Psychology Anti-Psychiatry

[Music Platter]

After learning about different aspects of psychology and mental disorders at school, I started questioning the basis of psychiatry, and eventually started researching it further. Anti-psychiatry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I mean, What if this is all just a bunch of crap that doctors make to put down those that they don't like? What if people like so-called schizoprenics really do feel that they are not sick, and simply here voices, like those in the Hearing Voices Movement? Why do those in the courts get to decide that a specific person must be medicated if they are to live a productive and valuable life? Arguments like these really seem to make sense to me, but I would like to hear your opinions on the subject.

Mind, anti-psychiatry is not necessarily anti-psychology; psychology is more studying behavior and observation. And therapy of different kinds can still be useful if the patient comes out understanding their feelings or themselves better.

 

[Second Summer]

After learning about different aspects of psychology and mental disorders at school, I started questioning the basis of psychiatry, and eventually started researching it further. Anti-psychiatry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I mean, What if this is all just a bunch of crap that doctors make to put down those that they don't like? What if people like so-called schizoprenics really do feel that they are not sick, and simply here voices, like those in the Hearing Voices Movement? Why do those in the courts get to decide that a specific person must be medicated if they are to live a productive and valuable life? Arguments like these really seem to make sense to me, but I would like to hear your opinions on the subject.

Mind, anti-psychiatry is not necessarily anti-psychology; psychology is more studying behavior and observation. And therapy of different kinds can still be useful if the patient comes out understanding their feelings or themselves better.

Historically, psychiatrists have certainly been responsible for horrible abuses. Sometimes psychiatry has been used as a tool by the government against its political opponent. (Still a practise in Russia today, I think.) I would like to think things have generally improved, though.

Some mentally ill people can be a danger to society, so society therefore has a right to take measures to protect itself. Sometimes that means using some kind of coercion. Exactly how to do this in the most ethical and caring manner will always be a difficult question.

 

[Music Platter]

Some mentally ill people can be a danger to society, so society therefore has a right to take measures to protect itself. Sometimes that means using some kind of coercion. Exactly how to do this in the most ethical and caring manner will always be a difficult question.

It has been argued that they could be productive members of society, but psychiatric labels automatically stigmatize those that labeled as such, and their own personal opinions are quickly ignored because this is a 'sick' person that "doesn't know any better."

I also think that this argument ties in with and can be analogized with the idea of disabilities. Why is someone, such as a person in a wheelchair, considered disabled? They would not be considered disabled if society accommodated and accepted them as just normal people like everyone else. Shouldn't everyone with a 'disability,' whether physical or mental, ideally get the same social treatment and acceptance as everyone else?

I agree that it is a difficult question. I'm not exactly sure myself about how it should be handled, but I know that I am unsure about psychiatry as it is.