In Wright's words, “We aren't designed to stand on crowded subway platforms, or to live in suburbs next door to people we never talk to, or to get hired or fired, or to watch the evening news. This disjunction between the contexts of our design and of our lives is probably responsible for much psychopathology, as well as much suffering of a less dramatic sort.” Given that assertion, and the alarming rise of many mental health diagnoses (ADHD, bipolar, depression, anxiety, etc.), is psychology due for a re-examining of its goals and assumptions?
Generally, mental health diagnoses are treated with the implicit aim of returning the patient to a functioning role in society. However, if patients are medicated and/or counseled so that they can be released back into an unchanged system, is this a "successful" outcome? Does psychology as a discipline, and do individual psychologists, have an obligation to work to create a society more conducive to mental health, or is their obligation limited to helping the individuals cope with the challenges of modern industrial living?
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