Cam R. 
"if more people with medical conditions were validated by doctors¹ or at least had a support group full of people in the same situation as them², they wouldn't need to seek things like dietary supplements or other temporary fixes regardless of how well they work compared to getting actual treatment"
Is that it? Have we really stooped to "only validation matters" as the only acceptable form of help?
Someone who feels heard but remains with many, many problems hasn't actually been helped with them. People seek alternatives because the solutions available to them often don't work for them or the situation may not be adequately managed with said available solutions, regardless of how validated they feel.
If we accept that only validation matters as a form of help, we risk telling people who expect better or anything remotely more meaningful to just be grateful they even have validation in the first place.
If a doctor just so happens to recognize that someone's assigned condition has turned out to be a misdiagnosis for a more severe or benign condition while offering either: heavy-handed treatments full of medication and invasive therapies without consent, or, overly conservative treatment that feels like no treatment at all (or even literally no treatment at all), that's basically inadequate treatment on the hollow premise that "only validation matters" and nothing else. It's a hollow gesture.
People try things with weak evidence because the alternative is suffering at the hands of incompetence or false premises, whether systemic or individual (as in the doctors and other people involved in the healthcare system, not the people in need themselves).
We're basically excusing inaction by making it so that emotional (at best) or practical (at worst) validation becomes an acceptable endpoint, even as conditions become more severe and treatment-resistant over time without adequate help. In other words, it's saying that we must put up with accepting only validation and nothing more. And needing more becomes a "burden" to others "only trying to help".
All this mentality does is ironically reinforce the worst stereotypes about people with physical and mental illnesses.
#Health #Healthcare #MentalHealth #PhysicalHealth #Validation
¹doctors who just so happen to recognize the actual reality of a patient's lived experience for practical/insurance reasons
²random people who may be in the same situation as them, but also have wildly different ideas as to what works and what doesn't, which may cause some conflict and incompatibility
(note: this is not to say that validation is completely worthless but rather, ideally, we should have validation plus meaningful help, not one without the other)
freekmurze
printf("%s", name);
Habr
Kent Huff
Jens Oliver Meiert
Mbingu
This Grandpa Blogs