The most dangerous thing you will ever do is see a psychiatrist.
Why? Because there is a near certainty you will be given a neurotoxic psychiatric drug or even electroshock; and because the information given to you will totally mislead you about your real problems and how to overcome them. Without realizing what is happening, you will be seriously at risk of becoming a lifelong prisoner of psychiatric drugs and the demoralizing misinformation provided by your doctor.
I am a psychiatrist and I have been watching my profession deteriorate for many decades. This is my most direct written statement about the dangers of stepping inside a modern psychiatrist’s office. My conclusions are the culmination of mountains of research authored by me and by an increasing number of other psychiatrists, scientists and journalists.1
How Psychiatric Drugs Take Your Mind Prisoner
When the brain is harmed by almost any widespread intrusion—multiple concussions and traumatic brain injury (TBI), severe infections (encephalitis), lightning strikes or electroshock treatment, and psychiatric drugs—the ultimate result is generalized harm to mental functioning. These global injuries always include harm to the frontal lobes, the seat of consciousness, rationality, the ability to love and all our other highest human capacities.
Injury to the frontal lobes, whose functions also include self-insight or self-awareness, renders victims unable to personally assess the degree of harm being done to them. I have called this effect medication spellbinding—how psychiatric drugs render us unable to fully grasp the harm they are doing to us.2
All psychiatric drugs are potent neurotoxins that so disrupt higher mental functioning and emotional regulation that people taking them almost never have adequate awareness of how much harm the drugs are doing to their body, brain and mind, their energy and will power, and their overall quality of life.
Practicing psychiatry and psychotherapy in a university town, I have frequently found these impairments in otherwise very high functioning people. College and graduate students with high academic achievements, university professors, mathematicians, and scientists often barely suspect, or do not suspect at all, that they are not nearly functioning at their best. Their neurotoxins (erroneously called antidepressants, stimulants, antianxiety drugs, mood stabilizers or antipsychotic drugs) are wearing down their cognitive abilities, motivation, and emotional sensitivity.
With help they can identify the decline in their overall performance and quality of life; and if they have not been bombarded with multiple drugs for years at a time, they typically achieve complete recovery after withdrawing from the drugs. When drug-free, they can see the improvement in their mental functioning and quality of life. Tragically, this is not so for tens of millions of people who never realize how they are being harmed by their psychiatric drugs.
Withdrawal Symptoms Make Escape from the Drugs Extremely Difficult
When stopping psychiatric drugs on their own, people can experience dangerous, frightening withdrawal symptoms, such as anxiety, agitation, depression and suicidal feelings, mistakenly leading them to believe that they need the drugs to stay sane.3
Misled by their doctors in countless ways, believing they need medical help, unaware of the dangers in abruptly stopping the drugs, convinced they are “mentally ill” when they are mentally impaired by neurotoxins—these unfortunate people understandably cannot break free of the psychiatric prison system in which they are unwittingly trapped.
The more drugs these victims are prescribed, the more difficult it becomes for them to appreciate what is happening to them or to muster the will power to protest. Even though they are slurring their words and walking like zombies, some will cling to their medication. Their brains are too impaired by neurotoxins for them to know what it is happening to them and they feel too intimidated to try living without the very chemicals that are destroying them.
Meanwhile, psychiatrists will frequently cover up what is happening by telling their patients and their families that the drugs are needed and that the obvious symptoms of brain injury are instead products of the patient’s supposed mental illness. In my experience, the worst psychiatrists are often the most prestigious with positions at places like the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and at university medical schools. Why? Because they are among the most on the take from the drug companies.
Psychiatry Itself Is a Prisoner of Sorts
Psychiatry itself has become a willing, thriving prisoner of the pharmaceutical empire. Along with the fallacies of its medical orientation and medical treatments, being indentured to the drug companies has caused much of psychiatry’s drastic decline in recent decades.4
To begin remedying the prevalent drug-company driven psychopharmacology, I have offered what I call “principles of rational psychopharmacology.”5 It is based on the brain-disabling principle,6 that all psychoactive substances, including psychiatric drugs, can only produce their sought-after effects by harming the function of the brain and mind, usually by blunting emotional responsiveness and engagement with life. The same, of course, is true of shock treatment.
Are Psychiatrists More Informed than Primary Care Physicians?
Since most psychiatric drugs are prescribed by primary care doctors and other non-psychiatrists—including family docs, internists, Ob-Gyns, pediatricians and nurse practitioners—some people are more wary of them than they are of psychiatrists. They think the psychiatrists know more about the drugs and will prescribe them more safely. This commonly held belief is dangerously false.
As a group, psychiatrists are by far the most arrogant and cavalier prescribers in the field of medicine. They commonly do things that your family doctor would feel is beyond his or her skill level and even unwise, such as starting patients on several drugs at once, giving multiple drugs at maximum doses or higher, changing and stopping drugs without a taper, and getting very angry when their patients complain or want help in lowering doses or getting off the drugs.
Less commonly, but at least as harrowing, many psychiatrists still refer people for electroshock or administer it themselves at the local psychiatric unit, where shock treatment makes tons of easy money for the shock doc, the anesthesiologist, and the hospital.
This is no exaggeration. Going to a psychiatrist is the most dangerous thing most people will ever routinely do. And as a psychiatrist, I advise against it, unless you have proof positive that the psychiatrist will talk with you instead of drugging or shocking you—which is highly unlikely.
Most psychiatrists have not been adequately trained and have little interest in talking with people about their lives and how to live more effectively and happily. They do not know how to do psychotherapy and are constitutionally unsuited for it because of their authoritarianism and their lack of empathy. In addition, they have false beliefs about genetic and biological causes, and the usefulness of drugs, that trash their own brains and undermine their patient’s self-confidence, self-reliance and understanding of their problems.
