When I was training to become a psychiatrist in the 1980s, there were basically two options: being a psychotherapist (whose clients came to your office—this is what I pursued), or being a biological psychiatrist (whose patients were usually in hospitals against their will). But then that changed; people began eagerly seeking psychiatry’s biological interventions.
This seemed crazy to me: Nearly everyone had seen, or at least heard about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s a 1975 film that depicted the reality of what the latter were about: physical restraints, mind-numbing chemicals, electroshock, and lobotomy. Who in their right mind would voluntarily seek out such doctors? At least people who were forced into their “treatment” had the sense to want to stay away.
To those who say that major scientific/medical advances since 1975 have made going to a biological psychiatrist a rational choice, I say: What advances?
Forty-five years have passed: Is any psychiatric “diagnosis” now verified by lab test, x-ray, or physical exam finding? No; therefore they’re all purely imaginary, nothing but conceptualized labels. You must’ve been hallucinating when you heard of these “discoveries.”
This can’t be a surprise, since labeling a problem “mental” is a way of saying that it’s not physical. Aren’t people referred to a psychiatrist because a real physical problem was ruled out, so it’s all in their head? Mental and physical illnesses are thus mutually exclusive opposites, and if you think something can be a type of its opposite, then you must have lost your marbles. And no; psychiatrists don’t treat diseases of the brain just as cardiologists treat diseases of the heart. Reality check: There’s already a field that treats brain diseases—neurology.
Furthermore, the basis for modern psychiatry’s medical model—the chemical imbalance theory—is totally impossible, as follows: Every feeling, behavior, or thought is nothing more than a chemical process; they are one and the same thing, just viewed in two different ways. Yet the chemical imbalance theory proposes that these chemical correlates are also the causes of their respective phenomena. But how can something cause itself to occur? You must have a screw loose if you believe that. And even if many people join together to believe in such a nutty idea, that can’t make it become real (except in little kids’ movies).
If you say there are new, effective “medical treatments,” then you’ve really gone off the deep end. These are either:
- Antidepressants, which were proven to be placebos, and which are a ridiculous concept anyway: How can a pill make all the problems in your life that are making you unhappy instantly disappear—poof! Does each pill contain a fairy godmother who fixes them by waving a magic wand and singing “Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo,” enabling you to live happily ever after in a castle with a doting Prince Charming? If you think that sounds deranged, how about this next type:
- Euphoria-giving addictive chemicals, which have been around for centuries. We all know that drug addiction ruins lives as tolerance to the highs develops and unbearable withdrawals ensue. These force one to repeatedly raise the dose. How could you possibly expect the outcome to be any different, just because you obtained your addictive pills from an MD? Are you out of your mind?
- Or they’re zombifying drugs like the ones used on the inmates in Cuckoo’s Nest. What sane person would want to take them, or use them on his/her kid? They’re often called antipsychotics. But you must be mad if you think a pill could distinguish irrational from rational thoughts/actions, and then choose to only suppress the irrational ones. Let’s be real: They’re just sedatives; they suppress all thoughts/actions.
But biological psychiatry’s kookiest claim is its denial of our capacity to understand, flexibly adapt to, and solve our own problems—the result of millions of years of brain evolution. The psychiatric field itself used such abilities to overcome many dangers that had threatened its survival. These included anti-psychiatry attacks like Cuckoo’s Nest and The Myth of Mental Illness, and an onslaught of cheaper, plentiful social workers who dislodged psychiatrists from their therapist niche.
Psychiatry resiliently adapted by devising/instilling its nonsensical disease model into our culture. It deluded millions into thinking they’re unable to adaptively address their own issues or raise their supposedly incapable kids. They thus gave up trying to. (Ironic, huh?) This generated hordes of lifelong clients who seek non-existent cures for non-existent diseases, enabling psychiatry to endlessly drain health insurance money. So it successfully morphed from an eradicator into a mass-producer of lunacy, which parasitically sucks the blood out of society. What genius!
