An Outrageous Example of Psychiatric Labelling

Responding to my previous topic Riccola posted:
"At times I truly believe modern psychiatry is just a silent garbage disposal or behavioral (thought) corrector for those outside the desired norms."
Today I looked through the official WHO sight and found the description of Histrionic personality disorder:
"Personality disorder characterized by shallow and labile affectivity, self-dramatization, theatricality, exaggerated expression of emotions, suggestibility, egocentricity, self-indulgence, lack of consideration for others, easily hurt feelings, and continuous seeking for appreciation, excitement and attention".
http://apps.who.int/classifications/app ... ?gf60.htm+

Now, please read that chapter slowly and thoughtfully. Can you really find any sort of disorder in that description?
Why "affectivity, self-dramatization, theatricality" are considered to be the signes of mental defection??? What is wrong in so called theatricality? What is wrong in the "exaggerated expression of emotions"??? Or "easily hurt feelings, and continuous seeking for appreciation, excitement and attention"???
Why a person inclined for self-dramatization and seeking for appreciation must be considered sick?
The latter is one of the basic and strongest human desires, so the docs say pure nonsense labelling that natural and common feeling.
Reading this I recognize female character described by a rigorous man, monk for example, who dislikes any kind of spontaneous behaviour, chiefly expressed by women, or I recognize the voice of dumbness decrying theatrical arts.
And please note that this is not the diagnosis issued the Soviet repressive psychiatry which was hunting down political activists and other "unreliable elements". This is the diagnosis accepted by all medical schools of the world, even those related to democratic countries. How is that possible in the 21 century to hold that $#%^ on the WHO list? Where are the human right organizations, why they not oppose that outrageous example of psychiatric labelling and psychiatric repressions?
Reading this I really think that I live somewhere in the North Korea disguised to be a free society.
Psychiatry is disgusting, because it is illogical and intolerate, but the acceptance of those ridiculous theories by local and global institutions is disgusting as well, because it demonstrates tolerance to barbarian hearted towards artistic and emotional expressions of human personality*. Even more, it is dangerous for democracy, freedom and humanity itself.

*I guess I know the root of that "disorder". It could be traced back to the mediaeval denunciation of women and arts, to the dark times, when the both were seen as the agents of devil.

IMO, its also purely relative. What might be exaggerated expression of emotions to someone might be normal to others, and what is viewed as normal can be viewed as blunted by someone else. Its all in interpretation of individual perception. What the psychiatrist or mental health community feels as excessive or insufficient.

Riccola wrote:IMO, its also purely relative.

And also dramatically culturally and even ethnically determined.
Emotional expression normally acceptable in the Middle East is often seen as an exaggeration or pure rudeness by the Europeans. On the contrary, the well know Scandinavian introversion could be considered as "emotional dumbness", one more stupid psychiatric term.
It is intriguing what is the "norm", the acceptable middle, between the excessive emotional life and the emotional dumbness in the eyes of the psychiatrist community. And of cause I wonder if the docs have objective tools to measure the appropriate level of theatricality or emotional expression, such objective as the Geiger counter.
I think that we tremendously underestimate the danger of psychiatry. It is not Ok that a social institution which has the power to label people in a very questionable and often ridiculous way operate in the 21st century everywhere in the world. It is not Ok that the nonsensical labels issued by that strange institution are accepted by authorities on the global scale. It is not Ok that after a shrink estimating patient to be too "theatrical", or labelling another #######4 like this, the patient has good chances to face social problems, because the doc has the power to limit one's social activity like a cop or a judge.

Polozker wrote:

Riccola wrote:IMO, its also purely relative.

And also dramatically culturally and even ethnically determined.
Emotional expression normally acceptable in the Middle East is often seen as an exaggeration or pure rudeness by the Europeans. On the contrary, the well know Scandinavian introversion could be considered as "emotional dumbness", one more stupid psychiatric term.
It is intriguing what is the "norm", the acceptable middle, between the excessive emotional life and the emotional dumbness in the eyes of the psychiatrist community. And of cause I wonder if the docs have objective tools to measure the appropriate level of theatricality or emotional expression, such objective as the Geiger counter.
I think that we tremendously underestimate the danger of psychiatry. It is not Ok that a social institution which has the power to label people in a very questionable and often ridiculous way operate in the 21st century everywhere in the world. It is not Ok that the nonsensical labels issued by that strange institution are accepted by authorities on the global scale. It is not Ok that after a shrink estimating patient to be too "theatrical", or labelling another #######4 like this, the patient has good chances to face social problems, because the doc has the power to limit one's social activity like a cop or a judge.

Of course. A kid in school who is bright, energetic and so forth gets bored in school with the lock step curriculum built around the lowest common denominator. Said kids gets bored, can not sit still, daydreams, frustrates with the inability to change his environment, ect (all normal human reactions) and is said to be ADD/ADHD as a result. Psychiatrist diagnosis and prescribes medication to "slow down" a "broken brain". Just look at the amount of kids on drugs today, and then look at the shortage of skilled workers.


Very high IQ and emotional intelligence is frequently seen as mental illness simply because it falls outside the established norm. Heck in the past people were seen as insane, evil, posed, ect for stating what is known today as common knowledge. To assume psychiatry today does not diagnose and strip people of human rights over what they do not have the ability to understand would be the height if ignorance in my opinion.

The worst part is, when psychiatry destroys the cure for cancer, world peace, unlimited energy, space travel, ect we never know about it because the actual person or group of people who would otherwise have made those contributions are never realized. Human progress, progress that eliminates suffering for billions (if not more) people, is quietly snuffed out; much like the man who was burned alive at the stake for stating the earth orbited the sun and stars were others suns. He was simply viewed as a religious deviant who dared contradict the word of God, the people who put him there as heros. Not the opposite. Those who destroy don't know they destroy, and thats what is truly mortifying.

Riccola wrote:The worst part is, when psychiatry destroys the cure for cancer, world peace, unlimited energy, space travel, ect we never know about it because the actual person or group of people who would otherwise have made those contributions are never realized.

After my very short contact with a mental health institution, being 16 yeas of age only, I realised that in the purposes of good living and simple survival I must not turn for shrinks under any even the hardest reason.
I felt their terrible thought-control and thought-restraining attitude, which I considered to be the number one threat to my personality.
During these 20 and something years I had some bad times, but I overcame those difficulties as a free person in my house, reading books, listening to the music, drinking, having some crazy sex etc. Not all the items of the "self-healing agenda" mentioned above are good and useful, and of course it is better not to drink too much or not to have some indiscriminate sexual intercourses, but it is far better than to be dependant on some injections in the psychiatric asylum, carefully guided by some guys using questionable and sometimes nonsensical theories to make you feel better.
Of course, I'm not genius, but I like how my mind works, and I know it was not spoilt by some medications. Actually, as a result of a phycological trauma my reasoning considerably improved, probably because my mind was not silenced by drugs.