Psychiatrists Are Extremely Ignorant About Life
Few psychiatrists have any awareness that a positive relationship is the safest and most effective way of helping someone who is suffering emotionally, regardless of the severity of their psychiatric diagnosis. For anyone to genuinely help another human being with emotional problems or “psychiatric disorders,” they must first understand the power of empathy and love. They must understand and address the trauma and neglect in childhood that underlies so much seemingly intractable adult suffering and incapacity. They must understand how social factors impact the experiences of children and adults, and how difficult it can then be to create egalitarian and loving relationships between men and women.
In other words, to know what they were doing, psychiatrists would need a broad education, an understanding of child development and attachment psychology, insights into family life and society, an understanding of abuse and trauma, and other knowledge of why and how people need help with their emotional and psychological life, sometimes falling into despair or psychosis. Almost none of this is taught in a college premedical curriculum, medical school, and psychiatric residency—making many psychiatrists less informed about life than most of their patients who have some curiosity about psychology and who have not been rigorously indoctrinated and inducted into the inner sanctum of biological psychiatry.
Because they know so little and have so little to offer, psychiatrists must dumb down and misguide both themselves and their patients about what really makes people suffer and what really helps them recover and lead good lives. Instead of wisdom and understanding they rely on cookie-cutter diagnoses and drugs. The great majority of psychiatrists know no other way to make a living than to act as medication dispensing machines, cramming multiple patients into an hour for “med checks,” and collecting a steady stream of reimbursements from the insurance companies and government programs.
In addition to their ignorance, there is another powerful reason why psychiatrists know so little about their patients and what they need. People who control and abuse other people are always unwilling to have understanding, empathy and concern for them. That was nowhere more grossly obvious than in psychiatry’s organized, systematic murder of tens of thousands of mental patients in Germany in what has been called “the entering wedge” or prototype for the Holocaust.7 Even if today’s psychiatrists were caring and empathic in their youth, their years of training and the abuse they have heaped on their patients has rendered them incapable of offering informed, empathic, caring and even loving human services.
How Shock Doctors Make Escape Totally Impossible
Even when the brains and minds of patients are being obliterated by continuous electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), usually along with multiple drugs, shock doctors regularly lie by saying that the massive memory loss and cognitive dysfunction is a result of their “mental illness.”8 The patients become so befuddled and helpless that it usually requires an outraged family member to intervene to stop the electroshock and the drugs.
As a medical expert against psychiatrists who perform ECT, I have seen this dismaying situation documented many times in medical records and in the depositions of the doctors. Fortunately, my scientific report in a 2018 case against a shock manufacturer recently contributed to forcing a settlement and an acknowledgment from the drug manufacturer that ECT can cause brain damage and widespread memory loss.9 But we have a long way to go before stopping this atrocity.
The Risk of Getting Physically Locked Up
Everywhere in America, and probably elsewhere in a world, any psychiatrist on an emergency basis can fill out a form that will require police authorities to lock you up.10 Sometimes it may require a second professional signature as well, but that is rarely hard to find. The technical basis for this unconstitutional and inhumane process is usually that the psychiatrist guesses that you are a “danger to self or others,” although there is no evidence that psychiatrists are particularly good at making this guess.
Once you are locked up, you become fair game for being involuntary committed by a rubber-stamp judge for a much longer time. The patient/defendants are almost always too drugged and too distressed to defend themselves or to look normal when being evaluated in these hearings, which are probably the nearest thing to a genuine kangaroo court in the Western World.11
Psychiatry Is an Alternative Reality
Psychiatry has created an alternative reality or extreme state for itself,12 based on drug company marketing slogans, false science, fake medicine, and fabricated claims of superior knowledge. Psychiatry has created for itself an alternative reality or extreme state that is more bizarre and unreal than those of most of the patients they claim to help. In psychiatry’s worldview, people are nearly inanimate and devoid all higher human qualities—at least when in respect to why they are unhappy or suffering. Instead of being understood as struggling human beings, in essence no different than any other person trying to make their way through life, psychiatrists see their “patients” as afflicted by diseases comparable to malignancies of the brain that need to be wiped out or subdued.
Like cancer patients being given highly toxic drugs or radiation, the “collateral damage” is largely ignored or denied in the effort to wipe out the malignancy and to maintain the doctor’s status. Unlike cancer patients, the neurotoxins are aimed at and inflicted upon entirely normal brain tissue, making it even harder for people who are already having a difficult time struggling to manage their lives.
It is a profoundly tragic irony: The personal realities of most people who see psychiatrists are not nearly as alternative, extreme or dangerous to others as the alternative realities of the vast majority of psychiatrists who live within a web of self-deceptions to justify poisoning and shocking the brains of the people who come to them for help.
Comparing the Good and the Bad
On February 19, 2020 Mary Neal Vieten, PhD, retired Navy Commander and founder and director of Warfighter Advance, was my guest on my weekly radio/TV hour. Warfighter Advance is the best program I have found for helping returning soldiers who are suffering from the emotional scars of war, along with the neurotoxic effects of multiple psychiatric drugs. Military doctors have given a dozen or more psychiatric drugs at a time to many of these soldiers and yet Warfighter Advance training and education helps almost every single one of them leave their drugs behind while building better lives for themselves.
With intensive seminars, including a primary role for one of my books,13 Commander Vieten educates her military colleagues about the dangers of psychiatric drugs and how to safely withdraw from them. Her Warfighter Advance program also teaches its clients how medical concepts like “mental illness” and biochemical imbalances are both false and demoralizing.
Her stunning work and her presentation on my radio/TV hour inspired me to say it outright on the air: As a group, psychiatrists are the most stupid people on Earth about human beings. They have to be stupid about people in order to go on harming them without experiencing guilt, shame and anxiety over what they do.
Where and How to Get Help
If you feel in need of help for a mental health or psychological problem, one of the most dangerous things you could ever do is to choose to see a psychiatrist. If you want professional help, look for non-medical professionals, such as clinical social workers, clinical psychologists, marriage and family therapists, or mental health counselors. Even a good coach without professional credentials is likely to be safer and more helpful than a psychiatrist.
