The March 3rd, 2016 edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article by past President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Jeffrey Lieberman and his colleague, computational neuroscientist Ogi Ogas. The article was entitled “Genetics and Mental Illness—Let’s Not Get Carried Away.”1 Lieberman is the author of over 550 papers and articles published in the scientific literature, and has written and/or edited 16 books on mental disorders and psychiatry, including at least two dealing specifically with schizophrenia.
In their piece, the authors started by expressing the belief that a recent study identified a gene that causes schizophrenia, and then discussed whether it is desirable or possible to remove allegedly pathological genes in the interest of creating a future “mentally perfect society.” Portions of their article were adapted from their 2015 book Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry.2
I would like to comment on several points raised in this article:
- Lieberman and Ogas (“the authors”) discussed what they termed the recent “groundbreaking discovery” that a variation of the “C4” gene “clearly contributes to the development of schizophrenia.” At the same time, they recognized that previous psychiatric gene discovery claims were followed by subsequent research teams “quashing the claims.” Many critics believe that the C4 gene claim will also be “quashed.” The authors provided no reason for critics to move from their justified default position of extreme skepticism of all such claims. (See Noel Hunter’s 2016 MIA review of the C4 study.)
- The authors wrote that “we may one day be able to edit out the C4 gene from an embryo’s DNA.” The C4 gene’s two functions are “shaping the brain’s neural circuits during maturation” (the alleged schizophrenia-relevant function), and “contributing to immune-system protection against infections and toxins.” Although the authors believed that the “extremely daunting” task of editing out the C4 gene is “fraught with ethical pitfalls,” it would seem to create a set of medical pitfalls as well.
- The authors promoted a strong genetic (biological) determinist perspective. Because genetically oriented researchers often object to being called “genetic determinists,” I will quote Lieberman and Ogas directly: “What determines if you are mentally healthy is not necessarily what types of genes are in your DNA but how many or few copies of the genes you have.” This unsupported position only carries weight because, in a widely read and respected publication, two apparently authoritative authors state it as fact.
- The authors’ use of the term “fool’s gold” to describe decades of previous false positive gene discovery claims is fitting. Psychiatric molecular genetic researchers are like gold prospectors who have been panning unsuccessfully for genes in the stream of psychiatric genetics for decades—a stream that I argue contains nothing but genetic “fool’s gold.” They keep looking, however, because they have been “fooled” by relying on authoritative authors who have consistently misinterpreted the results of previous family, twin, and adoption studies in favor of genetics.
- The authors wrote that psychiatry and psychiatric genetics arrived at a “turning point” in 2003 with the introduction of a new genetic technique called “ROMA,” which they claimed has shown that “healthy and mentally ill individuals” vary in the “number of copies of various brain related genes” they possess. But in fact no gene discovery “turning point” occurred in 2003. This is seen in an official 2013 APA “DSM-5 Task Force” press release, in which Task Force Chair David Kupfer admitted that “we’re still waiting” for the discovery of “biological and genetic markers” for psychiatric disorders, a long-standing “promise” that “remains disappointingly distant.”3
- The authors claimed that psychiatric genetic researcher Seymour Kety’s “data” produced a “genetic riddle,” that the MZ (identical) twin of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia is “50% likely to develop the illness—not the 100% expected.” Kety is famous for the Danish schizophrenia adoption studies he and his colleagues performed in the 1960s-1990s (which I and others have shown were massively flawed on several critical dimensions), but he never published a schizophrenia twin study, nor did he publish any original schizophrenia twin data. Still, Kety’s non-existent schizophrenia twin study would have “expected” MZ concordance in the 40% range, which is the rough average of the 10 studies published between 1928 and 1970 (pairwise non-age-corrected MZ concordance rates ranged from 15% to 69% during this period).4 So even finding 50% MZ twin concordance would not have produced any new “genetic riddles.”
- Again referring to “Kety’s data,” Lieberman and Ogas wrote that “if both your parents had schizophrenia, you were only 50% likely to develop the illness.” Here they refer to so-called “dual mating” studies of the offspring of two parents diagnosed with schizophrenia. These studies have their own set of problem areas, and the rates are actually lower than 50%.5 But Kety never performed a dual mating study. Moreover, when discussing his work in Shrinks, the authors incorrectly described the groups that Kety and colleagues compared to arrive at their conclusions.6 (Similarly incorrect group comparison descriptions were made in works such as the 1995 edition of Maxmen and Ward’s Essential Psychopathology and its Treatment, and by Matt Ridley in The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture.7) The authors also incorrectly wrote that Kety (and colleagues) “systematically tracked schizophrenia through tens of thousands of Danish families over many generations.” Such “tracking” was performed for a few hundred experimental (index) and control adoptees, and did not cover “many generations.” Lieberman and Ogas, like many previous textbook authors, seem unfamiliar with the original “evidence” that psychiatry ceaselessly puts forward as proof that its disorders are “highly heritable.”
- Lieberman and Ogas also repeated the common yet incorrect claim that, compared to the general population expectation, Kety found a 10-fold increase of “schizophrenia” among the family members of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Elevated rates claimed by Kety and colleagues were based on the after-the-fact expansion of the schizophrenia concept to include so-called “schizophrenia spectrum disorders.” David Rosenthal, Kety’s closest collaborator, stated that Kety and colleagues “broaden[ed] the concept of schizophrenic disorder as widely as it may have ever been reasonably conceived before.”8 Kety would not have found statistically significant results without this maneuver. The 1968 Kety-led study found zero cases of chronic schizophrenia among the 65 identified first-degree biological relatives of the index adoptees, and the 1971 Rosenthal-led study found that only 1 of the 76 adopted-away biological offspring of a parent diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder had received a hospital diagnosis of chronic schizophrenia. Had the researchers decided to count only these chronic cases—as schizophrenia was defined in Denmark—they would have been forced to conclude that schizophrenia has no genetic component. (For more on the Danish adoption studies, see my January 18th, 2016 MIA posting.)
- According to Lieberman and Ogas, “environmental factors likely play a role” in causing schizophrenia. But the role of environmental factors is not only likely; it is certain because MZ concordance rates are well below 100%. If genes were the only factor, MZ concordance would approach 100%.
- The authors wrote, “By 1960, nearly 60,000 Americans had been sterilized in a government-sanctioned effort to eradicate mental illness,” a practice they correctly viewed as “appalling.” This practice was supported not only by political leaders, but by leaders in science and psychiatry as well. The further post-World War II turn against eugenic theories and practices in the 1960s and 70s was due mainly to social struggle and social enlightenment on a massive scale, not because psychiatry was pushing for it.
- For example, in the 1938 edition of his Manual of Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene, American psychiatric investigator and twin researcher Aaron Rosanoff supported eugenics and forced sterilization. Although he recognized that “social and economic factors” are “of quite overwhelming importance” in producing “antisocial behavior,” be believed that in many cases, “permanent segregation and, possibly, sterilization will have to be arranged, for the double reason of protection of society and eugenic effect” (italics in original).9 Rosanoff supported eugenic measures and forced sterilization for other psychiatric conditions.10 Between 1944 and 1965, an annual eugenics- and forced sterilization-friendly “Review of Psychiatric Progress: Heredity and Eugenics” appeared in the American Journal of Psychiatry.11 Even Abraham Myerson, the most prominent psychiatrist critic of eugenic theories and practices during the interwar period, supported forced sterilization in certain cases.12
- In Germany, “Munich School” psychiatrists such as Ernst Rüdin, Hans Luxenburger, Bruno Schulz, and many others helped promote and carry out the Nazi regime’s 1933 sterilization law, which resulted in the forcible sterilization of roughly 400,000 Germans between 1934 and 1939, primarily on the basis of being labeled “feeble-minded” or “schizophrenic.” About 6,000 people died as a direct result of the surgical procedure.13 Tens of thousands of people were killed in the subsequent “euthanasia” program, which Rüdin was involved in.14 Lieberman and Ogas did not mention the complicity of Rüdin, German psychiatric genetics, or German psychiatry in their article, nor did they mention it in Shrinks.
