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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 6168042" data-attributes="member: 7808">Fantasy tropes have little to do with it.  Here's basically the same rant in relation to US history (warning: some colorful language is possible):[video=youtube;hSp8IyaKCs0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0[/video]The discussion is also not new.  You're bringing it up in 2013.  The rant above is from 1990.  But parallel arguments are made in the film Haxan from 1922 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4xan" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Häxan</a>) Interestingly, that film presents the concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria" target="_blank">Female Hysteria </a> as a "modern" concept.  And frankly, "hysteria" was a progressive word at the time, and much better than the terms that preceded it (i.e. witchcraft and demonic possession).The bottom line is that our understanding of mental issues is changing constantly over time.  Hopefully, it's generally changing for the better.  And as our understanding changes, we constantly find new words to describe it.  Even if the new words aren't better, they're chosen to be different.  You always need new words to differentiate the new theory from the old.Also, at every point along the way people will focus on single words.  People want a simple way to describe something.  They want to quickly summarize and classify it.  They need a catchphrase to remember it, a keyword to goggle it, and a hot word to rant against.  And as long as the processes aren't distilled as many issues are cast under the umbrella of a single term, it's not a problem.  The important thing is the actual treatment.So don't focus on the word "healing".  Focus on the methods that are being used.  As long as those treatments are better than what was being used a generation before, we're making progress.</blockquote>

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