“As long as I live, I shall balk at having psychoanalysis swallowed by medicine.”
—Sigmund Freud
Once Upon a Time in the Asylum
For centuries, those labeled mad were neither treated nor understood. They were hidden, not healed. Alienists—the forerunners of modern psychiatrists—oversaw confinement not to cure, but to control. Brutal methods like iron chains, straitjackets, bloodletting, purging, and induced seizures were standard. Madness wasn’t studied; it was subdued. Ice baths, rotational chairs, and rigid moral regimens aimed not to heal, but to break the will—discipline disguised as treatment.
Society viewed these individuals as disruptions — better silenced than understood. The goal was order, not insight. Restraints tightened, bodies weakened, and minds dulled — all in the name of control. Even so-called humane treatments, like work therapy and sedation, existed less to heal than to enforce compliance. Madness remained a mystery not because it was unknowable, but because no one dared to listen.
Then Along Came Freud
Sigmund Freud did something unthinkable. Instead of shackling madness, he invited it to speak. He argued madness wasn’t a disease of the body, but a conflict — a reflection of inner struggles that could be examined, explored, and understood. It was a radical idea, not because it was proven right, but because it directly challenged the methods of control that relied on restraint and punishment.
Freud proposed suffering had meaning, with symptoms reflecting deeper psychological struggles rather than defects to be eliminated. For the first time, madness was not a disruption to silence, but a message to unravel. Freud redefined madness as something to be understood, offering a new approach to addressing human suffering.
The Golden Age of Listening
For a brief period in history, talk therapy flourished. Freud delved into dreams, Karl Jung mapped archetypes, and Carl Rogers championed unconditional positive regard. Behaviorists like B.F. Skinner focused on conditioning, while Virginia Satir highlighted the importance of family communication. Abraham Maslow introduced self-actualization, Fritz Perls founded Gestalt therapy, and Jay Haley pioneered strategic family therapy. Each brought a unique perspective, reshaping the understanding and treatment of mental distress. Many others contributed to this transformative era.
Theories clashed, perspectives collided, and madness shifted from isolation to inquiry. Talk therapy created space for self-reflection, allowing people to understand their suffering instead of being subdued by it. For the first time, human distress was seen as something to explore, not just control.
Psychiatry was pushed aside as new voices emerged. Therapists who chose to listen, explore, and understand directly challenged its authority. Rather than relying on restraint and dismissal, conversation became the tool for healing. For a time, dialogue replaced confinement, offering a more compassionate approach to understanding and addressing human suffering.
However, the shift was short-lived.
Repackaging Suffering: Psychiatry’s Comeback
By the mid-20th century, psychiatry faced an identity crisis. The asylum era was fading, and talk therapy was thriving. Psychologists were leading discussions, therapists were guiding treatment, and even insurance companies were funding it—reluctantly. Psychiatry, once synonymous with authority over mental illness, now found itself struggling for relevance in a world choosing dialogue over diagnosis.
In 1980, psychiatry staged a comeback with the DSM-III — a redefinition of mental distress. This wasn’t merely an update; it was a paradigm shift. Where Freud and his successors saw suffering as meaningful struggle, psychiatry reframed it as a checklist of symptoms, behaviors, and — above all — disorders.
Sadness was no longer something to explore — it became Major Depressive Disorder. Restlessness was no longer a byproduct of a turbulent childhood or a poor fit with the school system — it became Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The messiness of human suffering was sorted into categories, each with a matching pharmaceutical solution.
It was a triumph of efficiency.
Psychiatry’s New Path to Profit
DSM-III wasn’t just a diagnostic manual — it became a business model. By turning distress into medical conditions, psychiatry aligned itself with the insurance industry. Talk therapy was time-consuming and costly; medication was fast and billable. Insurers embraced psychiatry’s new framework because it simplified mental health into something they could reimburse: a diagnosis code, followed by a prescription.
Psychiatrists, once facing professional irrelevance, regained their prominence. No longer the keepers of asylums, they rebranded themselves as the high priests of neurochemistry. The same profession that once championed lobotomies and electroshock therapy had found a cleaner, more palatable method of control.
This time, there would be no blood.
Psychiatry’s Triumph: The Death of Listening
The takeover was swift. Therapy sessions shrank, reduced to symptom management. Psychoanalysis became an artifact of the past, dismissed as pseudoscience. Even the behaviorists — once Freud’s fiercest rivals — were relegated to the sidelines, their cognitive-behavioral worksheets tolerated only when paired with medication. Human suffering was no longer something to explore; it was something to silence.
