Medicalisation

version

Well-known member
I read something a while back about there being no concept of certain mental illnesses in Japan until American pharmaceutical companies set their sights on the Japanese market and watching The Trap (Adam Curtis) recently there was a fair bit on the DSM resulting in a number of people believing they were mentally ill and medicalising uncomfortable, but normal feelings and experiences.

Anyone have particularly strong feelings either way on this sort of thing, anti-psychiatry etc?
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I do think the cultural atmosphere of medical expertise and diagnosis can, in the mind of the lay patient, reify the very ailment/condition that the diagnosis posits, which in turn bolsters the whole industrial complex.
 

version

Well-known member
Like if you believe that a certain ongoing aspect of your mental state is genetic or fixed, as opposed to circumstantial and malleable by will, it may become self-fulfilling.
That's something that's actively pushed back against in some forms of therapy. You're told you aren't whatever issue you're being treated for and that you should think of it as something separate, "the anxiety" rather than "my anxiety".
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah I think the patient identifying with the diagnosis, integrating the diagnosis into their identity, can be a negative byproduct of this kind of clinical interfacing between expert and layperson.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Because once its integrated into your identity, you may feel compelled to own it or embrace it, learn to live with it, when such a course of action may be largely unnecessary.
 

version

Well-known member
People with intrusive thoughts are often told they aren't their thoughts, that they don't really want to put their cat in the dryer or jump off that tall building or whatever scenario it is they keep playing over and over in their head.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah you can see how susceptible one can be to being convinced that a devil-like entity is putting these thoughts into their head, a sort of dogmatic mind control on behalf of the church, literally demonizing dissenting or unorthodox thought in cases.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
The NHS being mostly free at the point of use would seem to be something of a buffer against unnecessary medicalisation as there isn't the same degree of financial incentive to diagnosing people as there is in the US.
Yeah that adds up, as far as I can tell. I guess its just a matter of whether or not that financial incentive also fuels research and development of better drugs, or if this positive outweighs the negative you mention.
 

luka

Well-known member
Yeah you can see how susceptible one can be to being convinced that a devil-like entity is putting these thoughts into their head, a sort of dogmatic mind control on behalf of the church, literally demonizing dissenting or unorthodox thought in cases.
ive been interested in the increased prevalence of the word 'satanic' on twitter. i read an excruciating debate between dissensus' own DC Miller and some nazi twitter dweeb yesterday and the latter just kept saying everything was 'literally satanic' (gays and feminism mainly).
 

version

Well-known member
ive been interested in the increased prevalence of the word 'satanic' on twitter. i read an excruciating debate between dissensus' own DC Miller and some nazi twitter dweeb yesterday and the latter just kept saying everything was 'literally satanic' (gays and feminism mainly).
I tend to switch off when people start throwing the term around, even if they're referring to someone who actually is evil, e.g. Epstein. It just feels lazy and sensational.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
ive been interested in the increased prevalence of the word 'satanic' on twitter. i read an excruciating debate between dissensus' own DC Miller and some nazi twitter dweeb yesterday and the latter just kept saying everything was 'literally satanic' (gays and feminism mainly).
Could this trend be associated with some migration of young academics to "trad" catholicism?
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Thinking the likes of Justin Murphy. Disillusioned with secular, liberal academia, perhaps so disillusioned so as to demonize it as "satanic".
 

luka

Well-known member
Thinking the likes of Justin Murphy. Disillusioned with secular, liberal academia, perhaps so disillusioned so as to demonize it as "satanic".
in his case its clearly not remotely earnest. well in most cases its not earnest but using that language over time will probably flatten your thought out and make you ever stupider and more hysterical
 

luka

Well-known member
although i use the term myself in some cases, usually in reference to music. i do think it means something actually.
 

catalog

Well-known member
There's something in this Austin osman spare book about medicine, how it's just bad magic and is bad for us. I'll put the full quote in when I've got the book next.
 
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