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2+ years in the making, and I can’t believe it’s finally happening. Grateful to @StMartinsPress for giving me the space to share my views.
Justin Garson
8,081 posts
Justin Garson
@justin_garson
THE MADNESS PILL (@StMartinsPress 2026) | MADNESS (Oxford 2022) | Philosopher, CUNY | words in @PsychToday @aeonmag @Mad_In_America | rep @Vogelrachelm
- In all my years seeing psychiatrists and therapists, not one ever said, “Justin, maybe your depression and anxiety are perfectly normal reactions to your life. Why not radically change your environment, and let me know how it goes?” Never. Not once. Why?
- Anyone who’s spent time on a psych ward “gets” the basic mechanics: you’re forced to comply with low-level, frustrated, and often sadistic staff. Reasonable outbursts against your treatment are seen as signs of pathology, and used as grounds for drugging and more confinement 1/5
- Replying to @justin_garsonIf that happens too often you're put in long-term ward. Ultimately, you realize that survival on a psych ward isn’t about “getting better”. It’s about learning how to comply with the demands of perfect idiots. (My dad had the same kind of experience in public mental hospital 5/5)
- One of the weirdest generational shifts I’ve witnessed: we used to avoid mental illness diagnoses like the plague. Now we seek them out, even celebrate them. I’ve heard people rattle off their diagnoses the way people once boasted of fishing trophies. What happened?
- Most mental health problems can be solved by getting the fuck out of whatever toxic environment you’re in: a relationship, a job, a home situation. But psychiatry’s main goal is to keep you ‘functioning’ in those environments as long as possible.
- Replying to @justin_garsonHere’s an example from my experience in an adolescent psych ward. Patient 1 is sharing about a friend who committed suicide. Patient 2, who had the same friend, gives her a hug. A staff member says they broke the ‘no touching’ rule, and they can’t leave ward for 3 days. 2/5
- Replying to @justin_garsonPatient 1, enraged, screams at staff member, is restrained and put in isolation. Patient 2, enraged, is also restrained and put in isolation. Two more patients put in isolation, general agitation ensues. One patient in isolation harms himself to express his anger 3/5
- Replying to @justin_garsonThe next day the staff member decides he will not punish them. But if you are put in isolation, that’s taken as a sign of a serious mental health problem, meaning the doctor will likely tack on another two weeks to the total duration of your stay. 4/5
- When philosophers say “I don’t do metaphysics” what they mean is “I inherited someone else’s metaphysics and I don’t want to think about it.”
- Wonderful, groundbreaking research, led by my friend Hans Schroder, shows that framing depression as purposeful, not pathological, has better therapeutic outcomes. Continuing to promote the dysfunction/disease/chemical imbalance paradigm is becoming a serious moral problem.
- Antidepressants are literally robbing our generation of one of the few great things life has to offer. People should be more angry about that. Like out in the streets angry.
- Psychiatry errs because it fails to grasp how incredibly well-designed the human mind really is. Depression, anxiety, even psychosis are signals that carry invaluable information about what’s going wrong in life - yet we idiotically treat them as “symptoms” to be “managed.”
- Is there anything more destructive to mental health than to convince someone that their thoughts and feelings and experiences are the symptoms of a disease?
