Friday’s Forbidden Question: What If Nothing Is ‘Wrong’ With Us?

Dr. Peninah Wood Ph.D

4d • Health & Wellness

When Did Being Human Become a Diagnosis?

Something strange has happened in our lifetime.

Not suddenly, but slowly, quietly, so quietly that most people didn’t notice it happening.

We used to talk about:

sadness
fear
anger
temptation
struggle
bad choices
harmful actions
responsibility

Now we talk about:

disorders
syndromes
chemical imbalances
impulse-control issues
trauma responses
neurological deficits

And the shift didn’t stop with emotions or personality. It spread into childhood, aging, relationships, and even crime. What used to be understood as human behavior, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes tragic, is now increasingly interpreted as medical behavior.

That’s the story we’re living inside, often without realizing it.

There’s a belief that every harmful action or human behavior must have a clinical explanation.

If someone is active, stressed, scared, sad, or lies, steals, manipulates, or hurts others, we search for:

a diagnosis
a disorder
a trauma history
a neurological cause

But this raises a question that makes people uncomfortable:

What if some people do wrong not because they’re sick, but because they choose to?

What if people are active, stressed, scared, sad just because they are human?

This isn’t a popular idea in an age that wants every problem to have a treatment plan. But it’s a necessary one, because when we medicalize everything, we risk losing the ability to talk about responsibility, character, moral agency, and just being human.

Maybe the Real Question Isn’t What’s Wrong With Us, But What Changed Around Us?

When Did Being Human Become a Diagnosis?

Emotional life

Personality traits

Childhood behavior

Aging

Bodily sensations

Social and moral behavior

Crime

The history of when it changed

And even the money behind it

I will dive into all of this in this evening's class.