Here's a nice lit review of the problems with identifying with the disease model, Ie, focusing on "what's wrong with you," vs "what happened to you."
A Comment by Matt Stevinson on, madinamerica.com:
Aurora, in your case drugs could have been and apparently were very useful. However, individual anecdotes are not a substitute for data from quasi-experimental studies of large numbers of people across a range of settings and timeframes.
The facts remain that long-term compliance with these brain-dampening drugs is quite poor, that the adverse side effects are often severe, and that on balance these drugs encourage pessimism and a lack of agency via indoctrinating people into believing they have a brain-based illness called “bipolar” that is out of their control.
I wrote about this topic below, and it’s quite relevant to “bipolar” and drugs, since drugs are one of the prime agents used by many psychiatrists to convince clients that their distress represents a biologically-based illness: ———— The problem with using primarily biological models of psychosis is not only that they are unevidenced, but that (not unlike antipsychotic drugs) such models can have serious “side effects.” These include:
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Aurora, in your case drugs could have been and apparently were very useful. However, individual anecdotes are not a substitute for data from quasi-experimental studies of large numbers of people across a range of settings and timeframes.
The facts remain that long-term compliance with these brain-dampening drugs is quite poor, that the adverse side effects are often severe, and that on balance these drugs encourage pessimism and a lack of agency via indoctrinating people into believing they have a brain-based illness called “bipolar” that is out of their control.
I wrote about this topic below, and it’s quite relevant to “bipolar” and drugs, since drugs are one of the prime agents used by many psychiatrists to convince clients that their distress represents a biologically-based illness:
————
The problem with using primarily biological models of psychosis is not only that they are unevidenced, but that (not unlike antipsychotic drugs) such models can have serious “side effects.” These include:
Harsher judgments from people who believe “the mentally ill” have biological brain diseases – https://theconversation.com/bl...ence-treatment-48578
More prognostic pessimism from both laypeople and professionals endorsing biological models – https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/12/70079/
Increased stigma and less ability to regulate mood in those told they have a chemical imbalance – http://www.uw-anxietylab.com/u...alance_test_brat.pdf
Less motivation to explore what one can do to change problems in those given “mental illness” labels – http://recoveryfromschizophren...ntal-problems-worse/
Worse outcomes for so-called “mental illnesses” compared to outcomes of physical diseases – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5caitdQA6HY#t=24m56s
Greater fear of people given mental diagnoses (and interestingly, as this talk shows, the majority of the public rejects psychiatry’s narratives about a primarily biogenetic cause of mental health problems in most countries outside the United States) – http://recoveryfromschizophren...ntal-problems-worse/ – and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6do5bkUEys#t=30m40s