17 COMMENTS

  1. “Schizophrenia has a more benign course and outcome in the developing world…. They had fewer symptoms, took less medication, and were more likely to be employed and married…. For one thing, families are far more involved in the ill person’s care in India. They come to all the appointments, manage the medications, and allow the patients to live with them indefinitely.”

    That paragraph seems to say that they take less “medication” because they aren’t as sick and they aren’t as sick because they have family who come to all of their appointments and “manage the medication.”

    Whitaker is really the only expert on this topic. I shouldn’t have thought for a moment that I could have read something from someone else that could have been even remotely accurate.

    Report comment

      • No, I would not consider either of them to be qualified in doing, for instance, a TV interview educating the public on the history of schizophrenia and it’s outcomes. Nor would I consider them qualified to educate people on the history of psychiatry in America, or the history of psychopharmacology.

        Breggin’s expertise is in the downside of psychiatric drugs and their link to violence. The most that I know of Grace Jackson is that she has some background in understanding the brain damage caused by neuroleptic drugs but is probably even less qualified than Breggin in that regard. Whitaker is probably even more qualified than Breggin in that regard. I read a PFD from psychrights.org that was written by her concerning brain damage caused by neuroleptics, it was much less than what Whitaker has covered on the same topic.

        I honestly don’t think that there could be anybody more qualified than Whitaker. Whitaker’s entire expertise is based on all of their knowledge and then some.

        Report comment

          • I know that I had read most of his books before I read Mad in America, and then I had read them all before I read Anatomy of An Epidemic. In both cases I learned more about the drugs from Whitaker’s books than from Breggin. In fact, for a history of psychiatric drugs, Elliot Valenstein’s Blaming The Brain trumps anything that Breggin has published, but AOAE still trumps both.

            When you finish reading a book by Breggin you really only learn one thing: That Breggin hates psychiatric drugs and can say bad things about them while pointing at studies without ever going in-depth and explaining them. When you learn about psych drugs from Whitaker, you can actually learn how these drugs came about, why they were first used, what they were first used for, how their use was transformed and why, what scientists were saying about the drugs throughout this time as well as how they work and how what makes them harmful.

            Breggin skips all of that and the reason why neither academics or the general public has never taken his seriously is because for one he sounds like he’s trying to indoctrinate people but mostly because he cant explain himself in any way that doesn’t just reiterate his views and research. He has no big picture explanation for how this is this or that is that. That’s the great thing that Whitaker has done. He’s pieced his work together from a bigger picture perspective.

            Report comment

          • Duane,

            I’m glad you speak up for the noble Dr. Breggin who was the first one in the early 90’s to expose the dangerous fraud of biopsychiatry. He warned in TOXIC PSYCHIATRY that the most dangerous thing one could do is visit a psychiatrist with the new DSM stigma and drugging paradigm. How much clearer and honest can you get? I bet many visiting and writing on this web site wish they had learned about and/or heeded this very wise warning. I would add that biopsychiatrists should also put a sign up that says, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” to let would be permanent patients know they are entering permanent hell!

            It never ceases to amaze me that whenever I go to much older web sites about biopsychiatry’s many crimes against humanity, Dr. Breggin has been right there with very detailed, scientific articles exposing not only the lies and fraud, but also the huge harm to the so called “patients.”

            I beg to differ with anyone who claims that Dr. Breggin is not qualified when he is as and far more qualified than any other expert on the subject including the more technical and scientific details that need to be addressed since he has been studying and exposing them from DAY 1!!

            I really am very tired of the Dr. Breggin bashing when all survivors owe him so much since he was the ONLY one speaking out when this evil, diabolical, predatory, rights violating biopsychiatry mental death agenda was created. The only reason we have this horrific fascist mental death paradigm is because psychiatry wanted to achieve more medical status as Freudian analysis waned so they sold out to BIG PHARMA and reinvented their former eugenics agenda from the World War II German Holocaust with every vulnerable human their target as Dr. Breggin also exposes in some excellent articles.

            Those bashing Dr. Breggin obviously have not read all his many books and articles, web sites/articles nor do they recognize the countless times he appeared before Congress, in the media and anywhere necessary to fight the latest atrocities of the psychiatry/BIG PHARMA/ECT/FDA/government pathocracy.

            I am deeply offended by such ignorant, ungrateful bashing of Dr. Breggin and would ask such bashers to ask themselves what they think they are accomplishing by bashing one of the greatest friends to all psychiatric survivors by putting himself on the line alone and unsupported at great personal cost from the very start of this psychiatric/BIG PHARMA/government industrial complex.

            Many experts who joined the survivor movement at a later stage continue to quote Dr. Breggin extensively and in the earlier days of the movement he was often just about the only psychiatrist to be quoted and his expertise was and remains equally valid then and now.

