The Fallacy of Modern Psychiatry: Treating Symptoms, Ignoring Causes

Human behavior is shaped by a complex interplay of life’s events, conditions, and circumstances. To truly understand a person’s actions and behaviors, one must ask: What was this person exposed to? What did they experience? These questions point to a profound truth: behavior cannot be separated from the environment in which it develops. From the safety of one’s surroundings to access to proper nutrition, sleep, and social stability, the circumstances of life have a lasting biochemical effect on the brain. These experiences are not merely coincidental with development, they actively shape it.

For example, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) research reveals that exposure to high levels of stress and trauma during developmental years impacts development of various areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. These areas of the brain impact how a person reacts to the world. Those with high ACE scores have brains physically different from those with low or no ACE scores. At the same time, people with high ACE scores are also more likely to do drug of all kinds—tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, opiates, mushrooms, etc., and of course a host of pharmaceutical drugs. They are also more likely to be depressed. They’re more likely to develop heart and lung diseases, cancers, and other health issues. They are more likely to struggle in finding and keeping gainful employment and to struggle with meaningful relationship and struggle with emotions.

The biological and environmental realities of a person’s life impact their brains and their behaviors and their actions. Those with common experiences define what behaviors and actions are common and ordinary, while deviation from these expectations is considered peculiar, undesirable, and sometimes pathological, even sometimes illegal.

To me, when a person’s natural state—naked—is deemed illegal, and people using nature’s medicine cabinet for medicinal purposes are labeled as criminals, it signals that our ideas of common decency have gone too far. The societal expectations and legal consequences tied to these judgments reflect a departure from humanity’s evolutionary roots. These conditions also conflict with the deeper, evolutionarily older parts of the brain, which developed in environments where nudity was unremarkable and certain psychoactive substances were used freely, without the rigid societal judgments and penalties of modern times.

Yet, it seems natural to us today, in a society shaped over a mere few hundred years, to assume we know better than nature itself. When we make aspects of nature illegal, we may be damaging humanity in ways we cannot fully grasp. Likewise, when we sever people from the natural rhythms and connections to their natural environment, we risk causing problems that remain beyond our understanding.

Yet, modern psychiatry operates as though behavior can be neatly categorized, diagnosed, and treated without this deeper understanding and consideration of the biological, social, environmental, circumstantial evidence and events that need to be understood unless they want to sell snake oil remedies. Psychiatric diagnoses, rooted in observable patterns of behavior, are often presented as authoritative conclusions.

Some patterns are those expected from people who share common experiences. But those patterns of behavior or actions displayed by the few who experienced unusual circumstances are identified as peculiar. But these patterns—seen as symptoms—are shaped by systems and constructs psychiatry rarely questions. This leads to a dangerous fallacy: psychiatrists trust the scientific apparatus of their profession, believing it produces reliable results, while ignoring the systemic and societal forces that render those results incomplete.

The issue is not merely that psychiatry fails to account for the whole person. It is that psychiatry treats people in an unnatural state as if they are natural subjects. Human beings evolved to live in harmony with nature, solving tangible problems like finding food, shelter, and community. But modern systems have displaced this natural existence, replacing it with an artificial need to survive in a monetary economy. This displacement affects every aspect of life, from how we work to how we perceive success and failure. A day’s labor isn’t rewarded with food to eat or clothes to wear, but instead with tokens. Somebody else spends their days producing food and clothing, while we pay others to live our lives so we can earn a living. Psychiatry studies people within this unnatural context, drawing conclusions as if it were studying natural phenomena.

To put it simply: psychiatry studies human behavior in a human-made world and applies natural science methods to reach conclusions about disorders and treatments. This is akin to trying to predict where water would naturally flow by observing how it moves through human-made pipes. The pipes, not nature, dictate the water’s behavior, making any conclusions about its natural course fundamentally flawed.

This infallibility of psychiatry—its inability to recognize the limits of its methods—is at the heart of its failure. Patterns of behavior that deviate from societal norms are labeled as disordered, and treatments are designed to suppress these symptoms. Yet, psychiatry rarely considers whether such deviations might be valid responses to an invalid world. By focusing on symptoms, psychiatry fails to address the systemic and societal forces that drive distress, perpetuating a cycle of misdiagnosis and mistreatment.

A Misplaced Focus on Symptoms

Consider the expectation that people should behave as though they were untouched by their unique and sometimes traumatic life experiences. This expectation is not rooted in nature but in societal constructs that prioritize conformity and productivity over individuality and healing. Psychiatry, rather than challenging these constructs, reinforces them. Diagnoses become labels, and labels justify interventions that address symptoms while leaving the underlying causes untouched.

For instance, a person who behaves differently may have been exposed to conditions and events that are anything but common. Their experiences are etched into the biochemical structures of their brain, influencing how they think, feel, and act. To expect such a person to conform to societal norms without understanding their unique life story is not just unrealistic—it is cruel.

When a person’s behavior is pathologized, they are treated as if they need to be fixed. But what if their behavior is not the problem? What if it is a natural response to an unnatural world? Psychiatry’s focus on symptoms blinds it to this possibility, leading to treatments that suppress rather than heal.

The Role of Systems and Constructs

Part of the problem is that psychiatry doesn’t operate above the fray. It’s deeply embedded in societal systems that prioritize profit, productivity, and conformity. These systems capitalize on human differences, sorting people into winners and losers, normal and abnormal, healthy and disordered. Psychiatry’s methods and conclusions are shaped by these systems, making it complicit in perpetuating the very problems it seeks to address.

Psychiatry thrives within a system that rewards it for treating symptoms rather than addressing root causes. To question the societal constructs that drive mental distress would be to challenge the very foundations of the profession’s authority and economic success.

If psychiatry is to truly help people, it needs to move beyond its current framework. Comprehensive understanding of a person’s life—including their biology, environment, and experiences—is essential. Without this knowledge, any diagnosis is merely an educated guess, and any treatment risks being misguided. I wonder if what this is was Jean-Paul Sartre was advocating for when offering existential psychoanalysis as an alternative to modern psychiatric approaches.

Psychiatry must also recognize and understand the systemic and societal forces that shape behavior. In this context, it needs to question the unnatural conditions of modern life and the expectations they impose on individuals. Only then can it begin to address the root causes of mental distress rather than merely managing its symptoms.

Ultimately, the goal should not be to label or fix people but to create a world where their natural responses to life’s challenges are met with compassion and support that can only arise from either a comprehensive understanding we don’t have yet, or from a position of learning about nature instead of diagnosing it. This means treating people as individuals with unique stories, not as problems to be solved. It means acknowledging that behavior is not just a matter of biology or psychology but of circumstance, experience, and environment.

In the end, psychiatry’s greatest failure is its refusal to recognize its own limitations. To truly help people, it must first admit that by peering through its quasi-scientific lens, it doesn’t yet understand them.