What If Psychiatry Is Fake? | Mia Mulder
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- Get CuriosityStream AND Nebula for less than $15 per year (26% off!) curiositystrea...
Probably not fake
Mental health is a complicated topic. But what if the way we think about it is already flawed?
Watch some of my other videos!
How To Pass As A Woman | Mia Mulder
• How To Pass As A Woman...
Why You Shouldn't Be A Nationalist | Mia Mulder
• Why You Shouldn't Be A...
Anti-intellectualism: "Facts vs Feelings | Mia Mulder
• Anti-Intellectualism: ...
Sweden: Heaven And Hell | Mia Mulder
• Sweden: Heaven And Hel...
------------
Pronouns: She/her
One Time Donations: ko-fi.com/miamulder
Paypal: Paypal.me/Miamulder1
Instagram: Mia_mulder
Twitter: @potatopolitics
Patreon: www.patreon.com/MiaMulder
So the answer to the title is, "Psychiatry is real, but it's probably too confident in itself, overgeneralized and overprescribed"?
Also, re: mental ward: I had pretty much this exact experience, but it was causing me so much panic within the first 8 hours that I was able to leave before getting to the point that they could justify keeping me in. Also, my husband has general power of attorney, so there was always the option of him getting me out.
Inpatient clinics are often "one size fits all" and entirely too confident in their conclusions and modalities.
Also also, re: modern psychology research & productivity: A lot of the research coming out the in the last 5-6 years (especially from the fields of health, social and, weirdly, I/O psychology) has been supportive of the idea that we shouldn't need to be productive. Or at least that the productivity that we need, in a psychological sense, is to be productive to the goals that matter to us.
Psychology is a particularly slow science, due to the WEIRD (White, educated, industrialized, rich & democratic) college sample problem and ethics, but things are moving in a better direction. I don't know if the same can be said for psychiatry (I suspect not, tbh, except maybe from the psychedelics researchers), but I'm finding a lot of support for my social/political questions and goals within the field of modern psychology.
This is probably the best summary I've seen so I'm gonna pin it
@@MiaMulder =o I am honored
Someone's been studying for the SATs.
"Being touched and being given a blanket and a snack made them feel better."
I felt a lot of the points in this video, being in the process of maybe finally getting an actual diagnosis for my own mental health issues, but this specific image is going to haunt me for the rest of the week, isn't it?
Perhaps for years...
That line gave me an emotional reaction I really didn't expect.
This part almost made me cry
Late to this convo but it's what that sentence implies about care at such institutions that's really damning
"If the human brain were so simple we could figure it out, we would be so simple we couldn't."
- a quote in my first-year psychology survey course textbook that has always (except for the attribution!) stuck with me.
A self defeating statement. It is a complex thing, and it can be figured out
An similar alternative statement could be, "Any brain simple enough to understand would be too simple to understand".
In other words, we may someday be able to understand a worm's simple brain, but I doubt that the worm, with such a simple brain, could really understand its own brain.
The logic of that quote feels off to me. The meaning is obviously that we can’t figure the mind out because it is so complex that it’s complexity is the reason why can think the way we do. However, couldn’t the other part also be true by the logic of the quote? We obviously can’t figure it out, so who’s to say the reason for that isn’t that we are simple? Maybe the mind is simple but we are too simple to figure it out. Obviously that’s not what the quote is going for, but it could very well be that reason. The quote feels self defeating. The only true part is that we can’t figure out the mind, and it poses two reasons that bother could either be true, despite trying to state that one is obviously true and the other is obviously false. Maybe I’m looking too deep into this, but as soon as I read it, I could t help but think that it kind of doesn’t make any sense.
@Julian Bell everything you are saying is exactly what the quote is going for
@@julianbell9161 I read it as if the mind were simple, we wouldn't be able to solve it, but very clearly the mind is complex and therefore we are complex enough to solve it. Psychology is so young, like, less than 200 years old. It's unreasonable to think we would have all the mysteries down by now when other sciences have been perfected for thousands of years. It's not logical to think that just because we don't understand everything yet, that it's all a lost cause - I mean that's how science evolves.
Shit Life Syndrome - people who suffer from fractured relationships, have no social circle, people who feel insulated
I was one such person. I was in an abusive relationship and had no real social circle. I started getting therapy - at the urging of my abusive girlfriend, ironically - and my therapist helped me realize the situation I was in and how I could get out of it. I've since cut my abuser out of my life, changed jobs, and expanded my social circle. Life is vastly improved
This is my anecdote. Therapy can help give you the tools to get out of certain situations. Obviously it can't help with everything, but sometimes all you need is someone else saying that you matter
This makes me of how much better I feel now that I've graduated school and no longer pursuing a career in graphic design. I'm working an unstressful part-time job that pays well and making art when I feel like it. I have goal of becoming a professional artist, but I'm taking my time and being kind to myself. I'm not fousing on productivity. I'm slowly but surely getting better at time management and doing something that makes me really happy.
13:50 this part never fails to make me cry. The first time I watched this video I was going through a really hard time and hearing this just made me feel so human, it was amazing, it really helped. Thank you.
They turn a societal problem into a personal one, I still like psychology though, it's interesting to find patterns in human behaviour and make predictions
In the UK at 17, I was put on anti-depressants after one visit to my regular doctor. No input from a mental health professional. I was then put on a waiting list for a counselor, not a psychiatrist. I was in a daze. Eventually I stopped taking the meds myself after doing something pretty stupid and dangerous. I have no idea what it did to me. That was 20 odd years ago and I just went to Asia at 21 and tried to deal with things myself. This video speaks to me.
I feel like the idea that our lives are "better" compared to an arbitrary time in the past should be reexamined. Just considering the system we live, we're all so disconnected from our basic needs like being able to confidently reach out to someone for support or being socialized to not seek physical touch. Even in the US, for some people there is no guarantee where their next meal would come from. Despite a nation's "wealth" and how we can prevent people from dying from a common flu, society itself is sick and it's making us sick.
History repeats itself an awful lot and our sister is a PhD student who researches social history in Britain as a side effect, eg information on domestic servants and stuff. They're really not going around miserable to the extent people making thoughtless remarks assume.
We live in hell, sometimes thinking about it makes me crumble.
To know if it's fake or not, you need to study it's history. I recommend the article Diagnosis - Unaccountable: Psychiatry’s history, present, and all of our futures.
Thank you for this, Mia, I've been waiting on a public waiting list for a clinical psychiatrist for months now, and this has helped me manage expectations and re-evaluate what I want out of it. I can also see why an ER doctor might not have wanted to admit me a few years ago, although I can't possibly say if I'd be in a better place now if she had.
Great video!
I didn't even know this viewpoint exists. You presented this school of thought in a really compelling way too.
Please consider listing some sources, and adding timestamps. They give credibility, an overview and navigability for messy minds like mine and for revisiting. Cheers!
Despite psychiatry has for sure saved my life, I have... Opinions
You always offer a perspective I've never considered before. Excellent video. 🖤 LOVE 🖤
Your opinions aren't wrong to be sure. I'm almost finished my degree in psychology and I'm pretty convinced so much of it is founded on incorrect ideas that we might need to throw a good 50-80% of theories in the bin
Your video was really good. Psychiatry has definitely saved my life but like you mentioned in the video, there are flaws with it. And I know how a bad hospital visit (especially one to a mental health hospital) can really mess you up. I also was lied to about being able to leave (transferred from one place where I was voluntary - an ER, just for help - and then to a truly horrific place that I wouldn't wish on anyone).
And while I do think that many people's mental health issues would get better in a different society, for me, that's not entirely the case. My Complex-PTSD and Depression might get a bit easier to handle, but unfortunately even in a "perfect" society, I'd be a bit screwed (though talk therapy and meds help a ton). That and add on chronic physical pain.
Psychiatry allows me to live a semi “normal” life where b4 that wasnt even possible. Anti-psychiatry is anti medical proffesion, anti-medicin, bc early doctors tortured patients, you can make the same exact argument vs all medicin.
Great way to end the video, leaves a taste for more, honestly!
I have spent much time thinking 'do I really have a "disorder" or am I just chronically overworked/isolated and suffering the totally predictable consequences of that?'
There is no hard scientific evidence to prove the validity of any psychiatric "disorder". Not a single biological test they can run on you to determine if you have a "chemical imbalance" or any other so called "mental illness". That is not to say that your suffering isn't real. I'm sure it is, but that's doesn't make it an illness. If it is, there's certainly no scientific evidence of that. All psychiatrists have are theories that sell drugs.
I had to read Freud for this only to barely even use him.
I read *jung* for this and didn't even use him either!
Research is a scam
Sorry apearently jung is as wild.
Cass Eris has a video for both and explains how batshit Jung is. Freud is just a given.
Don't get Nicki Minaj-pilled.
Yep. Honestly I should have noped out faster when I heard a previous therapist was a Jung fan.
Oh and I think most people think Freud is crap. XD
Psych wards are traumatizing. I was told I'd stay in one for a week or two and they kept me there for TWO MONTHS. I only got let out because I let my parents know I was sexually assaulted by another patient. I didn't even feel comfortable telling doctors there because I didn't trust them. I don't think many patients did. We mostly just feared them.
> I didn't trust them. I don't think many patients did. We mostly just feared them.
tbh can you blame them? they manipulate you into doing shit, dont care about what you want, they forcefully prescribe you shit,
you have no consent in there at all, heck your not even allowed to leave.
why would you trust them in that situation? why would anyone?
My addiction started with benzo drugs. I'm against drugs in most cases. Addiction and mental health go hand to hand. If they use less drugs and fix the problems. Drugs just mask the problem and don't work.
I agree with you 100 percent. Psych wards are anything but therapeutic. They are in fact frightening and traumatic. Every single person I know who has been in a psychiatric ward said it was scary and that they didn't feel safe, free, or comfortable there. And it wasn't because of other patients either. Each one of them was afraid of the staff, and each one of them still carries the trauma today. Of course, psychiatrists who read this will just attempt to gaslight by saying that these people already had issues. Yes, no shit. And now they have even MORE issues due to having been locked up against their will and kept there, even if they committed no crime. And that's another thing. When it comes to gaslighting, psychiatrists not only invented it, they perfected it. Nobody does more gaslighting than psychiatrists do. And as for the issue of "Mental health stigma", it is psychiatry that does the initial stigmatizing. "Mental health stigma" begins the moment a mental health practitioner labels a patient with a psychiatric diagnosis. They're the ones doing the stigmatizing !
@@LiEnby I agree. I think it's absurd for psychiatrist to expect you to trust them when they're effectively holding you captive, even though you probably didn't commit a single crime. I wouldn't view such a person as a "helper". I'd view them as a captor.
I have heard the same story from other people. Academics call the 'illnesses "psychobabble". You can look that up in the Cambridge University psychological dictionary. At college we were only allowed to discuss it as "ideas". On the emblem I have for the Royal College of Psychiatrist there is a picture of a head showing the left side with wings above it. Its intention is to indicate the mind is ambient and our psychological imposition can affect our perception and the behaviour of those around us. The "disorders' were a later invention and have no academic substance other than ideas. generally they consist of a collection of ephemeral responses which are in place all at once, which are not illnesses , but a natural consequence of the involuntary nervous system. In order to make a legal diagnosis you have to be able to justify and qualify your perceptions according to the conditions of the academic canon. I have never seen this done. The response is silence. The geometric algorithm in the emblem is a sequence of cosines starting with the square root of point 8 down to .27. It is illustrated as a snake and the curves on the sake mark the positions of the cosine sequence . It is not generally used and only provides for parts of the structure of the brain which is neurology, not psychiatry. The workers commonly get away with people just taking their word for it, but that does not go in an academic environment. The post grads who make their livings from it are taught that algorithm. It may give them a delusional perception of superior wisdom and intelligence, when really they have just been shown diagrams and been led by the nose through the maths by a bored professor. The legal side is probably useless to use against them because the judges are not educated people they are appointed by frat Aldermen who mostly exist in the same ignorant, arrogant and deluded state of superiority because of their third degree frat initiations and forget they were told it all and did not work it out for them selves. There really is no room for psychiatry in the situations i have seen. Incarceration from what I saw, was political, and the result of an ignorance of a psychological dynamic the victims are ignorant of because those who have been taught it have kept it to themselves. They Probably felt you were mentally backward. It is sometimes a consequence of leaving a college with a piece of paper telling you how clever you are because you passed an exam. I have file full of them. They are a joke. A good way of shutting a psychiatrist up would be to ask it to explain the psychological dynamic on their emblem and the significance of the mathematical algorithm as they were originally employed to do, i doubt you will get a response.