- The authors closed with a neutral reference to “Galton’s dream” of achieving a “mentally perfect society.” The 19th century British statistician Francis Galton was the founder of the eugenics movement, and his “dream” was to use selective breeding to prevent what he saw as the future hereditary “degeneration” of the human race. However, eugenic theories and practices in psychiatry and psychology were (and are) based on an utterly false set of premises about genetics, the environment, psychiatric disorders and psychological characteristics, and human beings in general.15
- Lieberman and Ogas believe that genes are the main cause of mental disorders, which implies that there is little need to change political policies and social conditions to improve people’s psychological well-being. Many critics, on the other hand, argue that the causes of human psychological distress and dysfunction lie outside of the body, and this is where social and scientific attention must be focused.16 A really “groundbreaking” event would be the publication by the Wall Street Journal of an op-ed piece whose authors argue that social policy changes, which would include significantly reducing economic inequality, would significantly improve people’s psychological well-being, and would greatly reduce the prevalence of psychiatric disorders.
* * * * *
Footnotes:
- Lieberman, J., & Ogas, O., (2016, March 3rd), Genetics and Mental Illness—Let’s Not Get Carried Away, Wall Street Journal.
- Lieberman, J., & Ogas, O., (2015), Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry, New York, NY: Little Brown.
- American Psychiatric Association (2013, May 3rd), Chair of DSM-5 Task Force Discusses Future of Mental Health Research; Statement by David Kupfer, M.D., American Psychiatric Association [Press release].
- Joseph, J., (2013), “‘Schizophrenia’ and Heredity: Why the Emperor (Still) Has No Genes,” in J. Read & J. Dillon (Eds.), Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis (2nd ed.; pp. 72-89), London: Routledge.
- Joseph, J., (2006), The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes, New York: Algora, Chapter 7, pp., 125-127.
- In their book Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry, Lieberman and Ogas described Kety’s adoption study comparison groups and conclusions as follows:
“To settle the question of schizophrenia’s genetic basis, Kety started a new study. He identified individuals with schizophrenia who had been adopted at birth and examined the rates of schizophrenia among both adoptive and biological relatives. He found higher rates of schizophrenia in the biological relatives, but not in the adoptive families….These findings demonstrated that schizophrenia was at least partially due to one’s genetic endowment…”
This is an incorrect description of the groups that Kety and colleagues actually compared. In their major publications, these researchers based their conclusions on diagnostic comparisons between their index biological relative group versus their control biological relative group, not between their index biological versus index adoptive relatives.Key and colleagues wrote in 1976 that comparisons “between adoptive and biological relatives” are “inappropriate,” and Kety wrote in 1983 that conclusions drawn from “improper” comparisons between index biological versus index adoptive relatives are “fallacious.” In a yet another 1983 publication, Kety wrote,
“We anticipated that there would be differences between adoptive and biological relatives in age, socioeconomic status, life style, and other variables. For that reason we planned not to make comparisons between these two groups of relatives but, instead, as described fully in the original publications and outlined above, to compare each group with their respective controls in evaluating separately the significance of genetic or family- related environmental factors.”
See:
Kety, S. S., (1983), Mental Illness in the Biological and Adoptive Relatives of Schizophrenia Adoptees: Findings Relevant to Genetic and Environmental Factors in Etiology, American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 720-727, p. 721; Kety, S. S., (1983), Dr. Kety Responds [Letter to the Editor], American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 964.
Kety et al., (1976), Studies Based on a Total Sample of Adopted Individuals and their Relatives: Why They Were Necessary, What They Demonstrated and Failed to Demonstrate, Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2, 413-427, p. 420; 5 - Maxmen, J. S., & Ward, N. G., (1995), Essential Psychopathology and its Treatment (2nd ed., revised for DSM- IV), New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 70-71; Ridley, M., (2004), The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture [Originally published as Nature via Nurture], New York: Perennial, pp. 105-106. For more on textbooks’ misreporting of schizophrenia adoption research, see Joseph, 2006, Chapter 5.
- Rosenthal, D., (1975b), “The Spectrum Concept in Schizophrenic and Manic-Depressive Disorders,” in D. Freedman (Ed.), Biology of the Major Psychoses (pp. 19-25), New York: Raven Press, p. 19.
- Rosanoff, A. J., (1938), Manual of Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene (7th ed., rewritten and enlarged), New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 641-642.
- Rosanoff, 1938, pp. 759-761.
- For example, see Kallmann, F. J., (1952), Review of Psychiatric Progress 1951: Heredity and Eugenics, American Journal of Psychiatry, 108, 500-503.
- Myerson, A., (1925), The Inheritance of Mental Diseases, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, p. 320.
- Schneider, F., (2011), Psychiatry under National Socialism: Remembrance and Responsibility, European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 261, Supplement 2, S111-118.
- Joseph, J., & Wetzel, N., (2013), Ernst Rüdin: Hitler’s Racial Hygiene Mastermind, Journal of the History of Biology, 46, 1-30.
- Joseph, J., (2004), The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology under the Microscope, New York: Algora; Joseph, 2006; Joseph, J., (2015), The Trouble with Twin Studies: A Reassessment of Twin Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, New York: Routledge.
- Read, J., (2013a), “Childhood Adversity and Psychosis,” in J. Read & J. Dillon (Eds.), Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis (2nd ed.; pp. 249-275), London: Routledge; Read, J., (2013c), “Psychosis, Poverty, and Ethnicity,” in J. Read & J. Dillon (Eds.), Models of Madness (2nd ed.; pp. 191-209), London: Routledge.
I find people on both sides of these arguments ignore the other side, the beneficial side of schizophrenia. Schizophrenics are less susceptible to wound shock, virus diseases and cancer (unless they’re (or should I say we’re) on antipsychotic drugs, which raise prolactin levels, which are implicated in various cancers. We don’t age as fast- a histapenic acquaintance of mine is well over 70 and doesn’t have any gray hair, while a former co-worker of mine from over 20 years ago recently told me I look no different from then (and I’m 70). I see no reason to get euthanized unless you’re so terrified we’ll supersede you on a polluted planet, you contract the social malady of witch hunting, in which case, like inheriting a world of belligerent right-wing politicians, I might not mind being exterminated to avoid living in the reborn Middle Ages.
Report comment
Oops, I just saw a typo- an incorrect parenthesis- in the above text. I hope that doesn’t prove my genetic inferiority.
Report comment
It’s hard to understand what you are saying most of the time, but this is clearly a foolish comment. People labeled as schizophrenic die decades earlier, rarely work full-time or get married, have far higher levels of all sorts of physical illnesses, and generally lead miserable lives drugged up on antipsychotics. Being severely psychotic sucks and is something to become free from, not tout the benefits of.
Also, schizophrenia is just a label given to people, not an illness people have. The idea you have seems to be that there’s some fundamental difference between schizophrenics (not a great word to use) and other people. And that’s just bullshit.
Report comment
And if they buy into that way of thinking, chances are these will become self-fulfilling prophecies. I agree with bcharris, and so did Abram Hoffer. He observed that cancer amongst his schizophrenia patients and their close family members was virtually non-existent, that his patients were abnormally ‘healthy,’ they were highly resistant to the physical pain and the infections that the rest of us fall victim to. (I would add most people with ‘schizophrenia’ and smarter and more empathetic than the general population.) My relative is a prime example of what Doctor Hoffer observed. If it is true that people with a diagnosed mental illness die on average 25 years earlier than the general population, the likely reasons are the complications that arise from the overprescribing of antipsychotics, and the drugs to counter the side effects. Throw in smoking (self-medication) and general neglect and loneliness, and there’s a guaranteed prescription for premature death.