Psychiatry had something better.
Why spend years unraveling trauma when a prescription could mute the symptoms in weeks? Why search for meaning when meaning itself had been deemed irrelevant? Freud once described suffering as a riddle to be deciphered. Psychiatry, with its checklists and lab coats, reframed it as a chemical imbalance to be corrected. Treatment was no longer about the person’s story—it was about adjusting their chemistry.
Insurance companies embraced the new model. Therapy required time, effort, and costly professionals who listened. Medication needed only a prescription pad and a 15-minute visit. It was faster, cheaper, and easily billable. Diagnoses became codes, prescriptions became solutions, and patient care became a transaction. With insurance backing the shift, psychiatry secured dominance — not through healing, but through efficiency.
The market had spoken — profit now thrived in silence, not in dialogue.
The Pill Becomes the Cage
By the 1990s, psychiatry had secured its second conquest. The asylum walls had crumbled, but their function endured. Where the mad were once locked away, they were now medicated into compliance. Where they had been strapped to chairs and beds, they were now tethered to lifelong prescriptions. Control didn’t vanish — it simply evolved into a more acceptable form.
But what of the patients?
Some found relief. A few felt calmed, able to function in ways they hadn’t before. Others experienced fleeting peace — a reprieve from overwhelming emotion. But many discovered their suffering hadn’t been treated — only dulled. The drugs weren’t solving problems; they were pressing mute buttons. Emotional pain was numbed — but so were joy, motivation, and clarity.
When these chemicals resulted in lethargy, weight gain, agitation, or clouded thinking, another prescription was added, then another. Polypharmacy became the new norm: a delicate balance of chemicals, each designed to counteract the effects of the previous one. Instead of relying on restraints, doctors now turned to their cocktails — tranquilizers, stimulants, painkillers, and hallucinogens. Each new drug escalated treatment, turning what began as symptom management into an endless cycle of adjustments and unintended consequences.
By the early 2000s, psychiatric medication use had skyrocketed. Nearly one in five American adults was prescribed antidepressants. Millions of children were diagnosed with disorders that hadn’t even existed in professional literature a generation earlier. This wasn’t a public health crisis — it was a triumph of psychiatric marketing.
Medicalizing Emotions: How Psychiatry Turned Life into Illness
The consequences of this shift were profound.
Emotions were no longer experiences — they became symptoms. Shyness became a disorder, grief became pathological, and childhood energy was tagged a medical condition. The natural turbulence of life was recast as a series of chemical deficiencies, each one requiring correction.
The role of the therapist changed too. Once seekers of meaning in human suffering, they were reduced to symptom managers — tasked with guiding patients through standardized steps and evidence-based protocols. Exploration gave way to efficiency. Time, presence, and curiosity were replaced by outcome measures and checklists. Therapists were no longer expected to understand a person’s life — they were expected to manage a diagnosis. Their job was no longer to listen or reflect, but to adjust and comply.
One of the greatest casualties of psychiatry’s rise was the loss of intellectual diversity. Psychology had once been a battleground of ideas — Freudians debated Jungians, existentialists clashed with behaviorists, and humanists challenged them all. But psychiatry’s model left no room for such discourse: no central theorist, no grand theories, no sweeping narratives of the human experience — just neurotransmitters, prescription guidelines, and insurance codes.
A century earlier, Freud had pulled suffering out of the asylum and placed it into conversation. He treated pain as a message worth hearing. But psychiatry seized a faster path to power. A pill was quicker than a dialogue, and a diagnosis was cleaner than an existential crisis. Meaning was sidelined in favor of efficiency. Psychiatry didn’t just return — it took control. This time, no chains were needed. The straitjacket was swallowed, the silence accepted — and psychiatry prevailed.
The Treatment That Listened Too Much
There was a time when therapy did something dangerous—it listened. Suffering wasn’t seen as a malfunction, but as a story worth hearing. That idea was tolerated—until it mattered too much. Psychiatry, ever-watchful, stepped in to tidy things up. With clinical efficiency, it swapped messy conversations for diagnosis codes and meaning for molecules. What once required time, empathy, and thought could now be handled with a prescription pad.