28:05 "Therapy, then, becomes a sort out catch-all solution to anyone who falls between the cracks of economic or social or physical problems."
*Ovations* 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏.
In the rat Park experiment, the rats in the good cages did occasionally drink from the drug laced water. The rats did self-moderate their use and as the experimenter described it like the rats giving themselves the occasional treat.
We are living in hell. So quite normal is to be mentally ill, it's simply efect of trauma.
Right so ... do drugs is what you're saying?
@francookie Occasionally, as a treat. That's how we treat booze, isn't it?
@@Pluveus how we should treat it? Yes.
how most people treat it? No.
@@choczynski Last time I checked, most drugs aren't really broadly to people's taste, most people don't like most drugs in reality.
I'm a psych major rn and the uni I'm in luckily teaches the exact same things you've stated in the video! I dunno about other schools in western/westernized countries (I'm in canada), but psychology has shifted a great deal in the past few decades to be more encompassing and to make these same critiques of itself. I think a lot of ppl (including some practitioners themselves) confuse the general field of psychology with psychoanalysis/psychotherapy (the latter caught on with Freud, and he's so outdated he's basically a meme among plenty of psychologists). Psychiatry is obvs based on psychology, but it's more an aspect of the medical industry, so they can totally tend to both essentialize and pathologize people way too much imo.
I very much agree with the positions in the vid, tbh. On my own end, I'm double majoring in sociology because I think those types of fields absolutely need each other -- one of the best psychologists I ever went to actually did her masters in social work and I believe that's a huge part of why she was so great!
Yeah, I’m a mental health professional (specialty: addiction treatment) and I kept running into odd moments where Mia was positioning concepts/problems as being outside of psychology that are very much topics of conversation by mental health professionals.
Rat Park is a pretty crucial experiment to understand if you want to work in addiction treatment.
As someone who is a complete outsider to the field but likes sometimes digging into current research out of interest, something that surprised and confused me for a while is that disconnect between psychology and psychiatry when it comes to the concepts involved. Like, physics and engineering are closely intertwined and experimental physicists are basically engineers at the bleeding edge. But in psychology that isn't so much the case. One example I stumbled across was Gardners theory of the "eight types of intelligence" - psychiatrists apparently love it and it's extremely popular in the field. But from the side of psychologists you find little to no hard evidence of it being true - in the sense that this separation of "eight intelligences" fits any kind of statistical pattern of ability better than any other division. If anything in psychology the monomodal "g-factor" of intelligence still is preferred as the standard and has some evidence for it. But if you listened only to practitioners in the field you'd be lead to believe that noone thinks the "g-factor" exists or matters at all.
Similarly with "learning types". Super popular in the field, with little to no evidence from the research side backing it up.
I'm a psychiatrist in the UK. I do entirely see the need for a better society to boost mental health and happiness, but it is easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I do think psychiatry is a force for good at this time.
For starters, not all mental illness is caused by a bad society. Neurological disease, immunological disease, genetic disorders, physical trauma and much more can induce psychiatric symptoms, whether that be affective disorders, cognitive issues or even psychosis. Even in a perfect world, there would be no shortage of cases for a psychiatrist to treat.
It should be noted that some things said in this video are actually untrue. Antidepressants do have a significant effect beyond placebo for example. Chronic pain has a heavy link to where you place attention and significance and does benefit from therapy (more so than physical investigation and treatment in many cases). As for our understanding of the brain and our medications, this is improving every year, with new theories about how our brains function and new ways to treat illness being identified all the time (with no shortage of evidence base).
As for pathologising based on what society expects, we're actually not taught to do that anymore (or at least, I wasn't). I call something illness if it is preventing my patient from doing what they want to do (as long as that is within the realms of possibility - i.e. getting a good nights sleep, focussing their attention on whatever they wish to concentrate on). I don't class not working or not contributing as an issue unless my patient tells me they wish to do so, but their symptoms are preventing them. I even respect the rights of patients to use recreational drugs and only pathologise substance use if it is clearly causing harm or there is evidence of dependence. The only time I would call something illness when the patient would disagree is in conditions where lack of insight is prominent and demonstrable and the symptoms clearly evidenced (psychosis, dementia etc).
As for lying to patients, in the UK we are taught not to do this. If someone is admitted voluntarily, they should always be allowed to leave unless staff have significant concerns over their safety (where an urgent review should take place). When we use the law to hold someone against their will for their own protection or the protection of others, there are appeals processes, and doctors are encouraged to work with the expectations of their patients (for the most part). Transparency is very important in our field, and it saddens me to hear this is not the case elsewhere.
So to summarise, yes, we are often a plaster for mental states directly caused by the society we live in and I deeply support change to better the lives of everyone on earth. However, unless the revolution is happening tomorrow, psychiatry and psychology are useful services in helping people cope living in the current clownworld we inhabit. We should also not forget that even in a perfect cage, mental illness would sadly still occur due to organic illnesses.
@@AndyHill1991 thank you for saying this. I know that my medications have definitely been helpful. It took doing a gene test to figure things out (and even then we added on a medication or two) and I'm definitely more stable than before. Plus with medication it's a delicate balance and they do need adjusting occasionally. Like you said, things like actually getting good uninterrupted sleep, not having extreme chronic pain (one of my meds has a couple good side effects of less physical pain and more solid sleep), and not being on super high alert (okay so I'm more on high alert now, but that's C-PTSD for ya) all the time.
I know that there have been some meds in the past that were definitely not good for me (bad hospital experience already and then two of the meds they put me on - one without much choice - interacted badly with each other and I had trouble walking after) and on the test I took, one was in the red column and the other was in the yellow column. So that definitely wasn't just me being in an upsetting situation.
Unfortunately, here in the US, doctors do lie about whether or not you're able to leave (I mentioned in another comment thread that I went to one place (ER) voluntary and when I was transferred from that place to the other one, they lied and said the first place "must have switched" me to involuntary. My GP looked at my notes later and said that from what she could see, the first hospital's notes (same hospital system as my GP) definitely said voluntary even up to leaving.
You're right in saying even in a perfect cage we'd still have mental illness in society. Plus, humans are going to human if the last almost 2 years have shown us anything.
@@AndyHill1991 My first comment isn't disagreeing with anything you've stated here! As a note though, you may not have done this (and maybe this is not common in the UK) but in canada, if you are a psychiatrist (not a psychologist; you need to specifically have a medical degree), you can absolutely lie to your patients without any repercussions. Provided you have a decent reputation and are therefore able to discredit the patient. Happens all the time, unfortunately, just like any other medical malpractice.
EDIT: Psychiatrists in canada are probs not trained to lie to patients, just to be clear lmao! I've just witnessed it happen many, many times regardless.
I think the most chilling thing out of all of the "Mia did not get to go home" segemnent was the failure of it.
Her being told "you shouldn't be alone right now" and then being left, alone, in a single room with no-one around her.
they only meant that she shouldn't be alone unless it were in some sort of well-meaning prison where un-aliving herself would've been far more challenging, apparently. So ridiculous
Didn't even track that as one of the lies the doc told Mia so she would agree to stay.
@Rante Aligheri Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?
the sick part is that the only reason that "doctor" could talk her into agreeing with him is specifically _because_ she was isolated enough to crave whatever social connection she could find... including agreeing to his suspicious proposal.
that "doctor" chose to use his understanding of the problem to manipulate her instead of actually being a doctor and helping her.
tbh what this says to the effectiveness of 'mental hospitals' in general ...
I’m a medical student with an interest in psychiatry. On my child psychiatry placement it became apparent that so many of the kids were in need of better social care. And their problems wouldn’t be fixed by an hour of therapy
in nursing, started out interested in psychiatry and then became even more depressed because of that. kudos to the strong peeps that make a difference in that field. its so heavy.
Yep, I've heard from child psychiatrists that it's not unusual for families to designate one kid "the crazy one," the scapegoat for the family's issues. Therapy can help, if nothing else it's an hour where someone is actually listening, but the child is not the cause of their own issues.
@@kidlitfanful Yeah, I'm that one in my family. 28 now and just yesterday escaped from that mind trap and reconnected with some old friends who assured me I'm not crazy, and that's something I needed to hear. I was calling my aunt for help and she fucked up while answering so I got to hear her and my grandpa discuss how "nuts" I am for having severe breathing issues, followed instantly by an attempt from them to institutionalize me while I was on the run.
I won't accept their bullshit anymore.
@@kidlitfanful yes indeed! That's me.
The leading cause of poor outcomes for both mental and physical health is poverty/no social safety nets
It's absolutely wild to me that "maybe material conditions impact mental health" is often a revolutionary thought
Psychiatry anecdote time? Oh, fun!
* I was also lied to that I can leave anytime. I was put in a closed ward, had to share a room with five other people, two of which snored very loudly, and my hypersensitive self did not manage that very well.
* Like a year later, I was trying to get the government to recognize me as disabled, I had a different psychiatrist lie to my face in kind of the worst way ever. See, in our short meeting I had to explain to her some basic things regarding gender and sexuality, as one does when they're one of us, she was like "ok, ok" and wrote down that I was delusional and suffered significant disconnect from reality. That was fun.
That's 12 steps past fucked up. I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's insane how we are taught to blindly trust "mental health professionals", doctors and counselers. Yet they can be so entirely.... disgusting.
That doesn't surprise me at all. Until the 1970's, psychiatrists actually considered homosexuality to be a mental illness. That just goes to show you how reliable their "Science" is. Oh, and they took Homosexuality out of the DSM (and rightly so), not because it had no science behind it (Even though it doesn't), but because of public backlash. Can you imagine that happening in any other branch of medicine? I certainly can't. In any other medical specialty, diagnoses is based on hard science, not whether or not the public approves of the diagnosis.
Here's the problem I have when people have this debate about psychiatry: in most cases, instead of talking about mental illnesses, they use the word "mental illnesses" as a euphemism for depression. That's just too reductionist. Depression is a funky diagnosis, because it often appears to be highly affected by your environment. As someone who had struggled with depression since I was very young, I know I got immediately much better when I left my trash hometown for the first time to go to college. But now that I'm well out of college and I got a good job, I feel better than I did in high school, but I still have bouts of horrible distress and numbness. I feel like I have a little less external depression, but I still have all my internal depression.
On the other hand, I have a friend with OCD, and it's much clearer to see how that internal stress affects her. She once told me about the horrible intrusive thoughts she had when she was little. She had rituals every night where she had to shake her pillows several times before she could go to bed. If she didn't do that, she would have a meltdown, convinced she would get hurt or sick or something horrible. She was little kid, she didn't understand why she had these thoughts. No one ever told her to shake the pillows, she just developed this compulsion due to her own thoughts.
The problem I have with "you're not the problem, society is the problem" is it sometimes feels like erasure for those of us with a more complex mental health background. I remember a while ago I went on trip with one of my friends after we both suffered a lot of drama with our friend group back home. And I had the most amazing experience in the world, because we both have ADHD, and it was most validating thing ever when I said "I'm so sick of the way Tom treats me like an idiot when I'm struggling with chores, but when Sadie doesn't get out of bed for 2 days because of depression, he bends over backwards for her because he thinks depression is real but ADHD is not." And she agreed with me! And we got to talk to each other about things that are hard for us that everyone else belittles us for! Awe inspiring.
I think it's a real problem when we're taught to measure our self worth against our productivity. It's even more sickening to overly pathologize neurodivergencies when they can easily be accommodated or plainly accepted. But at the same time, it causes real pain sometimes. I don't know what's the best way to measure it, and I recognize external factors can affect it, but one thing I'm convinced of is that it exists. And I'm an adult, I do a good job taking care of myself most of the time, but sometimes I need help with that. And yes, the health care industry is often absolute shit at providing adequate care (ask anyone in the autism community about common therapies for autistic children, it's borderline abuse). But we don't got a lot of other options :( Modern psychiatry can't solve everything, but it at least is an effort to make life a little more manageable. And I know it might be hard to believe, but the field is much better today than it was long ago. I can only hope as time goes on, we learn to accept neurodiversity better and can adapt care that really helps people instead of punishing them.
