The medical model drives me crazy! During an otherwise fine report on NPR this past week, aimed at reducing the stigma around mental illness, not one mention was made of trauma as the cause. Apparently it’s much easier to categorize people according to DSM laundry lists, but recognizing folks as resilient survivors of trauma would be far less stigmatizing than the claim that psychosis is just another illness like flu or cancer. That’s all well and good, but healing has to go much deeper— and much wider.
This is a systemic problem. It’s great that in the 19th century, the slaves were emancipated but the reality of racism that made slavery acceptable remains a huge problem on all levels of society. It’s the same thing with trauma. Unless we deal with the underlying causes of mental illness, the changes remain surface only.
To what extent does big Pharma have a hand in keeping things this way?