The Medicalization of the Human Condition

A glimpse into the many harms of seeking mental health care

We live in dangerous times.

Medicalizing the human condition involves affixing diagnostic labels to various unpleasant or undesirable feelings and behaviors, even when these experiences are intrinsic to the human condition and represent normal and anticipated responses to trauma or stress.

Many Americans unquestioningly assume that psychiatric diagnoses represent legitimate and distinct medical illnesses. This belief is deeply ingrained in our culture, reinforced by the widespread acceptance and promotion of diagnostic labels and psychiatric drugs.

The dangers of medicalizing the human condition are nothing short of a silent epidemic in American society. This dangerous trend pathologizes the core of human experience, categorizing everyday emotions and responses to trauma and life's challenges as disorders.

It's a slippery slope into psychiatric over-diagnosis, overmedication, and a lifetime of pharmaceutical dependency. Worse still, it casts a shadow of shame and stigma over those who are simply navigating the ups and downs of life, making them feel like they're inherently broken. By medicalizing the human condition, we risk overlooking the valid roots of distress, all while the mental health industry thrives on our collective vulnerability.

Allow me to provide you with a glimpse into a typical week in my role as an outpatient clinical psychologist.

Scenario #1: Drugging Traumatic Stress as Bipolar Disorder

It's a frequent occurrence for me to evaluate young people, typically females under the age of 25, recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital. They emerge from this experience heavily medicated, emotionally dulled, and reduced to a dehumanized shadow of their former selves. Polypharmacy in mental health care is a perilous cocktail of multiple psychiatric drugs, pushing the boundaries of safety and efficacy to their breaking point.

This perilous practice typically originates in psychiatric hospitals and partial hospitalization programs and persists under the care of outpatient medical professionals. The prescription of multiple psychiatric drugs often results in crippling side effects, encompassing cognitive impairment, deteriorated mood, and an elevated risk of hazardous drug interactions.

In America's inpatient psychiatric units across the country, some of the least skilled and poorly trained medical professionals often assume critical roles. Shockingly, the average length of stay for inpatient psychiatric admissions currently hovers between 3 and 10 days, with many admissions concluding after just 3 or 4 days, even in the aftermath of a serious suicide attempt.

The consequence, devoid of context or historical understanding, is the hasty assignment of a pseudoscientific label. It's as if these professionals have stumbled upon the presence of a medical disorder that could be magically resolved with the appropriate pharmaceutical cocktail.

Bipolar disorder is the most commonly assigned label, often stretched beyond its diagnostic boundaries to confer a diagnosis that is broadly acknowledged as a legitimate medical condition. It matters little whether individuals meet the diagnostic criteria by their history or current presentation; it's all too simple for a doctor to legitimize their mood dysregulation as if it were a medical disorder they can treat with drugs.

It's only when these individuals come to my office, and we embark on the gradual journey of tapering off the medications and reintroducing them to their baseline functioning, that the real healing begins. It's in this space, under safe and empathetic guidance, where they start to reexperience their emotions. It's here that we begin to unravel the factors that led to the initial crisis that necessitated inpatient hospitalization.

What's more common than not is a history of or ongoing physical or sexual trauma. The act of suicide, whether a gesture or attempt, often serves as a desperate means to escape the haunting memories or current dangers. Regrettably, their entry into the hospital environment often adds another layer of trauma. The experience is marked by invasive strip searches, dehumanizing treatment, and a treatment of their reactions as “mental illness”. Compassion and patience are seldom the norm; instead, they encounter overworked and inadequately trained healthcare professionals. The hasty label of bipolar disorder and the prescription of multiple psychiatric medications further invalidates their emotional reactions, leading to a profound sense of hopelessness that may culminate in additional crisis events upon discharge.

Sadly, many never receive the care they truly need, instead embarking on a journey marked by an attachment to the diagnosis of bipolar disorder as a way of comprehending their entirely normal and predictable reactions to trauma. They become permanently labeled within the medical system, and every subsequent healthcare and mental health professional views them through the lens of a bipolar patient.

