And Finally

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With considerable misgivings, I have decided that, due to advancing age and ongoing deterioration in my health, I am no longer able to write posts or respond to comments.

From my personal perspective, I deeply regret having to make this decision.  I’ve been writing posts for the last 13 years, and during that time I’ve made no secret of my opposition to psychiatric principles and practice.  Having to quit the field at this stage leaves me with a profound sense of incompleteness.  There is still so much work to be done, to which my only contribution will be cheering from the sidelines.

Passing a flaming torch to another open hand

Although the anti-psychiatry movement has made a great deal of progress over the past fifty years, the psychiatric hoax is not only surviving, but is the dominant lens through which the great majority of people view personal distress and suffering.  This is not due to any great psychiatric achievements or insights.  Rather, it reflects psychiatry’s persistent use of deception and PR tactics to promote their guild interests at the expense of their customers.

The war against psychiatry – and I make no apologies for describing it in such terms – needs to be fought on three main fronts.  Firstly, we need to promote tried and true methods of dealing with distress that do not entail spurious medicalization, damaging “treatments”, and routine disempowerment of individuals who seek help.  Secondly, we need to continue vigorous critiquing of the psychiatric hoax wherever and whenever it surfaces.  When we ignore these spurious and pernicious accounts, we do a grave disservice to those countless individuals who have been victimized by the hoax, and who find validation in our protests.  And these are the people who will finally bury psychiatry in the morass of its own inane, arrogant, self-righteous disease-mongering.  Thirdly, we need to use every opportunity to educate various stakeholders, especially government officials – local, state, and federal – concerning psychiatry’s spurious medicalization of virtually every problem of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

And, of course, our primary objective must remain the exclusion of psychiatry from non-medical problems, and supplanting it with the kinds of natural social supports that have carried the human race successfully through thousands of years of wars, plagues, famines, corrupt politicians, natural disasters, and unscrupulous profiteers.

I very much appreciate the unstinting support and encouragement I have received from my readers over the years.  I also appreciate the level of commitment and courage that you have demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, in the struggle against psychiatric corruption and tyranny.

I will leave my posts up on Behaviorism and Mental Health as long as they continue to attract readers, but, as I mentioned earlier, I will no longer be able to respond to comments.

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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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21 COMMENTS

  1. Your title had me hoping for another concise criticism, and perhaps another win, for those of us speaking out against psychiatric “corruption,” “tyranny,” and their systemic harm of their clients.

    I’m so saddened that you will no longer be writing, as you are one of my favorite truth speakers, Philip. God bless.

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  2. Dear Dr. Hickey, I’m very sad to see you wind down your vital work exposing the fraud and harm perpetuated by psychiatry. Your voice has been such a powerful validation to all who have been harmed or lost their lives to psychiatry. Your blogs and response comments were always so appreciated. You will be tremendously missed. Thank you for all your exceptional work, Wishing you all the best, Take care, Rosalee

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  3. Dear Dr. Phil, I feared, viz one of your recent replies, that this fate was closer than hoped against. I’ve been so inspired by your critiques, their thoroughness to detail, exposed contradictions ,and intellectual-moral clarity. I still think there’s if not a book from your archives-to the forward thinking editor, then a treasure trove of the more consistent running exposes on psychiatry’s hoodwinking of mental health “out there”. I’m grateful to have found your writing, for it has helped to restore some faith that there are honest intelligent people still working in the mental health fields. Namaste Dr Phil.

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  4. Dear Phil,

    I’ve always been impressed with your thoughtful and thorough critiques of psychiatry and its so-called research. Your expertise helped to enlighten many of us, and you will be greatly missed.

    With appreciation for everything.

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  5. Hi Dr Hickey.

    Of course we knew that this time comes, it comes for us all, and you have given much during your lifetime. Well done.

    One thing that I loved about your writings, that it was with absolutely no apology, no trying to be the nice guy. We are still left with lots of those who think psychiatry can be “reformed”, but little do they know that indeed it gets “reformed” each minute, because after all, it is psychiatry itself that “reforms” itself and thereby it is the same shite over and over, except worse, because as Timimi states, Psychiatry is “rotten to the core”.

    And what readers seem to miss is that no one pretends that life is not full of people who need stuff, people who need extra attention.

    Psychiatry makes those needs 10fold worse. And I’m not limiting it to psychiatry, since the medical community is now rife with untrained psychiatrists, not that training matters much anyway.

    The ability to think has been eroded so we are left with a psychiatric lens, because it is so much simpler than to actually face how complicated an animal is.

    I wish you some good days ahead. And above all, take the time to appreciate the work you did, even if you feel there is much more to be done.
    Because rarely are we ever done, our minds and bodies were designed to want to complete something.

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  6. Dear Dr. Hickey,

    Thank you so much for your writings over the years. You have a way of holding those in power to account that I find very refreshing. The system is so hard to change as there is not only great arrogance, but great corruption and great delusion as well. But change is coming!

    I do think that a compilation of your writings would be useful (even as an e-book). That way they can be preserved and others in the future can learn from your insights. Maybe MIA could do that?

    I wish you all the best in the time you have left. Know that others will finish what you helped start. You had a big impact on how I look at things as I try to come to terms with the effects of my 30 years of “treatment”. Thank you!

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  7. Your voice, Dr. Hickey, was a much needed one. It’s very sad indeed to hear of your departure.

    I admire your optimism about the once robust anti-psychiatry movement, but I tend to be more cynical overall. Sadly, I think the system has succeeded in manufacturing the following it wanted.

    It has been the people we need the most who have died off in recent years, and they’ve not been replaced. I know where that vacuum lies, and I just hope some new comers among psychiatry’s oppressed are able to find it.

    I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. “Yes, Virginia, there is life beyond the mental ill health manufacture and treatment industry.”

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  8. Thank you for the work you have done Phil.

    I am just a survivor of psychiatry.

    3) “Thirdly, we need to use every opportunity to educate”
    Disagree
    They have all the answers, all the power and should not be spoken to.

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  9. Well, nearly two years since you left Doc. And I still often think about the ‘gift’ you gave to me, free of charge in times when it’s double or ya get nothin. I’ve always liked to say things with a song sooooo in that vein

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQu3kp_Iitk

    ‘Where did ya Doctor Hickey?
    did they take you off the air?
    was it something that ya said to the Corporation guys upstairs?
    Wasn’t the pressure
    ya never sounded down
    couldn’t be the ratings
    ya had the best in town…….

    We miss ya.

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