I am Dr. Laura López-Aybar. You may know me from my previous personal stories published on the Mad in America website, but as a refresher, I am a psychiatric survivor from colonized Puerto Rico, where I was born and raised. My experiences of childhood abuse and trauma were psychiatrized, which led to chronic effects from medications, including psychosis, emotional numbness, sedation, insomnia, and interruptions in my cognitive functioning that impaired my ability to concentrate and care for myself. There were other effects that I now suspect may also have been related to the medications I was prescribed.
Additionally, I was coerced into psychiatric hospitalization twice while I was a teenager in Puerto Rico, once because they did not know where else to put me, and a second time after a suicide attempt following a beating by an ex-boyfriend, which was deemed a delusion and self-injurious instead of committed by him. Both times, I was threatened with a court-ordered involuntary hospitalization if I did not comply, so I do not count these as voluntary hospitalizations.
Both times led to compounded trauma instead of healing, which included humiliation, sexual assault through cavity searches, checking for contraband, continuous gaslighting by my therapy team, isolation, privacy violations, punishment, disparaging remarks, and mocking, among others. Additionally, there were things I did not experience directly but witnessed, such as the use of chemical restraints and force, and prolonged use of physical and mechanical restraints.
Despite the catastrophic prognosis I received from my mental health providers, once I moved out of my mother’s abusive household and into my loving grandparents’ home, I was able to begin the process of recovering from the trauma I had experienced. Along this trajectory, I tapered off medication, was finally believed about the abuse I endured in my mother’s household, and began the journey of healing. I got my bachelor’s while living with them, studied abroad, moved into my own apartment, adopted and trained a service dog, and then decided to get my master’s in substance abuse counseling.
My trauma started seeping through intensely, but I was still heavily medicated, doing the best I could while dealing with all the traumatic stress. Thus, I navigated suicide attempts, self-injury, and altered states all on my own during this period, the fear of being hospitalized again ever present. I still believed the narrative of illness that was sold to me: that I was borderline and bipolar and needed the medication, that these were chronic, and that I could not sleep without my trazodone. The medication was keeping me ill, fighting to function at the level that was expected.
In my master’s, I was learning about how substances screw your brain functioning, and I began reading about the medications I was on, and as I learned of the side effects, I learned I was not lazy, I was not stupid, I was heavily sedated. I decided to go cold turkey, which again, I did not tell anyone about because they believed the same narrative, that I was sick and needed the meds to function. After the withdrawal effects, which I managed through pure grit, I guess, and included heavy insomnia, I slowly recovered my quality of life.
Meanwhile, I still maintained a relationship with my abusive family members, a separation that thankfully came later during my recovery journey, once I was ready.
How psychiatric survivors, lived experience expertise, and coercion became central to my work
This experience guided my studies, and I ended up moving to New York City, where I ultimately earned a PhD in clinical psychology at Adelphi University. Throughout my training in New York, I ended up witnessing similar coercion in my practicums, along with the pathologization of contextual factors and the vast stigma within the mental health field, characterized by a very distinct “us vs them” dynamic. I shared some of my concerns with my mentor, who introduced me to the world of human rights-based mental health, psychiatric survivors, and Mad in America.
Currently, I do not practice therapy; instead, I focus on research, holding the somewhat unreal hope that we can transform our mental health system into one that truly supports vulnerable individuals. This path has also led me to study the social determinants of mental health and how they shape psychological distress. Moreover, I have been in a loving relationship for almost 15 years, share my life with pets and a highly inquisitive toddler, and am a homeowner, avid traveler, and gardener. I believe this is important to mention, as I was once told I would never be able to achieve any of this or live a meaningful and productive life.
In addition, I run Mad in Puerto Rico, where one of the projects I have been leading involves interviewing fellow psychiatric survivors. You may also be familiar with my research on stigma and discrimination toward people with lived experience, survivors of gender-based violence, and ethnoracially minoritized communities, particularly within mental health services. I am currently working as a researcher examining the impact of coercion and human rights violations in psychiatric hospitals both in Puerto Rico and throughout the United States. Some of this research is still in progress, but in a Puerto Rico-based content analysis, many psychiatric service users report experiencing increased psychological and physical trauma during hospitalization, not feeling like it’s a therapeutic space but a prison-like environment. This is mirrored by the narratives shared by psychiatric survivors I have interviewed for Mad in Puerto Rico. One person hospitalized in the United States shared: “They injected me with Haldol for refusing to take medication. They threw me to the floor and forced me. I couldn’t move. I felt like my body no longer belonged to me.”
Coercion as a universal standard practice in mental health settings
These narratives demonstrated how widespread coercion is in psychiatric care, which is also a tenet of the Mad in the World affiliates, who share their own stories of coercion in their respective countries. My main bases of work are New York City and Puerto Rico, where we have seen an uptick in coercive practices and the desire for stricter and punitive laws disguised as therapeutic, that seek to control and incarcerate people indiscriminately in psychiatric hospitals. As in the United States, psychiatric incarceration is popular in Puerto Rico In Puerto Rico, suicidality, self-injury, and altered states will lead to almost automatic involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, and it is considered a main standard of therapeutic care, the go-to option.
Currently, the government wants to give the police, who are well known for their brutality and human rights violations, including abuse of power, excessive force, and dehumanization, the ability to determine who needs involuntary incarceration without any oversight. This is terrifying for many reasons, the main one being that police are not trained in de-escalation for people experiencing psychological distress, nor do they possess trauma-informed training, and even if they are, they are not known for putting these skills into practice. This puts people experiencing psychological distress and who are already disenfranchised in extremely vulnerable positions, while giving oppressors another tool to torment, torture, and sometimes even kill them.
Often, when we discuss psychiatric hospitalization and psychiatric coercion, we hear professionals, providers, community members, family members, and even individuals experiencing psychiatric distress endorse this dynamic by saying things such as, “there are no other options” or “we have no other choice.” This is because hospitalization is the standard of care for people experiencing high levels of psychological distress; it’s often what is prescribed.
Although compassion-based alternatives do exist, they often rely on grassroots or private funding to sustain their efforts. Moreover, in my experience, many providers appear to be unaware of these alternatives, are not trained in them, or simply ignore them in favor of traditional approaches such as psychiatric hospitalization.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that when I posed the question of what alternatives people preferred or suggested, the psychiatric survivors I interviewed had reflected deeply on it. One of them shared how psychiatric hospitalization feels simultaneously like a prison and like a refuge, and that he would prefer to have other alternatives that also attend to contextual factors creating distress:
“They don’t address the problem that was happening around you, but there comes a point when you start to see it as a refuge—and at the same time as a prison. That tension is constant. I would have wanted to spend more time outside, tending to plants, listening to animals and birds, in the fresh air—reading or painting or sculpting, learning something new, cooking, working with practical and useful things, and having more therapy.”
