Drs. Pies and Ruffalo Still Rattling Their Wooden Swords

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Ronald Pies, MD, and Mark Ruffalo, DPsa, were busy in June.  They published two papers in defense of psychiatry:  What Is Meant by a Psychiatric Diagnosis? (“Psychiatric diagnoses are not merely descriptive; they reflect genuine illness”); and Psychiatric Diagnosis 2.0: The Myth of the Symptom Checklist (“More on the meaning of psychiatric diagnosis”).  Both were published by Psychology Today.

Here’s their opening to the first paper:

“It has become fashionable for some in the social sciences to assert that psychiatric diagnoses represent ‘constructs’ and not genuine disorders or diseases. During a recent Twitter exchange, one of us (Mark Ruffalo) was pointed to an article published here on Psychology Today in 2019 by the psychoanalytic psychologist Jonathan Shedler, Ph.D., titled, ‘A Psychiatric Diagnosis Is Not a Disease.'”

Note the word “fashionable”, as if those of us on this side of the issue dispute the validity of psychiatric diagnoses on the grounds of fashions or whims.

“We wish here to counter the claims made in the Shedler piece, particularly as they pertain to the meaning and implication of a psychiatric diagnosis. One of us (Ronald Pies), a psychiatrist, has spent a large part of his career thinking and writing about the philosophical foundations of psychiatry; and the other (Mark Ruffalo), a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, has developed a keen interest in discussions surrounding the meaning of psychiatric diagnosis.”

Most of the content of the two papers is simply a regurgitation of previous contentions of Dr. Pies, to which I have responded on several occasions.  These I will address in a fairly cursory manner.  But our dynamic defenders of the psychiatric corpus have also collated a few new points of contention to which I will devote more space.

Drs. Pies’ and Ruffalo’s initial tactic is to reduce Dr. Shedler’s position to four “claims.”  The four claims are:

  1. That “Medical diagnoses describe underlying biological causes—and psychiatric diagnoses do not.”
  2. That “Psychiatric disorders and medical disorders are categorically different (i.e., are not ‘equivalent’).”
  3.  That “Psychiatric diagnoses provide nothing more than a label or a description of the person’s problems.”
  4. That “Psychiatric disorders and their diagnostic criteria cannot be considered the ’cause’ of the patient’s problems.”
CRITIQUE OF DRS. PIES’ AND DR. RUFFALO’S ARTICLES

Here are some quotes from the Pies-Ruffalo articles, interspersed with my observations and critiques.

“A careful reading of history teaches us that there is no ‘essential’ definition of disease universally accepted by physicians (or by philosophers of science); however, historically, the concept of ‘disease’ has always been more intimately tied to the degree of suffering and incapacity experienced by the individual person than to demonstrable biological dysfunction (see Pies, 1979, 2019). While abnormal biological or laboratory findings can sometimes aid in the diagnosis of a disease—e.g., as confirmatory tests—they are neither necessary nor sufficient for an entity to be considered a disease, nor for the diagnosis of disease.”

“A careful reading of history…”

Note the blatant arrogance and condescension in the implication that Drs. Pies and Ruffalo are the “careful” readers of history, and that, presumably, those of us in the anti-psychiatry movement are simply being careless and slapdash in this regard.

“…there is no ‘essential’ definition of disease universally accepted by physicians (or by philosophers of science);”

Actually, there is an essential definition of disease.  It’s to be found in dictionaries.  It may not be universally accepted by physicians or by philosophers, but where is the justification for such a sweeping requirement?

I myself keep three reputable dictionaries on my desk.  Here’s what they each say under the entry disease:

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, 2009:

a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms; sickness; malady.”

Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, 1992:

“a disordered or abnormal condition of an organ or other part of an organism resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, nutritional deficiency, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness.”

Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English, Third College Edition, 1988

“a particular destructive process in an organ or organism, with a specific cause and characteristic symptoms; specif., an illness; ailment”

Each of these dictionaries also gives analogical or extended uses of the word, e.g. any harmful condition, as of society (Random House).  But the essential definition in each case is as presented above.

PIES-RUFFALO: SUFFERING AND INCAPACITY ARE THE CRITICAL HALLMARKS OF DISEASE

“however, historically, the concept of ‘disease’ has always been more intimately tied to the degree of suffering and incapacity experienced by the individual person than to demonstrable biological dysfunction…”

Actually, for most of its history, the practice of medicine has been founded on error, superstition, and quackery.  Physicians had little or no knowledge concerning the essential nature or causes of the various diseases.  Bigotry and guesswork prevailed, and useless or even harmful “treatments” were used extensively.  The fact that some physicians stressed the notions of suffering and incapacity is neither surprising nor helpful.  These, after all, are very noteworthy and obvious properties of many diseases.  The fact that historically there was relatively little emphasis on “demonstrable biological dysfunction” is also unsurprising and unhelpful because until about the mid-1800s, little was known about human biology, normal or abnormal.  It wasn’t until the second half of the 1800s that John Snow, Louis Pasteur, and Robert Koch confirmed the existence of germs and developed the germ theory of disease, (here) and it wasn’t until the 1860s that most biologists accepted the basic tenets of the cell theory!

To hold up earlier periods of pre-scientific quackery as the preferential source of our present-day definitions is pure, undiluted nonsense.  It’s akin to citing unsplittability as the defining feature of an atom, on the basis that this was the accepted historical view prior to the first lab-controlled fission by Cockroft and Walton in Cambridge in 1932.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“And history is replete with examples of disease states whose pathophysiological mechanisms were unknown for decades after the disease had first been described clinically. Parkinson’s disease is perhaps the best-known example.

On Dr. Shedler’s view, no physician in 1817—not even James Parkinson!—could have told a patient with “the shaking palsy” that he or she had bona fide disease—because, for Shedler, the sine qua non of a bona fide disease diagnosis requires a known etiology—or at least, the diagnosis must “point to” etiology, whatever that means. The illogical consequence of this view is that no patient with what we now recognize as Parkinson’s disease could have had actual disease until the etiology or pathophysiology was identified, in the 1960s.”

In the early days of scientific medicine, progress was by fits and starts.  Great discoveries were made, but several issues remained poorly understood or not understood at all.  The etiology of Parkinson’s disease was not understood.  But—and this is the critical point—it was reasonable to believe that there was an underlying pathology, and that the “shaking palsy” was a genuine disease or illness.  This, I believe, is what Dr. Shedler meant by the assertion that medical diagnoses “point to etiology—underlying biological causes.”

Apparently the learned doctors have failed to grasp this, so I’ll try a simple analogical explanation.  Suppose I am riding a bicycle and I hear a loud grinding noise coming from the rear hub.  Without even examining the hub, I surmise, probably correctly, that something has gone amiss in the hub and repairs are called for.

Similar considerations apply to Dr. Parkinson’s position in 1817, when he wrote his “Essay on the Shaking Palsy.”  He described six cases of this condition and identified six characteristics: the tremor itself, abnormal posture, abnormal gait, paralysis, diminished muscular strength, and a deteriorating course.  Any one of these problems would suggest a disease (in the dictionary-endorsed biological pathology sense of the term).  The identification of six characteristics leaves little doubt.  After all, there are no other plausible explanatory candidates.

In sharp contrast, most of the criteria items by which psychiatrists define their ever-growing list of mental “illnesses” are explainable in non-pathological terms.  Depression in the face of overwhelming adversity does not point to a biological etiology; rather, it is an adaptive mechanism encouraging us to make appropriate changes in our lives and circumstances.  Similarly, anxiety concerning the current world-wide pandemic does not point to a biological etiology, but is also adaptive, and encourages us to take such precautions as we can.

But the very learned doctors remain intractable.  They list five illnesses for which “the exact cause is either unknown or poorly understood”:

“Even today, many diseases—readily identified as such—have no known underlying biological cause. Alzheimer’s disease, migraine disorders, Kawasaki’s disease, fibromyalgia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) are but a few examples of conditions for which the exact cause is either unknown or poorly understood.”

And they conclude:

“Thus, the claim that medical diagnoses essentially or necessarily ‘point to’ etiologies is false.”

The essential issue here is that Drs. Pies and Ruffalo are confusing the disease (i.e. the actual biological pathology) with the degree of human knowledge concerning the disease (which could vary from very little to a great deal).  Are the learned doctors actually suggesting that any disease which cannot “show its credentials” at the door be banned from hospitals and other healthcare facilities?  I would guess not.  What they are doing rather is using this bizarre caricature of the anti-psychiatry position to score cheap points in a debate that they have long since lost.  The inescapable fact is that the pathologies underlying the great majority of general medical diseases are known and understood, while the total number of psychiatry’s functional “diseases” that have attained this status is still zero!

“Similarly, serious mental illnesses (SMI) like schizophreniabipolar disorder, and major depression are rightly grouped in the broad family of disease entities not because they are ‘equivalent’ to diabetes or pneumonia, but because—as Wittgenstein explained in his later work (e.g., Philosophical Investigations)—there are ‘family resemblances’ between SMI and certain conventionally ‘medical’ disease states; i.e., like diabetes or pneumonia, schizophrenia (or major depression, bipolar disorder, autism, and others) produce characteristic types of suffering and incapacity.”

Note firstly that Drs. Pies and Ruffalo are here referring only to “serious mental illnesses (SMI)” such as “schizophrenia,” “bipolar disorder,” and “major depression.”  Should we conclude from this that they are excluding the hundreds of other psychiatric “diagnoses” from these considerations?

Secondly, the use of “family resemblances” as a basis for categorizing anything is extremely problematic, in that they are notoriously unreliable and arbitrary.  Suppose, for instance, that I wish to identify and demark the fundamental axis for categorizing animals.  I observe a great many animals and I conclude that the most obvious family resemblance is the presence (or absence) of fur.  And with that as my fundamental distinction, I set about the task of further study and subdivision.  But what I’ve done will have very little value, because the presence (or absence) of a backbone (vertebrates vs. invertebrates) is a much more fundamental distinction.  Fur (or its lack) probably had a good measure of importance historically if one were hunting animals to make fur coats, but it is way down the road in categorical significance.  But from several prima facie aspects, and particularly from the historical aspect, it is one of the dominant characteristics.

Wittgenstein, of course, was considered to be a great thinker, and he is so regarded by many today.  It is not my place to challenge these kinds of sentiments.  Bertrand Russell, however, one of the greatest philosophers and logicians of the twentieth century, who knew Wittgenstein well and was very familiar with his writings, wrote this:

“I have not found in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and I do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages.” (here)

There is an unfortunate tendency in modern philosophy to attribute wisdom to philosophers in direct proportion to the obscurity of their reflections, and I fear that Drs. Pies and Ruffalo may have allowed themselves to fall into this trap.

