Introduction: The Evolving Landscape of Psychiatry
In recent years, the field of psychiatry has faced significant criticism regarding its approach to mental health diagnoses. Central to this debate is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a critical tool that categorizes mental health conditions. While the DSM aims to standardize diagnoses for better treatment, it has often been accused of pathologizing normal human experiences and emotions, leading to the question: are we medicalizing human behaviors when we apply the term 'disorder'? This article argues for a reevaluation of psychiatric diagnoses, particularly the term 'disorder,' and supports a shift towards a more nuanced understanding of mental health.
Understanding Pathologization: What It Means and Why It Matters
Let me first stress the fact that the term "normal" is itself a misnomer, and thus it makes little sense to "normalise" that which has become unjustifiably pathologised. Pathology exists in every sector of human experience, way beyond the scope of what we usually associate with the medical domain – the moralism of Good and Evil being the principal example with distinguished priority here. The characterisation "human" would then be the "first-amongst-equals" of those of the legitimate pathologies announcing themselves relative to the disturbed state of Nature which, being disturbed in of itself, conveys a double articulation of disturbance onto the human condition, which thus becomes the twisted standard of normality we have to contend with as the "condition" amongst conditions.
Pathologization refers to the process of viewing or treating behaviors and experiences as indicative of illness or disorder. In modern psychiatry, behaviors that deviate from societal norms can be labeled as disorders, resulting in stigmatization of individuals who may simply be experiencing the natural challenges of life. But such challenges appear to us far from the lost state of nature, and thus human life itself must be reckoned with as a state of double- and even triple-pathology, relative to a lost experience of first perfection which, if the fact of society as such is any indicator, was far from perfect from the point of view of our human legislators.
Nevertheless, the processes unleashed in an ex-post-facto psychiatry has led to the medicalization of various so-called "emotional" states, including those as rudimentry to human "as-suchness" as sadness, anxiety, and even interpersonal conflicts, framing them as disorders deviating as far from from the transcendent state of valid human experiences as the apple drifts from its tree of knowledge under the force of gravity – whether that gravity be that of plausible stupidity, misdemeanour delinquency, or pure Evil. Such a perspective not only trivializes genuine psychiatric conditions under the rubric of passive malfunctions, but also undermines the diversity of human emotional expression, even and especially when such motions express their dismay with a human condition that has become the token of that which is all but masterised, such as it is, where it is, in all of its unnatural motives of endeavour.
The DSM: A Double-Edged Sword
The DSM has been invaluable in creating a common language for mental health professionals, aiding in research and treatment. Unfortunately a common language is not we need, and the "value" tied to research and treatment is regrettably fiscal in nature (at least on the side of industry), and excessively moralistic on the level of society (not to deviate toor far from the common language of jurisprudence). This has created an unliveable situation for the fabled "average Joe and/or Jill" who, in addition to contending with the paradoxes of the natural fact, have now to consider their impotence to measure up to such fictions as "disorders" indifferent to questions of sexual difference, quasi-legislatively inscribed in our social fabric with the dubious verve of the natural facts themselves; the latter having become even less susceptible to criticism than those questions expressly surrounding gender and sex, there being always more persistent questions than answers in this domain. For, answers seem to produce questions with an insistence that the production of questions themselves do not.
Thus, the DSM's influence is not without criticism. Critics argue that the DSM's categorical approach fails to account for the complexities and intersections of human behavior, leading to oversimplification. For instance, terms such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) can perpetuate stigma, reducing individuals to mere labels devoid of context. They say that the rebranding of such diagnoses could foster understanding and acceptance rather than judgment.
In reality however, the problem is a little beyond the scope of such simplistic interventions. But it must be admitted that the reality is also such that simplistic interventions are about as much as that can be countenanced by an industry that is always fluffing up its existence into a state of erection on the "borderline" between its dubious legitimacy and its probable – to be diplomatic, I would rather say absolute – redundancy...
The Argument for Directly Naming Behaviors
By considering a redefinition of certain diagnoses, like BPD, we open the door to a paradigm that recognizes these conditions as characteristics of a fallen state of personality rather than pathologies anathema to human normality...
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