Report comment
Yes, I agree, I think it’s all a defense response to a toxic society. We each have our own network of defenses to combat the effects of social trauma, which is how I would read to be the significant role of our unique genetic structures. How we respond, and that varies quite a bit from person to person and certainly from culture to culture, is unfortunately harshly judged, which I think is a big problem here,
How we judge responses (and I will freely admit, it can be hard not to at times, we all have our triggers and biases), rather than simply respecting individual processes, neutrally and with curiosity, rather than with judgment– including, to great individual and social harm, trying to elicit shame in others for how they respond to toxic social dynamics–is what turns into labels with stigmatizing associations which leads to only bad treatment (in every respect) and a bottomless rabbit hole. The interactions between staff and clients speak for themselves, from my experience.
I believe social trauma and the effects thereof (post traumatic stress) is more widespread and epidemic than we allow ourselves to believe, in general Some people respond by becoming mentally confused and challenged to focus on point, some people become ungrounded and lose emotional stability, while some become physically ill. I do believe that often, one can preclude the other, as an expression of imbalance occurring. That would be where we hold the anxiety, we each do this according to our own process, which I do feel is partially dictated by our genetic make-up, although I do not believe that is at all fixed.
And some people’s lives become so catastrophic as the result of engaging trustingly with a toxic society that all sorts of illnesses and imbalance manifest on a physically perceived level.
Some defenses are merely more socially acceptable than others. The rest becomes the target of stigma, marginalization, and social ills in general.
So our dualistic other-ing society is, I think, based on which defenses are more vs. less tolerated, understood, and considered to be ‘normal’ (of the norm) as opposed to ‘natural’ (dictated by nature).
Whatever our genetic make-up, this is our nature. I also believe this to be flexible, and that it can change over time, as people learn more about that which they have not heretofore understood–that is, expanding awareness and deepening empathy for others, mostly by seeing ourselves in those whom we judge and stigmatize.
Hopefully, this becomes the trend, to achieve social healing, which, in turn, will benefit ALL individuals in society, not just a select few with the bucks, or “good genes,” or both…or whatever arbitrary standard used by the class which stands to benefit from the illusion–that is, those who resist change.
Report comment
As Harold Searles wrote, approximately “People with schizophrenia are not some hyper-enlightened variety of human being; they are indeed ill.”
If you have evidence that people labeled schizophrenic get cancer much less often than those not so labeled, let’s see it Rossa. If this is true there should be some online studies or abstracts you can link…
If you have evidence that most people labeled schizophrenic are smarter (and smarter in what way?) than the rest of us, let’s see that too. I think that is BS. I bet most people given that unfortunate label are more frequently uneducated and with a low IQ…. given how getting such a label correlates with being poor, uneducated, etc.
It may be true that people who are severely psychotic are more empathic and sensitive to some, not all things than are people who have not undergone such experiences.
Your relative, i.e. an anecdote, is not proof of anything.
Report comment
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Please tell me why we should listen to Harold Searle, and why he is considered an expert in these matters. Sounds like only his opinion to me.
Report comment
I had never heard of such a claim before so I googled and came across this: http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=481785
Report comment
Harold Searles is probably the most famous analytic therapist who ever worked with people labeled schizophrenic. He treated them for about 30 years at Chestnut Lodge in Maryland. His books Countertransference and Related Subjects and Schizophrenia and Related Subjects are some of the most insightful and human understandings of “schizophrenia” out there.
In the quote I gave, Searles was talking about how while some people had the sympathetic idea that “schizophrenia” conferred unique advantages or insight on people, the reality of the chronically psychotic people he saw was that they were unable to function, unable to have healthy emotional relationships, and generally very hopeless and scared. So on the balance being severely psychotic is not a good thing for most people labeled with these so-called disorders.
Report comment
Ok here it is Rossa: dumb people are more likely to get labeled schizophrenic:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/000607.html
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/05/18/schizophrenia-risk-linked-to-declining-iq/54979.html
http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/01/05/high-iq-may-protect-against-schizophrenia/79475.html
Now where are your studies showing that people given this label are smarter?
Report comment
This is a contradictory statement. First you decry the use of the term “schizophrenic” then you cite supposed characteristics of those so labeled, and continue to use the term “psychotic” as if it were a real thing. This would be ok if your intent were to demonstrate the consequences of being labeled, but that’s not what I’m sensing.
You also seem to consider “working a full-time job” and “getting married” as some sort of indication of well-being. These are your apparent values, and not objective indications of anything
Report comment
The above is a reply to BPDT, not Alex.
Report comment
Oldhead, we have had this conversation before. The semantics of this are very difficult. I am aware that the term schizophrenic is just a label given to people, as you know. Psychotic experiences that we call hallucinations, delusions, apathy, voice-hearing, etc are real… but individual and varied in every person who experiences whatever they experience. There is no single illness called schizophrenia with any genetic or biological basis, as we know… The word psychotic only refers to a syndrome of related experiences, not an illness.
I do consider working full-time and getting married as correlating with well-being at a group level, yes. But it doesn’t at all mean that people cannot be very well and happy without being married or working full time. You are right about that.
Report comment
Also Oldhead, it is unfortunately true that people who get labeled schizophrenic – which is just a label – tend to often have very miserable lives… this is simply because they more often get hosed down with antipsychotic drugs, discriminated against, and because they are often the victims of poor parenting and neglect/abuse… not because they actually have any disease called schizophrenia. All of these discussions are theoretical and correlational at a group level… not about what any individual experiences… and yes, I agree with you that the imagined group (“schizophrenics”) is largely arbitrary, artificial, and inappropriately reified.
Report comment
The word psychotic only refers to a syndrome of related experiences, not an illness.
I believe many would differ that “psychosis” does not connote “mental illness.” That’s the problem when a word has no clear meaning or definition.
Report comment
It sounds like you consider “working full time/married” to be the standard even if doesn’t hold true for everyone; this is still a culture-bound concept.
The difference between “schizophrenic” and “labeled as schizophrenic” is key. So is the phrase “tend to.” I have been so-labeled and would not consider my life miserable at all since I’ve never taken their bs seriously. (If I were to be forcibly drugged that would of course change.) My point was that even if it’s only a label, by ascribing stereotypical characteristics to those receiving it you are in a sense justifying it.
I don’t think the semantics of all this are particularly difficult or complicated btw.
Report comment
I haven’t been drugged up on antipsychotics for 30+ years, when I and the VA failed to find out my fixed sensitivity to caffeine. It was only a couple of months, but the Stelazine gave me both an introduction to life in the Twilight Zone, plus the intense desire not to become a permanent resident. You treat yourself right and you’re not a miserable drone, but someone who can easily pass and not be seen as daft.
Report comment
Sorry you find that hard to understand, but I haven’t got into really dodgy subjects like how the Kingdom of Heaven is within us and why we we don’t want to live there 24 hours a day (thank Neil DeGrasse Tyson for that one). Although I’ve seen a few references to orthomolecular and nutritional treatments in these blogs, I’ve noticed most of the contributors hold psycho-social models of thinking about “mental” illnesses and tend to rap the medical treatment of disorders, thinking that the pseudo-medical approach of present-day psychiatry is the clinical model of medicine (it might have been 200-300 years ago, before the microscope went into general use in medicine). The idea of medical treatments for mental difficulties that don’t use or sparingly use the zombie drugs in low doses seems too exotic for many of the site’s bloggers to grasp.
Report comment
Schizophrenology = “schizophrenia” + “phrenology”
How do I get this new invention patented?
We could make a lot of money off this idea….
“Schizophrenology can be easily treated by a trained schizophrenologist, using manual
applications of frictional force applied to the scalp areas of the upper cranium….”….
Well, *I* think it’s a good idea. What do you people think____________?
~B./
(My superfluous ellipses clearly prove my genetic superiority to another commenter,
Mr. “bcharris”, above!….
Report comment
Yeah, so here we go again with the cart before the horse. Before one researches the causes and treatment of a disease it should first be determined that there is a disease present. As there has never been any evidence, let alone proof, that a disease known as “schizophrenia” exists, whatever Lieberman has in his cart is irrelevant.