Regardless of what Wittgenstein might or might not have written, suffering and incapacity are not the defining features of disease.  Affording disease status to psychiatry’s loose collections of vaguely-defined thoughts, feelings, and behaviors on the grounds that they bear family resemblances to certain conventionally “medical” disease states is unsound logically and scientifically.  This is particularly the case in that there are available perfectly reasonable and accurate definitions of disease which can serve the discrimination purpose more effectively and more accurately.  Of course, such discriminations would exclude all psychiatry’s functional “illnesses” from the disease category.  It is tempting to speculate that the learned doctors’ affinity for this notion is the only way they can see to rescue their beloved psychiatry from the scrap-pile of medical errors, where it rightfully belongs.

To recap:  The very learned and eminent Drs. Pies and Ruffalo realize that psychiatry can no longer peddle the absurdity of the chemical imbalance pathology.  But they desperately need to maintain the fiction that their diagnoses refer to real illnesses.  Despite the efforts of psychiatric researchers, no substitutes for the chemical imbalance theory (using the word theory in the dictionary-endorsed sense of guess or conjecture) are to hand.  So Drs. Pies and Ruffalo, with characteristic psychiatric arrogance, proclaim the blatant falsehood that there is no essential definition of disease, but that suffering and incapacity are its most critical properties, which for psychiatry is tautologous, in that these properties are built into the definition, and voila, psychiatric validity is established once and for all.

So, according to our learned and eminent doctors, pneumonia, diabetes, and epilepsy are diseases not because they are caused by biological pathology as we had all, in our profound ignorance, imagined, but rather because of their tendency to produce certain kinds of suffering/distress.  There are almost no limits of inanity to which proponents of psychiatric nonsense will go to defend their prestige, turf, and earning power.

PIES-RUFFALO:  PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSES ARE NOT MERELY LABELS

Claim #3: Psychiatric diagnoses provide nothing more than a label or a description of the person’s problems.

This claim is based on the fallacy that psychiatric diagnoses are made solely on the basis of the patient’s symptoms (subjective complaints). In reality, they also include signs (observable features) such as psychomotor agitation, weight loss, abnormal sleep patterns, cognitive impairment (as demonstrated with psychometric testing) and other objectively observable phenomena. Thus, insofar as this claim alleges that psychiatric diagnoses describe only symptoms, it is false.”

Here again, Drs. Pies and Ruffalo miss the point.  The issue is not whether the criteria are subjective or objective; but rather whether they singly or collectively have any explanatory value. And the clear reality is that none of the criteria for psychiatry’s functional “diseases” have any explanatory value.  They provide no answers to the critical why questions.  What we find in psychiatry are widespread but spurious claims that their “diagnoses” constitute real illnesses “just like diabetes”, but nothing in the criteria to substantiate these claims.  Drs. Pies’ and Ruffalo’s response is that their so-called diseases are real diseases because they entail suffering and distress.  (Interestingly, the DSM requires only suffering or distress, but the distinction is immaterial in that neither constitutes an acceptable definition of illness.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PIES-RUFFALO:  PSYCHIATRIC DISEASES HAVE PREDICTIVE VALIDITY, GENETIC RISK FACTORS, NEUROLOGICAL CORRELATES, AND PSYCHOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS 

So far, Drs. Pies and Ruffalo have stuck pretty much to their usual script.  But at this juncture they introduce a notion that I haven’t seen (or at least don’t recall seeing) in their earlier writings.

“Furthermore, psychiatric diagnoses provide more than a shorthand or label. Many also have predictive validity, genetic risk factors, neurobiological correlates, and psychometric characteristics that may be objectively demonstrated. For example, DSM-5 states that one-third of the risk of developing generalized anxiety disorder is genetic, and that these genetic factors overlap with the risk of ‘neuroticism.’ Thus, Shedler’s claim that a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder means “nothing else” than a description of the patient’s prolonged worry or anxiety is false.”

Let’s examine the second sentence above, taking each item in turn:

Predictive validity:  The predictive validity of a diagnosis is the extent to which the diagnosis either remains constant over time or accurately predicts the progression of the illness and treatment response.  Since all the criteria for “generalized anxiety disorder” are either thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, what’s being asserted here by Drs. Pies and Ruffalo is that previous patterns of thought, feelings and/or behavior are valid predictors of future thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors.  This is not particularly profound, nor is it entirely true.  People can and do change their patterns of thinking, feeling, and or/behaving without any kind of professional help.  With regards to the power of the diagnoses to predict treatment response, it needs to be pointed out that in a great many psychiatric situations, the first drug prescribed for a given problem is ineffective and is followed by another and even a third before any positive effect is noted.  Of course, it’s entirely possible, though seldom acknowledged by psychiatry, that the passage of time might have been the critical factor in these cases.

Genetic risk factors:

“…DSM-5 states that one-third of the risk of developing generalized anxiety disorder is genetic, and that these genetic factors overlap with the risk of ‘neuroticism.'”

DSM-5 does indeed contain this statement.  It’s on page 224.  But like all such statements in the DSM, no reference is provided, so we can’t check out the quality or otherwise of the assertion.

As a general matter, however, it needs to be pointed out that most psychiatric studies of genetic risk rely on comparisons of monozygotic twins vs. same-gender fraternal twins, and are based on the assumption that the twins were raised in equal environments—an assumption that is known to be false.  For further discussion of this complex matter, see posts written by Jay Joseph, PsyD, on Mad in America here, here, and here.  Here are two quotes from two of Dr. Joseph’s articles:

“The bottom line is this: despite being cited in countless textbooks, scholarly journal publications, and popular books and articles, the little-disputed finding that identical pairs experience much more similar environments than fraternal pairs means that non-genetic factors plausibly explain twin method results. The fact that psychiatric twin studies continue to be cited in support of genetics, largely uncritically, speaks volumes about the scientific status of psychiatry in the 21st century. Psychiatry’s acceptance of twin studies is even more remarkable in the context of the decades-long failure of molecular genetic research to uncover genes that investigators believe cause psychiatric disorders (see my February 15th MIA posting)—research that is based largely on genetic interpretations of the results of psychiatric twin studies.” [Emphasis added]  [The Trouble with Twin Studies, Jay Joseph, PsyD, MIA, March 13, 2013]

“The classical twin method as a measure of ‘heritability’ and of genetic influences on psychiatric disorders and other behavioral characteristics remains one of the great pseudoscientific methods of our time, and will eventually be added to the list of discarded pseudosciences where we now find alchemy, craniometry, and mesmerism.”  [Has a New Twin Study Meta-Analysis Finally “Settled” the Nature-Nurture Debate?, Jay Joseph, PsyD, MIA, June 1, 2015]

Incidentally, the fact that violations of the equal environment assumption invalidate these kinds of twin studies is widely accepted even by the genetic researchers themselves.  Here is a quote from a highly-influential group of psychiatric genetic researchers:

“Finally, as previously discussed, since our genetic information is limited to twin samples, any undetected violations of the equal-environments assumption might lower the heritability estimates from those presented.”  [A Review and Meta-Analysis of the Genetic Epidemiology of Anxiety Disorders, Hettema, Neale, and Kendler, Am J Psychiatry, 2001: 158: 1568-1578]

Neurobiological correlates: Everything that a person does, from the twitch of a finger, to solving differential equations, to playing lead violin in a symphony orchestra, has neurobiological correlates.  There is no “ghost” inside the head pulling levers or pushing buttons.  The human organism is just that:  an organized whole in which sensory input modifies neural activity, which in turn modifies overt and covert behavior.  Confusion in this area arises because psychiatrists unjustifiably assume that any neurobiological correlate of anxiety, or depression, or inattention, etc., must be pathological in nature.  They assume that unpleasant or otherwise troublesome emotions, thoughts, or behaviors inevitably constitute disorders, provided certain vague thresholds of severity, duration, and impact are met.  And it is this unwarranted assumption that routinely leads them into error.

Psychometric characteristics:  There are psychological tests for psychiatric constructs such as depression and anxiety.  Many of these tests are of the pencil and paper, or questionnaire, variety.  The testees or their caregivers are presented with a series of questions or statements, and are asked to indicate which are true at this particular time.  A commonly-used example is the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.  There are 17 items on the Depression scale, at least 8 of which correspond to items on the DSM “major depression” checklist.

So, finding positive correlates between psychiatry’s “diagnostic” criteria and psychometric characteristics is a bit like finding a positive correlation between a severe hail-storm in a mid-Western town and the number of roofing shingles sold in the following month.  The only sensible response to which is: Duh!

PIES-RUFFALO:  PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS AND THEIR DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA CAN LEGITIMATELY BE CONSIDERED THE CAUSE OF THE CUSTOMER’S PROBLEM

Claim #4: Psychiatric disorders and their diagnostic criteria cannot be considered the “cause” of the patient’s problems.

Whereas Shedler (2019) claims that psychiatric diagnoses do not ’cause’ symptoms, we contend that it is completely appropriate and correct to state, for instance, that a patient’s extreme mood swings are caused by their underlying bipolar disorder; or that a patient’s auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and thought process disorder are caused by their having schizophrenia.”

“Shedler appears to take the stance that (1) psychiatric disorders and their diagnostic criteria do not speak to the cause or etiology of the particular condition (which is generally true); and therefore, (2) (a diagnosis of) condition X cannot be considered a cause of the patient’s problem.

Note that the eminent doctors have conceded that “psychiatric disorders and their diagnostic criteria do not speak to the cause or etiology of the particular condition.”  In other words, they don’t provide any answers to the question “what has caused this problem?”

 But then it gets a little abstruse or perhaps absurd.

“This is a non sequitur, because we are really talking about two distinct kinds of causality: let’s call them “cause 1” and “cause 2.” That we don’t know the “cause 1” of, say, schizophrenia does not mean that schizophrenia (by current criteria) is not the “cause 2″ of the patient’s hallucinations, delusions, etc. To put it another way, we may not know the cause of schizophrenia, but we can still say, quite accurately, that schizophrenia is the cause of the patient’s suffering and incapacity. In his 2019 piece, Shedler confuses and conflates these two very different types of causality.”

Actually, there is confusion here, but it’s largely to be found in the verbal gymnastics of our two learned doctors.  Let’s illustrate this by comparing the real disease pneumonia with the psychiatric “disease” known as schizophrenia”.

Disease:  pneumonia
Signs and symptoms:  cough; shortness of breath; fever; chest pain, etc.
Cause:    inflammation of lung tissue, usually due to infection with bacteria, viruses, or other pathogens.

The pneumonia CAUSES the symptoms and signs.  If a patient were to ask:  Why am I coughing all the time; Why does my chest hurt? etc., the correct answer would be:  Because you have pneumonia.  And, if the patient asked for more information, a well-informed doctor could talk to him about the nature of the inflammation; he could show him the X-ray pictures and the culture results, etc.  In short, the doctor could “connect the dots” from the signs and symptoms that the patient is experiencing to the actual biological pathology that is called pneumonia and could say without a doubt that the former are caused by the latter.  In fact, he could go further and explain that the object of treatment is the elimination of the offending organisms and the reduction of the inflammation to ordinary levels.

Now let’s see how this compares to the psychiatric situation.  Our learned doctors contend

“that it is completely appropriate and correct to state, for instance, that a patient’s extreme mood swings are caused by their underlying bipolar disorder; or that a patient’s auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and thought process disorder are caused by their having schizophrenia.”

