This question is not a joke. It has come up repeatedly when I discuss how absurdly harmful mainstream psychiatry is with like-minded colleagues, e.g. critical psychiatrists or psychologists.
Madness is characterised by delusions. An Oxford dictionary defined delusion as an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument.
According to the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, a delusion is a belief that is demonstrably untrue, is firmly held with conviction, and is not susceptible to modification by experience or evidence that contradicts it. Similarly, in the DSM-5, delusions are fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.1
One type of delusion is grandiosity, which is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. Many psychiatrists behave in a grandiose way, believing in their infallibility and omnipotence and that they have a special insight no one else has. If you are a patient and disagree, you are called ignorant or in need of psychoeducation, even when your relatives share your views.2 Or you are told you have a lack of insight into your disease, which is a symptom of your mental illness, a catch-22 situation from which there is no escape.
Joseph Biederman was an example of grandiosity. During his testimony in a court case in 2009, when an attorney asked him about his rank at Harvard Medical School, Biederman replied: “Full professor.” “What’s above that?” the attorney asked. “God,” he replied.3
Psychiatrists regard religion as a special case.1 A religious delusion may concern a special relationship with God or gods or involve claims such as being Jesus but “these kinds of delusions are notoriously difficult to distinguish from nonpathological religious beliefs.” Indeed. It would be more logically consistent to say that a belief in one or more gods is a delusion.
Faith plays a big role in psychiatry. It is a great trust or confidence in something for which there is no proof, or an unshakeable belief in something even if there is proof against it. A large survey of 2,031 people from 1995 illustrates this.4,5 People thought that antidepressants, antipsychotics, electroshock and admission to a psychiatric ward are more often harmful than beneficial. This view concurs with the best evidence we have,3,6-12 but the social psychiatrists who had done the survey were dissatisfied with the answers and argued that people should be trained to arrive at the “right opinion.”
In what way exactly? How do you train people to go directly against the science? Usually, we call this indoctrination.
As psychiatrists’ beliefs in what they are doing are in contrast with the science, this makes psychiatry a pseudoscience, a kind of religion. If you want more evidence that most psychiatric leaders are delusional, just read their guidelines and textbooks, which I have done.
My Critical Psychiatry Textbook is freely available.9 I read the five most used textbooks in Denmark and uncovered a litany of misleading and erroneous statements about the causes of mental health disorders, if they are genetic, if they can be detected in a brain scan, if they are caused by a chemical imbalance, if psychiatric diagnoses are reliable, and what the benefits and harms are of psychiatric drugs and electroshocks. Much of what is claimed amounts to scientific dishonesty. I also describe fraud and serious manipulations with the data in often cited research. I conclude that biological psychiatry has not led to anything of use, and that psychiatry as a medical specialty does more harm than good.
It is noteworthy that the psychiatrists’ predominant idiosyncratic beliefs are not shared by people considered sane—the general public. And the great majority of psychiatric patients do not have delusions whereas most psychiatrists have. I therefore believe I have proven that psychiatrists are more mad than their patients.
Forced treatment is a particularly dark chapter in psychiatry. I have argued why I consider forced treatment a crime against humanity.11,12 The psychiatrists believe they do it for the patients’ own good, but the patients see it very differently,13,14 and the evidence shows it does far more harm than good, mainly because it virtually always involves treatment with antipsychotics.8,9,11-14 In 2019, a Norwegian study found that 52 of 100 consecutively admitted patients to a psychiatric hospital would have wanted a drug-free alternative if it had existed.15 Why can’t people get that then?
A delusion can by persecutory, where people believe they are at risk of being harmed because of the malevolent intentions of others.1 Leading psychiatrists commonly suffer from this type of delusion. They may call people who criticise psychiatry conspiracy theorists or “anti-psychiatry,” like people who deny or oppose Christ are called “anti-Christ.” This curious phenomenon does not exist in any other medical specialty. If you criticise the overuse of statins, you are not called “anti-cardiology” or a conspiracy theorist.
A popular saying is that madness is doing the same thing again and again expecting a different result. Psychiatrists are not the only doctors who do this but they are by far the “best” in this futile discipline.
When a drug doesn’t seem to work, psychiatrists increase the dose, change to another drug from the same class, add another drug from the same class, or add a drug from another class. The science tells us that these manoeuvres do not benefit the patients.8,9,16-18
Increasing the dose or the number of drugs increases the occurrence of serious harms, including irreversible brain damage, suicides and other deaths,8,9,19-21 but psychiatrists often lie to their patients telling them that their disease might harm their brains, or they might die, if they don’t take their drugs.8,9,11 This is perverse.
The madness is increasing
Unfortunately, the madness is getting worse. In office-based psychiatry in the USA, visits with three or more drugs doubled, from 17% to 33%, in just nine years, and prescriptions for two or more drugs from the same class also increased.22 In Australia, the use of psychiatric drugs and polypharmacy for children and adolescents were twice as high in 2021 as in 2013,23 and the use of neuroleptics increased by 45% in just six years.24 In the UK, psychosis pill prescriptions increased by 5% per year on average and depression pills by 10%, from 1998 to 2010.25 In Denmark, the sales of SSRIs increased from a low level in 1992 almost linearly by a factor of 18, closely related to the number of products on the market that increased by a factor of 16 (r = 0.97, almost perfect correlation).26
These data suggest that drug usage is determined by marketing and the widespread corruption of leading psychiatrists.8,27
Another indicator that the madness is increasing is that the mortality for patients with schizophrenia has increased markedly; the median standardised mortality ratio for the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were 1.84, 2.98 and 3.20, respectively.28
Two Danish textbooks mention that several psychosis pills may be needed simultaneously, and one notes it can be appropriate to increase the dosage above the approved interval.
In 2006, a report from the Danish Board of Health showed that half of the patients were in treatment with more than one psychosis pill simultaneously,29 although both national and international guidelines recommend against it.
