In a new study, researchers found that adding a diagnostic label to a mental health-related anecdote changed the way people reacted—and not always in a good way.
According to the researchers, adding a diagnosis to the story made participants think the person needed professional help, needed special help at work and school, and reduced the control they had and their likelihood of recovery. It also may have increased empathy toward the person—but this finding wasn’t replicated in the second part of their study.
“These findings point to the potential mixed blessings of broad diagnostic concepts and the cultural trends responsible for them. Expansive concepts may promote help-seeking, empathy, and support, but also undermine perceived agency and expectations that problems can be overcome,” the researchers write.
The study was conducted by Brooke Altmann, Kylo Fleischer, Jesse Tse, and Nick Haslam at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
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Psychiatric diagnosis changing the way people view you is mere epiphenomena of a much more fundamental fact: that concepts, which are mere words, condition perception itself, imposing a silent layer of socially conditioned interpretation, and when one identifies with or is seen by another through a concept, this totally destroys and perverts the way we see ourselves or are viewed by others, a fact which can be seen in terms like ‘teenage hooligan’. The fact are they are children of our own society, products and victims of our many social brutalities, blindnessess and stupidities, not little demonic entities that through our social conditioning we foolishly, blindly, brutally and stupidly (aka society) blame on being themselves, aka demonic entities.
And this perversion of reality through social conditioning makes such forms of unconscious social regulatory violence through our social conditioning seem normal, credible and respectable, and this violence is made invisible and normal through this social conditioning which seen from the outside is a brain disease that destroys all intelligence and sanity, as well as being the source of all manor of social confusion and social conflict, which is to say endless rounds of social violence and social defence or counter-violence. Mental health labels are only a tiny section of this vast field of pathology, which is a universal social and psychological pathology today effecting the whole of humanity.
It’s a universal human and social phenomena, not some idiotic feature of psychiatry alone. And the proper field for exploring, exposing and transforming this structural phenomena in human life extends way beyond the bounds of psychiatry and includes all the pathologies of racism, racialized thinking, and identity politics, which are forms of psychological violence and defence that arises as a pathological consequences of thinking we can ever be a label that some expert or politician or person in power or in authority invented. It’s a disease symptomatic of and reinforcing of a profound stupidity that arises by being conditioned by a society that can never be as intelligent as your own organism which untouched and free of society would flower inexorably in health, beauty and perfection without any roadmap or plan or theory in view, just as every other organism in nature and freedom shows.
Unfortunately you and I are the factory farm animal versions of natural organisms. In slaughtering these animals we justify the social historical disease process to slaughter ourselves and our children, which it does with excellence and cut throat efficiency, along with the whole Earth which it slaughters compulsively because it is all it has known how to do. It’s how it grows, and just like a cancer, when it kills the organism, it too will die. But at least we knew what McDonald’s and Walmart and Donald Trump and Costa Coffee were like eh, both to work at and to shop at. Well worth sacrificing our whole Earth and lives and children’s future for wasn’t it. “We’re loving it”. Probably American Sam is another unsavoury uncle living in the spirit realm, in the realm of infinite carnivores.
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Beautifully written, thx. You speak to & for many of us, but surely Not nearly enough!
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If you want to know the answers to all human problems you should ask the Earth sky in the morning or at night, which is what the birds and trees do every day, no more or no less. And they understand what life is, and if we did the same we would understand all the problems of human life. Such understanding can dawn on a simple mescaline or mushroom trip. But it’s instinctual to all natural creatures which are always so simple because honest and true, so being is not complicated and doesn’t need words. Life in it’s freedom IS the communication drowned and distorted by words. It doesn’t need to say, only do, and this doing is it’s saying. Even the original words were a natural doing which was also a saying. And her work is perfect. We are that perfection confused by words and numbers. I have the clarity of catapillas – not the brain but the clarity – and therefore understand all human problems without thinking about them. But no-body will listen to me. A crack pipe and a sleeping bag is the standard fodder for people like me but Donald Trump who may again run your country has the brain of a cattapilla rather then it’s clarity. I’m not sure Biden’s brain was in any way better. So there’s no hope in culture. There’s hope only in nature, which implies being free.
