I see a lot of people blaming tiktok and “brain rot” content for the increasing ADHD diagnoses, but I think its a matter of better detection, similar to how OCD and autism diagnosis have increased too.

Also as someone with ADHD, it feels like shit that it could be “my fault” or that I have brainrot.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    If everyone is disordered, then what’s normal anymore? How is that helpful?

    It is helpful to therapists and pharmacuetical drug manfucaturers.

    I’m not saying psychology and psychiatry are complete bullshit.

    I’m saying that if you can manufacture a problem, you can sell a solution.

    • triptrapper@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 days ago

      Ah, another interesting book I can recommend is called Crazy Like Us, about the globalization of the Western concept of mental health. They talk about execs at GlaxoSmithKline trying to figure out how to market antidepressants in Japan. In Japanese culture sadness and depression were seen as a normal part of the human experience. Like you said, the pharma guys had to get clever to convince their Japanese market that depression is an illness, and they had the treatment.

      I mostly disagree that diagnoses are helpful to therapists. Or rather, most diagnoses are not helpful to me. I can look at them as shorthand, so if a client has MDD in their chart I have a broad sense of some of the symptoms they’re experiencing. But I can just as easily, you know, ask the client what’s going on. There are a small few (ASD, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD) whose symptoms are so discrete and disruptive that specialized treatment can be life-changing. Outside of those few, if insurance didn’t require it, I would never assign a diagnosis again.