Psychiatry Criticism Politics: When the Enemy of Your Enemy Is Not Your Friend

Many people from very different groups do not like establishment psychiatry. Some of them are my friends, however, some of them belong to authoritarian groups that I dislike as much as I dislike establishment psychiatry.

Who are enemies of establishment psychiatry that are not my friends? What kind of dealings—if any—does it make sense to have with them? What has been my personal experience?

The Authoritarian Enemy of an Authoritarian Enemy Is Not My Friend

Throughout history, authoritarian individuals and tyrannical institutions have opposed other authoritarian individuals and tyrannical institutions, sometimes defeating them, and then becoming as or even more harmful than what has been deposed. Ask the revolutionary Thomas Paine, a fierce opponent of monarchy and a proponent of democracy, how good a deal it was for him when Robespierre and the Reign of Terror replaced the French monarchy and threw Paine in prison with only luck saving him from the guillotine. Ask libertarian-socialist/anarchist Emma Goldman, deported by the U.S. government to Russia for speaking out against World War I and the draft, how good a deal it was for her when the anarchist-hating Bolsheviks defeated the Czar, and then how good of a deal it was when the mass-murderer Stalin seized power. Ask Tecumseh and Native Americans to this day how good of a deal it was for them when the British Crown was defeated by its rebellious colonies that then stole even more Native land.

I dislike establishment psychiatry because I judge it to be an illegitimate authority— not only scientifically so but also morally and politically. I dislike it for the damage it does by its bigoted pathologizing of human differences. I dislike it for its unscientific labeling of certain behaviors as symptoms of illnesses rather than recognizing these actions as normal human reactions. I dislike it for classifying human reactions that create tension—especially for authorities—as defective in some biological way, and for then exploiting this manufactured defectiveness by prescribing drugs and other remedies that routinely have serious adverse effects; and I dislike it for its financial partnering with drug companies. Politically, I dislike establishment psychiatry because the normal human reactions that it pathologizes are often the result of individuals feeling alienated from their surroundings, and its pathologizing of these reactions maintains a dehumanizing society—one that alienates us from our humanity and from one another.

There are, however, other people who dislike establishment psychiatry for very different reasons than I dislike it. They dislike psychiatry because it is a competitor to their authoritarian ideology and institutions. Such people would like to abolish psychiatry and replace it with their idea of what human differences they deem inferior and what human reactions they deem as defective; and they would like to replace psychiatric treatments with their own coercive remedies.

When I first began my psychology schooling, behaviorist psychologists such as B.F. Skinner with their reinforcements, punishments, reward schedules, and other manipulations were an authoritarian rival of establishment psychiatry. Many authoritarian institutions in society—for example, standard schools and prisons—that value the coercive function of establishment psychiatry also see value in the coercive craft of behaviorists. Currently, there is no real conflict or competition between establishment psychiatry and establishment psychology; the two have forged a mutually beneficial truce, with both institutions helping each other make money and gain prestige, and with neither disparaging the “treatments” of the other.

There remain, however, competitor powerful authoritarian religious institutions and authoritarian political groups that oppose establishment psychiatry. While different authoritarian groups may have very different dogma and authorities, all authoritarian groups see hierarchy and coercion as natural and necessary. All authoritarians abhor the tension created by human differences—disagreeing only in which human differences are most tension-producing. And all authoritarian subordinates will give power to authorities that they believe will erase those differences and eliminate tension. An authoritarian society and authoritarian individuals will reward not just psychiatry but any institution that promises to reduce this tension.

The current era is one in which U.S. society has become increasingly authoritarian, with an increasing number of people wanting to control and erase people who are different from them. Authoritarian eras are fueled by heightened fear, including financial fears and other perceived threats that create insecurity. Authoritarians attempt to exploit that fear by scapegoating individuals and groups who are different from the group they are appealing to. Rival authoritarian groups focus on different human differences, have different scapegoats, and seek the erasure of different types of people.

What Enemy of Psychiatry Today Poses the Greatest Threat to It?

In the current authoritarian era, establishment psychiatry’s major existential anxiety is not—as it was in the more anti-authoritarian 1960s and early 1970s—that it will be abolished in favor of anti-authoritarians, mutual aid, love, and non-coercive ways that humans help other suffering humans. Rather, establishment psychiatry’s major existential threat is that it will be replaced by a competitor authoritarian institution.

