You have been repeatedly advocating for what in my view is the rather arse-about-face position that because something might be seen as 'hard' to do or not so convenient because of circumstances, which largely comprise, as you acknowledge, very unhealthy societal norms, it is a problem, 'not healthy', a disorder. I think instead of concurring with and tacitly defending this kind of defeatist, status quo affirming, freedom denying, bigoted nonsense it would be better to applaud and support those people in their principled efforts to live a better life as they see it despite the difficulties and ideological opposition such efforts might incur.
Also the idea or implication that there might be some kind of hypocrisy involved in someone having criticisms of certain aspects of the psychological and psychiatric professions while still having use for and belief in other parts of western medicine is bizarre and disingenuous.
It's such a cliche but this type of attitude really does behave as if the whole imagined edifice of Established Orthodox Medical Science is some kind of jealous religion (which I suppose it can seem like, if you are angling for approval...) and you have to buy into the whole thing as defined by some posited authority at the total exclusion of all other modalities and points of view or you're just not doing it right.
Massrock, nothing you're accusing me of here bears any resemblance to anything I've actually said. FOR THE LAST TIME: I NEVER SAID THAT VEGANISM IS BAD, OR THAT IT IS A DISORDER. I said that SOME shrinks categorize it that way.
What in the hell is hard to understand about that? Are you some kind of idiot troll that likes to go into easy to read threads and just pretend that you're retarded?
For the record, veganism is not necessarily a healthier diet than lacto-ovo vegetarianism, or even a balanced carnivorous diet. It can be practiced healthily, of course and often is. I was a vegetarian myself for the vast majority of my life. I was simply explaining that norms do have something to do with how we decide what a "disorder" looks like, whether you like that or not is not particularly interesting to me--the fact that this is problematic is something that is widely recognized, discussed, and debated WITHIN the medical establishment. The goalposts are always shifting. I NEVER, not ONCE, stated that veganism should be outside of norms, or that veganism should be considered a disorder. I simply stated that some people, in the past, have listed it under a category with other eating disorders, and that this categorization has always been controversial within the medical profession. Jesus. H. Christ. Can you read?
Anyway, if you knew anything about eating disorders, you'd know that a very common mode for anorexics and bulimics is to hide behind an extreme diet (veganism, South Beach, whatever) that they consider "healthy" in order to mask their symptoms. You'd realize that it is in fact very difficult (not impossible) to avoid certain deficiencies as a vegan. I never said it's wrong to be a vegan. I never said the psychiatric profession as a whole says it's wrong to be a vegan. But re-explaining all of this, when I've already made it very clear what I personally think, is just tedious in the extreme.
And yes, there are abundant criticisms that can be leveled at the psychiatric and psychological professions, but none of them have been so much as briefly touched upon in this thread. Most of them are situated within a larger discussion of capitalism--i.e., it is cheaper for companies to continue to manufacture a drug that has been outmoded by research than it is for them to develop a new one, therefore new drug development, even when the technology improves, is often stalled. In fact, having worked in the industry, I could talk about how I would work to reform it all day. But all I've seen here are a bunch of knee jerk new ageisms with no substance masquerading as critique. "Average Americans don't have much faith in psychology", is not only a bogus claim (Americans visit psychologists, psychiatrists, and ingest psychiatric medications to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars per year), but a flailing, nonsensical stab in the dark at no one and nothing. Oh, except maybe a lame attempt to passive-aggressively get all defensive because someone mentioned a fact about a specialty without endorsing it or even tacitly agreeing with it.