I agree with a lot of what you say,
@arewenearlythereyet. I just wouldn't blame the doctors. Most are decent people who are doing their best to help their patients. They genuinely believe in "psychological" illnesses and their ability to treat them.
Once you've been on the other side though - like we have - you have seen the harm that this type of reasoning does. Then you really should know better, whether you're a doctor or not.
I do have a different view of medicine as a result of my experiences. Medical training emphasises absorbing matieral, not questioning or debating it. I would like to see more doctors taught to analyse primary research papers so they can make up their own minds what to believe and what not to believe - you just can't afford to outsource this to the researchers themselves because they all have their own agendas.
But I realise there's so much to learn in medicine, and its difficult to know where to squeeze that in.
Certainly, the conventional teachings about mind-body relations need to be overhauled. So many doctors really buy into that "power of the placebo" stuff. For some, its become a mantra. Its not till you analyse the actual evidence that you realise that this effect is largely a reporting artefact, not an actual real health benefit.
I would also like more training on when to say "I don't know". I just saw a documentary about the treatment of epilepsy throughout history. The explanations that flourished when there was a lack of understanding. And the harm that the treatments did. And each era feeling so confident that they had finally had nailed it.
No, they hadn't.
And similarly, medicine today thinks it has "nailed" everything. No you haven't. But now ,when you don't understand something, instead of making vague references to demons, you make vague references to the power of the mind. The psyche has become the new gap filler for what we don't understand. Equally vague, and equally unfalsifiable - perfect for the task!