While authoritarian establishment psychiatry is certainly annoyed by anti-authoritarian critical thinkers, such as those in the Mad in America orbit, for challenging its authority and that of its Big Pharma profiteering ally, establishment psychiatry recognizes that such anti-authoritarian critics lack significant financial or political power to replace it. Thus, establishment psychiatry most fears competitor authoritarian institutions that do have significant financial and political power.

Through the 1970s, in a more anti-authoritarian era, the critically-thinking anti-authoritarian left did pose a significant threat to establishment psychiatry. There were prominent anti-authoritarian critics with best-selling books, including democratic-socialist Erich Fromm who said, “Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man. The specialists in this field tell you what the ‘normal’ person is, and, correspondingly, what is wrong with you; they devise the methods to help you adjust, be happy, be normal.”

In the early 1970s, the anti-authoritarian left was so significant in U.S. society that psychiatrist Loren Mosher could become the chief of the Center for Schizophrenia Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and launch an anti-authoritarian approach for people diagnosed with schizophrenia called Soteria. The Soteria staff was comprised of non-professionals who, Mosher reported, were “selected and trained to relate to and understand madness without preconceptions, labels, categories, judgments of the need ‘to do’ anything to change, control, suppress or invalidate the experience of psychosis.” The two-year follow-up results showed that Soteria participants had superior outcomes (including independent living status) as compared to a control group who had received standard psychiatric treatment. Soteria results, produced by a non-professional staff and by significantly limiting psychiatric drugs, embarrassed establishment psychiatry. However, by 1980, U.S. society had become increasingly authoritarian, and Mosher was fired from his position and funds were cut off from Soteria.

Beginning in the 1980s, establishment psychiatry, seeking to retain its power, began to heavily ally with drug companies who profit from its treatments. Another hugely important ally for establishment psychiatry is the faux-left mainstream media which accepts establishment psychiatry’s dogma and also profits from Big Pharma advertising. An important member of the faux-left mainstream media (though not the only member) is the New York Times (see my CounterPunch articles that debunk New York Times coverage of Inner Compass Initiative in 2025; STAR*D in 2024; and its antidepressant claims in 2022). This faux-left is in no way the same as the anti-authoritarian left that has long been a critic of establishment psychiatry.

After the anti-authoritarian left lost its prominence within the general public, effectively marginalized by the ruling class and its mainstream media, the most prominent critic of psychiatry for much of the general public—owing to the mainstream media—became the Church of Scientology. This was a huge political win for establishment psychiatry. “Thanks to Scientology,” Robert Whitaker concluded in Anatomy of an Epidemic (2010), “the powers that be in psychiatry had the perfect storytelling foil, for they could now publicly dismiss criticism of the medical model and psychiatric drugs with a wave of the hand, deriding it as nonsense that arose from people who were members of a deeply unpopular cult, rather than criticism that arose from their own research.”

Establishment psychiatry’s major tactic to discredit all of its critics was to falsely associate them with Scientology. Attempting to counter this in 2008, I published an article in the Huffington Post (now called the HuffPost) titled “Thinking Critically About Scientology, Psychiatry, and Their Feud” in which I describe the similarities between establishment psychiatry and Scientology. True then and now, the teachings of Scientology’s creator (L. Ron Hubbard) and the teachings of the American Psychiatric Association (including its DSM diagnostic manual) are mere jargon and dogma that have nothing to do with science. Both Scientology and psychiatry embrace techno-babble that poses as scientific fact. In Scientology’s “auditing,” the claim is that its Electropsychometer (E-Meter) can assess the reactive mind of the preclear by passing a small amount of voltage through a pair of tin-plated tubes that look like empty soup cans which are wired to the E-Meter and held by the preclear. Psychiatry is no more scientific, as its biological theories of mental illness are repeatedly rejected in scientific analyses, after which psychiatry replaces them with other unscientific bio-babble theories. The authoritarian nature of both Scientology and establishment psychiatry is readily apparent in how harshly they both deal with ex-insiders who come to reject them.

The association of criticism of establishment psychiatry with Scientology by the mainstream media has continued. This is exemplified by the faux-left Rolling Stone’s 2022 hatchet job (see my summary) of establishment psychiatry critic Joanna Moncrieff following her widely publicized systematic review of the research that debunked the serotonin imbalance theory of depression. Disregarding the fact that Moncrieff has nothing to do with Scientology, Rolling Stone stated: “Moncrieff’s work is frequently promoted by an organization called Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which touts itself as a ‘mental health industry watchdog’ and was established by the Church of Scientology, which is virulently opposed to psychiatry and medical interventions for mental illness.”

