The “Time to Strike” is Now: A Call for Anti-ECT Activism

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The Anti-Electroshock Proclamation

We who care,
We who are committed to decency,
We who behold with horror the disrespect for human life around us,
We who shudder at the knowledge
Of women whose memory has been turned into ember and ashes,
Of families brutally torn asunder by pulse waves or sine waves,
Of the elderly, whose final life reward is electrocution,
We who hold this fearful knowledge can be silent no longer.
LEGISLATORS, on this, the week of Mother’s Day, we hold you directly accountable and call on you to withdraw your authorization for electroshock.
FELLOW CITIZENS who think this “practice” stopped decades ago, on this the week of Mother’s Day,
We tell you that the carnage continues and that you too are responsible.
On this the day before Mother’s Day, May 20__, as survivors and allies, we come together to raise our voices in protest,
And we vow to return,
Return,
And return again
Until this abomination
Is no more. (Burstow, 20041)

The purpose of this blog article is to provide you with some critical counter-hegemonic information. Additionally, the article constitutes a call to action. More specifically, it is a call for action against one of the most horrendous of the current day psychiatric atrocities—the horror euphemistically known as “electroconvulsive therapy.”

The contexts for this article and for this rallying call—and the contexts are important not only as context but also in themselves—are:

  1. Electroshock (ECT) continues to grow, although it has been shown conclusively to be both ineffective and brain-damaging. Moreover, as both professionals and ECT survivors have long demonstrated, it destroys memory and routinely leaves people’s lives in shambles (see Ross, 2006,2 Burstow, 2015,3 and Andre, 20094).
  2. While ECT is unacceptable and is an act of violence no matter who is being subjected to it, ECT is disproportionately violence against women.5 Note in this regard, despite the erroneous impression created by movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in every single period in which shock has been given and in every jurisdiction in which it prevails, two to three times as many women as men are subjected to this brain-damaging treatment—a reality all the more heinous when, as the largest study in ECT history, the Sackeim study,6 shows, women are considerably more damaged by this “treatment” than men. Added to this, ECT is disproportionately given to the elderly. Correspondingly, in light of these statistics, for over a decade now various organizations have demonstrated against shock on the day before Mother’s Day, with the kick-ass group who began the tradition—Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault Assault (CAPA)—brandishing the slogan “Stop Shocking Our Mothers and Grandmothers.”
  3. A novel that makes real the dynamics involved—The Other Mrs. Smith—was recently shortlisted for a prestigious literary award. Which increases the chances of getting it into more and more hands, thereby galvanizing a public awakening.
  4. There has been a stunning breakthrough in a California class action lawsuit against the shock machine manufacturers (and yes, the machines used in California are identical to the ones being used in every state throughout the world, and indeed are produced and marketed by the same companies). As psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin—an expert witness in the case—informs us, the California class action lawsuit against the shock machine manufacturers has yielded exactly what informed critics of ECT would have predicted—in essence, the determination that yes, “a reasonable jury could find that the ECT device manufacturer caused plaintiffs brain-damage by failing to warn . . . of brain injury, or alternatively by failing to investigate and report allegations of brain damage and permanent memory loss to the FDA so that the information would be available to the public.” In light of this development, an agreement has been struck for compensation for the plaintiffs.

And yes, by the way, these are the very machines and procedures that year after year the industry has assured the unsuspecting public are new, improved, safe, and effective—so much for professional pronouncements! And to think that the most of the media still falls for such propaganda! That said, for this breakthrough, we need to thank the law firm D.K. Law Group, who took the case, as well as the gutsy plaintiffs, and the various honest professionals—and there were legions—who provided data that belied the official industry line and/or gave testimony. Though most of all, I would like to acknowledge the courage of one woman shock survivor, whose vision this class action suit was and who did a gargantuan amount of the legwork to make it happen: the as-yet “unsung hero” Deborah Schwartzkopff! I would add, you can soon expect similar lawsuits in state after state throughout the world. Correspondingly, if you yourself are a victim of ECT in any state, I would encourage you to write to [email protected].

The final context—and a particularly compelling one it is—is a personal decision that was made a few months ago by still another courageous woman shock survivor—Ontario resident Connie Neil. Having been profoundly damaged by shock and having both testified and organized against it for years, a short time ago Connie approached Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault announcing her intention to go on a hunger strike against electroshock, and asking CAPA to organize it. After she had received her doctor’s approval and advice on how to do a hunger strike safely, CAPA’s answer was a resounding yes! And what other answer could it conceivably be!!?