In summary, anyone who now sees a psychiatrist of their own volition (or advises others to do so) must have lost contact with reality and should have their head examined. But maybe I’m the one who should be put in a straitjacket, since I could earn five times as much money if I abandoned psychotherapy and became a “medication manager,” as all my peers did. In any event, I’m going bonkers trying to come up with more synonyms for “crazy.” So I’ll close by proposing that the DSM (the official manual of psychiatric “diagnoses”) add “taking the DSM seriously” to its criteria for “psychosis.”
Yea!!! “Nonexistent cures for nonexistent diseases, enabling psychiatry to endlessly drain health insurance.” What a beautifully accurate description. The fact that many have chosen to become “medication managers,” in lieu of psychotherapists may also explain why so many psychiatrists are reluctant to give trauma its due, because a diagnosis of PTSD is much less likely to lead to the prescription of meds as bipolar disorder. Yet another terrific article. What would we do without MIA as a resource.
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Another 1st Class exposure, Lawrence.
It’s even possible to develop withdrawal syndrome while consuming drugs like Xanax.
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Well, there have been advances in treatment for negative medical states, but Big Time Psychiatry has fought like tigers to make them go away as they don’t rely on ever more exotic drugs and zapping patients into even more violent seizure states. The companies are just as outraged because you can buy some of these items off the shelf for a fraction of the cost of exotic “curative” drugs. Just say “megavitamins” to your neighborhood shrink and see what happens if you don’t believe the above paragraph.
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Nah Lawrence, people are not crazy for seeking and a shrink is just another step is seeking, navel gazing, confused etc etc. Now of course a few in the process of being shrinks, realize what a crock it is….. But The problem with MOST shrinks is that there seems to be no deduction or reduction abilities, no “scientific” understanding. Learning from researchers words such as Neurons, chemicals, ventricles, is absolutely not science and the ability to remember and regurgitate is simply proof one is either a parrot or monkey.
But I think our whole society is pretty warped in general. It’s a grand world of course if one lives lucky, or with a piece of dirt and some tools.
Surprisingly, many people are pushed and nudged by physicians to see a psychiatrist. Or the teacher sends johnny to get ass-essed.
Bottom line is, we need to educate people more, not on MIA, where people come who sort of know the system. We need the ED in grassroots settings. But it is difficult since reasoning is a process and we know what belief and sending a bomb into the brain will do.
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“many people are pushed and nudged by physicians to see a psychiatrist. Or the teacher sends johnny to get ass-essed.” Or a child abusing pastor pits a psychologist on you, who forces you to see a psychiatrist. But at least that only works once, the second time you can rip a child abuse covering up pastor and psychologist – people who are terrified of Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” since it points out the psychiatric abuse of millions of children – into a-sholes in a NY second.
“we need to educate people more, not on MIA, where people come who sort of know the system.” The problem is, when you do that, you get shadow banned by google, where seemingly, no truth will be allowed in the future.
“In summary, anyone who now sees a psychiatrist of their own volition (or advises others to do so) must have lost contact with reality and should have their head examined.” Yes, they are the crazy ones, or the child abuse covering up criminals, as was the truth in my case.
“So I’ll close by proposing that the DSM (the official manual of psychiatric ‘diagnoses’) add ‘taking the DSM seriously’ to its criteria for ‘psychosis.'” Yes, the DSM needs to be flushed.
Thanks for the scathing blog, confessing to the truth about the DSM “bible” worshippers, Lawrence.
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Because insurance requires a DSM “diagnosis”, the damage done by psychiatrists and the DSM they created, extends beyond psychiatry and pills and has invaded the whole “mental health” system. So, a person seeking help from a psychotherapist or counselor, where drugs are not even part of the picture, must be given a billable “mental illness diagnosis” for the therapist to be paid. And this then goes on one’s medical record. So, I would say that “you’ve got to be crazy to go to ANY “mental health” professional – unless you can afford to pay cash. But most people don’t find this out until it’s too late. Of course, one can personally reject the label or labels, and should, but DSM labels are given credence and legitimacy in many arenas of life in our world. What a con has been created and is being perpetuated by this psychiatric industry. It’s all about money and power, not compassion or truth.
