Daniel Vasquez, Consumer Columnist at Sun-Sentinel.com believes that “Calling rude, nasty behavior mental illness misses the point” and that acts of rudeness, obsession, and violence is getting labels from doctors and drug companies to feed the social desire to medicate away problems.
Mr. Vasquez specifically mentions news about “Internet Addiction Disorder” (IAD) and “Intermittent Explosive Disorder” (IED) and wonders whether these are real problems or just jerks’ excuses. National Institutes of Health (NIH) now recognizes IED and suggests that IED may help explain road rage and domestic violence. I personally share Mr. Vasquez’s skepticism where IED is concerned. Mr. Vasquez also believes that people who used their cars as weapons should be charged as criminals and not treated like they are mentally ill.
Mr. Vasquez consulted with a psychotherapist to get a balanced perspective – I give him credit for that! The psychotherapist stated that a person who is controlled by urges needs help.
Mr. Vasquez’s nephew suffers from bipolar disorder and mild schizophrenia, so he has first hand experience at the devastating effects of mental illness. Thus he feels that our cultural love of labels has led to misdiagnosis and treatment that weren’t necessary and in some cases hurt the individual even more.
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As a psychologist, I’d have to agree with the main argument presented here. If you’ll listen to the following song, you’ll know what it’s really like to suffer from mental illness. This song, inspired by my performance of Johnny Cash songs at a prison, is about an inmate who suffered from more than one psychiatric disoder. See if you can identify the disorder, based on the symptoms depicted in the song:
JC Therapy
words and music by Dr. BLT
http://www.drblt.net/music/JcTherapy.mp3