Time for Mental Health Professionals to Speak Truth to Power

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FromĀ Dr. Terry Lynch/Mental Health Academy: “With some notable exceptions, the professions of psychology, psychotherapy, counselling, social work, occupational tend to submit to the widespread belief that the body of knowledge espoused by mainstream psychiatry merits its place at the top of the mental health ‘knowledge’ pyramid.

This needs to change. In May 2015, coinciding with the publication of theĀ DSM-5,Ā the Division of Clinical Psychology of the British Psychological Society correctly called for aĀ paradigm changeĀ in global mental health. They have followed through on this position statement with the publication of theĀ Power Threat Meaning FrameworkĀ in 2018. These actions are to be commended.

In the public interest and in the interest of truth and justice, such correct and courageous actions must be replicated by individual mental health professionals and their collective organisations across the range of mental health professions.

It is no longer good enough for psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, social workers, and other allied mental health to sit quietly back and allow psychiatry’s ‘wisdom’ to drive and direct the mental health care of millions of people worldwide.

It is no longer acceptable for such mental health professionals to do nothing in the face of a mental health paradigm that is built upon misinformation; untruths; false claims re: science; serious bias towards biology – which remains unverified – and against a psychologically- and trauma-informed understanding of the experiences and behaviours that come to be described as various so-called ‘mental disorders’ . . .

Trauma expert and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s correct assertion is thatĀ psychiatry is ignoring trauma. This is no coincidence, since a full and proper awareness of the role of trauma and its effects within the psychiatric diagnoses would seriously threaten the fragile medical biological paradigm of mental health . . .

To paraphraseĀ Edmund Burke,Ā all it takes for corrupt systems to maintain dominance is for those who could – and should – speak out and take action to do nothing.”

Article ā†’

14 COMMENTS

  1. Funny you should cite Bessel van der Kolk in the same paragraph as “the fragile medical biological paradigm of mental health”. He is totally committed to the neurobiological paradigm for PTSD and other forms of trauma, as well as all of psychiatry. Yes, he uses and promotes numerous forms of therapy, such as EMDR, IFS and psychodrama, but also the questionable neurofeedback. But most crucially, he sees neuroscientific explanations of PTSD (and other mental “disorders”) as definitive and, ultimately, the basis for diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. I’ve personally tried to pry him away from that extreme, unsupportable position, to no avail.

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  2. I have tried to speak out against the medical model and DSM on this website via comments and have been aggressively attacked BECAUSE I was a professional. I was dismissed out of hand due to being a psychologist, rather than having my support and opinion valued. I offered to blog for MIA, but was told that because of my view (against the DSM???) I would be attacked. I have written what I believe is a reasonable replacement for the DSM that incorporates trauma, attachment/developmental trauma, emotions and neurobiological causes of psychological problems, yet I can get no support on this site BECAUSE I am a psychologist. It’s all well and good for people to say we professionals should speak up against the DSM, but if we are personally attacked for doing so then it won’t happen. I have given up promoting my model to anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry audiences for this reason.

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    • “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men [and Women] Do Nothing.” You’re right, those who need to be speaking out, are working as hard as possible, to maintain the current, scientific fraud based, DSM based “mental health” system. No doubt, because “It Is Difficult to Get a Man [or Woman] to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His [or Her] Not Understanding It.”

      Thanks for speaking out against the scientific fraud of the DSM, Terry Lynch, and the importance of those who utilize that billing code “bible” to speak out against it, and END their use of that stigmatization “bible.” I have Lynch relatives, BTW. A little correction, I’m pretty certain the publication of the DSM5 was in 2013, not 2015.

      Harper, I don’t think it’s “BECAUSE I am a psychologist” that MIA refused to publish your blog. I’m an independent psychopharmacology researcher, and expert by experience, who found the medical proof that the “bipolar and schizophrenia treatments,” the neuroleptics/antipsychotics, create both the negative and positive symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome and antipsychotic induced anticholinergic toxidrome. Bye, bye “sacred symbol of psychiatry.” MIA wouldn’t publish my blog either.

