[StanislavPetrov]

>3. modern clinical psychiatry is an evidenced-based, research-driven field which treats and forms diagnoses on the basis of decades of research into any particular condition. It isnt the 1950s.

Your post was okay until your last point. While it isn't the 1950s, its absurd to contend that "modern clinical psychiatry" isn't massively subjective in terms of both treatment and diagnosis. The fact is that the vast majority of psychiatrists reflexively shovel pills at those perceived to be afflicted with poorly-understood mental disorders. In reality, we are only beginning to scratch the surface when it comes to understanding how the brain works, let alone the human psyche. One of the most egregious illustrations of this fact are the over 1 million children under the age of 5 taking psychiatric drugs. We still don't know the long term outcomes of our tinkering with the developing brains of infants and small children, and its hubris (or worse) to pretend that we do.

https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/children-on-psychi...

[rendaw]

On the subject, I remember reading recently that most psychology studies are observational, and when attempts to duplicate the findings are made they mostly can't. I realize that GP's statement is qualified with 'clinical', and decisions based on observational studies are probably better than just making things up, but how much have we actually progressed?