Mental illness denial
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Mental illness denial or mental disorder denial is a form of denialism in which a person denies the existence of mental disorders.[1] Both serious analysts[2][3] and pseudoscientific movements[1] question the existence of certain disorders.
In psychiatry, insight is the ability of an individual to understand their mental health condition,[4] and anosognosia is the lack of awareness of a mental health condition.[5] Certain psychological analysts argue this denialism is a coping mechanism usually fueled by narcissistic injury.[6]
A minority of professional researchers see disorders such as depression from a sociocultural perspective and argue that the solution to it is fixing a dysfunction in the society, not in the person's brain.[3]
Insight
In psychiatry, insight is the ability of an individual to understand their mental health,[4] and anosognosia is the lack of awareness of a mental health condition.[5]
According to Elyn Saks, probing patient's denial may lead to better ways to help them overcome their denial and provide insight into other issues.[6] Major reasons for denial are narcissistic injury and denialism.[6] In denialism, a person tries to deny psychologically uncomfortable truth and tries to rationalize it.[6] This urge for denialism is fueled further by narcissistic injury.[6] Narcissism gets injured when a person feels vulnerable (or weak or overwhelmed) for some reason like mental illness.[6]
Scholarly criticism of psychiatric diagnosis
Scholars have criticized mental health diagnoses as arbitrary.[7] According to Thomas Szasz, mental illness is a social construct. He views psychiatry as a social control and mechanism for political oppression.[8] Szasz wrote a book on the subject in 1961, The Myth of Mental Illness.[9]
See also
References
- ^ a b Novella, Steven (24 January 2018). "Mental Illness Denial". ScienceBasedMedicine.org. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
- ^ "'Depression' Is a Symptom, Not a Disorder". opmed.doximity.com. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
- ^ a b Escalante, Alison. "Researchers Doubt That Certain Mental Disorders Are Disorders At All". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
- ^ a b Marková, Ivana (2005). Insight in psychiatry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-511-14045-2. OCLC 63814379.
- ^ a b Moro, Valentina; Pernigo, Simone; Zapparoli, Paola; Cordioli, Zeno; Aglioti, Salvatore M. (2011). "Phenomenology and neural correlates of implicit and emergent motor awareness in patients with anosognosia for hemiplegia". Behavioural Brain Research. 225 (1): 259–269. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2011.07.010. PMID 21777624. S2CID 8389272.
- ^ a b c d e f Saks, Elyn R. "Some thoughts on denial of mental illness." American Journal of Psychiatry 166.9 (2009): 972-973. Web. 11 Dec. 2021
- ^ Paris, Joel (2020). Overdiagnosis in psychiatry how modern psychiatry lost its way while creating a diagnosis for almost all of life's misfortunes (Second ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-19-750430-7. OCLC 1147940363.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Benning, Tony (2016). "No such thing as mental illness? Critical reflections on the major ideas and legacy of Thomas Szasz". BJPsych Bulletin. 40 (6): 292–295. doi:10.1192/pb.bp.115.053249. PMC 5353517. PMID 28377805.
- ^ Carey, Benedict (11 September 2012). "Dr. Thomas Szasz, Psychiatrist Who Led Movement Against His Field, Dies at 92". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 November 2021.