For the sake of brevity and simplicity, let’s focus on the “schizophrenia” example.

Disease:  “schizophrenia”
Signs and symptoms: auditory hallucinations; paranoid delusions; disordered thinking.
Cause:     unknown, as conceded by the two learned doctors

And let’s see how a conversation between the “patient” and his psychiatrist might go.

“Patient”:          Why am I here?
Psychiatrist:     Because you are experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking.
“Patient”:          Why am I experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking?
Psychiatrist:     Because you have schizophrenia.  It’s a serious illness and you need to be in a safe place.
“Patient”:          So this disease – schizophrenia – is my diagnosis and it is causing me to have auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking?
Psychiatrist:     Precisely, yes.
“Patient”:          How does that work?
Psychiatrist:     What do you mean?
“Patient”:          How does this disease – schizophrenia – cause me to have these experiences?
Psychiatrist:     We don’t know enough about schizophrenia to say for sure how it has these negative effects.
“Patient”:          Huh?
Psychiatrist:     We just know that you have it and that it produces or causes these problems.
“Patient”:          But you don’t know how it causes these problems?
Psychiatrist:     No.  We don’t know that.
“Patient”:          I’m confused.  Tell me again, how do you know I have this disease called schizophrenia?
Psychiatrist:     Because you are experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking.  Those are the diagnostic criteria.
“Patient”:          OK.  So I am experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking because I have schizophrenia; but the only evidence for the schizophrenia is the auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking.
Psychiatrist:     Eh.  Yes.  That’s correct.
“Patient”:          My last psychiatrist told me that I had a brain disease – a chemical imbalance in my brain.
Psychiatrist:     We don’t know that for sure.  But we do know that you are experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking, which means you have schizophrenia.
“Patient”:          So how do you even know that I’ve got a disease?  Maybe I really am receiving messages from God, and I really am the last of the present-day prophets.
Psychiatrist:     We know that you have a disease because you are experiencing distress and incapacity, and historically distress and incapacity have been intimately tied to the concept of disease.
“Patient”:          What incapacity?
Psychiatrist:     Well, you don’t seem to be able to keep a job.
“Patient”:          And that’s because I have schizophrenia?
Psychiatrist:     No, that’s one of the reasons that we know you have a disease.
“Patient”:          What are the other reasons?
Psychiatrist:     Distress.
“Patient”:          Distress?
Psychiatrist:     Yes.
“Patient”:          The only distress I’m feeling is because you’re keeping me locked up in this place.
Psychiatrist:     Well, hopefully we’ll get you stabilized and back home soon.
“Patient”:          So you’re telling me that I have to stay here because I experience auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking, and that I’m experiencing these because I have a disease called schizophrenia.  You don’t know the nature of this disease, but you know it’s a disease because it entails distress and incapacity.  And you know I’ve got it because I’m experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking.
Psychiatrist:     Yes.
“Patient”:          And I’m the one with the thought disorder?
Psychiatrist:     Yes.
“Patient”:          And if I’m feeling a little suspicious of all this, would that be considered paranoid delusion?
Psychiatrist:     Quite possibly.  Yes.
“Patient”:          Well in that case, everything is crystal clear.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Let’s move on to Dr. Pies’ and Dr. Ruffalo’s second paper.  It’s called Psychiatric Diagnosis 2.0: The Myth of the Symptom Checklist: More on the meaning of psychiatric diagnosis, June 14, 2020.  Here’s the opening paragraph:

“Following the publication of our last post, ‘What Is Meant by a Psychiatric Diagnosis?‘, we received feedback from a few individuals raising questions and counterarguments to our assertion that psychiatric disorders—as described by their DSM diagnostic categories—can accurately be said to cause symptoms. We wish here to clarify and expand on the points made in our original piece.”

Then:

“Our position, roughly speaking, could be summed up in three basic principles: 1. Avoid definitional essentialism. 2. Embrace clinical pragmatism. 3. Respect ordinary language.”

So they choose to avoid definitional essentialism and appear to regard this as a virtue/asset rather than a liability.  But let’s look a little deeper.

An essential definition is one that names or reveals the essential nature of the object or entity under discussion, and in most scientific discussions is considered an essential facet of validity.  So inflammation of the lungs, with congestion, usually due to infection with bacteria, viruses, or occasionally other pathogenic organisms, is the essential definition of pneumonia.  Melanoma is defined essentially as “any of several types of skin tumors characterized by the malignant growth of melanocytes.”  Peritonitis is defined essentially as “inflammation of the peritoneum.”  All the above definitions are from my Random House dictionary referenced earlier, wherein can also be found essential definitions of almost all illnesses/diseases whose essential definitions are known.  Note particularly that in each case cited above, the underlying biological pathology constitutes the core of the definition.  This is because in all branches of medicine other than psychiatry, an understanding of the essential nature of the illness is and is considered to be the royal road to effective treatment and prevention.

There was a time when psychiatry also embraced this principle, and widely proclaimed that their so-called diagnoses referred to real illnesses, “just like diabetes,” whose precise underlying biological pathology would be discovered any year now.  Indeed, Dr. Pies himself was at one time an enthusiastic supporter of this perspective.  Here’s a quote from Psychiatry’s Crisis which he published in 1985:

“Perhaps the most invigorating trend in modern psychiatry is the thrust toward biological research and treatment.  The neurochemical basis of depression is gradually unfolding [7], and its rigors yielding to somatic treatments.  Those twin scourges, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease, are revealing more reluctantly their nature and causes, but progress is already evident.” [Emphasis added]  [J Chron Dis, 1985: Vol 38: 6: 525-526]

But as the decades passed, and the spurious nature of the claims was routinely challenged by the anti-psychiatry movement, they began to back away from these contentions.  Drs. Pies’ and Ruffalo’s efforts in these papers are just the latest chapter in the subsequent and futile attempt to legitimize psychiatry by other means.

The critical question at this point of the discussion, however, is why would Drs. Pies and Ruffalo choose to adopt—as a first principle, mind—to avoid definitional essentialism.  Given the primary place of essential definitions in real medicine and in science generally, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion, or at least the strong suspicion, that Drs. Pies’ and Ruffalo’s decision on this matter springs from a realization that their beloved psychiatry has no essential definitions and that, therefore, psychiatrists, quite literally, don’t know what they’re talking about.  The notion that an individual’s anxiety, say, is caused by a putative, but wholly unexplained, indeed only vaguely described, “illness” called generalized anxiety disorder makes as much sense as the assertion that it is caused by a curse or incantation or, for that matter, excessive masturbation.

“2. Embrace clinical pragmatism.”  Clinical pragmatism is one of those terms that can mean almost anything, and can be used to justify almost any type of intervention, including blatant torture!

“3. Respect ordinary language.”  This is truly absurd.  Drs. Pies and Ruffalo labor endlessly to promote the notion that disease should be conceptualized as a problem or entity that causes prolonged or severe distress and impairment, as opposed to a problem that stems from biological pathology.

But the ordinary language use of the term disease is:  a condition that stems from a biological pathology, and diagnosis is the process of identifying this pathology.  So, whatever facet of ordinary language they are respecting, they’re keeping it well hidden.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“In turn, these principles lead us to three fundamental conclusions, which we flesh out in our original article and further elucidate here:

    1. There is no ‘essential definition’ (i.e., one specifying necessary and sufficient conditions) for terms like ‘disease’, though entities called by this name typically possess ‘family resemblances.'”

As mentioned previously in response to a similar contention in the earlier article, there are essential definitions for the term disease.  They are to be found in dictionaries.  Earlier I provided examples from the three dictionaries I keep on my desk.

Note, however, how Drs. Pies and Ruffalo have developed their position.

First, a false statement:

There is no ‘essential definition’ of disease.

then an irrelevancy:

Diseases typically have “family resemblances”.  So what?

then sneaking in their long-standing attempt to justify psychiatry.

“The most clinically relevant family resemblance among members of the class called ‘disease entities’ is the presence of prolonged or substantial suffering (or distress) and incapacity” 

and finally, the rabbit comes out of the hat:

“these [suffering and incapacity] constitute the central focus of clinical care and treatment.”

So, voila; psychiatry isn’t a hoax after all.  But note the very careful—and I would suggest—misleading wording.  Drs. Pies and Ruffalo introduce the notion of suffering and incapacity not as the essential definition of disease, but rather as the central focus of clinical care and treatment.  But care and treatment, important as they are in their own right, are not the critical issues in this discussion.  The critical issue is that psychiatric “diagnoses”, in contrast to real illnesses, have no explanatory significance.  They are just labels:  rewordings of the presented problem.  So why are Drs. Pies and Ruffalo harking back repeatedly to these properties of illness, if not to provide the impression of validity where none exists?  It has become fashionable in certain political circles to imagine that the frequent repetition of a falsehood somehow makes it become true.  It would be sad indeed if our esteemed champions of psychiatry and logic were to succumb to such influences.

DESCRIPTIVE VS. EXPLANATORY STATEMENTS

Here’s what Dr. Shedler wrote on this matter:

Psychiatric diagnoses are categorically different [from medical diagnoses] because they are merely descriptive, not explanatory. They sound like medical diseases, especially with the ominously-appended disorder, but they aren’t. If we speak of generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder as if they are equivalent to pneumonia or diabetes, we are committing a category error. A category error means ascribing a property to something that cannot possess it—like emotions to a rock.”

And Dr. Shedler is entirely correct.  Let’s examine the DSM criteria for “major depressive disorder” to illustrate this.  The “diagnostic” criteria are listed below:

  1. Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either  subjective report (e.g., feels sad, empty, hopeless) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). (Note: In children and adolescents, can be irritable mood.)
  2. Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day (as indicated by either subjective account or observation).
  3. Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day. (Note: In children, consider failure to make expected weight gain.)
  4. Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day.
  5. Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down).
  6. Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.
  7. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional) nearly every day (not merely self-reproach or guilt about being sick).
  8. Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day (either by subjective account or as observed by others).
  9. Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide. (DSM-5, pp 160-161)

All these items are descriptive.  None have even the slightest explanatory significance.

It occurs to me here that Drs. Pies and Ruffalo don’t actually understand the difference between descriptive and explanatory statements, so let’s digress briefly to provide a simple elucidation of this most fundamental logical distinction.

Suppose a child were to ask his parent:  How do car brakes cause the vehicle to stop?  The knowledgeable parent might respond along the following lines:

Depressing the brake pedal pumps brake fluid from the master cylinder to the brake calipers.  The calipers are wrapped around steel discs which are firmly attached to the wheels.  The incoming fluid pushes the caliper pads against the disc, thereby causing the wheels to slow down and bring the car to a stop.

The careful reader will readily appreciate that the child’s question entails the descriptive statement that the car brakes cause the vehicle to stop.  The three statements in the parent’s response constitute the explanation.  If one understands the three statements, then one understands how car brakes work.  My Random House dictionary gives the following for explain:  “to make known the cause or reason of.”

