On the Ignorance of Psychiatry and the Ignorance of Critics

The less we understand about a disease or a symptom, the more we psychologize, and often stigmatize, it.

The less we understand about a disease or a symptom, the more we psychologize, and often stigmatize, it.

1. Some therapists have an overly reductive understanding of psychiatric diagnosis. They seem to think a diagnosis of mental disorder necessarily implies there is some intrinsic brain abnormality. They think if someone’s symptoms can be explained with reference to a history of abuse or trauma, then a diagnosis doesn’t apply to them. The logic is so in

Stigma does not derive from ignorance or lack of knowledge, but rather from the conception of mental illness as the sign of the idle, a personality incapable of achieving the ideal: producing for oneself and the economy.20