The Overdiagnosis Society: We Are All Mentally Ill
Pedro is a totally healthy and normal person..
Defying the current state of uncertainty, face life with hope and good spirits. This attitude gives him a harmony between drive and prudence, allowing him to fulfill himself professionally and combine it well with his personal and emotional sphere.
He enjoys good sexual and emotional activity with his partner. They know how to reconcile the common space with the independent space of each member of the couple and there is no disagreement or conflict with the children because they have known how to create stability between good organization and affection.
The consequence of this agreement is that, when the couple, as parents, must explain compliance with some guideline to their children, always in a reflective manner, they receive it with affection towards their parents.
These children are very integrated academically, enjoying excellent relationships with both teachers and classmates who are also their friends.
The psychiatrized society – Pharmacological psychiatry
Interpersonal relationships are a priority for Pedro. He enjoys a wide number of friends and a very collaborative relationship within the family. With this, if necessary, he could obtain shelter and comfort in bad times but he never needed it. He is a dynamic person: he frequently practices group sports, oriental relaxation and cultural activities.
With this life panorama, Pedro does not know what it is to be sad or angry, everything has gone according to plan. He has never experienced phobic or psychopathic situations and enjoys a solid serenity of spirit.
Surely, you have realized that Peter’s story is unreal and utopian. You might also think that there is something strange behind that dream or that it is an ephemeral situation.
Despite this, currently, Any profile that does not match this perfect parameter could be labeled as anomalous. If our friend Pedro diverged from that sublime pattern, even for a short period of time, he would be at risk of being ruled psychopathic and treated with drugs.
According to recent studies, 50% of the US population could be diagnosed with some mental disorder.
What is psychopathology?
To be honest, all of us have some thought, at some point, that could be taken as psychopathological. The point is that our behavior, thinking and way of feeling is under the watchful eye of many eyes eager to find something pathological in us.
So much so, that this fact has led to the paradox of “the abnormal normal” in many studies of this type, to the point that, surprisingly, There are more individuals with psychological problems than healthy onesTherefore, it could be stated that those classified as “healthy” suffer from an adaptive syndrome.
The dilemma: the patient or the drug?
According to some experts, many diagnoses are more a product of consumerist voracity and labeling of our society than of a certain biological evil. In the treatment of suffering, it is essential to know how to differentiate between clinical pathology itself and that produced by a combination of psychosocial circumstances; treating the latter as a pathology is, to say the least, highly debatable.
Thus, the simple fact of assigning a word to define the theoretical “evil” that afflicts a patient does nothing more than stigmatize them. Unfortunately, it seems that the escalation of diagnoses grows and grows, it would seem that, at this rate, in a few decades, the planet will be immensely phrenopathic.
You could be addicted
Modern life evolves by creating new uses and tools: internet, games of chance, video game machines, etc. The misuse or abuse of these elements can turn us into addicts.
But some authoritative voice has already spoken in the sense that excessive generalizations are made when diagnosing a simple behavioral disorder as if it were a drug addiction.
There is talk of vigorexia, sex addiction, compulsive buying…, where is the line between what we choose as entertainment and what would be an addiction? According to some therapists, labeling simple “hobbies” as pathological has results, in principle, unwanted.
To begin with, classifying these people as sick is basically counterproductive since stigmatizes and weakens your own self-esteem and, therefore, the ability to overcome your problem, and that self-esteem is essential for successful therapy.
A burning example of this is the increase in diagnoses of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), a rate of diagnoses in developed countries is being recorded that is close to 25% in children when, those of us who dedicate ourselves to this, know that A prevalence above 5% is already doubtful, in addition to the harm that is caused to a person who, due to their age, is subject to continuous changes in their psychological evolution.
Unfortunately, as in so many areas of life, once we seriously analyze this apparent mystery of why our society is psychiatrized, we find a disturbing answer: money.
The relationship between overdiagnosis and the appearance of drugs to cure them is evidence that no one disputes anymore. It is true that professionals tend to schematize the patient in order to be able to undertake an agile and accurate analysis of the situation but from there, for example, “tame” a child with high activity (something inherent to that age) based on medication to avoid the inconvenience, there is a long stretch. And this example can be extended to other categories mentioned above.
Finally, we must be aware of our limitations in perception: it is proven that we apply a few concrete and simple labels. As soon as someone fits us in one of them, the disturbing effect of self-fulfilling prophecywhich obviously does not help at all, but it is even worse when the commercial factor distorts us and conditions us in the enormous mission of helping others.