Read what therapists say about themselves on their Internet websites or on platforms that advertise therapists. Ask yourself, “Does this person seem kind and thoughtful, someone who will be a caring and empathic listener and possess wisdom and experience to share?”
Vet your potential therapists before meeting them by asking questions on the phone before the first visit. Hearing their responses will be better than emailing or texting. Especially ask for a guarantee not to be pushed to take medications or to see a psychiatrist. That may weed out the first few professionals you call—and that’s the way it should be.
Finding a good therapist can be as difficult as finding a good friend, so do not be afraid to shop. Always reserve your right to reject someone who does not seem like a good fit for you or fails to be respectful, understanding and helpful on the first visit. Yes, cancel your second appointment if you have doubts.
I believe that a good therapist should be so helpful on the first visit that you feel eager to return for the next session and that you should be drug-free enough to enjoy and benefit from the help.
“Deteriorate” is probably a good word.
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“I believe that a good therapist should be so helpful on the first visit that you feel eager to return for the next session and that you should be drug-free enough to enjoy and benefit from the help.”
Better yet, after the first session, you find there is no need to make any further appointments with the “good therapist”. Am I right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS3O5zg290k
There is no good and bad, if someone ever tells you that, they are lying.
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It’s very misleading for someone to say they know what your real problem is, and offer a solution. Think about it …
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It isn’t misleading, it is false and I learned the hard way by trying to “counsel”.
People often need/want someone to talk to. The person they talk to might be a great influence, a positive.
But many therapists have no understanding and go by what has transpired for them, or what they ‘think’ transpires for others.
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I went to a psychologist for “counseling” for an abusive marriage but she sent me to her associate, a psychiatrist because she doesn’t prescribe sleep medication and I was having trouble sleeping. The psychiatrist said don’t worry you’re not crazy; I will “help”. Then she prescribed Abilify for sleep issues! (Antipsychotic –
It can treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and Tourette syndrome. It can also treat irritability associated with autism…side effects: trouble sleeping may occur) Scary what’s out there with no accountability.
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I love it when they reassure people that they are not crazy. After all, psychiatry says they are “objective”.
If one is not crazy when going in, one can surely end up crazy.
They are jealous of sanity and emotions it seems. A shrinks facial expressions are often quite fixed. What is up with that?
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They obviously believe their test subjects are crazy. But they want to replace “crazy” with a more medical-sounding term to prove what Real Doctors they are.
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Wow, this is the most direct and powerful condemnation of psychiatry and psychatirsts that I’ve ever seen coming from within the industry. Thank you for your brave and unambiguous truth-speaking, may it ripple far and wide. I’m sure I’ll be sharing this blog.
One thing–I do feel it is important to give hope for healing, regardless of anything. I was on polypharmacy for 19 years until coming off of them systematically and intuitively, and now I’ve been 19 years off, exact same amount of time. It was often quite rough, scary, extremely painful, and totally uncertain, but in the end, with diligence, trust, and persistence, I found my healing, thank God.
While I was on the drugs, I wasn’t exactyly a “zombie,” and in fact I worked full time, went to school got 2 degrees, and had a seemingly “normal” (mainstream) life, albeit with symptoms I was always trying to manage, caused by the drugs themselves, it turns out.
Years later, following various changes in the drugs, I did eventually discover they’d been eroding me from the inside all along. My organs were out of balance and my mind became foggy. This is while I was in grad school, suddenly, things went south, and it had been happening slowly all along. It was quite a dilemma for me because of what I was taught to believe about myself and about the medical profession, including psychiatry. My father was a physician, so I thought any Dr. should be listened to, “for my own good,” that a “professional” would know more about me than I did. That’s the programming, and it’s quite misleading, to the point of danger, obviously, what you are warning us about.
I chose to break the programming and do what was good and right for me, and that was surprisingly challenging, to discern between my own voice and the stigmatizing voices that came directly from psychiatry and the mh AND social services systems, at large. It’s all part of the systemic bullying, from my experience, like poisonous tentacles to psychiatry. Such an utterly limited perspective of humanity, along with their own double binds, as per funding issues, and where the finanical power is. As long as that rules, we’re in trouble.
Most fortunately and thanks to good healing, I finally cleared my head of the static and learned to integrate my true nature into my life experience. That’s how I found my real voice, and my freedom, and they are mine to own now, which is incredible to me, a miracle, considering I’d felt totally doomed and hopeless on more than a few occasions, and it was profound, really dark. I kept going, and the light did show up, finally.
And that is my message to anyone who has been through this, as I have.
Thank you again, very much appreciated.
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Hi Alex
“….the most direct and powerful condemnation of psychiatry and psychatirsts that I’ve ever seen coming from within the industry. …”
It’s the only way to do it!
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Yeah, I agree, no mincing of words when it comes to truth-speaking about corruption. i know from experience that saying this to their face is useless, only creates retaliation and shuts down communication. When one says this about their peers, however, it has credibility that the victims of corruption are robbed of, as per the stigma of these labels and the social identity they perpetuate. All voices matter, but some are heard above others–or at least responded to above others, or taken more seriously than others, or some such thing. Hard to say what is actually being heard.
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I have to agree with Alex. Most DSM “bible” believers are “like poisonous tentacles to psychiatry,” forcing people to go to psychiatrists, threatening people if they don’t want to take psychiatric drugs. Most DSM “bible” believers are a part of a vast system of bullying, defamation, and neurotoxic poisoning.
I would go so far as to say the “mental health” workers “conspire” against their clients. Because I’ve got lots and lots of medical proof of crimes committed against me and my family members. Medical evidence of the abuse of my child, that “mental health” workers, pastors, and a bad PCP “conspired” to cover up. And poisonings and additional crimes they committed against me, in their quest to cover up the abuse of my child and a “bad fix” on a broken bone.
