Overdiagnosis: We are all mentally ill

Pedro is a totally healthy and normal person.

Defying the current state of uncertainty, face life with hope and good spirits. This attitude gives him a harmony between impetus and prudence, allowing him to perform professionally and combine it well with his personal and affective environment.

He enjoys a good sexual and emotional activity with his partner. They know how to reconcile the common space with the independent one of each member of the couple and there is no disagreement or conflict with the children because they have managed to create stability between a good organization and affection.

The consequence of this concordance is that, when the couple, as parents, must expose the compliance with some guideline to his children, always reflectively, they receive him with affection towards his parents.

These children are highly integrated academically, enjoying an excellent relationship with both the teachers and their peers who are also their friends.

The Psychiatrized Society - Pharmacologized Psychiatry

Interpersonal relationships are a priority for Pedro. He enjoys a large number of friends and a very collaborative relationship within the family. With it, if necessary, he could get shelter and comfort in bad times but he never needed it. He is a dynamic person: he plays group sports, oriental relaxation and cultural activities frequently.

With this vital panorama, Pedro does not know what it is to be sad or angry, everything has gone according to plan. Never experienced phobic situations neither psychopathic and he has a solid serenity of mind.

Chasing an ideal that doesn't exist

You have surely realized that Pedro's story is unreal and utopian. You might also think that there is something strange behind that dream or that it is an ephemeral situation.

Despite this, today, any profile that does not match this perfect parameter could be crossed out as abnormal. If our friend Pedro diverged from that sublime pattern, even for a short time, he would be at risk of being deemed psychopathic and treated with drugs.

According to recent studies, 50% of the US population it could be diagnosed of some mental disorder.

What is a psychopathology?

To be honest, all of us have some thought, at some point, that could be taken as psychopathological. The point is that our behavior, thinking and way of feeling are under the watchful eye of many eyes striving to find something pathological in us.

So much so, that this fact has led to the paradox of "abnormal normal" in many studies of this type, to the point that, surprisingly, there are more individuals with psychological problems than healthyTherefore, it could be said that those classified as "healthy" suffer from an adaptive syndrome.

The dilemma: the patient or the drug?

According to some experts, many diagnoses are more the product of consumer voracity and labeling of our society than of a true biological evil. In the treatment of suffering, it is essential to know how to differentiate between the strictly clinical pathology and the one that is produced by an agglutination of psychosocial circumstances, treating the latter as a pathology is, at best, very debatable.

Thus, the simple fact of assigning a word to define the theoretical "evil" that afflicts a patient only stigmatizes him. Unfortunately, it seems that the escalation of diagnoses grows and grows, it would seem that, at this rate, in a few decades, the planet will be an immense brake pathway.

You could be addicted

Modern life evolves creating new uses and tools: internet, games of chance, video game machines, etc. The misuse or abuse of these elements can make us addicted.

But some authoritative voice has already spoken in the sense that it is overly generalized when diagnosing a simple behavior disorder as if it were a drug addiction.

There is talk of vigorexia, sex addiction, compulsive shopping... where is the line between what we choose as entertainment and what would be an addiction? According to some therapists, labeling simple "hobbies" as pathological has results, in principle, not desired.

To begin with, classifying these people as sick is basically counterproductive since stigmatizes Y weakens your own self-esteem and, therefore, the ability to overcome their problem, and that self-esteem is essential for successful therapy.

A burning example of this is the increase in diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), an index of diagnoses is being registered in developed countries that is close to 25% in children when, those of us who dedicate ourselves to this, We know that a prevalence above 5% is already doubtful, in addition to the damage caused to a person who, due to her age, is subject to continuous changes in her evolution psychological.

Overdiagnosis in current psychiatry

Unfortunately, as in so many areas of life, once this apparent mystery has been seriously analyzed why our society is psychiatrized, we find a disturbing answer: the money.

The relationship between overdiagnosis and the appearance of drugs to cure them is evidence that no one disputes anymore. It is true that professionals tend to schematize the patient in order to undertake an agile and accurate analysis of the situation, but from there to, for For example, "tame" a child with high activity (something inherent at that age) based on medication to avoid discomfort, there is a long stretch. And this example is extendable to other categories mentioned above.

Finally, we must be aware of our limitations in perception: it has been shown that we apply a few concrete and simple labels. As soon as someone blocks us in one of them, the disturbing effect of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which obviously does not help at all, but it is even worse when the mercantile factor distorts us and conditions us in the enormous mission of helping others.