> The next step is going to be neuroscience explaining the modes of action in a failure state and how these drugs restore normal function.
We've been waiting for that next step for decades without any progress. The drugs don't predictably restore normal function, we can't predict if they will and we can't explain away this failure as improper diagnosis. In point of fact, the very theories that led to the creation of many of these drugs have been debunked as incorrect.
> Modern medicine pivots on the promise that portraying human suffering as biological disease will lead to insight and cures. Inescapably, this enterprise has a sociopolitical dimension.
The point of the article is that Psychiatry hubristicly still assumes it will find these "methods of action" wholey within the brain. This is despite some pretty compelling evidence that many psychiatric diagnosis present themselves radically differently in different cultures and time periods.
The truth is, we don't know to what degree neurological structures or patterns cause these problems. How much of it is the stories we are told about what symptoms go together, how our brain works and how it can be fixed? How much of it is because of the social structure of cities, media and our work places? How much of it is simply labeling people who naturally function differently as ill and attempting to force them to conform to some ideal for our own comfort and ease?
In all likelihood, there is a complex interplay between some or all of these factors that varies from person to person.
I am very glad to hear that Psychiatry's approach has helped you personally. That does not mean there aren't structural problems with how Psychiatry approaches and talks about mental illness. Indeed, the whole point of the article is that the same structural problems that led to some horrifying results in that past century have not changed much if at all. This is cause for concern.
We've been waiting for that next step for decades without any progress. The drugs don't predictably restore normal function, we can't predict if they will and we can't explain away this failure as improper diagnosis. In point of fact, the very theories that led to the creation of many of these drugs have been debunked as incorrect.
> Modern medicine pivots on the promise that portraying human suffering as biological disease will lead to insight and cures. Inescapably, this enterprise has a sociopolitical dimension.
The point of the article is that Psychiatry hubristicly still assumes it will find these "methods of action" wholey within the brain. This is despite some pretty compelling evidence that many psychiatric diagnosis present themselves radically differently in different cultures and time periods.
The truth is, we don't know to what degree neurological structures or patterns cause these problems. How much of it is the stories we are told about what symptoms go together, how our brain works and how it can be fixed? How much of it is because of the social structure of cities, media and our work places? How much of it is simply labeling people who naturally function differently as ill and attempting to force them to conform to some ideal for our own comfort and ease?
In all likelihood, there is a complex interplay between some or all of these factors that varies from person to person.
I am very glad to hear that Psychiatry's approach has helped you personally. That does not mean there aren't structural problems with how Psychiatry approaches and talks about mental illness. Indeed, the whole point of the article is that the same structural problems that led to some horrifying results in that past century have not changed much if at all. This is cause for concern.