Psychiatric Diagnosis And Scientific Evidence: An Analysis

The Movie How Mad Are You

Discuss about the Psychiatric Diagnosis and Scientific Evidence.

Most consumers or people with mental illness often consult Psychiatric to get diagnosed with their ailment. This is irrespective of the fact that, in modern times, Psychiatric is seen as a disease that does not exist but a mere perception of illness (Kent, & Manca, 2014). Opinions are divided as to whether the treatment has any significant effect on consumers and whether it is indeed helpful. Thus, in this essay, I intend to analyze, by giving evidence from scientific materials and videos, the notion that there exists no scientific proof to suggest that psychiatric treatment can help consumers recover. Additionally, there is no such thing as mental illness but a perception created by psychiatrists or society.  In addition to that, specifically, the essay will take the position of agreeing with the statement, that psychiatric medications do not help consumer recover.

The movie has several characters, however, it is important that I consider Kees Boot as one of the characters in the movie that a person can consider. Kees Boot has a mental illness according to the movie. The panel, one of whom is a psychiatrist fail to recognize the illness that Kees is suffering from, making it hard to tell whether the Kees is mentally ill or just societal perception. Even though he has a record of mental illness, health professionals in the movie give a different opinion. To start with, the movie analyzes ten volunteers; among them are five people who have been diagnosed having psychiatrist disorders. In the movie, the experts clearly make three opinions that differ from previous analysis of those under test. Precisely, they incorrectly state that one person among the volunteers has a bipolar disorder and while the other has a mood disorder. In reality, one of the two persons is said to have experienced depression. Moreover, the experts erroneously stated that one person had a history of schizophrenia while in fact; it is never the case (De Leon, 2013).  In the end, it is clear that mental illness is based on perceptions but in reality, no evidence is there to prove its existence. As evident, the experts give opinions that are different from what the two patients are ascribed with by the society. On the other hand, another person believed to have a certain disorder is diagnosed with a different one, according to the psychiatrists (Kirsch, 2015). Therefore, it is to conclude that, scientifically, one cannot validate treatment by psychiatrists. Additionally, rely on them to give a sure way of recovering as it is highly likely, as depicted in the movie, to give variation in treatment as a result of different opinion concerning mental state of a person.

Selling Sickness Movie

The film that was originally aired by the BBC, and produced and also directed by Rob Liddell was a movie or program that tried to identify the character traits of people who have mental illness and those that are fit. Additionally, the film explores the validity and reliability of psychiatry in finding out whether a person is mentally ill or healthy. In addition to that, it covers incorrect diagnosis of mental illness and the implications it has on the social spectrum as far as mental illness is concerned (Tavakoli, 2009). The program which takes several weeks clearly reveals the inability of psychiatrists to detect depression at the fourth week.  Part two of the movie reveals that the experts can only identify the state of mental illness by observation and by conducting a short interview but not carry out the usual clinical procedure.

It is a movie that was acted based on a book with the same name. The movie entails massive marketing of SSRI drugs which are portrayed as harmful rather than helpful to consumers. The movie contains a fellow, who is a psychiatrist by the name David Healy. He relentlessly condemns pharmaceutical industries. On the other hand, Vince Parry and Murray Stein, head of advertising agency and a researcher of drugs that treats social anxiety, respectively, embrace the use of drugs to as antidepressant (Aboraya, 2010). The documentary elaborates why people ought to be cautious on pharmaceutical industries as a way to seek solutions for their mental illnesses. In the documentary, a drug is known as Paxil receive mixed feelings from consumers. For instance, a character known as Amy in the documentary praises the drug as it helped her recover from panic disorder. On the other hand, towards the end of the documentary, it is clear that Harry and Deborah charge the company that introduced the drug for it being habit forming, thus introducing a problem instead of solving it. Thus, the documentary presents evidence that people; or rather consumers ought not to trust pharmaceutical companies to offer antidepressants. Antidepressants are drugs mostly prescribed by psychiatrists to consumers (Kent, & Manca, 2014).

In addition to the video and the documentary above, scientific materials oppose the use of psychiatry as a way to diagnose consumers because they do not help consumers. Firstly, is that mental illness interpretation appears to be presented as an objective reality (Wand, 2013). This is a clear flaw in diagnosis the judgment will rely on what can be observed or how the psychiatrist interprets the behavior and self-report, this makes it liable to variation or bias, making it to fail to fall under categories of illnesses. Additionally, the perceived ailment can be as a result of people’s experiences. In addition to that, it can be as a result of familial and personal historical contexts. Moreover, it is believed that the perception of existence of such illnesses has close links or is embedded in a western perspective. Thus, it becomes so difficult to argue that it does not have elements of discrimination in its practice, in regards to ethnicity, sexuality, gender and class (AmericanPsychological Association, 2013).

