Medical truth supersedes and subsumes moral truth. This renders any further discussions of moral truth gross, unevolved, and potentially contaminating. In Diagnosis Theory, there is no good or bad, right or wrong. There is only: healthy and sick. Those who subscribe to Diagnosis Theory therefore never need to consider the art of argument (much less argue against the sick people who disagree with them and risk contamination), or deal with moral stress relating to ill effects of their actions, and can protect their hideous stereotypes about “the mentally ill”. Neither do they nor should they seriously contemplate forgiveness or trust beyond what every human (who qualifies as a true human, or a healthy human, which under Diagnosis Theory are the same) ought to immediately and instinctively do at the mention of the subjects of forgiveness or trust — unless they are sick. It then becomes beyond very easy to forgive any actions of the ”sick”. This feeling of self-recognized forgiveness perpetually proves the subscriber of Diagnosis Theory not just on the side of right in their theory, but also instinctually healthier than those at whom their sublimated aggression is directed, those sick persons who are presumed to be incapable of or mentally impoverished beyond meaningful forgiveness. Moreover, any attempt to moralize on the part of a sick person proves only how idealistic they are, but in the lens of Diagnosis Theory (where philosophical idealism is not a present concept) it is also that these sick persons are so unbelievably far detached from “reality” and real or materialistic virtue as to further prove and uphold the prejudicial association in the mind of the subscriber between those who give credence to non-materialist (mind-first, philosophy-first, religion-first, or imagination-first) ways of thinking and mental sickness itself.
Moreover, the existence of persons with biochemically evident illness can be used as pawns in shaming those without biochemically evident illnesses (but evident illness of some kind, in the subscribers dream state) who we would like to conform to our game of diagnosis but do not.
Further, medical truth — in contradiction to our self-perceived philosophical allegiance to philosophical materialism not that we as believers in our exclusive brand of science would concede to philosophical allegiances ever really mattering — is in this world inherently flexible. It can be as rigid as we like it to be in our campaign against the minds of misdiagnosed persons, in our pursuit of emotional authority, and in our using our voices to contort around our special words (not “mad”, not “crazy”, but “only mentally ill” or even “just sick” and so forth) so as to convey maximum medical authority or performative “care”. But ultimately, the acceptance of a lifelong biochemical illness without biochemical evidence should not worry anyone as a knower, and neither should the acceptance of lifelong biochemical illness with shakey, cobbled together, or unsound biochemical evidence. The questioning of evidence or an absence of evidence — especially by misdiagnosed persons — is not to be tolerated.
Needs, such as those of the psychiatrist not to encounter evidence to have failed (even partially) by the recurrence (or even partial recurrence) of a psychic difficulty of a patient take priority. It is extremely unpleasant as professionals to be at the whim of the catastrophes of our clients, especially when we have no way of assessing whether they have been compliant with our moralizing or just as often amoralizing wishes in our absence. The metaphor of physical medicine satisfies our need for this kind of understanding and security. By virtue of our working in the area of mental illness and having intelligence, we are likely to recognize that it is in fact only a metaphor. Mental illness is not diabetes, or influenza. It is only at best like these. In fact there are circles of psychiatrists who reveal (or seem to reveal) a belief to their more curious patients that everyone already knows it, or should know: it is a metaphor. The misrepresentation of our metaphor as a fact in this area is for their greater good. If we tell patients “Your mental illness is like diabetes or influenza. You wouldn’t try to cure diabetes or influenza with your thoughts, would you?” and they experience an emotion of relief in the moment of imagining that they are not fully responsible for their mental trouble (indeed this is the responsibility of mental health providers, to support their mental health) then this relief is evidence of the correctness of our metaphor, and their (idiotic? do we sneer at them behind their backs?) desire for us to sell this metaphor with any tactics of mental manipulation at our disposal. But we are not fundamentally responsible, as a mind, for supporting their mind, as it is inherently diseased and contaminating. We believe in our heart of hearts that the drugs the pharmaceutical companies and their sexy sales reps provide might possibly provide something beneficial for our patients, and next years drugs will almost certainly be somehow more targeted against diseases that remain collections of symptoms without biochemical etiology. We do not read or spend time with the studies that suggest otherwise. We are medical professionals, not researchers. Medical research is a different field, one in which medical truth is not as flexible — unless all the funding comes from the pharmaceutical companies in which case it can become a bit more flexible. If I were to resist, as a medical professional, and act inflexibly or passionately for the sake of defending my personal idea of truth against my colleagues and superiors, I would surely face the same rigid kinds of authoritarian emotional and epistemic violence that I see demonstrated to patients when they seek to defend their personal idea of truth. In conforming to amoral medical science, I disrespect myself and become more and more desensitized to what disrespect means, more afraid of my patients’ psychotic violence, and more attached to totemic authority.
An important property of medical truth’s flexibility is in the absence of any regular review process of cases of misdiagnosed persons, of potentially misdiagnosed persons, of persons generally, as though it would be impossible for the system or practitioners within the system to seek feedback after care without necessarily violating privacy or other rights of clients. While it can be appreciated that medical curiosity shouldn’t trump individual rights, surely a gentle but firm approach to gathering feedback could be taken, but isn’t. Instead, the giving of “lifelong” diagnoses end up being action taken wash (on an institutional level, whether these professionals are actually able to meet their basic needs for integrity or sanity through this process is another matter) the diagnostician of liability for and responsibility for (much less contact with) the diagnosee.
Diagnosis Theory’s medical ethics in essence:
The less I’ve seen of you, the more severely I diagnose you.
The more severely I diagnose you, the less I want to see of you.
Explore the opposite: Tenet 3 – Medical truth is a category of truth that deserves to be respected
Misdiagnosed Anonymous 