We in the States are enduring the utter chaos and absurdity of the Democratic Party’s new health care scheme. One of its few bright spots is the opportunity it provides for amusement at the sheer madness of it all. At City Journal, Dalrymple writes a short piece about one aspect of the new regulation: that all new insurance policies must provide coverage for addiction and mental disorders, which are to be treated as physical diseases. This is rather foolish, given that they are not like physical diseases at all.
The Skeptical Doctor
Dedicated to the work of Theodore Dalrymple
Comparing mental disorders to drug addicition seems rather harsh.
But maybe I feel that way because I had a mild mental disorder myself. I’ve never used it as an excuse to stop working, I never complained or told anyone and I tried to get better on my own for years. But it didn’t work, and I suffered from it badly. Getting better with help cost me some money, and I pity those who don’t have that money. I agree there should be experts distinguishing the ones who are really ill from those who aren’t. But with so many people, especially young men, killing themselves, is it so wrong to strive for some affordable mental health care?
By the way, I was wondering, has Dalrymple ever written anything about the high number of suicides?
Hi, Anna. One of my favorite Dalrymple pieces is this one on Britain’s high suicide rate:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_1_oh_to_be.html
Maybe you didn’t read closely enough Clint. Britain has a low suicide rate, but according to the article, a high attempted suicide rate. Quite an amusing statistic if true.
And maybe I didn’t read closely enough by calling you “Clint”. 🙂
http://www.quickiwiki.com/en/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
‘Comparing mental disorders to drug addicition seems rather harsh.
But maybe I feel that way because I had a mild mental disorder myself. I’ve never used it as an excuse to stop working,’
Good for you, Anna.
I’m afraid I did. But that was because I was sectioned and forcibly medicated. A ‘guard’ (nursing assistant’) was posted outside my door to prevent my escape. I guess I do not share your moral fibre. I should have bashed him over the head with a heavy object and fled back to the protection of my employers. Never mind, I’ll do that next time.
Cocoa, I didn’t mean to insult you, I know how bad things can get. I only said that because Dalrymple seems to imply that many people fake mental disorders for their own financial gain. While this could be true, I think there are also many people out there who genuinely suffer. Sometimes in silence while they keep going, others, maybe like you, who are even less fortunate. And I think many of them could be helped with affordable mental health care.
Anna, Dalrymple’s point was according to the DSM everyone has some form of mental illness. Which is just another way of saying: anxiety, bouts of depression, uncertainty, are part of the human condition. Also, more to the point, anyone can fake a mental illness. No one can fake TB ect. Be well and don’t feel picked by trolls.
what does ect mean?
and who is the ‘troll’?
and what does it mean to be ‘picked by a troll’?
(Picked *upon* by a troll?)
This reveals a lot:
Once, before I knew his character, I referred a young female patient to him because she had an abnormality on her chest x-ray, When her notes returned with her from Dr Pascal, they bore a detailed account, scrawled across several pages in writing that clearly betrayed loss of control, of something more closely resembling a sexual assault than a medical examination. Fortunately for Dr Pascal, the patient was too deranged either to appreciate what had been done to her or to give sufficiently coherent evidence to be believed. Being a coward and reluctant to act as an informer of any kind, I kept silent; but like everyone else, I thenceforth refrained from referring patients to him, sending them instead to other hospitals in our group.
Fool or Physician: Anthony Daniels, 2011 First published in 1987 by John Murray
John R,
” Anna, Dalrymple’s point was according to the DSM everyone has some form of mental illness. Which is just another way of saying: anxiety, bouts of depression, uncertainty, are part of the human condition. Also, more to the point, anyone can fake a mental illness. No one can fake TB ect. Be well and don’t feel picked by trolls.”
I hope you won’t consider me a troll for correcting some misconceptions in your post. You assert that ‘anyone can fake a mental illness’. I think there are many who would dispute this. Many psychiatrists would be among them. Anyone can *attempt* to fake a mental illness. Whether they succeed or fail depends on the hospital staff who are observing his (and on the proficiency of the psychiatrist who is diagnosing him). People fake physical illness all the time. Research Munchausen’s Syndrome. And, I’m not sure if this has occurred to Dr Dalrymple but if mental illness is less frequent than we believe it is then why are we funding it publicly? (In the US and in the UK).
One area of medicine which has been relatively generously funded in the US for the last 50 years is psychiatry. If you want to see the state of your system in microcosm, research the case of January Schofield.
Econ 101 teaches that if you subsidize something, you get more of it. It works that way in psychiatry, too.
Ha! (or LOL?)
‘Econ 101 teaches that if you subsidize something, you get more of it.
With a few notable exceptions: education, for example.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1277955/Special-Investigation-Why-ARE-doctors-addicted-drink-drugs.html
‘This is rather foolish, given that they are not like physical diseases at all.’
So why is it that mainstream psychiatry still uses the medical model? Someone should have a word with them about that.
nurse zarathustra