Scenario #2: The Primary Care Physicians (PCPs) Turning Episodic Life Reactions into Chronic Disability

The majority of antidepressant prescriptions in the United States are written by PCPs. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, PCPs prescribe antidepressants for approximately 80% of patients presenting with depression or anxiety.

In my professional experience, the vast majority of individuals are struggling with entirely normal and expected reactions to life's challenges. These include the aftermath of a divorce, financial stress, the loss of a loved one, or the anxiety stemming from major life transitions. However, as the pharmaceutical industry has extended its influence over American culture and physicians through potent marketing strategies, it has increasingly pathologized the ordinary aspects of being human.

Primary care physicians, who lack the necessary training, expertise, and time to diagnose or treat mental health conditions, turn to rudimentary diagnostic checklists, frequently created by pharmaceutical companies. They often rely on information obtained from conferences and marketing efforts led by professionals on the pharmaceutical industry's payroll. While the most severely depressed individuals, those struggling with chronic depression, suicidal ideation, and other severe forms of the condition, are usually directed to psychiatrists, primary care professionals find themselves tasked with treating the broader population of individuals who are, simply put, experiencing the normal ups and downs of being human.

This sets in motion a cycle of adverse drug reactions, dependency, and the development of chronic mental health issues for an episodic condition. A percentage of individuals taking antidepressants will experience deterioration, with some facing severe and even dramatic suicidal ideations. Regrettably, this is frequently misattributed to their "mental illness" rather than recognizing it as a potential adverse drug reaction. On the other hand, some individuals may take the medication for a period with minimal side effects, only to experience a significant withdrawal reaction when they either miss a dose or discontinue the drug once their initial episode naturally resolves. This withdrawal reaction is often mischaracterized as a "return of their depression," leading misinformed medical professionals to advocate for lifelong medication use. What initially began as a normal response, one requiring time, processing, and sometimes essential life changes, can now transform into a chronic mental illness.

Scenario # 3: “I Have Anxiety”

The casual and constant chorus of "I have anxiety" among younger generations seems to be taking us on a wild ride further away from understanding normal human emotions and their actual function. It's as if we're in an era where everyone has an honorary degree in "Everyday Anxieties 101."

While we should absolutely support those profoundly impacted by worry and fear, our tendency to slap the "anxiety" label on everyday jitters and stressors feels like we're handing out PhDs in "I Freak Out Over Small Stuffology." Let's not forget that feeling a nervous before a big test, a job interview or a life transition is part of being alive, not a prescription for psychiatric intervention. It's time we dial down the self-diagnosis and improve peoples ability to cope with this inevitable experience.

I've seen far too many people waltz into their doctor's office declaring "I have anxiety" as casually as they would say "I have a sore throat and a fever." It's as if anxiety has become the new equivalent of a common cold, something you catch and get rid of with a few pills. This blase attitude toward a complex and often deeply rooted emotional state does a disservice to both those who genuinely struggle with anxiety disorders and the broader understanding of mental health.

Viewing anxiety as a symptom of disease has triggered a reckless rush toward harmful practices, with pharmaceuticals at the forefront. This myopic perspective pathologizes a natural response to life's challenges, pushing the agenda of quick pharmaceutical fixes.

This perilous trend not only nurtures drug dependency but also diverts attention from the root causes of anxiety and the genuine help that individuals truly need. It's now a daunting task to distinguish between genuine drug dependency, adverse drug reactions, and the initial issues that brought someone to seek help in the first place. In this pharmaceutical haze, the lines blur, and a comprehensive understanding of mental health becomes obscured.

The medicalization of humanity has inadvertently sown the seeds of a drug culture and a concerning shift in our approach to coping with life's challenges. It has fostered a society where quick pharmaceutical solutions are often prioritized over understanding the complexities of the human experience. This has given rise to a mental health crisis where individuals are increasingly medicated for normal emotional responses, inadvertently perpetuating dependency, adverse drug reactions, and a persistent lack of true coping skills.

The mental health crisis is driven by medical professionals and poorly trained “therapists” acting within the model.

Prove me wrong.