Bungacast /524/ You've Been Diagnosed with Subjective Problems ft. Amber Trotter
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Dec 1, 2025 Amber Trotter, a practicing psychologist and editor at Damage magazine, teams up with George Hoare, an editor and Gramsci co-author, to explore the crisis of authority and the phenomenon of over-medicalization. They discuss the rise in mental health diagnoses, linking it to societal changes and parenting styles. The duo questions whether capitalism contributes to mental distress, emphasizing the need for authority in navigating subjective issues. Their insights reveal a complex interplay between personal experience and systemic challenges in understanding mental health.
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Authority Is Learned In Childhood
- Psychoanalysis frames how we internalize authority from caregivers into adult life.
- Amber argues this developmental authority shapes how people relate to experts and politics.
Three Causes Of Rising Diagnoses
- Rising diagnosis rates can reflect better detection, reduced stigma, or shifting interpretation of distress as illness.
- George and Amber stress the three-fold explanation, and that all three likely play a role.
Patients Seek Validation, Not Just Expertise
- Diagnosis seeking often mixes subjective self-authority with scientific language without deferring to experts.
- Patients commonly arrive seeking validation for a self-held diagnosis rather than asking clinicians to define them.