Scientific Evidence

In addition to that, diagnosis of mental illness has been heavily criticized by scientists because of their poor clinical utility. In that, if a person has been diagnosed with a certain disorder, psychiatrists do not give clear guidelines for clinicians to use to provide treatments (Wyatt, 2009). Moreover, consumers have complained about comorbidity problem. It refers to a condition where a consumer is given more than one diagnosis, a condition where psychiatrists fail to agree on which mental illness a person suffers from or is affecting a person. In modern times, people have been accustomed to drug treatments and biological explanations based treatments (Deacon, 2013). Scientific research states that this is the way to go as one can easily observe their effectiveness as well as how the brain functions.

Scientists for providing drugs have criticized behavioral analysts’ medications or drugs. According to research, such drugs are effective for a short term but still, some remain of less importance. Reviews indicate that placebo, a psychotic medication accounted 75% improvement in patients’ (Kent, & Manca, 2014). However, the 25 per cent that remained was traced to represent the side effects that the drug generates. On the other hand, another review showed Paxil to be a more advanced drug than placebo at improving signs that come as a result of signs of acute, but posed a serious threat as far as its side effects are concerned, thus making it even worse than placebo. Furthermore, statistics show a high rate of consumers’ stops taking psychotic medications due to their side effects. In not more than 18 months, 64% to almost 82% of individuals prescribed to take Trilafon, Zyprexa, and Geodon, which are psychotic drugs, discontinued medications. Scientists have never come forward to embrace the figures but rather, the idea sounds disturbing (Gambrill, 2014). Therefore, in as much as psychiatrists continue to practice, there is no evidence, scientifically, to embrace their drugs or even prove that they have been able to come up with successful ways to treat consumers.

One of the things that make scientist reject or fail to recognize mental illness worth administering treatment and medication to a patient is the flaw of generalization and lack of concrete proof that the disease actually exists. This entails putting a subject group to represent a general population. Additionally, mental illness can be as a result of pregnant or lactating women who tend to have behaviors likely to suggest that they are mentally ill (Surís, Holliday, & North, 2016). Another group is those with previous record of mental illness apart from the one under treatment and those with suicidal ideas. It is information in regards to antidepressants, anti-mania, anti-anxiety medications among others. Scientists believe that clients need to know the use of such drugs, their effectiveness and side effects (Kent, & Manca, 2014).  Lastly, the idea that most psychiatrists subscribe to, in that there exists a unitary way of putting mental illness. General medicine rejects this notion because conditions ordinarily conceptualize from normal to pathological, but do not depend on one way to determine whether the presence or absence of a disease (De Leon, 2013) 

Effectiveness of Psychotic Medications

Conclusion

It is evident, from the discussion above; mental illness is a condition that largely relies on perception as psychiatrist gives inconsistent opinion on the perceived illness. Additionally, their medications do not help consumers recover from the perceived illness. In fact, what exists is evidence that proves why psychiatric should not be practicing as an expert because they are inconsistent and their medications have side effects that make consumers discontinue using them. It is also clear that a person mental state is ascribed to different illness depending on who analyze the person, which is not in tandem with general medicine. These are serious issues that scientists have put forward, to conclude that mental illness is based on perception. Lastly, there is no evidence of patients who have successfully recovered through the practice, which further explains why the practice is questionable.

References

American Psychological Association. (2013). Recognition of psychotherapy effectiveness. Psychotherapy(Chicago, Ill.), 50(1), 102.

Aboraya, A. (2010). Scientific Forum on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-V)–An Invitation. Psychiatry (1550-5952), 7(11).

Kirsch, I. (2015). Antidepressants and the placebo effect. Zeitschrift für Psychologie.

Deacon, B. (2013). The biomedical model of mental disorder: A critical analysis of its validity, utility, and effects on psychotherapy research. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 846-861. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.007

De Leon, J. (2013). Is psychiatry scientific? A letter to a 21st century psychiatry resident. Psychiatry investigation, 10(3), 205-217.

Gambrill, E. (2014). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a major form of dehumanisation in the modern world. Research on Social Work Practice, 24, 13-36. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1049731513499411

Johnstone, L. (2008). Psychiatric diagnosis. In R. Tummey & T. Turner (Eds.), Critical issues in mental health (pp. 5-22). New York, NJ: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wand, T. (2013). Positioning mental health nursing practice within a positive health paradigm. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 2, 116-124. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1447-0349.2012.00848.x (Wand’s article is primarily for nursing   students but midwifery students may find some of the information in the article relevant  to their practice and the assessments)

Wyatt, W. J. (2009). Behavior analysis in the era of medicalization: The state of the science and  recommendations for practitioners. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2(2), 49-57.

Surís, A., Holliday, R., & North, C. S. (2016). The evolution of the classification of psychiatric disorders. Behavioral Sciences, 6(1), 5.

Tavakoli, H. R. (2009). A closer evaluation of current methods in psychiatric assessments: a challenge for the biopsychosocial model. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 6(2), 25.

Kent, S. A., & Manca, T. A. (2014). A war over mental health professionalism: Scientology versus psychiatry. Mental health, religion & culture, 17(1), 1-23.