      I’m pretty certain a big part of the problem is that both the psychologists and psychiatrists, and their many “mental health” minion, have been utilizing the DSM to cover up child abuse and rape, for the religions and wealthy of America, for over a century, for profit. And this DSM “mental health” system is now a multibillion dollar group of scientific fraud based, primarily child abuse covering up criminal, industries.

      https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo

      Today, “the prevalence of childhood trauma exposure within borderline personality disorder patients has been evidenced to be as high as 92% (Yen et al., 2002). Within individuals diagnosed with psychotic or affective disorders, it reaches 82% (Larsson et al., 2012).” Which is medical evidence that the primary actual function of our so called “mental health” industries today is covering up child abuse, by misdiagnosing and poisoning child abuse survivors.

      And the DSM does NOT allow ANY “mental health” worker to EVER bill ANY insurance company for EVER helping ANY child abuse survivor EVER, unless they first misdiagnose them with one of the billable DSM disorders.

      https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1

      The DSM is a child abuse covering up system by design.

      I’ll pass this article onto the head of my former religion. However, I’m pretty certain she doesn’t want to end her religion’s child rape covering up and profiteering system. Since I’ve been pointing psychiatry’s crimes out to her for years, and heard crickets. The decent within that religion are at least writing books about the Lutheran pastors’ and bishops’ child abuse covering up crimes, and other religions are speaking out about the Lutheran bishops’ child rape covering up crimes. Unfortunately, the IL States Attorney’s Office is only interested in the Catholics’ child abuse covering up crimes, not the ELCA’s.

      https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Culture-Wars-Reclaiming-Prayer/dp/1598868330
      https://virtueonline.org/lutherans-elca-texas-catastrophe-coming-lesson-episcopalians

      I recently pointed out to the head of the ELCA the importance of reeducating, with the truth, her many social service workers, given that Lutheran Social Services is a huge organization. But I’m pretty certain our religious leaders don’t want to end their “dirty little secret of the two original educated professions” child abuse covering up and profiteering system. Which is what both the psychological and psychiatric factions, as well as the rest of the “mental health” workers, have been doing for over a century.

      America needs to start arresting the child molesters, instead of allowing the “mental health” workers to continue to defame and poison the child abuse survivors en mass. Especially since such crimes also function to aid, abet, and empower the pedophiles and child sex traffickers. So our country now has huge pedophilia and child sex trafficking run amok problems.

      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-signs-online-sex-trafficking-bill-live-updates/
      https://thetruthrevolution.net/vladimirputin-the-west-is-controlled-by-satanic-pedophiles/

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    • Sounds specious to me. Did they refuse to publish you or simply warn you of the inevitable response by some? Anyway we don’t need another “model,” we need to eliminate the entire “professional” mentality.

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      • We do need a model to help clinicians and service users understand why their emotions and behaviors are maladaptive for them. I understand many feel we should accept each person individually and unconditionally and that is where interventions should end, and there is much merit in meeting each person via their own experience. But there is considerable scientific knowledge and evidence on certain topics, such as trauma, attachment, the power of shame as an emotion, fear of social exclusion and the threat response, to warrant using this information to help people and provide a structured way to do so. I use my model in every interaction with service users and they find it very helpful, very de-stigmatizing, and very affirming. I do not ever mention DSM labels. Compassion-Focused Therapy is a well-researched and effective model that is a great aid to many who suffer. To dismiss all professional expertise and research out of hand strips away what useful tools already developed.

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        • “We do need a model to help clinicians and service users understand why their emotions and behaviors are maladaptive for them.”

          I would respectfully disagree with this statement, as a former counselor/therapist. I believe any “model” needs to understand why their emotions and behaviors are, or were at one time, ADAPTIVE for them, and help them decide if that behavior is still adaptive or if different options might be more effective in accomplishing their goals. Calling clients’ behavior “maladaptive”, in my experience, leads to defensiveness or self-shaming, whereas acknowledging that “all behavior meets a need” (as the saying goes) and that people aren’t acting or feeling random things, but are making decisions based on their own perception of what makes sense in their world. And of course, no one can really understand what makes sense in their world except the client him/herself. As soon as an helping person starts deciding for the person they’re helping what is and isn’t “adaptive,” they stop helping.

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  4. It seems to me that the basic function of the brain is to model the world(s) in which we live with the purpose of finding predictable ‘happiness’, where happiness is however we each define thriving in a social context – we thrive as a group because we can achieve more as a group.

