Medicalizing human behavior

Claude Lewis got it right in a column he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He began, “It may be hard to recall, but once there was a time when people took responsibility for their behavior, without recourse to the psychiatric and psychological communities.” He continued, “Today, all sorts of bad behavior is being reclassified—as one disease or another. The latest is something doctors are referring to as ‘intermittent explosive disorder’ (IED).”

Road rage! Medical researchers are trying to pin the blame on genetic disorders rather than holding perpetrators responsible for their thoughts and actions. It’s a disturbing trend.

We are thinking beings. We can decide to love one another. If a driver pulls out and cuts us short on the highway, we don’t have to get mad at them. We can forgive and proceed.

Pharmaceutical companies looking for another market to sell their drugs to would argue otherwise. They want us to believe that we don’t have control over the emotions, that we are mindless reactors to external material stimuli, and that we need a drug to control our actions.

The reasoning is wrong and misleading.

We are more than inert chemicals, senseless electrical impulses and mechanical movement. We are spiritual beings who reflect an intelligent and wise divine Mind.

Great spiritual thinkers and prophets gave us inspired directives to follow like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” because they knew we could obey these commands and make a better world.

Each of us needs to take responsibility for our thoughts and actions. Obedience to moral and spiritual code above indulgence of selfish want is a good place to start. Errant human behavior should not be medicalized, but spiritualized.

The closer we grow to God and the more faithful we live to divine Love, the better our behavior will be and the less road rage we’ll feel, if that is ever a temptation.