Even though the psychiatric survivors interviewed were in differing contextual environments, the presence of coercion is tangible in both the United States and Puerto Rico. A clear desire to have more alternatives, to have access, and policies that address contextual factors versus focusing on the individual, is clear as well. In my own reflection, I concluded that what I needed was what I eventually received: a loving household with emotionally healthier caregivers. Nonetheless, during periods of psychological distress, I tend to seek rest and pause. The alternatives described by all of us share a common theme of having community around us, having support with daily life activities, and somebody to share the load. These are sort of cycles of sustainability that have been ripped from us by the grind of modern life. To illustrate the similarities in desires for nurturing communities, two psychiatric survivors shared how this cold look like:
P: I think a really strong alternative is guided care in the home. That you don’t have to be confined to a place where you can’t move freely in the world, but instead receive care at home. I also think there need to be tools for the people who are going to care for you, so that your community can care for you. Spaces that don’t feel like a fucking prison, but that give you freedom and, at the same time, care for you. And I also believe that first there has to be an understanding that if you’re going to have an episode where you need rest to recover your mental health, there should be programs that can support you with a couple of weeks of income so you can survive.
Gaby: The nature part—a little cabin, with peers, people who have survived psychiatric violence, crises, chaos in their lives. Yes, there should be medication if that’s what you want, but me, in a cabin with four people. I mean, yes, ideally it would be possible to do this in my own home, but recognizing that this isn’t accessible to me or to me or to me because it costs money, and houses—homes—don’t feel like homes for many people. So then let’s have a space that feels appropriate. I’m not going to say “safe,” because safety is defined by the person themselves, according to their own criteria, but a space that is appropriate, where you can come to feel safe with professionals. I like Reiki, acupuncture, massage therapy, art therapy, dance therapy, and ecotherapy—all of that.
What they ask for is primarily community-based care, grounded in what they define as safe spaces for themselves and surrounded by loved ones, rather than being isolated from them. These are spaces that offer freedom and function, in many ways, as retreats, providing a wide array of softly guided therapeutic alternatives alongside more traditional ones. These alternatives are not a rejection of traditional psychotherapy, but rather an integrated proposal that reflects a desire for rest, agency, connection, and freedom. This freedom extends beyond the physical space, offering a pause from the mental load that governs modern society. For many, it is also a chance to be cared for by trusted and loving others. These are spaces that adapt to the person’s specific needs, rather than requiring a person in high distress to adapt to a prison-like environment.
Why these options are almost non-existent
The lack of alternatives is alarming. Even though the psychiatric survivors described having their rights violated and being traumatized by their psychiatric hospital experiences, they stated that they would return due to the absence of existing alternatives. This is an unacceptable reason for policymakers to continue having psychiatric hospitalization as the only go-to; it is lazy and easy, because it depends on controlling others’ autonomy without attending to the urgent infrastructural factors creating their distress. It is incarcerating, pathologizing, and chemically controlling people and forcing them to bear the weight of their circumstances, which has cumulative costs on them, their families, and their communities.
There is a reluctance among mental health providers and policymakers to support and create sustainable alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization. Often, they do not even know about the existence of these alternatives or rely on their “most severe cases” as examples to justify coercive practices. Research has found that although providers, in theory, endorse more recovery-oriented alternatives to coercive hospitalization practices, this support does not extend to practice. Moreover, these practices are often justified based on cost; however, with better outcomes and less cycling in and out of services, alternatives are more cost-effective in both the short and long term. Furthermore, psychiatric hospitals across the country have been caught falsifying patient records to hospitalize individuals, keep them hospitalized for extended periods of time, and bill their health insurance. This, in turn, costs many service users thousands and thousands of dollars.
For me personally, psychiatric hospitalization was traumatizing; I still hold sensory memories of the space. Even now, as an adult who has built my own life and works at a nationally recognized institution, I experience night terrors that my family will take away my freedom for calling out their abuse. They tell me, “We had to deal with your mental illness,” or “she has problems,” to justify their actions—even 18 years after I left that environment—using these narratives to delegitimize and excuse the abuse they inflicted.
One does not simply forget the dehumanization of coercion in psychiatric practices.
It is traumatic; it impedes, rather than facilitates, help-seeking. It marks people for life, and it is detrimental to recovery. How is adding another distressing experience to an individual’s life therapeutic?
No one can convince me that someone experiencing high levels of distress, in their most vulnerable state, deserves to have their freedom taken away, to be isolated, to have their experiences and identities reduced to diagnoses, and to be forcefully medicated without being offered psychosocial support or person-centered alternatives. In this column, I intend to continue giving visibility to psychiatric coercion but also to emphasize the need for alternatives—the crucial need for there to be options for people experiencing psychological distress. Simultaneously, the mental health fields’ complicity, inaction, and perpetration of psychiatric violence and alternative exploration or implementation will be integrated as well. I do not aim to tell people which choices to make, what paradigm to identify with, but I will advocate for survivors and disenfranchised people to have options and choice, to be recognized as decision makers in their own care, while holding those in power accountable.
Article: “The lack of alternatives is alarming. Even though the psychiatric survivors described having their rights violated and being traumatized by their psychiatric hospital experiences, they stated that they would return due to the absence of existing alternatives.”
As a victim of retaliatory invountary detainment at a criminal Catholic hopsital, instigated by my employer to silence me, sexist police complicit, I appreciate your experience and your work.
However, I would want all to be very careful suggesting without data that psych survivors in general would return minus alternatives. That’s not what I take away from my reading, writer’s group and Rob Wipond’s book.
Though yes in the disparate ever changing writers group, some said the same, they would or had returned, but those voices were young and totally uniformed about psychiatry, dsm, placebo effect, etc.
Did you mean the two people yopu mentioned would return?
I demand U.S. studies with numbers!!!!!!
There is a trend to cling to bad psychiatry, I guess connected to not reading the big picture, part of not reading much at all, which is disturbing.
The Federal Reverse Bank of New York (still not sure why, though I called and asked) recently looked at Alleghany, PA results. They found most don’t want to return to psychiatry.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr1158.pdf?sc_lang=en
Thanks again to the Mad commentator who shared this study.
I would take drastic measures to avoid returning, but I never sought psychiatry.
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WTF? “Federal REVERSE Bank”?….lol, I’m sure you meant “reserve”!….
Anyway, do you know that’s a PRIVATE bank, with SECRET owners?….
“The Creature From Jekyll Island” is one good book about the “Fed”….
I would NEVER go back to the pseudoscience LIES of that drug racket known as “psychiatry”!
Gina, KEEP UP the GOOD WORK!
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i wanted access to Open Dialogue, Depth Psychology & Healing Homes, as well as a judicious use of psychiatry & front end services / hospitalisation for severe crisis (within an integral / holistic & healing model), i am a reformist, not an abolitionist. i am personally helped by medication. When i have proposed such an approach i have come under a lot of verbal abuse & attacks & i can’t see how the mentally ill are ever going to agree on anything, it is worse than herding cats.
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What is it exactly that you want “mentally ill” people to agree on? The reality of the DSM’s mental disorders, the benefits of neurotoxic drugs and other brain-disabling treatments, the status of psychiatry as a legitimate branch of medicine?
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A very small percentage of us have suffered genuine severe mental illness & been helped by psychiatry, hospitalization & medication. i agree that for the vast majority of people (the worried well) it is not appropriate & there should be alternatives.
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You might want to look at the studies by Wunderlink and by Harrow. They both showed that in the LONG RUN, using psychiatric drugs intermittently or not at all led to better social and functional outcomes. This does not mean it worked for everyone, but it suggests that some people are being made WORSE by insisting on ongoing “treatment” with antipsychotics, and using them episodically or tapering off after use is something that ought to be considered. These are people I think you’d agree had “genuine and severe mental illness” and yet did better with less or no antipsychotic treatment.
