I saw this video about an old Carlin bit that I think is especially relevant today. It is essentially Carlin mocking how over time we soften language to try to not hurt feelings. He uses as one example how “shell shocked” went through many iterations and pretty changed after each war we had.
I bring this up because there is a comment on this video saying “shell shocked” changed not to soften it but because we just understand such psychological issues much better now. My answer to that is do we? Do we really understand these things better and treat them better now? What’s the evidence for that because as far as I know there is a massive mental health crisis going on.
I assert that while we might think we understand psychological issues so much better now that clearly we do not. I further assert that the medicines we have now in many cases do not help or make things worse.
There is a history to psychology that dates back to the 60’s if I recall correctly from a couple of documentaries I saw. They state that during that time period the entire psychiatric industry was under fire post a few studies that were done which showed that they helped very little if at all. But at the same time new medicines were coming out that showed some promise for mental illness. So that industry basically latched on to these treatments and aligned with the drug companies in a bid to save it’s credibility. And so in the following decades mental health care began to very heavily depend on big pharma and massive changes occurred like the closing of asylums.
I am sure some would disagree with that historical view of that industry and that is fine, but what you cannot disagree with is the results of it or the lack thereof.
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