Today, establishment psychiatry’s most powerful enemy is not Scientology but the current right-wing coalition that has gained power in the United States (and several other nations in the world). Thus, the Rolling Stone hatchet job of Moncrieff was titled “Who Is the Psychiatrist Behind the Antidepressant Study Taking Over Right-Wing Media? In the article, Rolling Stone specifically includes the prominent right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson, who has become a highly visible critic of psychiatry. Rolling Stone knew full well that Carlson has long been an inflammatory figure for both faux-left Rolling Stone readers and the anti-authoritarian left, with Jon Stewart famously calling Carlson a “dick” on a show co-hosted by Carlson in 2004. Since 2004, Carlson has moved away from his pro-war neoconservative views to the “alt-right” camp, and the Guardian reported in 2018: “A growing number of companies have said they will stop advertising on Tucker Carlson Tonight or are re-evaluating their ad buys after a segment last week in which he said immigrants make America ‘poorer and dirtier’. . . . Carlson railed against the idea of diversity, questioning how it could be seen as a positive.”

The political right is filled with many different groups, and not all of them are enemies of establishment psychiatry. However, the right-wing coalition that is currently in power is an enemy of psychiatry. The right-wing coalition in power today includes opponents to gun control, the alt-right, and the religious right.

Opponents to gun control, including the gun industry, are well aware that the U.S. general public have gotten increasingly enraged by mass shootings. So gun control opponents are looking for anything that they can blame for increasing mass shootings other than guns and bullets, and the fact that psychiatric drugs can increase the possibility of violence is a great distraction from the larger reality of how a lack of any meaningful gun control is a far greater cause of this mayhem.

The alt-right, in contrast to its right-wing neoconservative adversary, claims to oppose free trade and “never-ending wars” (and so alt-right leaders such as Carlson and Steve Bannon opposed Trump’s bombing Iran). The alt-right claims to be a fierce proponent of American nationalism, while at the same time admiring nationalist authoritarian dictators from other nations, especially if they are white (such as Putin in Russia and Orban in Hungary). And a major part of the alt-right agenda includes mass deportations, with some in this alt-right camp fear-mongering a “great replacement theory” in which nonwhite people replace white people.

Why would Rolling Stone make sure to include Scientology and Tucker Carlson in an article about Joanna Moncrieff even though she has made it clear repeatedly that she is no Scientologist, no right winger, and no fan of Carlson? The answer is obvious: an attempt to marginalize her criticism of establishment psychiatry by associating it with institutions and an individual that most Rolling Stone readers are repulsed by.

Another hugely important component of the current right-wing coalition in power is the religious right, many of whom are also opponents of establishment psychiatry. One example is John MacArthur, whose name and opposition to psychiatry became known to me only through strange circumstances (that I will later discuss). MacArthur is a pastor, host of a national Christian radio and television program, author and editor of more than 150 books, with his MacArthur Study Bible selling more than one million copies, and he has been acknowledged by Christianity Today as one of the “top 25 most influential preachers.” MacArthur is not simply a critic of psychiatry but a critic of same-sex marriage, the ordination of women, the Roman Catholic Church, and the social justice movement. He has asserted “no one is gay” as “God didn’t hardwire anybody” to be gay any more than he hardwires individuals to be adulterers or bank robbers, comparing the assertion that sexual orientation is a born trait to a hypothetical bank robber’s protestation, stating, “That’s like saying, ‘You know, I keep robbing banks, but I’m a robber. I’m a bank robber. What am I gonna do? I’m a bank robber.’ That is not an excuse for what you do.”

In the 1970s, the anti-authoritarian left, led by gay activists, defeated the illness bigotry against homosexuality promulgated by the authoritarian American Psychiatric Association; this defeat initiated the process of removing homosexuality from the APA’s DSM. However, today, the authoritarian religious right attempts to restore a sin bigotry status to homosexuality.

The current right-wing coalition in power knows full well the great animosity that many Americans have for both psychiatry and its Big Pharma partner, and they are always seeking to enlarge their coalition to increase their power. The billionaires who fund this coalition care mostly about winning elections so they can have the power to eliminate taxes for themselves, eliminate environmental and other regulations which cost them money, and reap government contracts.

Dealings—If Any—With Enemies of Psychiatry Who Are Not Friends?