Sorry for the long essay, this is my blessing for the algorithm. Loved the video, it's just a topic I can get real stirred up about
All the criticisms made against psychiatry can be made against ALL of the medical professions all of them are guilty of past (and contemporary) crimes. But does that mean humanity can survive without modern medicin? Fuck no. Its the same with psychiatry.
this comment is so precious, as in its content is really, really valuable (and I'm happy you found someone that understood where you came from and could relate)
i havent watched the video , just reading comments ..
but yeh , that line "your not the problem society is" ...
i think either you're both the problem ..
or much better put , society is what it is , and you are what you are - and neither is wrong or right ... we are kind of just all trying to find a place to fit
and you can judge yourself or judge society .. and in turn try and change yourself or change society .. and try and make it fit that way but ultimately it's your choice
which means its your accountability , which means you choose by which measures to judge yourself , ..
even if that choice be , to measure yourself by the judgments of others , or hold yourself accountable to them > and that is a hard one to break , especially if you "want others to like you" .. or you "want others to value you" > which then begs the question , is what they value actually me? .. If I'm changing myself to fit their expectations , then is it really 'me' that they value?
*and then it goes on
but i think basically we just want to feel safe, loved and seen > and beyond that maybe some ambition and excitement
I am so, so thankful for this comment. While enjoying the video I was very reluctant to click on it because I have dealt with the same ‚erasure‘ many times.
It’s baffling how differently we speak about anxiety and depression in contrast to OCD, personality disorders or psychosis (and of course neurodiversity).
it’s already pretty difficult to explain your mental illnesses to someone when your life isn’t shitty at all. For some of us, explaining it as an illness is the only way to get the respect/time/resources we need. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty sceptical about the use of diagnoses and schematic one-fits-all approach in clinics has caused so much harm. But there’s a distinction to be made and I am glad u did.
Your comment was a very valuable addition for me, thank you!
I think I understand your point and it's a good point to make. However, in my case as someone whose ADHD had gone undiagnosed for a long time and I ended up with a decade long deep depression and anxiety before a nurse realised that I might actually have ADHD.. the society kinda was the problem. Because it is what supports the notion that productivity and certain behavioural patterns are valued while others are not. I didn't get that "judge" in my head all on my own.. it was the product of all the teachers and parents and other people who were disappointed in me.. because I had "so much potential" that I was wasting.. I still struggle with his but at least now I understand why there seemed to be something wrong with me and why life seems so unbearably difficult at times. Psychiatry indeed helped me to diagnose the problem.. but the problem actually is that what I am is not fully compatible with what the society demands from me. That said, I do not pretend to talk in behalf of other people who have other kinds of mental problems and challenges.. and they may have entirely different but valid take on these things.
I'm in recovery from CPTSD, and it's kind of incredible to me how much my life has fallen apart now that I've reached the point where I can stop using unhealthy coping strategies. Turns out that when you spend your whole life letting people mistreat and take advantage of you, you're going to end up surrounded by people who will bail on you as soon as they can't get what they want any more.
Setting boundaries for the first time as a trauma survivor is unbelievably scary, because people DO treat you like you're crazy. They'll say things like, "this never bothered you before," or "why are you so sensitive all of a sudden?" And if you systematically and methodically start cutting off contact with people who continue to cross your boundaries on a regular basis, you just might find yourself pretty isolated. It's pretty terrifying, and when the people who have purported to care about you start telling you that "everything was fine before, this is all in your head," you can start to *feel* crazy, too.
Best of luck with the final stretch of your recovery journey. I relate a lot, despite that my CPTSD is being kepy intact especially because I cannot cut off people (because of practical reasons).
This this this so much this. I also am recovering from cptsd.
Let alone not being in a position to even be able to set these boundaries at times because it would cause your life to get worse objectively. Like a loss of ability to take care of yourself adequately.
At that point it’s a toss up.
Do you respect yourself enough to set the boundary to heal even if that means living rough potentially and making your garbo life worse setting yourself up for more trauma?
Or do you deal with it in hopes of having a better, more stable life one day when you’re fighting every day just to go to work and not have some sort of breakdown not leaving enough spare time to actually fix the “shit life syndrome” aspect?
I remember coming in to the dr for a severe health problem (I was randomly losing consciousness and memories, lost all strength, and was constantly exhausted). I was so sick I thought I was going to die. My dr was very dismissive and despite saying she would run physical tests she used words like “we WILL start you on antidepressants WHEN your other tests come back negative”. I was stressed that she wouldn’t even bother with my tests or try to treat me. The next day I got a call saying my tests were normal and that I’d be starting antidepressants. I did have depression that I hadn’t had treated yet so I wasn’t against it but I knew that wasn’t what was wrong with me at the time (I’d been depressed since 13 but only sick for a couple months). A couple days later I got access to my actual test results, which showed my thyroid had completely shut down and my dr was gonna let me go into a fucking coma bc she refused to even check my physiology before deciding my only problem was that I was “too emotional”.
I also had a hard time when I started getting treated for ADD bc they didn’t want to put me on adderall for fear I’d sell or abuse it, so they instead put me on an experimental drug that I wasn’t told the possible side effects of and that was later banned for use on anyone under 25. It gave me massive mood swings, severe manic episodes, panic attacks, and made me forget to eat for days at a time. No one would believe me that I was scared of the side effects until my mom happened to see me have a complete breakdown, and even then she initially just accused me of acting crazy....
I had a sibling who's doctor called them back to the office, after a normal appointment, telling them it was an emergency. When they arrived, the doctor locked them in the room and called the cops to have them institutionalized. When asked why they said "you hesitated when we scheduled our next appointment". My sibling responded "I was thinking about money!" The doctor ignored them, kept pushing them through to the hospital, said it was a "sign they couldn't take care of themself"
When they arrived at the hospital, they were angry. They yelled "why am I here" to a doctor. That doctor did not answer, walked out of the room and wrote "psychotic" and "a lack of insight" on their file, and they got institutionalized.
Meaning the first doctor decided "poverty" and "hesitancy" were a sign of mental illness. The second doctor decided "anger at being essentially kidnapped" was a sign of mental illness.
I myself am really mentally ill. I take care of myself with less success than the sibling who got institutionalized (they walked the whole way to every dr appt, bc of the poverty. If I had to walk to a dr appt I wouldnt fucking go). I know how useful mental health help has been to me.
But I can't help but look at what happened to them and go "who tf decides what mental illness is? Why do the decide it? Why do they get to decide on an individuals treatment with relatively no oversight? Why do we let them decide what is normal and what isn't?"
And how the heck would anyone prove it using any kind of science?
Oh God man. Surviving a suicide attempt and being locked up was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I’m not sure how teaching people that they shouldn’t call for help because they’ll be locked up no matter the circumstances is helpful. I understand why I was locked up it was under valid pretenses but. I was devastated and just tried to be calm. The worst thing was, my doctor flat out lied to me about what day I’d get out. She said I’d go home tomorrow, and then what tomorrow came she denied ever saying that. I dropped it because I didn’t want to be seen as crazy. Two more people also said they heard her. I obviously was devastated and had a complete meltdown and was seen as overreacting, I was so terrified they’d take it as a bad sign. I literally sank to the floor, and two nurses got angry with me and told me I was overreacting. It was heartbreaking. The thing is, the next day, I was also told I was getting out that day. They got me all ready, but when the doctor came she denied saying she would let me out- but the discharge person said she told her I would be let out. Thankfully, they let me go- I honestly can’t even think how devastated I’d be if I couldn’t leave then. I knew I would try to not panic and have an external meltdown so they wouldn’t try to keep me longer if they did make me stay, but I could go. Thankfully. I can confidentially say it was one of the worst experiences of my life and it’s heartbreaking to realize that that doctor probably traumatized more people too.
@@rayafoxr3 i'm so sorry for what you've been through. None of this is acceptable. No doctor should have that level of control over someone else
SCAM TO GAIN CONTROL OVER ASSETS.
@@rayafoxr3 I too got locked up after suicide attempts and each time was actually worse than the distress that preceded the attempt.
It felt like I was being punished for not being strong enough to deal with life.
The last time my doctors were especiall infuriating.
Even though I had a history of self harm and had gotten a T1 diabetes diagnosis THREE WEEKS prior to the attempt AND told them that the attempt was caused by rejection and the ffeling that noone would ever accept me because I look too masculine, THEY decided that I tried to kill myself because I regrettet my bottom surgery that happened 14 months earlier.
No one cared that my life had drastically improved since bottom surgery and that it feels like the best decision I ever made, noone realized that just because I got rid of genital dysphoria my other problems wouldn'T just evaporate (something I had been aware of YEARS before) and noone bothered to even consider if my ulcerative colitits and the diabetes diagnosis would _maybe_ add to my stress.
Now I am part of the "transition regret statistic" even though I don't regret it.
one aspect of the "psychology/psychiatry is not real" argument i would add: too much of it is based on external observation of behaviour rather than on figuring out the best ways to get information *about* the preson out of the person. this is especially a problem in e.g. autism research. i'm an autistic grad student and i read a lot of autism research out of interest (i'm in evolutionary biology myself) and i see it all the time
it's more present in older research but it is still the case quite often that autism research is done by neurotypical scientists who are observing behaviours and trying to interpret them - that's how you end up thinking that stimming is harmful for example. they see that autistic people stim more when they are in distress and confuse cause and effect - they think stimming is causing the distress but in reality, most of the time stimming is a result of trying to cope with distress. i'm oversimplifying somewhat but i see this over and over even in very fresh articles
so basically autism research is more like old behavioural ecology which, yeah, does not yield the best results. i could go on and on about this (and i will probably make a video essay about it at some point) but this has been a problem in psychology from the get-go and it has not fixed itself yet. there is always some othering happening between the psychologist and the study subject and/or patient and it greatly limits the actual insight into the human psyche
that's so odd, all I've ever heard about stimming has always very much been in the light of "coping mechanisms"... is it a boomer mental health professional thing?
@@_goopho I think it partly depends on how much the individual researcher or psychiatrist has the inclination to listen to actual autistic people, unfortunately. It was more prevalent in the boomer times, but even Gen Z autistics like myself can tell you multiple stories of times we were essentially told "quiet hands" in the 21st century. And even then i feel like the "coping mechanism" explanation isn't quite adequate. Yes I have "Stress Stims", but I also stim all the time when I'm not stressed because it is how I express emotion. I dislike that this only became acceptable when researchers decided it was "useful", if that makes sense.
@@emma7933 hi there. you are spot on - 'coping mechanism' is a partial explanation. it is often dominant simply because a lot of autistic people... well, need to cope with a lot of awful experiences. but it is not actually a coping mechanism by design as such. one analogy is eating as a coping mechanism - we eat, obviously, to gain nutrients so we can continue living and not starve... but eating has a side-effect that it (usually) triggers a feeling of contentment, satiation, and dissipation of the feeling that something is needed (that we need nutrition). so, if eating can make us feel better, eating when you don't feel good can help reduce that feeling a bit - a way to cope (somewhat) with feeling a bit better. stimming pretty much is a coping mechanism in similar ways - it isn't there for this purpose, but one side-effect is to dissipate not feeling good. so what is it, then? tbh it is something all humans do, and while some forms are culturally accepted and even encouraged (and thus not seen as aberrant) such as dancing, clapping and cheering at a sport or music event, and others are seen as acceptable ways to cope with negative emotional states (wringing your hands in distress, wailing or holding your head in grief, shaking, biting a lip, hugging yourself from fear, stretching, jigging your leg or pacing to reduce stress, etc etc) or to enhance focus and cognition or store or recall memories (pen tapping, doodling, mouthing the words, clising your eyes)... which themselves mostly work by sidelining sensory / emotional distractions... what turns things like that into 'stimming' (i.e. something regarded as aberrant/pathological) is context and perspective. wailing and banging your head with your hands in grief is totally acceptable (you just lost a loved one for example) but doing this in contexts where - emotionally - you feel kinda the same as in situations of grief but where *others* can't see an obvious reason for grief... that's when it becomes 'pathological.' now, if you turn the tables on this and instead of watching from outside and asking 'are these actions warranted based on what I can see?' instead you ask 'what kind of experiences tend to prompt these kinds of actions?'... then you get very, very different results. now, you are presuming the person has a good reason for what they are doing, and it is a reason you just don't know about instead of concluding 'well, I don't feel some way that warrants those kinds of expressions, so therefore there's no reason to act that way, so this person is a whack-job.' stimming for pleasure is a sort of special case, but it is entirely explainable within the same line of thinking. why do we dance? srsly like... wtf??? it makes no sense. but humans do dance, across cultures and aeons. we dance to express, to enjoy the (physical and psychological) effects of it, to shake off troubles and stress, to engage with others in shared experience, to snuggle into a comfort zone. a lot of what makes up (especially social) dance is a collection of... well, stims. rocking, hopping, proprioceptive inputs, arm waving, spinning... and often it comes with vocalisations too, and with a clear structure (repeated moves, rhythmic sounds as accompaniment, standardised physical and cultural contexts). essentially, it is a way to - individually or as a group - shake off worries, stimulate happy brain juice, express happy emotions etc. and it works excellently well, and in - as always - socially, culturally, formalised settings, that's totally cool. stimming for pleasure is separated from that not because it is different but because it tends to happen outside of pre-defined cultural contexts and often for reasons that are not evident to external observers. sometimes they are not evident to the person themself, or can't be explained using the language they have available to them. autistics stim because autistics are humans and humans stim. any other explanation is a mix of cultural biases. that's it. okay this wall of text is way into tl:dr territory so I'll shut up. context to all this: potted summary of some aspects of stim theory built up in recent years by myself and others, my own personal study of stimming and related topics (autistic expression, the role of senses and emotion in autistic - and other human types, writing, presenting, giving workshops on stimming and senses and emotions in a neurodivergent context over the last decade or so).
keep stimming. the more we stim, the more it gains cultural acceptance. the more it gains cultural acceptance, the easier it is to stim.