And, as it turns out, covering up child abuse and rape is the number one actual societal function of both the psychologists and psychiatrists, historically and today. And it is by DSM design.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/mar/27/are-sexual-abuse-victims-being-diagnosed-with-a-mental-disorder-they-dont-have
I also agree, “this is the most direct and powerful condemnation of psychiatry and psychiatrists that I’ve ever seen coming from within the industry.” And I will say thank you, as always, to Dr. Breggin for speaking the truth about the criminal and psychopathic nature of the psychiatric industry, and those employed therein.
And I am hoping to bring to light, and eventually see an end to, our modern day psychiatric holocaust. According to the former head of NIMH, 8 million innocent people die an early death, every year, due to the “invalid” DSM stigmatizations. And, no doubt, because of the neurotoxic psychiatric poisonings.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2015/mortality-and-mental-disorders.shtml
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml
That would amount to approximately 400,000,000 innocent people killed by the psychiatrists, and/or with the psych drugs, in the past 50 years. That is, I do believe, the biggest psychiatric holocaust ever. 400,000,000 human beings murdered by psychiatrists in the past half century, and the vast majority of those murdered are innocent child abuse and rape survivors, not “dangerous people” as the psychiatric propaganda propounds. End the modern day psychiatric holocaust of innocent people!
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“Most DSM “bible” believers are a part of a vast system of bullying, defamation, and neurotoxic poisoning.”
Exactly right, this is the truth distilled perfectly. The big three, working together doing soooo much harm, obviously, what else would come from these? By now it’s an embedded program, nature of the beast. This cannot go on forever without self-sabotaging consequences.
To these horribly misguided and toxic systems, psychiatry and its ilk: Please stop hurting people. You are hurting people terribly, repeatedly. We keep telling you, we keep providing evidence of our truth, and you will not listen, you will not believe, you will not acknowledge. Regardless, please stop, stop, STOP! Turn a new leaf, own your mistakes, make amends, and move forward in a new light. However it occurs, it must. We will all be better for it, win/win.
We’re ALL human and we all make mistakes. There’s a lot of growth and healing in owning and correcting the error of our ways. Everyone goes through it one way or another. It’s called waking up, and growing up. Be brave.
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Hi Dr Breggin,
Thank you for another blog.
When I went to a psychiatrist I had zero idea that labeling was even a thing.
No idea that calling someone a name was a “medical” thing.
I always was suspicious of psychiatry, because I had an inkling they were
not experts at even psychotherapy, yet I thought I should give it a go,
expecting some expert insight.
There was none to be had.
I have since discovered that in fact, it simply takes two people clicking.
Clicking is not something most psychiatrist are capable of.
I find it sad. Sad to devote their lives to lies, and resulting damage.
I know why they came to be, yet what has transpired from it’s beginning is so typical of cults.
Rosalee sent me the video of your meeting with Mary Vieten and I thought it was wonderful.
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Don’t know that I was always “eager” to see my therapist, but what was clear is that my therapist, who was wonderful, was focusing on doing whatever she could to help ME meet MY goals. She never told me what to think or believe, never told me what I should or should not do, never criticized me for making a particular decision. She was genuinely INTERESTED in finding out more about me, and even when there were some hard times going through material I would most certainly have avoided without her being there, I always knew she was on my side and would make it safe for me to say whatever was on my mind.
This was way back in 1982-3 before the DSM took over and when therapists actually listened to their patients. I know there are a lot less such people out there these days. If I were screening a therapist, my first question would be their opinion on the DSM diagnostic approach. If they showed any respect for the DSM, that would be it for me. And if they started talking about “mental illness is a disease, like any other” or “insulin for diabetes,” I’d run from the room!
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Exactly Steve.
Direct questions deserve direct answers.
Imagine asking a psychiatrist in the industry whether he diagnoses people and what method he uses.
What mental illness is it if you challenge a shrink?
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Oppositional defiant disorder? Until they piss you off so badly you go off on them, then you have “Intermittent Explosive Disorder.”
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You just perfectly illustrated the gaslighting which occurs readily in this industry, as standard practice. That is psychological torture and will do more harm than anything, leaving people confused, disoriented and feeling powerless because there is no truth to this, they are totally shadow projections. I believe this is how the DSM is used as a tool for justifying these projections. It is insidious, oppressive, and supremely toxic, hurts people at the core to have their humanity so blatantly invalidated like that, especially after being provoked.
These are wounds that cut deep, can really mess a person up until they wake up to the abuse and walk away from it. That can take a while to realize how draining this is, if one is vulnerable to such negative mirroring and feedback.
Even after all these years of being awake to how this works, it’s still mind-boggling to me that the “mental health” industry causes such profound psychological distress with these common practices of labeling and shaming emotions! The irony is over-the-top tragic. Such damage being done every day with this shit, makes me shudder.
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Imagine having me tell a therapist what I thought about ECT being a vicious assault on the brain and then finding out later that her husband is a shock doc lol.
I note that Slaying the Dragon mentions a “funnel” below and this is precisely what is occurring. So despite Dr Breggins claims that social workers, therapists etc can be trusted, all roads seem to lead to Rome. By having a “therapist” in an exclusive private clinic, and a shock doc in the public system I think there may have been advantages in ‘hijacking’ clients from the private sector to the public.
And yes it is a dangerous thing to see a psychiatrist, something I was aware of before doing so (requiring a report for my employer). I even hired lawyers at great expense only to find that it was a waste of money, mainly because I assume their families can be subjected to threats and intimidation also. So they will work with the criminals rather than rock the boat. Much more money in assisting them than trying to represent people being subjected to human rights abuses. Ask any lawyer who tried that in National Socialist Germany. Bad career move.
