Author:
Wong Stephen E.,Woolsey James E.
Abstract
The second article in a series, this case study demonstrates how psychiatric diagnoses and treatment can ignore social, environmental, and personal history factors that likely caused a person’s mental disorders. We examined the life of a woman who endured physical assault and rape by her father, a series of unsatisfactory romantic relationships, marriage to a man who repeatedly brutalized their children and her, the deaths of two children, and the burden of caring for eight surviving offspring. This woman occasionally exhibited symptoms of depression and emotional outbursts that led to her psychiatric hospitalization, psychotropic drugging, and ECT. Hospitalization and psychiatric drugs provided no relief, while ECT brought on memory impairment, difficulty concentrating, and bizarre persecutory beliefs. This case study revealed how psychiatric diagnosis and treatment can be irrelevant, ineffective, and harmful, while concealing institutional failures and helping to perpetuate social problems.
Publisher
Springer Publishing Company
Subject
Psychiatry and Mental health,Clinical Psychology
Reference23 articles.
1. Albee, G. W. , Joffe, J. M. , & Dusenbury, L. A. (1988). Prevention, powerlessness, and politics: Readings on social change . Sage Publications.
2. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.) (DSM-5). Author.
3. Guidelines for prevention in psychology;American Psychological Association;American Psychologist,2014
4. Ammerman, R. T. , & Hersen, M. (1997). Handbook of prevention and treatment with children and adolescents . John Wiley & Sons.
5. Preventive strategies for mental health;Lancet Psychiatry,2018