One uni class with a psych professor cements these issues 🙄
+++
Me, an anthropology student, to my psych major friend: so I'm wary of the concept of "disorders" bc they rely on someone being "abnormal"
Psych friend: we don't say abnormal anymore
Me: ok but did the model change?
Psych friend: ....
For me, a "normal" life is one where I can at least somewhat function in society. As in, my meds help me with my sleep (without I'm woken up frequently from nightmares that leave me shaking - thanks Complex-PTSD), and other ones help me at least get out of bed the majority of days (unless I really overdid it and my ankles protest - avascular necrosis, yaaaaay), and keep my mood just functional enough (most of the time) that'll keep me from unaliving myself. And I still have my disorders even then and still can't be off SSDI. Your friend probably didn't know how to put it in words for you.
@@dragonwings36 the entire concept of normal or functional is so highly contingent and subjective. Basing an "empirical" study on such slippery concepts leads to the problems listed in the video, of capitalistic producer behavior being codified as normal and desirable. This also hurts people who just happen to fall outside of or disagree with the modes of society. I am well aware of how functioning behavior is constructed.
@@NM-eb9pw you didn't really read my whole comment did you. Yes, there are issues with society as a whole. And yes some people who fall outside of or disagree with the modes of society are negatively affected. The thing is, even if a "perfect" society existed, you'd still have people with mental and physical disorders.
You said that you're aware of how functioning behaviour is constructed but don't seem to be aware that many people in the medical field (and many of us who are very engaged in it) do talk about the differences in what is considered a disorder and what is society not working (and how to make things less stressful for the person). Is everyone in the medical field like that? No. But things are changing. But as I said, even in a perfect society, disorders would still exist.
I kind of see why your friend didn't want to go into detail with you of how disorders work.
As somebody who has had several close friends and relatives absolutely brutalized by the "mental health" apparatus of the state of Virginia, I have never felt that therapy was all that beneficial to me, even when I've tried to take advantage of it. Trust is everything, and knowing that I can be lied to with impunity if the stated goal is to "help me" or "I'm a danger" pretty much is a deal-breaker when it comes to opening up about my problems. Even my relationship with psychiatry is the same: scheduled visits to obtain permission slips for maybe-hopefully-moderately-helpful drugs.
Quite a lot of factors relating to mental well being seem to be intimately connected with social factors that psychiatry as an institution is unwilling or incapable of fixing, and no amount of throwing medication and talk therapy at the wall will change these underlying social factors. At best, a few of the symptoms will be muted or hidden from public view while the underlying factors remain untreated. The late cultural theorist Mark Fisher, who himself suffered from depression and was a victim of suicide, wrote extensively about the mass privatization of mental health happening as a result of neoliberalism. Instead of organizing to solve problems at a social level, he argued that individuals are instead encouraged to see problems like depression as the result of individual failures to adjust to society instead of problems arising out of society. We need to address these problems on a systemic level if we want to deal with the rise of certain mental health conditions that form as a result of life circumstances. In other words, we need to make a rat park instead of a cage.
I know its a year old, but do you have any Mark Fisher recommendations related to your comment?
@@ultravioletiris6241 search for "mark fisher lecture" or get a pdf of capitalist realism i guess
When you were talking about the Rat Park experiment you kinda stubbled into the field of social work. One of the theories looks at different levels, not just the individual. No matter how much asthma medication you give someone it will not remove the mold from their house. You often need to look at a bigger picture to find what will actually help the individual. I think the hardest part is getting the things that will help individuals (and improve society for everyone) the funding they need to make a difference. Too many people see it as a waste of money when it is actually an investment in a better future. Turns out that giving people the help that they need costs less than punishing them for "failing" or "lack of the moral character needed to succeed in life". But many people are stuck in a mind frame that they don't want to give someone a handout. A handout is a bandaid that doesn't address the actual problem. Some people will still need bandaids, and we also need to look at why they got hurt in the first place.
So true!
Post 2008 the UK government cut a huge amount of money from social services. In the years since then levels of knife crime, drug addiction, political extremism and many other social problems has multiplied and the economy has stagnated. The solution put forward to tackle all those problems has been to increase the powers of the police and imprison more people 😢
God that reminds me of how I had to transcribe housing court records about the guy whose apartment was so infested with mold he decided being homeless would be better for his health than living there but he was unable to sue his landlord because he was also a smoker and so the landlord faced no consequences other than being fined while the man eventually died of lung cancer, homeless and miserable - and this was a guy lucky enough to have access to legal aid services to try to get his apartment fixed, which is how I learned about him in the first place.
There’s a metaphor in here for mental health I think - there’s an underlying problem (with mental health maybe it’s a predisposition for psychosis), there’s the environment (childhood which creates the patterns of how someone thinks), there’s conditions that make the problem worse (maybe for mental illness it’s being around people who gaslight and question reality around the person, or prolonged isolation in a small room), then there’s the illness (in mental health there’s psychosis) that gets blamed entirely on the person (refusing to take medication) rather than the circumstances - I learned in a psychology course that over 90% of people suffering from psychosis experienced some kind of childhood trauma
I was subject to that exact same lie two times. Once, after my suicide attempt the hospital staff tricked me into going to the capital of my state. After 2 weeks of sheer boredom and gym mildew smell I was unceremoniously let out and left to find my own way home 144 miles.
The second time, one of my friends called a mobile mental health support team or whatever. I specifically asked if I would be allowed to leave before going to talk to a psych doctor. They said yes, and then committed me for 24 hours and my week was ruined. I remeber telling the nurse that I wanted to leave, and she said "that's up to you, but we need to commit you" and I was like "what". She told me they'd send the police to bring me back after I left. Yeah, "free to leave".
I just flat out refuse to talk to psych doctors of any kind after this and honestly why would I.
According to the DSM you dont have ADD unless your "work, school, or social functionality" is impaired. You can every symptom for it in the world but if you're still productive any doc can "well actually" you out of a diagnosis.
Yrah but atleast where I live if you got it as a grown up and want it removed most of the time you cant even if you are now productive.
I was told by a therapist I can't have ADHD because her last client with ADHD couldn't even figure out which street her office was on, because she couldn't focus. I was told this...during an online appointment.
The whole field is screwed up.
This happened to me lol. He didn't wanna test me or even consider anything else I said when I said I was in a relationship and got good grades.
I'm two years into my psychology degree and the way I see it is this: we can look back one hundred years and pretty easily see the ignorance and biases of their time, but we tend to forget we're still pretty ignorant and biased in our own time -- we just don't know exactly how yet. I read a paper the other day that said SSRIs don't really do anything. I told this to my doctor, and said my poor mental health probably has more to do with extensive childhood trauma and thirty years of undiagnosed autism and ADD than it does with a completely coincidental "chemical imbalance" in my brain. I said I rather thought the chemical imbalance was caused by the depression, not the other way around.
Y'know what she did? She just increased my dosage.
Old as fuck comment, but another takeaway here I think is that there's also a problem with dehumanization, people of extreme privilege getting higher positions way back when, and continuing to operate as if their actions have abstract consequences. This is just a job for them, not an institution meant to rehabilitate people, and nobody comes in unless they're some kind of "maniac."
@@cardomajig24 "maniac" ? For mental health practitioners?
Yes. Being anxious about your financial situation destroys you. I have lived like that for YEARS and now I'm reasonably stable, but I still feel the anxiety of not having enough money. I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night thinking 'but how will I pay for that?' BLEAKNESS
I feel you
The "Mia doesn't get to leave when she wants to" has me in TEARS. Great video, learned a lot
Can confirm from first hand account pretty much the same thing. Especially the part about everything being seen through the lens of being in a mental hospital. Because yeah, I stopped eating, slept 20 hours a day, and yelled to be let out. Because I was being held somewhere against my will with nothing to do all day. I only got to leave when it got to the weekend, so the weekend doctor came in, and not having (at least the same level of) bias that I was "supposed" to be there essentially took one talk through with me and basically agreed that what I was going through was a normal response to what was effectively imprisonment.
People also turn to things like Q-anon as an "escape" from their SLS. If we want to prevent widespread Q-type beliefs in the future we need to give people both financial and social support (among other things).
I had smoked marijuana for years to handle my pretransition mental health problems.
Recently due to a drug binge with a friend, I stopped for a few weeks.
I started exercising every day, and I was feeling great, and one day I smoked pot before a ride and I felt bad for 2 days again.
I realized the negative feelings I had been smoking pot to avoid were no longer there. They were being caused BY the pot.
Drugs can help you get out of a dark place, but you also have to improve your situation, and when you do, moving away from those drugs can be what's best.
For me, consistent exercise and having proper hormones fixes my depression and anxiety.
But drugs like wellbutrin and marijuana helped me when I didn't know what was wrong (my hormones).
All my psychiatrists were clueless though gotta say.
What you're describing sounds a lot like state dependent memory, for example there was a study that had people study for a test after drinking 10 shots of vodka, and the next day they took the test and some participants were asked to drink again while the others were sober (and they also did the reverse too). They found that participants did better if the state they were in when testing was the same as the one when they studied.
The idea is that the physical state were in can act as a trigger, so what the theory would suggest in your case is that the state of getting high acted for you as a trigger for more negative thoughts and memories from before.
Or at least that's all I remember about it from my psychology A level and it might be complete hokum. In any case I'm glad you're in a better place now 💜🍄
I had a similar experience with Prozac. I did some time in a mental hospital when, as Mia so brilliantly put it, "My brain just didn't wanna."
I have no doubt that I needed the Prozac, several years of situational depression had rendered my brain unable to uptake its own serotonin.
My brain felt a little more like my brain had in the past, except kind of sleepy and headachy.
But after I got out of hospital and had to remember to take my own meds, I forgot after the first couple days.
And after a week I realized that it has been a week, but also that I wasnt sleepy and headachy. It was good.
I've always thought about this. Like, my mental health disorder would not be relieved even if everything in my life was perfect and that's very difficult to explain to someone who has, what I call, 'situational' conditions. Like sucky life syndrome.
Yeah. Would my mental health be better? Almost certainly. Was I still abused, and do I still have severe ADHD? Yeah.
This is the case for me. I have privileged conditions, I basically can do whatever I want. But the rat paradise won't cure my ADHD and being depressed because the situation ADHD puts me in.
I think this goes beyond just material conditions tho, like ADHD is often talked about in the same way autism is- a lot of the “problems” these things cause wouldnt be problems in a different society. I have schizoaffective disorder- it is decidedly chemical. But also, society influences my hallucinations and delusions and people who hallucinate and have low self esteem are more likely to have negative hallucinations. There is no escaping the cultural influence on mental health. For ANY disorder
Okay but like, even if I didn't have to worry about working for a living, my ADHD would still be a problem. I don't want to live in a gross apartment, I don't want to constantly lose important stuff, I want to be able to retain anything that I learn, and I don't want to keep flaking on my friends because I forgot that we had plans. I don't want to live unmedicated.
SLS reminds me of what Dr K of HealthyGamer calls "congruent depression". Depression that isn't really a brain chemical thing but that you're depressed because your life just sucks.
Something I've always wondered about is if the real reason psychiatry works for so many people is actually because just having someone to consistently open up to and help you with your problems in a compassionate way would help someone get better under various systems/philosophy because emotional safety and social support are what we all need to be happier, wholer versions of ourselves. One reason why mental illness is rising is because of our society's lack of community and compassion.
