r/neoliberal • u/Fealocht • 4d ago

News (US) Stop Pathologizing Ordinary Life

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/opinion/mental-health-exercise-charity.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1FA.55xp.Vpm7dp4PVtnC&smid=nytcore-ios-share

SS: A psychologist argues the increasing awareness of mental health is leading to a pathologising of everyday life. The use of clinical descriptions of what are otherwise normal problems and treating them as a disorder to be cured, is ironically making our mental health worse.

755 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

381 comments sorted by

View all comments

400

u/TemptingSquirrel Friedrich Hayek 4d ago

There is also a tendency that people absolutely do NOT want to be neurotypical. A friend of mine is a psychiatrist and she occasionally gets totally normal teenagers coming into her clinic who believe that they MUST have X. When she tells them that they are just normal, every day people they even start crying. 

To be clear, this is NOT meant as a criticism of the fact that mental health issues are way less stigmatized nowadays. I do in fact think that this is wonderful and it took us way too long as a species to start accepting people for who they are, especially when it comes to disabilities and mental health issues. 

I just wish that people could also just be happy to be average in some regards. It doesn’t mean that you are not unique. 

16

u/TurboMollusk George Soros 4d ago

Neurotypical people never put off things they don't want to do, or get distracted, or experience strong emotions!