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Great summation. As you say, most people don’t find this out until it’s too late.
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“You’ve Got to Be Crazy to Go to a Psychiatrist”
That’s why they needed to be able to have people picked up and transported against their will for ‘treatment’. For example, bi polar disorder may require the “patient” to be coerced into attending a hospital, and we may even need to ensure their attendance by injuring them a little first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ9UQKBUrsg
Confronting images but …… we need to get people the help they need.
People become accustomed to “brutality disguised as treatment”.
Oh, and if you think the behavior of police is bad, you should see the ‘kick to the head’ delivered by the doctor in the Emergency Dept with a needle full of ‘chemical restraint’.
Imagine my surprise when going from a clinic where the wealthiest man in Australia is being treated to this type of scenario after being ‘spiked’, a Community Nurse lying to police and requesting assistance with a “patient”, and having a knife planted on me for police to find. Lucky I have a sense of humor guys or I might not see the funny side lol.
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Never mind the bollocks, absolutely god damn right. Psychiatrists say and write reams and reams of bollocks. They concoct their positions and thoughts within their normalized closed cultures of abuse and then take them to the outside world and regurgitate the ridiculous. The whole of the history of art, math, literature, architecture, industry, engineering and it goes on and on is only really possible by people being passionate, this passion brings about a sustained intensity of focused concentration to bear down on problems in these disciplines.
Passion.
Here is Sir Simon Wessely psychiatrist
https://youtu.be/X-E1iO3rsVk?t=1368
“I hate the word passion, I hate people who say passionate, I’m passionately against passionate it’s an awful thing, ”
Now take a look at a painting by Lawrence Alma Tadma from the 19th century imaging with paint Phidias (great classical Greek sculptor, painter and architect) showing the frieze of the Parthenon to his friends 2500 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon#/media/File:1868_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema_-_Phidias_Showing_the_Frieze_of_the_Parthenon_to_his_Friends.jpg
and this, the schematic design of the Antikythera mechanism around about 2100 years ago, it is the first analogue computer known, found on the site of a ship wreck off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera thought to have been invented by the classical Greek mathematician Archimedes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism#/media/File:Antikythera_mechanism.svg
https://youtu.be/YbFvAaO9j8M?t=169
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Over the summer, I began researching more into the different models and theories related to mental “illness” and trauma. I endured a severe stress breakdown (breakthrough) back in 1998, which Stanislav and Christina Grof would call a spiritual emergency. Prior to this summer, I had never heard of the Grofs or Loren Mosher or John Weir Perry, and I only learned of Thomas Szasz and RD Laing last summer. Like so many other people, I was traumatized worse by the mental health industry and what I didn’t realize was the biomedical model than by the breakdown / breakthrough.
As I read about their work from decades ago, I realized that if all of the collective models and theories related to psychology and psychiatry were depicted as a tree with a variety of branches, then it was as though, the major limb involving their work was lopped off back in the 1980s (primarily with the release of the DSM-III).
And all these years later, that really ticked me off. Because their work and their approach would have helped me significantly to come through that crisis in a fraction of the time.
I didn’t realize that the branch that got lopped off was called “social psychiatry.” A few weeks ago, I read Anatomy of an Epidemic and came across Robert Whitaker’s description on page 271 that, “Loren Mosher and his band of social psychiatrists also had been roundly defeated and sent packing.”
It is horrific to think that the very industry that is supposed to help can instead cause so much trauma and damage to so many people. And all because a group of people are so obsessed with biology and chemistry that they would ignore their client’s individual experiences.
The problem for the biomedical model is that it is way too narrow. And I say that as a statistician who understands modelling. The biomedical model is absurd in that it totally ignores the history, experiences, trauma, social dynamics, and individual passions and skills of a person experiencing difficulties.
Thankfully, that branch of social psychiatry that got lopped off is growing back — as it should. I have taken on the personal mission to help ensure that that branch grows back fully and completely and hopefully with even more helpful tools to truly help people. Thankfully, there are many other people who recognize the problems of how we got here. Hopefully, together we can ensure that as a minimum, the social model will grow back. Just my thoughts.