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You don’t understand: the galaxy IS a total, perfect system, just like any life system we know. There’s a black hole at the centre of our galaxy that regulates the activity of stars, and initiates the birth and death of stars. Every element within the system of the galaxy shapes every other, and the structural harmonies within these parts of the total system regulate a vaster harmony of the total system which we can never comprehend when we see them as many parts. When you understand this, you see a universal structure that goes through every system we know of in the Universe and on Earth, including life-systems. It is like a total system with many parts that serve energetic or regulatory functions as part of the total system. The big bang produced everything (infinite multiplicity) out of singularity, whereas the black hole reduces this multiplicity back to singularity, and probably these are the same singularities as the beginning is always also the end I tend to find, just like a circle. And everything in a galaxy is giving out light and heat and energy or is the emptiness or coldness or blackness that absorbs it. Everything is productive or receptive in some way. It’s one total woven system. Everything is, even words, even social history, even you and me, as is every cell, each of infinite complexity if you look into it. So everything in awareness is such total structural systems. But awareness is not a system but the eye in which all these systems are. We can only know that awareness exists, nothing within. Perhaps they are paper thin illusions on an infinite screen. How will we ever know? We can never touch a happening in awareness, for touch is a happening in awareness, and we are awareness itself.
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Private therapy is like saying “can I pay you for the privilege of letting you unwittingly influence and condition my brain into the image of your own confusion and painful averageness please?”
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True.
It a form of brain washing . If you do not agree to their label another one attached. Keeps going. It really sickening.
You received a life sentence in the mental health world.
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Unless you run across a decent provider
Took 40 years.
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First of all, your name… no one. I could write pages on what that says about your self esteem and perceived self worth, but since you’re not paying me, I won’t go to the trouble of trying to “influence and condition your brain” to make it a safer and more pleasant place for you to be.
What I would like to say, is if private therapy isn’t for you, that’s fine. Don’t do it. But don’t bash the people who do. Many people find that it’s worth the expense because therapists can help us figure out things about ourselves we can’t on our own. They have insight where we are too close. They can teach us emotion regulation and distress tolerance and all kinds of skills to make our lives better and easier to live.
So, like I said- not for you? Fine. Don’t drink the koolaide. But also give others some credit- don’t knock those of us who find it helpful. It’s a multimillion dollar industry for a reason.
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I don’t bash people who do therapy do I? I point out that therapists are no more insightful or intelligent then the next person. And you say therapy is a multimillion dollar industry for a reason. Fentanyl and other opioids no doubt constitute a larger market still. Must be a billion dollar industry for a reason, eh. Calling myself no-one is nothing to do with self-esteem, i.e. the ego, and someone who accuses another of having a low self-esteem as a means of attacking an opinion which they don’t like, even though all human beings on Earth have contradicting opinions, is an indictment on their maturity and intelligence, not to mention humanity. But it’s OK for cellophane to wrap my inside out and upside down face together today because as my father used to say, by way of pain I make my work face every day, just as your Mother covers her pain in make up every day, so don’t hang around the grocery store or old people’s home lest I mistake you for a potato.
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Your insight is spot on. People who have nothing inside need universal consciousness as a crutch and a context.
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I used to believe that therapist were helping me understand myself and was helping me to cope with issues in my life I was struggling with. That was before someone else gave me a diagnosis that made everything that ever helped me with anything and made everything I had been told not possible if the label was accurate. I am left with confusion and angry and not having faith in the entire mental ,behavioral professionals at all. It has had a very negative effect on my trusting Dr s and prevents me from being taken seriously and to dismiss my concerns and I would need to buy a new Identity to have a Dr. treat me the way I had been prior to disagreement by professionals over what I might be suffering. I suffer from having ever believing that therapy could help me with anything at all. I would be cautious if I were you . They have the power to change how you are thought iof and how you view yourself and the world
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They can save or destroy
It’s very sad.