I ask the reader to try to stretch to take in the enormity of what has happened here. At a time when society is finally making advances against ECT, what Connie has handed us is nothing short of sensational. Mounting a hunger strike is in line with the best of mad activism—note, in this regard, the Fast for Freedom Hunger Strike of 2013 against the American Psychiatric Association. It dramatizes, makes concrete, and in the process, has the chance of grabbing the attention of the general public. Please note, additionally, that the master of non-violent resistance, Gandhi himself, emphasized the importance of symbolism in non-violent action—and note that what Connie is handing us here is an enormously potent symbol: nothing less than an 80-year-old woman shock survivor who is going on a hunger strike to try to stop the horror that was visited on her from continuing to be visited on others. A symbol like this drops in one’s lap once in a lifetime. And as informed citizens, we are duty-bound to make the most of it.

Hence CAPA’s increased initiative during the week of Mother’s Day. And hence this call for solidarity—this call to action.

So what exactly is CAPA planning for the next year? The agenda, as it has evolved, is as follows:

  1. On May 10, at noon, a press conference will be held in Toronto. In it CAPA members, including Connie and former MPP Cheri DiNovo, will speak out against shock—the public funding of it, the very existence of it—and clarify what CAPA will be doing and why.
  2. On May 11, in alliance with a number of different organizations who are co-sponsoring or endorsing, starting at noon there will be a huge public anti-shock demonstration held on the grounds of the Ontario provincial legislature, complete with speeches, testimonials, and protest songs.
  3. On May 12, at a location still to be determined, the multi-day hunger strike will begin. Connie will be striking, accompanied by supporters. Optimally, she will also be accompanied by women and men fasting in solidarity with her. The days of the hunger strike will similarly be replete with speeches and testimonials, and hopefully with frequent interaction with the media. The pièce de la résistance, of course, is Connie herself. Who can just dismiss an eighty year old shock survivor so committed that she is in essence putting her frail body on the line?

So what can you do? Or to put this another way, how might you yourself get involved?

If you are an organization, examples of things that you can do are:

  • Help CAPA publicize the event
  • Agree to co-sponsor or endorse
  • Help garner sympathetic press
  • Arrange a parallel action in your neck of the woods, possibly your own hunger strike
  • Send statements and testimonials to be read
  • Pressure your own legislators to defund or better yet disallow electroshock
  • Bring a contingent of people to Toronto to take part as hunger strikers and/or supporters of the action.

Individuals may similarly join.

Anyone or any organization that wishes to become involved, whether by taking up one or more of these suggestions, or in any other way, you might begin by emailing the Coalition at [email protected].

In ending, I would encourage as many people and groups as possible to join in this action and/or to create an anti-ECT protest of your own. The long and the short of it is: it is time for the lies about ECT to stop. And beyond that, it is time for the very use of ECT to stop.

What we have here is a social justice issue. What we have here is a feminist issue. Despite the “pseudo-medical” overlay, what we have here is a crime against humanity. Moreover, the momentum is with us.

And the “time to strike” is now.

Show 6 footnotes

  1. Burstow. B. (2004). The Anti-Electroshock Proclamation (written for a demo and used every year—please feel free to spread far and wide and to use as needed). ↩
  2. Ross, C. (2006). The sham ECT literature. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 8, 7-16. ↩
  3. Burstow (2015). Psychiatry and the business of madness. New York: Palgrave. ↩
  4. Andre, L. (2009). The doctors of deception: What they don’t want you to know about shock. Chicago: Rutgers University Press. ↩
  5. Burstow, B. (2006). Electroshock as a form of violence against women. Violence Against Women, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 372-392. ↩
  6. Sackeim, H. et. al (2007). The cognitive effects of electroconvulsive therapy in community settings. Neuropharmacology, 32, 245-255. ↩

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

***

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89 COMMENTS

  2. I just searched the term electroconvulsive therapy on both Goggle and Bing . I looked at the first 8 pages of Google results and not a single web page protesting ECT was in the results.

    If now is the time to strike the place to strike is web search results to get the word out.

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  3. “ECT” = Electro-Cution Torture
    How much simpler can it get?
    Try this:
    “So-called “ECT”, Or “Electro-Convulsive Therapy”, or “Electro-Cution Torture”
    as it’s more accurately known….
    I can’t see the letters “ECT”, without thinking “electro-cution torture”….