(And of course, as I finished this up, I happened to notice the ad on TV was for a psychiatric drug…)
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Thankfully, that branch of social psychiatry that got lopped off is growing back — as it should. I have taken on the personal mission to help ensure that that branch grows back fully
Please stop!!! Do something positive with your life. Psychiatry is illegitimate and oppressive in all its forms.
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For the record, I AM doing something positive with my life. From a quick search, “Social psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the interpersonal and cultural context of mental disorder and mental wellbeing.”
During my experience, had I come across a psychiatrist like the author of this article, or someone like:
Thomas Szasz,
John Weir Perry,
Loren Mosher,
Stanislav Grof
Joanna Moncrieff
(all of whom are or were psychiatrists) or any of the other psychiatrists who don’t buy into the biomedical “illness” model, I might have actually been helped without the significant additional trauma after the fact.
For that matter, the work of Stephen Porges (also a psychiatrist who is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium) has also been quite helpful to me. He is looking at how trauma affects the nervous system, most known for the polyvagal theorem.
And then there is Bessel van der Kolk, yet another psychiatrist who wrote “The Body Keeps the Score” and is also focused on how trauma plays a major role in not only mental processes but how that also affects the physical body.
I couldn’t care less if a provider is a psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, or whatever else, so long as they don’t reduce everything down to the biomedical model of brain chemicals and stuff me into the labels of the DSM.
And that is where the crap shoot is. How do you find the professionals (psychiatrists or otherwise) who don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to reach for the DSM (although they pretty much have to reach for the DSM if they want the insurance to kick in — and that goes for LCPCs, LCSWs, psychologists, and psychotherapists as well).
Granted, as a group, I would say a higher percentage of psychiatrists are are likely to buy into the “illness” and “brain chemical imbalance” theories. That doesn’t mean there aren’t psychiatrists who recognize the disaster that is the DSM and biomedical model.
The real problem is the biomedical model and it being way too restrictive.
I for one am thankful that there are psychiatrists out there like this author. At this stage of the game, being able to reference these “dissident” psychiatrists is quite helpful.
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Lawrence, after all this time you’re still confused about psychiatry.
The power, prestige, and perceived authority of psychiatry is part and parcel of the hegemony of the modern medical establishment. People have been looking to doctors for healing since ancient times. It’s nothing new, and it’s perfectly natural. I imagine that you’ve visited a doctor before, have you not? You probably expected that he could help you in some way.
The problem is that psychiatry is a pseudo-scientific system of slavery that masquerades as a medical profession. In your mind, the problem is obvious, because you’ve watched the deception and coercion from the inside. Most people have absolutely no clue about the true history of medicine or the true history of psychiatry, because both are shrouded in mystery and the mystique of the so-called “healing arts”.
Psychiatry is evil, and that should be more obvious to more people. But unfortunately it is not. Just because psychiatry deceives and harms hoards of innocent people, including children, the elderly, the homeless, and other vulnerable populations doesn’t mean that those innocent people are to blame. How many people have watched One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest or read a book by Thomas Szasz? Very few, especially compared to the numbers of people who have been inundated with psychiatric propaganda and advertising from pharmaceutical companies from the day that they were born.
We don’t blame the American Colonists for the tyranny of King George III. We don’t blame slaves for the Civil War. We don’t blame We don’t blame the Jews for the horrors of the Shoah. Stop blaming the innocent victims of psychiatry for the evils of psychiatry.
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Thank you for stating it eloquently. dragon.
Should I take the blame for buying a lemon car too?
Or the blame for a botched surgery?
I do think I know what he meant. Perhaps he should say that shrinks are crazy for abusing and lying
to politicians, to the people. For raping kids brains.
Still I am glad to see he is mostly on the right side of seeing what is going on.
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A straight forward voice of logical reason
Maybe there’s hope
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People tell me my adult child is paranoid schizophrenic. Am I correct to conclude from this article that drugs won’t really help him? That has been my suspicion for a long time. Thank you Dr. Kelmenson!!!
