On the Ignorance of Psychiatry and the Ignorance of Critics

Stigma does not derive from ignorance or lack of knowledge, but rather from the conception of mental illness as the sign of the idle, a personality incapable of achieving the ideal: producing for oneself and the economy.20

Does that mean that psychiatry leaves no room for divinity? That we’d medicate a person out of what could otherwise be a transformative and saintly life? That we’d subjugate—or, worse, block—some message from God?”

Ignorance includes (1) a lack of awareness of the consequences of our actions, (2) an inability to see how our needs may be met without injury to others, (3) the belief that we have the right to punish or hurt others because they “deserve” it, and (4) delusional thinking that involves, for example, hearing a voice that instructs us to kill someone.

In spite of compelling evidence to the contrary, we continue to treat symptoms as if they are caused by a “broken brain” in which deficiencies or “imbalances” of serotonin and other neurotransmitters are regarded by modern psychiatry as sufficient explanations of mental illness.

Mental illness pierces the veil, and those who suffer from it dwell with their fragility in plain view. My role as a psychiatrist is not to try to repair the veil but to strengthen my patients so that they can live, so that they can suffer less, so that they can hope.

The less we understand about a disease or a symptom, the more we psychologize, and often stigmatize, it.

The less we understand about a disease or a symptom, the more we psychologize, and often stigmatize, it.

begin with an attitude of not knowing, including not knowing about how we know about anything, especially what is most important to us.