"it's in your head" diagnosis is when the medical establishment gives up and outsources the treatment to the patients themselves and that quite often does not end up well for the patient regardless of the true cause of the illness.
I really get the sentiment that if you look at people who are told "it's all in your head" and then they find some obscure condition that is treatable, it might be considered borderline malpractice for the physician to have told them that... but does the frequency with which patients are told that maybe give some insight into how many psychosomatic patients there really are out there?
I don't think so. I have literal objective tested allergies and people ask me if I think the symptoms (allergic rhinitis) are psychosomatic all the time. So many people I talk to have real symptoms and down play them as probably having some mental component.
I mean, we had actual doctors doing the "In your head" song and dance before my wife was diagnosed with RA for a good 3-4 months. There was visible swelling/blistering and she couldn't walk unassisted. This is an anecdote of course, but, this was a very obvious condition, and we got "in your head"ed.
Seems to me like that would be the number one offered advice when you get less than five minutes of time with a doctor under typical US doctor visits. Seems like a very convenient way to cycle patients through faster. The only downside is there's not really any scripts you can write which lowers your quota for which ever bigPharma the doctor has sold their soul
In my mind, that doesn't make the symptoms any less real to the person suffering from them and does absolutely nothing to remedy the situation. Even if it is in the person's head, any doctor offering that advice should be facing consequences for not offering a legitimate path for treatment.
I'm not a medical professional, but as a firmware engineer I do bristle a bit at the suggestion that "hardware" and "software" problems can be so cleanly separated.
My apologies if my comment sounded insensitive towards people who have real physical ailments, but there are cases where psychology may play a role and I firmly believe the medical system should take responsibility for those cases rather than shrugging them off and leaving the patient to figure it out on their own. First and foremost, they are leaving the patient suffering. Then there are other factors to consider, ranging from patients seeking out ineffective and unproven treatments for something that may not have a physiological basis to something having a physiological basis not being diagnosed because it was dismissed as having a psychological basis.
it's in my head but guess what? that's where I live! I didn't think my way into this particular problem and I can't think my way out this particular problem and I need external help to get back to normal.