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You are correct. “Schizophrenia” is a fraudulent concept.
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Can the “schizophrenic” be confronted and learn to be responsible for his delusional thinking?
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Well the research says that without drugs, the majority fare much better.
Why would that be? It seems that the thing that requires time and a proper environment are the only things that truly work.
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Lucie, Sorry that I am responding to this after so much time. I don’t know if you have read Anatomy of an Epidemic. If you haven’t, you probably should. Both Loren Mosher’s Soteria House and John Weir Perry’s Diabasis house are mentioned.
With regard to your question about “delusional thinking,” I can only speak from my severe breakdown / spiritual awakening back in 1998. I finally “woke up” to my toxic codependence in the abusive systems all around me. While I thought I was letting major sources of stress roll off my back, I was actually stuffing that stress into a glass ball, and one event (a moral injury of sorts) put a kachink in that glass ball and all of that energy was released.
The mental process I went through was very violent and painful, but I knew that it would lead me to a better place (and it did).
I was misdiagnosed as bipolar and efforts by my employer to threaten and manipulate me to behave as they wanted me to only traumatized me much worse than the initial experience. I was breaking out of authoritarian dynamics, so to try and “treat” me in an authoritarian manner was absurd to me.
I have recently been researching the relationships between what is labeled schizophrenia and bipolar. I came across this article which is quite interesting. (Ignore the German title, the rest of the article is in English.)
https://alex-sk.jimdofree.com/john-weir-perry-when-the-dream-becomes-real/
Here is an excerpt:
MICHAEL O’CALLAGHAN: Did Jung really see this (schizophrenia) as a healing process?
JOHN WEIR PERRY: He did indeed! He believed that “schizophrenia” is a self-healing process – one in which, specifically, the pathological complexes dissolve themselves. The whole schizophrenic turmoil is really a self-organising, healing experience. It’s like a molten state. Everything seems to be made of free energy, an inner free play of imagery through which the alienated psyche spontaneously re-organises itself – in such a way that the conscious ego is brought back into communication with the unconscious again.
————-
Another concept that I wish I had come across years ago is that of the Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell. The hero is called to adventure, and though he / she may initially reject the call, they have to make that journey. The person goes from the known realm to an unknown realm (what you would call the “delusional thinking”) and goes through a series of events. Ultimately, the hero returns to the known realm with a greater understanding.
Obviously, you want your son to come back to the “known world” as soon as possible. However, as Perry indicates, there is a process to go through and what you perceive to be helpful, may push him further into that unknown realm which is traumatizing.
Tim Read, who is a psychiatrist in the UK has a book that also touches on archetypes (which Jung also did).
https://www.amazon.com/Walking-Shadows-Archetype-Psyche-Muswell/dp/1908995092
I wanted to include a couple of references that might reframe your son’s experience so that the language involved can also be reframed to be less stigmatizing.
The process is exceptionally complex. Hopefully, these resources can help you and your son through a very difficult period.
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Except it is noticed anecdotally and proven statistically for many people:
1. If somebody is depressed given everything is good in their life – you give them antidepressants – they get better.
2. Somebody thinks the CIA is spying on him (and nobody is really spying on them) – you give them antipsychotics – they kind of stop thinking that CIA is following them.
Also as a doctor you probably aware that no illness is verified by a lab test. It takes a physician, symptoms and complaints, then a lab test is appointed then only diagnose confirmed. The whole medicine works on Bayesian reasoning.
Yes, there is no lab test currently for mental illness (there are many pieces of evidence of brain pathology involved in the case of schizophrenia or bipolar or borderline).
But read the history of medicine – there were no diagnostic tests for many autoimmune diseases for many years and even now there are plenty of diseases without an unequivocal test.
In medicine, many diseases were discovered just by autopsy.
So for many diseases, physicians do the diagnostics but then use the treatment response as confirmation of their reasoning.