            I realize that Dr. Breggin may have his own human weaknesses, but he has been a fierce opponent of the immense harm done by the bogus medical model of biopsychiatry and we can always count on him to expose the latest fraud claims about ECT, toxic psych drugs and other psychiatric crimes against humanity.

            So, Duane, I agree that such critics are totally uninformed about Dr. Breggin.

            Report comment

        • Jeffrey C I totally agree with you. I have read so many different things, but I have NEVER ever come across anyone with the depth and breadth of knowledge that Whitaker has.

          I also have a problem with how Breggin practises. He refuses to see anyone for less than $500 per hour and you either pay or go without. He will not even refer anyone to anything else. His books will tell you how bad the drugs are, they do not suggest ways of trying to get off them. I personally know of people who have died from the drugs 6 months after contacting Breggin, as he told them where to go, as they did not have the money. If he is serious about spreading his message he would be doing so in some other ways, then ones which will simply line his own pocket. He could for instance say, I will see one or two patients at a time for lower fees. He can make a living from the rest of them and still asssist some of those that need help and can’t afford it. There are many things that can be done, but he does not do them.

          I also do not see Breggin going out and trying to find out other ways of doing things. He has his one pet therapy, but is not willing to consdider what if this does not work for someone. Nothing works for everyone. The more alterantives that can be bought into place he better we are able to meet people’s needs.

          Report comment

          • I have to reply here because of lack of a button.

            I agree with Duane in that Dr. Breggin jointly wrote the book, YOUR DRUG MAY BE YOUR PROBLEM, long ago urging people to consider the huge harm of all available psych drugs at the time and giving advice on why and how to come off them. The book is in its second edition. This, TOXIC PSYCHIATRY and others by Dr. Breggin helped me save loved ones from being destroyed by the mental death profession. Dr. Breggin just wrote a new book, COMING OFF PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS, listed on this web site.

            Dr. Breggin has given tons of time to fight on behalf of victims of biopsychiatry as I said in another post by speaking to Congress and other agencies constantly, writing tons of articles to warn people about the latest dangerous agendas like the recent revival of ECT and the usual lies about its so called safety and efficacy, serving as an expert witness in history making lawsuits on behalf of victims of ECT, lobotomy and dangerous psych drugs like antipsychotics causing such bad tardive dyskinesia, a woman had to be confined to a wheel chair due to massive drug caused disability.

            I find it amazing he has much time to spend on counseling people. His book, RECLAIMING OUR CHILDREN, after the Columbine tragedy exposed how adults in collusion with the mental death profession had been scapegoating and blaming children for all social, education, family and other problems when children are the least powerful members of society. He also fought and exposed a bogus government violence initiative that targeted black children initiated by a powerful psychiatrist who turned out to be a paid shill of BIG PHARMA that Dr. Breggin wrote about in his book, THE WAR AGAINST CHILDREN OF COLOR. He’s also written books about antidepressants, Ritalin and other topics to expose their many dangers as well as books about psychiatry’s “brain disabling treatments.”

            Again, I agree with Duane that Dr. Breggin’s harsh critics are not aware of the big picture of the huge contribution Dr. Breggin made to the psychiatric survivor movement.

            Report comment

      • Hi Duane,

        Thanks for the links. I’ve seen many of Dr. Breggin’s web sites and recent articles, and I subscribe to his empathic therapy newsletter.

        But, I don’t recall seeing this specific web site on empathic therapy, so I appreciate the link so I can read this one too.

        I agree that Dr. Breggin has made one of the greatest if not the greatest contributions to psychiatric survivors and those including many children who would have been trapped into this evil web of deceit that were saved from it thanks to Dr. Breggin’s taking the time and risk to write books like TOXIC PSYCHIATRY and many others when it was most risky that others who followed him have built upon.

        I checked out your web site again too and like the new design and think the information is great as I told you in the past.

        I also like your way of dealing with alcohol that you explained. That’s how I deal with my former smoking habit. I’m hoping it will work on ice cream too eventually! HA HA Mostly, I succeed in abstaining, but….

        It’s nice to have somebody here who remembers and understands Dr. Breggin’s many personal sacrifices and hard efforts on behalf of all of humanity increasingly oppressed by the biopsychiatry mental death profession professing nothing but lies even admitted by Dr. Thomas Insel, head of the NIMH on this blog. Like Dr. Thomas Szasz, Dr. Loren Mosher and many other heroes, Dr. Breggin has been more than validated while many of his detractors have been shown as dishonest, corrupt, greedy traitors who used their bogus medical status to prey on humanity to do as much harm as possible in the guise of medicine/”mental health” while selling out their so called patients to BIG PHARMA and corrupt government hacks.

        I have prayed for the time that the mental death profession would be exposed and thanks to MIA posting the NIMH article among many others, it is all the more clear that the “emperor isn’t wearing any clothes” as people like you and me have known for decades thanks to Dr. Breggin and many other brave heroes.

        Thanks for your usual support and understanding. I like your new picture here too.

        Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY