title: Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones but Labels Scar My Soul.
abstract: Influenced by the followers of Descartes several centuries ago, philosophy, science and society took a turn in the road, one that has lead us astray. Mind was separated and cast away from its body, and so-called rationalism, reductionism and mechanism soon held sway over holism and humanism. Individuals were swept up, homogenized and subsumed under the provenance of arbitrarily created group norms for conduct. Those who did not follow were marginalized, or worse, demonized. Individuality, now being lost, inexorably would be replaced by all-encompassing clinical labels, that furthered the dehumanizing process begun and enforced so long ago. A new dialectic about the human circumstance based on humanism, empathy, understanding and respect, is proposed.
authors.affiliation: Director of Counseling & Psychotherapy Services-R Ridgwood and Oakland, New Jersey Faculty Member New Jersey Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Teaneck, New Jersey binsightfl1@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Burton Norman
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Seitler
mesh_terms: D006808:Humanism; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D064866:Mindfulness; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D011582:Psychological Theory; D057545:Social Stigma; D009626:Terminology as Topic
keywords: DSM; ICD; humanism; mechanistic; rationalistic; reductionistic