In 2014, the Danish Ministry of Health issued a licence to kill. It allowed psychiatrists to use extraordinarily large doses of psychosis drugs for forced treatment, especially when patients have been in prolonged treatment and where smaller doses have been tried without success.30
This is as mad as it gets. These drugs are highly deadly, e.g. kill 2 of 100 demented people in just 10 weeks,31 and the risk of death is of course dose related.32-36 The psychiatrists say that the patient is “treatment resistant,” which is an insulting term as it suggests that the patient is at fault and not the drug. They don’t realise that they should not increase the dose or add another drug but taper off the first drug slowly, which will have the best outcome.
I have witnessed the madness directly. I was once invited to follow the chief psychiatrist during one day at a closed ward at my hospital, Rigshospitalet. One of the patients appeared totally normal and reasonable to me, but the psychiatrist considered him delusional. As I couldn’t see why, he explained that the patient was delusional because he had been on the internet and had found out that psychosis pills are dangerous! I was so stunned that I didn’t comment.
On another occasion, I phoned Psychiatric Centre Amager, which has a particularly bad reputation because the psychiatrists have killed several of their patients with psychosis pills.37 A patient in great distress had contacted me, but I couldn’t get a psychiatrist on the phone, even though I explained I was a colleague, and it was within normal working hours. When I insisted, I was transferred to a head nurse. She told me not to get involved because the patient was delusional. When I asked in what way, she said he had found out that psychosis pills are dangerous! I asked if she knew who I was. Oh yes, she did, but that didn’t stop her from exposing psychiatry’s insanity.
In 2023, the whole Board of the Norwegian Psychiatric Association felt so threatened by colleagues who wanted a radically different psychiatry that they published an opinion piece to defend the status quo in a newspaper.38 I explained what the worst falsehoods were:39
Claim: The drugs do not change the personality. Fact: This is the reason for using them and many patients experience this, e.g. 43% in one survey.2
Claim: The drugs do not have greater side effects than other drugs. Fact: They are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.40
Claim: “Conspiracy theories abound that the pharmaceutical industry only wants to profit on making people as dependent as possible.” Fact: It is not a conspiracy theory that the drug industry doesn’t care about withdrawal effects from psychiatric drugs but only about its profits and that the business model of Big Pharma is organised crime.41
Claim: “Drug treated patients return to work more quickly, and disability can be prevented.” Fact: The more drugs that are used, the more patients come on disability pension.3
Claim: “The prognosis and risk of relapse are improved significantly when patients take antipsychotics.” Fact: All trials that provide the basis for this misconception are deeply flawed. They have introduced withdrawal symptoms in the discontinuation group, which psychiatrists have falsely interpreted as relapse.8,11
Claim: “Patients with ADHD often have reduced quality of life, more frequent depression and more drug problems and criminal behaviour if they are not treated.” Fact: In the long run, the opposite is true.11
Claim: “Drug treatment makes patients more accessible to psychotherapy.” Fact: Psychotherapy is superior to drug therapy, particularly in the long run where it has an enduring effect, in contrast to drugs.11,42
Claim: “There is no biological basis for saying that commonly used psychiatric drugs such as antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics cause dependence.” Fact: The drugs up- or downregulate neurotransmitters in the brain, which is why abrupt withdrawal can cause terrible and dangerous withdrawal symptoms.43,44
Claim: “So far, most studies indicate that drug treatment is absolutely necessary to achieve recovery and increase quality of life and prevent relapse for most patients with severe psychiatric disorders.” Fact: These statements are also blatantly false. The drugs decrease quality of life and do not prevent relapse.9,11,45
Conclusions
The misconceptions among psychiatric leaders are so much at variance with the scientific evidence, and with what the patients and their relatives and others experience, that it seems justified to say that they suffer from a serious, collective delusion.
So, here is a thought experiment. Using the psychiatrists’ own diagnostic systems and practice, it can be argued that psychiatric leaders such as the Norwegian psychiatric leaders should be forcefully treated with psychosis pills. If they tasted their own medicines, which some doctors have done to see what it was like,46 few of them would sustain their delusions about how good they are, which would benefit mankind.
The doctors experienced a marked slowing of thinking and movement, profound inner restlessness, a paralysis of volition and a lack of physical and psychic energy, being unable to read or work.46 Psychiatrist David Healy found the same in 20 staff from his hospital who received droperidol.47 Everyone felt anxious, restless, disengaged and demotivated to do anything; a psychologist volunteer found it too complicated just to obtain a sandwich from a sandwich machine. Some felt irritable and belligerent and many were unable to recognise the altered mental state they were in and to judge their own behaviour.
As a specialty, psychiatry is more mad than its patients. To keep the patients on pills they don’t like, three quarters of popular websites attributed depression to a “chemical imbalance” or claimed they could fix an imbalance.48 This is like threatening with the Loch Ness Monster. Such an imbalance being the cause of depression (or any other psychiatric disorder) does not exist.49
Psychiatry should be demolished and built up from the ground, focusing on psychosocial interventions, as recently recommend ed by the United Nations and the WHO.50 And all treatment needs to be voluntary.11,12
References
1 Collin S, Rowse G, Martinez AP, et al. Delusions and the dilemmas of life: A systematic review and metaanalyses of the global literature on the prevalence of delusional themes in clinical groups. Clin Psychol Rev 2023;104:102303.
2 Kessing L, Hansen HV, Demyttenaere K, et al. Depressive and bipolar disorders: patients’ attitudes and beliefs towards depression and antidepressants. Psychological Medicine 2005;35:1205-13.
3 Whitaker R. Anatomy of an epidemic. New York: Broadway Paperbacks; 2015.
4 Jorm AF, Korten AE, Jacomb PA, et al. ”Mental health literacy”: a survey of the public’s ability to recognise mental disorders and their beliefs about the effectiveness of treatment. Med J Aus 1997;166:182-6.
5 Raven M. Depression and antidepressants in Australia and beyond: a critical public health analysis (PhD thesis). University of Wollongong, Australia; 2012.
6 Read J, Bentall R. The effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy: a literature review. Epidemiol Psichiatr Soc 2010 Oct-Dec;19:333-47.
7 Whitaker R. Mad in America: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill. Cambridge: Perseus Books Group; 2002.
8 Gøtzsche PC. Deadly psychiatry and organised denial. Copenhagen: People’s Press; 2015.
9 Gøtzsche PC. Critical psychiatry textbook. Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom; 2022 (freely available).
