Mental health social workers - reverting or colluding with 'psychiatry without context'?

Abstract

Unlike other medical specialities, in psychiatry, diagnosing is primarily by symptoms. To differentiate between normality and abnormality, thorough understanding of the context is important. For example, sadness is common, and in most cases, it is a normal reaction to challenging predicaments. Without sufficient consideration for the contextual factors, making diagnoses mechanically relying on symptoms checklist leads to over-diagnosis. “Psychiatry without context” has been a worrying trend over the past few decades. Over medicalization and commercialization are common. DSM-4 has been widely criticized to be overly loose in some diagnoses, such as ADHD and depression. Disappointingly, DSM-5, released in 2013, turned out to be more a regression than an advancement. The talk briefly reviews the history mental health social workers and their unique roles in a multidisciplinary mental health team. It discusses why mental health social workers are the best-positioned profession to revert the trend of “psychiatry without process”. Recommendations are made for realizing such difficult goal.