Empathetic Assassins- "And how do you feel about that?"

Hi there.

I am a counselling psychologist who finds the medicalisation of life an increasing dilemma. Often, my professional peers and the wider medical profession are labelling resilience as depression and appropriate emotional responses as "abnormal" or "disordered".

As stated I am new to the forum. Steemit seems an appropriate forum for the the themes within "Mass Hysteria" with some interesting links to be made, but more on that in later blog.

Mass Hysteria, a regular dinner party I will be hosting, will examine the way we do "mental health" in Australia and the role of the professionals and clients within it. It will at times cut to the very legitimacy of the field of mental health. More controversial, it will identify that theories of mental health are still developing and whilst there are large gaps and loads of psycho-babble, there is much quality, especially within the fields and social psychology. Psychology itself is not the problem. Like all industries, and once again proving that humans are the ones in the end with the agency to really impact quality of life and not technology or bytes on a computer screen, is the fact that human error lies at the heart of the problem . However if it was just human error then my blogs would be very boring and not worth the social commentary. Human error is a nice way of explaining this foul tasting dish served up by mental health professionals who often label themselves as "experts" on the "way of living wisely". This "view" of psychologists as "experts" is permeating into society more and more and why wouldn't it. A carpenter who does an apprenticeship and then has years of experience building, most of the time fits the bill of expert in their field. This is true of the majority of vocational titles, although there is a small percentage of "human errors" in all job areas. Mental Health, however does not just have outliers or rogue operators burning the hotpot. What is does have is a majority of practitioners throwing in their ingredients with a mix of arrogance, naivety, fatigue, and group think. The foulest ingredient however and one which must be taken out of the dish called "Mental Health" is practitioners total disregard for what clients are telling them. Now practitioners listen to clients but what happens then is not just human error, but an unseen form of "cultural cleansing" at best, social control through a rational but still naive lens, and large scale crimes against humanity if cutting to the chase but with a hint of Mass Hysteria!

I will argue that whilst psychologists and psychiatrists position themselves as "experts" on the workings of the mind and well-being, it is actually us that are making our clients mentally unwell. The assumption governments and policy makers are going on is that Psychologists and Psychiatry are minimising and containing the ever increasing mental health of society. What if, however, they are the very ones increasing the disordered within the Australian population, costing billions of dollars to government instead of saving money. More importantly, what if the very profession that is seen as vital in the solution to peoples happiness and the quality of living in Australia, are actually inadvertently but naively the ones taking the ingredients and mixing them in a way which covers up their natural flavour and brings out a pungency only bought out if used incorrectly. Mass Hysteria is a look on the melting pot that is human mental health. My conclusion is best summarised by the old cliche; Two many cooks spoil the broth.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hosting my next dinner party very soon! How do you feel about that?