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by doitLP·8y ago·view on hn ↗
When a full 20% of the population is diagnosed with a disorder, that's either a serious epidemic or there's something wrong with the term disorder. Teachers and parents want tractable kids...just sayin.
3 comments
There’s a combination. Psych sets it’s cutoff for disease at traits that seriously hamper your ability to function successfully in life. It has a very tough time grappling with questions like, “what if the problem is with modern life, and not with the patient?”

Which is why so much failed social policy ultimately ends up in the ED getting sedated into pliability.

Psychiatry has a long history of pseudoscientific mass diagnosis of undesireables. Slaves who wanted to escape had drapetomania[1]. The holocaust was conducted under psychiatric auspices [2]. Masturbation and alternate sexuality were insanity[3]. And now if you don't strictly adhere to impotent 19th century authoritarian teaching methods you are considered mentally ill.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23511221/

[3]http://www.szasz.com/iol8.html

Or, there is a serious case of over-diagnoses/prescription. Much like how antibiotics were being over-prescribed in Britain.