Since eugenics has been raised, I think the complicity of psychiatry is best illustrated by the 1942 “debate” in the American Journal of Psychiatry about the efficacy of (yes) “euthanasia” for recalcitrant psychiatric inmates: http://www.brown.uk.com/teaching/HEST5001/joseph.pdf
Report comment
Jay, this is one of the points I am making to you. You keep writing these articles and engaging with “the enemy” – i.e. the psychiatric biological reductionist cronies like Lieberman – on their terms as if schizophrenia were a valid discrete category. I know you don’t believe this, so make it more clear…
Report comment
I have made that point about schizophrenia, and other DSM diagnoses, in many publications.
Report comment
Where?
Report comment
YO!, “BPDTransformation, B.A.”, my friend, just do what I just did. Click on “Jay Joseph” in his comment above, and read ALL his replies to comments here. All *I* could find, Jay, were points of agreement between Jay and myself….. “BPDT”, you seem to do what I know I have a tendency to do – jump the gun, and go off half-cocked. Trust me, “BPDT”, you and I and Jay are in far more AGREEMENT than not…. Let’s ALL WORK TOGETHER.
It’s too nice a day out to argue with my friends and colleagues.
Can’t we all agree that the DSM is nothing more than a catalog of billing codes. “Obamacare” has 70,000 billing codes. Did you know that?…. The DSM only has 300 imaginary diseases / billing codes…. Perhaps that explains why for every doctor or nurse doing hands-on medical care, there are 2 or 3 people doing billing and paperwork….
Report comment
Hey Yo Dude… I like Jay’s writing. I’m asking him to substantiate his assertion. I have bought and read his books and do not remember him clearly stating that schizophrenia is an invalid diagnosis… and he regularly writes about “schizophrenia” as if it were a valid discrete entity. I don’t think he believes this, but he falls into the pattern of using the oppressors’ labels as if they were valid, I feel.
Report comment
To BPDT,
Take a look at page 157 of the 2004 Algora edition of “The Gene Illusion,” and pp. 189-198 of my 2015 book “The Trouble with Twin Studies.”
Report comment
To BPDT: See also page 11 of my 2006 book “The Missing Gene,” and my 6/24/15 MIA blog on heritabilty (and my response to Paula Caplan’s comments).
Report comment
Oldhead
At last, someone who actually knows about the “debate” in the American Journal of Psychiatry about using “euthanasia” on people in psychiatric facilities. Also, at the APA annual meeting in 1941 the keynote speaker spoke in favor of “euthanizing” people in psychiatric facilities, just as they did in Germany during the 1930’s, leading up to the Nazi takeover of Germany. When the Nazis came along they just took over the gas chambers and ovens that German psychiatry had set up in six cities across Germany. And people wonder why I don’t trust psychiatry.
Report comment
A inconvenient truth if ever there was one. Breggin tells of how months after the liberation of the camps psychiatrists were discovered still “euthanizing” people in “mental hospitals” on their own volition.
Report comment
American psychiatrists in 1942 believed that it was ok to kill the “feeble-minded”. In 2016, they believe that they should be paid to dispense toxic drugs, for profit, to those labelled “mentally ill”.
Why does “psychiatry” still exist?
Report comment
Damn good question. It’s time to begin doing something to put it to rest and make it part of the past. I know that this comment will draw the ire of people who believe that we should “dialogue” with bio/bio/bio psychiatrists but I believe that they’re never going to turn loose of their power willingly. I keep reminding people over and over that the wonderful slave owners here in the United States did not free their captives willingly until they were forced to. I think the same goes for psychiatrists; they’re not going to leave us alone until we do something forceful to make them leave us alone. I just don’t know what it is that we can do other than becoming much more visible than we are so that we’re in their face and in the face of the media so that they have to cover us rather than dismissing us as they do now. It’s going to take force and real resistance before psychiatry with set us free.
Report comment
Well, Stephen, may I suggest a BOOK?…. Take the best essays & articles here on MIA, and include the comments, presented as short “chapters”. Each “chapter” could stand alone as a topic-specific booklet. That would be a good start. Another variation of that idea – we could get one or more of our more prolific commenters, and flesh out there personal story, interspersed with relevant essays or articles from MIA. And, we could work together to create “mini-books” of anywhere from 5, 10 – 100+ pages, that would deal both comprehensively, and powerfully, on various aspects of that psych victims’ story and how it relates to Public Policy. I’m reminded of “mindfreedom.org”, and a small flyer they produced years ago. I have a copy here with me now….It lists the common “propaganda” of PhRMa & the APA, such as “mental illnesses are life-long brain diseases which require lifetime drugging”, arrayed side-by-side with the mindfreedom message which I will paraphrase as “at best, sometimes some people do seem to do better on some small dose of carefully monitored drugs, for some short length of time, especially with better social supports. Another area I’d like to see somebody cover is this: Look at the rise and fall of “Phrenology” in the late 1800’s – early 1900’s. We’re in a similar place with “biopsychiatry” 100 years later. I’ve been mulling this last idea for a while.
That’s why I like my new INVENTION so much: “schizophrenology”….And, finally, ask yourself:
Were so-called “mental illnesses”:
A. DISCOVERED?
B. INVENTED?
What’s YOUR answer to that Q?_____
(Seriously, *THINK* about that, – were they “discovered”, or INVENTED….????….
Report comment
There is one single theory which can partially validate the theory of ”genetic” mental disorder – that theory states that, we come in this world as ”seeds” that create themselves through nutrition from mother. This theory is a philosophical one and beyond common sense. The doctors cannot see such a thoery as they work with empirical matters and on scanner it indeed appears as genetic disorder. The point is that as seeds, first part which develops is the intuition of time in brain – and yes this is what the scanner gives – that it is genetically. the reality, as you create yourself, is that you ”learn” it or you apply wrong pattern of thinking which again – at scanner appears as chemical imbalance. The chemical imbalance exists on scanner as well – but the cause of it is represented by a wrong pattern which repeats over and over again until it controls you and it ”shows” that imbalance. The language of psychiatrists is not exact due to their preparation (it is not a language of logic or of mathematics); for it should not be completly dismissed but rather differently understood.
Report comment
I do have 2 serious questions, “Bbrenarda”, and the first is what’s your native language? Your Modern American English is excellent, but I’m sensing you are at least bi-lingual from birth. Also, what exactly do you mean by “scanner”, as you use it in your comment above? Yes, we are all STAR SEED, but that’s a metaphysical concept. If anything, the pseudoscience of psychiatry is anti-metaphysics….
Report comment
this is a very plastic description (beautiful one, though) – in reality, we are not star seeds. I do not mean to promote anything but you can check this link for more details. enjoy (I hope link works)
https://www.facebook.com/events/684372561677597/?active_tab=posts
Report comment
yes, I am at least bi-lingual. But I would like to discuss about Psychology, not about Psychiatry. Psychiatry, especially the new coming one – Computational Psychiatry – is ok. Until discussing about Pyschiatry, we must firstly discuss about Psychology and how they analyze thoughts and moral feelings.
Report comment
I’m sorry only 2 people seem to have shown up for your “Regenerative Psychology” event on >facebook lyrics.com < has them, – for "Woodstock", by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young"….
"We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year old carbon"….
Personally, I think you're on to something, but it may be more of a niche market. America 2016 is NOT kind to metaphysics, or humanism. At least mass media certainly is NOT….Sad, sad….~B./
Report comment
Jee, you make me type again.
I do not promote the project on social media at the moment. On Fb only its artisitc part is shown. The project is ready and based on ”mapping” imagination on a BİOLOGİCAL basis. A computer program shall be developed in this sense – but it will take a while. I know this endeavour has not been tried yet and in fact I have always dreamed someone would want this idea and I won’t do it, but as nobody has been around in the past 20 years – here I am.