Psychiatry’s attempts to standardize the soul deepened a crucial emptiness. The more it tried to categorize human distress, the more people felt the absence of something essential. The rebellion isn’t coming from radicals; it’s emerging from everyday people. Those exhausted by silence, and therapists who remember the power of presence, are reclaiming the conversation.
Voices that refuse to be silenced are rising. Psychiatry may have retired listening, but the world hasn’t. The fight is returning—not with force, but with dialogue. The conversation has begun.
It’s time to talk again.
Is talk therapy the positive, uplifting, liberating experience the author seems to assume? Judging from the power balance inherent in the therapist-client interaction, and the degrading labels (e.g. neurotic, schizoid, dysfunctional, eccentric, disturbed) commonly used by mental health professionals to categorize arbitrarily proscribed emotions, thinking, and behavior, I would question the validity of this belief.
Report comment
Agree 1000%.
There’s no denying that talking to a sympathetic person can be helpful, but if I’m not mistaken, the author seems to think the best alternative to psychiatry’s medication fixation is “psychotherapy” of some kind while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the many dangers inherent in THAT arena, the main one being its rarely questioned, jealously guarded, and entirely unnecessary power imbalance—something that in my experience could be even more disempowering and oppressive than swallowing an assortment of pills.
Any “intimate relationship” that relies on the kind of power imbalance inherent in “psychotherapy” is, by definition unhealthy, IMHO. Yes, Freud had one good idea—listening—but he managed to fuck that up royally for decades with his own obsessive focus on sex, toilet training and what he often referred to as a person’s “neurosis”, never seeming to think he himself might have been the world’s biggest neurotic. But thankfully we live in a much different world today, one where people are much less likely to give a shit what some idiot with a psych degree and a head full of self-serving ideas thinks, says, does or writes.
Report comment
Yes, it’s time to ‘talk’.. Time for dialogue.. Thank you Randy Cima.. This is an article that is at the target point for states (those who govern the state), the medical world outside of psychiatry (doctors), journalists, media, writers and artists, society, civil society organizations and mainstream psychiatrists to read, think about and pull themselves together. This article is one of the rare articles that show those who oppose psychiatry and psychiatric drugs (at least the vast majority) that mental illnesses are not biological but spiritual (in the person’s own soul).
Let me add to this wonderful article..
The story of how the concepts of ‘mental illness’ and ‘mentally ill’ emerged is interesting. In fact, there is no such concept as ‘mental illness’ or ‘mentally ill’. However, they were created by humans. Created. Why and how?
It is not known how long ago, at any given date. Societies established a ‘social order’ among themselves. In this social order, human behavior was regulated first. Human behavior was shaped to obey the social order. ‘Human behaviors’ that obeyed the social order were applauded. ‘Human behaviors’ that did not obey the social order (‘criminal human behaviors’ such as violence, murder, theft, etc.) were excluded. They were seen as a threat to the social order. They were included in the scope of ‘crime’. Penalties were introduced. Prisons (penal institutions) were established for people who did not obey the social order.
* The emergence of the mentally ill and mental illnesses..
It was not only the ‘criminal human behaviors’ that did not obey the social order. There were also those who exhibited a number of ‘strange behaviors’ that did not obey the social order, such as ‘talking to oneself, hearing voices from the outside’, etc. These strange human behaviors were also seen as a threat to the social order. But they were not physically criminalized. Instead… Some people’s ‘special behaviors’ were labeled as mental illnesses.
They first called these strange human behaviors related to the ‘soul’ and thought ‘it will get better if treated’. They applied speech, behavioral, etc. therapies. These therapies gave successful results in the long term. However, the founders of the social order thought that ‘long-term treatments’ did not fit the social order. They looked for a short-term solution.
* Establishment of mental hospitals…
Then they first called these strange human behaviors ‘possessed by the devil’ and used some torture as treatment. They established ‘mental hospitals’ to perform these torture treatments.
Patients suffered with tortures called ‘treatments’, when they became silent like half-dead, half-zombies, they called it ‘the great miracle treatment’. Some even died, but it worked!
Patients were silent as lambs now. Everyone was surprised and said ‘this is a great miracle’ and approved it. And these torture treatments continued for centuries.
* The emergence of chemical psychiatric drugs (legal narcotics)…
Then one day, psychopathic psychiatrists serving mainstream psychiatry discovered drugs (psychiatric drugs) that numb people’s brains with chemicals in seconds. They called this a miracle too. Because the patients’ brains were numb in seconds and people were turning into half-dead, half-zombies.
