Read on Twitter
1/I’m shaken by this kind of rhetoric dismissing the very valid concerns of those with lived experience as if it’s just ideology, disinformation, or lacking in “objectivity.” This kind of thing shakes my trust in the mental health professionals I should be able to feel safe with https://twitter.com/jonathanstea/status/1303880243610972160
2/Valid discussion points are raised here but to treat them like they’re purely a matter of science in a way that overrides the lived experience of those who know these struggles personally is disappointing. These are topics for nuanced discussion not appeals to authority
3/ Psychiatrists don’t have a monopoly on the questions of what counts as a good/meaningful life. Such questions aren’t strictly scientific. They can’t dictate what my wrenching experiences of complex trauma mean or what healing should mean for me.
4/I am not “anti-psychiatry” or anti-science but good science knows its limits. The questions with which psychiatry and psychology grapple are very human and value-laden questions about which we all get to have an opinion whether we are scientists or not.
5/ I value what science has to add. I believe there is a place for psychiatry. But psychiatry also needs humility and needs to learn how to *listen* for what ought to be its most valued resource: the input of those whose lives it is supposed to improve.
6/ Yet this seems to be a stumbling block which is why I’m so hesitant to set foot in the office of one. So perhaps that’s me undermining the trust of people in psychiatry or perhaps that should serve as an indication that psychiatry needs to do a better job of earning our trust
7/ There are deep gut-wrenching existential questions we all have to face that are very much implicated in the way psychiatry approaches its subject matter. The perspective of professionals has huge value but they need to acknowledge their limits.
8/ If a MH professional can’t see & embrace the ways it’s not a science in the exact way others are because of these difficult questions on which it is premised (our core values and visions for a good and meaningful life) then I can’t trust them with my mental health.
9/ That doesn’t make me “anti-psychiatry.” It just makes me feel tired and sad. So who needs to dig deeper and take some responsibility for the ways in which faith in psychiatry have been shaken? Those of us who’ve struggled and are trying to find and share our truths?
10/ Or those who are supposed to be a safe haven? Why not embrace all that can be learned from dissenting voices speaking their “subjective” truth re their own well-being? Or do you truly think your science is so bullet proof that it has nothing to learn from it subjects?
11/ To be clear: I know there are great psychiatrists who have (1) deep enthusiasm about what science has to teach (2) real humility re its limits and (3) a corresponding attentiveness to all that still needs to be learned especially from those it hasn’t served well thus far
12/ But lack of humility is a real problem that renders it dangerous for me (speaking only for myself) & I won’t trust it until the profession sorts that out & starts earning the trust of people like me. So count me out for now please, until the humbler voices will prevail.