Yes, America and West do not prmote humanities – and here let me explain you one thing – human resources usually work with Psychologists. As a new graduate, searching for a job in West, coming from human resources – the permanent question that I heard: ”Why Philosophy?” and ”Who supported you during studies?”. Psychologists from human resources DO NOT hire moral people – they hire people who would sell their soul for money – we can see the advise in regard to the study of humanities. The people who have skills and are not hired – get depressed, usually ending in therapy; the people who are hired, usually having moral lacks at least as potentiality – end in therapy. Communication, values, family relations, etc have been shaped by PSYCHOLOGY. It is not hard to have a wrong representation of your own self and put your parents in an asylum for example; or to believe and to focus just on yourself etcs etcs. I’m not saying Psychology should not exist – I’m saying the directions given by Philosophy, except the word ”psyche” have not been respected – instead, alchemy, kabala, dreams etc etc have been adopted as underlying principles. Why? It is hard to study. Starting human resources to education: a child is sent at counsellor – the counsellor sends him at Psychiatrist (ADHD example) – the Psychiatrist to Psychologist and the therapy starts. Concepts from Psychiatry are not ok, but who will make new ones? Psychology? But they need training and studies, dear. In Metaphysicsi ethics, logic. To make concepts is an act of thinking and you have to prove it. I still do not understand what is their chosen next job: to prescribe meds, to reshape concepts or to re-write ethics? I repeat: Psychology should exist because we, in our world, deal a lot with science. But its cooncepts and especially what happens during therapy – talking mostly about thinking and morality – is not ok for us. Why? Becos if you do this WITHOUT studies, the results is euthanasia, eugenics, sterilisation, human relations, work society – all are the result of Psychology’s wrong application of concepts. As based on alchemy people are attracted of the magic from their dremas, sexual fantasies, numbers, astrology – and are attracted of feeling special – and yes it creates a lot of attraction – unhealthy and addictive one. Just look how human resources work and you will understand Psychology’s values. We want it – but not like it is – and the compromise shall never be made.
About the program – I hope by mathematically decoding imagination, I can help people whose imagination travels a lot.
Report comment
“which resulted in the forcible sterilization of roughly 400,000 Germans between 1934 and 1939, primarily on the basis of being labeled “feeble-minded” or “schizophrenic.”
And I think you forgot to mention that schizophrenia diagnoses increased drastically in Germany in the generation that followed.
Report comment
I don’t think schizophrenia rates increased much if at all, but based on what I have read they didn’t decrease either. Please let me know if you have additional information on this point, other than the Torrey article that addressed this issue.
Report comment
One historical TRUTH seems relevant here. From 1940 – 45, over 5 MILLION German men went into captivity in the former Soviet Union. As of 2000, only about 5,000 survivors have been repatriated. Please take a few moments to consider the implications on ANY German population statistics from that era, or even today….
Torrey is a modern Fascist, so anything he says is propaganda that should be looked at with great care and skepticism.
Report comment
People are forgetting that people in state “hospitals” here in the United States were forcibly sterilized. We carry on about the Germans but were applying the same policies here; we just didn’t get as far with those policies as Germany did. If American psychiatry had been left to its own devices I think it might have ended up that they would have began murdering people in the same manner as German psychiatry did. After all, they were debating it in their own Journal.
Report comment
I wonder what kind of transformation BPDTransformation went through. He or she cites pharma influenced pieces as proof positive that most of us here on MIA are low IQ dumb. Or, perhaps BPD meant to write that we’re dumb to get labelled, but I feel he or she meant the former. In any case, BPD cites pharma inspired “studies” that are guaranteed to have every parent screaming for meds, the more meds the better, to protect their child’s brain from further erosion. It’s a wonderful tactic that the pharmaceutical industry has figured out. Sadly, I fell into that trap, too, early on. Thanks to Circa for providing an excellent link to the literature.
“Conclusion Although specific lifestyle factors, particularly tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption, probably account for the increased cancer risk in patients with schizophrenia, the decreased risk in relatives would be compatible with a postulated genetic risk factor for schizophrenia offering selective advantage to unaffected relatives.”
David Horrobin writes about schizophrenia as an evolutionary advantage is his book, The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity. http://www.amazon.com/Madness-Adam-Eve-Schizophrenia-Humanity/dp/055299930X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458644038&sr=8-1&keywords=the+madness+of+adam+and+eve
Report comment
A very good one, thank you Rossa. Because I didn’t believe in the brain disease lie and got help, I am no longer psychotic, work full time, own my own house, own my own investment property, run my own Meetup events where I have many friends, don’t have any remaining severe psychiatric “symptoms”, and am generally doing well.
It will be obvious to others that you are not responding to the data or questions in play, but avoiding and rationalizing… the tactics of someone who doesn’t have a real argument. As for me saying that most people on MIA are dumb… where did I say that? Stop making stuff up…
It’s nice to rationalize that people labeled “schizophrenic” are some hyper-enlightened version of humanity, but the fact is still that being severely psychotic sucks for many reasons noted above…
Report comment
I think ‘psychological well-being’ is contingent upon how comfortable we are with ourselves, in our own skin, at any given time. This is where we find calm and peace of mind. This can vary within each of us, along a continuum, but it is possible to make it a goal toward which to practice, with focused intention. What could possible matter more than this?
Report comment
It seems the eugenics agenda is becoming more evident. I’m glad someone brought it up. Eugenics never died out, it just went underground. Eugenics is very much alive.
There’s an article called Screening for Mental Illness: The Merger of Eugenics and the Drug Industry by Vera Sharav (2005) that discusses the eugenics agenda of Big Pharma and psychiatry through the use of mental health screening. “Eugenics equated morality to intellect and attributed behavioural problems and social maladjustment to low intelligence, whereas psychiatry links the same problems to mental illness. Both use the mantle of science without the substance of science to further an agenda. Psychiatry’s claims and interventions resemble those of eugenics: Both are couched in pseudoscientific terminology but lack scientific validity. Neither developed objective criteria for diagnosing or defining normal and abnormal traits; neither could withstand independent critical analysis; but both have been immensely successful at promoting their objectives by popularizing unsubstantiated claims.”
I’d like to make a few comments of my own to some of the points you made.
I don’t remember if it was a specific quote, but I remember reading somewhere that supposedly many creative/famous people, including writers, physicists, mathematicians, inventors, and more had a so called mental illness. It’s suggested there a link between genius and insanity, between creativity and madness. How many inventions, discoveries, theories, works of art, and other creations would this world be without if eugenicists like Lieberman and Ogas got their way after they discussed “whether it is desirable or possible to remove allegedly pathological genes in the interest of creating a future “mentally perfect society.”” Isn’t that a pathological mindset? It certainly seems like a mentally disturbed condition to suggest deleting anyone that reacts to a toxic environment rather than fix the environment. You reacted to bullying? Off with your head! Got upset when your parent/child/partner/pet died? Lethal injection for you! You see things that aren’t physically there? To the gas chamber! No thanks, I’ll keep my madness. You can have your authoritarian psychopathic evil bureaucratic elitist “perfect society.”
“The C4 gene’s two functions are “shaping the brain’s neural circuits during maturation” (the alleged schizophrenia-relevant function), and “contributing to immune-system protection against infections and toxins.”” So if this gene is removed, wouldn’t that just leave a brain dead vegetable that’s extremely vulnerable to illness? Am I reading that wrong? They want to remove a gene responsible for brain development and immune-system function. What a bunch of evil eugenicist snotrags. Why don’t they just suggest a bullet to the brain is a cure-all for any arbitrary label that an authority figure throws at you. Got depression? Feeling anxious? Seeing things that aren’t there? You need a bullet. Only $299 each. But that would never happen of course. A corpse is a one off customer while a brain damaged zombie is a lifetime pay packet.
