{ i.e., Let The Psychiatrist & The Church Think 4-U? ... }
Is Free Thinking A Mental Illness ?
Is nonconformity and freethinking
a mental illness? According to the newest addition of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders),
it certainly is. The manual identifies a new mental illness called “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD. Defined
as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,” symptoms include questioning authority,
negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.
The DSM-IV is the manual used by psychiatrists to
diagnose mental illnesses and, with each new edition, there are scores of new mental illnesses. Are we becoming sicker? Is
it getting harder to be mentally healthy? Authors of the DSM-IV say that it’s because they’re better able to identify
these illnesses today. Critics charge that it’s because they have too much time on their hands.
New mental illnesses
identified by the DSM-IV include arrogance, narcissism, above-average creativity, cynicism, and antisocial behavior. In the
past, these were called “personality traits,” but now they’re diseases.
And there are treatments
available.
All of this is a symptom of our over-diagnosing and overmedicating culture. In the last 50 years, the DSM-IV
has gone from 130 to 357 mental illnesses. A majority of these illnesses afflict children. Although the manual is an important
diagnostic tool for the psychiatric industry, it has also been responsible for social changes. The rise in ADD, bipolar disorder,
and depression in children has been largely because of the manual’s identifying certain behaviors as symptoms. A Washington
Post article observed that, if Mozart were born today, he would be diagnosed with ADD and “medicated into barren normality.”
According
to the DSM-IV, the diagnosis guidelines for identifying oppositional defiant disorder are for children, but adults can just
as easily suffer from the disease. This should give any freethinking American reason for worry.
The Soviet Union used
new “mental illnesses” for political repression. People who didn’t accept the beliefs of the Communist Party
developed a new type of schizophrenia. They suffered from the delusion of believing communism was wrong. They were isolated,
forcefully medicated, and put through repressive “therapy” to bring them back to sanity.
When the last
edition of the DSM-IV was published, identifying the symptoms of various mental illnesses in children, there was a jump in
the diagnosis and medication of children. Some states have laws that allow protective agencies to forcibly medicate, and even
make it a punishable crime to withhold medication. This paints a chilling picture for those of us who are nonconformists.
Although
the authors of the manual claim no ulterior motives but simply better diagnostic practices, the labeling of freethinking and
nonconformity as mental illnesses has a lot of potential for abuse. It can easily become a weapon in the arsenal of a repressive
state. http://offthegridnews.com/2010/10/08/is-free-thinking-a-mental-illn...
