Heal thyself
Thrilled to find the below article about Tōjisha-kenkyū (self research) in Japan. It is a formal anti-psychiatric approach that encapsulates the kind of psychotherapy I’ve been doing for the last 35 years, first in relationship to myself after a potentially-crippling inaccurate diagnosis and then with others after receiving my counseling degree 18 years ago. Bodymind Counseling is about learning to self regulate. I help patients help themselves through studying their own behavioral patterns and choosing to keep and use these patterns more effectively or by changing them to ones that actually work in their lives and relationships. You are not broken, but due to dysregulation, you may be hurting yourself and others. In most cases I’ve seen, while it will take will power and work to become responsible for your retraining yourself, you will not need detrimental side-effect-laden pharmaceuticals to do it. It’s your life and your choice.—MR
Tōjisha-kenkyu
by Satsuki Ayaya and Junko Kitanaka, Aeon, June 16, 2023
In psychiatry, only experts make diagnoses. They do this by referring to detailed lists of criteria in technical guides, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now in its fifth edition (DSM-5; 2013). With this manual in hand, a psychiatrist can determine whether a person is experiencing trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder), schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, autism spectrum disorder, narcolepsy, childhood-onset fluency disorder (previously called stuttering), selective mutism, rumination disorder, or any of the myriad other disorders in the DSM-5.