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i think it is a very highly complex & individual picture.
i stopped all psychiatric medications 5 times – twice for 2 four year periods – off & on i worked full time for 8 years & completed 7 years of further education – i worked with & trained as a spiritual / holistic healer (for 25 years) – i worked with many therapists – i maintained an excellent diet – i maintained 25 years of T-Total sobriety – whatever i tried i kept ending up back in very severe psychosis. The medication works very well in my case, & it is all hypothetical as to how well the comprehensive alternatives would have worked? i never had access to them all & can’t access them. But there is massive debate & controversy around those alternatives.
i don’t think it’s as simple as saying all psychiatry / pharma bad & all alternatives good. There are also massive differences between the American & UK mental health systems – i am in the UK.
It is a highly complex picture as to long term outcomes (med & med free) with what gets diagnosed as schizophrenia.
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I agree completely that it is a very complex picture. It sounds like you are well educated and have explored all your options. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that taking drugs is automatically bad and that alternatives are automatically good. But I think the fact that “alternatives” are referred to as “alternatives” says a lot. I’m arguing that the basic assumptions of the DSM/psychiatric worldview are not generally supported by the research, and that folks deserve to know that recovery from “schizophrenia” diagnoses IS possible for some people, and that permanent, all-day, every-day drugging is not the only answer available.
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Schizophrenia effects around 1% of the Global population. There are the official quarter / third recovery statistics. i would love to see far better treatment of & acceptance of the ‘mad’, with access to far more in the way of healing approaches. A lot however needs to be acknowledged – regardless of what caused it all & how i could have been best helped i am now in the situation of disability & totally dependent on medication & Government Welfare. Millions of people like me are in very similar situations – what do you suggest be done for people like me?
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I suggest that you have as many options made available to you as actually exist. I suggest that you deserve honest information about what is and mostly isn’t known about these supposed “disorders,” and you deserve not to be “sold” a particular viewpoint based on who gets to make more money off of your misfortune. I believe you deserve to be supported in whatever choices you make, and have the freedom to try different things and “make mistakes” and learn what works best for you. And you certainly deserve financial support if you are unable to make your own way because of your condition.
Does that answer your question?
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Marc, I agree with Steve, there are so many options which we don’t actually have while psychiatry is still defining what we need (what it can get away with “providing”).
I’m one of those millions and I expect many of us here are. We could better get our needs met focussing on what needs to change to create a system that actually serves people’s real needs, and doesn’t create isolation, disability and poverty in the first place.
Inside the narrrow psychiatric model – whose needs are actually being met? Certainly not the most disadvantaged and disabled I’d say – the people who have the least ability and power to make their needs heard are too drugged, isolated, disabled and impoverished.
It’s clear that you don’t feel you’re getting what you need – I wonder, does anyone? Is psychiatry even about providing care or meeting needs at all? Such a large number of us are actually disabled and isolated by the supposed “treatment” itself. Who is the model actually serving?
To me it does not look like the purpose of psychiatry is care, or health – it looks like it’s simply controlling and containing a population with a minimal fig leaf of “medicine” and “care” for optics which satisfies the public who don’t know or need to know the reality. It allows societies and those in power to keep ignoring the problems they cause, and to avoid addressing the understandable human reactions and difficulties people sometimes need help with.
I think we deserve more and we won’t get it if we keep accepting crumbs to keep this or that group of patients or service users quiet with a change of rhetoric, or new increasingly reductive and limited service models which actually serve no-one.
The mental health and psychiatric systems are designed to meet the needs of the system, not the needs of people.
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Yes it answers the question thanks. Can’t change the past though – can’t change my current medication dependency or circumstances.
i’m currently battling again for benefit / welfare eligibility. Very few seem to care about people in my situation – with the rise of National / Global right wing / far right. By some accounts UK Austerity / mismanagement of Covid /Brexit & other factors has led to 5 million excess deaths. All of the media TV / Radio / Papers / Internet is largely all Lies, Propaganda, Miss & Diss information.
You have a very similar ongoing situation in the USA. It is Eugenics – society & the Government / System want people like me dead.
I fear homelessness & early death. i live my life in fear & have done since 2012.
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You are correct. Unfortunately, early death is a common experience of the “seriously mentally ill.” As is homelessness. It is a travesty.
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Freya – i agree that this Global Civilization / System / Mental Health Treatment is very messed up. However – i have argued for comprehensive alternatives for the past 40 odd years – Eco-socialist / Solar Punk – Venus Project – New Earth Nation – Zeitgeist Movement – Anti Capitalist / Anti Fascist – Pagan Anarcho Communist – Mutual Aid – Global Regenerative Cultures – World Peace – Comprehensive integral / holistic health care – Open Dialogue / Depth Psychology / Healing Homes etc – & a lot else. Everywhere, in my on & off line life i have come up against deep divisions, arguments, endless polemical debates, & incredibly little agreement. Why does Nothing ever intrinsically change? Seriously look at mental illness; our wider socioeconomic & cultural / political systems; it’s treatment throughout known human civilization, go back through the past 500 years of the treatment of mental illnesses in the West – the systemic issues are always intrinsically the same, Nothing ever fundamentally changes. It seem very obvious to me that all our cultural / socioeconomic / political / mental health / religious etc systems are made up – we could create systems that are entirely different – But we don’t, the vast majority of humanity will defend to the Death & do all the time all these made up systems, regardless of how stupid or destructive they are. i think that there is a certain insanity within the whole of humanity.
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Marc, I’m so tempted to agree 😀
Maybe it’s that our system rewards some types of behaviour more than others? It’s actually pretty sane to be struggling with emotions and reactions in our current culture, so why is it that the people who do get pathologised?
One reason I think change is slow is that powerful systems like capitalism – any hegemonic system – tends to split and divide interest groups against each other and make solidarity difficult because we depend on the system to survive. Plus a lot of psychiatric survivors are disabled, poor, isolated, drugged or locked up, so organization is a problem!
I do think the survivors movement has come a long way -when you consider that most of us could be locked up and forced medicated with absolutely no unaccountability not long ago, and the protections and accountability hasn’t improved much now. So it’s a wonder we’ve been able to get our voices heard at all really. ( Thanks to sites like this one, and to other survivors, groups and movements in the past.)
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Mass PUBLIC Education on how ACES influence the development of mental/emotional distress later in life.
General PUBLIC understanding that the backstory & context of the issues labeled as “mental illnesses” didn’t spring up from some innate quality of the person’s neurochemistry of the brain – but were induced by repeated assaults (mental/physical/emotional/sexual) to the system: dysfunctional situations and interpersonal relations.
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Mass PUBLIC Education on how ACES influence the development of mental/emotional distress later in life.
General PUBLIC understanding that the backstory & context of the issues labeled as “mental illnesses” didn’t spring up from some innate quality of the person’s neurochemistry of the brain – but were induced by repeated assaults (mental/physical/emotional/sexual) to the system: dysfunctional situations and interpersonal relations.