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I’d be interested in hearing your “evidence of brain pathology” for any “mental illness” you’d like to name. Of course, all such research is tainted from the beginning, since the definitions of “Schizophrenia” and “bipolar” and “Borderline Personality Disorder” are all extremely vague and subjective, leading inevitably to heterogeneous groupings who can’t possibly have significant shared biological traits. But even accepting such vague definitions, the research I am familiar with shows at best very small correlations with any biological “cause,” the most optimistic being around 15% correlation with a mess of a hundred or more genes, and using multiple “disorders” for the correlation. Whereas the correlation between traumatic events and any of the “mental disorders,” including “schizophrenia” and “bipolar,” is extremely high, usually over 80%.
And if you’re talking instead about fMRIs and PET scans, this research has long been critiqued for not being able to distinguish cause from function. What I mean is, if a “depressed brain” has a certain pattern (which has NOT been consistently shown, by the way), there is no way to know if that pattern CAUSES depression or RESULTS FROM the person feeling depressed. In fact, there is evidence that thinking depressing thoughts shifts the brain’s function in the direction associated with “depressed brains,” and thinking of something else returns to a more “normal” pattern.
The other problem is that these scans are AVERAGED. So even if there is a tendency, for instance, for people who are diagnosed with “ADHD” to have a certain pattern when confronted with difficult tasks, only SOME of those so diagnosed have this pattern – there is a wide range of individual results, some of which conform closely to the pattern and some of which vary widely. This is why PET scans can’t be used as a diagnostic tool – there is NO consistent finding across large numbers of “ADHD”-diagnosed people.
So the science I know of says that biology probably plays some role in how we react, but that there is no consistent biological pattern with any of the “mental illnesses” as defined in the DSM. The science also says that traumatic experiences are MUCH more highly correlated with any “mental illness” than any biological findings to date.
I’m happy to read any research you have that would speak to this question. But so far, I can’t agree that the science to date agrees with or even suggests the conclusions you propose.
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And a lot of people given antidepressants don’t feel better or feel worse. See Kirsch’s works for the minuscule difference between AD’s and placebo when you look at all the trials together instead of cherry picking the ones they submit to the FDA. As for antipsychotics, yes, they do tend to reduce hallucinations and in some cases delusions in the short run, though certainly not for everyone. Unfortunately, long-term followup studies suggest that this is very much a temporary phenomenon, and that over the long term, people chronically using antipsychotics have MORE episodes of psychosis than those who use them intermittently or not at all. If you would read “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” you could see this research for yourself.
I’m afraid a lot of what you’ve been led to believe about psych drugs is not actually true.
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1. If somebody is depressed given everything is good in their life – you give them antidepressants – they get better.
Placebo effect? Platos “noble lie”?
2. Somebody thinks the CIA is spying on him (and nobody is really spying on them) – you give them antipsychotics – they kind of stop thinking that CIA is following them.
Mmmmm Ernest Hemmingway comes to mind. Nobody was spying on him until they released the documents showing that his paranoid delusions that were treated with ECTs until he committed suicide. Then with the proof, we have a completely different story. His truth speaking was considered delusional as a result of a lack of proof. It seems there’s a conflation there with your statement. If someone is spying on you, but you don’t have the proof, is no one spying on you?
Let me say this, I was slandered a paranoid delusion by police for making the claim I had been ‘spiked’ without my knowledge, and was referred to mental health services for my “hallucinations”. Mental health services had seen the documents I had presented to police proving I had been ‘spiked’ with a date rape drug and explained to police that it is not a “hallucination” to claim you have been ‘spiked’ when you have the proof.
There is a reality, and there is sometimes a manipulated reality. Just because you don’t have the proof doesn’t mean it’s not true. The hospital that tortured and kidnapped me knew that if they had police retrieve the documents I had proving I had been ‘spiked’ they could then use my truth speaking as a justification for damaging my brain with anti psychotics. Quite clever when you think about it.
So how would you know with 100% certainty that a person making a claim the CIA was spying on them was delusional? You asked the CIA and they said they weren’t?
