Let's begin with a few common real-world scenarios.

And if you can visualize them, great.

If you can, just I think some of these might be familiar with you.

So a tech worker who works remotely, spends eight hours a day on Zoom calls, constantly interrupted by Slack and emails,

struggles with attention, and receives an ADHD diagnosis, and is told to start Aderol or atomoxygen.

A single parent without affordable health care, child care, works full-time, barely

makes the rent, struggles with anxiety, and is suggested to go to therapy.

A young queer person in a workplace where they're constantly misgendered, under-mentored, all of their ideas are not taking seriously, feels like a fraud at work, and they're told they have imposter syndrome.

A black woman is told she has anger issues and her job evaluations,

but no one notes the daily microaggressions, the unequal pay,

the lack of respect she faces, and she's told to go to a workshop on anger management, a talented artist

whose work only self sporadically lives in near poverty, experiences chronic stress,

and is suggested to try meditation.

So in all of these cases, you have actually legitimate psychological responses

to very, very difficult conditions,

but they're framed as individual failures, individual pathologies,

something that the individual has to be treated with,

medicated, and managed,

but it has to be managed alone.

So in our country, we tend to place the burden

of healing on the individual.

We tend to constantly, one, encourage all forms of diagnosis.

...