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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
It would be so awesome if Kierkegaard were available in pill form. I've always felt a little lazy about reading the big philosophers, you know? It would be even less effort than that illustrated "for beginners" series.
I had a really great abnormal psychology professor who talked about how mental illness is society's way of stigmatizing and marginalizing creative thinkers and nonconformists; it does not exist except as a social construct. I got really into that idea for a time. But yeah. No. Mental illness isn't miserable because society doesn't appreciate your unique brain. It is sheer suffering.
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Hahaha, well put. Your professor sounds like a real charmer
It's not that I don't see the point they're getting at. I do. I just don't personally feel comfortable going through the DSM and declaring which entries are "real diseases" and which "pathologizing social constructs," especially not when I consider how long and hard mental illness has fought for legitimacy. My Kierkegaard professor didn't seem to have any qualms about it, but, hey, I guess that's why he got paid the big bucks!