http://mindhacks.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Fri, 17 May 2013 22:36:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://mindhacks.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/#comment-5628 Sun, 31 May 2009 16:37:45 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/#comment-5628 I have often felt that doctors routinely use “diagnoses” such as PTSD, ADD and hyperactivity incorrectly. Doctors either don’t have the training and background to assess such conditions correctly, or they use them to palliate drug seekers who want a fix, or parents who don’t want to believe that their parenting skills, or lack thereof, could posssibly cause/contribute to their child’s behavior.
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I chat online frequently, and I’ve come across many people who either gleefully crow about how they received disability by “getting over” on the system, or who whine about not getting disability because they can’t seem to understand that Uncle Sam isn’t interested in helping people who have a dishonorable discharge on their record because of their own misconduct.
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I absolutely agree that psychiatric diagnoses frequently have their basis in a “value judgment” made by the physician. The problem occurs when the “diagnosis” occurs as a rush *to* judgment, to make their patients (or parents of same) happy. But, unfortunately, psychiatry/psychology is not an exact science. Drug seeking patients know this, and so do lazy parents.
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Which is not to say that such diagnoses are “always” wrong. I fully accept that many honest people in the mental health profession make such diagnoses with purely honorable intentions. But nobody’s perfect. Drug seekers have their wiles honed to a fine art. And sometimes even the best doctors just want persistent parents to go away and leave them alone, and if writing a Ritalin script will accomplish that, then so be it.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/#comment-5627 Sat, 30 May 2009 16:14:04 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/#comment-5627 Sheesh! Just when I thought my ploy intolerance disorder (PID) was starting to subside, I read this. Gotta see my doc.
Great article, btw. Informative and balanced.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/#comment-5626 Sat, 30 May 2009 00:08:31 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/valuing-the-unusual-illness-debate/#comment-5626 A very thought-provoking post…and trying to view mental illness through a different perspective is a good exercise. I do worry that ‘normality’ is defined too narrowly sometimes.
This blog is constantly fascinating to me, by the way, thank you.
(P.S. I think you have the wrong link up to the New Scientist orgasm article in the weekly round up post…!)

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