Back to the Pies-Ruffalo document:

“3. The concept of ’cause’ and ‘causality’ is complex—and, like ‘disease’, admits of no essential definition.”

Actually, there is an essential definition of the word “cause”.  It also can be found in dictionaries!  Here’s what my three desk dictionaries say:

New World:  “anything producing an effect or result…a person or thing acting voluntarily or involuntarily as the agent that brings about an effect or result”

Random House:  “a person that acts or a thing that occurs so as to produce a specific result”

Merriam Webster:  “something that brings about an effect or result.”

I realize that many readers may find this puzzling in that it’s obvious what the word cause means.  Why do the eminent Drs. Pies and Ruffalo state that the word cause admits of no definition, when the definition is agreed by lexicographers, and accepted by the general population?

The issue arises because within the Empiricist philosophical tradition, concepts whose existence cannot be verified by the senses are generally excluded from consideration.  Causes cannot be seen, therefore they are excluded from the discussion. The example of this that is frequently given is that of a billiard ball colliding with a second ball and causing the latter to move.  Within the Empiricist tradition, we shouldn’t say that the former ball caused the second ball to move.  We can only say that the first ball made contact with the second, and the second ball subsequently moved away.  We don’t witness causality with our senses, so we shouldn’t allow it to contaminate our concepts.

The fatal flaw in all this, of course, is that with careful observation and the right equipment (fast cameras), we can witness the act of causality.  At the point of contact, both balls become distorted – distortion that can be captured on film and measured.  The distortions constitute tension in the two-ball system.  (Think of a compressed spring).  The tension is not contained mechanically, and so is promptly dissipated by transmitting some of the first ball’s energy to the second.

But the critical point is that there is an essential definition of the word cause.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Nevertheless, it is quite consistent with ordinary language to say that at least some psychiatric disorders—denoted by their respective DSM diagnostic categories—represent causes of a patient’s suffering and incapacity in the mental, psychological, and behavioral realm.”

Let’s put this matter in context.  For the last four decades or so, research psychiatrists have labored strenuously in their respective areas to uncover the biological pathologies that would validate their various diagnoses, i.e. would prove that they are real illnesses.  This has been the holy grail of psychiatric research, and despite the routine issuing of press releases proclaiming successful finds in this or that area, the researchers are still empty-handed.  There isn’t a shred of proof that any of psychiatry’s functional “disorders” are caused by a biological pathology.  Nevertheless, since at least the ’80s, psychiatrists have been routinely claiming that their “diagnoses” are real illnesses—”just like diabetes.”  At the present time, having been outed on this matter by the anti-psychiatry movement, most are actively disassociating themselves from this theory (using the word, theory, of course, in the dictionary-endorsed sense of guess or conjecture).

Drs. Pies and Ruffalo wade into this mish-mash of deception and confusion, and proclaim that biological pathology is not the defining feature of disease after all.  The critical features of disease, according to them, are distress and incapacity, even though every dictionary I’ve been able to consult confirms the biological pathology requirement.  Incidentally, in addition to my desk dictionaries, I also consulted some online dictionaries on this point.  Here’s a summary of my findings:

Dictionary.com
Disease:  a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.

Merriam-Webster
Disease:  a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms SICKNESSMALADY

Google Dictionary
Disease:  a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.

Wikipedia
Disease:  a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not due to any immediate external injury.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition, 2014
Disease:  a particular destructive process in an organ or organism, with a specific cause and characteristic symptoms; specif., an illness; ailment

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition 2016
Disease:  An abnormal condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, inflammation, environmental factors, or genetic defect, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs, symptoms, or both.

The American heritage Dictionary of Medicine, 2018
Disease:  An abnormal condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, inflammation, environmental factors, or genetic defect, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs, symptoms, or both.

The eminent doctors then point out that distress and incapacity are present in all the “diagnoses” listed in the DSM.  This is not surprising, since the presence of distress and incapacity are routinely included in the DSM’s definition of each “diagnosis”.

And so, Drs. Pies and Ruffalo are able to proclaim without a shadow of doubt that all psychiatric diagnoses do in fact describe valid disease entities and can correctly be considered causative of the various “signs and symptoms.”  Three cheers for the great doctors.  Nobel Committee, take note!

So the search for the holy grail can be called off.  All that’s needed is some verbal legerdemain.  It’s called the fallacy of building the conclusion into the premises.

Incidentally, the absurdity of this particular contention can be illustrated with an example.  Suppose that we wish to produce a definition of strenuous physical exercise.  We might come up with something like this:

  1. Vigorous and prolonged use of various muscle sets to achieve physical fitness, strength, and endurance.
  2. The exercises caused significant pain and distress.
  3. The exercises entail a disabling level of pain and discomfort.

The careful reader will readily discern that according to the principles endorsed by Dr. Pies and Dr. Ruffalo, we have proven that strenuous physical exercise is a disease!  Homework assignment:  prove that long-distance bike riding is a disease.

The learned doctors continue along the same spurious vein for five more pages.  Here are some of their contentions:

“Following the lead of the late psychiatrist Robert Kendell (1975), we believe that suffering and incapacity are the main elements of the disease concept. The physician (and non-medical psychotherapist) are thus most concerned with the alleviation of suffering and incapacity, regardless of whether we classify the patient’s presenting problem as a disease, a disorder, or an illness.”

Again, note the psychiatric arrogance:  “we believe [and the late Robert Kendell, MD also believed] …” followed in the next sentence by “thus” (i.e. therefore).  In other words, Drs. Pies and Ruffalo are presenting their belief (backed by the belief of Robert Kendell, MD) as evidence for their spurious notions.  I wonder if this transmutation of beliefs to fact applies to everybody, or is it a gift given only to psychiatrists and their acolytes?

Suffering and incapacity are not the main elements of disease.  The main element (the very essence) of disease is the presence of biological pathology.  The problem with the approach advocated by Drs. Pies and Ruffalo, apart from its logical absurdity, is that the “treatment” required to treat real diseases is not the same as, and is often incompatible with, the “treatment” required to alleviate non-disease problems.  Confronted with a severely depressed person, a psychiatrist tends to reach for the prescription pad.  But non-medical workers will seek to identify the psycho-socio-cultural-economic sources of the depression.  In other words, they seek real explanations for the depression, and help the client find a way out.  The social worker who successfully gets a homeless family into a publicly-subsidized apartment does more to relieve depression than any number of prescription-writing psychiatrists.  Nevertheless, it is extremely rare to find a psychiatrist who will even entertain the possibility that such an approach has any validity or efficacy in the alleviation of depression and despondency.  One occasionally encounters a psychiatrist who concedes the value of counseling, but the emphasis is almost always on persuading the client that he/she is ill and should take the pills, as prescribed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Back to the learned doctors.

“So, when we ask, ‘What was the cause of Smith’s panic attack?’ it is perfectly understandable to reply, in ordinary language, ‘It turns out Smith has panic disorder.’ This claim, of course, doesn’t address the etiopathology of panic disorder. Nor does it imply that other, perhaps subsidiary or contributing causes can’t be posited or discerned; e.g., ‘Smith was under a lot of pressure at work,’ or ‘Smith had just been evicted from his apartment.’ We may even go so far as to posit unconscious causes that would lend themselves to a psychoanalytic understanding of panic disorder.”

But the phrase “Smith has panic disorder” is simply another way of saying that Smith meets the DSM criteria for this “disorder.”  And none of these criteria provide the slightest help in understanding the origin or maintenance of Smith’s problem.

In addition, there is a clear implication here that being under a lot of pressure at work or a recent eviction could not be the primary cause of Smith’s panic attack.  These psychosocial problems are relegated to subsidiary or contributing status, which of course is exactly what happens within the psychiatric realm every single day.  The truly galling aspect of this is that if one were to ask Smith why he is experiencing panic attacks, he will almost certainly provide a psycho-social-economic type of explanation, e.g., “My wife and son and I are living in our car!”  But he’s just a “patient.”  What does he know?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“We maintain that it is both philosophically and scientifically valid to state, for instance, that a patient’s persistent worry, indecisiveness, and insomnia are caused by their generalized anxiety disorder; and that a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (or major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, etc.) does not merely re-package and re-state the patient’s symptoms; but rather, points to a ‘real-world’ disease entity. Many theories may be posited about what causes the disorder, but we can reasonably say that it is the disorder itself that causes the patient’s signs, symptoms, suffering, and incapacity.”

In fact, as I think I’ve demonstrated adequately, it is emphatically not valid, either philosophically or scientifically, to posit as causes loose collections of vaguely-defined thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that actually have no causal significance.  It may well be that all the DSM criterion items including the ever-present requirement of distress or incapacity spring from psycho-socio-cultural-economic causes.  If this is so, and the two learned doctors, by their own admission, cannot rule this out, why is it that psychiatrists confine their treatments almost universally to the prescribing of dangerous drugs or the administration of high-voltage, intra-cranial electric shocks?

And the answer, of course, is:  because these are their only stock in trade.  When one sells one’s soul to the devil, there’s no backsies.  Psychiatrists consciously and self-servingly gambled their professional futures on the promise of neurological pathologies just around the proverbial corner.  These were easy beds to make, especially with the massive influx of pharma money; but they are not comfortable to lie on, and might even induce a person to seek honest work!

 

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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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102 COMMENTS

  1. Wow Phil — not hard to see why it takes so long between articles. It would take me a month just to copy this. 🙂

    As usual I’ll deal with this in bits. The first thing I want to ask you about is, have you noticed that some dictionaries have secondary “definitions” which allow for the conflation of metaphor with substance? My guess is that these additional “definitions” have been appended to placate the psychiatric establishment. What’s your take on this?

    Also — Do you still run your website? There have been some important developments in anti-psychiatry survivor organizing I’d like to share with you. Look for an important email real soon, and if you are in touch with any abolitionist psychiatric survivors interested in anti-psychiatry organizing please let them know they can contact us at [email protected]

    Thanks. I’ll be back.

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    • Oldhead,

      Thanks for coming in.

      Dictionaries try to present all the meanings of a word that are in common usage, including slang and other informal usages. Psychiatry, to our great dismay, has achieved a significant toe-hold in the language, and its terminology often shows up in dictionaries. I don’t think the lexicographers are trying to placate them; they’re just recognizing the reality. Hopefully most of these entries will soon be marked “obs” for obsolete.

      Looking forward to hearing from you. My website is still open.

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        • Oldhead,

          I’m afraid that “soon” is a relative term. Merriam-Webster’s current criterion for obsolescence is that the word hasn’t been used since 1755. Perhaps we might do better if we strove to have “psychiatrist” designated a term of disparagement akin to con-man or trickster.

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          • So, maybe by year 2250 it will be considered archaic? Depending on how soon psychiatry IS abolished, which is up to how effectively the movement (once it formally materializes) does its job, because other than in spirit it is currently a “movement” in name only.

            we might do better if we strove to have “psychiatrist” designated a term of disparagement

            Many people already consider psychiatric labels to be hate speech. Not that I’m saying they should be banned, but maybe they could be designated as slang or vernacular. (This would contribute to the ongoing campaign to delegitimize psychiatry as a field of medicine.)

