Replying to Avatar alanajoy

Being able to name something, even a set of symptoms or anomalies, is important because what we *should* be doing from there is benefiting from the available information around tools, management etc enabling us to do whatever we’re able to improve our quality of life: maintaining gainful employment and adult independence, healthier relationships with family/our children/friends/spouse, better self-image and self-worth etc.

Naming it means we can look at what’s been successful for others like us to achieve getting out of our own fucking way so we can truly live our best lives at our fullest potential.

Instead, generally I’m seeing society go from being completely against mental health, seeing participation in it as a sign someone is “crazy” to normalizing every idiosyncrasy and insanity as a cop out. “Well, I’m (label) so that’s just how I am and it’ll never change. Deal or don’t.”

Reality is in the in between. We’re all a little crazy. Everyone has a story, and if don’t have one yet… brace yourself. No one makes it through life unscathed. If you don’t do the work in your own mind daily with whatever tools work for you, you’re defeatist, you’re stagnating, and you’re holding yourself back. And a society is only as strong as its weakest. No matter what your deal is, improvement is always possible. That requires active investment in ones self, active reflection, personal accountability. Few.

These labels should be empowering people to better themselves but instead it’s given them a ticket to ride, to cut in line, to excuse vile behavior, to enable their struggling, all while telling greater society that they are the weak ones if they don’t lower the bar and tolerate it like saints.

It’s enough to drive one crazy lol

A lot of your post I agree with, but not the labels. Individual symptoms, sure.

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Label might be poor word choice, I was looking to describe the name given to identity a symptom or set of symptoms ie, anxiety

* identify

Anxiety is a relatively unambiguous and closed set of symptoms. A good choice to support your thesis.

People can and do find support for anxiety online. I strongly approve of that, and am very happy that much good information on managing it is out there.

But most of the classifications in the DSM are as empirically well-founded as astrology or phrenology. Worse, really, because how the therapist interacts with the patient in accordance with their epistemology actually creates new realities. Symptom contagion, for example. Differential diagnoses rise and fall with professional literature fashions.

Most people who present in need of mental health assistance are just going through a rough patch, need some impartial advice or specific assistance/training.

The repeat customers (where the $$$ comes from), 4 out of 5 are mostly narcissistic f----ups who need to be told to work on their character flaws. The other 1 out of 5 lives with one or more of the above - and won't leave because #reasons.

The way /successful/ therapists handle those is to cultivate their narcissism, and use it to extort revenues from society.

Therapy is even more to blame than advertising for the trajectory of Western society.