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I had to log in just to upvote this. Yes, diagnosing mental illness is less clear-cut than the problems we typically enjoy as programmers. Yes, mistakes are mad

I had to log in just to upvote this. Yes, diagnosing mental illness is less clear-cut than the problems we typically enjoy as programmers. Yes, mistakes are made. But for every mistake there are 9, or 99, or 999 successes (EDIT: I have no statistical reference for this assertion, please take with large grain of salt) who, as you say, feel that they owe their life to the professional(s) who helped them. I know, because I am one, and regardless of society's opinion that is no less an admission of weakness than admitting that I had chicken pox one time, and occasionally come down with the flu.

Alex3917 15y ago
"But for every mistake there are 9, or 99, or 999 successes who, as you say, feel that they owe their life to the professional(s) who helped them." The problem is that isn't true. The amount of people helped is generally lower than the amount of people harmed, at least with longterm use of many of the major psychopharmaceutical drugs. The book the blog is promoting explains this quite well. Just this morning there were a flurry of articles on a new study showing that the most commonly prescribed sleeping pills raise your all cause mortality 3x - 5x, and that's over only 2.5 years. One can only imagine what the all-cause mortality over 10+ years is.
- fooandbarify 15y ago
  You're right, I have no source to back that up and was making a flimsy emotional assertion. (I've edited my comment to reflect that.) I stand by the (desired) sentiment of my comment, though: psychiatry and the related sciences are important and there should be no related stigma.
einhverfr 15y ago
I don't know that you have any way of measuring mistakes vs successes in any objective way. Sometimes mistakes are helpful even (as they were with me--- a misdiagnosis for depression helped me out and lead to a very real ADD diagnosis, but I refuse to give up on my anti-authoritarian tendencies--- and indeed I do not take prescription medication for ADD and haven't regularly since I was 17). The problem I see is that there are a lot of people who genuinely think that they are treating sick patients who will get better and have fewer problems in life if they just get in line and stop resisting authority. I see it in schools and among mental health professionals. But those people have a very narrow and misguided IMNSHO opinion of success in life. As (early psychotherapist) Roberto Assagioli put it, clinically normal means mediocre, and to excel, you have to step outside of that. He claimed that there were criteria you could use to tell whether a disturbance was pathological or morbid, or whether it was a first step towards growth and breaking free. This brings me to ODD. The concern is that some people who are habitually defiant get worse and can become sociopathic later. But if that's the concern, it's grotesquely overdiagnosed.
- fooandbarify 15y ago
  I couldn't agree more. It seems that there are some who think mental illness is a crock of shit and psychiatry is witchcraft (admittedly hyperbolic but not enormously so) while there are others who believe every facet of human behaviour is diagnosable and "correctable". The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between.

Alex3917 15y ago

"But for every mistake there are 9, or 99, or 999 successes who, as you say, feel that they owe their life to the professional(s) who helped them." The problem is that isn't true. The amount of people helped is generally lower than the amount of people harmed, at least with longterm use of many of the major psychopharmaceutical drugs. The book the blog is promoting explains this quite well. Just this morning there were a flurry of articles on a new study showing that the most commonly prescribed sleeping pills raise your all cause mortality 3x - 5x, and that's over only 2.5 years. One can only imagine what the all-cause mortality over 10+ years is.

fooandbarify 15y ago
You're right, I have no source to back that up and was making a flimsy emotional assertion. (I've edited my comment to reflect that.) I stand by the (desired) sentiment of my comment, though: psychiatry and the related sciences are important and there should be no related stigma.

einhverfr 15y ago

I don't know that you have any way of measuring mistakes vs successes in any objective way. Sometimes mistakes are helpful even (as they were with me--- a misdiagnosis for depression helped me out and lead to a very real ADD diagnosis, but I refuse to give up on my anti-authoritarian tendencies--- and indeed I do not take prescription medication for ADD and haven't regularly since I was 17). The problem I see is that there are a lot of people who genuinely think that they are treating sick patients who will get better and have fewer problems in life if they just get in line and stop resisting authority. I see it in schools and among mental health professionals. But those people have a very narrow and misguided IMNSHO opinion of success in life. As (early psychotherapist) Roberto Assagioli put it, clinically normal means mediocre, and to excel, you have to step outside of that. He claimed that there were criteria you could use to tell whether a disturbance was pathological or morbid, or whether it was a first step towards growth and breaking free. This brings me to ODD. The concern is that some people who are habitually defiant get worse and can become sociopathic later. But if that's the concern, it's grotesquely overdiagnosed.

fooandbarify 15y ago
I couldn't agree more. It seems that there are some who think mental illness is a crock of shit and psychiatry is witchcraft (admittedly hyperbolic but not enormously so) while there are others who believe every facet of human behaviour is diagnosable and "correctable". The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between.