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We need spaces in which we can inflict revenge upon Doctors, nurses, social workers & hospital managers responsible for incarcerating us & chemically destroying us. We need to be able to Play Doctor, restraining them, roughing them up & giving them toxic injections & degrading labels & other treatments at our own caprice, with hoards of uniformed minions doing our strange bidding. We need to get the lawyers & judges to grovel & bow to our Will in strange admiration as they rubber stamp the abuse we inflict. In other words, we don’t need to eliminate the system immediately, we just need to turn it upside down. Gradually, as the old abusers die off & the old patients rise in triumph, the State will retract its tentacles so that income can be mostly retained where it is earned & people in distress can live freely, galivanting through the streets to their hearts content with free, healthy meals provided for them.
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I’m with you. I truly believe in a federal death penalty for psychiatric crimes.
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I couldnt agree more. On a personal and systemic level, its as if, the only way to really break their delusions of grandeur and God complexes is to pull an experiential “How do you like it?” What seems so distant, but is actually possible, is the notion that those who have been stripped of their dignity and liberty in the past would be able to effectively advocate to local, state and federal legislators for financial funding for alternatives and reforms. Imagine if there were multiple Human Rights Advocates allowed into every psych ward, paid by the federal govt to protect the rights of the vulnerable. And on and on..I opine. I know that there is no one at the top of the food chain or hospital system that cares to change things.
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Max I feel for you in your outrage. Yes to giving voice to what is so incredibly difficult… it is good… In a way, I am with you.
And…
To “inflict revenge” on mental health workers or anyone does harm to the person inflicting harm. I do not want to ever carry that burden and I do not wish that burden on anyone. In other words, I don’t want anyone to inflict harm upon the people that harmed me and my fellow survivors.
I do hope you find support to help you ground your rage and direct it into healing and creating more compassionate ways of responding to the to crises. My heart goes out to you.
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Needs to happen to ill-intentioned family members who weaponise Psychiatry too.
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Woah Max! You are angry! And I would guess deservedly so but I don’t know your story I just see and read your anger and what some call moral injury or there are other phrases and words around now. I am glad you have this space to get it out.At times I have felt similar though ultimately holding the emotions of being harmed can create some energy but many times not . You are one among many in human civilization thousands millions. One of the books I think on often is the Poisonwood Bible by BarbaraKingslover it is about a vet with brain trauma and how his misguided thinking causes pain and suffering and ultimately the death of his youngest daughter. The words of the last daughter long dead and her corpse burial unknown is a beautiful exercise on moving when you are ready willing or able towards something different. We each have our own internal and external time frame. Another book is Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow or others if you are a reader. Not all of are or once were and can never go back to the past with reading
There are other tools and also listening or history of people who learned to live with active or abuse, neglect, horror of so many things also an option. I do not know you so can’t do more than say I hear you I understand you and for me the outrage and moral injury if nothing else lessens. I wish you better.
Being able to enforce the pain we endured on the others responsible makes us go beyond their harming and hurting and some say soul murder besides moral injury ( The Blacks and Tans) but if one stays in that stream sometimes worse than that can evolve which caused our world and lives to turn upside down. There are other ways. Take Care Max.
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“moral injury” is also a phrase often used in connection with combat veterans & CPTSD….
They often have no easily identifiable physical injuries, but still suffer emotional & psychological pain & suffering….
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While I was physically restrained and forcibly drugged at the same time, I think that living with the shame of being involuntarily committed and having my kidneys damaged by lithium is what really made me angry. Open Dialogue I think would have been a better fit for me, because I think disagreements with my roommates was the root of me spiraling out of control, not neurons in my brain misfiring.
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How can I get in touch with you? Your work sounds exactly like what I’ve been thinking id like to do one day too.
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Thank you for this – I wonder how many of our lived experience stories line mirror similar experiences to your own? I know mine sure does – including involuntary hospitalization, chemical (and physical restraints), mocking behavior from hospital staff and legal punishment of in-patient hospitalization if medicines are not desired… the lack of understanding or knowledge about these stories or “mental distress” in general, and the unscientific way that labels are assigned as lifelong albatrosses around people’s necks. I’m sharing this with a select few of my friends, and appreciate someone else articulating so much of my own experience through the lens of their own life. Thank you!
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When my parents first took me to a psychiatrist at age 15, we didn’t know, and I didn’t know, that I was in fact getting a sentence of “life without parole”….
I’ve been 100% FREE of psychiatry & psych drugs for almost 30 years now, but the damage was done….
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“One does not simply forget the dehumanization of coercion in psychiatric practices,” nor of psychological abuse. Some psychologists now think hacking into an innocent other’s phone/computer/emails/and seeming also multiple apps and one’s contacts, and trying to literally steal their identity, is acceptable human behavior. That is totally unacceptable human behavior. And it all needs to end, psychological abusers.
But, then again, the Covid psychological abuse of the entire planet was quite disgusting and damaging to the entirety of the planet. Both the psych industries’ knowledge seems to always be used only for evil, and greed.
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
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I love how this article centres on needs of patients and psychiatric survivors.
Usually we have experts telling us their ideas of what we need and then expecting us to fit into their framework.
What I get from this is just how powerful the idea of survivors and service users and patients leading the discussion is.
While experts might have similar ideas, the authority of patient and survivor knowledge is much more powerful to me. Both as a narrative and as rooted in the central issue of how our bodies are treated.
We need to keep centring survivor knowledge if we are going to change things in my opinion. If we don’t any future solutions based solely on other forms of knowledge/authority will risk being harmful.
Survivor/patient/service user knowledge needs to be recognised as knowledge, not just a perspective (which can be ignored).
This means survivor knowledge should lead discussions focused on care and treatment. Just like any other model of service or care should.
If anything I see a lot of current debate as a battle for power and meaning which has little to do with care but is focused on controlling the narrative to maintain existing power structures and the authority and legitimacy of those structures.
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I like your distinction between survivir perspective and survivor knowledge. Mainstream lightyears away, but good distinction.
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Thanks Gina, I confess it’s not mine and comes from survivor researcher Diana Rose. I agree it’s critical to recognise this because the abuses of human rights psychiatry is allowed to perpetrate are dependent on this idea that we are unable to “know”. And our ability to know, is what the dominating knowledge field called psychiatry refuses to recognise. While it is commonly understood in other medical-health contexts that patient knowledge, let alone consent, should be included in some way (regardless of variability in actual practices)-.
I think this is critical to understanding that psychiatry is not actually a legitimate form of medicine which conforms to standard medical conventions, and that its purpose and function is not “health-care”.
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agreed thanks
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The purposes of the protection of human rights are the enemy of psychiatry. What is so evil is ignoring cruelty and brutality when it’s done by doctors. This is a terrible evil that has done more harm than good. The idea that human rights should be ignored is something that makes lives worse. Psychiatry makes lives worse.
Homosexuals are better off because they are no longer victims of psychiatry. After they won against the medical tyranny their lives are better. After they successfully rebelled against the most evil medical profession ever created they became seen as deserving of the protection of human rights. This also made their lives better.
Psychiatry destroys lives and makes them worse. To see brain defects has the consequence of dehumanisation. It also destroys the sense of commonality that founds universal protections such as human rights. It destroys the lives of types of diversity because of seeing brain defects.
Most of all the worst harm is it prevents everyone from feeling empathy and understanding why suicidal individuals want to die. The harms of this are only bearable to the most evil medical profession ever created and the enemies of suicidal individuals.