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  4. While I believe that hunger strikes are generally problematic, both tactically and in principle, and by no measure consider Gandhi to be a hero, this could have a chance of succeeding in garnering some widespread publicity, especially in light of the recent legal victory. Providing that Connie is truly exercising her own volition, and not being egged on in any way, or put in a position where she feels unable to change her mind or end her fast. I would caution that “controlled” hunger strikes don’t get as much publicity, as people get more excited about things with the potential for tragedy — “if it bleeds it leads.” (Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.)

    Anyway this sounds like a focused action around a specific issue, which I believe is a good way for the various sectors of the movement to organize at this point in time. I would urge those involved to keep this focus, and not start meandering into other issues. But as it stands I certainly support the effort, and would encourage others to, and convey all sorts of positivity to Connie.

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  5. Yours is certainly an important blog post, Bonnie. Thank you for taking this action on. I think it’s long past time that some kind of concrete action was taken over electro-shock and any number of other invasive measures promoted by psychiatry. The 2003 MFI hunger strike has generated more positive commentary in recent literature on the subject of fighting the misinformation fostered by psychiatry than any political actions taken in the past. People should do everything they can to spread word about what is going on in Ontario. If this action spreads to the USA, and beyond, I would certainly want to take part. ECT, as a button I have puts it, is a crime against humanity. If we are going to do something about this and other crimes against humanity we have to do something that will grab people’s attention, and a hunger strike is just the thing to do that. I hope that we are able, through events like this one, to draw attention to the fact that human rights are being violated, and people are being harmed by what purports to be therapy practiced today, most pointedly, in this instance, by electro-convulsive shock maltreatment.

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  7. Thank you Bonnie for your advocacy for people harmed by ECT. It is hard to believe ECT is still happening. The average person is not aware of the harm done by psychiatry until they or someone close to them ends up harmed. Thanks to the MIA site I became more informed and now give the link to others, including a psychologist I saw (after a bizarre and traumatic encounter with a psychiatrist during cancer treatment), my family doctor and also the CMHA. I will write my MP in Ottawa to ask for his support to end this social injustice and email CAPA to see what else I could do. I plan to purchase ‘The Other Mrs. Smith’ (as well as ‘Psychiatry Disrupted’) to gain further insight.

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  8. Certainly support your work Bonnie. Was put down for ECT, even signed my name to agree with it, so drug fucked-up ill was me.

    Just have to post this again from TRM123 the retired consultant. It is so sickening and would certainly plug a victim into being shocked down the mainline hell hole of psychiatry:

    “The work group also clarified that mania induced by treatment with antidepressant medication counts as a manic episode for the purpose of diagnosing bipolar I disorder.”

    http://jaapl.org/content/42/2/182#sec-9

    For those of you who do not know, the mania induced by AD’s is caused by not being able to metabolise the drugs correctly because we have a one size fits all drug system, but WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT phenotypes – strengths… expressions of – metabolising enzymes. People become toxic and a victim of psychiatry because of this. To boot, these phenotypes can be predicted with a decades old gene test that no one gets. The ‘doctors’ well know ALL this.

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      • “How can a person possibly give consent for ECT when they are so zoned out on drugs that they little or not idea what they are consenting to?”

        Yes indeed. At the time I had no knowledge of what was happening to me. Really thought I was very mentally ill. What I experienced was utterly horrific and was determined to kill myself – after three failed attempts – when I got off the drugs and was able to do it to get out of the horror. I knew nothing of how dangerous the drugs are until I listened to Peter Beggins videos on YouTube, got off the drugs and the akathisia horror left me. In truth his videos saved my life.

        What sealed my view that psychiatry must be abolished was that there is no really accountability, which means people are being subject to horror and killed with impunity due to psychiatrist forced drug toxicity and electro-shock. And they know what they are doing to people, they use the drugs as a punishment knowing full well the they are backed up by the state and all the ‘regulatory’ bodies.

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    • For sure, that would be a totally unsafe thing to do on a ward. And part of acquiring what I refer to as “sane literacy” is knowing that people’s political resistance is typically interpreted by “mental health authorities” as “symptoms” of one “disorder” or another and a reason to intrude.

