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’s just fundamentally not a disorder to dislike authority. It’s not a disorder to be upset about things that have happened to you, or to react strongly or emotionally to oppression. I find it so exhausting that in order to receive support and needed accommodations people are forced to basically label parts of their experiences as diseased or extraordinary and accept forever-stigmatization of them. It makes me fucking ill.
It’s not a mental disorder to simply be anti-authority, but it can be pathological. Not to take away from your point or anything, but I have a true story about a kid who went to college with my wife.
He was a real prat who didn’t like being told what to do, and he seemed to take perverse pleasure in antagonizing authority figures who couldn’t directly punish him and who he considered to be beneath him. For instance, he would frequently leave his messy plates out at the dining hall, because he knew there would be no consequences for him, and he wanted the staff to have to clean up after him.
Or this one time where the RA in the dorm was explaining how to choose a room for next year because everyone had to move out, he had a zippo lighter and was just throwing it up and catching it, and occasionally letting it fall to the ground and make a loud noise. He ignored instructions to stop doing that because it’s obnoxious, because the RA was an authority with no power, so was beneath him.
All in all, cowardly behavior, and while I’m not a psychiatrist, and I cannot diagnose him, it certainly sounds like ODD to me.
Anyway, this piece of shit’s name is Stephen Miller.
Has anyone here ever had an experience with authority which helped them, made them feel more confident or secure, or at least wasn’t a huge hassle for no reason at all?
Weirdly enough, despite all the jokes, memes, criticisms, etc. I can’t say I’ve had a terrible experience at the DMV yet.
here in sweden? yeah most of them, the key is that the authority is just… people with authority, they don’t use the position to be assholes
Hm I think lots of government orgs help with this ? They aren’t perfect, but I’m happy the FDA and similar exist, trying to keep food safe. They force companies to do certain things.
I know they aren’t perfect.
Do we really want to diagnose and medicate everyone with “deficits in rule-governed behavior”?
Yes.
Then all the plebians who go along don’t have to think, and they get to feel good about themselves while condemning the non-compliant.
A.k.a., 'It’s a feature, not a bug."
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!
Yes!!
