I am Like REALLY pissed off at the Western medical care system and how it profits heavily off of how many people have a diagnosable illness which can be 'managed' instead of treated. This applies across the board from mental to physical health - why cure someone when you can make money off of them for a lifetime? Why break down a psychological barrier to help someone overcome themselves when you can prescribe them Zoloft instead? I am of course not saying ALL people in these fields are moneygrubbing scumbags, and sometimes prescriptions IS the best answer, I just find it disturbing that we are living in a time WHERE SO MANY PEOPLE suddenly have an incurable, lifetime, mental and/or physical issue and began noticing a pattern among certain demographics (mainly artists and introverts). And by 'suddenly' I mean the last couple decades, you can look at census data and see a huge spike in mental issues like aspergers and autism over the past 30 years.
Could it be overdiagnosing? Most likely. Could it be the vaccinations? IDK, can't speak on that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were to be proven as a contributing factor. Either way, I went off my rocker and wrote this journal after some research for a Psych course I happened to be taking in college. I still stand by my words, I just want to put this in perspective. It isn't an attack on the entire medical industry, or claiming anyone's illness is 'fake', I just want to point out the systemic issues potential misdiagnosis's create and studies have already been conducted for this very reason. In fact here is an article from The APA, where a PhD Psychologist brings to the forefront the problem with expanding the definitions of ADHD that intersect with other mental disorders, as well as questioning the possible factors leading to misdiagnosing children and teens.
Hinshaw's words in this statement made my skin crawl:
<"Finally, we decided to look outside of psychology and outside of the health-care system because inside it, we couldn't explain the discrepancies. [What we are surmising] is that policy had an indirect influence over these diagnoses. We found that during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, several states passed consequential accountability laws, which basically changed the philosophy of schools: Instead of funding schools based on the number of students in them, funding became based on their students' standardized math and reading test scores.Post too long. Click here to view the full text.