Epoch Times - The Wrong Approach to Mental Health

Jan. 21, 2026 - Epoch Times

02:02

The Wrong Approach to Mental Health | David Cohen

David Cohen critiques the overreliance on ruling out physical causes before diagnosing mental illness, citing infections, metabolic issues, or brain tumors as examples of conditions often prematurely dismissed. He highlights mental health’s reliance on subjective cues like eye contact and behavior, contrasting it with diseases like tuberculosis, which have objective tests. Frustrated by this approach, Cohen argues for prioritizing the patient’s symptoms first—then, if deeper analysis is needed, pursuing specialized psychological training (e.g., psychoanalysis, CBT) rather than defaulting to speculative physical explanations, suggesting systemic misdiagnosis stems from a flawed diagnostic hierarchy. [Automatically generated summary]
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Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo

Time	Text
Rule Out Physical Illness 00:02:00
	Recently, an official, a high official in Health and Human Services not so long ago asked me, what's the best way to treat mental illness?
	And I didn't, my answer is not relevant.
	It's what I should have answered.
	I didn't quite answer it exactly.
	I should have answered that the best way to treat mental illness is to first rule out medical physical illness.
	First rule out that the person does not have an infection, some kind of metabolic problem, an undiagnosed brain tumor.
	Rule out the physical that you say is really there, but you're never finding it.
	It's so odd that we're convinced it's medical.
	It's an illness like any other.
	It's a disease like any other disease.
	We have supposedly insurance parity for it.
	Everything is like it, except where is the physical trace?
	How come to diagnose it?
	You have to look me in the eyes and see what's not on my lips, in my heart.
	You have to have all these other theories, but to diagnose my tuberculosis, you don't even need to see me.
	You just need an x-ray of my lungs.
	What exactly is this disease that you don't even put your stethoscope on me?
	In fact, you don't even shake my hands anymore.
	You're just talking to me.
	What kind of disease is diagnosed this way and is like any other disease?
	It's obviously not like any other disease.
	So rule out any other disease first.
	Involve the medical in it this way.
	And then if you cannot find the cause, you can keep searching for it, but don't put 99% of your energy saying, well, we know what the cause is.
	It's physical.
	We just haven't found it yet.
	Enough is enough already.
	Why don't you focus on what is the exact problem the person is first bringing?
	And if you feel you need interpretation of that, well, then go get trained and become a psychoanalyst or a cognitive behaviorist or a humanist or a trauma specialist and dig into it.

Time

Text

Rule Out Physical Illness 00:02:00

Recently, an official, a high official in Health and Human Services not so long ago asked me, what's the best way to treat mental illness?

And I didn't, my answer is not relevant.

It's what I should have answered.

I didn't quite answer it exactly.

I should have answered that the best way to treat mental illness is to first rule out medical physical illness.

First rule out that the person does not have an infection, some kind of metabolic problem, an undiagnosed brain tumor.

Rule out the physical that you say is really there, but you're never finding it.

It's so odd that we're convinced it's medical.

It's an illness like any other.

It's a disease like any other disease.

We have supposedly insurance parity for it.

Everything is like it, except where is the physical trace?

How come to diagnose it?

You have to look me in the eyes and see what's not on my lips, in my heart.

You have to have all these other theories, but to diagnose my tuberculosis, you don't even need to see me.

You just need an x-ray of my lungs.

What exactly is this disease that you don't even put your stethoscope on me?

In fact, you don't even shake my hands anymore.

You're just talking to me.

What kind of disease is diagnosed this way and is like any other disease?

It's obviously not like any other disease.

So rule out any other disease first.

Involve the medical in it this way.

And then if you cannot find the cause, you can keep searching for it, but don't put 99% of your energy saying, well, we know what the cause is.

It's physical.

We just haven't found it yet.

Enough is enough already.

Why don't you focus on what is the exact problem the person is first bringing?

And if you feel you need interpretation of that, well, then go get trained and become a psychoanalyst or a cognitive behaviorist or a humanist or a trauma specialist and dig into it.