“The risk of being physically locked up” I note describes why organised crime is using the services of psychiatrists regularly. A simple ‘set up’ (‘spike’ and plant a knife and cannabis, torture and kidnap becomes refer and detain) is all that is required to be able to use police resources to detain and then drug and shock citizens to death. A valuable commodity in the criminal world. And with incompetent authorities who don’t even know there are legal protections from this conduct, they have carte blanche and zero accontability. Your only hope is that the ‘gangs’ in the medical mafia are fighting it out and you can slip the net. There is a reason that other real doctors tolerate this medical fraud, it can be very useful if you know how to work the system, and have some friends in the ‘business’. Once they no longer serve that purpose, the tower will crumble and fall. But for now, it’s business as usual.
I was described as having the “potential for damage to reputation and meaningful relationships” by a Community Nurse who had police drag me from my home in front of my mother and father in law and well, fortunately he was there to explain that I wasn’t going to prison, merely to a locked mental institution. And this for no other reason than I had a disagreement with my wife and a ‘therapist’. This of course not seen as affecting my reputation or relationships.
Be very careful of not just psychiatrists but their associated sycophants.
I have no doubt that eventually this massive State sanctioned torture program will be exposed, and a lot of wringing of hands will take place. Cries from the public of “it was all done right under our noses” etc. It’s been quite a swindle, and our elected representatives have aided and abetted in the crime. They must really think they are untouchable to be as blatant about what is being done. As were the people who got to shake hands with Albert Pierrepoint after the war.
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After firing one and refusing to take medication based on my medical history, I received “borderline” as a diagnosis. As a bonus, this “doctor” gave me an invitation, no wait, invoked a “court order” for forced injectable medication at a state institution.
Kangaroo court, oppressive, punitive, arrogant, and dangerous. Yes, indeed. Been there done that. Keep the t-shirt.
The struggle is real.
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My borderline diagnosis was at least in part a form of punishment – because when I learned that my psychiatrist of six years had kept no records while prescribing a ridiculous amount of drugs, I tried to report him to the APA. That was viewed as inappropriate anger by the psychiatrists, so, after shocking my brain a number of times, I was told by the ECT shrink (a close colleague of the no-record-keeper,), “You have borderline personality disorder. That’s why the ECT didn’t work.”
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Very true but I’m afraid it can be understand only by those that already suffered from psychiatry or studied enough the phenomenon to realize is bogus science and that psychiatrists are lying on a daily basis about their profession.
Lately, I’m watching interviews with psychiatrists on Youtube and you can not only see how they’re lying but also you can understand how these lies have penetrated the entire society, as reflected in the attitude the interviewer has toward his/her guest
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Andrei,
That is what is so strange. The fact that they can’t disguise their BS’ing.
It is what most people sense as they start dialogue with a shrink, yet don’t listen to that inner voice.
It is so identical to how any cult operates.
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Most people are conformists and they fear challenging the establishments so won’t feel the need to question psychiatry or something else that has potential to disrupt their safe zone.
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Excellent.
Dr. Breggin, this is one of your best articles to date. Thank you. I appreciate your courageous stand against the evil institution of psychiatry.
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“The most dangerous thing you will ever do is see a psychiatrist.”
This is true. And yet the entire “mental health” and medical system in America is contrived so as to funnel unsuspecting victims into the terrible web of psychiatry. The most dangerous thing you will ever do is see a psychiatrist, but that is precisely what the myth of “mental illness” encourages everyone to do.
Until the myth of mental illness is exposed, as Szasz tried so valiantly to do, psychiatry will continue to thrive, like a terrible parasite that thrives on the suffering of its host.
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The real “myth of mental illness” is that the ADHD drugs and antidepressants create the “bipolar” symptoms, as Robert Whitaker explained in ‘Anatomy of an Epidemic.’
And the “schizophrenia” treatments, the antipsychotics/neuroleptics, can create the positive symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via anticholinergic toxidrome poisoning. And the neuroleptics can also create the negative symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome.
Now that psychiatry’s two ‘most serious mental illnesses’ have been proven to be iatrogenic illnesses, created with the psychiatric drugs. It does strike me that there should be an end of psychiatry.
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I was fascinated by this quote from our Chief Psychiatrist Someone Else.
“lt is noted Mr Boans provides justifiable explanations for what was listed [on the Form. In fact, I pointed out they couldn’t possibly have been observed but ……]. The presence of potential individual explanations regarding certain behaviours does not diminish the capacity of an AMHP to consider the broader clinical picture which may give grounds to suspect mental illness. Of importance is the observed behaviours of the patient [Funny how I became a ‘patient’ because I was being observed by a Community Nurse huh?] which can represent a risk to the person or other however justifiable the reasons for behaviours may be.”
Given this line of reasoning, it doesn’t matter what the cause of the behaviours is, merely that they can be “observed”. So if they burn you with cigarettes and you act in a strange manner by screaming and trying to stop the burning, the observation is that you are suffering from a mental illness. Sure they can cure you by stopping the burning, but they are being paid if your ‘sick’ so….. expect more burns.
The above quote came about as a result of me being given drugs without my knowledge, thus causing the behaviours which were observed, which thus required me to be locked in a cage and given more of the drugs which had caused the observed behaviours.
Try reasoning with that sort of logic from the most important psychiatrist in the State.
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A excellent article. You have always been the conscience of psychiatry.
So many victims and so much false narrative.
Shocked to hear Lady Gaga, worth $250 million speaking enthusiastically about chowing down on the anti-psychotic, olanzapine, plus an antidepressant and 2 other drugs- this is a serious neurotoxin (someone send her a copy of The Zyprexa Papers)- how many people are impacted or influenced by that revelation and think, good idea!
And Anderson Cooper and tithe Doctors promoting Brn dmging ECT, with zero warnings of the real dangers – millions of viewers. Sick.
Society is being bombarded by false messages that psychiatry provides “help”. How many ppl have they poisoned, disabled, driven to suicide?
Psychiatry must be abolished, practicing this quackery made a felony.
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Lady Gaga will find out about olanzapine once she puts on the major poundage (tonnage?) this drug is famous for inducing.
