A Pseudo-science: Psychiatry

Psychiatry is my favorite pseudo-science (A distant second is alchemy). This is because it almost convinced me it was real. But why is it not?

What is considered "mentally ill" changes according to who is in power and what they want to do. An example: When black slaves in the South ran away to freedom, it wasn’t because they wanted to be free; they suffered from a disease called drapetomania—from drapetes (runaway slave) and mania - I am not making this up. Heck, a black man is even running for president nowadays! (Do we call this new condition, um, Obamamania?)

There was a time when homosexuality was considered a disorder. After homosexuals' protests, American Psychology Association convened and decided that homosexuality "was not a disorder in and of itself." Imagine the same thing being done by the Breast Cancer Association: "We have concluded that breast cancer is not a disease. Stop trying to treat this non-existent condition, and let them die in peace if they must."

According to Intelligent Design proponents, if Darwin's evolution theory can explain as complex a structure as the eye in a convincing way, it can explain everything. Similarly, if I can prove that schizophrenia is a social construct, it will be enough to make my point.


Imagine a paranoid schizophrenic who is a prophet. If this person can get some recruits (especially influential ones like Tom Cruise), nobody would dare put this person into a hospital. On the other hand, if this person is not successful in getting converts, etc., that person can be put away to a hospital. One person's prophet is another one's schizophrenic. Who is right? The answer is: The more powerful is. Shamans were widely used in tribal cultures throughout the ages - they did not behave very "normally", but somebody decided that they were useful. So they became respectable members of their society. Would you put away a person that could talk to Gods and produce rain?

Be it a white man trying to contain his black slaves in 1800s, a parent who is trying to get her child to get better scores by popping ADD pills, or a hallucinating person who is lucky enough to draw millions of followers - mental illnesses are social constructs by which the authority dictates what sort of behavior is acceptable. That range is narrowing nowadays. I leave the Orwellian parallels to the reader to ponder.

I would like to thank Foucault and other Post-Marxist deconstructionists who pointed these facts out in much better ways than I ever will.