10 Read J. Major adverse cardiac events and mortality associated with electroconvulsive therapy: correcting and updating a 2019 meta-analysis. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry 2024 Sept: DOI: 10.1891/EHPP-2024-0003.
11 Gøtzsche PC. Is psychiatry a crime against humanity? Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom; 2024 (freely available).
12 Gøtzsche PC. Forced treatment in psychiatry is a crime against humanity. J Acad Publ Health 2025;Jan 30.
13 Gøtzsche PC, Sørensen A. Systematic violations of patients’ rights and safety: Forced medication of a cohort of 30 patients. Ind J Med Ethics 2020;Oct-Dec;5(4) NS:312-8.
14 Tasch G, Gøtzsche PC. Systematic violations of patients’ rights and safety: forced medication of a cohort of 30 patients in Alaska. Psychosis 2023;15:145-54.
15 Heskestad S, Kalhovde AM, Jakobsen ES. Medikamentfri psykiatrisk behandling – hva mener pasientene? Tidsskr Nor Legeforen 2019;Oct 2. doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.18.0912.
16 Santaguida P, MacQueen G, Keshavarz H, et al. Treatment for depression after unsatisfactory response to SSRIs. Comparative effectiveness review No. 62. (Prepared by McMaster University Evidence-based Practice Center under Contract No. HHSA 290 2007 10060 I.) AHRQ Publication No.12-EHC050-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2012:April.
17 Rink L, Braun C, Bschor T, et al. Dose increase versus unchanged continuation of antidepressants after initial antidepressant treatment failure in patients with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, double-blind trials. J Clin Psychiatry 2018;79;17r11693.
18 Samara MT, Klupp E, Helfer B, et al. Increasing antipsychotic dose for non response in schizophrenia. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2018;5:CD011883.
19 Miller M, Swanson SA, Azrael D, et al. Antidepressant dose, age, and the risk of deliberate self-harm. JAMA Intern Med 2014;174:899-909.
20 Ho BC, Andreasen NC, Ziebell S, et al. Long-term antipsychotic treatment and brain volumes: a longitudinal study of first-episode schizophrenia. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2011;68:128-37.
21 Zipursky RB, Reilly TJ, Murray RM. The myth of schizophrenia as a progressive brain disease. Schizophr Bull 2013;39:1363-72.
22 Mojtabai R, Olfson M. National trends in psychotropic medication polypharmacy in office-based psychiatry. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2010;67:26-36.
23 Wood SJ, Ilomäki J, Gould J, et al. Dispensing of psychotropic medications to Australian children and adolescents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2013-2021: a retrospective cohort study. Med J Aust 2023;219:18-25.
24 Klau J, Gonzalez-Chica D, Raven M, et al. Antipsychotic prescribing patterns in children and adolescents attending Australian general practice in 2011 and 2017. JCPP Adv 2023;4:e12208.
25 Ilyas S, Moncrieff J. Trends in prescriptions and costs of drugs for mental disorders in England, 1998-2010. Br J Psychiatry 2012;200:393-8.
26 Nielsen M, Gøtzsche P. An analysis of psychotropic drug sales. Increasing sales of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are closely related to number of products. Int J Risk Saf Med 2011;23:125-32.
27 Whitaker R, Gøtzsche PC. The pervasive financial and scientific corruption of psychiatric drug trials. Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom 2022; March 23.
28 Saha S, Chant D, McGrath J. A systematic review of mortality in schizophrenia: is the differential mortality gap worsening over time? Arch Gen Psychiatry 2007;64:1123-31.
29 Forbruget af antipsykotika blandt 18-64 årige patienter, med skizofreni, mani eller bipolar affektiv sindslidelse. København: Sundhedsstyrelsen; 2006.
30 Notat om dosering af lægemidler i psykiatrien. Ministeriet for Sundhed og Forebyggelse 2014;Oct 30.
31 FDA package insert for Risperdal.
32 Joukamaa M, Heliövaara M, Knekt P. Schizophrenia, neuroleptic medication and mortality. Br J Psychiatry 2006;188:122-7.
33 Tenback D, Pijl B, Smeets H. All-cause mortality and medication risk factors in schizophrenia. J Clin Psychopharmacol 2012;32:31-5.
33 Waddington JL, Youssef HA, Kinsella A. Mortality in schizophrenia. Antipsychotic polypharmacy and absence of adjunctive anticholinergics over the course of a 10-year prospective study. Br J Psychiatry 1998;173:325-9.
35 Ray WA, Meredith S, Thapa PB, et al. Antipsychotics and the risk of sudden cardiac death. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2001;58:1161-7.
36 Ray WA, Chung CP, Murray KT, et al. Atypical antipsychotic drugs and the risk of sudden cardiac death. N Engl J Med 2009;360:225-35.
37 Christensen DC. Dear Luise: a story of power and powerlessness in Denmark’s psychiatric care system. Portland: Jorvik Press; 2012.
38 Lien L, Reitan SK, Halvorsen NJN, et al. ”Pilleskam” i psykiatrien er et alvorlig samfunnsproblem. Aftenposten 2023;Aug 10.
39 Gøtzsche PC. The media’s false narrative about depression pills, suicides, and saving lives. Mad in America 2023;Aug 23.
40 Gøtzsche PC. Prescription drugs are the leading cause of death. And psychiatric drugs are the third leading cause of death. Mad in America 2024;April 16.
41 Gøtzsche PC. Deadly medicines and organised crime: How big pharma has corrupted health care. London: Radcliffe Publishing; 2013.
42 Gøtzsche PC. Psychotherapy has an enduring effect on depression—in contrast to depression pills. Mad in America 2021; Nov 23.
43 Davies J, Read J. A systematic review into the incidence, severity and duration of antidepressant withdrawal effects: Are guidelines evidence-based? Addict Behav 2019;97:111-21.
44 Moncrieff J, Read J, Horowitz MA. The nature and impact of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms and proposal of the Discriminatory Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptoms Scale (DAWSS). J Affect Disord Rep 2024;16:100765.
