The Core Error of Psychiatrists and Psychologists: Certainty about “Consensus Reality”

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“Yet many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity.”
—Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (1955)

With the mainstream media finally reporting that “depression is not caused by low levels of serotonin,” many people ask me: Why does psychiatry repeatedly get it wrong when it comes to not only to its theories of mental illness but in so many other areas?

While drug company corruption clearly has had a harmful effect, there is a more core problem—one which exists not only in establishment psychiatry and the vast majority of psychiatrists but also among many other mental health professionals, including psychologists. This core problem is a certainty that societal and cultural “consensus realities” are in fact natural realities.

Consensus reality is the agreed upon reality by a society and community. Genuine scientists and other critical thinkers recognize that consensus reality is not synonymous with reality, and that pursuing truth and reducing unnecessary suffering means a willingness to challenge certainties and the consensus.

Macro photography of wooden blocks representing people. One red one stands among wood-colored ones.

Unless one is completely ignorant of history, one recognizes that consensus reality is often a fiction created by those atop of hierarchies to maintain the status quo and their power. Looking at U.S. history, we now see that the consensus reality of the superiority of European civilization was used to justify the genocide of Native Americans and theft of their land; that the consensus reality of superiority of the “white race” was used to justify kidnapping and enslaving Africans to steal their labor; and that the consensus reality of the inferiority of women was used to disenfranchise, disempower, and control them.

In any society, consensus reality is viewed as reality. So in previous eras, rebels who rejected the then consensus realities of the superiority of European civilization, the “white race,” and men were viewed as denying reality.

Today, the concept of “mental illness” is consensus reality, and so those who view mental illness as a paradigm that doesn’t fit the facts—not a reality—are accused by psychiatry and its apologists of denying reality. The “mental illness” individual-defect theory for our emotional suffering and behavioral disturbances, however, is only one “spoke” in the current “wheel” of consensus reality.

Ignored by establishment psychiatry, many renowned thinkers have questioned the entire wheel of current consensus reality, concluding that it is an unnatural construction that has dehumanized us. Many of these prominent thinkers—such as Erich Fromm, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Lewis Mumford, Ivan Illich, and E.F. Schumacher—attempted to uncover the “hub” of this wheel. They recognized that uncovering the root of our dehumanizing society meant going beyond conventional left or right political critiques to more profound cultural reasons, which include a societal embrace of unlimited economic growth, the worship of technology and speed, a departure from human scale, and the increasing institutionalization of society.

Institutionalization refers to the establishment of large, bland, uniform, impersonal, hierarchical, bureaucratic, and coercive entities that increasingly rule our lives. The consequences of ubiquitous institutionalization are a loss of: (1) autonomy—self-direction, experience of potency, and capacity to self-govern; (2) community—strong bonds among small groups that provide for economic security and emotional satisfaction, and (3) humanity—the variety of ways of being human, the variety of satisfactions, and the variety of negative reactions to feeling controlled rather than understood.

Just as human beings need oxygen, water, and food to remain biologically alive, we need autonomy, community, and the whole of our humanity to feel that life is worth living; and emotional suffering and behavioral disturbances are natural reactions to the loss of autonomy, community, and our humanity.

One of many societal examples of institutionalization is compulsory schooling. Consensus reality would have us believe that increased compulsory schooling equals increased education, however, a critical thinker questions this certainty. While some of us may have had a school teacher who inspired learning and energized our curiosity, such teachers often find themselves alienated or fired. Such inspiring and energizing teachers don’t fit into most standardized schools, which are large, bland, uniform, impersonal, hierarchical, bureaucratic, and coercive.