Honestly yesss lol, I do think the same but ideally a professional has a good set of ethics, is trained in techniques.. which differentiate him from a nice and compassionate listener. We need both to sustain ourselves
This is a very thoroughly researched video, If I've ever seen one. You addressed many problematic topics within the field. I must say, as a psychology graduate, this generation is very much aware of issues like weak scientific methods, questionable theories, replication crisis etc. and they seek to improve both theory and practice. As you mentioned even if we come up with a perfect theory the practice might not necessarily improve. This in my opinion is one of the biggest challenges for psychology. The thing is that all the knowledge we have is (or at least should be) directly pulled from what we observe either in research or during therapy sessions, but the former cannot be a applied for "the real life" whereas the latter cannot be fully replicated. So however psychologists try, they still have a hard time passing as what is considered a real science.
What I see as a viable option for psychology is to further explore all the interdisciplinary connections and broaden the scope of information it works with. Psychology and humanities in general have a bad rep for being "useless", but this to some degree can be attributed to how narrowly they are being applied. It's not very helpful to be confined within its own mental health sector, when it's meant to serve to society as a whole. I think this industrialization of mental health services greatly contributes to all the stigmatizing ways their clients are perceived, as illustrated by your own experience.
Not really.
Speaking as someone who has been stuck in the mental health mill for about 10+ years now I can definitely see the objections a lot of people have with psychiatry. Another thing you allude to in the video as well is that a lot of what is seen as "the norm" in the mental health industry is often quite ableist and not necessarily what is the best for the person in distress. So yeah very good video. Basically spelled out what I have been thinking about for months!
wow 10 years why don't u write a book about it, that's such terrifying concept
This is quite good and yeah barely even starts going on the number of physical ailments psychology has tried to claim domain over. For example in the 50s doctors tried to claim that repressed anxiety caused lung cancer as a way to protect the tobaco industry. When I was in a mental health ward almost a full third of the patients were chronic pain patients for whom no adaquate pain relief or palliative care was being given. People with MECFS a severe neuroimmulogical disorder are routinely hospitalized for severe depression due to the fact that they had a mitochondrial and neurological disorder that makes their limbs not work so they can't get up and do things. A 10 yr old boy with ME was seperated from his parents by psychiatrists and thrown into a pool to try to prove he was faking being paralyzed. He drowned and had to be resuscitated. Absolutely apalling.
To be clear laying this on psychology is fucking ridiculous. It's ableism. Ableist doctors who don't like doing the work when a patient is pissed at them LIKE these black hole diagnoses. The whole point is finding excuses not to validate someone's struggles which all doctors do especially with minorities.
Sincerely, a system with endometriosis stage 4 whose cysts were long assumed to be fat we needed to lose, and when we started talking about the symptoms got caught up in mental health related fatigue.
@@siginotmylastname3969 Oh totally. But the psych doctors are then way to happy to keep you swirling around the mental health system when they know full well you don't have a mental illness so they can drain your insurance dry. Its the perfect patient. They'll never respond to mental health treatment cause they don't have a mental illness. You can keep them on as a patient forever.
@@petraarkian7720 here in the uk you just wouldn't get treatment then because there is no "psych" other than people doing the same repetitive tick box exercises in 6 sessions maximum purporting to be "therapy". It's really not got much to do with the mental health system other than that mental illness as a category contains a load of as yet unexplained illnesses. I don't know how it is for people with rare or unnamed diseases/illnesses/conditions but would hedge a guess they're shunted between non mental healthcare specialists in the exact same way.
The fact that there are so many people commenting about how much psychiatry (and psychology) has helped them, and then a seemingly equal number of comments talking about experiencing bad or abusive treatment at the hands of the SAME ORGANIZATIONS AND SYSTEMS says everything: what we are doing is not "science". There's clearly something there, but what we are doing RIGHT NOW is not SCIENCE. We need a system that CONSISTENTLY helps people and there is no question as to whether the systems do majority good. The one we have now has committed and is currently committing horrific acts of cruelty and abuse, and yet many people also find help. This is not science. Not this. Try to make it science, please, or stop claiming to have genuine access to truth, and then using that as a legal cudgel to shut up unhappy people. I'm truly glad many people have gotten relief. Let's keep that, and throw out the myriad ways these systems, using the same reasoning and evidence as the people they did help, have desperately failed people like me.
I am a poor autistic woman. Therapy is literally responsible for trauma, self-hate and so much internalized ableism that living with that + chronic pain, stomach issues, anxiety, depression, OCD, ADD and suicidal ideation, is a gigantic struggle. Therapy can be very toxic for neuro-atypical people, especially those of us who "pass", because the BASELINE is neuro-typical. A HUGE caveat is that it has probably evolved since I went to therapy.
Hey, therapist here. I appreciate this video and the comments on it. I want to take some time to respond to this as someone who’s been on both sides of the couch so-to-speak. Obviously I can only speak to my experience. I’m a person who lives in America and my background is in clinical social work.
I agree with the points that Mia makes in this video. Are there mental illnesses/disorders? Sure, I believe there are. Damage can happen to the brain either physically or there can be shifts in chemicals, just like anywhere else in the body. I ascribe to the idea of the mind and brain not being separate which not everyone does. BUT, are all mental disorders that get diagnosed because of something wrong with the brain? No.
One of the places I work is the kind of town that Mia describes in the video. There are few jobs, the opioid epidemic has run rampant, and there’s entrenched poverty. Yet, doctors refer patients to myself and my coworkers believing that maybe some cognitive behavioral therapy will fix their depression and/or anxiety. And like, it’s not gonna fix it. These are long term problems that 6 weeks of therapy just aren’t going to fix. I’ve heard doctors and other non-behavioral health medical workers tell patients that therapy and meds are a “magic wand,” And it’s a lie. I don’t think it’s one with malicious intent, just one born from limited understanding of the impact of the environment and the therapeutic process.
In psychology, the most prominent theory about why people develop mental illness (at least this is what I was taught) is that it’s a combination of biological and environmental factors, which is pretty common sense. I think in trying to be a science that is “Taken Seriously” like chem, physics, and such, psychology can over focus on the biology and diminish the environmental factors, even when pretty much all evidence shows that environment is way more influential.
At the end of the day, study after study after study has indicated that the greatest factor in seeing improvement in therapy is the subjective experience of the relationship between client and therapist. It’s why having a therapist you like is important. Having community and feeling cared about it turns out is really important.
So for folks who experience “SLS” I wouldn’t say therapy is useless, it’s just not a cure-all. When people are isolated, connection is helpful. But we’re also all living under capitalism, so how do we cope, try to live a good life, and fight back as we so choose?
TL:DR: therapy is helpful in many ways, and also it’s not a cure-all. Having a more robust social safety net, investing in communities, and ending capitalism would help a lot of problems sent to therapists and psychiatrists.
Thanks to anyone who read this!!!
Except most doctors are malicious because they don't want to put forth the effort to help those who have complicated cases. I've literally been told for probably 20 years that my issues aren't worth dealing with because it sounds hard. - Chronic pain patient who has a therapist that is unable to do anything because I'm not mentally ill.
@@eviesholette that’s a good point! I agree that doctors who ignore chronic pain and just send folks off to therapy, actions are ultimately malicious. I don’t think their intent is malicious, I agree it’s a mix of laziness, and in my experience, discomfort with complicated cases. I think intent counts for something when addressing problems, but the actual effects of actions are what people need justice for.
@@RainbowMeltedCrayons Yes, well, fool me once, you know? Because I've definitely been intentionally gaslit by doctors and there's no non-malicious way to do that. Ultimately I think you have a naïvely good opinion of the medical and mental health fields. Call me jaded, I really don't mind.
@Mara Sholette I completely agree with you Mara. I've been experiencing negligence as well, unfortunately.
I went to a children's psych ward as a teen. What it taught me is that you need to fake how you feel and act, and if you act badly in anyway you will be locked inside forever. I didn't need to be locked up, all I was doing was cutting and wasn't thinking about suicide. They could have just told me to see a therapist. Another thing I was taught is do not ever tell the truth about how you really feel, because you will just get locked up. When I got out I had terrifying nightmares for weeks and when my mom threatened to send me back (for "misbehaving") I broke down.
my parents also used to threaten to send me to hospitals. luckily my cptsd is much better nowadays, now that i realised and am processing all the abuse that happened in my childhood.
Your mom is a monster sorry for what happened to you
I think one of the biggest problems with Psychology is actually that it's such a positivist field. That is, it wants to be "scientific" like the hard sciences, work with quantifiable data. The problem with that is... Well, to start out with, the human mind is inherently unobservable. Forget defining and quantifying something like "motivation," you can't even prove it exists in the first place! In other people, anyway. It makes sense to assume that other people are like you, but how do you know their experience of motivation is the same as yours?
I'm all in favor of Psychology, and even medications - I've certainly been helped by them (btw, I'm wondering if the drug that made you experience derealization might have been an MAO-I?). But emotion and experience simply aren't reducible to numbers.
THIS! this is the reason I was extremely hesitant to start going to therapy, and more recently, psychiatrist to treat my depression. And I did express this thoughts and reservations I had to my therapists, the idea that I was just going because the system is broken so I needed to find a way to cope and that it made it feel all so pointless since the problem was not 100% on me. And of course they just dismiss that with something in the line of "well, the system is not going away anytime soon"... Pair that up with Argentinian psych being extremely Freudian and you get a nice recipe for disaster.
I had and still kinda have the same reservations about therapy and psychiatry
@@PinkCatsy yeah I still do too, but I just take what I think it's useful. It's also nice to have someone to vent with these days when I hardly see anyone else haha
@@LucianoLongo yeah I watched Psychology in Seattle reality TV reactions videos and found there were ways that therapy could help me in terms of my relationships to other people that seemed like more than just a way to cope with capitalism. So I keep trying for that and also because I need someone to vent to!
@@PinkCatsy yup! I guess sometimes it's a matter of taking what you feel it's helping and ignore what's not. I hope you find what you need!
Just got "pink slipped". sitting at a table across from three doctors: "When I work at a restaurant or most jobs that relate to the public, I can come in on an off day and have the experience my clients have. It is so odd that this isn't the same in your line of work. I encourage you all to go some where and Jane Doe yourselves into the psychiatric ward. It's terrible. In jail they treat you like a prisoner. In here, I am a prisoner, and yet, I'm not treated as such. Fresh towels or blankets. Unlimited TV time. Good food. And yet... I'm not allowed to have anything that's unapproved, or allowed to just go outside. Odd."
Also, about 9 months into HRT and the transitional period is a real fucking bummer.
I'd literally prefer prison because if I was in prison I could just be someone's bitch and get my video games in
I've been to jail (as a white guy) and the hospital (as a white guy). In jail I could read books all day and lose track of time. Jail food sucked but it was mostly edible. Hospitals will sometimes let your family bring in books, but you can't get anything else. Specific hours for special ed classes like art and tv, but you can't just draw in your room. You're treated like a child, whereas in jail you're just treated like a dunce (as a white guy).
What they both have in common is the use of psychological torture with impunity. Being alone and being in solitary are not the same thing.
I recently had an experience with a therapist who seemed very much of the mindset "there isn't anything wrong with you" but it ended up being very harmful to me. I wanted to know more about certain mental health issues and what was really making my life feel so difficult. She "prescribed" me a book that was a cage - a "take responsibility for yourself because no one else cares about you!" cage. Even of it was unintentional on her part, she often dismissed my (perfectly reasonable in my and friends' opinions) doubts and inquiries. It's like she really thought I was making myself miserable by just thinking. Full stop. No attempt to, I don't know, keep on thinking but into the right direction??
It just made me spiral into more self-loathing because I started to blame myself even more for why I couldn't do anything. I mean, every fucking healthy thought can feel like a cognitive distortion that you need to reject because you've been put with the wrong professional. After all, it was MY responsibility to change my thoughts right? No one else would help me right? Depending on others is just proof that I'm incapable of taking responsibility for myself right? 0/10 do not recommend.
Anyway, now I know the better approach is to not be harsh on myself for having to depend on support from other people to feel better. I need to get a (good) therapist just to have someone to talk to, and I think I deserve a professional who is accepting of that.
I've been fired from my therapist BC I blamed her for not helping me to find a psychiatrist lmao. I tried to asked her to renew contact and she ghosted me like I didn't deserve an ounce of human decency. It was such a weird experience, I came to her to start taking care of myself mentally after the return of some symptoms of a sexual trauma. This allegedly PTSD trained therapist litteraly retraumatized me by her disappearance
I studied psychology in college, and came out of a four year program trying to nitpick every behavior I had that could be seen as “abnormal”. I listed my problems, I almost obsessively read journals and listened to professionals, I even tried to diagnose myself, even though I knew very clearly that it would be impossible.
I had always felt like I failed at everything because I wasn’t the kind of “productive perfect person” all the time, but everything I learned in college prompted me to try me best to become that way, and everytime I failed, and got more discouraged.
