral issues need yeeted out of your life faster than a dead hooker. "Mom" would probably be the first to go since you rarely see massively dysfunctional behavior from children of loving, competent parents.

3) Hold yourself to some basic standards. Heck, if someone had to write down some basic philosophical principles and refuse to break them for any reason...it'd be a start. Particularly for children of abuse, it's useful since the behavioral algorithms they learned form their parents are useless or actively harmful.

Of course that takes...effort...which is harder than finding a random therapist and hoping for the best. Though it is free.

>So what happened is someone who had a shitty upbringing with associated trauma is treated like someone with a medical problem and inappropriately diagnosed and medicated. I'm glad someone acknowledges how most adult behavioral problems develop out of child abuse/neglect/etc rather than diagnosing it as some type of mental illness. Something that a lot of normies don't seem to grasp is that true mental illness is going to be pretty random. The paranoid skizophrenic shouting at the sky lords on a street corner can't control their behavior and it's difficult to find a proximate cause. Whereas a child of abuse can control their behavior with therapy as you mentioned. At the very least they can manage their behavior on a budget by adopting some basic philosophical principles and adhering to them. That's certainly cheaper (free or close to it), but it does require them to (for the example you mentioned): 1) Acknowledge reality. "Mom" was a horrible parent who never bothered to teach her daughter how to handle conflict, emotional upset, relationships, etc. And since the example never mentioned "Dad", it's a pretty safe assumption that "Mom" also couldn't be bothered to keep a father in the relationship...which is clear proof that "Mom" didn't give enough of a shit about her daughter to pick a decent, stable guy. 2) Hold people to some basic standards. People who are contributing to behavioral issues need yeeted out of your life faster than a dead hooker. "Mom" would probably be the first to go since you rarely see massively dysfunctional behavior from children of loving, competent parents. 3) Hold yourself to some basic standards. Heck, if someone had to write down some basic philosophical principles and refuse to break them for any reason...it'd be a start. Particularly for children of abuse, it's useful since the behavioral algorithms they learned form their parents are useless or actively harmful. Of course that takes...effort...which is harder than finding a random therapist and hoping for the best. Though it is free.

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