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  12. I’ve always found ECT to be barbaric. What is especially concerning to me is how it’s being touted as a “new” type of ECT these days, and that it’s not as “invasive” as it was in earlier decades…I am very concerned for an acquaintance of mine in her thirties who has begun ECT recently because antidepressants were not helping her depression. She is like a cheerleader for ECT and I have to say I am deeply disturbed by her cheerleading. She is very successful in her work and attributes that to ECT…I am actually quite worried for her future and wellbeing…Anyway, I am very glad you are continuing to raise awareness about the dangers of ECT. Thank you for that.

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  13. It is deeply upsetting that pro- ECT propaganists have been marketing an even more dangerous torture device, calling it new, modern, safe.
    Now that the California federal court has
    stated the evidence shows ECT causes brn dmg and cog impairment, are the media who touted shock in programs, (Anderson Cooper, Dr. Oz, The Doctors) going to retract their bullshit and tell the truth?

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    • My understanding was that the court had only said there was a case to be made but I am still a bit confused about it. As for the media – my guess would be no they probably won’t retract. The story will remain the same – miracle treatment stigmatised and somehow the court case will be incorporated into the stigma.

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      • Bramble, what happened is that once it was determined that case that damage was done was a viable case, the defendants (the ECT manufactured) immediately offered the plaintiffs a monetary settlement, more or less to keep a ruling against them off the books. The defendants accepted the offer of compensation. and so the case went no further. Yes, the industry will continue to spread the same old line, but what happened in that courtroom is now ammunition that we can use against them. And use it against them, we must. The onus is on us to point out exactly what happened here.

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  14. Incidentally, folk, I am going to be posted a slightly edited version of this article on Rabble.ca on Monday or Tuesday. I tend to be either totally ignored or attacked when I post anything that smells of antipsychiatry on Rabble, for the Rabble readers tends to be incredibly pro-psychiatry. So if anyone has the time and the inclination and to check out the comments posted on Rabble and then put in your “two cents” your input would be greatly appreciated. A lot of the Rabble readers live in Toronto and it would be great if a few of them considered supporting this hunger strike.

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  15. I agree that ECT (like many of Psychiatry’s “practices”) is barbaric. And I respect Connie’s decision to wage a hunger strike against it, especially given its place in “the protest tradition.”

    One thing that worries me about waging a hunger strong in the context of anti-*psychiatry is that the specific claim used by Psychiatry to justify its grotesquely abusive power – it’s “for the good of an incapable/mad/mentally ill underperson” – is that that same claim could be used to subvert the hunger striker’s act. In other words, if the ordinary hunger striker’s play is to claim the very last straw of power she can locate, that over her own life, those with greater power (such as Pscyhiatry-as-Institution) can use it to negate the striker’s power over her own life: they can force feed her, force her to live, and force her to live in tacit recognition of its (psychiatry’s) greater power. Of course this is less likely to happen “on the street” than in a carceral facility. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the “psychiatric police” were to show up, “notice” a woman “acting irrationally in such a way as to pose a danger to herself”, sign on the dotted line, and have the hunger striking woman carted off, locked up, and force fed.

    I took at a look at four different problematic contexts of “force feeding”, including hunger striking, in a video-paper, if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/laMYP9eBgP0.

    Again, I respect and appreciate Connie’s decision, and I would like to see her wage a successful campaign.

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  16. Bonnie, what are you contacts with/in the UK- the Royal college just advertising a two day “training session” in London in late Nov. Yes, training more sheep to electrocute and brn dmg people, and 2 “expert” presenters- Chucky Kellner and Declan McLoughlen with lovely ties to Mecta.
    Anything in the form of protests being planned by Mind Freedom or Human Rights groups or anti-ECT groups?

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      • It should be a legal requirement that potential future victims and their families should be handed this page stapled to the front of the minimizing and reassuring wording of the hospitals’ ‘informed consent’.
        Just small type “permanent brain damage” doesn’t clarify never being able to do one’s job again or being cognitively damaged for life or forgetting your family, your life…

        Will hospitals be covered by simply stating “doctors will verbally review other risks and hazards” without specifically mentioning brain damage and what that could entail?

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      • Yes, that appears to be the page. Whether that’s enough to cover them legally in the future is a question for a jury. However, it won’t do anything to protect them from the cases of victims who underwent ECT in the past.

        They are probably trying to shift the blame to the doctors, and legally, this will have the effect of shifting some of the liability to the doctors. I think medical malpractice cases for failing to warn of brain injury should be easier now.

