this utterly destructive approach ignores completely the real significance of the mental pain, discomfiture or aberration in the first place, except superficially in so far as it impacts on one's role in society or some predefined role. Yet what if conformity to that society or that predefined role is the very root of the problem? Then if one is to continue functioning as before the best that can be hoped for is some kind of dehumanising, chemical management of the symptoms, which is what psychiatrists all too often prescribe, and which more or less degrades a human being to the level of a machine; a cog in the wheel. That is the psychiatrist's chief function in our society - to expedite our conformity to the established order or status quo regardless of our actual needs as an integral human being.
This is such a poignant observation.