Difficulties of psychiatrists identifying with their profession

I’ve mentioned the 1996 article by David Kaiser ‘Against biologic psychiatry’ in a previous post. He described why he found it increasingly difficult for him as a psychiatrist to identify with his profession. Biologic psychiatry seems to have become even more dominant since then with the increasing overmedicalisation of psychiatry (see eg. previous post) and fragmentation and dysfunction of services (see eg. another previous post). Questioning biologic psychiatry’s beliefs and actions does not seem to have served as a wake-up call for psychiatry leading to very much change (see eg. yet another previous post). 

As Kaiser said:-

It seems to me that modern psychiatry is acting out a cultural fantasy having to do with the wish for an omniscient authority who, armed with modern science, will magically take away the suffering and pain inherent in existing as human beings, and that rather than refusing this projection (which psychoanalysts were better able to do), modern psychiatry has embraced the role wholeheartedly, reveling in its new-found power and cultural legitimacy.

Speaking out against biologic psychiatry’s ideology seems to be insufficient. Unless people themselves no longer wish to see their difficulties as biologic and are no longer interested in oversimplistic resolution of them by a pill or a bit of psychological therapy (see eg. previous post), then psychiatry will continue to exploit this situation for its own ends.