[Will began researching the facts surrounding "psychiatric diagnosis" and came to the conclusion that] "...these labels are subjective and political and not based on any solid science. I was able to see through what had become an interpretive prison.

I was shocked to learn the extent of misinformation and manipulation that surrounds psychiatric diagnosis. It was eye-opening for me to discover that the acclaimed Ron Howard film "A Beautiful Mind" willfully misled viewers as to the role of psychiatric medication in John Nash's recovery. Nash did not, as the film claimed, benefit from the newer classes of drugs. Quite the opposite; Nash has stated that drugs risked destroying his creativity, and his recovery took place without them. By accepting myths and misinformation associated with diagnoses like schizophrenia, how many beautiful minds might not be as lucky as Nash? What would have happened to me if I hadn't questioned my diagnosis and the drugs I was told to take because of it?

Psychiatric diagnoses like schizophrenia always risk harming people, always risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, always deny people the right to define and understand themselves for themselves, always mislead people about the facts of what is truly known and not known about mental illness, always unfairly promote narrow drug treatments against holistic alternatives, and always impose an interpretation on based on subservience to power. Psychiatric diagnoses perpetuate a long legacy of mistreatment of the mentally ill, who should be embraced as humans deserving of full dignity, not labeled as broken and different.

I believe that our system of helping people in extreme states of consciousness and severe suffering can and should dispense with pseudo-scientific psychiatric diagnoses. I believe we can find ways to care for people without harming them.