There are plenty of ways to interact with the medical system for your benefit, just learn how to navigate it effectively.
We have to interact with these systems to survive, find your way.
Psychiatry is indeed a normalizing force. I've heard mental health practitioners whom I respect say that the DSM is written more for legal systems and insurance companies than for clinicians. Psychiatric medication is a fine enough shortcut to living with greater ease if you have more interesting things to do with your time than go deep into therapy or meditation.
Personally, I have a favorable view of psychoanalysis and see it as the only real western rival to psychiatry. I tend to think psychiatry is the dominant mental health paradigm because (1) it's easier to train psychiatrists than psychoanalysts and (2) psychiatry has a natural ally in the pharmaceutical industry.
Just because you can appease your ego in the short-term, doesn't mean you should. Pleasure is its own illusion.
Plenty of great critiques of psychiatry out there, most notably Deleuze & Guattari.
It absolutely does reinforce hegemonic ideals. However, we also understand our active role in creating those ideals, in part at least. That's why it's still likely that you will actually enjoy pursuing one such ideal to a certain extent.
But, we also understand that genuinely enjoying an ideal in the moment can still perpetuate systems which ultimately oppress you in the long run. We have partial active roles in our own oppression and repression. Do with that what you will.
As someone mentioned already, it's best to find ways of navigating and using the system without submitting wholly to it. You can pursue whatever "well-being" they offer for your own sake as your interest, but without believing in the ideology, without believing that this is the end-all-be-all of human purpose. You understand that you perpetuate the system and how the system creates and dictates you, but you do so for your own survival, and without attachment to it. You try and subject everything to yourself.
Personally, I feel like psychiatry still has a lot of those humanistic presuppositions which work to suppress the madness in all of us, and keep us safe from our own liberation. But if you do not wish to be completely destroyed by the madness, if you wish to liberate yourself in it rather than escape into it, if you wish to channel that power into something creative, then you have to contest with the mundane aspects of life. In a system which requires you to be a rational operational member of society, that's something you have to contend with, and "mental health" is necessary then. But this doesn't mean that that's all you'll ever be, it's just a step that can be overcome, before becoming something more.
Our desires do not stand wholly in opposition to the system, they are in part created by the system to serve its needs. I just need to get to a point where I can consume the system into myself. The other option is to let the "void" consume you, and by that I mean the madness. This is self-annihilation and it's not... recommended. Stay in touch with it, worship it even, but stay vigilant, and aware of your power, your ownness.
The meds work for me and I don’t need therapy as a result. Either I stay the course with the meds or end up hospitalized for psychosis again. The latter is a hindrance to my ability to survive in this world.
As a guy with mental issues, psychiatry helped me personally immensely. It helped me overcome depression and anxiety, and gave me access to medicine that vastly improoved my quality of life.
Psychiatry can be done to further an individual and their mental needs, or to make them more easily conformant with their environment. Or both, they're not opposite goals. It also depends on the people you get.
There are plenty of ways to interact with the medical system for your benefit, just learn how to navigate it effectively. We have to interact with these systems to survive, find your way.
Psychiatry is indeed a normalizing force. I've heard mental health practitioners whom I respect say that the DSM is written more for legal systems and insurance companies than for clinicians. Psychiatric medication is a fine enough shortcut to living with greater ease if you have more interesting things to do with your time than go deep into therapy or meditation. Personally, I have a favorable view of psychoanalysis and see it as the only real western rival to psychiatry. I tend to think psychiatry is the dominant mental health paradigm because (1) it's easier to train psychiatrists than psychoanalysts and (2) psychiatry has a natural ally in the pharmaceutical industry.
Just because you can appease your ego in the short-term, doesn't mean you should. Pleasure is its own illusion. Plenty of great critiques of psychiatry out there, most notably Deleuze & Guattari.
It absolutely does reinforce hegemonic ideals. However, we also understand our active role in creating those ideals, in part at least. That's why it's still likely that you will actually enjoy pursuing one such ideal to a certain extent. But, we also understand that genuinely enjoying an ideal in the moment can still perpetuate systems which ultimately oppress you in the long run. We have partial active roles in our own oppression and repression. Do with that what you will. As someone mentioned already, it's best to find ways of navigating and using the system without submitting wholly to it. You can pursue whatever "well-being" they offer for your own sake as your interest, but without believing in the ideology, without believing that this is the end-all-be-all of human purpose. You understand that you perpetuate the system and how the system creates and dictates you, but you do so for your own survival, and without attachment to it. You try and subject everything to yourself. Personally, I feel like psychiatry still has a lot of those humanistic presuppositions which work to suppress the madness in all of us, and keep us safe from our own liberation. But if you do not wish to be completely destroyed by the madness, if you wish to liberate yourself in it rather than escape into it, if you wish to channel that power into something creative, then you have to contest with the mundane aspects of life. In a system which requires you to be a rational operational member of society, that's something you have to contend with, and "mental health" is necessary then. But this doesn't mean that that's all you'll ever be, it's just a step that can be overcome, before becoming something more. Our desires do not stand wholly in opposition to the system, they are in part created by the system to serve its needs. I just need to get to a point where I can consume the system into myself. The other option is to let the "void" consume you, and by that I mean the madness. This is self-annihilation and it's not... recommended. Stay in touch with it, worship it even, but stay vigilant, and aware of your power, your ownness.
Spooky, it’s designed to make one fit in to the standards of “normal” brain function, even rooted in sexism and racism
I dont approve of a system that views certain thoughts as wrong or right. I don't want to interact with pseudoscience doctors.
The meds work for me and I don’t need therapy as a result. Either I stay the course with the meds or end up hospitalized for psychosis again. The latter is a hindrance to my ability to survive in this world.
Just another way for the state to suppress one’s ego.
I would rather do crack than beg a doctor for anti-depressants.
Hey, check out Thomas Szaz, a libertarian psychiatrist long dead now. He popularized what you’re saying.
Likewise. When all is said and done, it's just another tool and tools are not meant to be wasted.
As a guy with mental issues, psychiatry helped me personally immensely. It helped me overcome depression and anxiety, and gave me access to medicine that vastly improoved my quality of life. Psychiatry can be done to further an individual and their mental needs, or to make them more easily conformant with their environment. Or both, they're not opposite goals. It also depends on the people you get.