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Thanks
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Yes it does. Couple that with the fact that most mental health professionals don’t obey HIPPA laws, psychology is a bullshit science, all theory no laws, the vast majority of the public doesn’t understand mental health and thinks that a mental health diagnosis is as reliable as a physical health diagnosis, when really it’s just a guess, and people end up with ruined lives over the opinions of apathetic people who barely made it through college and only spent a few minutes talking to them. I’ve literally been diagnosed with everything and then had other doctors say that those were all misdiagnoses and cross them off my chart as being “resolved”
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I doubt you have been diagnosed with everything yet, give it time. Even accepting your wide experience I doubt your use of “most” is statistically relevant.
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Pretty sure there was dark humor there.
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I think it is also good for us to remember that these labels from DSM are not diagnoses. They are “disorder labels” that were made up. Not based on any science. I believe the word “diagnosis” is about looking for cause of why symptoms might be occurring. We have confusingly mixed up our DSM language by calling this labels diagnoses when they aren’t. It took me a long time to change my language but now I never call any DSM label a diagnosis. If I have to use a DSM label at all, I call them disorders and I work hard not to use them at all or to use ones (if I have to in order to get paid) that inspire empathy from the world. Gosh, I wish we could change our field and actually help people by following the science. This is why MIA is my “go to” sight to learn what is really happening out there and I share it with every mental health professional with whom I have the opportunity to tell about it.
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Hahaha same here.
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Seriously? There was a question about this?
If you need to publish a paper, why don’t you look at something that we don’t know.
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There is a lack of education and awareness of mental illness. Unfortunately, it seems that many mental diagnoses lead to standard medication prescriptions and dosage amounts. My husband has been recently diagnosed as bipolar and the lack of empathy and communication regarding medication and effects are disheartening. He also had a brain injury and the psychiatrist ignores the affects of certain meds resulting in cognitive distinction. He is given a 20 minute appointment with a nurse practitioner whose only goal is to get him in and out in that time period. Last practitioner did not read his medication list and was not aware of current meds. Told him she was now behind on her schedule and needed to finish up. Nurse practitioner was not interested in the affects new meds prescribed and scolded him for breaking up dosage over the day which works better for him. He has moved on to a much better practice. I believe the patient should be interviewing the Doctor before agreeing to be treated. Last time I looked, they work for the patient. Remember this! Do not settle for sub prime care! Keep interviewing until you find the right match for you. It takes time but is worth it. This can be applied stop all service providers. If you are not happy, look elsewhere. They work for you and should be reminded of that. You are not at their mercy and your input should always be heard and considered.
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Remember that these “diagnoses” are almost entirely invented and mean next to nothing. They are mostly just descriptions of annoying behavior and difficult emotion that tend to occur together. Saying he “has bipolar disorder” is not a scientific fact – it’s just someone’s “clinical impression,” AKA someone’s opinion based on their own biases and social values. There is no science to it whatsoever. So don’t let them convince you they know what they are talking about. Do what makes sense and what seems to work, even if they don’t agree with you. Your husband and you know far better what is going on than any psychiatrist!
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Amen bro!
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Unfortunately, this is often the case in this broken mental health care system. I’ve had the same issues with care providers for nearly 30 years now. I, too, have mental health diagnoses and had brain surgery in my teens, and it’s so true that the meds mess up your cognitive functioning- even for people without physical head trauma.
If they would listen more to people like us who have been trying to work with this system, we could help point out flaws and they could fix them. But once they think you’re crazy, that’s pretty much all you are to them. They don’t listen to your opinions or respect your wants and needs. It’s terrible, and needs to change.
I love the idea of shopping around for a psychiatrist that fits better. Unfortunately, where I live, there are crazy wait lists for shrinks. I can’t leave the one I have, cause I might never get into another.
Good luck to you and your husband, it sounds like you’ve managed to find someone better to work with.
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