One day I made up my mind to go to the hospital, and got diagnosed with bipolar II, only to realize some time afterwards that I had been misdiagnosed. I felt a bit betrayed to be honest, even though I knew that being misdiagnosed is something that could happen pretty often. I was prescribed lamotrigine, and on the 2 occasions I took it, it made me feel completely hollow inside- my emotions were wiped clean, even the occasional good ones.
Recently I have been thinking about psychology and what it really provides people with. There are so many mental illnesses that can never be fixed, even if psychologists really tried. Eventually, I tried another facility, took the MMPI, and the psychiatrist told me I was just “really sensitive”. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything, really, even though I struggled with splitting, I couldn’t work, I wanted to disappear, and I had pretty bad interpretations of relationships. The therapist recommended therapy, but I don’t really trust anyone (the therapists where I am from are all really crappy). I tried going to the counseling office when I was in college in the US, but (and this is just my personal perception) I was often met with indifference from the counselors. Now I just try my best to make myself feel like crap a bit less, hopefully it eventually gets better.
I wish the best to everyone who struggles with mental health, it’s not easy, and it’s okay if you can’t find a solution to your problems just yet. Sometimes there is no cure, because the world is just broken.
As a biologist I have to agree with the biological view of the brain presented: it’s just wackadoodle crazy complex. You’re not going to find a one-size-fits-all approach to diagnosis, quantification, and treatment. There’s too much intersectionality between the aspects of one’s life, their genetics, the development and physiology of their brain, and co-morbidities. As someone with myriad mental health difficulties and differences, I’ve tried the carousel of medications and had an experience similar to Mia. Sometimes a particular drug will work for a while and then it stops suddenly and I have to try throwing new drugs at a moving target. And as someone who has helped a friend with stays at mental hospitals, Mia’s experience matches my observations. They’re soul-sucking, mind-numbing prisons that either: try to prevent suicide, house addicts for drug detoxing, or hide “undesirables” from the public view. Lastly, as a communist: the system is broken, this culture is a factory for depression and misery, we have the right to freedom from being “productive,” and financial insecurity creates and amplifies physical and mental illness. Grab your pitchforks, eat the rich, then live in peace farming on a commune. Goddamnit I just want to live like humans are supposed to live; that’s the antidepressant I need.
When I got admitted to a psych ward in 2019, despite it being a lot better funded than the one you went to, it was still a horrible experience. I was still on the Minnesota state insurance, which is actually pretty good, but gets cut off once you turn 26. Despite being committed voluntarily, I was held for the full three days despite wanting to leave very soon after I entered.
Within twelve hours of entering, an orderly was sexually inappropriate with a fellow patient, I (as the apparently least badly off person there) was PUT IN CHARGE OF A GROUP THERAPY ACTIVITY due to a staffing issue, and I was denied sleeping medication that I desperately needed because it was the middle of the day. Nevermind the fact, of course, that I was brought in overnight after several hours of extremely stressful paperwork and wanting to kill myself (because of five days of lack of sleep caused by mold related breathing problems at home LOL). No, the fact that it was around 4 in the afternoon was enough to deny me this medication.
However, it was totally fine for them to prescribe a knockout cocktail that completely destroyed me for the next 18 hours when I started smashing my head against the wall desperately trying to induce unconsciousness. I was even grateful, in a fucked up way, cause it was 18 hours that I could just sleep. The doctor held the cup out to me and, even as I was taking it, the two orderlies came in to look at her and she said "no, he's taking it willingly" LOL. So if I hadn't immediately dissociated to the point of numbly accepting any and all orders (CPTSD response), I would have been forcefed a cocktail of medications designed to leave me incapable of moving freely and thinking clearly due to acting out after not having my extremely reasonable needs met. I wasn't asking for Ambien here, I was asking for Melatonin.
The next day, due to my previous experience in the mental health care system, I asked politely to be released as soon as possible and made sure everything I did was normal to an extent that would have seemed pathological to anyone paying attention. I acted as though (and this was even partially true) getting sleep fixed the problem entirely and that I was now totally okay again.
Two days ago, I left home. After three years of having severe breathing problems go completely unaddressed by my grandpa who I'm living with, tons of dust and dander and mold, I freaked out, went and got a bunch of mold remediation supplies, and started tearing up the carpet. Unfortunately, the mold I found was too extensive to remove on my own and permeated the vast majority of the carpet instead of just a little bit of it. My grandpa, of course, despite me saying well in advance, several times, that I intended to do this, decided that I was insane.
I had to leave home in a hurry, and even as I was on the bus I was getting calls from my aunt and uncle saying they'd extorted my significantly poorer and less well off dad for money to get me "somewhere I can get help". This was shortly after I'd called my aunt and she unknowingly answered from her pocket or something and I managed to hear the entire landline phone conversation between her and my grandpa, where she completely ate up every lie he told about me not "wanting" to get healthcare and being a total lunatic. They were calling me a "fucking idiot", saying that I was nuts, all the fun things you wanna hear from your family. Of course, the instant they realized that I could hear, the words suddenly became very kind and reasonable as they tried to manipulate me into being incarcerated with my poverty-stricken dad's money footing the bill.
He was saying that I'd refused help, which was untrue. Yes, a well meaning nurse called with some hotlines for assistance with mental healthcare after I reported breathing problems that mysteriously disappeared after I left the house. This is all shit I've seen online a thousand times, like the suicide hotline, etc. I wrote it down to be polite and then hung up, leaving it on the table where it lay. Grandpa portrayed this as me refusing to get help, and also portrayed my getting a mail from the state healthcare that I was desperately applying to, saying that I needed a "qualifying life event" to apply in that time period, that I never responded to cause I knew I didn't have a "qualifying life event", as me refusing to even try to get insurance.
He then, in the most blistering display of complete bumfuck idiocy that I've ever fucking seen, said that he was willing to pay for my insurance and that it was all on my end! He clarified later, in private of course because it would reveal he was a fucking idiot, that he seriously believed that there was a 10$ a month insurance package that would give me all of the same things the state insurance had. Now normally I wouldn't be so harsh on a 78 year old man, but again this was an ignorance and idiocy that he was trying to use to have me held against my will in a mental facility. He, along with my aunt and uncle, have no IDEA of any sort of reality that doesn't directly relate to them and their lives, and if reality threatens their view of the world they will discard it instantly.
Thankfully I was able to connect with some friends who were able to take care of me for the night and get me a hotel and assure me that I'm not crazy. One of them works as a social worker and is willing and able to help me get set up in the public assistance side of the system, where they can help me find a job. I've come back, but I was extremely up front about not being emotionally available to him on any level anymore and that I will be gone by the end of 2022. Ideally, it will be much sooner. I'm trying to establish a background in the state and make clear the amount of abuse and neglect that's been laid on me by my family so that any anecdotal shit they try is revealed to be the farce it is.
There was no point with any of these people where they truly intended to hurt me. They didn't have to. My aunt and uncle have no idea why I've told them I have absolutely no trust in them anymore and will never speak to them again. My grandpa's just added yet another entry to his list of times I've "refused to get help". The ignorance does enough harm that vaguely good intentions are not enough to avoid seriously harming people you ostensibly care about.
I will never trust any of these people again. I had to get this out there because I'm still furious just thinking about it. And the hell of it is, my not trusting them anymore? If I'm not careful, that's even more ammunition that they can use to get me committed. I've had to give my friends information on what to do if I'm involuntarily committed, to with extreme calm and clarity explain to the doctors that I'm not crazy and that I'm currently suffering from (even if ostensibly well-intentioned) gaslighting abuse. Thankfully they're extremely white young professionals, so they have the best possible chance at actually succeeding in this rather than being completely ignored or not even permitted to enter.
But if I were to be put in a room with my family and a doctor, just us, who would they believe? They wouldn't regard my feelings for a moment, and any emotional appeal would be immediately dangerous and seen as further evidence that they were right. The strongest indicator of abuse is not any particular evidence, but the emotional state of the abused in contrast to what the abuser depicts as reality. And yet, in that scenario, to show emotion is to put yourself at even further risk of not just being abused by your family, but by the state apparatus itself.
Oh yeah, also, despite not being prescribed anything after that stay, the therapist who got my grandpa to take me there (who for the record spent literally half of all of our sessions fucking around on her computer) refused to believe that I wasn't prescribed anything and audibly went "Hm." when I said so, followed by her immediately making me sign an information release from the hospital. That was fine though, because I wasn't even able to see her again due to my insurance running out and knew for a fact that actually paying her would be a complete waste of time and money.
I hate this shit.
BKSF1 this is terrible. I know how it feels to be betrayed by people you love. Try to focus on making your life better and moving on. Go to college is my recommendation. Try to save money and find happiness. Good luck
Therapy and, to a lesser extent, psychiatry have helped me to some degree, but I still understand and empathize with those who refuse to go to therapy. It unfortunately is still rife with misinformed and poorly educated professionals and, when you’re at your lowest, you can feel a sense of betrayal.
They can do more harm than good, they can punish you, judge you, make you feel less than them and their knowledge, gaslight you, expect to open up directly and throw away your trauma. I'm very much skeptical about everything which involves such a power imbalance between people, a stranger and a vulnerable person who seeks help and support. I learnt it in the hard way, even people who are supposed to help you can act as cruel as others
Great points. I highly recommend looking into concepts of Liberation Psychology (a theoretical framework that acknowledges oppression and its relationship to our mental health.) As a counselling-psych student, I feel it’s crucial to study from an anti-oppressive lens to address a lot of what you outline here. Thanks for a great vid!
oh man 12 therapists didnt help me and im ready for this video
I think there’s some similarities between the over-medicalization of psychology/psychiatry and the default birth control prescription for AFAB/intersex people with any sort of hormonal issue or pain.
I’m genetically predisposed for severe anxiety and depression, but fortunately I have neither. I don’t want any sort of medication that could throw off my brain chemistry or mess with my emotional state, that risk isn’t worth it to me.
Of course there are people who need/want the pill and they should be able to get it, but I wonder how many people have been prescribed it as a good enough/bandaid solution without ever getting an actual diagnosis.
Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage
One thing is that the rat park experiments have some issues that have been called into question. I read the recreated experiment didn’t have similar outcomes. I mean it’s not a bad lesson to improve our communities in pro social ways. The US is a long way off in much of our country. Car culture is an isolating hell I don’t wish on anyone.
The very question “What if X is Fake/isn’t real?” can be applied to anything, yet all socio-cultural constructs have real life consequences; the value of money and goods, marriage, law, fashion, religion, they all depend on tacit social consensus, yet we function within and around them.
I remember a couple of years ago, there were news and articles and lots of talk about how psychiatric studies weren't replicated, and how probably nothing we think we know in psychology is true and there was a LOT of doubt being cast on the whole thing. And then...nothing. We stopped talking about it and forgot. Thanks for bringing it up again, maybe we're ready to talk about it again, more seriously this time. Especially during these plague times, I don't need therapy, I need people to take this pandemic seriously so we can have our lives again, and to have governments that are functional and capable of protecting their citizens.
this pandemic has been helpful to me in realising that all my problems were just normal responses to very extreme circumstances. the first months of the pandemic was like seeing myself in others, their reactions and their behaviours were mirrors of what i'd been doing the years before.
That wasn't unique to psychiatry, the replication crisis is a problem thats been happening all over science.
Trust me, the replication crisis has been burnt into the minds of most professionals in these fields, especially the young ones.
All valid criticisms, for sure, but those same criticisms can apply to the medical field as a whole, imho. A doctor can keep prescribing pills to treat high blood pressure and they can keep prescribing medication to treat heart disease and Type 2 diabetes but as long as things like food insecurity and food deserts exist and most of the population lacks access to food that isn't garbage we're not really attacking the root of the problem.
Getting that engagement in now for the algorithm before I forget. Probably gonna wait to watch this with my girl later.
As someone studying psychology and soon (hopefully) entering graduate school for it- it’s so refreshing to hear this put to words. I personally feel psychology isn’t necessary *bad*, shit it’s helped me a ton, and that’s a big part of why i’m pursuing it- i want to help people. BUT, i notice so many of the problems that come up, they aren’t things i would even be able to solve as a psychologist. one of the big examples of this to come to mind is child abuse- talking to the kid about how they feel for an hour isn’t gonna change shit for them, and it pains me so, so much the way the system just goes “eh, that’s just how it is”, and does nothing more to actually try to change things. i’ve been through it, and it’s VERY worth pointing out that having a kid talk to CPS every week isn’t going to stop their parent from hitting them later that night. if anything it might just make them more aware of their helplessness.
realized i’ve started basically writing an essay so i’ll shut up, but like… fuck the way psychology is viewed and implemented as a whole
@Anti-Amelia my job isn’t going to be to “fix” people, or to push drugs on them (in fact i see even mentioning medication as a last resort), it’s to help them talk through/ work through difficulties they’re facing. i’m sorry if you’ve had bad experiences with therapists, i have as well for the record, but it’s a bit unfair to jump to attacks over
edit: i see you go off in the comments misgendering mia… well that explains a lot. my bad for giving you the benefit of the doubt, get a life
My experience with involuntary hospitalization was so traumatic that I do not think I will ever again tell anyone if I'm feeling suicidal, wanting to self-harm, or on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I haven't felt like that in many years and I hope that my mind will remain relatively healthy, but there is no way I'm going through that shit again. If I do relapse into that condition, I will have to deal with it on my own.