“What determines if you are mentally healthy is not necessarily what types of genes are in your DNA but how many or few copies of the genes you have.” Although genes do a lot, it’s the environment (social, physical, financial, nutritional) that has the biggest influence. Epigenetics shows that the environment turns on or off genes, they aren’t hardwired and determined at conception. I can’t understand biological/genetic psychiatrists. Even though the evidence overwhelmingly points to mental illness not being a real biological illness, brain disease or genetic defect, they continue to bark up the wrong tree expecting to find acorns in a banana tree. They aren’t there you idiots. Stop looking. But hey, if you wanna keep chasing parked cars for fun, go for it, just shut up and stop barking at everyone and infecting them with your idiocy.
a new genetic technique called “ROMA,” which they claimed has shown that “healthy and mentally ill individuals” vary in the “number of copies of various brain related genes” they possess. Say what now? I thought they still couldn’t even define what ‘mentally ill’ and ‘mentally healthy’ means. If they can’t define those things how the heck can they determine how the brain/DNA looks? There still are no x-rays or brain scans or genetic tests that can be used to diagnose any so called ‘mental illness’ yet they have a device that can suddenly separate between all 374+ labels (from the DSM-IV, not sure how many in DSM-5) for the so called ‘mentally ill’ people compared to normal ‘mentally healthy’ people. What a magical time we live in.
Lieberman and Ogas believe that genes are the main cause of mental disorders, which implies that there is little need to change political policies and social conditions to improve people’s psychological well-being. Eugenics is a very elitist psychopathic mindset. It’s a mindset that can intentionally make social changes (political, economic, technological, war) that will benefit the few at the expense of the many. It’s a mindset that allows those in positions of power/authority to abuse their power over other people, who in the eugenicists mind, are inferior. Biological/eugenics (bio-eugenics?) psychiatry calls for the arbitrary labeling of people and ‘treating’ them with physical restraint, chemical lobotomies, forced medication, and/or brain electrocution that comes with a hefty price-tag, even though there are no medical or genetic tests to prove the existence of any so called ‘mental illness’. Gather round, step right up, we’ll tie you down, we’ll lobotomize you, we’ll inject you with all sorts of stuff that will seriously f**k you up, and we’ll send hundreds of volts of electricity through your brain to induce seizures, and the best part about all that is that you’ll be paying for the privilege, you inferior peasant scum. Nice doing business with you sucker.
How is biological psychiatry still a thing?
Report comment
Regarding “How is biological psychiatry still a thing?”
There is no one to hold the psychiatrists accountable for the long term outcomes of the patients. Biological psychiatry makes billions of dollars a year.
$18 Billion dollars a year in antipsychotics. Source (I disagree with forcing physically healthy people to consume drugs, but the link states billion dollar numbers)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/health/a-call-for-caution-in-the-use-of-antipsychotic-drugs.html
$11 Billion dollars a year in antidepressants. source http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/06/prescribing.aspx
$10 Billion dollars a year in stimulant drugs. Source http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/health/the-selling-of-attention-deficit-disorder.html?pagewanted=all
$ unknown. Tranquilizer drugs. benzodiazepines/klonopin/diazepam/Valium/Xanax
+$39 Billion total just for the USA.
Who wants the slaves free?
Report comment
This. Exactly this. Psychiatry and Big Pharma rake in billions of dollars every year from their labeling and drugging, so they aren’t going to stop any time soon. They certainly won’t stop themselves.
But here’s the issue I have with this. Psychiatry (specifically biological psychiatry) is psuedoscience, not real science. There is no evidence to support various claims made by psychiatry, such as the claim that ‘mental illness’ is a real biological illness, brain disease, chemical imbalance, or genetic defect. The only things that support psychiatry is marketing and propaganda (public relations). The same can be said for psychiatric/pharmaceutical drugs. There is no evidence to support the claim that psychiatric drugs are ‘safe and effective’ (and much evidence that says the opposite) other than the marketing and propaganda pushed by Big Pharma and psychiatry.
So how has an industry (the psychiatry-pharma complex) that has zero scientific basis and is based on lies, omissions, fraud, intimidation, character assassinations, etc, managed to infect the majority of the worlds population with a belief, not a truth, that is worth multi-billions of dollars every year (well, the corporate mainstream media helps). They promote a belief system that is wholly unscientific, apply arbitrary labels that have no basis in truth or reality, and push ‘treatments’ that are harmful and potentially fatal and charge obscene amounts of money for. And it’s all based on lies.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis chief propagandist, reportedly said “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The government supports biological psychiatry and Big Pharma (and fears the truth). How often has the FDA (a government agency) favored Big Pharma and ignored the people who claim they have been abused, poisoned, and even murdered by psychiatric practices. Heck, Obama recently nominated a bought and paid for Pharma puppet to head the FDA. How often has the government pushed policy that promotes biological psychiatric viewpoints with a medication first treatment policy. How often has the government attempted to silence any critics of psychiatry or Big Pharma?
The people in power are not the good guys. They push an unscientific belief system based on lies. They push drugs and other ‘treatments’ that are harmful and potentially fatal and are closer to tortures than treatments. They push a eugenics agenda designed to wipe out all the ‘inferior’ people. The people in positions of authority are not the good guys. They are evil, egomaniacal, pathological, psychopathic, eugenicist asshats. And I dare anyone to prove me wrong. Well, apart from the asshat thing, cause clearly such people do not actually wear hats on their posteriors.
Who wants the slaves free? Certainly not psychiatry, Big Pharma, and the government who seek to maintain and expand the status quo of power, profit, and control.
Report comment
Ragnarok – you would be astonished if you knew that Psychiatry, until a while ago, had been the dog of Psychology. I can support, with proofs and examples, every word I state .
It is extremly dangerous to remove Psychiatry – unless people want a new religion (and not a beautiful one).
Report comment
The sad truth is that many of the slaves ( to drugs) do not want to be free. Many of the psychiatrists forced on me ( for my medical problem-joke), I would call them evil. Evil to need to dominate my mind with poison, rather than talk to me with reason.
Report comment
There was a Federal program in the 1970’s aimed at the drugging of inner city children so that they wouldn’t grow up “violent”. They guy behind this scheme stated that people in the inner cities were only interested in having sex and fighting, “just like monkeys”. Dr. Peter Breggin got wind of the plan and marshaled forces against the program, not once but twice! You have to wonder just how much the Federal government is really our friend if it’s willing to entertain doing such things to the American people. I’m not sure if they were going to use the so-called “antipsychotics” to accomplish this or not but think that they were at least considered.
But of course, if you look at what’s happening to kids in the foster program today maybe that program got put into practice in just a different form.
Report comment
There was recently an article on MIA Around the Web section which showed that the link between madness and genius/creativity is a myth. People labeled psychotic are on average no smarter than, and usually much less functional than the general population.
Report comment
BPD, I don’t agree with you, no matter what any article posted on MIA says. You said “People labeled psychotic are on average no smarter than, and usually much less functional than the general population.” I wasn’t referring to just people labeled psychotic, but to anyone labeled with any ‘mental illness’ (depression, bi-polar, etc). There are many well known writers, inventors, scientists etc who struggled with a ‘mental illness’. I myself, though not currently well known, know for a fact that if I had not experienced a wide assortment of ‘mental illnesses’ myself then I never would have discovered and created my own theory of how the psyche functions.
Also, I did say there was a link between genius and insanity, but also between creativity and madness. Creativity does not equal intelligence. You don’t have to have an IQ that rivals Einsten’s to be able to paint or sculpt a piece of art, or combine two or more things into something new, or discover a new island or species. You could be as dumb as a bucket of shrimp, but all you need to do is drop a piece of chocolate in some peanut butter and whammo there’s a million dollar creation right there.
There’s an amazing woman called Temple Grandin who was diagnosed as autistic. She has said that if the autism gene (if there is such a thing) were removed from the gene pool that nothing would ever get done and nothing new would ever be created, because the social people are too busy being social, so you need people who think and see things differently (like autism, depression, bi-polar, etc) to invent and create.
People who are put into a toxic environment (neglect, bullying, abuse, poverty) either adapt or die. When you adapt you are forced to see and/or do things differently. Say you were earning $50,000 a year then something happened and you only earn $10,000 a year. You may discover new ways to make your stuff last longer, or create new meals that are cheaper. This is creativity, not intelligence, and without those hardships (including the mental problems that come with it), such things may never be created.
