There’s a very interesting article by Paris Williams on Mad in America, The “Mental Illness” Paradigm: An “Illness” That is out of Control. You can see it here.
The author gives us a compelling critique of the “mental illness” model, and also presents us with an alternative paradigm.
The alternative is:
“… to see those conditions we generally refer to as ‘mental illnesses’ as instead the natural manifestations of an individual’s struggles with the fundamental dilemmas inherent in simply being alive.”
Here are some more quotes:
“So we flood an individual’s brain with an array of highly toxic chemicals designed to make it through the brain’s natural blood-brain barrier and impact this extraordinarily complex and fragile organ in a ridiculously blunt and haphazard manner, and we call this ‘treatment.'”
“The terrible irony is that while it seems very likely that such crises are not the manifestation of a lifelong brain disease, the standard ‘treatment’ actually ensures that this fantasy becomes a reality.”
“I find it interesting to turn the ‘medical model’ language of ‘mental illness’ back onto itself and consider this entire ‘mental illness’ paradigm as acting like an insidious cancer…”
It’s an excellent article. Please take a look.