Are We Medicalising Normal? | It’s A Question Of Balance 22 August 2015

Broadcast on 22 August 2015 on KSCO AM 1080, KSCO 104.1 FM, KOMY AM 1340, and KSCO.com Live Stream.

'It's A Question Of Balance' is a two hour show which balances the intellectual with the creative. The show combines a debate topic with an arts interview because discussion and creativity are two of the most vital ways we engage in the world. 

Check out podcasts of the different topics and arts guests at www.itsaquestionofbalance.com

Hour 1: Out And About – Conversations with People on the Street about Questions That Matter: Are We Medicalising Normal?

This week we consider ‘Are We Medicalising Normal?’ Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity. His feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented." Whilst this sounds preposterous to us now psychotherapist Gary Greenberg feels that the disorder might well have made it into the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) had it existed at the time, noting that homosexuality was listed in the DSM as a sociopathic personality disorder until 1973. Greenberg says that by trying to use a pseudoscientific model to understand and treat our “hopelessly complex” inner world, we are creating a “charade” of non-existent disorders. Obviously there is a need to help people with serious mental issues that are impeding their life and/or causing harm to others. But excluding these cases, there are a whole range of “disorders” that have sprung up that represent behaviour that used to be absorbed into normal life. In his book The Book of Woe: The DSM and the unmaking of Psychiatry, psychotherapist of 30 years Gary Greenberg states “When the DSM was [first] published there were 14 mental disorders and now there are 250 – it needs to scale back.” Do you have any sense of the medicalisation of everyday human experience? Are you aware of more children being diagnosed with mental conditions? Are we medicalising normal?

What do you think? For more info on the show and to hear past shows visit www.itsaquestionofbalance.com