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SS 100A Final Assessment

Mental Disorders are often wrongly diagnosed and treated. Do you agree with this opinion?

Justify your argument with valid reasons.

Hashim Haroon

SDSB first-year student, LUMS

2201 SHSS Introduction to Writing (SS 100A S4)

Saima Bhaur

Due Date: 25th December

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Research Essay

Wrong diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders

Mental illnesses are illnesses characterized by the presence of mental pathology: that is,

disturbances of mental functioning analogous to disturbances of bodily functioning; this is the

definition of mental illness given by (oxford dictionary, n.d). Psycho-therapy is a field that deals

with the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. In the recent decades, psychotherapy and the

people who practice psychotherapy (psycho-analysts) faced criticism. Mental illnesses often

wrongly diagnosed and treated, it is because of wrong diagnosis, unjustified treatment, and

political or private reasons of psychologists.

Because of the weak structures pioneering the whole profession of psychiatry itself, we

see many cases of the wrong diagnosis. After the world war, when people started pouring into

mental hospitals, psychiatry had not developed by then, and they did not know the criteria for

classifying someone mentally ill. So, by the 1970s, they created a book called DSM (Diagnostic

and Statistical Manual of Mental illness). This book had all the possible mental disorders with

their symptoms. This book was given much power to classify anyone mentally ill and send one

to a mental institute. One must think a book given so much power must have some scientific

background reinforcing it. But every disease in this book was added through a voting process,

and we know voting is a social or political process and not a scientific one. The difference

between a pathological book and the DSM is that every disease in the book of pathology is

discovered, but the diseases in the DSM are invented. Dr. Jeffery Chahler, an American

psychologist, calls this book "a great work of fiction" (Evolution Television, 2013, 2:18). Many

errors were made by this book and destroyed many lives; for example, "homosexuality" was a
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mental disorder according to DSM-I. A person who was diagnosed with homosexuality and was

sent to a mental hospital would not have been there if he had been diagnosed by DSM-III. The

second wrong practice psychiatrist did, was diagnosing mental illness through physical

procedures; for example, brain scans. In the book, Myths of mental illness (Szasz, 1961), Dr.

Thomas Szasz argues that mental illness is not what people have; it is what people do. It is

judged by society; for example, irrational behavior when a person exhibits the society judges that

person and their actions as being morally wrong. It takes one person to have a physical disease,

but it takes two people to develop a mental disorder. For example, in a conflict between two

individuals, one does not say to the other, 'you are diabetes'; they say, 'you are paranoid. ' In

conclusion, psychiatrists cannot diagnose someone through physical procedures. In further

studies about the profession of psychiatry, its validation, and accuracy, socking results were

obtained.

An experiment done by doctor Rosenhan in 1973 created some real troubles for

psychiatry. According to details of this experiment given by (Course hero, n.d), in the first wave,

he sent a number of ordinary people to a mental institute and asked them to act insane in front of

the doctors there; as a result, all the participants managed to be classified as mentally ill. For the

second wave, he again sent a number of people to the psychiatrists, but this time he had told the

psychiatrists that he should be sending some people to be diagnosed. Based on their previous

experience, they knew that not all of the people being sent to them were insane. As a result, more

than 20% of people, who were sent there, were diagnosed as sane. Later, he revealed all of those

were mentally ill. In conclusion, the diagnosis done by the psychiatrist is not accurate as it is

claimed. Not only are there issues with diagnosis, but there are also several issues with treatment,

its procedure, and its effects on patients.

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As already established, mental illness is abstract in nature and has no physical existence,

so it cannot be treated through physical methods. In the book "Myths of Psychotherapy" (Szasz,

2018), Dr. Thomas Szasz argues how mental illness was used to be treated through abstract ways

like religion or other belief systems but now is replaced by psychotherapy. He being a psycho-

analyst, knows how much dangerous the procedures of therapy really are, and imposing those on

someone without their own will is a crime. According to Dr. Jeffery Chahler (Evolution

Television, 2013, 5:40), "for in prison, they do not judge how long people be deprived of liberty

on the basis of what they think about themselves and the world, but in a mental institution this is,

of course, the case." Furthermore, there are also some issues with treatment through articulation.

