Medicalizing mental health was a tragic error.
It falsely taught people that emotions are solely the result of physical factors — i.e., brain chemistry.
With regard to your psyche, your character and your soul, the psychiatric industry turns you into a ward of the pharmaceutical industry — or a ward of the State. In the post-COVID world, most of us can now see that’s pretty much the same thing.
In reality, emotions are the result of a long accumulation of choices, ideas, assumptions, hidden premises, values and so many other things.
Yes, we are brain chemistry. But we are so much more. And to date, science has refused to investigate how our choices and ideas determine our brain chemistry. Instead, “science” assumes that brain chemistry determines all thoughts, choices and behavior. This premise is never questioned, never explored, never investigated. In psychiatry, “follow the science” means “follow the drug companies.” And also follow the government, who funds most of the research, is beholden to drug comanies, who now controls most of medical care (through Medicare and Medicaid), and therefore now controls most of the doctors who administer it.
If you’re looking for a reason not to have to work for your mental health, then the psychiatric industry is there, waiting for you. Nobody challenges or questions them, even though most of the time their solutions are (at best) insufficient and (at worst) harmful. But when nobody questions you, nothing will ever change. And to many, the alternative is unspeakable: “I shape myself? I have the power, but also the responsibility, for reshaping my emotions, my values, my character?”
Not a chance, is how many people feel. So the band plays on.
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