Commentary.. Take up Extreme Sports… instead of visiting the shrink or Doctor.. That’s our take on it!
Stop ‘medicalizing’ bad behavior
By Claude Lewis
It may be hard to recall, but once there was a time when people took responsibility for their behavior, without recourse to the psychiatric and psychological communities.
It wasn’t even all that long ago. There was a day when drug addiction, alcoholism and other pathologies were seen for what they were: human failures by individuals who had lost control of their lives. Today, however, is the day of Too Much Medicine.
Today, all sorts of bad behavior is being reclassified - as one disease or another. The latest is something doctors are referring to as “intermittent explosive disorder” (IED). They’re tying it to road rage, which erupts when one driver cuts off another and the battle begins.
A new study by researchers from Harvard and the University of Chicago informs us that as many as 16 million people - mostly men - suffer from IED.
Road rage is famously common. Sometimes the result is tragic; sometimes the rager dies, the rage-ee, or both. And innocent bystanders and passersby have been hurt or killed. Some ragers carry guns in the car and threaten drivers for only minor infractions.
No doubt, this stuff is destructive and dangerous. And perhaps this new classification is true to the medical and scientific facts. But it shouldn’t change this fact: If you give in to anger and hurt someone, you should be liable to punishment. Yes, even if you’re a little less able to “help it” than someone else is. We should not let this study, and others like it, lend legitimacy to behavior that is more legitimately considered as… well, bad. And we should resist the trend toward “medicalizing” every human condition and behavior.
A recent issue of the British Medical Journal is dedicated to “medicalization.” Contributors looked at the pros and cons of screening for disease-related genes, direct-to-consumer drug advertising, and what some see as the modern-day phenomenon of treating everyday problems - from balding heads to undistinguished performance in the bedroom - as medical conditions in need of treatment.
Behind some studies, it’s been suggested, is marketing - specifically, the need to find profitable markets for new drugs that take years and billions of dollars to develop. Barbara Mintzes, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, insists that advertisers and public-health experts often have different views on what ailments need “awareness raising.”
The risk is this: The more things we label disease, the less we label as transgression. If you think of your problem as a “disease,” to be treated like a disease, that lets you off the obligation to change that behavior.
Viagra is a great example of all these currents. Back in 1998, it quickly became the world’s most popular prescription drug. While those experiencing erectile dysfunction and their partners appreciate the little blue pill, too much medicine may actually lead people to ignore the relationship dynamics and other factors that go into sexual behavior and performance.
I long for the days when a problem was faced head-on and solutions were found not necessarily by doctors, but rather by those experiencing the difficulties. No question, some problems can be resolved only by the medical community. But, just as undoubtedly, sometimes medicine treats as diseases states in which we might say, “Sufferer, heal thyself!”
Why study every problem to death and then create a new medicine to “fix” it? One cure for road rage, our new “disease,” is quite simple: Suspend the errant driver’s license for two, five or 10 years. If that doesn’t cure the road-rager, sentence him or her to a lifetime of public transportation. I think that would cure the “disease” quite nicely, thank you.
