So, that was the social context of diagnosis and treatment.
Quite a journey. [LAUGH] And some of you are probably
thinking that was a very critical look at diagnosis and treatment in the mental
healthcare system and I just want to be clear that when I say, it is a critical
look at the diagnosis and treatment I'm using critical in the sense, not that I
think it's just, that I'm just trying to be negative about everything in the
system. This is not an anti-psychiatry lecture.
I worked in the mental healthcare system for a very long time.
I really believe it has something to offer people.
And I, I believe that diagnosis and treatment is something that, at least at
this point in our history, at this point in our state of knowledge,
these are things that we need because there are people that are dealing with
emotional and mental health. And, you know, cognitive problems that
need help and diagnosis is the way that they get that help.
And treatment is the help that we have to offer them right now.
I do imagine that at another time and in another place it could be different.
But that's where we are at the moment. So, so why so critical? critical in the
sense that I think a course like this gives us the opportunity to think about
what surrounds diagnosis and treatment and how that is not an objective
enterprise. It's affected by things like social
relations in the wider society, power relations in the wider society, and I
think that if we understand that, we can make better choices about what kind of a
mental healthcare system we want to have. What kind of treatment options do we
think it should have? What kind of things do we think psychiatry has the right to
involve itself in and what kind of things do we think maybe psychiatry should keep
its hands off of? And even if there is a diagnosis for something, what do we, as
individuals, believe is the value of having something diagnosed? Another part
of that that I referred to just briefly, is that, I believe that there's work that
we need to do in understanding what constitutes a healthy and positive
post-diagnosis life. Because, if you are a person, or somebody
you know is in a situation where they receive a diagnosis, that's a psychiatric
diagnosis, there has been a tendency in the past to
think that, that means that, you know, life is over, that, that everything about
them is now going to be defined by that diagnosis.
I believe there are many other possibilities.
I believe that diagnosis can be just one aspect of a person's living.
And that it doesn't have to be a shadow that affects the quality of life or that
affects their entire future, their social relationships, all these sort of things.
I think it means different things at different times,
and that we need to have conversations about the meaning of diagnosis as well as
what it means to get the diagnosis. So, with that, we are going to be moving
on to culture, mental health, and mental illness next week.
This is actually a lecture, I think, that really is going to shed a light on how
diagnosis and treatment can be different in different contexts and also what it
can mean in, even in even in the North American context where we're so embedded
in this biomedical model. So, I look forward to having that
conversation with you next week and look forward to seeing your discussions this
week.
Charmaine WilliamsAssociate Professor
