Don't tell the psychiatrist the truth (or any other shrink)

Lying to the psychiatrist? Sanity as resistance to the system

The psychiatrist doesn't ask whether your life makes sense, only whether you can perform at work. Telling the truth — that the mortgage is a sentence, that getting up early for 40 years is meaningless — guarantees you a label and, most likely, a drug. Institutional psychiatry, according to the analysis that emerges from those who have suffered it, does not seek your liberation but your normalization: making you functional for the machine.

Normalization as the hidden goal

Most professionals believe they are helping, but the system they operate in is designed to label and medicate. Anyone who confesses their dissatisfaction with work or life gets a diagnosis of anxiety or depression, and with it, the prescription to endure the hamster wheel. The goal is not for you to wake up, but to keep rowing without asking questions. One strand of criticism holds that psychiatry is an arm of social control, where 'mental health' equals adaptation to the status quo.

The faking strategy: benefits at the system's expense

Faced with co-optation, some choose the opposite tactic: faking severe symptoms to obtain a disability pension. They tell how saying you 'hear voices' or 'want to jump out the window' can open the door to a small payout. It is not an ethical stance but one of survival: if the system is going to label you anyway, at least let it pay you. The debate exposes the cynicism of both sides: the psychiatry that pathologizes social distress and the user who exploits the label.

Are there professionals who actually heal?

Not everything is bleak. A minority of professionals — perhaps 5%, according to a recurring analysis — are genuinely helpful. They don't interpret or judge; they create the conditions for what hurts to emerge. But finding them is the exception. Most, it is said, prolong treatments for financial gain or apply outdated theories without listening.

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The question the debate leaves open is not whether to lie to the psychiatrist, but whether the current mental health system is designed to heal or to manage. As long as the answer is 'manage', honesty may, paradoxically, be the greatest risk.

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