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        • Attorney Karen, YOU TOTALLY ROCK!

          Can we make a case for those who were damaged, and then, the damage was covered up? That is, we were lied to not only before, but after the fact?

          My own ECT story, which I sent to the FDA in 2016, was ignored, tossed out totally because I did not provide “studies.” I guess they are completely uneducated and do not realize that memoir, which is based on what a person went through, doesn’t need proof. In fact, unnecessarily backing up your statements likely discredits you.

          Here is a link for anyone that wants it: http://juliemadblogger.com/wp/ect-pages/my-electroshock-documentation-as-submitted-to-the-fda-in-2016/

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          • Hey, thanks!

            We think arguments like the one you’re making have a chance of gaining some traction in the courts, for the purpose of expanding the time during which an ECT victim can bring suit. A couple of the clients that had cases dismissed on statute of limitations grounds are making those arguments on appeal right now, to be resolved in the coming months.

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    • Is it likely that MECTA, even though it’s machines were not involved in this litigation, will move to protect themselves by adding “brain damage” to their risk disclosure? Why would they NOT choose to do this?
      And, if the Somatics disclosure to hospitals absolves them of liability, is it the job of the legal dept. and bioethicists in facilities to see the changes are made to consent and information websites for institutions and doctors offering and administering ECT in order to avoid lawsuits in the future.

      Why do you think media and so called whistleblowers like the Spotlight team have completely ignored publicizing this issue? I could find zero about it, anywhere. Is it bc the victims are bound by non-disclosure, so they can’t provide the grisly details?

      I recall feeling the great injustice when Dr. Dadi, the renowned cardiologist went to trial and the jury determined he had not been brain damaged by ECT. I think his family tried to proceed with medical mal rather than going after the manufacturers, so time frame would be up for a different approach?

      Hope this goes national. I encourage victims and families to call your firm to fill in necessary documents to proceed with litigation.
      Your firm is amazing.
      Sorry if I am wasting your time.

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  20. You are trying to lead a movement against psychiatry on ethical grounds and I can relate to that since I am an activist for social justice, but it won’t work without addressing the core issues and thereby getting the public involved AND on your side, the side of social justice. These core issues are:
    1. the true nature of the distress being branded as mental illness and that as chemical imbalances in the brain needing psychiatric treatments.
    2. the manufactured public apathy towards those labelled as mentally ill, and
    3. the manufactured fear of the “mentally ill” as people, who are potentially violent and potential killers.

    ECT is a “treatment”, if we could ever call it a treatment, for depression, which it is claimed has failed drug therapies. It is also used to treat mania and suicidal patients. The main one is depression so I will tackle that one as an example of the true nature of the distress.

    I have explained in these answers on my blog on this page: https://kyrani99.wordpress.com/depression-and-anxiety/ , how depression (other than part of a grieving process) comes about and how it can be eradicated: You can see that it doesn’t need drugs and it sure doesn’t need damaging the brain enough for it to be dysfunction with ECT as a treatment. It may be harder to get rid of depression if a spouse or adult sibling etc., someone you are living with, is the chief offender, the abuser. However once you recognise that situation, then you have to break the relationship with the abuser. The abuser is inhumane and that means they have no conscience, they treat others as objects and they have no empathy as they have no love. This type of person is never going to reform. It is a waste of time staying with them and even though leaving holds many problems it is still the best option.

    The psychiatric profession has sold the public a falsehood, that there are chemical imbalances in the brain. And they have admitted it, while justifying their position as “it was a metaphor” to get people to take the drugs we give them. This is not only without a scientific basis, but without even rationality. Every thought and reaction that a person make to life, moment by moment changes brain chemistry. So wherefore is there a balanced state from which an imbalance can be gleaned?

    To get the public involved you not only need a public campaign of some sort because the media won’t do it, but you also need to show people that their health and life and that of their children and grandchildren are at stake. People need to realize that the chemical imbalance theory has a wider agenda, wider that is than justifying the sale of drugs. I strongly believe that there is a NWO and very sinister agenda here: the manufactured public apathy.

    A humane person is empathetic, and that means they will not only feel for the other person, they will move to try and help in whatever way they can. If they believe that the person labeled as mentally ill has a brain disease, there is nothing that they can do to help, hence they are at a loss to do anything other than leave them alone. This is essentially the manufacture of apathy.

