4 ms·

I suffer from depression and a generalized anxiety disorder. I've been grateful to the psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners who've treated me ov

I suffer from depression and a generalized anxiety disorder. I've been grateful to the psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners who've treated me over the years. I genuinely believe the vast majority want the best for their patients. In my experience, psychiatrists are far more conservative with treatment than primary care physicians are with mental health conditions (see overprescription of ritalin, antidepressants, and benzodiazepines). The narrative that psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners are in some way nefarious further stigmatizes mental health sufferers and limits access to care.

soup10 7y ago
They aren't nefarious in cartoonish villain type ways, they are nefarious in very boring and predictable human ways. Control over others, greed, politics, laziness, burnout, ignorance, ego and arrogance, narcissism. One of the posters in this thread is trying to handwave it all away "oh we do our best and and the bad stuff if because we are worried about liability". But the problems are much deeper than that and the institution itself is fundamentally flawed to the point that it's generally not a good idea to place yourself or loved ones under the care of a psychiatrist and more of a last resort.