One of the few joys of working outside the USA is that I don’t have to diagnose to get paid. I work in a socialized health system and part of my job is to assess people. Frequently I say that they don’t have a diagnosis.
I also have a profound dissatisfaction with the DSM5. This relates to the factorial analysis of the diagnoses, the overlap, and the criteria. Officially, NZ uses the WHO classification. And I have no problems with impairment, for (as a medico) if you don’t have significant impairment you are the worried well and I don’t care as much.
But Scott is back, and in the USA they are mad.
Every criteria set in the DSM requires the diagnostician after checking off a series of rule-in features (reaching a certain diagnostic threshold) to then get over several non-negotiable hurdles. One of which is impairment in social, occupational or leisure functioning. If impairment is not present, there is no disorder.
The social, occupational and leisure domains are, of course really only affected as a function of societal norms. THIS is what my counterpart in graduate school—the guy who dropped out—was concerned about. When he learned that the DSM diagnostic criteria sets were not statistically, rationally and scientifically derived ONLY, but that another dimension—politics/culture are included in the calculus for defining a disorder, he became distraught and quit.
As a psychologist with a license, but one who is believing, living and teaching my children in a manner that is decidedly way outside the social norms, I have experienced and will continue to experience more and more “dysfunction” in those three domains. Swinging back to the opening section of this post—it is becoming excessively difficult for me to suspend my belief system in order to deliver a service to those who are a part of the ambient culture. One of my colleagues has already accused me of “raising [my] children to be bigots” (because I teach sacramental marriage to them) and another has labelled the things I write “hate speech.”
How is it then, that an individual who has been given the credentials and authority to determine what is and is not “appropriate” but is simultaneously more and more marginalized from that very same culture supposed to operate?
We are going to marginalized, for the culture is fallen. But at that point one can turn cultural appropriateness back on them: if we have to respect the opinions of a Farsi or Shaman (which the writers of the ethics books seem to think) then we have to respect the views of an Orthodox Christian like Scott.
Or even a Calvinist such as myself.
Thank you for the linkback, my NZ counterpart.
You can always just open that they’re a repressive bigot for judging your life/parenting decisions. Then follow up with “that’s very intolerant of you”. That should get their head spinning for a bit. Slam the circularly logical fallacy of their assumptions right in their face. They won’t have a way to process it and will normally do odd things.
Then point out to them which of the classic psychological avoidance techniques they’re using. (You’d, hopefully, be quite more skilled at that than I am.)
Black Knighting does not work in NZ. We don’t have enough lawyer scum. Given a choice between no lawyer scum and not being able to Black Knight, I think we have the balance OK on that issue.
But… and it is a big, honking but… most of my colleagues know I’m a right wing Fundie and like me and work with me. Just as I know that they have just had their partner break up with them… and expressed sympathy for the suck, regardless of if the partner was a bloke or sheila.
The biggest problem with the SJW trolls is that they get rid of the basic human decency that allows us to work with those who have parts of their life we vehemently disagree with… but with whom we can work for this project, or to achieve this goal.
As if a country is the map, or psychopathology follows an ideology.
I’m not normally for much Black Knighting, but if the situation requires it, I will do much more destructive things. 🙂 Though my comment came across as far more serious than I intended it. I would expect it as uncommon to be needed, but it is a hilarious thing you can do to someone that’s making a fuss.
As for the SJW-types, with as much as the word gets used now, it’s really a proxy for the basic set of Marxist thought. And Marxist thinking is, itself, simply an outcropping of a specifically anti-Christian constructed theology. This is why the people are intolerable (in personality) and utterly intolerant (in their actions). To reject Christianity from within a previously very Christian culture requires one reject the core of Christian “being”.
Galatians 5:16-25 (ESV):
“16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
So the SJW has to reject the Fruit of the Spirit and bask in the Flesh. But most of those are educated enough that the glaring error in the logic is incredibly obvious. Which is why they lash out, rationalize and destroy those that call their entire being into question simply by living properly. There’s a reason we’re to expect to be hated by the World.
Actually, re-reading verses 19-21 again, that’s practically *all* those people want to do. Truly, nothing is new under the Sun.
I don’t have to diagnose to get paid. I work in a socialized health system and part of my job is to assess people. Frequently I say that they don’t have a diagnosis.
Good lord, you’re telling me this is different somewhere else?
It would be far better to say that it is different everywhere else. We do have our problems with lack of beds and waiting lists.