            BTW I sent you that recently revamped list of anti-psychiatry principles, looking forward to your feedback.

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    • I’d like to think we were evolving in the same direction, OldHead, but I still have a problem with any call to “abolish psychiatry”. My call would rather be for the abolition of forced treatment. Psychiatry and forced treatment are not synonymous. They are not synonyms. I see forced treatment as the real problem, and not psychiatry so much, by definition.

      I think that any call to abolish psychiatry confuses the issue and creates a red herring. I’m not saying, by any means, that psychiatry isn’t a false science. I’m saying that, false or not, I wouldn’t be legislating away one’s freedom of practice it. Again, the problem for me is not quack doctors, the problem is force, coercion.

      Get rid of the force, to put it more simply, and psychiatry has not the power that it has today, a power to force itself on people who don’t want it and would choose not to be so insulted, abused and humiliated.

      I don’t see my position as pro-psychiatry. It’s just the slant is different. I’m not selling psychiatry, but I’m not outlawing it either. I think that’s the only way you’re going to get rid of it. By outlawing it. Coercive treatments (mistreatments really), on the other hand, those I would outlaw. One has to bend the law to indulge in them in the first place, in my view anyway.

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      • I’m well aware of your very consistent libertarian-ish position. If it helps to know this, the foremost demand of the abolitionist survivors’ “caucus” I frequent IS the abolition of forced psychiatry (however that force may be manifested). The other demand is an end to all state support for psychiatry, or in other words DEFUND PSYCHIATRY! It has a catchy ring, and is already catching on.

        This other recurring thing we always go through about abolition: You always interpret this as a government decree. Maybe some yearn for this but I hope they aren’t holding their breath. A more sweeping definition involves a general rejection of something in the public mind as legitimate or acceptable, an evolving consciousness which could be achieved via a focused “death of a thousand cuts” strategy, where the credibility of psychiatry is devastated on several fronts simultaneously. As a legitimate form of medicine, as a police agency masked as a social service, as a purveyor of neurotoxins designed to rein in people’s creativity and individuality. And more.

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          • To add — this “evolution” doesn’t just happen naturally, it needs to be brought about by conscious effort. This differs a little from Bonnie Burstow’s idea of an “attrition” strategy, which to me seemed more of a “hold the line and push back a little” approach rather than an aggressive and sustained assault on psychiatry’s foundations. (However I would concede that this is subjective to a degree.)

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          • Changing the state means changing the people in it, and, sure, if you can.

            You seem to think you can convince everyone to disregard psychiatry. I have serious doubts about your power of persuasion in that case. This social agreement that you look for (to scrap the psychiatric) hasn’t taken place in 300 years or thereabouts. I’m all for getting rid of institutional psychiatry, and institutional as opposed to private practice. I don’t think we can get rid of it without enacting legislation against it. In other words, without some kind of decree, I don’t see it happening.

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      • Well Frank, if you only want to get rid of the things that hurt you or someone you know, on a personal level, and think this is only a problem of forced treatment, then you only know a little bit about psychiatry.
        And I have never experienced forced treatment, although I guess I came close to forced observation… but am outraged by it.

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        • And I wanted to add Frank, what if I experienced the wide reaching arms of psychiatry, yet felt that since I never experienced “forced treatment”, that IT might not be an issue, since someone possibly deserved it. I think we can surmise that any “health” system that uses forced anything, is rotten to the core. Or are you comfortable with all those “voluntary” victims, possibly it was a choice or deserved? Like choosing one’s bedfellows? It is all under the disguise of something medical.

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          • People do a lot of things that perhaps they shouldn’t, but they do so of their own volition. I wouldn’t, if I could help it, force people to do things they really shouldn’t do anyway. I’m good with them doing things that harm them, if they understand the matter. I wouldn’t force them not to harm themselves.

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      • I can see a situation (much like it is now) where even though the general public despised psychiatry, the state would maintain various mechanisms for pulling people into the system. A disrespect for basic human rights on the part of government.

        I can also see a situation where respect for basic human rights improves, though that doesn’t seem to be the road we’re on right now. This would involve, I can only imagine, some basic change in human awareness. In this case, something called “psychiatry” could continue to exist, but would bear no resemblance to what it is now. Such a society could decide to abolish the term, and reinvent the subject with some new name.

        Right now I see us still drifting (or being pushed) towards the former condition. I think we have the tools to achieve the latter condition, but widespread acceptance for them does not yet exist, thanks to the work of psychiatry and related criminal interests.

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  2. I must be manic, because when I saw this I just busted out laughing like a high-on. You know you’re one of my favorite writers here, Phil, and the fact that this is still going on is just hilarious at this point… to me at least.

    I tried digging through your past articles to find the ETology one or whatever it was, but I unfortunately don’t have the time. Exposing the nonsense that is biopsychiatry; let’s assume all maladaptive behaviors are caused by alien abductions. That was genius. Can someone link me to that so I can read it again?

    https://youtu.be/TlaeRqgXKVs?t=220 – ear candy for all *laughs*

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    • Never mind, I found it; https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/06/lingering-doubts-psychiatrys-scientific-status/

      https://youtu.be/-BKHCIVzV38?t=570 spirit of the times, eh.

      “To illustrate this, let’s consider another assumption that is nonsensical: that all criminal activity is ultimately the result of alien abduction during infancy. Let’s suppose that I, basking in the narcissistic, error-prone grandiosity of which supporters of psychiatry sometimes accuse me, subscribe to this belief. Let’s further suppose that, to promote and study this core assumption, I start a new scientific discipline, which for want of a better term, I’ll call E.T.ology.

      So I build a website, and attract a following, and we set about conducting E.T.ology studies to support our contention. We produce numerous papers showing that crime is most prevalent in areas where UFO sightings are most frequent. We demonstrate, through various statistical analyses, that criminals received less than average parental supervision during infancy, rendering them more vulnerable to alien abduction. And so on. And we publish these studies in our very own Journal of E.T.ology. We also speculate as to what the aliens actually do to their victims to instill the seeds of future lawlessness, and in this regard our scientists use colorful pictures of criminals’ brains to demonstrate chemical imbalances, neural circuitry anomalies, and other evidence of tampering. We develop and publish a manual for the early detection of abduction victims. The manual lists items like: failure to conform to age-appropriate social norms, deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability and aggressiveness, recklessness, spitefulness, defiance, etc.

      We have impressive-looking graphs and tables in our journal articles. We use statistical terms like correlation-coefficient, standard deviation, confidence interval, risk ratios, etc., with an easy familiarity, and we dismiss the protests of dissenting voices as the bigoted railings of anti-science deniers. We construct a sophisticated propaganda apparatus, and in our annual conferences, we have sessions on “advanced communication skills for public engagement” and related topics. We develop close ties with politicians from all branches of government, and from all corners of the political spectrum, and we advocate relentlessly for the creation of “space-shields” to protect infants from these alien invaders, who are robbing our children of their future.

      We also, and entirely coincidentally, receive considerable financial support from the manufacturers of space-shield technology.”

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  3. Philip, Thanks for the criticism . Thanks for the (imaginary) conversation of the first meeting.
    “Patient”: Why am I here?
    Psychiatrist: Because you are experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and disordered thinking.
    It is a prison.
    “Patient”: The only distress I’m feeling is because you’re keeping me locked up in this place.

    If you, the patient gets angry ( the normal response) then you, the patient, need more drugs they call medication.
    The system is perfect, if it wasn’t perfect it wouldn’t exist.

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      • They have also found themselves in a situation where they are the solution to the damage they are causing Dr Hickey.

        My State after torturing and arbitrarily detaining me, and the resulting concealment of those acts via the distribution of fraudulent documents to lawyers and an attempt to ‘unintentionally negatively outcome’ me, considers my truth speaking a reason to refer my question of law to doctors for resolution.

        They are sorry that I am still upset about being “referred” and “detained” (legally called torture and kidnapping) and suggest I get some help for my mental issues. My claim is that they did not have the right to conceal the drugging with benzos without knowledge (acquiescence of duty by a public officer to enable the use of a known torture method) and then use the resources of police to obtain a ‘referral’ under the Mental Health Act by lying to them and claiming falsely that I was someones “patient”. How much more “arbitrary” does it get when all it takes for the State to detain someone is for a community nurse to call police and request that they snatch someone from their bed for them and deliver them to a hospital because they want it done? Of course there are legal protections from such conduct (Procuring the apprehension or detention of a person not suffering from a mental illness [ie not a “patient'” by definition of the MHA] 3 years prison), but police can’t find their copy of the Criminal Code, and so the slanderous lie told by the Community Nurse is highly effective in ensuring that organised criminals are being enabled in their misconduct.

        And any complaints about being tortured and kidnapped are then ‘flagged’ by police for referral back to the people who you complain about torturing you. Even when you have the documented proof that you were tortured. The ability to change the status of any citizen to “mental patient” allowing all sorts of what would be considered human rights abuses to become lawful and standing in the way of the “patients” receiving the ‘treatment’ they so badly need.

        And the real problem being that once they have been ‘duped’ into acting for these organised criminals within our system [flagging their ‘problems’ as “patients” with police], they are of the belief that they just need to keep doubling down and ‘fuking destroy’ their victims. And I guess when I look back, they’re right. All roads then lead to Rome, and the ‘just doing my job’ defense becomes valid.

        Imagine, a doctor you never don’t even know can prescribe benzos to be administered to anyone 12 hours before he even meets the person he is now going to call “patient” (after they have been snatched from their bed and ‘verballed up’ by some slanderous Community Nusre lying on a statutory declaration).

        Personally I’d say that was also criminal (iue to conceal evidence of a crime, and attempt to pervert the course of justice but …… no Criminal Code is a good ‘out’ for the doctor who prescribes to “patients” for police before interrogations, aka torture methods when combined with the ‘coercive’ [acute stress reaction] methods available such as mock executions and threats of pack rape etc)

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        • I am assuming that the police in other countries use the same method of employing the services of a member of the public to commit offences (eg ‘spiking’ people with benzos) and then failing to perform their duty to ensure the criminal is charged, and presented to the courts.

          Same method employed to retrieve the documents I had proving the offences, have my wife and her ‘new man’ go through my documents and retrieve the ‘inconvenient’ ones before sending the fraudulent set to the Mental Health Law Centre and obtaining a Violence Restraining Order against me while they did that, then cancel the VRO before I had the chance to respond to it in court. I wonder if the magistrates are aware that police are using these court orders (by having criminals apply for them to enable further offences, and make any ‘intervention’ while offences occur lawful. Saves having to worry about attempts to pervert the course of justice noticed. Deny the post hoc “patient” access to the law. The VRO required due to me NOT being made into “patient” as a result of the torture and kidnapping. Keep It Legal Stoopid.) to conceal crimes? Surely they are persons of good character and would identify and deal with such misconduct? Though why you would do that in a place where you can have people snatched from their beds and drugged to oblivion because “tomato” ……. I guess it’s best that given the way the protections of the Mental Health Act are being enforced that we don’t discuss the protections afforded the public by the Euthanasia Act too much. And I guess like the Mental Health Act if anyone ever notices what it is being used for, they can use the “added protections” line they have used to conceal the removal of protections from the public.