45 Paludan-Müller AS, Sharma T, Rasmussen K, et al. Extensive selective reporting of quality of life in clinical study reports and publications of placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants. Int J Risk Saf Med 2021;32:87-99.
46 Belmaker RH, Wald D. Haloperidol in normals. Br J Psychiatry 1977;131:222-3.
47 Moncrieff J. The bitterest pills. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2013.
48 Demasi M, Gøtzsche PC. Presentation of benefits and harms of antidepressants on websites: cross sectional study. Int J Risk Saf Med 2020;31:53-65.
49 Moncrieff J, Cooper RE, Stockmann T, et al. The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Mol Psychiatry 2023;28:3243-56.
50 Shifting the balance towards social interventions: a call for an overhaul of the mental health system. Beyond Pills All-Party Parliamentary Group 2024;May.
Here is an interesting quote:
“Psychiatry is carrying out the greatest ‘hidden genocide’ of the 21st century. As I mentioned above.. Psychiatry is probably responsible for the deaths and injuries of millions of people (worldwide) every year.”
Report comment
Doctors are quite aware that talk therapy is safer than pharmaceutical therapy. The failure to proactively tell patients this fact is one of the more damning aspects of the whole charade.
Report comment
Are psychiatrists more mad than their patients? That’s the reasonable conclusion most sane people would arrive at—if they happened to know what the real facts are.
Report comment
Thank you for speaking the truth. I have personally been harmed by drugs that I thought were “safe and effective.” I am now stuck on two antidepressants and am having severe withdrawal symptoms with trying to slowly taper just one of them. These drugs don’t fix an ‘imbalance,’ they create imbalances in the brain.
I have seen more arrogance and gaslighting from psychiatrists than from any other medical professionals. Hopefully one day psychiatric treatment will focus more on diet, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, lifestyle changes, and non-drug ways to manage emotional pain.
Report comment
“Medscape’s “Doctors’ Burden: Psychiatrist Suicide Report 2023,” published March 15, polled 9,175 physicians in more than 29 specialties about their own suicidal thoughts and tendencies.
Here are five statistics from the report to know:
1. Twelve percent of psychiatrists reported having experienced suicidal thoughts, which is among the highest of any specialty other than otolaryngology (13 percent).
2. One percent of psychiatrists reported that they have attempted suicide.
3. Among psychiatrists, 11 percent of men and 12 percent of women reported having contemplated but not attempted suicide.
4. Twenty-five percent of psychiatrists reported they may not seek professional help for suicidal thoughts due to fear of their condition being reported to a medical board. Other reasons psychiatrists cited for not seeking mental health treatment included fear of their colleagues finding out (16 percent), insurance concerns (15 percent) and a lack of trust in mental health professionals (10 percent). Respondents could vote for more than one option on this topic.
5. Forty-one percent of psychiatrists indicated they do not believe a medical school or healthcare organization should be held responsible in the event of a student or provider suicide. Of the remaining respondents, 41 percent reported feeling unsure and 18 percent said organizations should be held accountable.”
You’ve got to be pretty crazy to be a psychiatrist…
Report comment
I acknowledge the assertion that “psychiatry should be demolished.” However, instead of reconstructing it, we should let it die. A memorial in every state and country should be established that honours the countless individuals who have been adversely affected by barbaric and criminal psychiatric practices. This grave marker would serve as a poignant reminder of the billions of victims who have suffered harm, offering a dedicated space for the living to reflect on and grieve the damage inflicted upon their or their loved ones’ cognitive and physical well-being by haphazard quasi-scientists.
The distinction between “mainstream” psychiatry and “critical” psychiatry is analogous to categorising rapists into ‘bad’ and ‘good’ factions. A genuine critique of one’s professional practices would necessitate a psychiatrist’s departure from the field.
Report comment
I do like your idea of memorials for those harmed and killed by the psych industries, Cat. May I put my hat in the ring to make the memorials, if funding is ever raised for Cat’s good idea?
I need to design a memorial for my father’s grave. And have come up with an idea, and it – or something similar – might also be a cool design for such memorials to the many harmed and killed by the psychiatrists.
I’ve been doing research into sacred geometry, which is basically the mathematics behind everything in God’s universe. And sacred geometry designs are supposed to have healing properties, and are visually appealing to humans.
I’ve concluded that to make my dad’s memorial, I should probably take a class in 3-D printing, and I have found a local university that teaches it. Because I need to come up with a 3-D model of my design, in order to have it caste in bronze.
In essence what I have in mind is a 3-D image of a flower of life, that has a rising sun, worked into the design, the location of which is based upon the fibonacci spiral. If you don’t know anything about sacred geometry (since it’s not taught in the US schools), this may be difficult to envision, but you can google it. And I think it’s a cool idea for a memorial.
I plan to also put a stylized image of an olive tree (roots, slightly gnarly trunk, and branches) in my dad’s memorial, since his hobby was genealogy. Then I thought I’d mount it on some granite, probably. The size of the bronze part could be 21″ x 21″ or 42″ x 42″ or 21″ x 34″, or possibly larger, so there’s lots of options.
At least I’d like to throw my hat into the ring for consideration, as an artist and designer, if Cat’s idea ever found funding.
Report comment
Or, duckduckgo, research it. I haven’t googled it lately.
Report comment
Thank you, Dr. Peter Gøtzsche for your consistent truth telling.
“Psychiatry should be demolished and built up from the ground, focusing on psychosocial interventions, as recently recommended by the United Nations and the WHO.50”
Personally, I believe that psychiatry should focus on learning to wean people off the psych neurotoxins (in essence to minimize the mess they’ve created). Then psychiatry, as a medical profession, should gradually be weaned out of existence.
As to psychology, the non-medically trained psychologists should not be diagnosing anyone with anything. And, as one who believes the Jungians are the closest to the truth, they could research into things like the collective unconscious, etc. (in other words, no clinical work).
Or, maybe since they are already “partnered” with the religions, I suppose that as long as everyone is made aware of this relationship (in other words, the churches could pay the psychologists, but they should never ever charge a client, fraudulently implying they work for the client, then run off to get lies and gossip from a pastor about the client, as happened to me). But since I already know this is a faustian partnership, it’s probably better that “partnership” is ended.
