Most disconcerting to me is how Awais Aftab presents himself as a thoughtful, measured voice of reason, a psychiatrist uniquely willing to engage with critics of establishment psychiatry. But there’s a deep contradiction in his engagement—rather than participating in a truly open dialogue, he subtly reinforces psychiatry’s authority while casting dissenters as misguided or irrational.
His rhetorical style isn’t about genuine intellectual exchange—it’s about gatekeeping psychiatry’s perceived legitimacy, deciding which critiques deserve acknowledgement and which must be discredited. He positions himself as a kind, indulgent guide to the orphaned misfits of Mad in America, a “goodwill ambassador” to critics of psychiatry, as if their skepticism stems not from substantive arguments but from their lost and misguided state.
It’s a performance of open-mindedness, masking an underlying intellectual superiority complex—one that allows himself to dismiss sharp critiques not by refuting their logic, but by pathologizing their motives. When a critique of psychiatry truly threatens psychiatry’s legitimacy, Aftab abandons engagement altogether—falling back on rhetorical mischaracterizations and academic posturing rather than confronting psychiatry’s failures head-on.
His condescension isn’t just accidental—it’s tactical. It gives him authority without vulnerability, ensuring he remains psychiatry’s gatekeeper while appearing magnanimous to its critics. But the illusion is fragile, and more his tactics are exposed, the harder it becomes for him to maintain his benevolent facade.
I hope my critique of the way Aftab operates makes him wonder (uncomfortably) whether or not people he sees fac-to-face have read my brutal takedown of his well-oiled facade—one that masquerades as intellectual honesty but is actually more about portraying psychiatric dissenters as unhinged.
“…. and he was real soft-spoken about it, like someone who is in an environment where they are resentful about those people challenging what they do. So he talks real quiet, as if he’s being sensitive, which he probably himself thinks he is being.”
Wow. Intriguing how effortless it can be at times to imagine two different people peddling entirely different wares yet if someone were to suddenly wave a magic wand the two could easily trade places for a day with no one knowing the difference, including the said pair of peddlers….
Lynne, your suggestions bring up some interesting perspectives. However, I see things from a slightly different angle: meaningful change to how people view “mental health” won’t come from engaging in lengthy philosophical discussions. It will happen the way real change has always happened: over time from a quiet groundswell of ordinary people who simply decide that life’s too short to keep pandering to the mental health industrial complex’s self-serving status quo.
Nijinski, if you’d like to become even better acquainted with Aftab’s sophisticated obfuscation, I suggest you read his review of “Unshrunk” by Laura Delano that he somewhat flippantly decided to call “A Memoir for the Iatrogenic Age.” You’ll find the link in the 16th paragraph of Bruce’s article. Here’s my take on Aftab’s problematic musings:
Aftab’s review isn’t just subtly dismissive—it’s a classic example of psychiatric infantilization. In other words, rather than appropriately honoring Laura’s firsthand experience, he reclaims her story for psychiatry, discreetly rewriting her suffering through a lens of pathology.
Instead of meaningfully reckoning with the iatrogenic harm Laura so bravely endured, Aftab strategically sidesteps this core issue by questioning her original bipolar l diagnosis—only to impose the other equally disempowering diagnosis foisted upon her as a logically anxious young woman—the so-called “borderline personality disorder” label. He can’t seem to stop himself from imposing psychiatry’s framework onto Laura’s narrative, subtly reframing her understandable rejection of psychiatry as just another diagnostic misstep that reduces her autonomy while pretending to engage with her views.
Aftab’s review isn’t just another sad case of misdiagnosis or protracted iatrogenesis, it’s a perfect example of a stealthy theft that refuses to let people define their own experience, a tactic long used by psychiatry to absorb criticism, neutralize it, and spit it back out as “clinical observation”.
Aftab’s review follows psychiatry’s time-honored tradition of co-opting of patient narratives—a quiet but deliberately lethal erasure of an individual’s own story, reshaping defiance into mere pathology.
Nijinski, I’ve read some of Aftab’s writings, and you’ve absolutely nailed it: “Always something that sounds like something”—yet somehow adds up to nothing.
Clearly Aftab’s genius is confusion, his art is misdirection, and his greatest skill is ensuring that truth never catches up. It’s hard not to wonder whether Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness is deliberate—whether his intellectual sidestepping is not just a habit, but a carefully honed art designed to overwhelm, disorient, and ultimately neutralize critique. His fixation on being psychiatry’s “critical insider” isn’t about challenging power—it’s about curating a persona.