Psychiatry and psychology deserve heavy criticism. Having gone through a lot of both, they are definitely more feeble at dealing with human problems than we would hope. Fundamentally, they fail to deal with societal and social causes of problems. People don't live in vacuums and societal and social causes can contribute to personal problems in significant ways. Without recognising some of these greater harms and intertwining them with our analysis of issues, we can't hope to accurately deal with 'individual' problems. What I am saying with is that psychology and psychiatry needs to take on more political, socio and cultural analysis and should stop treating people like 'brains in boxes'. We are not brains in boxes and this type of analysis can't hope to deal with our problems long term. We can definitely do better with regard to this.
We're conditioned to think of science in terms of physics and chemistry, where there are solid rules, at least for most of it, and where it gets statistical, sample sizes are on the level of Avagadro's number. Not all sciences are like that, and it doesn't make them less scientific. It makes them less consistent in practice, and less predictive. It's harder to confirm a theory. Real progress is slower. But it's still science, and I'm grateful to the scientists who keep slogging through in the soft sciences, even though they are bound to get things wrong sometimes.
I mean, you can go about studying just about anything in a scientific way. But unlike other "hard" sciences, studying people and their minds is always changing and far more subjective. Laws of physics will always be the same, but what is considered disordered can change drastically based on context.
@@Emily-ce7hd There's nothing unscientific about subjectivity. And nothing is entirely subjective. All that is needed is for people to understand the limits.
@@ernststravoblofeld never said there was anything unscientific bout it, but as you said there are limits and i don't think most folks take that into account they just think that scientific = universal human truth
@@Emily-ce7hd Yeah. The sad thing is, if people just paid attention in science classes, they'd get this. Except for the homeschooled ones, of course. It's all explained, but for some reason, even in a highly technological society, they think it doesn't affect them.
i would say its better just to accept : "it's not a science" .. and accept it for the academic study of the mind that it is...
i can understand the impetus to make the subjective contents of the mind "objective"
but there's no need to pretend it's something it's not
maybe we should stop valuing "science" as the be all and end all of knowledge ...
we are likely to make gross errors under this false assumption .. that we can objectively study the contents of the mind..
we are seeing limited external events (effects) and applying principles that have no real 'window' into the vast extent of internal activity occurring in the mind OR brain
and assuming the results we see are representative of the 'actual' process >> we are being far too 'general' in a domain where many "events" are prone to look like something else
Therapists have never once helped me "get better". Having people who genuinely love and care about me, however, has.
I started going to therapy in 2017 after a major breakdown and it sort of kind of helped but not really. back then I thought I had depression but already understood I also had CPTSD. Then I learned I had DID. Then my health got so bad I decided to not do my masters and be unemployed. I couldn't work. I decided to try and get a disability pension at the beginning of this year (still haven't). I've realised I might be on the autism soectrum. Wouldn't be surprising, my sister is autistic.
Telling doctors just how bad my situation is has been pretty scary. Letting them put things in my file that could take away any future job opportunities from me. But I feel like I don't have any other options atm because I can't work anyway. I'm probably pretty lucky that my psych hasn't made an attempt to hospitalise me yet. But I do sometimes wonder if he could and how hard it could be to resist...
Why would your employer have access to your "file". There isn't even one "file", like no hospital or clinic or whatever has any significant information about me, if I want a doctor to know something I tell them what they need to know, they legally cannot share that information with other doctors or institutions without my written consent.
your description of your experience with the system and how you trusting the system backfired rings so true to the experience of me and ppl I know here in Finland.
Holy shit, that story about getting fucking gaslit into a mental ward is literally the stuff of nightmares. Every encounter I’ve had with the U.K. mental health system (friends and relatives getting sectioned) has honestly made it seem like a neverending pit of hell and it makes me glad I’ve so far managed to avoid it
The experiment that saw how people just liked someone giving them a blanket and a snack kinda makes me extremely sad. Like how it's so easy to make people feel better, and how all we need is for people to have others and we can't even do that. And is seems so obvious, as in my mentally unwell state, imagining someone being kind and giving me a snack and a blanket makes me cry. Its such a small ask that I now feel like I need so badly
No matter how many times my barber bled me, the depression wouldn't go away. This explains it. Great video.
Strange, your humours seem to be ok...
Do i feel like shit because I'm forced to work at an awful job for a poverty wage while not being able to find a way to escape due to my bad mental health?
Nah, must be a chemical imbalance.
i agree with the shit life syndrome part completely, and you argue for your point very throughly. however, i think that what you are talking about is psychiatry/psychology of depression and anxiety, and not the fields as a whole.
it is a much more complicated argument with other conditions. for example, therapy can be very helpful and necessary for PTSD, which is mostly caused by the past trauma and not the present conditions. BD or schizophrenia can be dangerous when unmedicated. people are often treated horribly by the institutions the help of which they need for survival and well-being. so yeah, psychiatry is shit, but sadly not completely fake! because then i would not need to still partake in it.
i have also been tricked and forcibly kept in a russian psych ward for several months when i was a teenager. and i have tried many therapists and medications over the past 7 years or so. i am thankful that now i have the money to have regular helpful therapy. i also wish my BD meds were fake and not necessary for me to not go crazy bc i absolutely hate the sedative and mind-numbing side effects. at the same time i hope some of the ADHD meds that i’m trying out right now will work for me so i can function better and not need so much help from my supportive partner and family. i don’t even have the hardest of mental conditions, but my relationship with psychiatry and psychology are very complicated.
I'm on a psych rotation at the moment and today had a lengthy chat about sh*t life syndrome (SLS) and depression and where to draw a line. Most practitioners tend to state that SLS becomes medical depression when there is functional impairment, an "inability to cope." This is often about as subjective as it sounds however there are markers used such as inability to experience pleasure and no envisaging of any future. There is a sense that whether the depression is organic or situational is fairly academic as the threshold for treatment is really the point at which something becomes a medicalised problem.
Except ideally the treatment for SLS would be to provide a less shit life. While acute treatment of the depression may be necessary too ultimately it's only palliative care as long as the cause remains. It's like having an epidemic of breathing problems among people who live in a city choked with pollution. The solution isn't more pulmonologists or better researched medication, even though in the short term they are needed. It's to change the city so there isn't as much pollution.
@@WhichDoctor1 It's a really good point, unfortunately for a lot of people they get beyond the point of being able to rectify with only improvements to their personal circumstances, if I may extend your analogy you can de-pollute the city however some individuals will still require respiratory medicine and medication. While route cause analysis and societal change is vital to recovery it can't always be curative in of itself
@@krishanvenu-gopal8798 100% agree with you
thanks for making this, ive been struggling with the mental health industry my whole life and it makes me feel better to see such a wonderful and compassionate take on it for others to learn from
Thank you! That's exactly my goal
Offspring of two therapists here (whomst then majored in psych with no intention of becoming a therapist, just thought it was interesting; and now my brother is a psych major too). I think the mental health field, like a lot of fields, is a crapshoot. Sometimes you get great practitioners who really help people, sometimes you get practitioners who cause harm all the time, and then you get lots of people in the middle. I’ve had a range of psychiatrists, from great to downright ableist. The therapists have ranged from good to “just can’t keep up with me.” It is exhausting to navigate, even when you’re raised learning how to ask the right questions to get what you need (and health insurance in the U.S. makes it worse).
If somebody has only had bad mental health care experiences, I believe that. If somebody has had a lot of variety (like me), I also believe that. If somebody has had good experiences, I also believe that (and also suspect they have some privilege going in).
As for having basic needs being met being a big part of mental health, HECK YES it is a big deal! Free equitable healthcare, affordable housing, places to access healthy food, govt-funded education…those are all su!c!d3 prevention. Therapy is good when it is good, as is medication, but it doesn’t negate being broke under capitalism.
This preamble in Part 1 had an effect that was maybe not intentional: it made me recalibrate my sense of what A Breakdown is. I was raised in a toxic environment, and so my sense of what “normal functioning” is was skewed from the beginning as a result. So… thanks! I’m going to have to think hard about this.
@re e some parents abuse their kids bro
@re e oh my god I just read your pontificating edit. Screw right off
I can relate to that a lot, kinda made me go "oh, yeah wow... Yeah maybe I should like... Tell my new therapist some things here."
Living under constant high stress my entire life and never feeling safe kinda numbs you to what is and isn't a normal life or quality of life.
That was a really PC way of putting it, I love this
@@erik7647 exactly, when you had to learn how to go to school in the middle of a multi-month breakdown at 6 years old, that becomes the new normal. When medical professionals ask questions like “but your functioning’s not impaired, by this stress, right?”, I’d always say no because I personally wasn’t. I had little sense of how other people might cope in my shoes, being autistic, so I think I inadvertently made many of my doctors believe my life wasn’t really all that stressful - after all I was still living my daily life.
When our queen Mia drops a 50 minute video we make sure to watch it in one go. Nothing else matters.
I experienced similar with being locked up in a ward…. they kept me for almost a month and my fam didn’t even know where I was. They tried to drug me, took me in chains to court so they could keep me longer, and roomed me with people who were physically dangerous to themselves and others. It fucked me up for life. all I needed was little help while at a low point during uni. Shits fucked
I've been in therapy since i was seven. K have totally had a lot of these thoughts but i also know that psychology has actually helped me and has saved my life. I have OCD and while for a lot of my other mental illnessess CBT and ERP did nothing for me, it did 100000% make my OCD better. I am going on a bit of ramble. But i agree with you. Not all my problems can be fixed and i know i can ask fkr them to be fixed, but its nice tk get comfort and have someone listen. But on another note ERP is a life saving and incredibly amazing therapy that is 100% worth it.
same, currently undergoing CBT treatment for OCD. the difference between pre-CBT and now is huge for me!
@@klisterklister2367 I forgot CBT can stand for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, so I was quite bewildered at first thinking "How on earth does Cock'n'Ball Torture and Erotic RolePlay help with OCD?"
Mia is proof that us trans woman can both be smart as hell and absolutely gorgeous >:)
I'm very anti-psych but am very well verse in the effects of developmental trauma. The effects trauma and physiology stressors on ( diet, levels of pollution ) neurological and "mental health" are very real. The fact that certain neurotypes are more sensitive to stress s very real. The rest is bunk. There are a whole load fields psych that fit with many of your thoughts here to. Also: antidepressants aren't just placebo effect they eventually release dopamine which is bound make people feel better at least for a while. And within hours of taking them the amydala reacts less to negative facia expressions than placebo which slowly increases mood. I don't like them/doubt their usage for other reasons but they are not just placebo. I can't imagine a world in which people would not need therapy alongside a better social network. Trauma can make it very hard to engage with others if your terrified of them or dissociate around others or find them triggering. Plus people who are traumatised by experiences ( which is not everyone who experiences a traumatic situation ) end with c-PTSD which not be fixed by more social support alone.
People experiencing chronic pain often have cPTSD as exagerated stress responses increase the experience of pain as pain a danger cue of a from and trauma exagerates reactions to danger cues. Many other physical health issues at least partly related to chronic stress including ( yes I have sources ): Allergies, asthma, sleep apenea, arthritis, chronic pain, diabetes... all for non/not just-behavioral reasons. Giving ADs is bullshit but trauma therapy when someone's body affected by chronic stress isn't bunk.
Sending this to my sister who is a psychology major and going “see! My career isn’t the pointless one!”
There is a fundamental difference between psychiatry and psychology.
I would not say that psychiatry is fake, but I would definitely say it's very far behind somatic medicin. Like leeches and humours behind. It's fumbling in the dark I feel.
I've been in contact with the mental health care off and on for almost two decades now and I have been helped, but not that much to be honest. I've been admitted to a closed ward, I've been on a bunch of different antidepressants and other mood stableisers, and I have been at home without working for years at a time.
