Topic on Talk:Psychiatry

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I agree in full with Wisconcom. While there are certainly criticisms to be made of DSM-V, the American Psychiatry Association and Psychiatry in general, this does not mean Psychiatry has some valuable scientifical contributions which can be arrested through practice, following the main Marxist criterion for truth.

For instance, psychiatry has achieved outstanding advances in helping people who are facing anxiety issues, schizophrenia and psychotic crises. It helps people with depression stay on their ground.

Unfortunately, like Wisconcom said, the problem is that our mode of production conditions the development of science and technology, and psychiatry is also developed following bourgeois interest. For instance, addiction is a very common side effect for several pharmaceuticals, and the industry producing it benefits much by addiction, so they very likely "ignore" these side effects. Allied with the Fordist production line of psychiatric clinical trials of 8 minutes per person exams, this usually means a very desirable margin of profits for the pharmaceutical industry. So their business model depends on the constant consumption of medication for it to continue existing.

This means that psychiatry tends to favor persistent medication use. I have a family member which is a psychiatrist and they have received numerous offers from pharmaceutical industries to produce receipts for certain medication. Brazil has a massive monopoly called Pague Menos, the company which has bought another giant, ExtraFarma.

Besides all of that, psychiatry unfortunately also has indeed fringe elements, such as the case for considering being gay a "disorder" until the 70's and some supposed mental disorders which relies on the subjective experiences of the doctor, often subjecting the patients to bias. Being trans was considered a disorder until the 2015, which begs the question, who and what decides that one behavior is a disorder and what is not? How come a disorder stops becoming a disorder? So Psychiatry needs to be seen in historical context.

The struggle to abolish the oppressive structure of mental asylums should also be mentioned, as it's a struggle against oppresion and should be something that ProleWiki should definitely stand for.