Report comment
WOW!, “Ragnarok”, I’m kinda’ new here at MIA, so I read (some) of your comment history, to get a better idea where you’re coming from….We’re both coming from pretty much the same place. I would very much like to see more of your “Map of the Psyche”. As you are aware, “The map is NOT the Territory”, but the pseudoscience known as “biopsychiatry” is a poorly drawn, very crude map which is worse than no map at all! Psychiatry is like being lost in the woods, and the only map you have is a Treasure Map you got off a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal!…. // I think that various forms of abuse *CAN* lead people to try to deal with that harm by being more creative. Not always, though. And, it seems to me, that these types of “creativity” are better stimulated in less harmful and destructive ways. After all, Temple Grandin *IS* considered to have a (?) what? OK, “autism”. But, what is autism? What causes “autism”? We have no more solid, SCIENTIFIC answers for “autism”, than we do for “mental illness”. Maybe ALL of these “diagnoses” are really social/environmental factors manifest upon a neutral ground of genetics. How does that square with your Map of the Psyche? (Dang, i wish i’d found MIA years ago…./~B.
Report comment
Hey Bradford, thanks for taking the time to read (some) of my past comments. I tend to write a lot. Thought I’d gotten past the essay writing, but apparently not.
I’d offer to send you a copy of my Map of the Psyche, but I don’t know how contact between MIA members works. Otherwise you can get a copy on Amazon.
You’re right when you said “The map is NOT the Territory”. My map is like the outline, a colouring in page. The outline is there so you can see what it is, but the minute details are missing. You’re also correct that biopsychiatry’s map is poorly drawn and worse than no map. Like you said, it’s like using a “Treasure Map you got off a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal!” Spot on analogy.
Exposure to a toxic environment, be it abuse, neglect, poverty, or whatever, can lead to changes in emotional expression, behaviour, or personality. In some cases this can lead to creativity, as the individual must change something to make things work again. Other times this can lead to something disruptive, a ‘mental illness’, that is just the psyche’s way of trying to deal with a problem. The solution will typically help, but it may be helpful or disruptive. For example, if you got broken into, you might freak out and develop OCD and lock and relock every door in your house a dozen times, or you might develop an app (there’s a bloody app for everything) that could tell you what doors/windows in your home are secure. Two solutions, two different ways of dealing with the problem, but one is beneficial and the other less so.
As for autism, that’s a tricky one. I’m not a fan of the concept of ‘mental illness’ (because it’s simply not an illness) and I’m not a fan of all the discrete labels (depression, schizophrenia, autism, etc). However, it is atleast a little useful being in the field to help identify certain clusters of characteristics, and will suffice until something better is accepted. So, I haven’t personally studied autism enough, but my understanding is that autism is something that has affected the brain (heavy metals, like mercury, have been implicated), while aspergers (supposedly on the autism spectrum) seems to be mind based. But without getting into too much of a debate, the environment (including social) is the primary contributing factor to mental disturbances.
Report comment
Impressive post Ragnarok!
I would posit that the function of genes is to process and mediate information from the universe, if the genes are out of whack the information is the culprit (except when they are reacting to chemical/biochemical toxicity).
The “creative process” involves lots of non-linear, asymmetric and hence unprofitable thoughts and associations, and sometimes borders a dream state (sometimes enters it for that matter). A psychodiagnostician’s paradise!
Report comment
Chemicals ARE “information”./ D’oh! ~B./
Report comment
In the sense that a nuclear blast is information, yeah.
Report comment
OK, “oldhead”, you win – *NOW* R U *HAPPY*?….I realize you’re being sarcastic / facetious, “oldhead”, when you say (below) that “a nuclear blast(sic) is information”, but it’s still a correct statement, as is “chemicals are information” a correct statement. But, In REALITY, I’m replying to “Ragnarok”, above. WOW!* GRIN *< (Watch, oldhead will post and argue that your brain isn't really upside down.) Happy Friday, all! Remember, there's fewer than 100 comments here, but well over 700 views. People ARE being influenced by our WORK HERE!….~B./
Report comment
Thanks for the blog, Jay. And I agree, “significantly reducing economic inequality, would significantly improve people’s psychological well-being, and would greatly reduce the prevalence of psychiatric disorders.” Economic inequality has increased massively in the US in recent decades, hand in hand with the enormous increases in the so called “mental illnesses.”
http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/
Social inequality is also a problem. Especially given the reality that 2/3’s of all so called “schizophrenics” today are actually child abuse or ACEs survivors – people who were initially victims of heinous crimes, not people who initially had brain diseases.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2006/06/13/child-abuse-can-cause-schizophrenia/18.html
And this is all the more problematic when one considers the fact that the “gold standard” treatment for “schizophrenia” / “psychosis,” the neuroleptics can, in fact, mimic both the negative and positive symptoms of “schizophrenia.” The negative symptoms can result from neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome. And “This can easily lead to misdiagnosis and mistreatment. Instead of decreasing the antipsychotic, the doctor may increase their dose to try to ‘improve’ what he perceives to be negative symptoms of schizophrenia, rather than antipsychotic side effects.” And increasing the dose, or adding more neuroleptics, can result in a patient suffering from the central symptoms of neuroleptic induced anticholinergic intoxication syndrome, here are those symptoms:
“Central symptoms may include memory loss, disorientation, incoherence, hallucinations, psychosis, delirium, hyperactivity, twitching or jerking movements, stereotypy, and seizures.” Symptoms which are indistinguishable from “the classic symptoms of schizophrenia,” to the doctors. Thus, no doubt, this neuroleptic induced syndrome is also almost always misdiagnosed, especially since anticholinergic toxidrome is not a billable DSM disorder, and the doctors want to get paid.
It is possible, given this information, that most of the so called “schizophrenia” today is actually an iatrogenic, rather than genetic, illness. And the “bipolar” drug cocktail recommendations today – which call for combining the antipsychotics, antidepressants, and benzos – is a recipe for how to create “psychosis,” via poly pharmacy induced anticholinergic toxidrome, too.
Absolutely, it is time we return to a more equitable economic, and more just societal structure. And it is possible, even likely, as we’ve seen from history, that giving unchecked power to an industry that makes up “mental illnesses,” then tortures and kills millions of innocent people, based upon these scientifically invalid and unreliable “mental illnesses,” is a very unwise and unjust way for a society to be structured.
Report comment
I wonder if ANYBODY *can*, or *will* give a serious answer to a serious question:
In the nature.com article that Lieberman & Ogas cite, it’s clearly stated that so-called “schizophrenia” is a/n “heritable brain illness”, with “unknown pathogenic mechanisms”…..
So, if the “pathogenic mechanisms” are indeed “unknown”, then how can they “KNOW” that is “IS” a “heritable brain illness”?…. How do they KNOW that it is NOT >an imaginary disease, an artifact, based on a misunderstanding, which still exists solely to sell drugs, and maintain the illusions of the pseudoscience of “biopsychiatry”?…..<Anybody got a GOOD answer to that?______________
….i hear crickets……
Report comment
hi,
it’ still me who will try to answer you. It is hilarious that Psychology discusses concepts from Psychiatry. As I said, firstly we need to discuss concepts from Psychology and THEN from Psychiatry. Even Psychology students are not aware in regard to alchemy history of PSYCHOLOGY. Let’s suppose you are right (in fact partially – you are right) and that somehow Psychiatry can be magically (same like Psychology’s principles) removed; then, a Psychologist would prescribe meds (a lower dose ofcourse) combined with ”therapy” (it is not needed to say that in Psychologist’s office anyone is ”patient” and the basic assumption is everybody has a ”problem”). THIS procedure would cost governments even more; already people’s ideals and fantasies has been shaped by Psychology. I (we) understand that Psychology’s ideal is to be called DOCTORS and to prescribe lower doser of meds and anybody be a patient – but same thing had happened when had started to talk and analyze human THİNKİNG and ETHİCS without training in any of 2. We cannot do anything in PHILOSOPHY becos we do not compete with black magic; in fact we do, but we are invisible. And, let’s not forget that in a court or before a diagnosis, a Psychologist and a Psychiatrist ALWAYS work together; a Psychologist is always recommended by Psychiatrist and a DIAGNOSIS is made together. In the moment when assisted suicide is signed, a Psychologist and Psychiatrist ”work” together. 2) – concepts you are talking about are the business of Metaphysics and not Psychology’s. And concepts of Psychology (it s a lie that Psychology comes from Philosophy – the drop of trust let’s say so) still are Metaphysics’ business. Nobody hates people who deal with metaphysics, logic and ethics more than PSYCHOLOGY.