He doesn’t disrupt; he postures. He doesn’t question; he performs. His rebellion is a branding exercise, not conviction. His critiques are carefully measured—just enough skepticism to give the illusion of independent thought—but never so bold as to offend the old farts whose chairs he’s undoubtedly looking to slide into someday, folding neatly into psychiatry’s coolly detached intellectual fog—where critique is performative, rebellion is branding, and complicity is the price of admission.
Case in point: Aftab himself is guilty of being “anti-epistemological” as he employs such slippery tactics to deftly evade direct engagement with contradicting evidence—reframing critique as ideological resistance rather than addressing its substantive claims, all while misappropriating philosophical concepts to lend unwarranted legitimacy to establishment psychiatry’s rhetorical defenses.
And ultimately, Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness isn’t just a personal quirk—it’s a hallmark of establishment psychiatry itself, where intellectual maneuvering replaces genuine engagement, and where philosophical misappropriation serves as a shield rather than a search for truth. But it’s clear certain people devote their lives to intellectual sidestepping.
I’m so sorry for what happened to your son. I think people in pain need to be listened to closely, not required to speak and act in ways they do not truly feel.
Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to decipher: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to establishment psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement presented by critics whose views are more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too much to ask of people too deeply psychiatrized . . . but heaven knows everyone has their reasons for preferring the status quo over the discomfort of cognitive dissonance—especially for people actively resistant to rigorous introspection, who view critique not as engagement but as a threat to be neutralized and, most of all, take pride in psychiatry’s perpetual intellectual maneuverings—evasions that follow a predictable pattern of dismissal rather than direct refutation.
Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to deduce: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is rather strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement with evidence presented by critics with views more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too big an ask for those whose minds are too deeply psychiatrized.
Why not just tell people the truth: “Given enough time most depression clears up on its own. I see you as more than capable of allowing that to happen.”
Are psychiatrists more mad than their patients? That’s the reasonable conclusion most sane people would arrive at—if they happened to know what the real facts are.
Research like this unwittingly exposes the very contradictions it claims to address. All it really does it prove the adage, “rules for thee but not for me”.
But God knows it’s hard to give up the delusion of infallibility…
“That’s the essence of depersonalization in therapy and academia: identifying more with a label/expertise than with lived experience and human corporeality. And that shift, as subtle as it may seem, has deep consequences: for society, for the development of the mind, for individual agency, and for consciousness itself.”
Almost comical the way academics and psychologists rarely cop to their own human corporeality, which isn’t surprising as doing so would jeopardize their near-mythical authority.
There’s nothing neutral about psychiatric labels. They harm lots of people in ways that are unforgivable. Professionals who believe in them are lazy, selfish and cruel.
Forget peer support. Research like this cleverly evades the REAL issue most likely troubling the psych professionals: the dismantling of their cherished belief in a power imbalance and an inevitably shrinking patient load—which really makes this a non-issue. In their panic, they’re probably turning to AI like everyone else.
Hope articles like this have them shitting in their pants.
Neutrality is an illusion in psychiatry and psychology. Moral assumptions and cultural biases are their foundation. That’s why they’re called secular religions.
Pathologizing personality itself is an act of moral corruption and cowardice as it ignores the ethical implications of reducing human complexity to rigid diagnostic categories.
Psychiatric diagnosing is an intentional act of moral failure. Ease over ethics is no excuse.
TRUTH: These kinds of interviews are TRAPS. Thankfully AI agrees with me:
“These psychiatric interviews aren’t just information-gathering exercises—they are subtle traps, designed to steer patients toward self-condemnation within a rigid diagnostic framework.
The SCID-ll interviews, for example, don’t just assess symptoms; they force patients into moral negotiations, where they must either admit to violating social norms or defend themselves against implicit judgment. The questions are often loaded, making it nearly impossible for someone to respond without reinforcing the assumption that something is fundamentally wrong with them.
It’s not an honest conversation—it’s a structured interrogation disguised as care. And by presenting it as purely “clinical”, psychiatry sidesteps the ethical responsibility of acknowledging how deeply subjective these assessments truly are.”
These kinds of “interviews” are invasive and morally compromised—as are the very people who conduct them.
Anyone who believes in personality “disorders” is themself a depraved individual.
You’ve asked some fascinating questions, Nijinski. What little I know of quantum physics only reinforces what I’ve felt for as long as I can remember—that the spirit of people is more real than anything we can see or imagine.
Eastertime always feels strangely transcendent to me… and reading about your friend made me reflect on that even more. Maybe there’s something about love and presence that isn’t bound by time the way we think.