But if the psychologists actually want to help people, they should become helpers, largely unrelated, to the medical field, in places like Soteria Houses or healing farms, and the like.
“And all treatment needs to be voluntary.11,12” I agree, forced and coerced treatment should eventually be made illegal. But this gets tricky, when it comes to someone who is psychotic.
So who will help a person who is experiencing psychosis, you may ask? Based on experience with a loved one, I know families do need help in such cases. A short course of benzos? That didn’t work for my loved one, but it may be a good place to start. A short course (like one or two days) of neuroleptics might at least calm the person down, allow them to sleep, but then you do run the risk of a drug withdrawal induced super sensitivity manic psychosis. But if you follow the antipsychotic up, in a healing space, for a week or two, with a low dose of lithium. And then reduce the lithium within a month to six weeks. Well, just an antidotal case, but that is what helped my loved one.
I guess the “healing space” should begin in the hospital. But once the person is stabilized on the lithium, if they do need a safe space until they get weaned off the lithium. I do believe we should move towards alternatives like Soteria houses, healing farms, maybe open dialogue, and give me more ideas, ladies and gentlemen. If a person is actually violent, then the police likely should deal with them. But the paramedics and police are not very good about assessing whether a psychotic person is dangerous, unless they are told the person is not dangerous. (There’s been too much psychiatric brainwashing of the public.)
As to what are the causes of psychosis?
street drugs
alcohol encephalitis
the ADHD drugs
the anticholinergic drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc.)
drug interactions
psych drug withdrawal
trauma
sleep deprivation
None of which are “genetic” etiologies. But do add to the list, if you can. And please make other suggestions for alternatives, or disagree with me, and explain why we should not move in this direction, please … I’m still just thinking through it.
Report comment
I don’t know of any academic psychologist (certainly not psychiatrist) who is fully versed in all the worthwhile research that has been done into the mind and ways to heal it.
Of the various “causes” of psychosis, only one comes close to a basic insight, and that is “trauma.” Yet in the context of what most understand as a “mind” and as “human life,” even that line of thinking dead ends.
It is not a problem one can think one’s way out of. You either need to do some research yourself, or read the reports of others who have done some research.
Where reincarnation and related phenomena aren’t even mentioned in this context, I know that a person’s study of the subject is incomplete.
Report comment
While I was locked up in a psych ward:
Me: how islocking me up supposed to help?
Psychiatrist: you’re not locked up, you’re accomodated.
Yep, delusional.
Report comment
Wow, seriously? Talk about a euphemism!
Report comment
Psychiatric gaslighting on show beokay.
I was taking two euphemisms morning and night, but after the withdrawals I found natural facts to be so much better for my health.
I’ll never forget the time I heard a ‘patient’ tell a group that her psychiatrist was changing the “product” she was taking. No longer speaking about drugs or medicines, best we call it a product.
And “unintended negative outcomes” instead of State sanctioned convenience killings? Our Chief Psychiatrist sure has a sense of humor, and is truly “grandiose” given he believes he can remove protections from our laws without Parliamentary approval.
And he is considered a “competent authority” when he wouldn’t pass a first year law class? Criminal negligence is such an effective weapon when the power imbalance allows a person to be fuking destroyed by the State.
Still, one does need to recognise that psychiatrists are fighting ‘the enemy within’ and that support from the State for the human rights abuses that occur (and the corruption that comes with those abuses) require support. It’s just that the community/public don’t realise that our politicians and public servants see them as the enemy. It should be obvious to anyone who has seen a ‘mental patients’ head stomped by the police at the request of a mental health nurse.
Report comment
This article is right on target.. Moreover, there are also source markers. I would like to say that I have the same opinion. Also, it is worth mentioning this.
Unfortunately.. The majority of psychiatrists are not ‘normal people’ in my observation. The word ‘mad’ is ‘a drop in the ocean’ when compared to psychiatrists. The majority of psychiatrists have even gone beyond being ‘mad’.
In my opinion, psychiatrists as a profession are ‘licensed charlatans and psychopaths’. (Except for honest psychiatrists.)
What is the term ‘honest psychiatrist’? Honest psychiatrists are those who do not administer, recommend and oppose ‘psychiatric treatments’ that clearly harm, disable (injure) and kill people, such as psychiatric drugs, ECT, etc and who direct their patients to ‘drug-free treatment methods’ and/or administer them themselves.
There are reasons why mainstream psychiatrists, except honest psychiatrists, are ‘licensed charlatans and psychopaths’.
Mainstream psychiatrists…
1) They know that mental illnesses are not in the brain, but in the person’s own soul.
2) They know that psychiatric medications and psychiatric treatments like ECT do not cure ‘mental illness’. They know that they do not cure mental illness, and that they make ‘existing symptoms’ worse and cause ‘new symptoms of mental illness’.
3) They know that psychiatric drugs and psychiatric treatments such as ECT (especially psychiatric drugs) harm (disable, ‘injure’ and kill) people.
4) They also know that psychiatric drugs, in particular, only numb the brain and do nothing else. (In fact, ECT does the same thing. The difference with ECT is that it cooks the brain (like boiling a fried fish/chicken)).
And many other harms and negativities that we cannot even think of or count right now. Psychiatrists know these things.. If psychiatrists who know these things can knowingly prescribe psychiatric drugs to their patients, for example… then you can understand that those psychiatrists have a serious problem with their ‘mind’.
Additionally…
A) They know that psychiatric drugs (and other psychiatric treatments, such as ECT) do not work (i.e., do not treat mental illness). …despite knowing this, they are quacks for they prescribe psychiatric drugs to their patients. (This includes other ancillary psychiatric treatments such as ECT.)
B) They know that psychiatric drugs harm (i.e., disable (injure) and kill) people, both physically and mentally. …despite knowing this, they are psychopaths for they prescribe psychiatric drugs. (This includes other ancillary psychiatric treatments such as ECT.)
C) And because they do these things with the LEGAL rights (medical licenses) given to them by the state, they (psychiatrists) are licensed charlatans and psychopaths. (This is the most dangerous thing. Since psychiatrists do this ‘harming’ act LEGALLY (with a license), they become even more dangerous than the psychopaths out there. Unfortunately, this is the truth.)
