CMV: Psychiatry is a fundamentally value driven application of psychology and cannot be applied cross-culturally

I believe that psychology as the descriptive study of the mind is not inherently value driven and regardless of any actual problems in the research methodologies it is studying something not dependent on values. Psychiatry on the other hand is value dependent because it is an application of descriptive knowledge of the mind to fixing what is perceived as a problem with the mind. This is not a bad thing as several legitimate disciplines such as medicine and engineering are also value driven but the difference is that medicine and engineering have very widely accepted standards for their goals whereas psychiatry does not. For this reason there should be completely different psychiatries for each culture or philosophical position that would mandate different approaches and thus there should be accreditation institutions for all of these different psychiatries as opposed to having a single one that enforces the values of the leadership onto everyone.

EDIT: a practical example of this is homosexuality which is strongly condemned in some cultures and seen as highly permissible and perhaps admirable in others.

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