I'm in good health and exercise on a regular basis. Maybe I should see a shrink.
--the lawyer-driven and lawyer-dominated society--
Q: What do you call someone who got "D"s all the way through medical school?
A: DOCTOR.
This blog site follows these issues and I highly recommend it for anyone that follows the health care industry:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/
Problems? Yes. Diseases? No.
Ban all direct marketing of prescription drugs. I stopped watching television pretty much because there is a drug for everything normal in life.
A Nation of Victims.
I understand the article, and while it brings up good points, that illnesses trend and become faddish. That meds are overused and some things are over diagnosed. I do disagree to an extent.
We do NOT know all there is to know about the human body, brain and illnesses. It's like saying we've reached the edge of the earth where the horizon drops off, so nothing new is out there.
Maybe it's because I'm a geezerette, but I think it's wonderful that things that went untreated, that made folks lives a living hell, now have diagnosis and root causes.
Hell, it wasn't that long ago that we thought ulcers were from stress, now we know they're caused by a bacteria. GERD wasn't treated, now we know that untreated, it's a precursor to cancer.
Mental illnesses, which for so long had the 'it's all in your head' attitude, now daily are having clinical data show up supporting actual brain deformities, specific chemical imbalances, genetic links etc. Folks that were seen as hopeless now have shots at actual lives.
I'd rather live now, in a time where people are looking for answers, than in my mother's wonderful day when you were told to think happy thoughts if depressed (and the suicide STILL happened) or 'it's all in your head' for the relative with migranes, or 'you're possessed' for my cousin with epelpsy.
I remember that when I roll my eyes at the upteen commericals on TV. Now is way better than the snake pit days.....
bump
This article is so spot on. We have the population wanting to fix everything with a pill and we have doctors wanting to make money prescribing treatments that do not work. People are impatient.
Give somebody antibiotics for the flu symptoms and they will be better in 7-10 days or not give them anything and they will be better in 7-10 days.
I think we, as a people, need to embrace more natural deaths once again. It's not easing suffering to be on drugs 24/7, it's merely prolonging an artificial life. I'm surprised so many religious folk have decided to beat God at his own game and refuse the trip to heaven.
I must have ADD.
Reduction in the need for services should be an indication of the success of a program, but alas, not so in our day and age.
Reduction in the need for food stamps, subsidized school lunches and welfare payments during the 90's was viewed as a crisis. There just HAD to be people out there who desperately needed those services--we just have to find them, the thinking went. So an ad campaign was undertaken to get more people, who had obviously been doing just fine, to apply for these services.
I can go along with the author's proposal that the success of our health care system might be based on how many people don't need it, rather than how many do.
ping
His simple message is: "Doctors should stop trying to moralise their patients and concentrate on treating them", and he enlists the help of the microbiologist Renee Dubos to reinforce his point. Dubos commented in his book The Mirage of Health, written way back in 1960:
"In the words of a wise physician, it is part of the doctor's function to make it possible for his patients to go on doing the pleasant things that are bad for them – smoking too much, eating and drinking too much – without killing themselves any sooner than is necessary."
And that, for Fitzpatrick, is the real job of the General Practitioner – not meeting 'lifestyle education' targets set by the state. Nor refusing to treat those who have allegedly brought ill health upon themselves. His job is that of the doctor, not the priest.
For example, one can compare TV of 25 years ago including commercials (and particularly commercials) in the United States with today.
One only need to go to the TV Museum in NYC or L.A. and punch up a few family shows from the 60s and 70s and watch for awhile.
Then go home and watch about two or three hours of 2007 American TV.
What will emerge is that we are (at least being told we are) SICK, SICK, SICK, SICK. In need of this pill. In need of that pill. In need of this drug, that drug. For this, and that and this and that. Sleeplessness, headaches, depression, erectile dysfunctions, acid stomach. Etc etc etc. We are the richest nation, yet our spot on the "World Happiness Index" is quite low, along with Japan, with all kinds of stresses, insomnia, overreating, and pill abuse (highest per capital purchaser of anti-depressants). You would have to be absolutely BLIND to not see that there is something wrong, and growingly so, with the United States and it's collective national psyche and national characteristics. We can blame many reasons for this, and debate them, but we are foolish if we ignore or dismiss the phenomena itself out of denial.