          What chance are there of abuses being noticed when police are retrieving documented proof of human rights abuses to enable the distribution of fraudulent documents by a hospital clinical director concealing crimes such as torture and kidnapping? Not a question our politicians are prepared to answer with anything other than slander.

          Keep it legal stoopid. In the first instance my wife plants items for police to find, and this ‘justifies’ their referral to Mental Health Services under s. 195 Police Powers of the MHA. That because they knew I wasn’t a “patient” under the Act and could not simply be snatched from my bed. Now the hospital is concerned because I have lawfully accessed my medical records and (despite the concealment of the ‘police referral’ I can prove the conspiracy to stupefy and commit an indictable offence, namely kidnapping.

          How do you retrieve those documents without looking like your committing serious criminal offences? Once again, provide police with what they require to ‘detain’ the target while you get back the documents (and then make it possible to send out the fraudulent set to lawyers). The slanderous ‘wife beater’ evidence fabricated by the Community Nurse will be most helpful in this regard, use it to have a VRO issued by the courts and enable police to ‘intervene’ should Boans try and get his documents. Not while the man who was waiting in the driveway to jump into my bed and my ‘wife’ go through everything and then leave my car on the street open and have it broken into by the indigenous people down the street (nothing like blaming the black guys huh?). Oh what a shame they stole your medical records Boans, that might explain how they ended up being distributed all around town, and people are now treating you like a paranoid delusional as a result of the trauma of being tortured and kidnapped. You were after all detained by police and dropped to a locked ward as a result of your “potential for damage to reputation and meaningful relationships”.

          Still, when the police ARE the criminals, what chance do you have. They were merely trying to conceal the fact they are using mental health services to deal with the effects of torturing citizens and ensure they can deny access to remedy. Can’t blame them for that, people are silly enough to trust them…….. and when a citizen can be ‘referred’ by police for ‘assessment’ (aka interrogation) as a result of being asleep after being ‘spiked’ with benzos ……. and I’M the one considered insane?

          I think the biblical reference relates to whether the shirt was torn from the front or the back. My ten years for a ‘false accuser’ is up.

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          • “Psychiatry’s victims live in a pre-civil rights world.”

            Every citizen in my State lives in a pre-civil rights world Dr Hickey due to the Chief Psychiatrist not recognising any of the protections afforded by the Mental Health Act (and associated legislation).

            He has literally removed the protections by rewriting the law in a letter he sent to the Mental Health Law Centre which removes any burden of proof placed on Authorised Mental Health Professionals to enable arbitrary detentions. Further, he simply will not ask a single question regarding what occurred when a person has been ‘spiked’ with benzos if the answer may reveal criminal conspiring to conceal offences. Why ask when you won’t like the answer you will get? Hey. if the Community Nurse wants to arrange ‘spikings’ to assist him in detaining citizens who would otherwise remain silent go for it. Intoxicated consent is better than no consent right? It works for nite club rapists.

            I’ve a couple of letters here if your interested. I’d love to see you tear the claims made by our Chief Psychiatrist to pieces, and perhaps even publish it here for all to see. I did try to have the Mental Health Law Centre point out to the Emperor that he had no clothes, but the Principle was busy trying to get the job (the Chief Psychiatrist does not need to be a psychitrist by law, it could be a human rights lawyer like oh umm……… Me) for a few favors for the then Minister. Imagine putting someone who would assist in the covering up of torture and kidnapping into the position where they were responsible for investigating abuses? I can see how that might work, for some.

            It has been easy for him to refuse to answer any question I have asked, simply double down on the abuse I have already been subjected to and maintain the slander they obtained via the original offences and torture. And of course I have been denied access to any effective legal representation, more pre-civil rights abuses. Police refusing to remove the ‘flag’ placed on me to create the appearance of lawfulness lest their involvement in the kidnapping and torture become known. Better they keep working closely with the organised criminals operating in our hospitals, and who can do them a few more favors when people with documented proof of public sector misconduct turn up in a police station. Justification for an immediate referral to mental health services for “hallucinating” (thinking that they have access to a copy of the Criminal Code in a Police Station.)

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          • Boans:
            If “The Law” works from orders, motions filed, etc, in a linear language for the organization of mind throughout the courts, then one can obtain the records. There is some reservation in affording the client access to read the records of what was said and being said. In being consistent one can eventually understand the roles being played and at some point, the injustice(s) that have befallen us begin to be added to the pan of “social justice”.

            Could there be further elaboration of “Cause One/Cause Two”? For if one publishes within the academy and attempts to realize research shaped by Stats when the better questions are often being suppressed or not understood, then how can an outcome favorable to the client be realized?

            In the historic language of “control charts”, the replacement language frames “process behavior charts”. But within the culture of therapy experienced where there are only two people in the room, the box of special cause often does not materialize in terms of common equity. One can be in the room but not at the table, so to speak. How then can the gifts of understanding thus be discovered in an emergent language from a combination of quantities/qualities without dismissing better levels of understanding? One can be killed quickly or slowly over one’s LIFE.

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          • Wish I could say that makes sense Bill, but …….

            I’m not of the opinion that “The Law” works in that manner. And I don’t know how to translate the surah Al Humaza into English in a manner that truly explains ‘the crusher’. I’ve heard it said that the wheels of justice grind very slowly, but that they are also very thorough in the effect they have. I’m sure many a life has been ‘crushed’ by mental health services, but it has all been done ‘outside the law’. And that fact provides us with a clue as to what we are dealing with. The Man of Lawlessness.

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  4. Oh Pies and co – deadly hilarious

    “Psychiatrists must prevent suicide not provide it.” I couldn’t help laughing placed into the context of akathisia being induced by doctors – how many have they killed ? and here:

    “Polls have not just moral but also methodological problems.”

    Yet they ofcourse negate to mention the slight problem of DSM methodology…so funny!

    https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/couch-crisis/psychiatrists-must-prevent-suicide-not-provide-it

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  5. Hi Phil.
    Wonderful and thanks for the excellent work. I appreciate it/you immensely.
    There are habitual liars, so engrossed in the act of lying that they become impossible to argue with.
    All that is left is to warn others about their lies and manipulations.
    And that is over the top, important work you do.

    We all know that the “interview” by the shrink is just a formality so that he does not look like a jerk when making his (lol) “diagnosis”. A shrink needs no interview, his “mind” was made up a long, long time ago.

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  6. Hilarious and bizarre they’d misuse Wittgenstein talking about language to discuss biological disease. Here is another one from him that might be slightly more relevant to formulating psychiatric disease concepts: If any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule, what good is the rule?

    Should mention, I found your blog recently from a Thomas Armstrong book about ADHD. I’ve learned a lot from your writings, really enjoy it.

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  7. It is telling that the most significant article currently on MIA has the fewest comments.

    Everything that a person does, from the twitch of a finger, to solving differential equations, to playing lead violin in a symphony orchestra, has neurobiological correlates.

    Yep. As well as any thought, no doubt. The unspoken assumption is that the brain controls the mind, when the opposite is much more probable. However to acknowledge this would threaten Western “scientific” beliefs (or disbeliefs) vis. a vis. spirituality, transcendence of the physical body, and consciousness existing independently of the brain.

    It seems to me that, once it is recognized that the “mind” is an intangible abstraction which cannot be put in a plastic bag (hence not subject to physical characteristics such as color or disease) it is case closed as far as psychiatry’s legitimacy is concerned. No further “research” is needed (except possibly a remedial study of the nature of metaphor).

    All “research” based on the premise that “mental illness” is even possible (other than metaphorically) is tainted from the start, hence illegitimate. Acknowledging this could save lots of time, effort and money (which no doubt explains why it is conveniently overlooked and/or disregarded).

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    • Oldhead,

      Yes, but “case closed” doesn’t mean that they’ll go away. They’ll simply re-package their nonsense and go on selling – as they’re doing now with the chemical imbalances. I think we also need to keep hammering away at the invalidity of their concepts and the blatant harm that they have done and continue to do.

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      • Can’t argue with that. But I still think it’s important to preface deconstructions of these additional falsehoods with the reminder that the very concept of “mental illness” is a logical and linguistic impossibility, hence the “mother of all lies.”

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          • Don’t you think it’s a chicken-egg thing though? Knowing that it is literally and logically impossible to have a “mental illness,” hence the entire foundation of psychiatry is based on false assumptions, should go a long way towards discrediting psychiatry from the get-go, and vice versa. (Though I realize that we currently live in the Twilight Zone.)

            Lots of slurs are in common use, but generally in such circumstances people are expected to gasp and correct the person who uses the term. So survivors of psychiatric torture are entitled to expect the same. I strongly believe that at the very least quotes should be used around psychiatric “disease” terms and labels.

            Keeping in mind of course that the goal is to end psychiatry, not words. The lexicon will then wither away. 🙂

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      • 2nd comment, same post (not used to this much substance Phil):

        “case closed” doesn’t mean that they’ll go away

        No, because armies, police and other tools of social repression don’t just go away.

        Power and those in control concede nothing … without a demand. They never have and never will… Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace.

        Frederick Douglas

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  8. “There is no “ghost” inside the head pulling levers or pushing buttons.”

    Are you sure Dr Hickey? lol

    I wonder about the car brake ‘explanation’. Fact is that the description is of how the brake system functions, the ’cause’ is that the system results in friction (observable by the heat produced). Not that it makes any difference to what your saying but …… if we’re talking ’causes’.

    Reading this is like watching Penn and Teller. The rabbit out of the hat analogy is valid, and whilst i’d really like to give Drs Pies and Ruffalo the F.U. award, no prize for them today. It’s a basic three card monte.

    Great work Dr Hickey.

    Where does one go for a definition of a dictionary, when you don’t have a dictionary Dr Pies?

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  9. The snake oil salesmen are at it again. Their snake oil, regrettably, consists of toxic substances, imprisonment and talk. No. I’m not buying.

    I get increasingly disgusted with a corruption that supports a chronic imaginary disease industry as time advances. I don’t think anyone need waste their life as a professional mental patient. People have better things to be doing with their time. Conversion to the “mental illness” faith does not represent a viable worthwhile direction for the country, or a significant proportion of it, to be taking as far as I’m concerned.

    Dr. Shedler had some good points to make. Not so, Pies and Ruffalo. Gratefully Phil Hickey is there to set matters straight. The best defense being a good offense, lets hear a big cheer for anti-psychiatry go up around the world. Black Lives Matter. So do mad lives. Should Trump send federal forces in, our position can only improve.

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    • Frank,

      Disgust is the absolutely appropriate reaction to the bilge that psychiatry pumps into the system every day, world-wide. It is not a medical profession in any true sense of the term. It has lost all credibility and survives on press releases and bald-faced lies. Let’s keep calling them out.

