Added “Incorrect Diagnosis” article today criticizing the focus on pharmaceutical drugs as the solution to psychological problems. This is something I’ve been upset about for most of my adult life. It drives me crazy that the drug industry, what we politely call “psychoactive pharmaceutical companies,” has been able to pull the wool over quite intelligent people that the solution to being “psychologically healthy” is to take “medication” in the form of their latest chemical concoction. What drives me even crazier is that a lot of intelligent people stop even thinking about life at all psychologically, at all in terms of the their own personalities, at all in terms of their actual relationships between others, at all in terms of emotional past experiences.

I’ve encountered this frequently in teaching psychology. I’ll suggest something might have to do with past or current emotional interactions, say, between parent and child — and a student will comment, “Yeh, but isn’t it all really chemicals anyway? Isn’t it just the way we’re wired, you know, genetics and all?” Generally most people in the class agree with this comment.

There’s something insidious about this way of thinking. It stops you thinking about how things are connected, how your feelings now are connected with other feelings, whether in memory or happening at this point in one’s life. Anyway, that’s another topic that will come up a bit down the road.

Check out “Incorrect Diagnosis” and see what you think.