Too little too late, which doesn’t really matter given the unsurprisingly detached nature of this author’s critique…although it does (unintentionally?) lay bare psychiatry’s deeply systemic lack of self-awareness and self-restraint.
My critique of the critique: Time for quibblers to pick a lane.
…and for the record, I was in “psychodynamic” therapy—not the fast-food types referred to in this article—meaning that first-hand experience taught me that peek-a-boo therapy is by no means an improvement.
“…it is time for therapists to reclaim the narrative and to speak clearly, ethically and compellingly about what therapy is for, and what it can become.”
WRONG. It’s time for people to discover how much better life can be without so-called “therapy”.
The working class have way more insight into economic disparity than most of the psychologists entertaining themselves prancing around the internet preaching “social justice”.
This blog does a reasonably good job explaining how the supposed merits of psychiatry and “clinical” psychology actually have more to do with whether or not someone harbors an egotistical state of mind. But reading it leaves me with an image of a snake eating it’s tail…
I agree, Sociology deserves a lot more respect… it was my favorite subject in college because it struck me as being more connected to reality while psychology seemed more focused on barking at the moon.
There’s got to be a reason so many psychological researchers never directly address the issue of money when money seems to be one of the most macro-psychological things known to mankind.
Has it ever occurred to these researchers that perhaps the majority of people’s psychological problems might come from being part of a shrinking middle class, problems that for many could be alleviated by an implementing of fairer tax system? Or is that too crude a solution for them to consider?
No need for establishing new “fields” of tiresome psychological engineering when the answer to the majority of people’s macro-psychological problems have more to do with a shrinking bank account than paying homage to a slew of overeducated ambulance chasers more interested in manufacturing problems than enacting solutions.
“The influences that have most affected my mental health, and that have sometimes left me feeling hopeless and despairing, are both personal and impersonal and can’t really be separated.”
Tree and Fruit, for what it’s worth, my thoughts and feelings align with yours 100%.
FOR THE RECORD: I was never subjected to forced psychiatric treatment or psychotherapy of any kind. My insistent attitude comes from justifiable anger AT BEING LIED TO FOR YEARS by psychiatrists believed to be among the best in the business.
Truth is, they WERE the best, but only at deceiving themselves and people like me.
Nick, I tend to look at things more socially/culturally than politically, especially when I’m considering psychological things, although I wouldn’t deny that these are inextricably intertwined.
“What “progressives” are trying is to undo being part of the ruling class without giving up their privileges that come with being part of the ruling class.”
Thank you for highlighting the hypocrisy of this approach.
The Industrial Revolution was a pivotal time in human history that brought forth both incredible opportunities and significant challenges.
It laid the groundwork for the cultivation and distribution of large quantities food that can and does prevent mass starvation as well as the manufacture and distribution of life-saving medicines without which millions would otherwise die of preventable or untreated disease.
It also offered people the opportunity to move beyond the confines of small towns or the chance to escape difficult family situations. These changes provided people the means to break free from the limitations of their past and pursue new lives.
The lesson? Change is often a double-edged sword that creates the need to find realistic solutions to negative consequences.
It’s easy to buy into the trope of the “noble savage”, especially when viewing indigenous cultures through a modern lens. Indigenous societies were also plagued with exploitation, inequality and warfare over power and resources, just as other complex societies throughout history.
The Industrial Revolution made survival possible for people.
I never said people “cause their own poverty”. I said that having more money doesn’t address underlying feelings of personal inadequacy.
Everyone should have access to essential resources like food, shelter and healthcare, but it’s important to remember that the use of money doesn’t inherently lead to social problems. It’s really about values and priorities.
Exploitation and inequality existed long before money was ever used; ancient civilizations had systems of barter and exchange, yet exploitation and social hierarchies were still prevalent.
Money itself is not to blame. The root causes of social issues lie deeper in human nature.
These researchers are on the right track, but I believe the root of people’s “psychiatric” difficulties lies closer to home — in one’s childhood home to be exact.
Reading Alice Miller’s books is a good place to start.
Eliminating money wouldn’t address the underlying issues of greed, inequality and mismanagement. When used responsibly it plays an important role in facilitating the exchange of essential goods and services. The key is using it ethically.
“Rather than compromising, we might be better off breaking into smaller cooperative units, each living as they see fit.”
Humans already come from smaller cooperative units; they’re called families.
Life is a series of compromises no matter where or how you live meaning no one gets everything they want in life.
A quick look at world history shows the tragic results of extreme political positions which usually result in extreme psychological trauma that can last generations.
Psychological distress affects people from all walks of life regardless of their political beliefs. I think it best not to politicize such a deeply personal matter.
