A very talented and intelligent friend of mine wrote this article, so I thought I I'd share it with you. I say 'article'; it's more of a novella than an article! You may not agree with all of it, but I'm sure you will find it an interesting read:
whatswrongwithuk.blogspot.co.uk/
I won't paste the whole thing, but I'll do the start so that you can get a taste of it:
How often do we come across the term 'mental illness'? These days, almost constantly; it's on the news and in Eastenders; it saturates reports on social statistics and psychological well-being; someone we know will have suffered one, if we haven't suffered one ourselves. And yet, most mental illness, as we are commonly taught to understand it, does not really exist.
This is not to say that the devastating symptoms of the conditions identified as mental illnesses do not exist, of course and sadly they do – it is to state that these symptoms are not indicative of any organic defect; in short, their sufferers are not ‘ill’.
[Please note, I am referring to common, ‘everyday’ mental illnesses, such as depression, panic / anxiety disorders, self-harming, eating disorders, substance abuse, and so on – I am not referring to severe psychiatric complaints such as schizophrenia and violent psychopathologies.]
By labelling something as an illness, we are seeking to state that there is something going wrong with the person suffering the symptoms – that there is malfunction, disorder and disease, where there should be functionality, balance and health. In short, that the body has failed to produce the appropriate response - and the purpose of medical science is to ensure the correct bodily response take place. Correct reactions and functions are of paramount importance to the healthy person.
So, imagine one was witness, over many, many years, to terrible suffering and pain. Imagine one was forced to watch people being abused, hurt and violated, again and again. Imagine one had endured some of these terrible atrocities oneself.
How would one feel? One would feel deep trauma and distress. One would suffer panic and anxiety, guilt and despair, hopelessness and grief.
But would one be ill? Surely grief and pain are the correct responses to traumatic situations. Surely these responses – while by no means pleasant – are the correct and thereby healthy reactions to have. And surely, having the correct responses to situations is the essence of empathy, of emotion, of being human.
Not according to modern psychiatry. Read paragraph four again. Panic and anxiety; guilt and despair; hopelessness and grief. These are all classic, text-book symptoms of the alleged medical malady, ‘depression’. They also tend to feature heavily in the diagnostic criteria of every other commonly diagnosed ‘mental illness’.
Now read paragraph three again. Imagine being witness to terrible suffering and pain? Imagine this going on for years and years? None of us need to imagine. It’s happening everywhere, all the time, and to everyone.
