Half a century ago, there was a jokey bumper sticker: “Support Mental Health or I’ll Kill You.” Now British researchers into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are under physical attack and death threats for suggesting the disorder has psychological origins.
Aside from the question of where victims find the energy for such violence, this fatigue-afflicted terrorism reflects nagging questions about where psychiatry ends and psychobabble begins.
With all respect for those who practice a profession that helps untold millions struggle with true mental illness, in the past half century we have gone from uninformed denial to extremes of medicalizing what used to be seen as bad behavior.
We all do it, including bloggers like me, who subject public figures based on their media lives to Freudian explanations for their greed, deception and irresponsibility. But our ignorance is encouraged by hucksters like Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew et al, who package glibness into TV ratings.
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