John Adlam
@johnadlam.bsky.socialAny thoughts why articles such as this www.bacp.co.uk by @elliebroughton.bsky.social, which are very much to be applauded, nonetheless don't seem to tip the scales? Why isn't there critical mass behind the broad coalition of those who oppose discourses of personality pathology? /1...
The big issue: Time to dump the ‘dustbin diagnosis’?
Open article: Ellie Broughton asks whether a borderline personality disorder diagnosis prevents clients and especially women from getting the help they really need. Therapy Today, December 2024/Januar...
www.bacp.co.uk
... I ask not because I think that the strategy isn't right (Drop the Disorder, the Consensus Statement) or that the argument isn't overwhelmingly clear ('no longer a diagnosis of exclusion, etc), but rather because I begin to wonder if the tactics might be wrong... /2...
... one problem is that for every 'Therapy Today' article there are three 'Psychology Today' articles piling in with the re-stigmatisation and othering....another is that 'the ayes have it', in the sense that there's an establishment to be overthrown, rather than an open debate to be had... /3...
... and a further difficulty is that the present system of care (such as it is) relies on diagnosis to 'signpost' both treatment AND certain kinds of welfare benefits, and so an awful lot needs to change... /4...
...that all said, I have never met anyone who protested that there really was something wrong with their personality...and I've known too many people, directly or indirectly, who have died of the diagnosis...so if we must understand distress & psychosocial disability in terms of diagnosis... /5...
...then there are other diagnoses that could instead be mobilised, that would not jeopardise welfare support and would only take a relatively small amount of re-signposting for NHS therapies...so... /6...
...my main plea (for what it's worth) is that the coalition find a way to cohere around an agreed strategy and try to avoid what we might by analogy call the 'Democratic Party' problem of disagreeing with each other over tactics and leaving the field to the Trumps and Musks of the world... /7...
... meantime 1. could we focus on the very fundamentally wrong idea of personality 'pathology', rather than particular so-called 'personality disorders'? Personalities don't have illnesses! 2. could we please not use those two dread acronyms, which only serve to cover up the toxic attribution? 8/8
@jacquidillon.bsky.social @robyntimoclea.bsky.social @shrinkatlarge.bsky.social @jowatson-ad4e.bsky.social ...among hundreds of others of course...🥰