If a major part of true education is inspiring and energizing us to be curious and enjoy reading, there is empirical evidence of standard schooling’s anti-educational effects. A report released by Common Sense Media in 2014 stated: “The proportion of children who are daily readers drops markedly from childhood to the tween and teenage years. One study [Scholastic, 2013] documents a drop from 48% of 6- to 8-year-olds down to 24% of 15- to 17-year-olds who are daily readers; another [National Center for Educational Statistics, 2013] shows a drop from 53% of 9-year-olds to 19% of 17-year-olds.” Reported in 2024, a Book Trust survey found that reading enjoyment declines as children progress through primary school.

Critical thinkers are willing to challenge certainties and the consensus, and they ask: “Does compulsory and coercive reading turn off children from a love of reading in the same manner that compulsory and coercive demands reduce interest in other parts of life?” If instead of asking questions about the negative effects of compulsory schooling, one accepts the consensus reality that schooling is equivalent to education, one is likely to accept the consensus reality that not paying attention in school is evidence of the mental illness called “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” If one is certain of consensus reality, one ignores the reality that many school-inattentive children pay attention perfectly well to that which is stimulating and for which they have not been coerced; but, in contrast to many teachers and mental health professionals, such children are not controlled by fear of negative consequences used to coerce attention.

To be selected into medical schools and graduate schools, one must have evidenced a high degree of compliance to previous schooling. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals—in contrast to many of the individuals they treat—are by and large more sensitive to negative consequences for not complying with authority, and thus are more compliant with authorities. These professionals are selected and socialized to accept societal consensus realities, and to see a lack of adjustment to these consensus realities as evidence of a mental illness, disorder, or some other such term for an individual defect.

The Joy of Rethinking Our Certainties

If we are a critical thinker, we know that the more we are emotionally attached to a certainty, the more likely we will not rethink it; but if we have humility, we will try to rethink our certainties, especially if we are attached to them. The rewards for critical rethinking and humility are greater knowledge, wisdom, and joy. The following is a recent personal example with respect to this article.

For the opening epigraph, I used an Erich Fromm quote from The Sane Society (page 15). I had initially considered using another more famous quote with a similar sensibility—“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society,” which is often attributed to the philosopher and spiritual figure Jiddu Krishnamurti. However, my writing experience tells me that it is always best to dig deeper when it comes to certainties about quotation sources, and so I did some digging.

According to the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Krishnamurti repeatedly returned to the theme expressed in this famous quote; however, “we cannot attribute these exact words to Krishnamurti,” and they report that the nearest direct quote from Krishnamurti expressing this theme is the following:

Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?

So, Krishnamurti certainly believed in the sentiment behind the famous quote routinely attributed to him; however, according the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, he never stated those exact words. The Trust speculates that the origin of this famous quote being attributed to Krishnamurti is probably the Mark Vonnegut book The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity (1975), which attributes this quote to Krishnamurti without giving any source. The Trust surmises that Vonnegut “might have paraphrased or misquoted it, and it must have spread from there.”

By digging deeper, what I also learned from the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust was that Aldous Huxley was a close friend of Krishnamurti, and that Huxley has a passage in his book Brave New World Revisited (1958) that expresses the same perspective as Krishnamurti and Vonnegut:

The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.

Going down the “rabbit hole” of this Huxley quote, I discovered that Mad in America editors had also discovered the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, and they reported what the Trust had said about that famous quote and Vonnegut, and they repeated the Huxley quote reported by the Trust. However, when I examined Brave New World Revisited, I discovered that the Trust did not have this Huxley quote exactly right, and that in some of this quote, Huxley is quoting Erich Fromm. So ironically, I had returned full circle to Fromm. Below is the Huxley quote with Fromm’s words in bold:

But “let us beware,” says Dr. Fromm, “of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symp­toms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting.” The really hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been si­lenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their per­fect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted . . .

The idiom “going down the rabbit hole” refers to getting deep into something or ending up somewhere strange, and critical thinkers know that sometimes going down the rabbit hole can be a waste of time, but not always. Perhaps some readers of this article will dig deeper into Fromm, Krishnamurti, Vonnegut, or Huxley, and discover something that is amiss in this article—or just learn something new. Maybe one of us will have a chance one day to talk with Mark Vonnegut, and ask him about the source of that Krishnamurti quote. Did his father, the novelist and counterculture hero Kurt Vonnegut, ever talk with Jiddu Krishnamurti?