If we go even further… Think of a psychopath on the street, outside. This psychopath can’t even begin to compare himself to the psychopathy of psychiatrists.
Think about the genocidal Adolf Hitler.. If you put together Adolf Hitler and all the other genocides in the world… they would not even come close to the ‘hidden genocides’ committed by psychiatry that have not yet been named. If Adolf Hitler had lived and seen these days, he would have declared psychiatry as his ‘right arm’. (Although… Hitler used psychiatry in those days, but the situation is very different today.)
Let’s put it this way… Psychiatry is carrying out the greatest ‘hidden genocide’ of the 21st century, which has not yet been named. And LEGALLY too.. (Although… in the last half of the 20th century (1950-1999), these ‘secret genocides’ continued LEGALLY.
(since the date psychiatric drugs were introduced to the market..) Moreover, when psychiatry carried out these genocides, it did so together with the ‘real medical community’. At least the real medical community did not even speak out against these genocides.)
——
As a final note, I would like to point out that… There are students who go to medical school (/want to go) and choose ‘psychiatry’. I feel sorry for the students who choose psychiatry. I don’t feel good about them at all. If they choose psychiatry knowingly, even though they know about the hidden genocides of psychiatry, that’s even worse. When I asked why psychiatrists are ‘licensed charlatans and psychopaths’, I actually wanted to say this.
“Students who choose psychiatry in medical schools enter psychiatry as pure and innocent people… (and when they graduate) they graduate as ‘licensed charlatan and psychopath psychiatrists’ in the truest sense of the word.”
Unfortunately… This is the reality in psychiatry. I suspect that very few people are aware of the sad state that psychiatrists have fallen into.
As a last word…
“Psychiatry should be demolished and built up from the ground, focusing on psychosocial interventions, as recently recommend ed by the United Nations and the WHO.50 And all treatment needs to be voluntary.”
Yes, that can happen too.. But first, psychiatric drugs must be banned. Otherwise, these hidden genocides will continue. This must be stopped. Psychiatry should be removed from medical schools. Mind (Mental) health systems should be revised with drug-free treatment methods. etc. etc. Best regards.
With my sincerest wishes.. 🙂 Y.E. (Researcher blog writer (Blogger))
Report comment
Hi.. I may have spoken a bit harshly here. I apologize for that. But I only apologize to honest psychiatrists (who do not conform to the mainstream psychiatry I mentioned above) (and MIA and other sensitive citizens). Actually, my words are not to ‘honest psychiatrists’. I’m sure they know that too.
As a final word, if you allow me, I would like to complete a topic that was left unfinished above.
“Students who choose psychiatry in medical schools enter psychiatry as pure and innocent people… (and when they graduate) they graduate as ‘licensed charlatan and psychopath psychiatrists’ in the truest sense of the word.”
Unfortunately, the psychiatry department in medical schools seems to be under the control of ‘mainstream medicine and mainstream psychiatry’. The ‘acts of harming people’ we mentioned above are carried out in the psychiatry departments of medical schools, under the name of ‘treatment of mental health’, with ‘scientific course methods’ filled with completely absurd content.
How do we understand this?
1) We understand it from the ‘serious lethal harm’ they cause to people. Probably… Worldwide, at least 1 million people die and are disabled (injured) each year from psychiatric drugs and other harmful psychiatric treatments such as ECT. (This number may be even higher because of the inaccurate medical records of deaths and injuries of patients receiving psychiatric treatment (causes of death are not accurately recorded in patient and death certificates).)
And again, probably… Every day, tens/hundreds of millions of people around the world are subjected to ‘chemical lobotomies’ (especially due to psychiatric drugs). (Taking one or more psychiatric medications every day means that the person is subjected to a chemical lobotomy (which may cause chemical brain damage in the future) every day.) Possibly… when the time comes (every year), at least more than 1 million of these tens/hundreds of millions of people who are subjected to chemical lobotomy every day may be suffering from ‘permanent chemically induced brain damage’.
Not just chemical brain damage, of course. Psychiatric drugs can also cause serious (physically) fatal damage to the human body. (Cancer, diabetes, heart diseases, sudden cardiac deaths, etc.) Probably… The rate of suffering from almost every imaginable variety of permanent physical illnesses due to psychiatric drugs… We can say that it is even higher than the number of people injured in the 1st and 2nd World Wars and the wars at the end of the wars to this day.
(Isn’t that right? Then let them prove it. Let’s go ahead. The WHO should also announce the total number of people ‘using psychiatric drugs’ in the world and the number of people ‘injured and killed’ due to psychiatric drugs. Which it will not be able to do correctly. Because it probably doesn’t seem to have much serious data on these issues. In other words, I don’t think there is any alternative other than revising the mental health system from scratch.Of course, it needs to be investigated. Since medical records are not recorded correctly (not recorded), this investigation seems a bit difficult. Even if it is done, we can think that the probability of it being an accurate investigation may be very low.)
2) And also… We also understand from the ‘harmful psychiatric treatments and psychiatric realities’ revealed by those who see the serious harm they cause to people and expose them (by honest psychiatrists, other medical doctors, journalists and other researchers).
In my opinion.. In psychiatry departments, what is taught to psychiatry students is clearly ‘acts of harming people’. It is not an ‘action of health treatment’. It is not ‘methods of treating mental health’.
It is very difficult to say that courses in Psychiatry have the quality to enable psychiatry students to become ‘real doctors’. Psychiatry departments in medical schools do not offer students ‘real mental health treatments’ but rather a ‘culture of obedience and control peoples’ that includes ‘medicated treatments’ from mainstream psychiatry (probably in conjunction with pharmaceutical companies).
In other words.. Psychiatry departments primarily teach students who choose psychiatry the ‘culture of obedience to mainstream psychiatry’. The image of ‘if you don’t obey mainstream psychiatry, you can’t stay here’ is instilled in students.
Probably… Psychiatry students accept the ‘culture of obedience’ to mainstream psychiatry, as they enter a department that is not accepted by society, such as ‘psychiatry’, with the sole hope of becoming a ‘doctor’ (and not being deprived of these ‘doctor’ titles).