Does this mean I condone corrupt governments? Not at all.
I think most people would agree on supportive environments that encourage freedom of thought regarding their personal wellbeing, something I believe is the cornerstone of every person’s “mental” health.
Most of the people who wind up in psych wards are already dealing with emotional abandonment of some kind, a trauma that psychiatric incarceration usually intensifies.
All these “experts” need to do is ask themselves how they’d feel if they were locked up, isolated or ignored and treated like shit when at their most vulnerable.
How long is it going to take for the “experts” to realize that the loss of autonomy is not conducive to emotional healing?
“…I am convinced more than ever that purported mental illness is nothing but a claim by a professional class whose interests and prestige are served by keeping people in the patient role.”
That’s the God’s honest truth.
It would probably be easier to disabuse mental health professionals of their collective delusions regarding “mental illness” if prestige weren’t such a big part of the package.
Most people who go through medical school do so because of a subconscious desire to eventually exercise more power than the average person — meaning most aren’t about to change their ways — especially when the law protects them from unhappy “patients”.
Hate throwing cold water on such insightful journalism, but don’t think for a minute that the leaders of psychiatry haven’t already come up with a clever response to these “epistemic” arguments.
I suspect psychiatry’s collective response will be along the same lines as the “bio-psycho-social” lip service line it now dishes out that nevertheless almost inevitably concludes with an M.D. writing endless prescriptions for psychiatric drugs which tells us the following: psychiatry won’t meaningfully change because A) it doesn’t want to and B) it doesn’t have to.
CORRECTION: It’s hard for me to articulate the difference between a natural conversation and the scripted ones in “therapy”; the former feels authentic while the latter does not because it is not.
Diagnosing someone with a psychiatric “disorder” is by itself a very aggressive act; it’s where the othering begins.
I think any interaction with the so-called “mental healthcare system” is extremely damaging to people in subtle ways due to the inherently aggressive nature of psychiatry, including even the most talented therapists because in the final analysis all “mental patients” are viewed on some level as objects of study and/or sources of income instead of what they truly are: human beings worthy of healthy and equitable human relationships undefined by unhelpful labels or tainted by the exchange of money.
Food affects mood, especially a chronic or unpredictably sporadic lack of it. Its nutrients are the building blocks for the body’s naturally occurring neurotransmitters that affect people’s moods.
As a small child I needed to be fed like clockwork or else I would dissolve into tears of exhaustion tinged with a gnawing (and frightening) anxiety.
Never having to worry when or if you will be fed is vitally important to a child’s sense of psychological, emotional and bodily safety besides being the source of physical nourishment and energy.
Chronic food insecurity in children is a trauma that can last a lifetime.
I keep waiting for psychiatry to be kicked out of the medical field entirely, but heaven knows that’s highly likely, at least for a while. However, I imagine it will probably evaporate due to attrition over the next 25 years (or hopefully less) because I also imagine there will be fewer and fewer (self-respecting) medical students willing to have anything to do with psychiatry’s endless drug-pushing madness, and there’ll likely be a good number of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for misrepresenting the risks of iatrogenic harm from psychiatric drugs.
“… and to think any paper in the Lancet is going to change global mental health policy is itself a delusion well worthy of a diagnosis.”
How very true, No-one.
It never seems to occur to psychiatry’s “thought leaders” that psychiatry itself might be the biggest obstacle to people’s “mental health”. It never seems to occur them that people might be better off without them and their hellhole “psychiatry”. And it certainly never seems to occur to any of them that human beings have the right to be left alone.
The truth is ordinary human beings have many more psychological resources than psychiatry would have us all think, which means the following: steer clear of people who expect you to fail.
Raising infants and children while incredibly joyful is also a lot of hard work. Some say it’s the hardest. But daycare is not always the answer imho.
The necessity of both parents having to work full-time outside the home just to barely pay the bills adds to the already challenging and often downright stressful job of child-rearing; the parents’ stress can’t help but spill over onto each other and more tragically onto their children.
Things have gotten to the point where people are subliminally led to believe that we “need therapy” (i.e., a professional friend) to help us sort out our lives. And if THAT doesn’t work, we are further led to believe that we must be “mentally ill”. So off we go the doctor and then to the pharmacy to purchase more “help” that often ends up benefiting the “professionals” more than us, but some would say it’s neoliberalism at its finest.