    Why does the NWO and psychiatry as it major arm want apathy. To govern from a one world government they need to destroy societies as separate entities and that means destroying community and bringing in new rules and enforce them. The glue that holds community together is provided by the 80% of people, who are humane. That is, people, who have a conscience, which they value, and they have empathy, a form of love for others. This empathy cannot be destroyed but it can be made to be ineffective enough, so that community falls apart.

    Lastly, psychiatrists have been very prominent in the media in the USA (and only in the USA in this way) claiming that the mass shooter, especially where school shootings are concerned, was schizophrenic. This is not only a diagnosis that is subjective, but one where even the person has not been seen or talked to, fanciful diagnosis and one that aims to affect the public thinking, especially while people are afraid and thus impressionable. Schizophrenia is, in the public Mind, seen as synonymous with “mental illness”. Thus every person, with a label, is stigmatized. The public are not only apathetic towards them, they fear them too. This has given the psychiatrists the ability to:
    1. incarcerate anyone they want to stick a label on and then say maybe a danger to the public or needs hospitalization,
    2. administer any treatments they desire or even treat the person as a lab rat, and of course without the person’s consent to any treatments.
    3. they can do far worse, they can harm and even kill the person/ patient, with impunity, because they have public support. The unspoken reasoning is “if he or she is out of control and a danger to the public, then we are better off if they are dead.

    I want to point to this article I read recently: https://www.cchrint.org/2017/06/29/lawsuit-against-canadian-psychiatrists-torture-of-patients/
    This article does show that it is possible to at the least bring a law suit against the psychiatrists for malpractice. However how much of this was in the media and how much public support was there or even public knowledge of it? It is very important for people to know because this article also points to the use of psychiatric practices to exterminate human beings.
    “psychiatrists played a central and prominent role in the abuses that occurred in Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945 with the killing of 200,000 mentally unfit which, ultimately, morphed into the “final solution,” the mass extinction of much of Europe’s Jewish population. The proof of psychiatry’s role in the holocaust is so pervasive that in 2010 (70 years after the killing spree) Dr. Frank Schneider, President of the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN), addressed a convention of psychiatrists about psychiatry’s role in the Third Reich.”

    The inhumane subculture, who are those wanting the NWO, want to reduce the world’s population down to 500 million. That means the extermination of 6.5 billion people or more. Starting with a psychiatric stigma, where a person is shunned and considered better dead, a mass extermination could be attempted.. a final solution that would leave anything the Nazis did as a Sunday school picnic!

    Your work is important but it urgently needs public involvement, firstly to show that there is no mental illness, no brain disease, but rather brutal, underhanded maltreatment of individuals. The humane people in the public need to do those experiments because they will never be done by biomedical scientists as their funders won’t fund them. They can never be done inside the universities. They are simple experiments, mimicking the foul game play, to restore public confidence in the truth. And you don’t need to use criminals to create concealed threats. Snakes in an adjacent room with a remote control door opener, can be used to pose a threat. Humane people need to know that they can help their loved ones and others around them who are humane. And they can do that by knowing the truth.

    You will have the public 100% on board if you can do this work as part of your antipsychiatry activities. And you will be instrumental in the taking apart what is behind psychiatry. You will be instrumental in the survival of the humane as multicultural and prosperous, peaceful people AND the taking down of the inhumane and the tyranny they desire to install.

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    • Kyrani99, thank you for the link to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International. I had not heard of them before. It is a humane organization that can direct people to legal help or other ways to fight psychiatric abuse and injustice.

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      • Rosalee for people who have been sectioned/detained and force drugged they will look at their case and if possible hire lawyers to help get them out. When a person is in that situation they should not be put off going to them. Thomas Szasz set it up because scientology has loads of money to pay lawyers to get people out of – hell hole – psych hospitals.

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    • It is funded by scientology along with others. AFAIK it’s sole function is to work for human rights in the area of mental health. Every year millions are incarcerated and forced treatments are carried out. We can’t sit back and turn a blind eye. Regardless of who the Church of Scientology is, in founding and funding this organization, it has done good works.

      In Australia there was a shocking therapy done were patients were drug induced into “sleep” (if I remember correctly it was an insulin coma) and then electric shocked. 48 people died. These people are human beings, who are being shockingly maltreated by doctors because psychiatrists are doctors. CCHR investigated and helped to stop the immensely cruel practice. And they have acted around the world where ever they have seen abuse in mental institutions.

