> Why was this guy using drugs starting at age ten? What led up to that? Shouldn't it be classified as a parenting failure, not a "disorder" on his part?
"So you say your father broke your arm.... This isn't a bone fracture! It's bad parenting, now go home, no medical attention for you".
You are looking to see if some mental/physiological process is in disorder, so it's not about whether you caused it or your father caused it. The question to ask is does the patient fit in box X, because we have scientific studies saying that a large number of patients in box X when given treatment Y move to box Z, which is classified as being better than X.
You're missing his point. A doctor can treat you every time your father breaks your arm but the problem you have doesn't lie with your body or your brain. Yet the first line approach to mental health is treating the patients as the problem, assuming their brains are malufunctioning, and giving them behavioral therapy and drugs. If your depressed because your father keeps breaking your arm no amount of ssris and therapy will fix that...
I'm not saying the mental health field doesn't take into account external factors. It does especially psychology. I still think psychology overestimates how sick people are and underestimates how sick society is.
"So you say your father broke your arm.... This isn't a bone fracture! It's bad parenting, now go home, no medical attention for you"
So your father broke your arm at age ten. And broke your arm annually every year thereafter because he's an abusive asshat. And doctors decided to label you with some bizarre form of osteoporosis that must be the underlying cause of your frequent and mysterious fractures. And when you finally smack dad in the head with a hammer as an adult in self defense, it goes in your file that you are not only crazy but also dangerous and violent, even though you've never been violent with anyone else ever.
Better solution: You need a restraining order on your father who should not see you without court supervision while he finishes up his jail sentence for assault and battery and child abuse. He goes to therapy. You get put in a safe environment with adults who don't break your arm annually while claiming it's you that's defective.
"So you say your father broke your arm.... This isn't a bone fracture! It's bad parenting, now go home, no medical attention for you".
You are looking to see if some mental/physiological process is in disorder, so it's not about whether you caused it or your father caused it. The question to ask is does the patient fit in box X, because we have scientific studies saying that a large number of patients in box X when given treatment Y move to box Z, which is classified as being better than X.