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Thanks so much, Peter. You were right all long and thankfully my lad got off meds and out of the system when it so very nearly locked him up. We got my son back, 100%.
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Slaying, This quote deserves to be reposted.
“like a terrible parasite that thrives on the suffering of its host.”
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Thanks.
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Peter, in my experience, Psychology, Therapy and Social Work were in lockstep with Psychiatry.
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I found that to be true also, Lauren. I’m sure there are therapists who don’t subscribe to the medical model, whose goal it is to empower patients. Unfortunately, over 35 years as a patient, I never found that therapist.
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I think it’s an exaggeration to say they are “in lockstep”; most psychologists in my limited experience dislike psychiatrists and are partially locked into the biopsychiatric model because of how health insurance reimbursement works.
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I left my abusive husband, went to a psychologist who I didn’t know hypnotizes and went back not to a sorry, repentant man but with a strong urge to see a child off to college. After four and a half years of more abuse, I divorced. If the psychologist had done her job, I wouldn’t have gone back for more – Wish I had never gone for “counseling”!
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Thank you Dr Breggin for this frank and honest assessment of the perils of seeing a psychiatrist.
As you said so well in your excellent Radio/TV show February 19, people think they are going to see “a high priest of human knowledge” when in fact many psychiatrists are “just about the stupidest people on earth”. God yes! The sheer stupidity of a young female psychiatrist I saw for insomnia during cancer treatment was astounding.
“Instead of wisdom and understanding they rely on cookie-cutter diagnoses and drugs”.
Yes, “cookie-cutter” labels, and everyone gets a label and toxic drugs without any consideration as to causation or context for how a person is feeling. When most people see a psychiatrist they do so during a vulnerable time in their life with the belief and trust they will receive “help”. Instead they are severely betrayed. Psychiatry is so intent on maintaining its façade, power and control that they do not care they put trusting people on the road to ruin. Not only are they stupid but also deeply cruel in how they view and treat people who are suffering due to many understandable and legitimate reasons.
Thank you for being a psychiatrist with integrity, understanding and compassion. God bless you for continually speaking out against the damage psychiatry is doing. You’re a beautiful soul, a gift to mankind.
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Seeing a clinical social worker, psychologist or counselor is not “safe” either. Even if no drugs are suggested or taken, upon crossing their threshold one automatically becomes “mentally ill”, since to get paid, they must give everyone a DSM “diagnosis”. Unwitting people are now harmed with these invalid, bogus, unscientific labels simply by the act of walking into a clinic. The whole system is corrupt.
Here is an interesting article on the Politics of Mental Health – Highlights from Symposium 2019 by Bessel van der Kolk:
https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/2368/the-politics-of-mental-health
He states:
“As long as we live with a diagnostic system without scientific validity, all of us are part of the problem. Too often we label our patients with the diagnoses that are in line with what the insurance companies will reimburse us for, rather than what’s actually going on.”
“If people mistrust mental health professionals, they may have a good reason for it. We’ve become slaves to the insurance companies, and until we start dealing with the politics of mental health care today, we’re stuck.”
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I was 15, in High School, 10th grade, when my parents took me to a psychiatrist. I got a bogus “diagnosis”, and a prescription for PSYCH DRUGS. I was off to the races. The next 20 years of my life, which should have been the BEST 20 years of my life, were a living hell of dysfunction, psych drugs, and hospitalizations. I found Dr. Peter Breggin’s book “Toxic Psychiatry” in 1992, and read it. And READ IT.
Dr. Peter Breggin, you literally SAVED MY LIFE. I’ve been “shrink-proof” for 25 years now. Off ALL psych drugs, and no more “community mental health center”, either! If I knew then, what I know now, I NEVER would have taken that first dose of neuro-toxin! THANK-YOU, Dr. Peter Breggin! You’re one of the few exceptions which proves the rule!….
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Hi I am presenting this comment from my hospital bed in a private mental “health “ clinic in Australia. One in which I have frequented many times over the last 23 years.
You see , like many that are stricken down with a psychological injury I had no idea of what the ramifications of the modern treatment model would be . After a very stressful period at my work where I had done 10 weeks straight 7 days a week and up to 14 hour days I suffered what is commonly known as a mental breakdown. I had know idea what was happening to me and seen the symptoms as something physical. I was experiencing tremor, sweating and confusion . I drove to the emergency Department at the public hospital and after a 3 hour wait and short assessment the Doctor recommended I have had a breakdown, give me a bottle of sedatives and told me to go home, take 2 and see my doctor when I could . That was the start of a 23 year slippery slope into an abyss.