(In fact, this shows us that they (psychiatry students) stay in the psychiatry department partly out of necessity. Because they don’t have the luxury of opposing psychiatry. You either obey mainstream psychiatry and become a ‘doctor’ or you get fired. Your hopes are dashed. You keep crawling. We can say that this is a kind of threat from mainstream psychiatry to its students.)
(In fact, this shows us that they (psychiatry students) stay in the psychiatry department out of necessity. Because they do not have the luxury of opposing psychiatry. You either obey mainstream psychiatry and become a ‘doctor’ or you get fired. Your hopes are dashed.
You keep crawling. We can say that this is a kind of threat from mainstream psychiatry to its students.)
In fact, when we look at it from this perspective, you can also understand that mainstream psychiatry trains psychiatry students to ‘stay in psychiatry and be a shield against mainstream psychiatry’. And it really is.. Students, just because of their dreams of becoming a ‘doctor’, are able to ignore how mainstream psychiatry harms humanity and become a shield for mainstream psychiatry. (Of course, not all.)
As we mentioned above… students who choose psychiatry departments in medical schools… (when they graduate) graduate as licensed charlatans and psychopaths due to the psychopathic training they received from mainstream psychiatry.
(However, not all of them. There are also students who choose ‘honest psychiatry’. These students are brave-hearted students who know how much harm mainstream psychiatry has done to humanity (but unfortunately their numbers are almost few enough to be counted on the fingers) and therefore oppose it. They have decided to get away from mainstream psychiatry and become real honest psychiatrists. But at least after years, after being cooked in hospitals (having their knees bruised, in other words, having experienced a lot).. Never mind, this is a good meaning. The important thing is for students and psychiatrists to know the facts and to start a struggle against mainstream psychiatry.)
I hope, the number of these honest psychiatrists will increase. And it should. “The brains of students who choose psychiatry in medical schools should no longer be poisoned by the ‘toxic content’ of mainstream psychiatry that is clearly harmful to humanity.” Unfortunately, students’ brains are being filled with toxic content in psychiatry departments. This must end now..
That’s why we say… Students who graduate from psychiatry departments in medical schools graduate as licensed charlatans and psychopaths. (Although there are a few brave students who turn their backs on mainstream psychiatry..)
Psychiatry should be removed from medical schools immediately. Mental health systems should be revised, especially with ‘non-drug treatment methods’. etc. etc.
——–
As a final note, let me share some information.
“….in 2012, Tufts University psychiatry professor Seyyed Nassir Ghaemi, M.D., M.P.H., said this in his “Letter to a Young Psychiatrist”: ” I teach ignorance. Four years of medical school; and 4 more years of residency. … I teach we don’t know … (…)”
“…in his book Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared, Syracuse University Press 2009, p. ix), psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz, M.D., says “psychiatry—an imitation of medicine—is a form of quackery.”
This quote by psychologist Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D. is actually very interesting:
“…..in a lecture on “Can Psychiatry Be Reorganized as an Institution, or Should It Be Abolished?”, psychologist Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., who has advocated for the abolition of psychiatry as a medical specialty… conclusion is that while “in the 1970s psychiatry could have been reformed”, today “psychiatry has become psychotic” because of psychiatrists’ loss of touch with reality, that psychiatrists have become a “threat to others”, and that psychiatry as a profession “needs to be abolished.” (National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 8, 2012).”
Levine says psychiatry has become psychotic. I think he’s absolutely right. What do you call psychiatrists who perpetuate mainstream psychiatry that has become psychotic? 🙂
FOOTNOTE: You may have read this research. I recommend you read this article.
“Why Psychiatry Should Be Abolished as a Medical Specialty”
Wayne Ramsay, J.D.
http://www.wayneramsay.com/abolish.htm
Best regards… 🙂 Y.E.
Report comment
Thank you for shedding light on a worldwide issue Peter Gøtzsche. You are giving voice to the voiceless.
I can totally relate to how antipsychotics make you feel. The paralysis of volition is astonishing! I still remember how my assigned psychiatrist while I was locked up in the psychiatric ward told me, as if she could convinced me, that that particular antipsychotic had no side-effects whatsoever, and if it did have it, I would notice it within the next few days. Months onward, I still uncovering new ways of being under “this threat”. Another story is how I got coerced into taking the “threat”. It was the only choice I was given if I wanted to get out of jail.
My challenge now is how will I eventually taper off this med. But it is up to me to figure it out given that my doctor is not specially collaborative.
Report comment
The thing is, paralysis of volition isn’t a side effect. It IS the intended effect of so-called “antipsychotic” drugs. If you can’t imagine anything, you can’t hallucinate. That’s exactly the whole point, not an accidental adverse impact!
Report comment
I read this a few days ago, and already had the same thoughts that I’m sharing now. Even though Gotzsche says the question is not a joke.
You know when someone usurps a condition by giving it an incorrect name, whatever they call it, this doesn’t mean that……and whatever they call it, this doesn’t change what it really is. Nor does it mean that everyone is going to believe them, and when a person is crazy or mad that they have defined what’s going on. I think there’s more flexibility there in conception, experience, perspective, understanding and insight.
Delusional, non reality based, brainwashed, etc. yes that applies, but “mad”!? Or “psychotic”!?
Years ago on Facebook some people started a group called psychotic psychiatry, but I didn’t want to go for it, also because the people to me tended to be one-sided about other things, but: I just don’t think psychiatrists have every shown much the sensitivity to be psychotic or mad. And if they ever would have they wouldn’t be acting like they are sane, and reality based, and the opposite of delusional when they make out they know what’s going on, and know how to “heal” it and don’t see the result in statistics, science, and social constructs that become extremely discriminatory etc.
A psychotic person or a mad person breaks away from statistical based norms, from consensual reality deportment, from the status quo, they have experienced and encountered things that the norm just doesn’t want to know exist, and if they do know it exists they don’t want to hear what’s really going on because it’s too disturbing to their conventional compromises, their idea of safety, their superficiality.
They to me aren’t mad or psychotic, or any of the other variations of madness, they seem to lack it.
