I also expressed concern with calling things a mental illness when the symptoms are a normal response to extreme/chronic life stressors, trauma, etc. and apparently that was a controversial thing to say as well. I even used PTSD as an example. I think I said I don’t think it’s right to tell someone who has been gang raped and has PTSD as a result that they are mentally ill, diseased, or disordered (or to even think of them that way). That doesn’t mean they don’t need help. Then a psychologist said PTSD IS a mental illness. I’m fully aware it’s considered a mental illness in the DSM, but my whole point was that it’s harmful to conceptualize things this way (and unscientific).
Before anybody says not everyone gets PTSD, when I say something is a normal human response, I’m not saying it’s the only normal response. However, it’s an understandable human response to the trauma.
I think the issue is you're not understanding the difference between trauma (although I hate the term, "little t trauma") and PTSD. Trauma is, yes, an understandable response to a stressor. Everyone can experience trauma - folks who have been through hurricanes, anyone who has fought in a war, folks who have witnessed physical altercations. Heck, we all get retraumatized to some level just watching certain news channels. But PTSD is different; PTSD is literally a
disorder which implies there is a level of deficit to functioning. It's not a "normal" process of grief/adjustment at all. The DSM is literally a normed manual, which means the disorders identified are ones that do NOT "normally" occur in the greater population.
Most physical illnesses have a distinct pathophysiological explanation and are not just based on a list of symptoms that a group of people agree on. A lot of the mental illness diagnoses are subjective and based on certain value systems and culture. It can be dangerous to label behaviors, feelings, and thoughts, things that make people human, as disorders, especially without considering the context.
People are so quick to attack things like EMDR for being pseudoscience. Yet, many mental health professionals had no problem accepting the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness as fact (which has been debunked), without adequate scientific evidence. So many people were put on SSRIs and other psychotropics as a result to “fix” their imbalance/disorder.
MANY physical illnesses/diagnoses are actually based on lists of symptoms, and "treatment" is simply managing sxs instead of the underlying causes because many times.... we don't know the underlying causes. Let me give you an example: erythema nodosum. It's a diagnosis. It literally means "there's some red bumps on the shins." In the majority of cases, there is no clear etiology or cause. sometimes they're due to viruses, or fungal infections, or STDs, or sometimes even pregnancy. That diagnosis does not explain anything about the etiology, and yet we have named it so that have a way to refer to that set of symptoms without saying "those red bumps on the shin" every time. Other notable examples have been provided by others in your other thread: fibromyalgia, PCOS, MCAS...
I have not met many folks who accept the chemical imbalance theory itself as fact. But it IS a fact that SSRIs do inhibit serotonin uptake and that DOES lead to less depressed mood. So while chemical imbalance is not the proper etiology of MDD (as an example), "balancing the chemicals" DOES treat a particular sx. And that's how psychopharma should be used: as an adjunct to therapy to treat the underlying disorder.
I can think of people’s distress, suffering, and impairment with compassion, wanting them to receive help or treatment to decrease said suffering, without attaching a stigmatizing label to them. I want to minimize harm.
I think we need to better acknowledge the harm these labels can do, and weigh that against the benefits.
I overall understand and empathize with the point you're trying to make, which I believe is to advocate for not over-pathologizing.
I don't know your specific circumstance, but I am going to play devil's advocate and mention that there is often a lot of
relief in getting a diagnosis or having a name for what ails a person. I have worked with countless folks who were struggling for years wondering "wtf is wrong with me, am I just damaged?!" but then feel relief when I can tell them hey, it's just ADHD, or it's just OCD, and now that we've figured out what it is,
there is help. I would caution against being a warrior for communities that you may not fully be integrated in (for example: many members of the disabled community actually dislike the "differently abled" verbiage).
Out of curiosity what is your license/background?