Summary

A handful of critically-thinking psychiatrists are well aware of the array of failures by establishment psychiatry: the invalidity of its DSM diagnostic manual; the invalidity of all of its bio-chemical theories of “mental illness; drug-company corruption; the ineffectiveness of its treatments; the severity of its treatment adverse effects; and the stigmatizing effects of its “genetic/brain disease” beliefs of the cause of severe emotional suffering and behavioral disturbances.

However, a more core error of establishment psychiatry, one shared by many other mental health professionals, is a certainty that societal and cultural “consensus realities” are in fact natural realities. This certainty is quite sad given that many prominent thinkers have questioned the sanity of societal and cultural consensus realities.

It is understandably emotionally difficult for those Mad in America readers who have been physically and psychologically harmed by the certainties of establishment psychiatry to feel sorry for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who don’t question consensus reality. However, when one recognizes that a rigid attachment to consensus reality and certainty deprives people of some of life’s great joys, one might muster up some pity for these professionals. Part of what makes life worth living is having curiosity to discover truths that are ignored or denied by consensus reality. Such curiosity energizes a joyful and empowering expansion of one’s being—an experience that professionals attached to consensus reality and certainties will not have.

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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.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Well Mark Vonnegut has been on a long journey as have others. I am thinking of Kay. Redfield Jamison Ellyn Saks, along with others. I love Erich Fromm and neither was he a saint. So there you go .
    All O can think of is the need to dialogue and the need for all of us to see we come a human civilization that has been warped in its weaving in some horrific ways but every now and then beautiful. It’s how to untangle the various layered entanglements and try to dialogue and find new patters of individual, family , community , and global interactions.
    And it’s not the emotions it’s how to learn to cope with them. Sometimes the fierceness and strength is the hardest and there are ways and ways. One old tool was tearing apart a big city phone book. Thankfully that can’t be used any more. The film Forrest Gump used bricks. Storytelling among all folks professional, allied, all employees abd those undergoing treatment might be another way . And yes used in Switzerland and other places like the Belgium city Gerl but in a small community .At this point anything type of change important.

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  2. I’d like to know the point of feeling pity towards psy professionals who think they know everything yet have no problem ruining things for the rest of us.

    Consensus reality suits them just fine, which is why most psy professionals have little to no problem with it. Why should they when the odds are stacked in their favor? Life as it is floats their boat.

    I do in a way feel sorry for people who think they know everything, but I’d rather save my compassion for those who truly deserve it.

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  3. Good afternoon – this is your conductor speaking. I think the concept of consensus reality is being deployed too late, because there is no consensus reality anymore, unless you call the recognition that absolutely everything in global reality is breaking down, becoming more and more desperately dysfunctional with many precipices looming. Perhaps you could call this a rare thing on which we can all agree but there is no social consensus even among the most basic things.