Mainstream psychiatry began to criticize the ‘torture treatments’ that had been done in the past and praised these miracle drugs! that they had discovered. States, societies and mainstream medicine immediately accepted this treatment (without questioning it) saying ‘Wow, that’s great’.
Mainstream medicine created a special course area for Psychiatry in medical schools. Students were accepted to this area. Psychiatrists were first given the ‘doctor’ license and then the title of ‘professor’. This made this field of psychiatry more attractive to students. So, students started taking courses in psychiatry departments on how to become a licensed charlatan and psychopath in order to serve mainstream psychiatry. (Unfortunately, quackery and psychopathy are taught in psychiatry departments. Not mental health treatments. I have mentioned this in my previous comments.) When they graduated, they were awarded the title of ‘licensed charlatan and psychopath’.
* As for the miraculous psychiatric drugs of psychiatry…
It has been revealed that the psychiatric drugs that seem to be miracles do not actually treat ‘mental illnesses’, but merely numb people’s healthy brains. It has also been revealed that over the decades, millions of people have died and been disabled because of these psychiatric drugs.
Probably millions of people die and are disabled every year because of psychiatric drugs.
Also.. It has also been revealed that psychiatric drugs do not cure mental illnesses, but rather ‘create mental illnesses’. It has also been revealed that psychiatric drugs cause permanent brain damage.
Probably… Due to permanent brain damage from chemicals, tens/hundreds of millions of people (worldwide) are subjected to chemical lobotomies every year. Chemical lobotomies are the cause of permanent chemical brain damage from psychiatric drugs.
Probably… Due to permanent brain damage from psychiatric drugs, millions of people worldwide are at risk of developing terrible tremor (movement) disorders such as ‘tardive dyskinesia and akathisia’.
Also… Psychiatric drugs have also been found to make people more prone to violence, murder and suicide. It has also been found that psychiatric drugs cause many deadly permanent physical illnesses such as heart problems, sudden cardiac arrest, cancer, and diabetes. And deaths…
RESULT… Probably… Tens/hundreds of millions of people have been iatrogenically killed and maimed (injured) over the decades (unknown number) by psychiatric drugs.
And again probably.. Every year, tens/hundreds of millions of people are subjected to chemical lobotomies due to psychiatric drugs. (In their own homes, in mental hospitals and other mental health units..) The result of this chemical lobotomy is probably permanent brain damage from the drug. Not to mention the deadly permanent physical illnesses like ‘cancer, heart problems, diabetes’..
And due to these issues, probably.. Over 1 million people are killed and maimed (at least) every year by psychiatric drugs.
***
It came to my mind when I talked about numbers.
How is psychiatry increasing the number of ‘mentally ill’?
It is said that the number of mentally ill people in the world is around 1 to 2 billion. Actually, I think this number may be higher. (I did a calculation of this. As an estimate. I will share this later when it is finished and add the blog link here again. I am working on it for now. It is almost finished.)
NIMH says there will be 59 million mentally ill people in the US in 2022. Other data suggests there are between 62 and 75 million mentally ill people. I think this number could be higher. Because psychiatric treatments, deaths and injuries are not properly recorded. This is true not only for the US but also for other countries in the world.
***
As a final word.. Mind and mental illnesses are something that is in the person’s own soul. Not in the brain. In other words.. The problem of mental illnesses is not physical but spiritual. You cannot treat souls with physical treatments (i.e. chemicals (like psychiatric drugs) and electric shocks like ECT).
What the souls need, as Randy Cima says, is dialogue, conversation. In short, it is ‘behavior therapies’ that include human behavior. Only talking and dialogue therapies are not enough. To these should be added side ‘behavior therapies’ such as ‘nature therapies, music therapies, religious therapies’ etc. It doesn’t like seem possible otherwise. Best regards..
With my best wishes.. 🙂 Y.E. (Researcher blog writer (Blogger))
Report comment
As promised, I finished the calculation and published it. As I predicted, the US ranks 3rd in terms of the number of mentally ill people.
INDIA ranks 1st.
CHINA ranks 2nd.
US ranks 3rd.
This estimated calculation consists of 4 options.
** “How does psychiatry increase the number of mentally ill patients?”
1) WORLD and COUNTRIES – Number and rates of mentally ill people – Estimated calculations.. 2021
2021 rate 2021 population based estimated calculations..
