Column on Psychiatry Derided as Demeaning

Daniel Akst’s column troubled me. Although it sounds as though he wrote it good-naturedly without intending to hurt anyone, I think he trivializes people’s suffering by characterizing some conditions as “run-of-the-mill neuroses.”

Panic disorders, agoraphobias that keep people house-bound for years, depressions of various sorts, are all “neuroses” and all cause a great deal of pain and disability. They aren’t really things that can be treated by “anybody who says he’s a therapist (and who can, therefore) hang up a shingle.”

Even people who don’t require more serious medical treatment and who “just” need someone to talk to may nevertheless need someone with the skill to help them and not to harm them. People like that who read your article may well feel foolish enough as a consequence not to seek help. People who are upset and distressed enough by their neuroses are not necessarily going to know that you don’t mean them when you write tongue-in-cheek.

DONALD A. SCHWARTZ, M.D.

Tustin