Comedians and Psychotic Traits: What was the Point…?

While I applaud the BBC’s efforts to share some information about comedians, traits and how they relate to medical diagnosis (psychiatric diagnosis are labels primarily driven by the field of medicine and not psychology), it is important to clarify one point so that the public is not misled.

Creating relationships between concepts and objects, regardless of how common or uncommon they might be, is a natural function of human and animal brains. A manic state is not needed for them to be unique and I feel that this mention was unnecessary and somewhat unfortunate. What such statements can do is play into stigmas and exasterbate this problem.

So everyone is aware, diagnosing psychological problems from the medical field (psychiatry) is limited. While the assessments might do well to categorize the present (not permanent) functioning of an individual it generally fails to take contextual factors into account.  If it did, the meetings with a psychiatrist would be longer that 10-15 minutes and they would utilize psychological theories.  Furthermore, the categories can easily cater to dominant belief systems and cause many problems. So it’s helpful to consider the point of sharing such observations.

For example, if anyone who identifies as theistic we’re to be compared with people who have a Delusional or Psychotic Disorder, what would be the point?  Would people enjoy that and benefit from it or would it serve to ostracize people?  So what are we really communicating here?

Just food for thought…or not, it’s up to you…