When psychiatry critics enter the public discourse, including media interviews, they may well discover that they have entered a minefield. While the goal is to get the word out to the general public about psychiatry’s lack of science in its DSM and chemical imbalance theories of mental illness, the ineffectiveness and adverse effects of its bio-chemical-electrical treatments, and its other false claims, it is difficult not make honest mistakes in decision making as to how to navigate this media terrain.

Much of the mainstream media are faux-left psychiatry apologists who will ignore psychiatry critics or do hatchet jobs on them. This compels some psychiatry critics, even those who have previously self-identified as “liberal,” into the welcoming arms of the right-wing media. My experience is that much of the right-wing media care only about having controversial guests to drive up their ratings, but some also aim to exploit psychiatry critics for their own political agenda. In any case, those right-wing podcasters and broadcasters with large followings can be quite charming and “love-bombing”—and more than one psychiatry critic has been seduced into joining with them not simply in psychiatry criticism but in other ways they come to regret.

Historically, some of the most astute critics of establishment psychiatry have not had that same astute thinking when it comes to the minefield of public discourse. One of the most brilliant critical thinkers when it comes to establishment psychiatry was Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness (1961), but his political decisions are a cautionary tale.

In 1969, Szasz and the Church of Scientology co-founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) to oppose involuntary psychiatric treatments, and Szasz served on CCHR’s Board of Advisors as Founding Commissioner. Szasz made clear that “I don’t believe in Scientology. . . . I no more believe in their religion or their beliefs than I believe in the beliefs of any other religion.” Szasz’s libertarian political judgment for his involvement with CCHR was that it was the only organization that had money and access to lawyers and was, he recounted, “trying to free mental patients who were incarcerated in mental hospitals with whom there was nothing wrong, who had committed no crimes, who wanted to get out of the hospital. And that to me was a very worthwhile cause.”

Szasz’s thinking neglected the political consequences of his association with a pseudoscientific and secretive institution with a reputation for financially exploiting members and retaliating against former members who speak out against it. Establishment psychiatry and its allies used Szasz’s association with Scientology to not only discredit Szasz, but because he was the most well-known critic of psychiatry, to also discredit all criticism of psychiatry. A more politically astute thinker would have recognized that while Scientology had financially backed a few winning anti-coercion skirmishes, its presence as the most visible opponent of psychiatry was a great political benefit to establishment psychiatry.

To be clear, all of us—including myself—who have written extensively about establishment psychiatry and have engaged in public discourse are vulnerable to errors in judgment that include naivety around the political agenda of interviewers, not predicting the embarrassing career direction of an interviewer, and simply being involuntarily used.

What do I mean by “involuntarily used”? This is how I discovered the religious-right opponent of psychiatry John MacArthur. In the spring of 2024, my publisher AK Press and I noticed a huge bump in sales for my 2022 book A Profession Without Reason, which employed the philosopher Spinoza as a lens and foil to critique psychiatry We discovered that the Christian Post had run stories in which MacArthur positively referenced A Profession Without Reason along with Szasz’s The Myth of Mental Illness; and MacArthur’s psychiatry criticism created a buzz in other evangelical Christian sites on the Internet.

MacArthur talked about my book’s chapter questioning whether the so-called “noble lies” of psychiatry (including its falsehoods about the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness and the scientific validity of its diagnoses) were in fact noble. However, he hypocritically neglected the chapter on “Two Bibles” about how Spinoza’s critique of the Bible as not being the literal word of God parallels the critique of psychiatry’s DSM diagnostic bible not being a scientific truth. Spinoza had challenged the idea of the Bible being the literal word of God because he knew that this idea provided clergy interpreters of the Bible with the power to subvert free speech and democracy; and my point was that psychiatry’s falsehood of its DSM bible as the word of science gives its psychiatrist interpreters power to control and damage its patients and society. This parallel was ignored by MacArthur, who believes the Bible is the literal word of God; and MacArthur who also conveniently ignored the reality that Thomas Szasz, while routinely calling psychiatry a religion also made clear that he didn’t believe in any religion, including Christianity.

I have found that one of the most difficult areas to navigate is discerning between self-identified libertarians who oppose all coercion including that of psychiatry, versus those self-identified libertarians who oppose psychiatric coercions but hypocritically support other coercions.

