how can a psychiatrist say you are mentally ill or not when they don't know you?

Question

i mean there are people who are admitted who are not mentally ill.everyone who knows you well say you are mentally ill but they decide you are not.different people find different things hard.they go without treatment it would be very hard for them.everyone has different opinions so they get help from them or find some other way.but it all comes from you though,but help,helps i feel.they don't know you and i feel are just meeting govements targets.

lets get this right they may well want you to take drugs becaus e it earns them money,i am not sure but a person can't diagnose everyone on some written manual.there is a lot of bad pyschiatrist out there who wouldn't know if someone was mad or not unless it was blantantly obvious.therapy is the only way ,to say that drugs are a cure is ridiculous.psychiatrist are mad and they do make mistakes,too many and their in the wrong job.i had people i know been admitted and don't need to be ,they don't know you is meeting occasionally knowing you.far as i'm concerned it's a load of crap

Answer 1

Geez, it's like a lot of you people have never seen a schizophrenic person shouting on a street corner at his hallucinations, or seen (or even heard of) people with obsessive compulsive disorder who can't get out the door in the morning because they have to repeatedly check to see that the stove is turned off. These and other psychological disorders are real as real can be, have a strong genetic component, and can sometimes (not always) be treated effectively with drugs (and sometimes with psychotherapy).

A psychologist or psychiatrist does not have to "know" you in order to diagnose you for the same reason that a physician doesn't have to know you. Psychological disorders--like many physical ones--are defined by symptoms and behaviors that you or your family report or that the doctor observes directly. As someone else pointed out, the precise and currently accepted definitions are in the DSM.

I would not argue that there isn't a lot of nonsense that goes under the heading of "psychology" and some under the heading of "psychiatry." And I'm OK with the argument that we go to far with the medicine (or rather with what we expect it to accomplish). But the idea that psychological disorders are nothing more a means for the "men in white coats" to keep control over the free spirits among us and make money is plain silly.

Answer 2

This is a good point, I don't think a lot of psychiatrists & doctors are fit to diagnose people as mentally ill. I hate the way people get put on drugs for minor personality 'defects', which are basically just the person's personality.

But is there a better way? I don't think self-diagnosis would work. Personally I'd prefer that no one was ever diagnosed as mentally ill, or with personality disorders, or even with ADD or things like that.

I think everyone's personality should be excepted as the person is, regardless of how insane the person may seem in the eyes of others.

Obviously if people are a threat to others, or can't look after themselves then they should be in hospitals, but never on drugs. And if a person thinks they're insane and wants to be treated then of course they should be treated. Sounds reasonable to me!

Answer 3

the simplest way to explain that, when Mr. Freud first began writing his opinions down as to the sanity or insanity of someone others took note of what he felt and either validated or invalidated his impressions as they compared what they found with what he found, and basically what survived all the examinations became a guide to insanity or not in those areas, so that even if a doctor doesn't know you he may be able to tell a mental disease by how you react.
for example, a group of people who were afraid to leave their homes over time became known as those with agoraphobia so if a patient comes in to the doctors office and has that fear
it is pretty certain that he or she has the disease known as agoraphobia even if the doctor doesn't know you at all.
If a group of people say someone is mentally ill and that person is admitted to a mental hospital, it might be that the actions of the person admitted are not what the others consider normal but the doctor may admit that person until it is proved otherwise for his safety and the safety of those around this person.

Answer 4

The tricky part about mental illnesses is that they are, for the most part, difficult to measure physically (with the few exceptions of neurotransmitter levels, and maybe symptoms of anxiety disorders) and diagnosis relies a lot on self-report. To make a diagnosis, psychiatrists follow the criteria listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Furthermore, someone can have strange behaviors but it needs to cause significant disruption in their daily functioning to be considered an actual disorder.

Since people are able to pretend they have a mental disorder or fabricate symptoms, it can make it difficult for a clinician to tell whether it's real. (For more info, look up David Rosenhan's experiment "On being sane in insane places.") However, there are characteristics of mental disorders that can be observed, and people who don't know enough about the symptoms of a disorder aren't able to portray it accurately enough.

Answer 5

I have aspergers. But I just think it's not me that is the weirdo, I think it is the rest of the world!
I was lucky enough to have a professor and a psyc nurse for parents (maybe Alanis Morrisette could have stuck that in her song Ironic!), but who is to say that as I have been treated this way for 33 years, what if they were wrong and it has been drilled into me that I have it, therefore behaving how I do? I have NO social skills, I need to be told to have a bath(yuk!) and sometimes I forget to eat.
This could be my parents and Dr. Singhs fault, couldn't it?

Answer 6

Yeah indeed. watch the film 12 monkeys

I often think that
sanity is a concept that has not been defined.
It is nuts that we have people employed to label us.
At the same time some people really seem to need help.
We are living in the neuro linguistic dark ages.

Answer 7

You are so right.It's a conspiracy between the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical companies.Diagnosing insanity is complex but too many shrinks will have you drugged up on anti depressants before the ink is dry on the prescription so they can claim their commision from the manufacturers.

Answer 8

diagnosing metnal illness is what keeps them in a fat salary
Patients are their bread and butter, so dont take their word as the absolute truth.

Many are treated as system fodder like doctors handing out money spinning pills like sweets for the depressed

the one in the white coat is only deemed the sane one by common consent
RD Laing

Answer 9

If you are not crazy when you visit a psychiatrist, when you get the bill you will be well on your way, and every visit after that will drive deeper and deeper into total madness. Then when he has you financially bled dry he will have you locked up in the loony bin I know !?!?!?!?!?!?Aghhhhhhhhhhahahahahahah lol no loly lol lol lol.

Answer 10

they study your actions and responces. If they seem out of the norm the labels start flying all over the place. Personally I think this whole world is nuts.