There is no forgiveness for this.
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Hey Arj, I agree with you. I think that psychiatry should be fully abolished. It’s not medicine, it’s not care, it’s not anything except a system that perpetuates itself with lies and stories about unproven biological differences. If you deconstruct this basic assumption of psychiatry: that human behaviour and emotions can be contained in a simplistic model, psychiatry loses its relevance and purpose.
As much as we try to make psychiatry more humane, I think that will be resisted by psychiatry. Because its entire medical, social and legal function and powers, exist in this concept of essential biological differences, and a vague concept of “mental”, which only psychiatry has the “expertise” to understand and “treat.”
Once that goes – psychiatry unravels.
Then we can decide what real care and support looks like – mind altering drugs can become an informed choice and can be prescribed by any practioner.
Any actual neurological problems – like Alzheimers can be treated by an actual evidence based neurological specialty.
Social support and care can be focused on social conditions and solutions and dependent on needs and choices led by the person.
I’m over simplifying, but I think we need to ask what functions psychiatry is fulfilling and whether there are other ideas and services which can do this better.
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Freya
Society and civilisation are worse off because psychiatry exists instead of basic humane compassion. I don’t consider myself to be a humane being but I do understand basic compassion to a level far above all the doctors that I have met.
A socially constructed definition of defective thought, behaviour and emotion is falsely misrepresented as scientific. But it is as fickle as morality. This is the power of psychiatry to enforce norms but by corrupting the scientific method to enforce norms.
Prejudice against mental diversity and mental phenomena exists throughout history but this is because of the problems with human nature. I think it was Marius Romme who noted that the diversity of schizophrenics faced labels like heresy, witchcraft and possession back in history. But also canonisation – the process of becoming a saint or perhaps more accurately it means being recognised as a saint – is a label before schizophrenia. The experience of hearing voices and the controlling power of the gods sits within the subjective judgements of schizophrenia.
I mention this because of two concepts. Psychopathology is the practice of psychiatry. It seeks to use the scientific method to prove everything wrong with the minds, beings and brains of the victims of psychiatry. Psychosanology is the opposite meaning and the antonym. It is science used to prove the good and the value of the minds, beings and brains of the victims of psychiatry. Psychosanology is a balancing force that should coexist with psychopathology but prejudice is the problem with psychiatry. Prejudice means that there is no effort or very little effort to balance things with psychosanology. (I read the first chapter of Mental Health Promotion – Paradigms and Practices by Keith Tudor. This is where I heard about the concept of psychosanology.)
The evil of making diversity feel worthless and defective is the opposite of care and compassion. But the power of psychiatry is based on using science to justify prejudice, a bit like neuro sexism.
One basis for human rights is equality and prejudice is the opposite of equality. Psychiatry makes its victims feel worthless and denies equality. This makes society and civilisation worse. Then anyone who fights for equality is dismissed because of believing that brain defects causes the belief in equality and the value of mental diversity. “Lack of insight” is a concept used to prevent compassion in the same way that psychopathology is used to enforce prejudice. This makes society and civilisation worse.
The creativity and compassion of the mad, the radically different ideas and ways of thinking of the crazy and many other forms of mental value are not just ignored but they are destroyed by psychiatric oppression. No one sees the evil in this because they trust the medical profession and they trust the scientific method.
Doctors have perverted and corrupted science and prevented equality and human rights for the self interests of the most evil medical profession ever created. That’s the power of psychiatry. It makes them happy to destroy lives and destroy progress and ruin the advancement of lives – this is a symptom of mental illness?
(There is a famous quote that is something like “there is a thin line between genius and madness” – this is an understanding of psychosanology. Look up the video “here’s to the crazy ones” – this too is psychosanology. If you understand the biopsychosocial model then you understand that what happens to someone in their life it changes them. Psychiatry changes the lives of the mad and crazy and prevents them manifesting the possibilities of their genius and other things. It destroys lives in the self interests of the most evil medical profession ever created. It doesn’t believe in equality – that’s a massive problem with psychiatry too.)
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Freya. A follow up point.
Consider three possibilities for mental illnesses: psychopathy, ignoring pain and caring by ignoring pain. Consider the value of the most evil medical profession ever created and how it uses science.
In a society and culture that values war and brutality then these are not mental illnesses because of social and cultural norms. Someone who feels empathy, is compassionate and caring about the pain of others is mentally ill. Brains would be scanned to prove the difference between being normal and being humane then the quality of being humane would be proven to be a mental illness because of the science of brain scans. They would care by ignoring pain because that’s what monsters do – this would be the norm and not a mental illness.
There are many things that are associated with brain differences. It is possible that psychopathy, ignoring pain and caring by ignoring pain are associated with brain differences. Look up “the warrior gene” and you’ll see that it possible for genetics to be involved in biological differences related to mental illnesses. A warrior fights in wars.
If brutality, killing in wars and being brutal is the norm then what is the value of the existence of psychiatry? Humane beings would be seen as mentally ill. Brain scans would be done of those who are considered normal and evil, brutal and inhumane. Brain scans of those who are humane and compassionate would be compared to brain scans of those who are normal in this different civilisation. This would prove a mental illness.
Then this imaginary civilisation would never evolve to become humane if psychiatry exists. The weak would be treated to become resilient by using the merciless infliction of pain. Humane beings would be treated to become brutal. Humane beings would be treated to make them accept, bear and choose to force their victims to suffer without mercy or limit because this is normal. No one would see the evil because it is the medical profession doing this.
(Feeling empathy, being humane and compassionate would be seen as worthless traits, abilities, talents and skills because they are the meaningless symptom of brain defects and mental illness. Doctors would enforce these things with no concerns about the consequences. You can probably imagine what doctors would think. “You think that empathy is important because you are crazy”.)
This is exactly the choices of psychiatrists in a different civilisation with different norms. Different social and cultural norms would create different mental illnesses than exist in this world and these would be proven to be mental illnesses using the proof of brain scans. They would care by ignoring pain because that’s what monsters do – this wouldn’t be a mental illness because of social and cultural norms.
This is the value of the most evil medical profession whenever and wherever it exists.
(Do you see the hidden message in this thing that I just said?)
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Freya
I should have said “different world” or “different planet” instead of “different civilisation” where brutality is cherished and ignoring pain is because of different brain biology.
The point is about different social and cultural norms based on imagining a different world or planet where brain biology affects thought, behaviour and emotion. In this different world the most evil medical profession enforces social and cultural norms that are brutal norms based on brain biology. A defective syndrome of thought, behaviour and emotion would be judged as mental illness because on another planet brain biology would be different and it would be the syndrome of psychopaths and ignoring pain and caring by ignoring pain but because it’s normal then the most evil medical profession would enforce these norms.
If ignoring pain is normal then the most evil medical profession will enforce this norm. If compassion is the norm then ignoring pain is a mental illness by the standards of the most evil medical profession. These are not illnesses but the most evil medical profession turns norms and prejudice into mental illnesses and diseases caused by brain defects.
