The Soviet system used psychiatry as a weapon by diagnosing political opponents as mentally ill in order to confine them as patients instead of trying them in court. Anyone who challenged the state such as dissidents, writers, would-be emigrants, religious believers, or human rights activists could be branded with fabricated disorders like sluggish schizophrenia. This turned normal political disagreement into supposed medical pathology and allowed the state to present dissent as insanity.
Once labeled in this way, people were placed in psychiatric hospitals where they could be held for long periods without legal protections. Harsh treatments were often used to break their resolve. The collaboration between state security organs and compliant psychiatrists created a system where political imprisonment was disguised as medical care, letting the Soviet regime suppress opposition while pretending it was addressing illness rather than silencing critics.
It’s a problem for a hierarchical society that requires continual compliance for next to no explanation, not a problem for the child. It’s not a medical condition internal to an individual, it’s a social illness external to them, and therefore has no place in a medical text.
That’s simply raising children. Yes, you should ideally explain as much as possible to children, but some things you simply can’t because they’re not mature enough to understand it, it could traumatize them or there’s simply no time.
I mean, imagine a child suddenly deciding to run into a busy road and you start explaining why they should stop instead of giving clear orders: “you know, those cars are moving very fast and…” * Splat *
And even if you to have the option to explain, if the child simply says “I don’t care” and ignores you, then how are you supposed to raise them? That’s specifically what this diagnosis is about.
It’s raising children in a hierarchical society that requires continual compliance for next to no explanation. Again, it’s not a problem internal to the child, and it’s not medical, it’s wrong to frame it as a medical condition.
Busy roads that leave no nuance between safety and instant death, no safe introductory margin for a child to explore and understand, are a product of a hierarchical society. The only reason we require unwavering compliance from our children that bleeds into labeling them with medical conditions if they do not comply is because we have built a society that is hostile to them.
To balk and protest at that state of affairs is not a disorder, it’s entirely healthy. It’s the state of affairs that is ill.