Older article (2012), but still very relevant and valid.
In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.
Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians.
Psychologist Russell Barkley, one of mainstream mental health’s leading authorities on ADHD, says that those afflicted with ADHD have deficits in what he calls “rule-governed behavior,” as they are less responsive to rules of established authorities and less sensitive to positive or negative consequences. ODD young people, according to mainstream mental health authorities, also have these so-called deficits in rule-governed behavior, and so it is extremely common for young people to have a “dual diagnosis” of AHDH and ODD.
Do we really want to diagnose and medicate everyone with “deficits in rule-governed behavior”?
It seems like a pretty good survival strategy for a species to routinely produce a number of different sorts of constituent organisms in order to have the tools ready to be more adaptable to varying circumstances. Considering how much humans specialize their routine behaviors and the way in which we work together both consciously and through larger interconnected systems, it isn’t surprising to see a variety of strategies to process information, make decisions, and communicate with one another. Thinking outside the status quo creates opportunities that can independently either succeed or fail of their own applicability and ability to be executed. If everyone is looking for the same things, they’re likely to miss a lot. Even if many of those arrangements don’t produce the desired result, they can be a valuable exploration for new resources and strategies.
It seems an extremely dire mistake in these circumstances to label one particular mode of thought the ideal and reject all contradiction as dysfunctional or useless.
Well written!