Luckily I live in Sweden and have been able to still survive financially despite this. One of my biggest problems is that I don't fit the narrow little boxes that psychiatry has created for sussing out what's wrong with people. I have bits of adhd, touretts, depression, anxiety and severe executive dysfunction. The only real solid diagnosis I have gotten is depression and that just isn't enough for me to get adequate treatment.
Yeah it's weird. I know that I could be happier in a different society. I am not dumb or lazy but my brain just doesn't work well in this society.( I have ADHD) But what to do? It is pretty difficult for me to start an anarchist revolution rn. But medication is available and as of now seems to be my only option.
Rat park is always brought up in the context of psychology, but it was also extremely important in biology. This is actually the greatest harm that PETA has done, I think, to make research facilities incredibly paranoid about information getting out about how the animals are treated. Even the most mundane of animal husbandry information gets treated as if it's highly classified. But it's been nearly 50 years since rat park, when the standard for rodent care was a bunch of single-animal wire cages, completely bereft of enrichment material. That's just not how studies are done anywhere anymore. There's so much work put into making sure these animals are as happy and healthy as possible; all of their normal little rodent behaviors are encouraged and planned for. It's well-documented that stressed-out animals produce significantly worse results in any number of biological studies. But there are still chemicals that are addictive, even under ideal conditions. Not quite to the point of the animals invariably poisoning themselves, but they still get all of the withdrawal & dependency symptoms.
Sorry for the impromptu rant. Psychology and culture and psychiatry and biology are all intertwined to make The Brain, and it really bothers me when people (appear to) dismiss some aspects of that whole brain soup.
i had a really similar experience in the psych ward. i definitely needed to be kept there at first, but i was kept there for over a week and i was so uncomfortable. i was so uncomfortable and i wasnt even getting very much care and i felt judged by the nurses and doctors. i was by far the youngest person there and pre transition. it was a really terrible experience
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me
Hunter S Thompson
So, I've been in a couple different psychiatric wards, and I can honestly say that my experience in each one was unique. My first time was very much like the one described in this video. It was in big a hospital in New York City, far from my home, and security there was very high. Everything there was drab and cold, with a very clinical feel to it. White walls, white floors, white ceiling, and the staff spent most of their time behind a plexiglass shield. There was no trust whatsoever. If we were going to write, we had to use crayons, because they wouldn't trust us with pens or pencils. I found myself pacing the halls or looking out the window wishing I could get out. And I was not lied to about whether I could leave, exactly. I was forced to be there, despite not being suicidal. I was not allowed to have any of my clothes because they needed to be treated to prevent bedbugs and lice from getting into the ward, so I spent the first few days in flimsy hospital gowns. I was not allowed to have my cell phone, and I could not make long-distance calls. As everyone who's phone number I knew lived in a different state, I was completely isolated, and had no choice but to wait for my family to visit so they could give me phone numbers so I could talk to someone familiar outside of visiting hours. It felt like being in prison, and when I asked to see the lawyer about being allowed to leave, he noticed that I was sitting in the hallway staring glumly out the window and said that I seemed depressed to him, and refused to try to help me. There was almost nothing to do, and in the few group sessions I did attend, the staff seemed to just be going through the motions for the most part. I purposely skipped the drum therapy, but I could still hear the racket from my room. All in all, it was a miserable time.
My second experience in a psych ward was much better. This time, I went to a hospital near my home, in a small rural town. For one thing, I knew what to expect going in, and I went in voluntarily, so I already felt more comfortable and in control, but the environment was much better, too. We were allowed to have pens and pencils, and to check our phones a couple times per day and to use them to get phone numbers and things like that. They had spare clothes I could borrow, even if they didn't fit all that great. The food was better, and we were given a better variety of options to choose from, the walls were colorful, and there were comfortable couches and chairs to sit on. The staff was more friendly and personable, and treated us like human beings. The activities were fun, too. I can't remember what all we did, but I know there was one staff member who would do magic tricks for us at the end of our group sessions. There was even a Wii we could play sometimes. Honestly, there are times when I wish I could go back there just to visit for a few days and not have to worry about taking care of myself. It would be a nice vacation.
My third experience was quite similar to the second, but slightly different. It was in a more distant place, but still rural. The staff was also friendly and willing to treat us like people. This time I was able to prepare ahead of time, and I brought several changes of clothes with me, and there was no need to worry about parasites. We got to go outside and to a gymnasium to throw basketballs around and things like that. Again, the environment was colorful and there was comfortable furniture and good food. We did crafts, had group discussions, had a Wii to play during certain times, and a selection of movies to watch. I didn't like it quite as much as the local hospital, but I would not complain about going there again if I had to.
I think the important takeaway from my experiences is that there's a right way and a wrong way to run a mental health ward. The right way treats the patients like people, gives them a comfortable, stimulating environment, and provides them with a reasonable amount of freedom. In other words, a good mental hospital or ward is like Rat Park.
I currently work as a Peer Specialist, which is a fairly new profession in the mental health field. Our goal is to provide that human connection as people who have been through the mental health system and know what it's like first-hand to have a mental illness. Our role is to help people define what recovery would look like for them, and to help them communicate that to their doctors and therapists, as well as to come up with a plan for what they can do to work toward that goal. We don't make prescriptions or tell people what to do, but we do provide them with resources and encourage them to find what works best for them. I think the thing we do that's of the greatest value, though, is when we just have a human interaction with people and let them talk in a safe, non-judgmental environment. I've been there with people as they cry about the trauma they've experienced, or the really rough time they're having now. I've swapped pictures of pets and shared in the joys of people telling me about how their animals support them. I've listened as people told me their dreams and aspirations, and watched them work toward those. I've celebrated their achievements with them, commiserated with them over road construction, and even just given them some space in a quiet room alone to calm their nerves before going in to see their doctor. It's very rewarding work, and I feel like I'm helping to make the lives of the people I come in contact with just a little bit better during some of the hardest times in their lives. I do what I can to make a visit to the psychiatrist a tiny bit more like Rat Park and less like an empty cage.
i think you made a lot of good points, and others in psych fields have pointed out that we are going in a positive direction with this line of thinking. however, you only really talk about depression and anxiety. when discussing whether psych meds actually work, i think of folks on anti-psychotics who can lead much better lives than they could 80 years ago. i think of people with bipolar, who can keep themselves out of mania with medication. the social model of disability (essentially your argument here) is great and all, but it doesn't account for everything. the medical model is disastrous on its own, but it's not useless. i think we need to use both, and in a way that improves lives the most.
Hell even with depression and anxiety (though I have Complex-PTSD on top of those two disorders), I know my medications help because I've been on the wrong meds before (there's a gene test I took that helped narrow things down a lot after many wrong attempts) and I know my Deplin (which is a medical grade food) helps boost my anti-depressant. Without the meds I take for sleep (one is a medication that helps stop dreams/nightmares - great for PTSD and the other med helps me sleep more solidly) I'd be incredibly sleep deprived and an absolute emotional wreck (mostly now kept in check because of the meds and therapy). Like you said, even with a "perfect" society, there'll still be disabling conditions - both physically and mentally (I have both lol).
@@dragonwings36 i have both, too! my physical stuff would still exist in a perfect world, and i'd still be neurodivergent, though i'd probably not have cptsd. i think my meds help me a lot, but to be real with you, i wouldn't really care if what i was feeling was all placebo. it's still helping!
@@tinycatfriend yaaay us lol! I agree, even if it is a placebo effect I'll take it. I'm not sure if I'd still have C-PTSD or not in a perfect world. I'm leaning towards yes due to the fact that a majority of my trauma comes from my childhood and well, kids can sometimes be cruel, even if they don't "know" better (though some do, and are cruel anyway).
Basically, humans are humans, and while some things can be fixed, unfortunately not everyone is kind. That and I honestly don't really remember how I was before having C-PTSD (and from paperwork I know I was apparently anxious from birth 😅).
Consciousness is a relatively new phenomenon. It's still in the making. And yet, we're bound to a tautology: the mind is trying to understand the mind through the mind.
(I know you made a brief mention of chronic pain being psychiatrized but I'd already written this mini essay from before and I go a little deeper on the subject of chronic illness and psychology/psychiatry.)
Hysteria was also used to "diagnose" physical illnesses (of course, mostly in women) that doctors couldn't tangibly see or prove YET and that's a practice that's 100% continued to this day but with "conversion disorder" and other diagnoses - doctors love to tell chronically ill people that we're "just depressed" or "just have anxiety", along with accusing us of being delusional about our own health, that's if we're lucky and we're not straight up told we're lying and lazy.
The psychiatrization of physical illness happens to a lot of chronically and terminally ill people, including forceful hospitalizations in mental hospitals as was the case of Karina Hansen in Denmark. Her case is really heartbreaking as she was literally kidnapped from her parents' home (the state of Denmark considers her illness to be purely psychiatric and saw her parents giving her the treatment she required as them feeding into her "delusions" over her own health and keeping her prisoner), they kept her there for 3 years against her will without allowing her parents to see her except for one time, she was only let go when a doctor risked (and lost) his medical license by signing her release, and the worst part is that she has ME/CFS which is an illness that with the more strain you put the body through, the more *irreparably* damaged it gets (including notorious cognitive decline), and in hospital she was denied the medical treatment her parents were giving her and was basically told to toughen up instead.
Multiple sclerosis was treated as hysteria for a long time as well and got patients forcefully hospitalized in mental institutions too with no medical treatment until the second half of the 20th century when they invented a scan that allowed them to see the leisures in the brain. Nowdays the psychiatrization of chronic illnesses happens especially to people with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, EDS, Dysautonomia and other illnesses alike.
While I've never been hospitalized in a mental institution, I did have my chronic illnesses (hEDS, POTS, MCAS, suspected ME/CFS) misdiagnosed as BPD first and then as bipolar, and treated psychiatrically for 7 years with antidepressants and mood stabilizers, as my physical health declined irreparably and now I'm disabled, with periods of time bedridden and usually housebound.
Jennifer Brea has a very enlightening Ted Talk on her process with diagnosis. She has ME/CFS and also made a very impactful documentary on her own decline and the illness itself, it's called Unrest. I really recommend both.
Oh, and the thing with chronically ill people and mental health? Just like, as you described, it's very difficult to not be depressed or anxious when you're broke as hell, it's also very fucking hard to not be depressed or anxious when you're experiencing chronic fatigue, chronic pain, brain fog/cognitive dysfunction, and more so IF NO ONE BELIEVES YOU, NOT EVEN DOCTORS and you have no real way to treat your symptoms, material or emotional support (lots of disabled people are poor and/or can't work) and you're isolated because you're using your 2% of battery on fucking breathing and praying for not getting yet another migraine.
"It's so hard to want to fight when you wish you were never born."
- Leftover Crack, "Ya Can't Go Home"
"It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other."
- Tupac, "Changes"
I like to think disfunction occurs when one lacks the key to unlock one's own potential and/or their experience molded their psychology into something functionally dysfunctional (meaning it makes sense that one feels the way they do if their surroundings are less-than-ideal). The latter can happen for myriad reasons, from genetic predisposition to trauma to societal sickness and anything in-between. The former is proof that humans are complex and one doesn't always know what kind of key will unlock said potential (it could be Wicca, Christianity, aromatherapy, talk therapy, being in a symbiotic relationship, making more money, owning a cute dog, et cetera). Sadly, everyone won't have access to these keys; some people must exist in the fringe and never kind solace in unlocking their true potential (in extreme cases, this is sometimes why people kill themselves or live the rest of their lives as miserable curmudgeons). We can, as a society, work toward making life better for more people, but then we get into the topic of politics and abuse of power and manipulation and ah, fuck it. I need more friends.
I'm inebriated currently. Sorry if I make no sense.
Peace.
P.S.
You're pretty it's distracting stop being pretty thank you kindly.
oh nice, I never hear people talking about leftoover crack, they're great
Aw man, the video ended too soon. It's like the first half of a documentary into the problems of psychiatry, but it didn't get past the initial analysis half.
Psychology and psychiatry measure real things. The big question is what are they measuring. This is why we run into things like depathologisation movements. The understanding that many psychological disorders are in fact sociological in nature needs to be looked at. Why was gay even a disorder in the first place, needs to bring in some critical theory. Foucault could be brought in to discuss the link between society's power structures and medicalisation of people's problems. One can bring up the landmark study that had researchers committed for schizophrenia they did not have, because they said they heard voices. Or investigate normality in the first place, and why so many people have a negative reaction to the different.
The issue of corruption and abuse in the system complicates the issue, as this would not impact on the realness of the science, but implies a need for oversight and standardisation.
It's not fake but it is in it's infancy. I would call it a pseudo science, so far. We'll get there though.