PsychOUT: A Conference for Organizing Resistance Against Psychiatry

A surgeon cuts -- a psychiatrist sees mental illness.

It's hardly surprising that psychiatric illnesses are over diagnosed. The difference between ordinary unhappiness at daily life and, say, mild depression is elusive. And mental health professionals are likely to see what they look for -- psychiatric illness.

But that doesn't mean depression isn't real.

Mental disease is real and is organically based. It is not a matter of weak will or sin or spiritual diversity. Treatments may be imperfect, understanding of cause incomplete and diagnosis uncertain but these are mechanics only.

I deal daily with people with mental illness -- they are disabled in the same way as someone, say, who cannot walk. Sadly, many people cannot understand the disability and so blame the person who is ill.

We may not understand mental illness fully yet but that is no reason to abandon the mentally ill to their illnesses.