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  10. Let me try. Here’s a disorder I’ve observed first hand.

    1. Prolonged use of mind altering drugs and/or electroshocks to alter moods and thoughts.
    2. The treatments entail distress and poor concentration.
    3. The treatments cause pain, cognitive decline, and numerous other health issues.

    I’ve now “proven” that Psychiatry is a disease.

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  11. The imaginary dialogue really hit home. I’ve had basically the same dialogue with a psychiatrist, when I was locked up in a psych ward. As it was never disclosed to me what mental illness I was supposed to have, I made a point of asking every day.

    Me: can I go home now?
    Psycho: no
    Me: so have you made up your mind about what I have?
    Psycho: you’re in crisis.
    Me: that’s no category of icd 10 and the only crisis I’m in is being locked up here.
    Psycho: you aren’t locked up. You are accomodated (orig. german: untergebracht).
    Me: are you an idiot?
    Psycho: ….

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    • Pretty interesting beokay, Like is it top secret? Meaning they won’t share with anyone? I think mostly
      it’s embarrassing for many shrinks to use the DSM or any name calling. But they do have to have some quota especially when first out of “diagnosing school”.

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      • They told the judge I might be schizophrenic. They just knew it was bullshit. After they withheld the court order from me, I got hold of it through a lawyer. Confronted with their bullshit they didn’t even try to defend it. They also withheld parts of the documentation from me and still are four years later. Going so far as to have their secretary lying to me about never receiving my request to see the documentation, while taking notes on that very request.
        In Germany there has to be an ICD-10 diagnosis for reimbursement by insurance companies. The diagnosis towards the insurance company was adjustment disorder.
        One of the psychos also gave me that crap about not putting people in boxes when asked for a diagnosis. Pretty insulting considering I was actually locked up in a very real box without a reason given.

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        • Interestingly, in Canada, one needs no “formal” diagnosis to be treated as if one has one. Innuendos by GPs, are plenty good enough. So in all likelyhood, if you are dying from a physical disease, the attending “doctors” will precribe AD’s, to be given by nurses, who of course feel they HAVE to do this, because not doing so will cause them grief. The tired and sick patients are often not informed that they can say NO to any and all “treatment”. It is bewildering that in nursing homes, the frail are simply completely vulnerable to idiots prescribing, who have nothing to do with their “care”.
          One looks into the “healthcare” system and we know exactly why doctors are frustrated and unhappy. If they quit living a lie, they might be happier, but it seems if they are unsatisfied, they insist on dragging the vulnerable with them.

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        • “My understanding is that they must specify a “diagnosis” before getting someone committed or prescribing a drug”

          Not in my case, they ‘spiked’ me first to incapacitate and be able to force me to talk via police causing an acute stress reaction. This then allowed them to put words in my mouth and kidnap me using the police powers in the MHA. Once they had me looking like I had been detained by a police referral and had been transported to the hospital locked ward, then they could make a call to the psychologist from the Private clinic to have my “diagnosis” released and avoid the problems created by the law (Privacy Act, HIPPA I think in the US), and then a prescription for the drugs could be completed because now they had me right where they wanted me, stripped naked, spiked without my knowledge, and locked in a cage under threat of being injected with a ‘chemical restraint’.

          All perfectly criminal of course but when police can simply deny the existence of the law to conceal acts of torture and kidnapping they have been involved in well…… who you going to call? They will simply drop you at an Emergency Dept for a hot shot round here. Plenty of young doctors looking to make a name for themselves with the hierarchy by doing a few favors for the right people (if they have the stomach for it that is).

          So on paper your technically correct Dr Hickey, the reality where I live is, they do whatever they want, and any problems, use the Mental Health Act powers to sort it out (ie have police ‘flag’ the target as “patient”, remove their human and civil rights, and then like Jamal Kashoggi, have them delivered to a place where you can ‘treat’ them for their truth speaking and dispose of the evidence by flushing it down the toilet).

          Yes, one needs to be a “patient” as defined in the Mental Health Act (have a diagnosis, and a treating psychiatrist, and the drugs should be ones prescribed by a doctor, not provided from another persons drugs to incapacitate/intoxicate/stupefy and deprive someone of their liberty)

          Fortunate that no one will look, or at least the people who have looked who have enough of an understanding of the law can have their families threatened by authorities to unlook. Imagine these ‘advocates’ who will turn and run when they are put to the test and come across someone who has been tortured and kidnapped? Council of Official Visitors? Mental Health Law Centre? All quite happy to engage with the State in the perversion of the course of justice rather than stand up and say Torture? This is why I got into this business, to see this didn’t happen, not, run to the authorities and help them to conceal it.

          It takes courage to do what you do Dr Hickey, very few prepared to stand up and call it what it is. I note Pilgers comments in The Dirty War on the NHS where he says that words such as “reform” are used to conceal the wholesale theft of public monies. I also think it is a term used to ensure that nothing actually changes even when they are confronted with the ugly truth that they are concealing human rights abuses as being medicine.

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          • In my State, police and other public officers are torturing citizens, and then making referrals to mental health services to do their majic and fix the damage done as a result of that torture.

            So for instance in my case I am subjected to interrogation whilst under the influence of benzodiazepines administered without my knowledge, by people not qualified to do so (Community Nurse, Senior Constable). However, they can complete fraudulent documents that will not be questioned by those charged with the protection of the public and deliver the victim of their acts of torture to a locked ward where, a doctor pretending to be a psychiatrist will write a prescription for the drugging, knowing that what he is doing is authorising acts of torture for police and his Community Nurse, and then arrange some serious brain damage of their victim. Though they did go to the trouble of making up slanderous comments about their victim which i’m sure influenced his decision to give the green light to their acts of torture.

            And now that Boans has been tortured and kidnapped, they believe the solution to these vile acts is to hand him back to the same people to fix the damage they have done. Glad someone figured out what that ‘fix’ consisted of, though I think that putting a victim of torture through the ‘stakeout’ to catch them in the act of attempting to murder was a bit much.

            So now were at a point where police thought they had concealed their acts of torture, and I slipped through the net with the proof. Big problem because the punishment for attempting to murder a victim of torture is …….. we don’t want to talk about what was done as a result of this little bit of mischief that got out of hand. The young doctor was obviously being influenced by his superior consultant psychiatrist, and well, they did stop him before he actually went through with the hot shot.

            I have of course offered to show the police the evidence I have regarding these matters but …….. not interested they tell me, “might be best we don’t know about that”. A law unto themselves. I assume they think they know what happened, sad to say, they don’t. Though I guess like the documented acts of torture and kidnapping, by refusing to accept the documents and claiming they don’t have a copy of the Criminal Code, they can arrange to look the other way while people are murdered, and fraudulent documents are sent out from the hospital, authorised as being “edited”. Lawyers will know what that means, “deleted”, “no longer active”, “file closed”…… How sad that they can’t speak the truth, and need to conceal the wrong doing of others, lest their own disgraceful conduct be exposed.

            And of course, once you have been tortured, you begin to act like you have a mental illness (it’s not chemical, but a result of the trauma the victim was subjected to). As long as they get your status changed before you can access legal representation, they can deny you any and all of your rights. And with the assistance of your ‘legal representative’ to throw you under the bus…….. flagged on the police system ( I find myself wondering what a person who has evidence of public sector corruption is ‘flagged’ as. Either way, certain people need to be alerted as was the case with Kashoggi).

            Question, did the doctor who signed the prescription for the ‘spiking’ know what he was doing? Was he THAT confident that he could conceal acts of torture for public officers? One might assume that he actually has, but I know there are others who know, and who are pretending they don’t. I guess when your authorising the slaughter of any inconvenient truths one might get the false impression that one IS god.

            The drugs used to ‘spike’ me were not mine, and yet I have a prescription signed 12 hours AFTER they were administered listing them as my “regular medication”. Not a single question asked of me by this doctor as to whether I took benzos, couldn’t have been on my file because I wasn’t actually their “patient” (that was just a lie told by the Community Nurse to allow him to kidnap me), ……. he knew alright. Perhaps the police have overlooked a few indiscretions for this Ordained Minister in the past and thus he is prepared to sign a few dodgy prescriptions for them post hoc? Perhaps he is ‘treating’ the very trauma he is causing certain members of his congregation, not unlike being allowed to forgive his own sins?

            I’d like to hear what these people have to say about these matters, shame they can not be held to account for their actions, they simply do whatever they want and kill anyone who dares to complain.

            (I would also like to know how the conversation between the Community Nurse and the Senior Medical Officer went when he asked him to do a cover up of the torture and kidnapping for him. Managed to get him here with a verbal doc, but I need a favor because well, police interrogated him when I handed him over on the Transport Order. Consider, the Community Nurse made an executive decision that I was fit to be interrogated by police despite knowing I had been ‘spiked’ with benzos, kidnaps me, and then hands it all over to a doctor to conceal using his position in a locked ward of a mental institution. And the public feels safe in their hands. Or do they? I know that while they thought they had retrieved the documents I have proving what i’m saying, there were others who were watching while they ran about like rats when the lid was lifted and they didn’t know “who else has the documents?”. Particularly revealing about how these ‘good people’ go about their business of concealing their acts of torture and kidnappings. Let me say that not everybody will be so trusting in future if this is how they honor the agreements (Convention) that they have ratified.

            “They will take their oaths as a cover”. Want to know where torture victims are being disposed of? Check your local hospital.

            Biggest problem? None of this can be used as it was all obtained via the use of torture lol

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  12. If we lived in a world with an ongoing paradigm of “physical illness”, when speaking about phenomena of lack of physical strength within the variations of the human body, many would be identified as “ill”. Psychiatry is lucky that it is not a “muscular” world, but a “mental” one.

    There are many positions to be filled by those with physical ability, agility and strength. However, the ones lacking, are not labeled as “ill”, or “with disease”, or “disorders”

    One could easily believe oneself to be ill if questioned about physical ability.
    “when was the last time you ran 10 miles”
    “do you play tennis?”
    “do you bike to work?”
    “do you pump weights?”
    “how many push ups can you do?”

    And if we fail those “tests”, given by an athletic guy, how do his labels affect us? Does it result in being looked down on by the athletic “doctors”? For being exactly who we are? Do we get steroids injected by them, so we can improve our “physical health”? Do we get state ordered to drink our whey shakes? Do we get court ordered because we are a physical risk and not able to protect our children?

    Bottom line is, there is no chance in hell of any system that is a “care” system, and one that is about “health” that would EVER look like or operate like psychiatry does. So psychiatry can never ever identify itself with something they and a ton of people refer to “health”. The words “mental health” should never be used together, since the prejudicial practice by psych and it’s minions contribute to “illness”.

    In general, psych and it’s ilk are simply lucky we are in a “mental” time and not a purely “physical” one.

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  13. Thank you Dr Philip,

    I hope I’m not too far off topic here.

    I estimate that least 50% of all people become “Schizophrenic” in the same way as I did i.e. through the consumption of strong psychiatric drugs (and the people that recover, usually recover as a result of carefully ‘not taking their medication’).