You go to any insular setting, and you will find a community that thinks they have people akin to the great artists whose simple human expressions have passed the test of time. Simple human beings, not holy ikons, but those that allowed what gives legroom and leeway to emotions and thoughts that come out of nowhere and have no need to compromise themselves to fit in. And so nature spoke through them. But the same people in such a community heralding they have such among them, having exploited this idea of greatness, will then maybe also try to make out there was something wrong with said artists, and delve in with psychiatric diagnosis, which most of such simple humans beings have been assaulted with posthumously as if this has any meaning to begin with. So we can go back to delusional, etc. Or you might find them handing out instructions as to what kind of “discipline” one needs to become such an artist, maybe even along WITH that they could have been fixed up with: some magic psychiatric treatment. And thus they beat down any living human being interested in art, in where emotions can grow like the plants do, when allowed to, when what allows them to grow isn’t obstructed: batter them down with methods while finding any mental analyses that sounds like something more important than actual understanding of the art, and then harangue anyone who wanted to just do something naturally with such pretenses of how it’s supposed to be that any real meaning or understanding has long been anesthetized out of what would be going on would they be so lead astray. So and so is great because of fill-in-the-blank-and-make-it-sound-like-something-for-someone-that-is-that-scared-of-being-human-because-they-want-to-be-great.
If they start waking up dope them up with brain disabling magic drugs, because we just can’t have such going on, and just like magic say it’s to treat a chemical imbalance, although in reality it’s making one to disable the brain: such sterility being made out to be healing. If I would go on about it, it’s just unbelievable in ways how off these people are, what I’ve encountered. No understanding of imagination, no understanding of thought because it’s thought rather than indoctrinated produce called thought that will get approval as being reality based. It’s like the whole ground work of art through the ages wouldn’t exist. One silly brainwashed attendant I had conversation with, and said I liked to write poetry, mentioned how these “medications” would help. Yeah, we all need Handel’s Messiah on lithium, or neuroleptics, who knows what everyone else is supposed to be on (Michelangelo on antidepressants to improve the Sistine Chapel!? Mozart on ADHD medications because he could always wander away from the form, find something knew, an unsolicited theme, and get it to fit so the composition gelled!?? What was Emily Dickinson supposed to be on, and Shakespeare!???).
I used the word insular to describe what otherwise would be called provincial, but in the provinces away from the big city, that’s where one might find more of nature, and less of produced, manufactured glorification, as if a pill is more important than an herb. Out in the country also is where the Amish started the asylums that actually healed people. So that’s another word. The psychiatrists can use the word asylum, but that’s another thing they have yet to know regarding what it is.
Report comment
Very interesting comments so far on this incredibly intricate and seeming insoluble problem and I admire people like Peter Gøtzsche who is continuing to shed light on psychiatric incompetence and Big Pharma. However, I would like to see more research coming from outside the sciences since the study of “madness” has mainly been within the purview of the sciences, beginning two centuries ago. I suggest that to begin to solve the enormous errors of our time, we must first look at the root causes that involve the philosophy of mind. Here we are forced to confront the complexities of: the nature of consciousness; dualism; the history of materialism; traditional metaphysics versus natural psychology; empiricism versus nativism and other attendant issues. This would begin to shift our perceptions about the nature of “mental illness” and why society accepts the concept implicitly.
Report comment
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a great volume on this very topic! Spoiler: it’s all Aristotle’s fault!
Report comment
Thank you!
Report comment
It’s also a fantastically engaging story between the philosophy. Written by a guy whose personality was erased by ECT, and talks about how he recovers himself on a long motorcycle trip with his son. One of the best books I ever read!
Report comment
Lynne, are you aware that research has been done “outside the sciences?”
Though most of these researchers would like their work to be accepted as “scientific,” popular wisdom seems to think otherwise.
Hubbard first reported his findings in 1950 after working with many people using a technique vaguely similar to psychoanalysis. After he got a meter that could detect “charge” on past incidents, things got more interesting, as his patients started recalling past lives.
Many researchers have used various forms of hypnotism to study the mind, and most of these have likewise discovered past life memories in the people they worked with. However, Ian Stevenson’s group, working at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, investigated past life memories in children without the use of hypnotism. They validated the past lives of many of these children.
Remote viewing (developed at SRI in the 1970s) has also been used to explore human consciousness. Courtney Brown has been the most persistent researcher in this regard. His viewers have looked at the past lives of many people, along with their most recent lives.
The problem, then, is not the lack of good research. It is the refusal of academic medicine (Psychiatry in particular) to acknowledge, discuss, test and use any of this research. This “incredibly intricate” problem is only so because the powers that be in the field of mental health are telling us this. It is, in fact, largely solved, is not really that complex after all, and those findings are in use by many practitioners around the world.
Report comment
Lynne, your suggestions bring up some interesting perspectives. However, I see things from a slightly different angle: meaningful change to how people view “mental health” won’t come from engaging in lengthy philosophical discussions. It will happen the way real change has always happened: over time from a quiet groundswell of ordinary people who simply decide that life’s too short to keep pandering to the mental health industrial complex’s self-serving status quo.
Report comment
Mange af de ansatte i psykiatrien nyder i deres stilling godt af altid at være de klogeste, men når de så skal korrigere mig i samtalen, som de har kaldt det, fremstår deres motivation forstyrret. Der er derfor ingen grænser for beskyldninger mod mig, når de vil tvangsmedicinere.
Many of the psychiatric staff benefit from always being the smartest in their positions, but when they have to correct me in the conversation, as they have called it, their motivation appears disturbed. Therefore, there are no limits to accusations against me when they want to force me to medicate. (Google translate)
(You know forced drugging)
There are lots of reasons, we feel hurt about this in abstract, that we need to claim opinions and discuss opinions. If all madness is about delusions, the rest follows as a chaos, and the drugs don’t work.
Report comment
How much ‘mental illness’ is just stress. Our modern ways are not-so-good, especially with TV bills and a smartphone and city noise. We weren’t built for it.
Report comment
You’d be surprised what some of us were built for.
But if people who are just stressed out are being diagnosed and treated as “mentally ill,” then there is something wrong with the system (and they are).
Report comment