Top 5 Myths about Psychiatry in 2023
5. Psychiatrists make stuff up to drum up business. The stark reality, however, is that nearly all psychiatrists have way too much “business” and we would love to spend way less time engaged in the sad task of turning away people in need and trying to find resources for them elsewhere.
4. Psychiatric disorders lack a scientific basis. Pick up any leading psychiatric journal and you will see tons of good science related to biological areas such as genetics and brain imaging as well as rigorous investigations into many other domains, such as psychotherapy, early development, social determinants of health, etc.
3. Psychiatrists think mental health problems are all related to “a chemical imbalance.” The dominant model of mental health problems that has been taught in training programs for decades is called the “biopsychosocial model” which postulates that mental health (both in wellness and illness) is related to many interacting forces that include “biological” factors like genetics and prenatal environment, psychological factors like early experience and parenting, and social factors like poverty and racism.
2. Psychiatrists routinely force and push treatments on people. Psychiatry attempts to walk a difficult balance between respecting the autonomy of individuals while not turning our backs on those who clearly need care.
1. Psychiatry pathologizes typical human emotions and traits. The dividing line between “normal” traits and behaviors and symptoms or disorders is really fuzzy, and nobody really knows where the exact boundary should lie. It is true that these days the threshold for what “counts” as a psychiatric disorder has been falling and the number of people who qualify for some kind of diagnosis has been rising. That said, even higher percentages of people have, at some point, been diagnosed with some kind of dermatological, pulmonary, or orthopedic condition and this, somehow, is not controversial.
Read the complete article available at Psychology Today!
Reflection:
What are some other myths you've heard about psychiatry?
#Psychiatry #Myths #Awareness
@comfortableNight4463 I would say myth #3 is not exactly a myth. Psychiatry is primarily a medical field and as such it’s going to bias toward medical causes. Medicine is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry which is driven by profit motive. So the two can side step the “chemical imbalance” label (which pharma created) and move on to something else. Pharma doesn’t care if you develop a movement disorder because someone pushed antidepressants on you because they have another drug to “fix” the harm they originally caused. The myth is that pharma is here to help. The myth is that psychiatrists are here to help. The truth is that antidepressants are pushed aggressively with no regard to harmful side effects. Because of this people don’t learn new behaviors that would get them out of their depression. Instead they are given a different dosage or different drug. I’m not saying these drugs are never warranted, but in my own experience they were constantly offered, and one therapist made it a condition of continued therapy. The industry side steps this by saying, “we give people information and a choice.” No you don’t! You prescribe it as if you were saying take more vitamin C. You hand out drugs with an informational insert from pharma that the doctor never reads. I asked my doctor about specific risks and he said he “never knew about it, and never saw evidence of that in his patients.” Never seeing it doesn’t mean it never happens. Pushing it on people while mumbling about the risks purely to CYA while hoping the patient doesn’t hear you isn’t ethical medicine. I hope you enjoyed the gifts and parties the pharma rep heaped on you so that you could become a complicit drug dealer.
@hopefulPond6108 Your opinions are valid. Treatment for most mental health disorders are individualistic. Some people respond well to medication while others may respond more to therapy and CBT. It's important that the public is well-informed and have a choice in their preferred mode of treatment.