I had a very good friend who worked ‘Intelligence’ during Vietnam. It can sometimes be worth letting people know your spying on them, so that they start making the claim they are being spied on. Ask my wifes “new man” who was provided access to my computer to do just that.
Claims he is being drugged without his knowledge, claims someone is spying on his communications, claims he is “being observed by neighbors” True, true, and well, the third one was what the Community Nurse wrote on his statutory declaration about me telling him that my In Laws lived next door to my wife and I. Of course they were watching the property, but it does sound kind of paranoid when you put it in writing as your justification for incarcerating and force drugging someone.
People who are trying to conceal torture and kidnapping are going to spy on your communications, they’d be dumb not to. They ‘headed me off at the pass’ a number of times with this method. One call from a psychiatrist who lies to police (and claims you are a “patient”) and all of a sudden they can’t find their copy of the Criminal Code while they sort their little problem out with a ‘hotshot’ in the Emergency Dept. And doesn’t my State love the way people treat someone who speaks such a truth.
Their negligence goes unnoticed, and they simply slander the truth speaker. Care to look at the proof? Nor did the police. After seeing the documents showing I was not the paranoid delusional they were slandering me as, I was told “It might be best I don’t know about that” when I explained the unintentional negative outcome that was planned, and so rudely interrupted. Refusing to accept proof of the crimes makes what are matters of law, into matters of mental health. Police in my State are referring their own corruption to mental health to be silenced. Don’t like that truth, stick a needle in it for me Doc. So many human resources going to waste.
Consider the doctors comments about “potential for violence but no clear intent or actual history”. So what’s he got to justify his incarceration and forced drugging other than his paranoid delusion? No verbal threat to harm anyone, no history of violence?
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Igor,
“But read the history of medicine – there were no diagnostic tests for many autoimmune diseases for many years”
And it must be that not knowing is exactly why they could not develop drugs.
The diseases you speak of were discovered first before any attempt at treating.
Even after being FULLY known and understood, the treatments are rife with bad effects,
and mostly palliative. Also the diseases never resulted in being strapped down, force drugged.
An autoimmune disease never resulted in loss of rights.
The brain is far too complex to have chemicals thrown into the barrier. It is pretending to know space and throwing a nuclear bomb into the mix.
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First the cure — THEN we find the disease. Lewis Carroll would approve.
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Dr. Kelmenson–Your logical, rational approach to mental health is truly a light in the darkness!! I am particularly struck by the line, “biological psychiatry’s kookiest claim is its denial of our capacity to understand, flexibly adapt to, and solve our own problems—the result of millions of years of brain evolution.” This denial, no doubt, has lead to the almost total dependence on drug therapy, a dependence that ultimately robbed my son of his life. In writing my book about his experiences (“Broken: How the Broken Mental Health System Leads to Broken Lives and Broken Hearts”) I often referred to your writings and quoted you several times. Hopefully, your words will bring hope and maybe even change to many.
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My condolences.
One thing though — the system is not “broken”; it’s doing exactly what it is meant to do — force people into societally approved molds.
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Oh by the way; this is “Mental Illness Awareness Week:– October 5- October 11. As my late sister would say, “Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!” I know there is sarcasm in those words. A week set up just to bring these charlatans business! But, I would slightly like like to disagree with the author of this fantastic piece. No, you don’t have to be crazy; just duped and gullible. When it comes to psychiatry, P.T. Barnum said it right, “There is a sucker born every minute.” And, tragically, for me, I must confess I was a duped, gullible sucker! However, now, with my eyes wide open, I really do see the light! Thank you.
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Interested in anti-psychiatry organizing Rebel? Consider it. [email protected] (Be patient — we will respond.)
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A voice of reason! Thank You!
Psychiatry is an Abomination
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anyone who now sees a psychiatrist of their own volition (or advises others to do so) must have lost contact with reality and should have their head examine
By whom?
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My experience has opened my eyes to just how bad America’s mental healthcare system really is. I’d say it’s about 95% smoke and mirrors.
