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From now on you better be careful not to question authority too much. Don’t express a negative attitude even when faced with absurd rules and regulations. Don’t defy anyone above your pay scale even when you have the moral high ground. Never argue, and definitely don’t let anyone know you’re annoyed even when you have a right to be upset.

With the exception of neurologically-damaged persons, nobody is ever permanently stuck in any state of mind or emotion. To call someone “bad” because of a stage of development they are going through is a psychological crime.Michael Hoffman, Sober Buddha Counseling

If you do, you could be diagnosed with a new mental illness called “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD in the new Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V-TR). If you are a spontaneous, creative and non-conformist thinker, any psychotherapist, clinical psychologist or psychiatrist could diagnose you as disobedient, hostile and defiant.

The DSM is the bible for state-licensed clinicians who use diagnosis to apply for insurance compensation. No diagnosis, no insurance. No insurance; no therapy….and definitely no prescription drugs. If you’re getting therapy via insurance, you’re being diagnosed, and those diagnoses become a permanent part of your medical records. Do you want to be tattooed by some therapist who thinks you’re mentally-ill?

The whole thing is a pathetic way of trying to define and manage human behavior, which is a whole lot more fluid and complex than a list of labels. With the exception of neurologically-damaged persons, nobody is ever permanently stuck in any state of mind or emotion. To call someone “bad” because of a stage of development they are going through is a psychological crime. Clinicians would be better advised to study psychospiritual evolution and to make space for their patients’ rites of passage instead of relying on a book to make their professional decisions for them.

Fifty years ago, the DSM listed only 137 mental illnesses. The new edition has more than 500, and too many of them are treated with powerful psychoactive drugs. The rise in ADD, bipolar disorder, and depression in children has been largely because of the manual’s identifying certain behaviors as symptoms. Some states have laws that allow protective agencies to forcibly medicate, and even make it a punishable crime to withhold medication. This paints a chilling picture for those of us who are non-conformists.

Medicating people down onto numb normalcy seems to be acceptable today. Just ask yourself how Christ, Rosa Parks, Madame Curie or Martin Luther King would be diagnosed by the DSM today! And what would have happened to human culture if these great people were dumbed down?

Dangerous mental disorders that lead to physical and mental harm should be identified, but this mania for over-diagnosis should scare you. You’re already in trouble in most corporate and professional environments if you aren’t politically-correct. If you were in disagreement with the Russian government at one point, you were very likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to a gulag. History is full of stories about the gradual suppression of free thinking. Consider also the Knights Templar or the Puritan’s massacre of Wiccans. Labeling a free-thinker as crazy typifies the crazy and irrational position of repressive states.

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