NOTE: The result of this estimated calculation (ONLY COUNTRIES section on the RIGHT side) is close to the correct estimate.
2) WORLD and COUNTRIES – Number and rates of mentally ill people – Estimated calculations.. 2023
2021 rate 2023 population based estimated calculations..
NOTE: This estimated calculation result may be incorrect because the rates and populations are different in different years.
3) COUNTRIES ONLY – Starting with the largest population.. Estimated calculations.. 2021
2021 rate 2021 population based estimated calculations..
NOTE:As a result of this estimated calculation (COUNTRIES 2021 section on the RIGHT side), the estimate is close to the correct one.
4) COUNTRIES ONLY – Starting with the largest population.. Estimated calculations.. 2023
2021 rate 2023 population based estimated calculations..
NOTE: This estimated calculation result may be incorrect because the rates and populations are different in different years.
***
– This is the blog page where the estimated calculation is located. You can review it.
How does psychiatry increase the number of mentally ill patients : Estimated calculations
https://mysamplestudies.blogspot.com/2025/06/how-does-psychiatry-increase-number-of.html
– This is the ‘explanation’ section on the blog page about the calculation.
How does psychiatry increase the number of mentally ill patients : Explanations
https://mysamplestudies.blogspot.com/2025/06/how-does-psychiatry-increase-number-of_5.html
Best regards. 🙂 Y.E.
Report comment
Bravo! This is an excellent way of framing the history of psychiatry.
Report comment
It would be worthwhile if the friends and family of a suffering person felt more confident to be the listening ear which is needed. This would be genuine concern, care, and love shown in an unhurried, warm and ethical way.
A paid listening ear, on the other hand, is always impersonal, no matter how long they listen for. And a paid listening ear wont listen unless the person suffering is also taking their prescribed drugs. Obviously if friends and family can provide the ear, the necessity for drug taking (and all it’s associated side effects and bodiily harms) may be avoided.
In addition, friends and family can take the time to go out on nature walks with the suffering person, make them healthy foods, invite them to their homes for comfort and rest, give them a little money if they are financially insecure, make sure they are warm and buy them small appreciative gifts such as flowers and toiletries and art and craft materials, small items for their home, and healthy snacks. They can take them to enjoy a concert, a theatre performance, the swimming pool, drive them to see another friend, go on holidays with them, and remember them on their birthday.
A paid professional cannot do any of the above things, and is in fact forbidden from doing any of them as it is written into their job description that they are not to get ‘too friendly’ with their clients. They are in breach of their code of conduct if they get ‘too friendly’.
Our reliance on professionals to take care of our suffering friends and family is a neglect of family and community responsibility and it simply pushes the inconvenience of suffering to one side so it becomes out of sight. Professionals do not cure a suffering person, they only drug their clients to make them become silent and perhaps house them away in private hostels, halfway houses etc which are separate from society.
Only genuine love, care, community, genuine concern, faithful family and friends can cure suffering.
I am writing as a person who has experienced professional help also help from family and friends each at different times of my life. And it is the care and concern and help from family and friends which has meant the most to me and has been the most effective and helpful for me regaining balance in my mind and my general health.
Report comment
Good! Glad you got help from family and friends. Our systems that train and provide professional therapists focus only on that option, because those people are reimbursed, and the white male focus in their understanding of world management, is that economics drive energy. But the western world built this limited assumption, by shutting out voices from Africa and countries with warm weather and smaller countries – where village life stayed. In our Western world, incentives drove families apart, broke up neighborhoods and local villages, but in smaller countries like England, small villages had long reigned as important to life quality – and noting the society involvement in care of old buildings and lovely gardens, something good was happening, even if the suspicion between large world countries, left American leaders focused on defense. I watched over my youngest brother, born with disabilities, and placed him in rural, low income Maine. I sought and found professionals to help him, but because I placed him there on his own, I knew he needed oversight and attention, and professionals ended their caring time when the clock signaled sign out time.
I learned through time to choose safer towns for him – those not directly sitting on the state highway, for I found that those towns attracted more residents on the move, more opportunists in crime or drug use, less historic ties and village stability. Much village life has been further damaged by the advent of modern technology, personal TVs, internet and cell phones. All these add some values – while separating people. In a smaller village, a bit off the busy highway track – people were more familiar with each other, relied on each other. Our research focused on individuals and bodies and behaviors, skip over the healing reassurance and reduction of anxiety, that happens when people live closer to each other. In smaller villages or stable communities, it is not that people solve each others’ problems, but because seeing people regularly, sharing a story, an update, a joke, or just a smile, is healthy for human calm.
