The Social and Political Function of Psychiatry

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In many ways if we look at the history of psychiatric confinement. The goal in most cases was not for the sake of the patient, right? And this is the part of Saus that I really, I really think is useful has been to label people who don't fit into society in a particular way as being pathological and then to confine that group of people and separate them from society. For example, you might ask, you know, we have noticed these states over time right many of that psychosis that you mentioned. Can we imagine a society where like people who were occasionally manic and psychotic would it be fun,. There would be a way for society outside of confining them to sort of

When psychiatrist Marco Ramos of Yale University prescribes antidepressants to patients in distress and they ask him how they work, Ramos admits: We don't really know. And too often, they don't work at all. Despite decades of brain research and billions of dollars spent, psychiatry has made little progress in understanding mental illness. Listen as Ramos explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts how the myth of the biological basis for mental illness began, why it stubbornly persists, and why honesty about what we know and don't know is the best policy.