Recognising difference and diversity is fundamental to my understanding of the value of the most evil medical profession ever created. I learn from history about prejudice and when you see a concept like negritude you should recognise how prejudice affects the creation of diagnosis of an illness. Negritude never became a prevalent diagnosis that doctors believe in but the most evil medical profession ever created is full of examples of illness and diagnosis founded upon prejudice. Negritude is a biological difference turned into a biological disease and difference – it’s obvious to you now that it is an evil diagnosis based on prejudice but you don’t recognise the truth about the most evil medical profession ever created. Negritude stands up to the standards of every test of the definition of a mental illness which is to see biological defects.
What makes you see the evil in the diagnosis of negritude even though it has the same proof of biological defects wielded by psychiatry? Social and cultural norms and factors.
(Does recognising brain defects come first in the definition of a psychiatric diagnosis? Do they scan brains first then decide if something is a mental illness? No. First they make a choice about defective syndromes of thought, behaviour and emotion. This is a subjective choice based on science? No. But they use science to prove that their subjective choice is an illness caused by brain defects. First comes the assumption of brain defects, not the recognition of brain defects – does this make sense in terms of science? They don’t recognise brain defects first before they decide that something is a mental illness. “Their brains are defective because they are mentally ill and they are mentally ill because their brains are defective” – this is not true. Only one of these things is true.)
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Thanks Arj, I think our culture just doesn’t value human emotions – especially not the kinder ones, they’re seen as weakness, and non-productive, so normal emotional reactions are pathologised.
Psychiatry didn’t create the system, it just reflects the same dominant values and enables them to be maintained.
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Bullshit. Psychiatry created itself, AND the psychiatric system….
Please stop trying to exonerate the guilty psychs….
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Understanding psychiatry as part of a wider system does not exonerate it from anything.
I agree psychiatry created itself, it did this by exploiting a need of society to control inconvenient populations and then creating a perception of need in the middle classes. It’s survives by being useful – by reinforcing the dominant values of capitalism and punishing or pathologising behaviour which doesn’t fit the needs of the wider systems which give it license and power to operate.
Psychiatry would not have the power and status it has now if it did not perform a function which is useful to the state and society. Understanding why psychiatry exists and survives is crucial to getting rid of it I think.
I’m not here to get angry, I’m here to understand how it works so we can change it.
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Are you, or are you NOT, an integral part of that “society” to which psychiatry is “useful”?….How is psychiatry “useful” to YOU?…..
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100% agree. I love to read the kind and thoughtful contributions to this community. We can do better by showing compassion and listening. Human society is imperfect we know. Psychiatry is one of the worst manifestations of ignorance and fear that reflects oligarchic control (in any economic system) in nominal democracies of the western world. Enlightenment by the few leads to the potential for fundamental changes. It may take a generation or longer, but we will make the difference now by sharing and supporting. Please keep that in mind. Urgency and patience at the same time!
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Bill, i really don’t understand your replies to my comments. Firstly I’m not angry enough? Now I’m too angry?
What exactly is it you are trying to say, because I cant really identify any actual point or purpose to your comments?
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Gary, it’s helpful for me to read others ideas here too – i even find others’ anger is all validating and part of the process of getting free of psychiatry’s gaslighting and scapegoating. But there’s no point directing it at each other if we can help it. ideas help me think my way out of the blame psychiatry directs at us. As you say, psychiatry is based on the worst form of ingnorance and fear so sharing ideas can only help.
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Again coercion, deception manipulation extortion for money failure to inform the danger of treatment all go against fifty three nuremberg from the tyranny, fascism are the death camps of World War 2. Neo nazism neo mengele crimes against humanity, raising its head against only this time. Globally. A global holocaust under mental health hygiene of the oh so entitled and the targeting mostly the impoverished and the un educated.those marginalized and facing prejudice and discrimination hatred and malice etc victimized Thank you for your courage.Laura, keep up your good work.Yeah, i’
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Thanks Laura. I appreciate your article.
The places people go to for help must never coerce them. This requires another very different way of training the people who are there to help. And nutrient testing must be offered as foundational in the process.
My LO who has had many psych ward stays is living at our home now again. It is a good mix of a household with both of us, his parents and two of his 3brothers. We have coordinated with MensahMedical in Chicago for nutrient testing and he is 7 months into that process of supplementing. He also receives Invega once a month. Will he always need the drug?? Did he begin this journey because he was lacking nutrients and is too high in copper? He is well. Much more verbal and able to be expressive.
We cook meals together, have behind our home access to a 1000 acre park, have a pool and hottub, share an interest in Christ and the Mass, nature and exploring hikes in parks throughout our state. We enjoy conversation and thinking critically on topics and sometimes games, movies or outings to museums or concerts. We have an old dog we care for. We have history together and we care for each other still.
What do I wish for, for my son? Friends, a welcoming work place that could accommodate his ability, social connections beyond our family.
Could working organic farms with this focus be part of the answer? Food production, meaningful work, social connection, place to live and belong together, connection with earth/nature.
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Thank you so much for this powerful and deeply respectful piece. It touched me more than I can easily put into words.
I am a psychiatric survivor myself. I was involuntarily hospitalized in Manhattan simply for dancing in a public park — an act of expression that was interpreted as pathology. That experience, and the coercion that followed, has stayed with me ever since.
Over the years, I’ve tried to speak about that harm in different ways: through written testimony (including a statement to the United Nations), through public storytelling (I shared this story at a The Moth event in London), and now through building RECASAS — a non-clinical, community-based initiative centered on autonomy, language, and re-authoring one’s own story. I live in Berlin now, and I may move back to New York City one day, which makes transatlantic conversations like yours feel especially important to me.
Reading your article, I felt deeply seen — especially in the clarity with which you name coercion not as care, but as violence that is still too often normalized.
If you are ever interested in connecting — for research, conversation, or simple exchange — I would very much welcome that. My contact information is available on my website(s).
Thank you again for your work and for creating space where survivor voices matter.
For anyone interested, I’ve written and spoken publicly about this experience here:
– Testimony on freedom of expression in public space: https://ingridejohnson.com/freedom-of-expression-in-public-space
– Testimony to the United Nations on psychiatric harm: https://ingridejohnson.com/speaking-out-my-testimony-to-the-united-nations-on-psychiatric-harm
– The Moth StorySLAM (London): https://ingridejohnson.com/the-moth-storyslam-bold
– RECASAS (community-based, non-clinical alternative): https://recasas.org/en/
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wow will check out your writing
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Wow, what an amazing article. And I have an important question. You have an amazing understanding of the relational and social aspects of trauma and healing. Not only does the mental health system get in the way of healing from trauma, but also causes more harm. You explain that so well. There are so many good things to say about this article and the work that you are doing.
One thing I didn’t understand because I had not heard the term before is “the pathologization of contextual factors”.
I have some sense of it, but I don’t want to make a guess at it. As a person who has experienced the harms of falling deep into the mental health system, I am working as an artist to tell my story and learnings. Understanding the broad impact of pathologization is integral to my work and to changing the mental health system. Thank you Laura
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Every therapist I spoke to during my incarceration in a mental hospital claimed budgetary constraints as the reason for lack of options. What a rotten excuse. The psychiatric hospital to which I was confined following a failed suicide attempt wanted to medicate me and insisted my stay would be longer if I didn’t allow it. In a month, I only saw a therapist twice and a psychiatrist once. The art and music therapy sessions were just busy work. The group session was counter productive since I was frightened by the psychotic patients in the group. The cackling at anything I said and the overthrowing of chairs were not conducive to my recuperation.