Report comment
Therapy is an exploitative and ineffective process that endorses the ‘mental illness’ paradigm solely for practitioner profit and social control . Research has demonstrated that up to ten per cent of adults deteriorate following therapy, and almost forty per cent of clients do not ‘progress’ (Lambert, M.J., 2013). Additionally, a meta-analysis by Sakaluk et al. (2019) investigating seventy psychotherapy interventions indicates that merely 20% are supported by strong empirical evidence. Therapy functions within the same authoritative and demeaning framework that has become ingrained in psychiatric practices (Masson, J, 2012). It is a victim-blaming, capitalistic scheme that fails to deliver effective results (Smail, D., 2001).
Report comment
It isn’t talking that’s therapeutic; it’s listening.
Perhaps some day we’ll get it right.
Report comment
Yes. Any fool can talk—especially the “educated” ones.
Report comment
As we used to say in the ’60s, “Talk is cheap!”
Report comment
These days it’s amazing how much therapists can charge for spouting harmful rhetoric. Being “educated” has nothing to do with offering insight, compassion or ethical guidance.
Report comment
I would agree that “education” to whatever degree does not qualify anyone to be actually helpful. The proof is in the pudding, and there is a lot of mediocre to dangerous “therapy” going around out there. Competent practitioners appear to be the exception rather than the rule, all the more so since the DSM mentality has taken over psychology training as well as that of psychiatry. My (competent) therapist in the 80’s never shared any “diagnosis” with me – she just asked questions and listened. Lo and behold, that’s what I really needed, whatever “diagnosis” she must have sent to the insurance company. But it seems such an approach is becoming rarer by the day.
Report comment
Yes.
The damage psychiatric labels do to people’s identity—and more seriously to their very sense of self—is insidious. However, some psychiatrists believe stigma is no longer a significant problem, that Big Pharma is mostly or solely to blame for the mess that currently exists. These people aren’t seeing things clearly at all, imho.
The DSM need to go the way of the dinosaur because THAT’S where people’s misconceptions begin—no ifs, ands, or buts.
Report comment
Anyone ever noticed how common it is for psychiatrists to blame Big Pharma for the overuse of DSM diagnoses among the general population?
They seem to have forgotten that PSYCHIATRISTS are the ones who invent the “diagnoses” inside the DSM!!!
Rather strange how easily so many psych professionals resort to passing the buck…
Report comment
And it would have been easy for psychiatrists to debunk any drug company propaganda if they’d wanted to. It was “nudge-nudge, wink-wink, let’s all make some big money!”
Report comment
Absolutely. But even some of the more “enlightened” psychiatrists still cling to the idea that pharmaceutical companies’ aggressive marketing is mostly to blame for psychiatric labels being proudly bandied about these days on the internet.
They seem to have forgotten their sacred oath to first “do no harm”. But I’ve long heard that learning to equivocate is one of medical school’s implicit lessons—which is probably why genuine integrity is so hard to find among the people who call themselves “psychiatrists”.
Report comment
…but strategic ambiguity (rhetorical maneuvering) will most likely remain psychiatry’s most defining feature, because after all, what would psychiatry be without that?
Report comment
P.S. This is what psychiatry REALLY means when it uses the word “nuance”:
Strategic Ambiguity and Rhetorical Maneuvering (i.e. lying) — no ifs, ands, or buts.
Report comment
Psychiatry did turn “Life into Illness,” and sadly psychology turned itself into a funnel to the neurotoxic poisoners of psychiatry, instead of listeners.
Report comment
Wow.
Thank you, Randy Cima. This was an excellent timeline capsule of the choices, path(s), & re-structuring that psychiatry & psychology traveled.
Since my self-rescue in 2013-2016, I have never stopped researching the industry’s corruption and scorched-earth effect it had on my life since 2004.
The following seminal moments for me, marked the industry’s metastizing malignancy in the global culture that has lead to normalizing psych-drug prescribing…among a young generation ‘obsessed’ with good health awareness, many spurning ‘recreational’ drugs, & keenly ‘aware’ of mental health importance. Unfortunately THAT ‘awareness’ is Pharma-generated & has been for 4 decades. These guys invented the ‘long game’.