Cognitive Behavioral Theory and Hypnosis remain the most criticized ones. These two are

nearly the same, except one deals with articulating positive thoughts to the conscious mind, and

one deals with articulating positive thoughts to the unconscious mind. Firstly, they do not target

the main issue. They re-frame the mental issues instead of helping patients resolve them so that

the issues become sugar-coated pills. Secondly, it is the mind that accepts what is positive and

what is not based on their beliefs or past experiences, and when they are fed by another party,

especially into the unconscious mind, the mind starts rejecting it and 'cognitive dissonance'

occurs. Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person starts doing an act that is against their

beliefs. This continues throughout their living life, and their whole life is slowly destroyed.

Lastly, a person wrongly diagnosed will be wrongly treated, and if such a person does not see

himself improving because of that becomes further depressed.

Another reason that mental disorders are often wrongly diagnosed or treated is the use of

power affiliated with this profession for personal or political gain. As long as there exists a

power difference between the diagnoser and the diagnosed, it will always be exploited.
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According to an article (Synergia foundation, n.d) a magazine in the 1960s conducted a survey of

several psychiatrists to see if they believed that the future presidential candidate of America,

Barry Goldwater, was mentally fit for his job and results showed that all of them affirmed his

mental illness. As a result of this wrong diagnosis, he was driven out of the campaign. Later,

when it came out that the diagnosis was wrong, he sued the magazine, and it became a rule for

psychiatrists in 1964 that they could not label such critical public figures mentally ill. An

experiment done to find how adults are financially victimized by the profession of psychiatry

shows 70% of the people experienced financial victimization in the first 28 days (about four

weeks); in fact, 35% ran out of money by that time, and the reason was they targeted young

people having a problem managing money. In another study, 42% of the people that had solid

mental issues had payees who could not write a check, and 75% could not balance checkbooks.

(National library of medicine, n.d)

In conclusion, mental disorders are often wrongly diagnosed and treated because of

professional incompetence and the power and authority delegated to this field as compared to

other medical professions. Psychiatry itself is built on wrong structures; not much effort is made

in this field, and it yields no satisfactory solution to diseases of the mind. There is no scientific

background that reinforces the methods used for diagnosis. Rosenhan's experiment shows what

output such methods of diagnosis give. As there is no firm ground on which psychiatrists can

make a diagnosis, they must not be given the power and authority to classify someone as

mentally ill and treat them against their will. Some people who do not respect medical

professions, especially this one, use it for their benefit. Each human being has the liberty to

select what he/she wants, and this liberty must not be snatched by psychoanalysts. So proper

regulations on this field must be made sure of; so much power must not be allowed in such a
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field so that people who really want help can get help without being victims of exploitation of

any kind.
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References

Oxford dictionary (n.d). Mental illness. In Oxford reference. Retrieved December 10th, 2023,

from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100150456

Evolution Television (September 8, 2013). "Psychiatry is a Fraud & is all about Control"

[ Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/BhC6hUZJIJ0

Szasz, T. (1961) Myths of Mental Illness. Harper & Row

Course hero (n.d), Abnormal Psychology, Coursehero.com https://www.coursehero.com/study-

guides/hvcc-abnormalpsychology/real-stories/

Szasz, T. (2018) Myths of Psycho-therapy. Syracuse University Press

Synergia Foundation (n.d), Is trump mentally ill? Synergia foundation.com

https://www.synergiafoundation.org/insights/analyses-assessments/trump-mentally-ill

National Library of Medicine (n.d), Financial Victimization of Adults with Severe Mental Illness,

National Center for Bio-technology Information.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4276043/
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