I'm all for renewal of a system that is not effective, but the problem with villainizing the entire mental health industry is related to this quote from the article:
"If psychiatry were successfully identifying and treating underlying disease processes, we would expect to see some population-level improvement after more than three decades."
This would be true if, and only if, psychiatric care was actually available to the population. In the USA, it is not. There are terrible wait lists, providers who do not / cannot take insurance. An emergency calls for a psychotic break get referred to a medical ER to be cleared of any possible physical reason before anyone will even talk to you about mental health, and when they do talk to you you are left with a choice of "take them home and deal with it, or ship them into a psych ward/hospital"
All that adds up to two specific populations who primarily receive help being the rich people who can afford it, and the worst cases where their problems become a danger to themselves and others.
I don't think anyone will deny that the current system doesn't work. That is kind of my point - it is hard to parse out what works and what doesn't when the system to deliver it is this broken.
I'm all for renewal of a system that is not effective, but the problem with villainizing the entire mental health industry is related to this quote from the article:
"If psychiatry were successfully identifying and treating underlying disease processes, we would expect to see some population-level improvement after more than three decades."
This would be true if, and only if, psychiatric care was actually available to the population. In the USA, it is not. There are terrible wait lists, providers who do not / cannot take insurance. An emergency calls for a psychotic break get referred to a medical ER to be cleared of any possible physical reason before anyone will even talk to you about mental health, and when they do talk to you you are left with a choice of "take them home and deal with it, or ship them into a psych ward/hospital"
All that adds up to two specific populations who primarily receive help being the rich people who can afford it, and the worst cases where their problems become a danger to themselves and others.
I don't think anyone will deny that the current system doesn't work. That is kind of my point - it is hard to parse out what works and what doesn't when the system to deliver it is this broken.
Is there any evidence that the psychiatric care availability alone correlates with improved mental health?
Also psychiatrists should naturally be first to point out the broken system. When that's not top priority for them, no wonder they get villainized.