> The real problem here is that mental illness still carries too much stigma. Some people are so resistant to accepting a mental health diagnosis and treatment that they will go to great lengths to reframe their problems in physical terms, thereby dodging what they feel (incorrectly) would be an admission of mental weakness.
I feel like suggesting that someone would try to ‘reframe’ their condition to avoid stigma inadvertently perpetuates stigmas by reinforcing the false dichotomy of mental vs physical illness.
Cognition is an extremely complex and poorly understood physical system, but a physical system nonetheless. There’s no separate ethereal plane where consciousness lives, no great uniqueness to its dysfunction. It’s not surprising to me that some people would introduce their own worse pseudoscience when physicians claim their problems are not physical problems, and I think that can happen regardless of stigma.
I believe we would do well to stop cleaving ‘mental illness’ (and, you know, ‘dentistry’) into a separate category from any other physical health problem. These conditions are physical conditions, just with such complexity that we’re not currently able to measure, understand, or treat them with the same level of precision as others. This sucks, but at least it’s honest.
I feel like suggesting that someone would try to ‘reframe’ their condition to avoid stigma inadvertently perpetuates stigmas by reinforcing the false dichotomy of mental vs physical illness.
Cognition is an extremely complex and poorly understood physical system, but a physical system nonetheless. There’s no separate ethereal plane where consciousness lives, no great uniqueness to its dysfunction. It’s not surprising to me that some people would introduce their own worse pseudoscience when physicians claim their problems are not physical problems, and I think that can happen regardless of stigma.
I believe we would do well to stop cleaving ‘mental illness’ (and, you know, ‘dentistry’) into a separate category from any other physical health problem. These conditions are physical conditions, just with such complexity that we’re not currently able to measure, understand, or treat them with the same level of precision as others. This sucks, but at least it’s honest.