The Expanding Mental Disorder Profession

Posted: 2/11/2019

Trigger

Just read Why it’s key to identify preschoolers with anxiety and depression New research shows these kids have mental and physical problems as they grow older

In this article, we learn that young children were subjected to a few carefully selected and rather narrowly crafted and blunt experiments to determine early onset of anxiety and depression. My hunch is that these few experiments are rather crude to make such far reaching judgments! More longitudinal studies and more observation are called for!

A Few Observations

1. There is a huge conflict of interest affecting in particular the mental disorder profession (psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists etc.), but something similar applies to other medical professions as well
2. The more humans, this profession identifies as having mental disorders, the more money flows their way, the more prestige, fame, and stature they gain, the more such professionals we need and so forth. A nice self feeding, reinforcing process (or a vicious spiral)
3. I would argue since Sigmund Freud, the mental disorder profession has attempted to declare as many members of society to be suffering from some mental disorder as possible
4. Do members of the mental disorder profession exploit their authority as trusted specialists? I would say yes! Lay people are kind of left to rely on their pronouncements
5. If it is to some extent true that a disproportionate number of the members of the mental disorder profession are their own best patients (self treatment), then would these members not feel better if they are not isolated case, but that many humans share their fate?
6. Like ADHD or autism spectrum disorders, anxiety and depression are very much in the eye of the beholder. All these disorders are difficult to specify and measure. Their diagnosis was expanded dramatically over the past decades. More and more children and adults have been diagnosed as having one of these disorders
7. To what extent are e.g. anxiety and depression just part of the normal range of human behavior and mental condition? To my knowledge, there are still no hard facts or diagnostic tests to determine if and when a human being (adolescent or adult) has a mental disorder so severe and clinical that requires treatment