      If we are going to criticize them, then I say we can only do that if we ourselves are involved in protecting human rights and standing against psychiatry, which is totally without any scientific basis. Psychiatry has done AND IS DOING more harm than even the Spanish Inquisition, than what is said about the Church of Scientology.

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      • People in this movement know to stay away from Scientology and CCHR. Scientology is opposed to psychiatry primarily because it is a competing cult in pursuit of the same demographic for customers.

        I mention this as an FYI, I’m not going to dignify further diversion of the topic by engaging in “debate”; most people here understand all this already, including the owner of this site.

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        • I am not interested in any debate. I am outraged that for a post citing some very serious issues and giving a pointer to how psychiatry can be blown out of the water, no one, including the OP seems to give a damn.

          No one seems to care a hoot that people are drugged and electrocuted, lobotomized etc., when there is nothing wrong with their brains. They are acting normally under the circumstances. And that can be shown beyond doubt by the general public. So what is Mad in America really about?

          The only posts up to here have been fixated on CCHR reference. Who care who CCHR is, the reference I gave is valid.

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          • Commenting as moderator here:

            CCHR is a controversial subject, but their genesis or purposes are not particularly relevant to this discussion. I will ask that folks leave off on this aspect of the discussion, understanding that some people will find CCHR’s information and purpose worthwhile while others will find it disingenuous. Let’s leave it at that.

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          • You need to become a bit more familiar with MIA before you start making charges and assumptions about what people “care about.” Some people have info that you don’t, you should be glad that they’re sharing it. It is a simple fact that CCHR is Scientology based, what you do with that info is up to you.

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  22. Thanks everyone for extra info to my prior comment. All the information is very relevant. I so appreciate how people on this site always want to help and look out for others. Psychiatric harm and injustices must be stopped. Thanks again!

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  25. I can’t seem to be able to edit my post with the CCHR link so I could strike it out. Hence I provide here two links about the same case of Canadian psychiatrists facing charges on torture of patients to replace the offensive link.
    http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=152539
    https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/treatment-at-ont-mental-health-facility-was-torture-judge-finds-1.3449868
    Neither CanadianContent nor ctvnews has anything to do with CCHR.

    And to replace the quote about psychiatry and the holocaust my link to one of Dr. Peter Breggin’s videos “Peter Breggin, MD – Psychiatry and the Holocaust–The Violence Initiative – Part 1” which I posted above in response to streetphotobeing on Dec. 6th. It says basically the same thing.
    So now my post stands WITHOUT CCHR.

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      • Thanks for the video links. They appear to be the same video. Anyway, as you said they used methods to try an make themselves look clean, so the family of the children thought they had died of something else, which did not implicate the doctors in any wrongdoing.

        Where I see a big problem from then to now, is that psychiatrists, especially in America but also influencing other countries, is that they are making diagnosis on the flimsiest grounds.

        For instance they used to treat for major depression if someone had lost a loved one and was still depressed after two years. Now it is down to if you miss a meal or two in as many weeks. This doesn’t even take into account people, who choose to eat something whenever they are hungry rather than eat formal 3 meals a day.

        The criteria for diagnosis are totally subjective. They don’t recognize that people are individuals and no two are the same. So they have set up conditions that can be used against anyone. This is the same mentality, call it inhumane, psychopathic or whatever mentality that has taken a hold in the US and influencing other countries. And the drugs that they prescribe create many other health problems including diabetes, heart disease, strokes etc. 750 thousand die every year in the US from drug treatments and many if not most are psychiatric drugs. It is echoes of the same as in Nazi Germany. And what is worse if you read my blog page on Depression and anxiety https://kyrani99.wordpress.com/depression-and-anxiety/ Psychiatrists are essentially drugging people and claiming to fix imbalances in the brain when there are none. People are reacting normally under the circumstances.

        Experiments on ESP and telepathy have been done for more than 70 years and none done honestly, as apply in an individual’s life. These have to be done by the humane public. If the psychiatric profession continues as it is going, they will make evaluation mandatory, which means everyone will be diagnosed with something and drugged. This is the first step towards a NWO tyranny. The aim is to “cull” around 7 billion people to get the population down to 500 million. How easily that can be done if they can drug everyone and give drugs that kill to those they don’t want around!

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