Welcome to From Insults to Respect. The two dominant manuals for “diagnosing mental disorders” are the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases. (ICD). Their overarching concept is mental disorders. Synonyms are psychopathology, and mental illness. To access mental health services, most people are required to accept being labelled as having a mental illness. Not everyone respects this…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Last week, I presented a post titled, “Mental Illness as Distress, Abnormality, and Dysfunction.” There, I explained that it is actually normal in our society to have periods during which we become concerned that we are too distressed, or too dissatisfied with our level of functioning. The pharmaceutical companies, I noted, promote that these concerns are mental disorders and…
Welcome to From Insults To Respect. In our society, many assume psychiatrist can accurately diagnose mental illness, also referred to as mental disorder or psychopathology. Why do they? Sometimes we respect what a group of people do because of their association with something we highly value. Thus, in a commercial, we might see people purchasing a particular brand of car with a highly respected athlete,…
A Positive Alternative To The Mental Disorder Approach
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers of this blog know that I have become disenchanted with the mental disorder/mental illness/medical model for addressing psychological concerns (see, for example, HERE). Today I describe how this came about, along with my reasons for preferring a psychological maturity approach. My Disenchantment With The Mental Disorder Model Let’s begin with my early education as a psychologist. At first,…
