When I was a psych major, we dealt with questions like these all the time. I think the author raises excellent points, but presents a rather limited view of the social pressure that people can exert. "We should blame and stigmatize people for conditions where blame and stigma are the most useful methods for curing or preventing the condition, and we should allow patients to seek treatment whenever it is available and effective." There are many conditions that are susceptible to influence by social pressure, but very rarely are blame and stigma the best means of exerting that influence. In most cases, I'd say they are downright harmful.

Take alcoholism. The most effective treatment today for alcoholism is AA. (there are many thing about aa that kind of creep me out, but it is a fact that it has the highest success rate of any course of treatment that has been studied). AA works almost entirely through social influence. But a key component of its social influence is talking about alcoholism as a disease, as something separate from an individual which can be done away with. Talking about alcoholism as a moral failing simply does not help. If you are morally bankrupt, what are the odds of your morally bankrupt self digging your way out of that hole? If you have a disease, though, maybe you can find a cure.

Similarly, as a child, people yelling at me that I was a lazy bum just didn't help. My primary reaction was resentment, not shame. Though I had shame, too. Its just not so easy to motivate oneself when feeling like a shameful failure. When I started thing of laziness as a behavior that I happened to have, rather than something that was intrinsic to myself, (i.e., I am being lazy right now, what can I do about it, as opposed to I am lazy), I started being able to have more control over it. Not perfect control, of course, but much more than I had.