Thomas Szasz, M.D., is a very famous psychiatrist who has been saying the same thing that the authors of this piece are saying. Szasz has been writing extensively about the same issue - for decades. He has written dozens of books - such as “The Myth of Mental Illness,” “Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry: An Inquiry into the Social Uses of Mental Health Practices,” “Scizophrenia,” and many others. Just search his name at Amazon books.
Szasz’s position is this: We (the psychiatric industry) have tended to “medicalize” behaviors which we don’t like or find annoying, behaviors that are ordinary, NORMAL feelings - with an explosion of new “diagnoses.” He emphasizes the following points:
1. This amounts to abuse medical analysis, and allows abuse of civil liberties, as a result (e.g., Soviet mental hospitals that “treated” dissidents - with drugs, lobotomies). For example, a young boy may be “diagnosed” ADHD, when he is simply a boy who is unhappy with being warehoused in school for 12-14 hours a day; and - his behavior is not an “illness,” it is a very calculated form of “communication,” as Szasz terms it. He is communicating that he is unhappy with HIS PARENTS, for example, for going through their 3rd divorce and giving him LESS attention. So, -- who REALLY has the “disorder”? The kid? The boy might be viewed as simply (reasonably) angry with his parents for such negligence ( Is he is “antsy & uncooperative” so voila “ADHD”? No.) Perhaps it is his PARENTS have an “disorder,” – an inability to commit in relationships! You get the point – NEITHER is “ill”, they are just unhappy with each others’ conduct, and have a neutral disagreement. They need to work out this issue at hand, not label each other “ill.”
2. The “medicalization” of ordinary conduct also stigmatizes normal people. They now may be barred from employment opportunities, child custody, etc. in the future. BTW, social worker therapists AREN’T PAID, unless they can come up with SOME “disorder” to write down, if someone meets with them. In other words, they aren’t paid if they can’t identify a steady stream of “illnesses” & “disorders.” Obviously – there is a huge conflict of economic interest, here, when it comes to deciding diagnoses in a responsible and ethical manner. Of course, pharmaceutical companies benefit economically from the tendency to ‘medicalize’ ordinary normal human feelings (“depression,” bipolar etc,) as well.
3. Medicalizing ordinary behavior also hurts society, because it tends to “enable” normal people with normal problems and feelings – who now think that they are “sick” and now can get OUT of personal responsibilities, due to their “illnesses.”
Dr. Szasz does indeed admit that there are cases of brain tumors, dietary deficiencies, or chemical/hormonal imbalances that can be considered a visible MEDICAL condition, and can be objectively treated with surgery or other medically approved methods. That is not what he is talking about. He contends that when all of these physiological (biological, organic) causes HAVE been ruled out – then, we have to consider that the behavior is not an “illness” – it is a form of communication, a “strategy” to manipulate and influence people around you, to get what you want, or protect yourself. Think of the “drama queen” teenager, who gets to go to the Mall, instead of studying, because she can cry on a moment’s notice, or puts on a good show of claiming she’s “depressed, blue, and discouraged” by her homework. Szasz says that, absent of a brain tumor, poor diet, or lack of sunlight in the winter (which can affect moods in a material manner), the best “strategy” in response to this teen, is to MANIPULATE that person BACK. Don’t cater to the conduct, don’t reward it. Manipulate the individual by refusing to “reward” the conduct, etc. He calls the form of psychoanalysis he advocates, a “Theory of Personal Conduct,” rather than a “Theory of mental illness” for this reason. He doesn’t BELIEVE in mental illness, in the strict sense. He believes people generally are rational, and they “act out” in many different ways, to get what they want, and manipulate others.
I hope this helps, I urge everyone to read some of Szaszs’ works, he is very famous, and is often cited in college Psych textbooks, as well.
In so far as I can remember, every doctor I've ever dealt with has been a professional. And helped me when I needed the help.
One or two might have had "middle of the road" skills but still, I have no complaints.
And I'm getting sick of people who have nothing but complaints.
And somewhere along the way the notion that cars aren't perfect, that they wear out despite the best care will be forgotten. The concept that the car owner is responsible for his car will become laughable. And so on, ad absurdium.