Following the 2008-2009 bank bailouts by both Republican and Democrat administrations, and both parties’ support of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, there were a variety of movements that rose up to oppose these Republican-Democrat policies, with some leftists calling themselves libertarian-socialists or anarchists and joining the Occupy movement, while those on the right calling themselves libertarians or anarcho-capitalists and joining the Tea Party movement.  In Truthout in 2011, I wrote about how Ralph Nader, the former Green Party presidential candidate and anti-corporatist, and Ron Paul, former Libertarian Party presidential candidate, had discussed forming a coalition on those issues they agreed on, quoting Nader saying, “To the extent that they are genuine libertarian conservatives and not corporatists—corporatists believe in corporate government—they are great allies with many liberals and progressives to challenge the bloated, wasteful military budget, to challenge undeclared wars overseas, to challenge hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, to challenge the invasiveness of our civil liberties and civil rights by the notorious PATRIOT Act, to challenge the sovereignty-shredding, job-destroying NAFTA and World Trade Organization Agreements. . .” Nader knew that there were differences between himself and Paul on many issues, so this was not about forming a political party but a coalition on the issues in agreement.

Nader talked to libertarian media about those issues, and I have talked to them about establishment psychiatry. With some of the libertarian media, I could have respectful dialogue on not only areas of agreement but on areas of disagreement (such as how anarcho-capitalism was not possible because of the essential coercive nature of capitalism creating wage slavery and debt slavery). Some of these podcasters I have spoken with are no embarrassments and I have continued to speak with, but not so with others.

Specifically, in 2009, before few on the left knew much about Alex Jones, I was invited by his producer to be on his show. What I could find out about Jones was that he was a Ron Paul supporter and that he promoted all types of conspiracy theories, some of which seemed whacko but others, such as the conspiracy between establishment psychiatry and Big Pharma, were not whacko at all. So, I agreed to talk to Jones, and we talked about psychiatry (though I did feel compelled to tell him that I didn’t understand how Ron Paul could call himself a libertarian but not support a woman’s right for bodily autonomy, which Jones simply ignored).

Little did I know that Alex Jones was soon to become a notorious figure, most infamously for his cruel conspiracy theory about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. After Sandy Hook, I received other invitations from Jones’s producer, but I have ignored them. My dealings with Jones did provide me with humility about how we cannot predict how embarrassing the people we deal with may end up becoming; and it also provided me with an experience to share with people who are ashamed of a past relationship and in need of a “de-shaming” chuckle, which sometimes occurs when I tell them: “You may have had private sex with someone who turned out to be a jerk, but I had a public conversation with Alex Jones!”

After a podcaster or someone in the media makes it clear to me that they are—to use Jon Stewart’s diagnosis of Tucker Carlson—a “dick,” I’m not going to talk to them, as it would be impossible for me to have a respectful dialogue. However, it continues to be difficult to assess beforehand who deserves that diagnosis. For example, I would have, as Joanna Moncrieff did, talked to Rolling Stone reporter EJ Dickson before she then did a hatchet job on Moncrieff; and I may well have talked to New York Times reporter Ellen Barry before she did a hatchet job on Laura Delano, Cooper Davis, and Robert Whitaker (see summary); and only after their hatchet jobs could I assess Dickson and Barry with Jon Stewart’s diagnosis and now ignore them.

Not all is bleak out there. There are some anti-authoritarian critically-thinking podcasters and broadcasters interested in psychiatry criticism and where one can get the word out without fear of stepping on landmines. I believe that it is in the interest of anti-authoritarian critics of establishment psychiatry to help support anti-authoritarian media, so here is a list of some of the podcasters in this group whom I have recently talked with: This is Hell! hosted by Chuck Mertz; Back from the Borderline hosted by Mollie Adler; Radically Genuine hosted by Roger McFillin; Psychology Is hosted by Nick Fortino; Howl in the Wilderness hosted by Brian James; Eternal Strength hosted by Wes Robins; Belly-Flopping into Mysticism hosted by Penni Kolpin; and Radio KUBA hosted by Jonas Ditlevsen.

Finally, I think it is incumbent for critics of establishment psychiatry to recognize how difficult it is to navigate the public discourse terrain, and how all of us are vulnerable to honest mistakes. The dissident mental health professional organization now called the International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry (ISEPP) modeled tolerance for honest mistakes in 2011, as following some dissension because of Thomas Szasz’s past dealings with Scientology, ISEPP ultimately agreed to provide him with a platform to address its 2011 annual conference. Szasz’s past Scientology decisions had been made with the best of intentions but had negative political consequences, and rather than abandoning him, ISEPP took the opportunity to model tolerance and respect for his important contributions.