Ok about fictional disease – the disease can be called anyhow – as long as it can be proved at micro level; the more adequate concept is, the better treatement ofcourse. For the moment, as a PHILOSOPHER I would recommend to be greatful that Psychiatry exists – no matter how it is (unless you are attracted of something which is pure alchemy and can be come a new RELIGION). People DO need to take meds at least in THOSE moments – by the way – it is Psychologist’s advice to take meds and to combine it with talk therapy. Nobody forces them to take the meds AFTER – it is their choice same as it depends on them how they understand PROVIDED information. Talk therapy takes years and years and years – which is very weird and even a Psychiatrist is in Psychologist’s hands (historically, at least).
Now about biological disease: in the moment you learn a pattern – let’s say the mother has ”schizophrenia” and the child too – brain structure modifies and IMITATE the mother’s; and as I said, ( if you did not like the word scanner (those are the colors)), the screening and MRI or FMRI SHOWS something; that something is an image needs to be interpreted. nobody lies that it appears something while IT DOES NOT (there are cases when it does not appear anything but here we discuss statements according to which it appears). Then in the moment when you imagine something repeatedly, the brain structure modifies and IT APPEARS so. In the moment when brain structure modifies, you control much more harder what happens to yourself – especially if you are not informed, from a negative environment and with a sad destiny; in that situation, you are the perfect victim to BELIEVE Psychology’s UNPROVEN THEORIES. A Psychologist has years to shape you and the gathered files and confession give them a lot of ideas – too many I would say. In this SITUATION, one would better educate onself or go to priest or religious counselling (I am atheist by the way). To be honest, it is too late to do something – ”they” will never accept concepts be reshaped, becos this would mean concepts be reshaped in Psychology as well. But Psychiatry is open to reshape concepts; I do not imagine how this might occur; I suppose concepts will be reshaped by Psychology who are too ignorant to acquire some culture: most of their brilliant ideas which are put to experiments (and received money for those experiments) had taken place in PHILOSOPHY thousands of years ago; without reading speciality literature, and from patients’ files, in Psychology ”something” happens. This something is the desire of power and control WITHOUT real base, real studies, real history… – imagine they would lead the world completly; as they succeeded once (with us) I do not imagine why wouldn’t they succeed 2nd time too?
Now, about INHERITATED – the fetus can sense and modify even in mother’s belly; this does not mean that coming to life, cannot modify again in the CORRECT shape – just that it is very difficult, because: if he modifies, he will – with psychological help: this is TEMPORARY and based on ILLUSION: one needs to master the habit of correct thinking, appropriate this habbit and, in time, become his/her inner nature. Check Neuroplasticity to see what happens there. Your post challenged me to answer you – I observed you were indeed interested. Unfortunately, as long as Psychologists will not let us do OUR JOB about thoughts and CONCEPTS, nothing good will happen. A thought is a very complex action and people need to know HOW it occurs. What if beyond everything lies a MORAL CONFLICT and not a psychological theory? who will solve the moral conflict? In most of cases – especially the ones which do not appear as ‘bio’ is just a moral conflict… and a Philosopher solves this in maximum a couple of months. The ”patient”s moral conflict which Psychology tries to explain by ”unconscious”, ”clinical diagnosis”, etc etc etc can lead to suicide if it is not done correctly – these are descriptive concepts which cannot prescribe norms; more, these psychology’s concepts, are not – there is no word to be used for this – are not anyhow. The ”patients” indeed imagine and imagination controls them and, in time, MODIFIES them (biologically) – it is true. We will wait and continue to work same as until now: in shadow and without being read because it is just too true and too difficult, right?
I hope I explained your dilemma. As the text is long, I will not check my typo faults. Have a good day!
Report comment
WOW!….if I was a semantic vegetarian, that would be a big ole’ bowl of word salad!
But that doesn’t change reality. Biopsychiatry is the fabricated drug racket of PhRMa.
Psychology has *SOME* legitimate basis, but any legitimacy claimed by biopsychiatry comes from selling toxic drugs, and the bogus so-called “mental illnesses” of the DSM. The DSM is a catalog of billing codes. And, regarding “genetics”, and “heritability”, much of that is being defenestrated by epigenetics.
“Chemical imbalance”, and “mood disorder”, and even “bipolar”, are all presents from Santa Claus. I’m an adult. I haven’t gotten any presents from Santa Claus in years. And I no longer believe the deliberate lies of biopsychiatry, either.
Thanks, “Bbrenarda”!
Report comment
My answer is that they just don’t want or expect you to think that hard.
My shrink put in my records that I tried too hard to comprehend the unfathomable; that was part of my “symptomology.”
Report comment
I find most shrinks to be shallow; poor moralists and philosophers. To them all deep, morally upright thinkers are crazy. Otherwise they would think like the shrinks do!
Report comment
The answer is money. They want the cash and via pretending there is some unitary (fictional) brain disease called schizophrenia causing psychotic “symptoms” of hallucinations/delusions…. symptoms which are mainly caused in reality by bad shit happening to people, I.e. abuse, neglect, trauma, poverty, inequality, stress, etc, not any disease… perpetuating this myth supports antipsychotic sales and supports the perception that psychiatrists are real doctors.
It’s as simple as that. Schizophrenia exists to help sell pills and help psychiatrists have status.
Report comment
Great job once again, Jay.
Report comment
I do not mean to ruin this forum, but my favourite is:
”The dog has depression”.
Report comment
Q: What’s the difference between the bark of a dog, and the bark of a tree?
A: Psychiatry says they BOTH have bi-polar disorder, and furthermore, the tree is schizophrenic!
Report comment
As some news from East – maybe someone calculates this possibility: my students usually ask me: ”if your religion is so good, why your society is how it is? it means your RELİGİON is not good.” I cannot explain them it is not Religion’ s fault – it is Psychology’s. My students’ belief is that becos of Religion people need psychologist. Look at this world and think how many lives has been lost. All they need to do, if indeed come from Philosophy, is to READ. But in the moment when you treat the healthy one same like the ”ill” one, the healthy one loses his powers to HELP the ”ill”one. It should have been a beautiful thing and it is a complete mess.
Report comment
This kind of scientific dishonesty abounds in psychiatry. A classic example that cannot possibly be ascribed to confirmation bias or the true believer syndrome where clear subconscious factors are at work, is the 1956 `sham’ (placebo) ECT study by Ulett as revisited by Paul Janicek in a mega review that found ECT to be superior to placebo.
In this case 4 groups of 21 subjects, (84) only 2 of which were treated with ECT and `Sham’ ECT, (42) became 2 groups of 43 & 40 respectively (they appear to have mislaid a subject). I won’t go into the rest of the manipulations of the results here but suffice to say the findings could NOT have been accidental. This review is constantly trotted out by establishment psychiatry as evidence that ECT is superior to placebo. Because few people actually read more than the summary, they are believed and as a consequence hundreds of thousands of people are being damaged by ECT, for no honest reason, every year.
How much longer are people prepared to allow the perpetrators of this dishonest pseudo rubbish to be a) paid for (from the public coffers), b) published, and c) permitted to be taught as fact to students and professionals?
In almost every other discipline, if a scientist is caught faking results, he/she will be stripped of research rights and funding, humiliated, and possibly (except for the tenured) sacked from teaching and/or admin positions.
How come psychiatrists continue to get away with it?
Report comment