You see to the uninducted it was just the matter of receiving a referral to see a “ specialist “ in the field get some treatment and all is good. Remember I was new to this experience. After a 15 minute consultation I was prescribed an antidepressant, antipsychotic, and sedative and away I went. My somewhat confused brain reassuring me everything is Ok. Being totally compliant to the Psychiatrists wishes I started what was the first of many cocktails of false hope. So as l continued with the prescribed regiment I continued to become more stricken to the point of partial incapacity mentally and physically. One week sick leave turned into 3 months which included my first admission into a psychiatric ward after an attempt on my life. I have never recovered after many and varied interactions with psychotropic medications, ECT and TMS . I was lucky to be able to maintain my career for 18 years however it was a struggle. After my career was taken from me due to government austerity measures several years ago I have not been able to work. I can honestly claim my health has been on a progressive decline over the years of “ treatment “ . However one positive experience is etched into my crippled mind. Several years ago when taken of a family of drug known as a MAO I started to feel improvement . It was subtle but very noticeable. I cried ,I laughed , I had my libido back , I had energy. The medication was out of my system. I was able to go for hour long walks around the neighboring streets. I was no where near euphoric however I actually felt emotion and with that came some very missed energy. My then Psyciatrist however observed this action as peculiar and promptly changed my original diagnosis from Major Depression to Bipolar 2. I clearly remember the appointment in which he informed me of this and when I questioned his decision He replied with “ people with Major depression usually doesn’t go for long walks whilst there unwell. Reflecting back on that situation now, that is when it was time to take my chances in the real world un-medicated. I am from an engineering background and have respect for the science and technology supporting this field. I shake my head when reflecting on that period in my treatment . And ask myself what kept me from opposing to the continuation of drug therapy under what appeared to be a speculation. I can’t hang on this too long because to be honest it is damaging . However I think it come down to , its science and technology i have to believe in it . So onward I went with a new medication to support me in the form of a mood stabiliser. And that it did to the extent before long my normal emotions where completely dissolved and my energy along with hope for my future had vanished. I felt like a dead man walking. Time was the only variable I could rely on . This is what time did for me. It give me a much needed period to reflect on my treatment program in the past . It was also time for my psychiatrist to retire. My new psychiatrist was much more receptive to my recommendations and listened intently to the bipolar 2 diagnosis debacle. I had my wife of 35 years reinforced the fact I have never shown any signs of the diagnosis as suggested in DSM v . So at present the very toxic mood stabiliser as well as 3 other phsycotropics are being discontinued in a clinical environment. I am suffering side affects and I like the hurt. Everyday I am getting closer to normality. I am starting to feel again. Sloooowly . With the support of in house psychotherapy and occupational therapy and an understanding Psychiatrist l have the feeling of hope back for the first time in many years . About 3 appointments ago my psychiatrist mentioned she has patients that have come off the crippling medications utilising a team approach over an extended period of time. I felt a lightness throughout my body as if I may have a chance to be reborn. I have a way to go yet but my determination, support systems , stringent lifestyle practices and shear hard work who knows I might just get my life back???
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Acute drapetomiania Doctor? Olanzapine, Qetiapine, a benzodiaepine and some SSRI should fix that.
Seriously though Alfie there seems to be a correlation between the insurance running out and the need for treatment with psychiatrists. And with the issue of Corona Virus they don’t even want to shake hands for the $300 anymore.
But I do wish you luck.
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Thanks for the well wishes boans.
Didn’t get any better after that notorious first visit. Still I am keeping my self busy researching how to live a normal life whilst in this infernal clinic. Lithium should be finally ceased this week. Just white knuckling it waiting for the mania that was never a real problem because I have never suffered it ?? Bit of luck I will be walking out of here with a low dose Mirtazapine script. Go the monotherapy. I can deal with that later !
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Alfie,
I’m SO glad to hear that you have a rational psychiatrist.
Like night and day.
Funny how you don’t have the “diagnosis”.
We either have cancer or not.
Your psychiatrist could not possibly as brave as she is, if your old shrink was around.
Hope you get to taking long walks soon.
Btw, they should tell people ahead of time, if they are allowed to walk with their major depression disease.
If we knew the rules, we could act according to the diagnosis given 🙂
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Hi sam plover and thanks for the reply.
If we knew the rules, we could act according to the diagnosis given
That’s a classic, love it .
My new shrink can still be hard work.
It’s more like negotiating than an appointment interview.
Eg > discontinuation of Prozac 2 weeks ago. Thinking out loud I commented I might just might get my libido back .
Q How long has it been like this
A 4 weeks after commencing the drug 2 years ago.
I was abusing alcohol for 6 weeks last year . Not a good idea but kept me “ alive”.
Her comment was “ it would be the alcohol that has impacted my libido.”
To her surprise I burst out laughing .
Thinking back I hope the outburst of laughter doesn’t change my diagnosis again. LOL
Thanks again cheers
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Were you laughing “inappropriately”?
I bet if she made that observation, your current diagnosis might contain it.
I think “laughing inappropriately” is in all or most diagnosis, so you probably don’t get a new fancy one, although new clothes can be awesome.
Keep negotiating, because in the end, you are in control. Who cares if they slap the whole book on us.
Which is odd, they never give people ALL the diagnosis in the DSM.
I wonder if it’s because it would look odd, or if people only get a few “diseases” in their personality.
After all, it is the book of personality.
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Helpful reflections thanks again.
Dr Breggins contributions and commitment to giving us some HOPE is invaluable and almost nonexistent in this country.
Most of my research is sort internationally. In reality Australia is just another state of the USA. In some aspects that’s a positive.
Dr Breggins thoughts of medication gone mad and calling it “medication spellbinding “ is very true.
I am the first to admit I was spellbound.
I am entering my 5th week as an inpatient and I know I am promoting to my mental health through a discontinuation program. I also am very aware medication spellbinding has probably left permanent scars.
A morning routine therapy called “REFLEXION OF THE DAY “ encourages, in a group environment our level of wellness on a scale . And our CORE VALUES selected from a list . Most patients select HOPE as there CORE VALUE and when asked to reflect on this most comment they hope there treatment starts to be affective
there usually in titration up Or changing medications or both along with ECT or TMS .
My observation is they start to feel improvement after there distress or hope is dissolved after reassurance from the Drs there treatment will make them better.
To a very weakened mind this works very well and is commonly known as a placebo.
Sadly most relapse .
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“Most patients select HOPE as there CORE VALUE and when asked to reflect on this most comment they hope there treatment starts to be affective
there usually in titration up Or changing medications or both along with ECT or TMS .
My observation is they start to feel improvement after there distress or hope is dissolved after reassurance from the Drs there treatment will make them better.
To a very weakened mind this works very well and is commonly known as a placebo.
Sadly most relapse .”
Maybe they could hang a sign out the front with a ‘motivational saying’ on it? I did see one in my travels that said “Arbiet Macht Frie” that seemed to provide false hope to some people.
Of course you may be aware that in Australia they are currently trying to pass laws to make any criticism of the place a crime. So even if one were to have the proof of human rights abuses, it’d be a crime to talk about them. In fact they have found ways to ensure that any complaints are completely silenced altogether, though its way too late for you once you find out this fact, your listed as an unintentional negative outcome.