Over several years, I asked 12 psychiatrists what causes ADHD, bipolar or mental illness in general. Every one of them gave me a lame answer. One was that an illness is due to a “chemical” imbalance. He then proceeded to push patented, synthetic chemicals for my loved one. In reality, humans don’t have “chemical” imbalances: we often have a “bio”-chemical imbalance, and there’s a big difference. Biochemicals are made by our body from the food we take in. They’re all-natural. When certain BIOchemicals are out of balance, we develop psychiatric problems. We have to get them back in balance to be mentally healthy (although of course there are other causes of mental illness such as a strep infection in the brain called “P.A.N.D.A.S.,” or head injury, etc).
Other psychiatrists answered, “No one knows what causes a mental illness,” which is just another false claim because there are many scientists who have known the causes (and cures) for decades.
And, third, psychiatrists claimed, “It’s genetic – and you should have chosen better parents, hahahahahaha.” Wrong again: our genes are perfect. They are sometimes mutated with Cell-Wall-Deficient bacteria but it’s the bacteria that are the problem, not our genes. Illnesses, or the tendency to certain illnesses, can be passed from mother to baby, generation after generation, but it’s not genetic.
Psych drugs aren’t designed to cure anyone. They’re designed to bring in the highest profits so, to that end, they work perfectly. The real problem in this country is that we allow the profit motive in mental healthcare. It’s the profits that drive the treatment. There is precious little incentive to cure anyone but plenty of incentive to turn each patient into a lifelong customer of psych drugs.
I believe about 5% of conventional psychiatry is a good thing: those are the instances in which psych drugs instantly stabilize someone who is out of control but all other treatment is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
I “opted out” of America’s miserable for-profit approach and used natural treatments such as orthomolecular medicine. Best thing I ever did.
Please see my Facebook page, “A Dose of Sanity” and my 3 videos on Youtube at “Linda Van Zandt’s Mental Health Recovery Channel” if you’d like to know more about the orthomolecular approach.
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Stabilize? How so? Time also “stabilizes” There is NOTHING stable about someone who cannot form
a thought. Or where there is no feeling.
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Synthetic psych drugs do help many people get to a place where they’re not running out in traffic or think they’re Superman, or Christ, or flinging chairs out into a parking lot, or any number of other crazy things. I’m not saying these drugs are a real answer for anyone. I’m saying they are often useful as a temporary crutch. They’re designed to just bring in the highest possible profits – not cure anyone.
A severe deficiency of Vitamin B-3 is one cause of psych illnesses such as “bipolar with psychosis,” “schizo-affective disorder,” a quick temper, anxiety, paranoia, paranoid schizophrenia, etc. People suffering from one of these disorders should always look into taking the niacinamide form of B-3 – in optimal doses for the individual – plus a capsule of B Complex daily. That’s what the late Abram Hoffer, MD did with all his patients and he had at least a 90% recovery rate. After their mental health was restored, most patients continued to take the vitamins for life.
Once the body’s deficiency of the B Vitamins has been corrected, the person is typically mentally well. His mental health has been restored. Be aware, though, that this isn’t normally the case with those who are the “allergic-y” type. They need to get their histamine level down into the normal range first, according to the other pioneer of orthomolecular medicine, (the late) Carl Pfeiffer, MD.
So why does someone become so deficient in the first place? One scientist found that it’s because we’re all biochemically unique and we all have differing needs for the B vitamins, especially B-3. Almost 40 years ago, acupuncturist Devi Nambudripad discovered another answer, which I have found to be true: Some people have an allergy to the B Vitamins and they must have a certain acupuncture treatment to correct this allergy. Once this allergy is gone, the person is able to get the B vitamins out of their food correctly and the psychiatric symptoms disappear. In my own case, my anxiety disorder disappeared instantly with this acupuncture treatment. It’s called NAET. An allergy to the B Vitamins appears to run in my family. Two of us have been tested and treated for our B allergy and we’re mentally well. Two others have not been tested or treated and both have psychiatric problems. One of them has schizophrenia. See NAET.com if you’d like to know more about it.
Patented, synthetic psych drugs are only a temporary crutch and I think it’s an abuse of human rights when a patient is denied restorative mental health care.
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