Themes: Medicalising language, pop psychology and in contrast, the liberation of finding and understanding ourselves and the world more.
Side note; I’m interweaving many ideas in this blog, from using psychological concepts "incorrectly" to the limiting impact of diagnosis. It’s a wee dyslexic journey (multiple ideas at once), you can get off at any time.
Sometimes the idea of having problems in our life is explained through the lens of mental illness.
This can be really healing and helpful when it is an accurate diagnosis that leads to us discovering parts of ourselves, seeking treatment, new understandings, acceptance and/or “management”. However, sometimes we can use other ways of exploring the issues or problems we experience and labelling can actually have an adverse impact on our healing journey.
This seems increasingly controversial to bring up and explore. However, it feels like a relevant and important topic, especially, as we see a rise in insta-therapy and the spread of “pop psychology”: a broad, wonderful term that incapsulates where we see hugely significant and impactful psychological concepts/theories/diagnoses misused and/or misunderstood. For example, thee ever present ‘gas lighting’ and/or narcissism phenomena. These are significantly important concepts to explore and understand, however, when used inappropriately, can be damaging, confusing and potentially change the course of someone’s life.
Often the intention is not to misuse and misunderstand these concepts. However, I think we are seeing a massive surge in interpreting people’s behaviours or communication through this lens. To use the ever present "gas lighting" as an example, understandably, people may want a sense of understanding and recognition for how they have felt, they may want to communicate to someone how they make them feel, they may want them to recognise how they are, they may want to have a label for their experience etc etc. We need these concepts to describe horrendous behaviour, to acknowledge and support people experiencing and living through this. However, this can invalidate or dilute these concepts when overused or misunderstood.
There are so many reasons why we may find comfort in having concepts to understand the world through. It can be liberating and relieving to understand ourselves and our experiences. I wonder if this is related to the surge in pop psychology; that it can create a language and a narrative for our life story...
However, I do worry that labels can limit us. I know from personal experience, when I was diagnosed with depression 6 years ago, it felt like confirmation that I would not leave that dark hole I felt I was in. This is not to say everyone’s experience of diagnosis is this way, I completely understand how liberating diagnosis can be, in fact when I was diagnosed with dyslexia it was complete liberation; finally I could understand and not shame myself for seeing the world through a different lens. However, when I was diagnosed with depression it felt like I could give up further, like I could continue falling down.
I think both can be true, we are in need of having language to make sense of our experiences but we also need to be mindful that somethings don’t need explained through psychological concepts and sometimes if they are it can be oppressive and keep people ruminating or stuck in that space.
I will explore this topic further in coming blogs, but for now, lastly and most importantly, I think,
in general, our awareness and understanding of psychology and mental health concepts on mass is humongously beneficial!!! We, the world, the planet are in NEEEEEED of healing and liberation. As well as a sense of belonging, community and compassion for ourselves and others....
I think we are in a transition phase, with an abundance of information and we are currently working on assimilating and finding balance.
Comentários