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“Budgetary constraints” exist primarily because we are wasting billions of dollars on doing things that don’t actually help or make things worse! There is PLENTY of money, it’s just being wasted!
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So sorry. Hope you found your own way forward.
Was this in the US?
If the US gov (I know, groper in chief, lots of problems, reasons to distrust) were to survey people after involuntary detainment, would you be interested in replying? Others?
Building upon David Cohen’s work, I push for federal legislation tracking and studying the crap practice. Via survivor knowledge.
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Keep up the good work! I live in Vancouver, BC, where involuntary treatment (detention and forced medication with clozapine being the drug recommended by Dr. Daniel Vigo, B.C.’s chief scientific advisor for psychiatry, toxic drugs and concurrent disorders) is being aggressively expanded to address the disorderly homeless. I hope some researchers take these policies to task!
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Just a big Thank You for this. Wado. Keep telling truths and coughing up the lies; we can and do get to have some adventure and joy in this life.
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Empathy will do more for suicidal individuals and other victims of psychiatry than psychiatrists will ever achieve.
Psychiatry was born in a world where empathy for suicidal individuals and mental pain didn’t exist. The history of psychiatry is all about brutal doctors who ignore pain and that’s how they care. They have ruined the medical profession because they are the most evil medical profession ever created.
Their complete lack of empathy defines assumption of brain defects as the cause of the pain of suicidal individuals and other victims of psychiatry. The medical profession who ignores pain is the medical profession who cannot recognise brain differences associated with pain. Do doctors scan brains to recognise brain differences associated with physical pain and human fragility to physical pain because they recognise suffering? Yes. Ignoring pain makes them fail to recognise suffering and that’s why they cannot conceive of brain differences associated with mental pain and the severity of the suffering of suicidal individuals and the awfulness of feeling suicidal.
They lack competency. Their incompetent minds are responsible for their delusional beliefs when they look at brain scans of someone who is suffering. Their delusion is that they see brain defects but the competency of humane beings would be to recognise brain differences associated with mental pain, for example brain differences in the serotonin system. They lack the competency to feel empathy and this prevents them from recognising the diversity of suffering and the consequences of suffering. This incompetency founds their delusional beliefs about brain defects associated with mental pain and the pain of suicidal individuals. They have destroyed any and all hope of becoming humane to suicidal individuals because of their hallucinations that are why they seeing brain defects not brain differences.
It’s part of the disease that’s responsible for why brutal doctors don’t recognise that they are sick and mentally ill and that’s why they cannot recognise brain differences in brain scans of suicidal individuals. They are too sick to recognise that psychiatry is the most evil medical profession ever created. Their delusion makes them think that they are humane doctors but they are just brutal tyrants who care more about their power than they have ever cared about the progress towards becoming humane to suicidal individuals and other victims of unbearable mental pain.
The existence of psychiatry has done more harm than good. It’s clearly a dangerous medical profession who prevents the creation of empathy for suicidal individuals because without empathy then more suffer unbearably and then they kill themselves. The prevention of this harm is empathy and really basic compassion. But these sick doctors don’t care about the consequences of their choices and their delusional beliefs. They lack the competency to recognise the consequences of their incompetency. They chose to care about their power but this choice has destroyed the progress towards becoming humane to suicidal individuals and other victims of mental pain. They put their power above the progress of compassion. They have done far more harm than good but they lack the competency to recognise the consequences of their choices and delusional beliefs.
Do you see how easy it is to turn anything into a mental illness?
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So wonderful to read all these comments. I lived most of my life without any understanding of psychiatry and the vulnerable humans being maltreated by the medical system in BC. My journey follows my son, who first experienced psychosis in 2021. I have, with my son, witnessed the callous and aggressive “treatment” vulnerable humans are subjected to. You either survive, learn and connect with the thoughtful humans here and gain a community of understanding and meaning, or you get pulled down into the hole of ignorance and fear that is the dominant psychiatric model. There are many exceptions (great individuals who are psychiatrists) but the dominant psychiatric model is built of a eugenics foundation.
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I’m amazed people forget the eugenics ideology when talking about biologically determined differences in behaviours emotions etc. It hasn’t really changed- now stigma is blamed on public ignorance, not the industry actually churning out the mythology it’s based on. With authoritarianism increasing globally it’s a scary time to be branded with a made-up label based on unfalsifiable theories of inherent biological differences.
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Blather all you want about your stupid “authoritarianism”…. Are you at least a little angry now? Good. Now, please use the energy to give yourself a deep-dive, rabbit hole level education on TRANSHUMANISM & TECHNOCRACY…..which is “authoritarianism” on steroids AND crack AND meth….
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What’s with the rage? Techno-authoritarianism is the same thing.
At least try to make a distinction between who or what to be enraged at.
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IDK “what’s with the “rage””…..WHY are you so angry?…..
Technocrats & transhumanists are BOTH “who” & “what”…..there’s no “distinction”…..
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What is needed here is less coercion and more compassion.
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Bruce. A fundamental redefinition of compassion is necessary.
Freya. What began without good it never ends. What began without compassion it never ends. The evils of the past continue into the future because of the existence of psychiatry. I do not see a better future when psychiatry exists. The biopsychosocial model is the antithesis of psychiatry and psychiatry’s heartless lack of empathy. The empathy that would stop the monsters from doing what they are doing to me is prevented from existence because of the existence of psychiatry. The biomedical model is founded upon complete lack of empathy and then its existence has prevented the creation of empathy. This does more harm than good but no one recognises the harms until they face thousands of days of feeling suicidal and being made to feel suicidal.
Bill. I’ve tried to put my emotions into my work but the true crimes are the things that monsters are blind to. Technology is a puppet to its masters but the masters are monsters born evil and that’s always the problem. Those who see a sense of care that ignores pain and want to be part of it have the minds of monsters. This is what psychiatrists want and they get everything that they want. They get a choice and the proof of the truth about human nature is endless. Eugenics are the inevitable consequence of genetic screening and embryonic implantation technology and the existence of psychiatry. Recognising diversity and recognising equality is the defence against this outcome. (The defence is of those who have learning disabilities is a very difficult and important thing to do. They have no voice even in the anti-psychiatry movement.)
(The evils of ignoring pain continue into the present and future because of the existence of psychiatry. Psychiatry’s biomedical model of mental illness as the cause of pain should never have existed but the innate evil, brutal, inhumane and monstrous nature of human nature ignores the pain of suicidal individuals and other victims of psychiatry. This has done more harm than good. There is no better future if this continues. The competency to have empathy and understanding for the suicidal mind is priceless and it far outweighs the value of the existence of psychiatry and the totality of the compassion created by the existence of psychiatry. More suffering exists and more preventable pain is not prevented because brutal doctors cannot recognise the difference between brain differences and brain defects. How can anyone be happy with this effect? The proof of the truth about human nature answers this question.)
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Arj, I think I’ve said I completely agree with you – psychiatry is causing untold harm for no purpose. I am fully in support of its complete abolition and replacement from a ground-up shared understanding of what exactly we think psychiatry is “treating” (nothing- is my answer) and what we think actual “care” and health really means for whole people with bodies and minds and needs and rights.
