If two people with no symptoms in common can both receive the same diagnosis of schizophrenia, then what is the value of that label in describing their symptoms, deciding their treatment, or predicting their outcome, and would it not be more useful simply to describe their problems as they actually are? And if schizophrenia does not exist in nature, then how can researchers possibly find its cause or correlates? If psychiatric research has made so little progress in recent decades, it is in large part because everyone has been barking up the wrong tree. It is not a question of getting a bigger and better scanner, but of going right back to the drawing board.Whats more, medical-type labels can be as harmful as they are hollow. By reducing rich, varied, and complex human experiences to nothing more than a mental disorder, they not only sideline and trivialize those experiences but also imply an underlying defect that then serves as a pseudo-explanation for the persons disturbed behaviour. This demeans and disempowers the person, who is deterred from identifying and addressing the important life problems that underlie his distress.
About This Quote
About Neel Burton
Neel Burton was British psychiatrist and author. Neel Burton is a British psychiatrist, philosopher, writer, and educator. He is an author of several books, including Psychiatry (2006), Living with Schizophrenia, The Meaning of Madness (2008), Master your Mind (2009), The Art of Failure – The Anti Self-Help Guide (2010), Growing from Depression: A Self-Help Guide (2010), Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception (2012), Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions (2015), and Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking (2019). Read more on Wikipedia →