    Having said that, although there is no consensus, there is an almost universal human drive that forms the core of our egoic social consciousness, and this is the drive to be secure. Obviously in a world as insane, untruthful and destructive as this one, the drive to be secure can only ever be the source of conflict and insecurity, or else illusion, as one of our favoured means of gaining security is through comforting illusions. From a rational point of view this seems perfectly absurd, but illusions provide the organism with an illusory security which does allow the organism to conduct it’s operations with some confidence, and we have to expose the underlying mechanism through perception in order to understand and become free of it, because in silent awareness of the phenomena there is total comprehension, which happens only when perception is unpolluted and undistracted by thought. One can see that there is a feeling of insecurity within consciousness that is effecting the body. There are futile efforts to think the discomfort away, and then an energy, through the brain, offers a solution. “You’re looking great tonight” the brain says to the body. “A drink and some music and you’ll be the life and soul of the party” which are mere mental tricks to delude the body into a false sense of security. All your beliefs work like that. By definition they are non-facts, and stupify the mind and all our words and communications when we take our beliefs or opinions or conclusions to be the facts. It is a primitive and embarressing but entirely normal and ubiquitous thing for someone with clear eyes to see someone getting angry because their opinion is contradicted. We live in a social reality where all opinions contradict and you regularly get angry everytime you experience this contradiction. The anger serves no purpose in action, and so expresses itself internally as a feeling one may in our ignorance describe as toxic, or dysphoric, or nasty at any rate. It makes you feel toxic, and you notice that. And then you see how thought purpetuates and nourishes this discontent, and thereby is turning a one off emotional reaction into a permanent repetative feature of the reactions of the body and mind which means inviting more such incidents etc etc etc. As the Buddha said, “being angry at someone is like drinking poison and expecting that other person to die”. Now, if the brain observes this fact in reality and understands it completely, it will drop the habit of getting angry. And getting angry because of someone disagreeing with your opinion is beneath the dignity of a human being and is too sad and embarresing for intelligent adults bare it without pointing out this truth. I’m sorry if it offends you but it is far better for you to understand this fact rather then let it hamper your life and drain your energy as part of a large repetitive structure of indignities, sufferings and embarressment. Sorry – I fell asleep while writing and I really can’t remember what I said. if I try and re-read I’ll fall asleep again. I hope I don’t say rude words like bums or fannies or willies. Have a nice day.

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  4. ” … a more core error of establishment psychiatry, one shared by many other mental health professionals, is a certainty that societal and cultural ‘consensus realities’ are in fact natural realities. This certainty is quite sad given that many prominent thinkers have questioned the sanity of societal and cultural consensus realities.”

    Yes, those of us who had all distress caused by the distressing 9/11/01 event, blamed upon a “chemical imbalance” in my brain alone … one who knows that was insane … but I also know we do have bad systems / corporations in control of our society … and have for too many decades, if not centuries, or millennium.

    “Part of what makes life worth living is having curiosity to discover truths that are ignored or denied by consensus reality. Such curiosity energizes a joyful and empowering expansion of one’s being ….” I agree, being an open minded, never ending researcher and learner, is a wonderful way to live one’s life … and work oneself (and hopefully all others) towards wisdom.

    Thank you, as always, for your truthful reporting, Bruce.

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  5. It ain’t acceptabiddle piddle clanidal spliddle cliddle. It’s not nearly OK, my grey miserable face only changes on a pay day. It really is not on, profitable grift. ruin others kids, fatten my own, all gone wrong, giggly swans chocke on plastic sporrans. I won’t go mad. I’m just your perfect mirror. The term Mad in America is non-informative. You can speak of Sane in America and then file it under pop fiction. Mad in the UK doesn’t really work either. Even the mad here are mostly not mad enough to believe it was their brain rather then this bullshit society that scrambled their lives and consciousness. Oh yes, all Mother Nature’s fault, nothing to do with the conveyor belt of police backed ideologues running the mad house of this society before getting kicked out within a couple of years or months for doing an appalling job. People diagnosed schizophrenic in the UK are generally very well informed about life, and probably only talk about planets and aliens as a mode of escapism into a curious dimension of one’s own consciousness. People who still pass themselves off as sane believe Donald Trump is the second coming and even Hillary Clinton too is having demonic organisms under the table, a fable clearly too implausible to be credible. No matter how practiced her ‘sweet smile’ face is you can still smell these volatile acids and ketone coming out of her mouth so severe it is liable to be a public hazard. However, I can no longer remember the question or the answer. Hooray!

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  6. The Krishnamurti foundation are absolutely wrong. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” is 100% a direct quote. I have watched the video of the talk where he says it several times. Though I do not remember specifically which video it is so I cannot prove it. But if you were to search hard enough then you would find it.

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