Psych bible turns sorrow into sickness
POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 21:46
VIEWED: 5022
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To be fair, my diagnosis of my grandmother actually was in agreement with her doctors.
But... Yes. I've run into a lot of incompetent doctors. Two of which were the two psychiatrists I've ever seen in my life, one of which was outright malicious and the other inadvertently incompetent.
My mom at least appears to be working with some cancer doctors who know their stuff, with the caveat that what we know about cancer is a vague idea, still being built on, and not a complete understanding. She also has had five brain tumours, and is still alive thanks to surgery.
At the same time, the general practicioners and oncology experts at another hospital missed the warning signs of my grandfather's pancreatic cancer for nigh on a decade, to the point that my brother, who graduated law at Columbia University and also studied at Cambridge and King's College believes we actually would have had a fair case for malpractice.
My experience therefore has been somewhat hit or miss, and since the incidence of good doctors versus bad doctors appears to be random, I think everyone's best bet is to do their own research, and use doctors primarily as a supplemental source of information.
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Which is why I refuse to use the word "normies", as is often done in the mental-health community. "GUMs" is my choice: Great Undiagnosed Masses", because eventually I think, taken far enough, that psychiatry will come up with enough definitions to fit EVERYONE.
If we took the DSM-5 and applied it to a random sampling of the population, could we diagnose everyone in our sample with some form of mental illness?Quote:
Also true, but you won't get me to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are those who need HELP; that the system is flawed does not change that.
Overdiagnosis is as bad as underdiagnosis, and getting a proper, vetted, unbiased diagnosis in this day and age is a real problem with a broken medical care system which has incestous links with Big Pharma right down to the displays and posters in your local doctors office.Quote:
True; on the other hand, for one thing one generally HAS to see a p-doc periodically in order to get disability or any other form of help.
Not likely to go to a shrink for any reason at all, simply because doing so is more and more likely to result in you getting some sort of scarlet letter on your permanent record. ;)Quote:
I agree with Magons. And yes, DT's conspiratorial mentality is easily discerned from what he write. I recognize the validity in today's society, but mankind has from the beginning of time looked for ways in which to lessen suffering, cure diseases, etc., so again it's baby and bathwater. To ignore all the things pharmaceuticals have given us, and say all pills are nothing but sugar, is sad. If I hadn't searched long and hard for the right meds to help me, and get diagnosed so I could self-educate and realize what had caused my crash so I could change how I lived my life and have the life I have now, I'd quite literally be dead by now. I prefer being alive, thank you.
I think some diagnosis are useful. If it means you get a treatment plan, or some way of relieving your suffering, or some insight into your/your loved ones behaviour/condition then that is great. If it leaves a person, especially a child feeling stigmatised and or pathologised, and no good comes of it, then it is not good.
Psychopharmacology isn't easy, and finding the right diagnosis/treatment requires being responsible, not just taking pills; those of us who have done it at least somewhat right have benefited greatly and can achieve a better quality of life. When it comes to mental illness, if medication is going to help at all, we have to take responsibility for the unpleasantness of trying different drugs to see what works for us individually.
I do not condone over-diagnosis, diagnosis of young children, or what Big Pharma has created in our society; but nor do I condone places like Japan (used to be, maybe still is), where any form of serious mental illness is hidden, either by the person out of fear of stigma or by the family in order to "save face", and what the mentally-ill person suffers as a result of either. The world isn't black and white, there are good and bad things in EVERYTHING.
Byte,Quote:
Substitute the word "mental illness" for cancer, and the statement is equally valid.
what we know about cancer is a vague idea, still being built on, and not a complete understandingQuote:
THAT I disagree with wholeheartedly! Obviously you've had good experiences along that line, but I don't think it can be said for the vast majority of people.
Essentially, if you're literate and discerning, there's not really anything a doctor can tell you that you can't find out on your own. 
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Byte,
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what we know about cancer is a vague idea, still being built on, and not a complete understanding
Substitute the word "mental illness" for cancer, and the statement is equally valid.
Substitute "every medical field" for cancer and it's also mostly accurate.
But I take your point. Neurology and neurochemistry are still in development... Though I'd take their research before I'd take psychology research.
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Niki,
this is neither here nor there, but since I adopted your color coded text idea (good idea, btw. It's cut in half the time I spend hunting through threads) I've started trying my best to quote colored text as colored, to make your text purple when I quote it. You have to set the font inside the quote and then again outside of it.
While I'm at it, I recommend to everyone to chose a color. I recall Rap being orange briefly. It's a good idea, you know whose words are which much more easily.
It's like miniature golf, for words.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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I don't know what that is supposed to be about, or why it was directed at me...?
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Well, Siggy made a good point a while back about how the assholes of the insurance companies help corrupt the process too, in that sometimes a doc has to shovel a bullshit "diagnosis" as an excuse cause without it the insurance company won't cover jack diddly shit, even if the "diagnosis" is in fact a thin fiction that has nothing whatever to do with the problem and/or treatment.
I think that does a serious disservice to the patient in the longterm, especially if they're out of the loop (being young, or whatever) when those decisions are made and unaware that the diagnosis is bunk - plus it can also boomerang back on them in hurtful ways later in life.
I *DO* see her point, but I think that one is more the fault of our terribly broken medical insurance system rather than physician incompetence.
Speakin of, believe me, I can tellya horror stories about that, my experiences have been so awful that I flat do NOT trust any of em till they prove out, and part of that involves being crazy enough to break with hidebound tradition, ergo I wind up with some real kooks - but yanno, they're DAMN good at what they do.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Essentially, if you're literate and discerning, there's not really anything a doctor can tell you that you can't find out on your own.
Yeah, well I really disagree with that. I do agree you should be literate and discerning and read up on stuff. You can ask questions and form hypothesis, but in the end you really can't beat expertise AND western pathology. A good naturopath will recommend bloods before treatment. I feel a strong sense of deju vu as I write and I fear I have had this exact conversation with you before.
It is very interesting having discussions with so many Americans. There is such an air of pessimism about many of you, about how you feel your society works (or doesn't). I thought Americans were supposed to be a positive people - well that's me generalising much.
So I'm never sure if I am just overly positive and optomistic or there is something cultural happening here. I know there are good and not so good doctors, but so far I've managed to have most of my interactions with people I trust. I don't feel my doctor plugs big pharma, in fact, the clinic i go to shies away from prescribing antibiotics, and is more likely to recommend counselling for depression than drugs.
It's the same with many of the conversations we have here. I have gripes with various systems, but I don't feel they are unfixable or catastrophic. Is it me, or is it where I live. It puzzles me.
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>_>
I've dismissed most naturopathy as unscientific, unless I can see the chemistry behind it. So I don't think you were having this conversation with me, Magons. You might have been talking to CTS? She has some similar viewpoints about self-research and distrust of doctors/big pharm but she's the one who likes naturopathy.
I do know that Riona goes to a naturopath, which causes me to worry what poison she might be ingesting, but I'm trying to be open minded.
As for Americans, I think it's less how Americans are like in general, and more you have a specific group here who happen to be very disillusioned and who the show Firefly spoke to, and who took different messages from it - the dangers of corporation or the danger of government or both.
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" Is it me, or is it where I live. "
I don't know you as a person, but I know many Canadians and they are far more positive and trusting in society - which is natural given their society. OTOH the US is rabidly dog-eat-dog. Given all that, I suspect it's at least partially where you live.
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Niki
Because you strung four quotes together and responded to them and I couldn't figure out whose was whose.
Everyone,
Grab a color. Not green ;)
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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