    Anxiety, depression, paranoia, mania are all the result of unusual models of self to world – they are information and actionability issues that can be remedied via a combination of education and mind/life strategies. A life coach may be your best guide.

    I studied Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) in the business world forty years ago. NLP offers a workable model of the functional mind that helps one create better experiences and achieve desirable outcomes in a systematic and practical way that anyone can learn.

    I began to hear voices out of the blue at age fifty five and soon found myself instinctively applying my practice of NLP to own my reaction and response to voices, eventually managing to routinely prevent the recurrence of psychosis without medication, in spite of particularly aggressive and cruel voices. I have remade this practice into a suite of six simple mind strategies in tool format that anyone can apply.

    NLP works from the concept of the well mind. Instead of focusing on some ‘illness’ (poorly defined in DSM language) it simply asks ‘What can I do to achieve this particular desirable outcome?’ and makes that a habit.

    Mental issues are primarily information issues in the brain – our experiences are encoded in ways that they predict our ability to thrive in the world as we see it. We can deliberately improve our confidence in self and reshape the ‘as we see it’ element to create ‘happiness’ as we each define it. Habitually.

    Prescription drugs are more likely to get in the way than help because they alter our emotional responses. Emotions regulate the flow of information in brain processing. When I took anti-psychotics I got fat and became emotionally “dulled” – and that dullness projected onto everything in life. Pointless really, since the drug made no difference to voices and my quality of life was made worse, not better. If we aren’t looking at whole life quality as a desirable outcome, how can we even take drug efficacy seriously?

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    • Thanks Greg, You explain things very well.

      How much would you have cost $$$ even by now, if you hadn’t found your own way out?

      The other thing is that psychiatric drugs cause more suicides and homicides than they prevent.

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  5. Much of what goes on in psychiatry is vile and a shocking abuse of power and trust. It makes you wonder how these people ever sleep at night.

    I thank God for the true professionals, journalists, and others who do have a conscience and the integrity and honesty to speak out. Shame on those in the system who know innocent people (facing difficult stressors or life circumstances) are seriously harmed by psychiatry but yet say nothing.

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  6. Thank you for publishing this Article.

    Nobody has ever Genuinely Recovered through taking their “medication”.

    Dr Terry Lynch has helped people to Genuinely Recover, from “DSM Schizophrenia”. He can also explain how:

    From Dr Terry Lynch s book “SELFHOOD” :-

    “Prior to attending me in his late thirties, Stephen had been diagnosed five years previously as having paranoid schizophrenia.”

    “…He saw threat and danger everywhere, when objectively there was none….

    …His paranoia was entirely understandable as seen from his perspective, given that one of his main experiences was that he constantly felt unsafe, unprotected and unable to generate any personal security for himself….

    …I focused on enabling Stephen to progressively raise his level of selfhood….

    …I explained to him that his terror-filled, paranoid thoughts were an outward projection of his inner fear and self-doubt…

    ….People experiencing paranoia also experience their thinking speeding up, reflecting their terror. Thoughts keep coming, in an ever-more-frantic cascading sequence. The person creates an entire scenario in their minds based on their initial first thoughts. The initial thought may be somewhat based on reality. For example, a person across the bar happens to look in their direction. The person runs with this, creating a complicated sequence of events in their minds, a fantasy created under the influence of immense terror and great lack of inner safety. In a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds, they become convinced that there is a sinister plot to harm them in some way….

    ..I explained that he was relinquishing his power over himself to other people…

    …When feeling unsafe, he would appraise the situation, see things and people as they were and be aware that any meaning he attached to them was entirely his creation and had little or nothing to do with other people or the situation. He reassured himself repeatedly every day that he was safe, that he could make himself safe and protect himself in any situation…

    …This practise had the desired effect. His level of self-protection and self-generated security began to increase, slowly at first, then gathering pace…

    …Stephen has been off all schizophrenia medication for over three years. He lives a full life, goes where he likes, thrives in social situations, and has a level of selfhood higher that at any previous time in his life…”

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    • “…With some notable exceptions, the professions of psychology, psychotherapy, counselling, social work, occupational tend to submit to the widespread belief that the body of knowledge espoused by mainstream psychiatry merits its place at the top of the mental health ā€˜knowledgeā€™ pyramid…” they are wasting their own time.

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