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The human rights movement see me as a thing to them, as something to them not someone like them. They have ruined the purpose of human rights in the same way that the most evil medical profession has destroyed any and all hope of becoming humane to suicidal individuals. They are worthless. They cannot recognise the sense of care based on prejudice
Clearly they will never have compassion for something like me. I am a thing to them. Someone like you deserves their pain to be recognised but I am a thing to them and that’s why they believe in ignoring my pain in their self interests.
Let me offer you some things to think about that are about.
A message about equality. It makes lives better. This is the opposite of the effect of the existence of psychiatry. The belief in equality will keep on making lives better.
https://measuringemploymentequality.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/my-mp/
A message about the education curriculum. I talk a little bit about the biopsychosocial model.
https://thebetterfuturesooner.wordpress.com/2024/12/08/look-towards-to-the-future-not-by-seeing-things-that-are-difficult-to-achieve-but-by-seeing-things-that-takes-time-to-achieve-truth-is-a-goal-in-itself/
(These things are not written in a normal way but this is the same as van Gogh painting in a different way to the normal way of painting.)
There are so many other choices about making lives better, the better future and the progress of compassion other than the choices of the most evil medical profession ever created.
There’s a modicum of compassion in these two messages but it’s up to psychiatrists to allow compassion – that’s their power to ruin the present and future in the same way that the existence of psychiatry succeeds in destroying lives like mine. Their competency is to serve their self interests and needs for power. The same competency is to destroy progress and prevent compassion.
(Did prejudice prevent the recognition and understanding of why homosexuals are homosexual? Prejudice defined the reason to assume that homosexuals are homosexual because of brain defects. Is there more prejudice that defines a sense of care? Is their own prejudice something that psychiatrists cannot recognise on their own? Psychiatry is the enemy of the rainbow of diversity as well as the enemy of suicidal individuals. Does prejudice stop you from understanding why suicidal individuals feel suicidal and want to die?)
(You ever face the pain of knowing that they have other choices but the most evil medical profession ever created is founded upon ignoring pain? Do you face the pain of seeing them making choices about obvious brutality that are supported by the most evil medical profession ever created? They have other choices but the most evil medical profession ever created exists and that’s why they don’t want to make other choices? Who decided that it’s in everyone’s self interests to ignore the pain of suicidal individuals? The most evil medical profession ever created doesn’t even recognise that they have created a sense of care based on ignoring pain – this makes monsters happy./
(I believe in science but I see science in the wrong hands when I see the power of psychiatry. You see the science of neuro sexism as evil. The evils of the past are easy to recognise but do you see the evil today?)
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Psychiatry is not “science in the wrong hands.” It’s marketing using pretend or meaningless “science” as a cover. When REAL science comes along and questions the fundamental assumptions of psychiatry, the REAL scientists are attacked. I don’t want anyone laboring under the delusion that psychiatry has anything whatsoever to do with science. It is the opposite of science, in reality.
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Say the word, Steve! Psychiatry is PSEUDOSCIENCE!….lol, but seriously….
….i’d go so far as to say that it’s a FRAUDULENT pseudoscience….as I have written here at MiA, many times over the years….right, Steve?….
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Agreed. As scientific as Santa and his flying sleigh.
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Steve, 100%
It’s a mythology. It’s so weird that a lot of psychiatrists actually believe it which makes it a belief system and a cult as well as Laura Delano said!
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Arj, I think that’s why there is no point in asking for change from a specialty which is simply not designed for or founded in premises or principles of care, health or human needs.
As you say – there are other choices, as long as psychiatry controls the narrative of human nature and human suffering, those choices are limited.
If psychiatry claims to be a science, then it needs to prove that the science is valid. If psychiatry claims to be a health service then it needs to prove it’s services actually meet people’s needs.
I don’t see psychiatry as capable of doing any of these things effectively – has in fact totally failed to fulfill either of these functions.
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Absolutely. The validity of scientific hypotheses is not proved or disproved by a committee vote, in contrast to the procedure adopted by the panels of “experts” who arbitrarily decided on the existence of the numerous mental disorders listed in the DSM.
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Its not an opposite way around. The germans want to dark down second world war subconscious issues with liquid stuff. (In that case what are mad in America doing in rewriting and explaining space.
I also written a book. Thinner of it as this stuff where laboration you see babysaquariums on tv and that mind inside analyze it black and white images from that standby survelliance time in delusion you scream out of hell and you keep quiet about psychology in your apartment since apartment is aquarium you get deluded thruth might come out so then they lock u up and haldol is for that. This i experimented with.. that mind is snuff and delusions look in a certain way grey red even when it flow thick im a model hiteits hard to see whats inside out or if its pedophiles motoring stove next / yo Amoeba recorded many records write poetik stuff absolute deluxe rapide cordless
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Notably for me: on mellaril I had eventually a complete heart block with pacemaker insertion, on lithium I developed grade3A kidney disease (resolved on its own, however), and on Cloxapine I developed severe ileus and grave difficulties learning new material as well as losing my internal identity-lost ability to write poetry, not to mention huge weight gain. I’m now able to carry on with my work, on mini doses because I’m elderly… and I am the same weight as in high school.
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They lie cheat and steal for their own gain and cliiam you are insane.
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The medical profession doesn’t care about how much harm it does. It doesn’t care about unbearable consequences. All it cares about and succeeds in caring about is its power and it doesn’t care about how much harm its power has already done.
It has destroyed more compassion than it has created humane compassion.
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Do you learn from history? Do you learn from the history of religion?
Moses fought against the tyranny of the Pharaohs. He fought against the evil that he recognised but few others recognised.
He spoke truth to power. He spoke on behalf of the oppressed. He said to the pharohs “let my people go”. A message of a Jewish libertarian.
The evil changes but it never ends.
The things that happen you are nothing like happens to me. I face a lot of preventable evil, cruelty, brutality and abuse. You do not understand how this affects me?
This is always the problem for me as long as I live. If you face 1% of all of preventable evil, cruelty, brutality and abuse that I face then you will not treat me how you treat me. You do not face it therefore you do not understand about how this is unbearable.
This is why I face a lot of preventable cruelty, brutality and abuse. Will you be part of this because it doesn’t happen to you? The good in you is understanding the things that you want to be prevented and stopped from happening without you having to face it yourself.
My life is destroyed by those who protect their evil. They want their evil to continue and they will do anything to protect their evil. They make certain that they do evil and they make certain that no one sees the evil.
If you face the evil then you recognise the evil. If you face this then you refuse it. If you see the evil then you will not be part of the inhumane treatment that I face.
Now the pharoahs are the medical profession. The evil that Moses fought against has changed but the evil is endless.
The tyrants are now doctors. The enemy of the better future is now the medical profession. This is the value of the existence of psychiatry.
(Learn from history about human evil then learn the truth about human nature today. Everyone born evil will spend lots of money to prove that they are evil, but they only recognise the truth when they are taught to see it. The tyrants will destroy compassion without caring about consequences. They will destroy the creation of compassion because destroying rebellion makes them happy. The lessons from history are about the truth about the things that are happening today. Moses and many more rebel and without rebellion then nothing would meaningfully change. The tyrants cannot learn from history for them to recognise their own evil today.)
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