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These issues are sociologically complex and they are being addressed as if all mental health issues can be treated on an individual level. There should be regul

These issues are sociologically complex and they are being addressed as if all mental health issues can be treated on an individual level. There should be regulation that prevents rate of expansion into new 'fuzzily defined' target markets that is scientifically regulated with scientific, precisely and pedantically defined, formalized language. This personally horrifies me, and I watched this happen over and over again in federally funded facilities: > When someone's antidepressant didn't work, Pharma marketers began floating the idea that it wasn't that the drugs didn't work; it wasn't that the person wasn't depressed to begin with but had real life, job and family problems—it was "treatment-resistant depression." Over-prescription in general seems to come from ill equipped / underfunded facilities. These are places that can't afford to give every person individual therapy. They are communal, so there is lots of personality clashing that goes on inside of the facilities that exacerbates disorders which stem from or are composed largely of adaptive socialization behaviors that become maladaptive in different environments. A person who grew up in poverty or from an abusive environment is going to be angry and depressed. Just because there is no one available to have an intelligent kind of compassion for that person, doesn't make them psychotic. People are afraid of what they don't understand in general. It's easier and cheaper to zonk someone out than actually have to think about or pay how to help them. I really don't mean to come off so cynical, but some of these public facilities can be blackholes for many of the people they treat, with the possibility of re-traumatizing people on top of the problems they already have. Oh, and on top of that, the humorous part (read with heavy sarcasm): people at these places are called "clients" and the facility stresses that that specific phrasing is used. No one is called a patient. They are a "client", a consumer.

gohrt 12y ago
What's wrong with calling someone a client, and separating their medical situation from their identity as a member of the social relationship? A client is a more engaged partner in the activity of achieving and maintaining well-being; a patient is a more passive victim of their situation.
- drcomputer 12y ago
  A large percentage of the people there are there on a court order. Rape victims are potentially in the same groups as convicted rapists and murderers. These are not happy places for finding and maintaining well-being; they are chaotic hellholes. If you lose your sense of self in there, all you have left are labels of insanity reflecting back at you to tell you who you are. You can call that person a client, but they are still a psychotic, borderline, {etc} client, whom can be drugged, physically restrained, and held against their will. That said, I'm sure there exist people who don't experience that. But that doesn't imply that it does not happen. You have no idea about the level of conflicting messages you receive in these places. The advice is so diluted that it can't be practically applied, it only describes very generally the way the mind functions when it is operating at an average baseline. It doesn't mean it creates mental stability. These places run on belief systems, not science. I am absolutely certain this is one side of a coin. On the other hand, these are difficult, systemic issues for which places like this serve as a sinkhole for. The people who work there have to deal with this every day, and I'm sure many of them are trying their best and are not abusing the power and authority they have been given over the lives of other people. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved, and it doesn't mean it doesn't warrant a real, socially active and involved discussion.

gohrt 12y ago

What's wrong with calling someone a client, and separating their medical situation from their identity as a member of the social relationship? A client is a more engaged partner in the activity of achieving and maintaining well-being; a patient is a more passive victim of their situation.

drcomputer 12y ago
A large percentage of the people there are there on a court order. Rape victims are potentially in the same groups as convicted rapists and murderers. These are not happy places for finding and maintaining well-being; they are chaotic hellholes. If you lose your sense of self in there, all you have left are labels of insanity reflecting back at you to tell you who you are. You can call that person a client, but they are still a psychotic, borderline, {etc} client, whom can be drugged, physically restrained, and held against their will. That said, I'm sure there exist people who don't experience that. But that doesn't imply that it does not happen. You have no idea about the level of conflicting messages you receive in these places. The advice is so diluted that it can't be practically applied, it only describes very generally the way the mind functions when it is operating at an average baseline. It doesn't mean it creates mental stability. These places run on belief systems, not science. I am absolutely certain this is one side of a coin. On the other hand, these are difficult, systemic issues for which places like this serve as a sinkhole for. The people who work there have to deal with this every day, and I'm sure many of them are trying their best and are not abusing the power and authority they have been given over the lives of other people. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved, and it doesn't mean it doesn't warrant a real, socially active and involved discussion.