Not being aware of history is allowing the repitition and growth of lies…by the powerful ‘bad actor’. They also happen to be the 3rd largest donor in Washington. Your vote (and safety) is cancelled by their cash.
When I encountered them directly, I was 53 and it was 2004…the ramp-up of the Pharma/APA marketing frenzy (& general reformatting overall) surrounding the newly re-branded manic depression/bipolar diagnosis/category.
David Healy nailed it in PLOS MED “The Latest Mania: Selling Bipolar Disorder” 2006.
The Bipolar Gold Rush. My diagnosing doc was raking in 65K from Pharma by the first ACA mandated 2013 reporting-ProPublica “Dollars for Docs”.
Allen Frances’ deadly, and massively profitable turn at leading the Pharma-funded, APA published DSM, a huge money-maker. The majority of that task force was already ‘influenced’ by Pharma $. The late Paula Caplan’s (PhD) ‘character’ piece on Allen in a scathing Aporia expose’ “Diagnosisgate: Conflict of Interest at the Top of the Psychiatric Apparatus” 2015. was eye-watering. Paula had quit that task-force.
Allen then gifted the world with the “Saving Normal” best-seller, positioning himself as a flawed but righteous(?) sell-out. His feelings were hurt as the APA didn’t invite him back to helm the next DSM. But Duke University embraced him, restoring his legitimacy to folks who don’t look too closely.
Myself and millions of other adults and children(!) were slapped with the infamous “Bipolar-for-Life/Drugged-for-Life” label…tethering us to the Psych Industry into our graves, as a stupefied, compliant, addicted revenue stream.
I was very confused by their seemingly new paradigm as my awareness had been formed by the ‘talk/listen’ decade(s). I had given my trust to a cultural (‘medical’) predator who targeted my vulnerability and fully exploited me; running thru my private insurance, and deftly shifting to a full-strength, well-coordinated state & federal drain. The glut of ‘behavioral health management’ companies that relieved state law-makers from having to inform themselves regarding quality-of-care in a messy part of life….again (historically) were feasting.
I found myself in Arizona, a state with (at the time), the 2nd largest U.S. behavioral health care budget, secured by the saint-like Charles Arnold. Attorney Arnold’s 30-year personal mission to fund SMI ‘care’ was well-meaning but dangerously flawed for clients of the AZ AHCCCS system.
Shoveling millions into the mental health budget black hole, with zero, meaningful oversight and no positive results year after year, was a tragedy for vulnerable people who sought help.
But WOW, the profits…and during re-election time it made for splashy sound bites.
Magellan, the top-of-the-food-chain predator nationally in behavioral health management, schooled the others (4 in 16 years/Phoenix) on how to maximize profits by perfecting the ‘art’ of “Phantom Networking”among so many other techniques. Milo Geylin/Wall Street Journal had tagged this practice already.
“Ghost listings” are STLL the behavioral management industry standard. Provider manuals were (and still) full of ‘option’ listings….none of them associated with the insurance model…intentionally.
I know because I called 40 in 2013 after suffering anaphylaxis by a sloppy community clinic N.A….loudly, repeatedly complaining (while spiraling down)..and entered a dark, bullying rabbit hole.
Charles Arnold’s campaign is roundly admired. The quantifiable RESULTS were and remain appalling….. and obscenely accepted without question.
Mr. Arnold, the attorney, didn’t grasp the magnitude of pain & suffering corrupted ‘care-givers’ could inflict.
Finally, my journey ended on the most cynical note possible.
I explained my comprehensive understanding of how a near-fatal anaphylaxis event would be ‘interpreted’ by…anybody with the most modest awareness of it’s dangers. And possibly publicly.
After nearly 10 years of horrific, independently, documented side-effects including
cardiomyopathy-heart failure (QT prolongation-antipsychotics), I wanted a Dr. guided withdrawal, however long it took (2.5 years). I wanted my “life-long, AZ state certified bipolar diagnosis GONE…in writing.
They agreed to both.
They agreed because my clinic Director and his boss were restructuring the parent company, xxx and the director was ascending to the Vice Presidency and Chief Medical Officer position. It was a quiet done-deal.
My little mess was a small threat to their sparkly career arcs. But still messy.
