ago. But I've never had a brain scan. I bet few patients given a
diagnosis of real psychiatric illness have ever had one of these done
either.
If I commit a serious crime then it must be proven that I did it before
I can be punished with incarceration. However there is no need to prove
I have a brain illness for my right to liberty to be removed. The
privilege of medicine allows for this blatant violation of justice.
In a sense it doesn't matter because the current Mental Health Act now
allows for incarceration irrespective of supposed brain illness. It
should no be called the Mental Health Problems Act or the Mental Health
Problematic Act since it includes personality disorders and psychopathy
in the definition of mental disorder. The revised act now allows for
incarceration for life without serious crime nor treatment for the
supposed disorder. The supposed brain illness aspect is now totally
irrelevant and the use of the word "illness", in legal terms, is incorrect.
Legal stuff aside, there's the impact of the diagnosis on the
individual. More importantly there's the effect of misdiagnosis. Today
three are more and more people I hear of getting a different diagnosis
after a few years. I had 4 in 3 or 4 years from 4 different
psychiatrists. Half a century ago thus would be inconceivable.
Apparently practising psychiatrists can reliably differentiate between
bipolar with paranoid features, schizoaffective disorder and paranoid
schizophrenia. I used the word apparently in the same sense as in the
sentence, "pigs, apparently, might fly." Perhaps a brain scan might
reveal which one it truly was but that's of little interest to
psychiatrists, the profession of the wise who like to use electric
shocks to induce seizures to treat emotions and behaviour.
To a patient the difference between those three diagnoses is massive. It
can change their lives.
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