When patients reject a mental health (mis)diagnosis for symptoms they know have physiological origins, it is *not* bc they are devaluing mental health.
Patients do this bc they know that it will lead to ineffective treatments & useless research. 1/5
Patients do this bc they know that it will lead to ineffective treatments & useless research. 1/5
There's a pernicious cycle: label a poorly understood illness as psychogenic ➡️ don't invest money in researching the physiological origins ➡️ claim the lack of evidence on physiological mechanism proves it's psychogenic ➡️ repeat
2/5
2/5
Bonus: if patients are not "rational" enough in their suffering as medical establishment offers them nothing ➡️ use this as further evidence that their symptoms can't have physiological origins 3/5 
The solution is not for doctors to just use more *sympathy* as they give a mental health diagnosis that overrides what patients are saying about their own bodies & experiences.
This is not about stigma. It's about trusting patients on what they are experiencing. 4/5
This is not about stigma. It's about trusting patients on what they are experiencing. 4/5
Question: have you seen any evidence offered for the recurring myth that patients reject psych diagnoses for physiological symptoms b/c they stigmatize mental illness? (Genuine question, I'm writing about this) 5/5
To clarify: Devine, Khullar, etc. claim that patients are rejecting psychogenic explanations bc they stigmatize mental illness. They do not offer any evidence for this & I'm asking what evidence they (or others making this arg) have/think they have?
https://twitter.com/math_rachel/status/1444057897235718148
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