**And THAT’S how they ‘cured’ me of ‘life-long’ bipolar/SMI….boys and girls.
The psychiatric industry’s ‘evidence-based’, medical, biopsychosocial SCIENCE illustrated here is , well, staggering in it’s integrity.
The belief in their own dogma is severely edited by the size of their next paycheck.
I was SMI for a decade, drugged heavily every 24 hours.
And then I wasn’t…if I just didn’t engage an attorney.
My ‘exit’ doc once quietly observed “You have trust issues”.
I choked… and barked “Look where I AM!”.
The ‘exit doc’/former clinic Director is still in place (VP/CMO) @xxxx (formerly xxx) in AZ….and I still have his texts asking me for a date…as his drugged psychiatric patient.
Mr. Cima-THIS is the essence of psychiatry’s legitimacy, writ large.
Someone Else- I forced them to change “Illness into LIFE”.
Birdsong-here’s the “ethical guidance”.
Mr. McRae, the subtleties of “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” were nowhere to be found.
It was “Put your money on the table and drive it off the lot” (B.Scaggs)
I wish Mr. Whitaker thought this documented, evidence-based ‘story’ was significant enough to support in a more robust way.
This was quid pro quo: ALL business, NO science, no medicine.
“Protecting the shield”…from a real smoking gun.
They don’t belive their own science.
This is the story.
Report comment
Dr. Cima has once again provided us with a useful history of how psychiatry claimed its hegemony in the 1980s. The population of the large mental hospitals, where most psychiatrists worked, had already begun to decline in populations prior to 1954, when the antipsychotics like Thorazine were introduced.
Psychiatry came up with the false narrative that the huge success of the drugs caused the emptying of the mental hospitals. Psychiatry would later blame “civil rights” as the cause of so-called deinstitutionalization. In fact, the number of places skyrocketed where people could be involuntarily committed to include nearly every major hospital in America. Chemical straitjackets made real ones unnecessary.
In pointing out the virtues of “talk therapy,” Dr. Cima is not required to list the potential dangers as well. Thomas Szasz long ago abandoned his early distinction between voluntary and involuntary psychiatry, arguing that the line between the two had been erased by state licensing and liability insurance. Anyone starting voluntary therapy can end up being involuntarily committed.
For the ideal of counseling, for lack of a better non-medical word, to work, it would have to be truly voluntary and truly confidential, engaged in by two consenting adults who are free to end the relationship at any time. This no longer exists in the United States.
Since it is not medical in any meaningful sense, it should not be paid for by third-party health insurers; this would make sure that insurers did not control the counseling.
Report comment
Thank you for this information. However…
I think it is Szasz who points out that somatic treatments have always been used for the poor and working classes. For a relatively brief period of time, modern society allowed some middle class and upper class people to talk about their problems with the secular priesthood that was and is mental health, inc. That time has passed.
Now, the rich entertain themselves with intensive talking treatments and the more desirable prescription drugs…the upper middle class and well to do are given the less toxic pills and routine talk…
While what remains of the middle class contends with shallow overpriced counseling largely only provided if they remain compliant with their drug intake. The working and lower classes are subjected to periodic confinement and are often injected with depot versions of the most toxic drugs on the planet.
Also worth noting: szasz writes that one sees psychiatric control in its pure undiluted form not in state hospitals but rather in prisons. The USA in particular is a prison nation. Even our very wealthy are sometimes imprisoned.
Report comment
You’ve got a good point here. And everyone who looks can see it. The pro-psych people know about it as well as the anti-psych people. It’s an old pattern that we see in the sectors of water, food, land, education, jobs – not just the “mental health” system.
All my group can do about this is try to bring people up to the point where they can fight back and be able to afford the care they deserve. But so far this help is only reaching a small fraction of the population. The “lower” classes – whatever that really means – will always have problems accessing the goods and services they dream of and probably deserve.
For some years I worked in a group where every member was expected to eventually be able to lead the entire group if they were called on to do so. Meanwhile, they worked in positions that they were able to handle. And you will always have positions like that. Someone has to clean up, take out the garbage, do the laundry, slaughter the food animals. It seems to me all we can do is work towards a society where everyone is willing to take on part of that load even though they are capable of much more. If we are all very able, then we can all take care of each other and take care of all the things that need to be done to stay alive on a planet like Earth. This means, of course, a huge change of mind and attitude “at the top.” I don’t see any way around that.
Report comment