Rights without remedies are no rights at all.
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I just wanted to say that reading this makes me feel at peace. I’ve been suffering intense post traumatic stress for a long time after encountering psychiatry and being seriously harmed in its web while also being gaslighted that the harmful events ever even happened, let alone that they matter(ed). I admire and appreciate the courage and ethical determination of Dr Breggin. Simply speaking and hearing the truth is so powerful and healing. Too many people are scared to really come out and say it out of fear of pushback, isolation, and further violence. All valid, but we have to overcome our fears and channel our knowledge into something good. Psychiatry is all about silencing people, it is a form of spiritual warfare.
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Well stated survivingthesystem –
“Psychiatry is all about silencing people, it is a form of spiritual warfare”.
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Dr. Breggin, THANK YOU!!!! You have touched my heart, spoken the “unspeakable” and told all who will care to listen the unvarnished truth!
My life was nearly destroyed by psychiatrist prescribed neurotoxins and ECT. I refused to believe the doctors’ bullsh*t rationales and with each “med” I got out of my body the more clearly I could evaluate the overall harm I’d experienced. It is now over 5 years free of all of it (a huge cocktail of varying poisons prescribed for over 30 years).
May God bless you!!
You are a hero to me!
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A cautionary tale, if ever there was one, and oh so true.
If you can manage to do so, avoid psychiatrists like the plague. Getting locked up, insulted, poisoned, and debilitated, is not, as a rule, fun.
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I wrote a piece inspired by this article – Finish the Fight: Warfighters unmask a previously hidden enemy – https://michaelzfreeman.org/finish-the-fight-warfighters-unmask-a-previously-hidden-enemy/
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Ohh lord, I checked the website and the graphics are too much for my eyes. Darn
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Only the worthy will pass through the warp gate.
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Hi Peter, it is a long time ago we met. It was You that led me to criticize Psychiatry. It was in Heidelberg a Long time ago. Now I am 66years old, still very busy working with People that have been suffering from psychiatry. I still work a psychiatrist in order to get People out of this very mean System, that makes People believe their Problems are diseases, giving the “medication” that are drugs that donot Change the reason of their Problems but cause another cerebral Problem that they did not have before. I believe psychiatry is a fake science. It does not belong to natural science at all. I should be removed out of all universities. I is a big betray, perhaps the biggest that ever existed. The word Psychiatry Comes from the Greek lanquage, it means doctor of the Soul of the psyche. But what is the psyche? I as such a doctor donot know, honestly. I just talk to my Clients and together we search to solve their Problems. Is this a medical act? No, I am just human doing this. Peter I admire You doing this work getting into Publicity all the time. Here in Switzerland I am the only psychiatrist that also does that, but not in this great way of doing it like You do it. I wish You and You wife all the best. Best regards from Piet Westdijk
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Awesome Piet,
Love to see this happening.
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Dr Breggin..Peter,
I absolutely love the title btw.
It is so important to warn people and I am so appreciative of a few psychiatrists to care enough where our politicians fail.
The dirty secrets of what has been done to millions of people, how it just keeps happening over and over, and weak people hiding, even though they full well know the truth.
They must be stupid to think this can just go on in an okeydokey way.
It will end eventually, all dynasties have their day.
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Dr. Breggin, there is a tenderness your writing conveys that is so alien to the industry…thx.
My 4 years of challenging, painful, frightening…and successful recovery (19 seizures, broken body) has left me in a spectacular place at 69 and I’ve seized control for the rest of my life.
I carry my rare, ‘exonerating’, removed bipolar diagnosis-paperwork in my phone, like a citizen in Nazi Germany….just in case……. aware it’s not a silver bullet for a possible ‘next-time’, but DOES alert ‘them’ that I am fully informed of their intent… know how to beat them….and more trouble than it’s worth.
I’m forever changed, smarter about the dangers and suffering in the world….. and grabbing as much joy as I can in my third act. They don’t get to win.
MIA 2019, “Full Moral Status” Parts 1-2. RxISK.org 2018, “The Unicorn; Changing a Diagnosis” Parts 1-4.
Please never stop writing about this topic, Dr. Breggin.
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Love this comment Krista.
Love the strength and determination associated behind it.
Inspiring me to go forward and strive after surviving the clinical treatments.
3 meds down 1 to go and feeling strong.
Thanks
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Thanks Dr. Breggin for having the courage to speak up to bring attention to an industry that seems more content at selling than healing. The white coat placebo is the most dangerous of all the drugs. For someone in control to confirm or anchor a hypothetical or misguided belief removes or takes away the spirit and confidence that someone has in themselves. I’m convinced your courage has already saved many lives and will continue to save many more so please know you have our admiration and keep pushing forward.
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I’m off to the clubhouse, just ran out of ginger beer … did I mention I (almost) have a PhD …
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The truth is people get lost in a system because of the silence of those who know how it works, which in turn leaves those same people with a cognitive deficiency which leads them to believe the former know the system as well.
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“I am a psychiatrist and I have been watching my profession deteriorate for many decades.”
At the same time I am not sure that when Dr. Breggin started practicing psychiatry wasn’t grossly paternalistic, implicitly pathologizing and culturally oblivious (which isn’t much better).
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I’ve done two of the most dangerous things in my life. The first time I left home at the age of 15. And it was difficult, but then I realized that it was more difficult to continue living with my parents. And the traumas that I received as a child haunted me all my life. This article of yours https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/03/childhood-trauma-not-mental-illness/ helped me a lot to make out in myself. Helped to accept and understand what happened to me. And the second most terrible thing is my divorce. After I had already lost my family, losing it a second time was very scary and painful. But here in the blog https://onlinedivorcewa.com there are also many articles on divorce, which helped me mentally and financially to go through this more painlessly. In fact, I still have a lot of other terrible things to happen to me. No one knows what fate has in store for him.
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