| > Do you believe that psychiatry provides us valid knowledge that allows us to No, it really doesn't. If someone comes into a clinic and ask psychiatrist for a help, he is gonna be diagnosed with some kind of a disorder 100% the time. But if you think about it, it's not psychiatrist who determines if the person is healthy, it's the person himself. If you meet with a psychiatrist, you have a disorder. Period. > treat individuals who have mental influences that cause them to be a danger to themselves or society? It reminds me of an old Soviet practice to treat people who were under influence from Western countries. Quite obviously, it was considered a mental disorder which was dangerous to themselves and for the (Communist) society. So those were usually locked up in a psychiatric clinic and never heard from ever since. The methods to determine if a person is "ill" never changed. "I think that person has disorder, so let's come up with a disorder that fits more or less." As mentioned in the article above, the response should be: where is your blood test? > If not, by what means to propose that we do so? Quite easy really. Whether a person is a danger to society or not, should be determined by a court jury based on his previous actions. |
Whether or not that's true, it's irrelevant to the statement about providing valid knowledge. If a person goes to a family doctor, they have a health issue. If a person goes to a lawyer, they have a legal issue. To an accountant, they have a fiscal issue. Merely 'going to [professional]' does not mean that they have invalid knowledge.
> Whether a person is a danger to society or not, should be determined by a court jury based on his previous actions.
Not only is this is a huge waste of time and money (court officials, jury, legal teams...), but it's even more subjective that the system you want it to replace. And it's already well-known that courts deal with mentally ill people far worse than mental health services do.