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2418996/

    “…In the most robust UK study to date, the incidence of schizophrenia was found to be ninefold higher in black Caribbeans than in the white British population…”

    The above UK study is Bulls**t.

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    • Fiachra,

      I don’t know if it’s 50%. It might be a lot more. I would also include adverse reactions to other drugs. Also, being raised to have extremely unrealistic career expectations can sometimes generate paranoid thinking which can lead to a “diagnosis”.

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        • Fiachra,

          I’m not sure what point you’re making here, but perhaps my point wasn’t clear either. Here’s what I meant:

          When it comes to behavior, there are always multiple paths to the same point.

          “Madness” exists on a continuum, and I think it could be argued that there’s a little madness in everyone.

          Drugs, legal and illegal, can make people mad – sometimes slightly mad; other times very mad.

          Lots of other things can make people mad.

          One of the things that can make a person mad is when he/she is raised to anticipate a bright and glorious future, even though the ability to achieve this is lacking.

          Some individuals in these circumstances manage OK. On leaving “the nest”, they adapt readily to the reality, and find skills/occupations in keeping with their abilities. Some, however, become very paranoid. They continue to try to live up to the parental expectations, and interpret their succession of failures as evidence of a vast conspiracy. Sometimes they come within the orbit of the pill-pushers, and it’s usually pretty much downhill from there.

          This is not an exhaustive list of all the ways we can become mad.

          There’s a lot of evidence that a history of childhood abuse can significantly impact this process.

          And, of course, sometimes madness does actually stem from brain illness/damage, and calls for neurological intervention.

          I think there can sometimes be a fine line between madness and genius. Almost all the great scientific discoveries of the twentieth century would have been considered, and sometimes were considered, crazy by the scientists of earlier generations.

          So, there are many paths to madness, but only one is required. The prescription of psychiatric drugs, especially at a young age, is a major gateway.

          Nice alcove, BTW.

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          • Thanks Philip

            There’s such a thing as pushy parents pressurizing their children to become professionals when the children are not suitable. But I’ve never heard of this as a source if madness.

            Sometimes parents pressurize children that are equipped but that don’t see a professional career as something they would like to be involved in. But these people usually escape successfully.

            But lots of so called ‘professionals’ are completely incompetent and still manage to earn a reasonable living.

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  14. I am amazed that they can write this stuff seriously! Especially the stuff about how “anxiety disorders” are shown to CAUSE anxiety and are not mere labels, yet in the same sentence state that the anxiety could be caused by any number of very different things. It seems they disproved their own statement by the end of the paragraph, yet did not seem to notice.

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    • “It seems they disproved their own statement by the end of the paragraph, yet did not seem to notice.”

      Like the dog that is dizzy and tired from chasing it’s own tail Steve, the solution is just around the next ‘corner’, and as soon as I recover from being tired and dizzy i’ll be back on the chase.

      As far as the smoke and mirrors not being obvious, it is the ability to use their position to silence any criticism that enables the abuse. The National Socialists found themselves in such a position during the late 1930s, riding a wave that seemed unstoppable. Who would have dared question the idea of a “master race” back then? Who would dare to question the torture, kidnappings and ‘unintended negative outcomes’ being done in the name of ‘medicine’ now? Let me answer that from experience, very, very few.

      Though let me say that the few who are, I appreciate greatly as the documentation of this regression into global insanity may be required in the near future to serve as a warning. Didn’t we learn last time what happens when you let the lunatics take over the asylum?

      “And they say: O thou unto whom the reminder is revealed, lo! thou art indeed a madman” (15:6)

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  15. “..Let’s put this matter in context. For the last four decades or so, research psychiatrists have labored strenuously in their respective areas to uncover the biological pathologies that would validate their various diagnoses, i.e. would prove that they are real illnesses…”

    The problem as I see it, is that Psychiatry has NO Solutions. Psychiatric Treatments deteriorate and disable people – and this is why ‘Severe Mental Illness’ is classified as a long term condition.

    The Solutions exist only outside of Medical Psychiatry.

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  16. Another great article that addresses the pseudoscience of psychiatry. I find this is the most telling comment from Dr. Pies: “One of us (Ronald Pies), a psychiatrist, has spent a large part of his career thinking and writing about the philosophical foundations of psychiatry…” Psychiatry is a pseudo medical science that causes the community historic harm by pretending to be a real science; a real medical science should be defended by science rather than philosophy. Neurology is the real medical science that addresses the brain and nervous system; psychiatry is pseudo medical science – pseudoscience.

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  17. “Note the word ‘fashionable,’ as if those of us on this side of the issue dispute the validity of psychiatric diagnoses on the grounds of fashions or whims.”

    No, we’ve done our homework, and our critical-psychiatry stance is based upon studying psychopharmacology, and how the psychiatric drugs work.

    “that a patient’s extreme mood swings are caused by their underlying bipolar disorder; or that a patient’s auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and thought process disorder are caused by their having schizophrenia.”

    Those of us on the “anti-psychiatry” side know “extreme mood swings,” like mania, can be created with the ADHD drugs and antidepressants.

    https://www.alternet.org/2010/04/are_prozac_and_other_psychiatric_drugs_causing_the_astonishing_rise_of_mental_illness_in_america/

    The psychiatrists used to, theoretically, know the antidepressants could cause mania. But they – and their many DSM “bible” thumping “mental health” and social worker minion – “lost” that knowledge when they took this disclaimer out of the DSM5 bipolar definition.

    “Note: Manic-like episodes that are clearly caused by somatic antidepressant treatment (e.g., medication, electroconvulsive therapy, light therapy) should not count toward a diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder.”

    As to the psychopharmacological effects of the “schizophrenia treatments.” The antipsychotics / neuroleptics can create auditory hallucinations and psychosis, via anticholinergic toxidrome poisoning. And they can also create the negative symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_syndrome

    In other words, both “bipolar” and “schizophrenia” are illnesses that can be created with the psychiatric drugs. Neither disorder has a “genetic” etiology, they have iatrogenic etiologies.

    This reality, which no doubt is difficult for the psychiatrists to admit, is one of the reasons why I speak out against the fraud of psychiatry. The psychological and psychiatric industry’s systemic child abuse covering up crimes, and outright abuse of children – by stigmatizing and neurotoxic poisoning them – are other reasons I speak out against the fraud of psychiatry. The fact they are killing “8 million” people every year is another reason I speak out against the fraud of psychiatry.

    https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2015/mortality-and-mental-disorders.shtml

    Thanks as always, Philip, for speaking the truth. “When one sells one’s soul to the devil, there’s no backsies.” There sure does seem to be a lack of repentance from the psychiatric and psychological industries as a whole, and a lack of changing from their evil ways, to me. But I am grateful for the ethical psychologists and psychiatrists who are speaking out. We all need our modern day, staggering in scope, psychiatric holocaust to end.

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  18. I should probably just stay out of this. These criticisms based on the DSM have furnished great talking points for the anti-psychiatry movement, and articles such as the one critiqued above have provided parallel talking points for the pro-psychiatry movement. But the fact is that this is not the central pillar on which anti-psychiatry stands. We object 1) to the harm being done and 2) to the failed promises, the blatant unwillingness to improve, and the endless make-wrong of all critics. We see what amounts to a criminal operation at work here, and we object to it. It goes without saying that criminals, exposed, will madly attempt to defend themselves. And arguing about the “medical model” gives them the perfect opportunity to do so.

    I wish we would expend our efforts more in the direction of identifying things that really work and promoting them widely. There will always be a few around trying to control the battle at a propaganda level, but the point is – isn’t it? – to save lives, not to win debates. If everyone knew that psych meds were dangerous and refused to take them, psychiatry wouldn’t have much to talk about. And if communities had better ways to handle people who seem a “little off” then psychiatrists would be forced to either become real doctors or leave the field (which is probably what most of them should do).

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  19. “One of the things that can make a person mad is when he/she is raised to anticipate a bright and glorious future, even though the ability to achieve this is lacking.”

    Good points. But of course, this can start at a young age, our system (not parents) is geared towards “success” and “happiness”. And if we are not, it is not so much about becoming paranoid, but feeling unhappy and a failure, which then brings one to a shrink, who happily agrees that it is an illness, which of course makes people feel more of a failure.

    It is called, falling through the cracks. The best cure is to relocate to a third world country where one is no longer “mentally ill”

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    • “Falling through the cracks” is a term often applied to those who “fall through the cracks” of the mh system, as if this were a BAD thing. I remember Judi C. speaking of those who wished they could find one of those “cracks” to disappear into.

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      • My government has found fracking a convenient means of creating cracks to dispose of the ‘unintended negative outcomes’ created by this area of experimental medicine.

        The huge amounts of money being extracted from our public health insurer for ‘treatments’ that disable the “patient” resulting in a need for a rug to sweep them under. That ‘rug’ being provided with a “wild” (or decentralised) Euthanasia Act, and the making lawful distribution of “edited” documents to legal representatives. By creating a large crack right under the ‘rug’,………….

        Still, in a State where a citizen can be ‘prepped’ for an ‘assessment’ by a psychiatrist with a ‘spiking’ and inducing an “acute stress reaction” via police and their weapons, should we be surprised that the inside of these ‘hospitals’ is not too far from the images released from Abu Ghraib? The unwillingness of citizens to be subjected to ‘treatments’ for their moral infractions surely requiring methods that have been proved to work?

        The ‘suss laws’ being enabled by our Chief Psychiatrist (“suspect on reasonable grounds” becomes “‘suspect’ on grounds he believes to be reasonable”) which can result in the administration of a ‘chemical restraint’ (No National Standard thus large amounts of anti psychotics and benzos against the persons will for simply saying the word “no”) BEFORE a person has even been examined by a psychiatrist something not even available to the interrogators and their ‘prison guards’ at Abu Ghraib. The cart (‘torture’) comes before the horse (the ‘illness’), and the wheels on the bus go around and around (you are a terrorist ergo we torture you). The torture now the cure for the trauma of being tortured. And the law ignored by a referral to a doctor who treats truth speaking with death (or brain damage to extract as much from the victim as possible before death).

        When the State can deny access to legal representation to conceal their crimes, what can one do? The Attorney General referring complaints regarding acts of torture to mental health for ‘treatment’ seems a little circular too (their first ‘investigation’ resulting in fraudulent documents being sent to the Mental Health Law Centre and police attempting to retrieve the documents I had demonstrating the crimes, lets see what they do with another ‘bite at the apple’) but …… what does one do when the law doesn’t allow the outcome to be manipulated in ones favor? Make it a medical issue, neglect your duty to protect “consumers, carers and the community”, and call the victim a “patient” and let the slander and fraud take effect.

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  20. Thank you Dr. Hickey for an excellent dissection of the self-serving absurdity psychiatry keeps spewing. It is all “verbal gymnastics” and nonsensical word salads they keep whipping up in a desperate bid to save face, along with their power and earnings. They have no shame and we sure need you to keep calling them out so well!

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