Is nonconformity and freethinking a mental illness? According to the newest addition of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), it certainly is. The manual identifies a new mental illness called “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD. Defined as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,” symptoms include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.
The DSM-IV is the manual used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental illnesses and, with each new edition, there are scores of new mental illnesses. Are we becoming sicker? Is it getting harder to be mentally healthy? Authors of the DSM-IV say that it’s because they’re better able to identify these illnesses today. Critics charge that it’s because they have too much time on their hands.
read more: http://theunboundedspirit.com/nonconformity-and-freethinking-now-considered-mental-illnesses/
Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Such a truth!
I went to a series of talks Krishnamurti gave in a beautiful wooded grove in Ojai California way back when, I love his teaching and philosophy, thanks for reminding me of it.
Really? I think free thinking is a very important part of our life. It helps in self realisation. I am not in favor of this.
The most free thinking have more often than not been ridiculed, attacked, and sometimes killed throughout his-story.
They have not only too much time on their hands, but their pockets get filled with every subscription of drugs they hand out. Lets examine why almost all the mass shootings that took place were under influence of mind altering drugs. The DSM or whatever they are called could have something real to do for once. I am getting tired of this "science".
For the sake of everyone please read this
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23847577
Mental illness is the result of a sick society. Not that of a sick person.
Am a little bit of a free thinker myself. On this day last year I woke up in the middle of the woods. Went to a park for water. Got my food from fruit trees. Then to the library as I enjoy learning and using the internet to freely learn and express. Then back to the woods to go to sleep. Does that make me sick with a mental illness?
@nkdk I believe I am that blue ball... :)
Insanity can never live among-st sanity that's impossible! The majority of whole world is insane, you have two options: conform or be looked at as a outcast and never be accepted by the insane world.
I shall never be fully accepted. I conform at times depending on other factors. I had managed to free myself so much that I lived in the woods a fair about of time. Although using some resources that make life easier for a good balance for myself.
But then last year I got Meningitis. And needing help from society to save my life I am back in the land of conformity. Not entirely a bad thing though. I still have more freedom than most people because of how much I have broken down many areas of conform with the sane and insane realms that I have discovered and separated to some degree when and where possible.