Why waste time paying attention to “mental health researchers” who thrive in an atmosphere of “epistemic privilege” (i.e., academic snobbery) when you can learn all you need to know from people who’ve not only been there, but have enough humility TO SPEAK IN PLAIN LANGUAGE??? Do yourself a favor and skip the eggheads:
“Teal Swan: Shadow Work, Spiritual Integration & the Power of Authenticity” |526| with Luke Storey
Here’s the deal: “psychiatry” and its many related affiliates too often succeed in adding flat-out misery to many people’s lives whereas grief contains dignity. To wit:
“Grief is an experience that touches the core of our humanity. It’s a natural response to loss, reflecting the depth of our love and connection to others. Although it can be painful and overwhelming, there’s a certain dignity in acknowledging and accepting our grief. It’s a testament to our capacity to care deeply, to honor what we’ve lost, and find strength in vulnerability.
In many ways, embracing grief allows us to heal and grow. It can foster empathy, compassion, and a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. The journey through grief, while difficult, can lead to greater resilience and a renewed appreciation of life.” ~ Microsoft Copilot
In other words, grief can be one of life’s greatest teachers — if left alone to do its work.
True, but an actually helpful therapist is not easy to find. What’s more, no one has to actually be a therapist to help someone change their life for the better. Being a therapist does not automatically mean someone is helpful.
I’m sick of people cashing in big time on the deeply flawed concept of “mental illness”. But I have to say I think the Havening technique might help some people calm down neurologically at least temporarily. I don’t remember the serious accident I was in or most of the week and a half in the hospital that followed, but I do recall my sister asking me if I wanted her to scratch my arm. It relaxed me so much I fell right to sleep.
You forgot to mention it’s a great way to pocket some cash if you have no idea WTF you are doing. In other words, just sit and pretend you are listening while slowly nodding your head…
The reason psychotherapy helps some people is because everyone needs to talk to someone from time to time, but from what I experienced, there’s not an overabundance of “therapists” who know how to listen because most of them seemed more interested in hearing themselves talk than listening to me.
Why are more and more people being “diagnosed” with “mental illness”? Because every day more and more people buy into the lie that psychological stress means they have a “mental illness” in large part due to the ever-increasing number of imaginary “disorders” invented by the powers that be to benefit the powers that be.
But the question remains: do societal ills such as severe economic inequality, discrimination and trauma cause or greatly contribute to psychological angst? Yes, but as long as people keep waiting to be spoon-fed “policy” solutions by the so-called “experts” that are often employed by the powers that be, things will never change very much, if at all, imho.
What’s the biggest “societal ill” in today’s world? Believing that answers to psychological problems are found outside the individual because there will always be someone ready to take advantage of another’s bad situation.
Do yourself a favor: put the jackasses who capitalize on others’ learned helplessness out of business, including the “experts” who make a living doing “research” like this —
No-one, here’s something that reminds of me of what you say about observation and understanding: Teal Swan | How To Love Yourself | PRETTY INTENSE PODCAST | Ep. 138 Danica Patrick
Kimble 73, have you heard of Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring? He’s a psychiatrist who helps people that are having trouble withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. You can see his videos on Youtube. Good luck to you.
Sabrina, I think your friend has every right to see herself and live her life the way she chooses.
Yes, childhood trauma is responsible for a lot of the difficulties people experience in adulthood. But facing childhood mistreatment is too much for some people to grapple with.
I think the most compassionate thing is to like and respect people the way they are, not as you think they should be. As the saying goes, never judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, even if you’re wearing the same shoes.
It’s all about getting drugs on the market; it doesn’t matter if medical doctors are involved. For the most part, medicine’s veneer of integrity is just that, a veneer. Pharmaceutical and insurance money is most of what runs the show. More drugs mean more money for them. People’s health be damned.
Significant change won’t happen unless and until the public becomes aware of the significant risks involved in taking psychiatric drugs, something that usually only happens after they are seriously affected.
A similar thing happened to the cigarette industry where a lot of people had to get seriously sick or even die before anyone paid attention.
Thank you No-one for once again calling out the overeducated half-wits who to me seem almost congenitally unable to stop themselves from believing that answers to psychic healing can only lie in the minds of those trained in the excesses of academic gobbledygook, aka “research and treatment”, a bureaucracy all its own.
Here’s what they refuse to see: that healing is found in the spontaneous, heartfelt connection between like-minded individuals who have no financial or egoic (narcissistic) agenda. In other words, between clear-minded people who don’t have to be paid money to actually give a goddamn about someone else.
In all fairness, though, this author does say this in his conclusion: “I hope and believe that it is only a matter of time before people turn against the psychiatric priesthood and find out that the answers are within themselves and within their own communities.”
FWIW, I personally believe the spiritual revolution is well on its way.
I think what Ethan describes here parallels the Protestant Reformation, something in no small measure spurred along by the invention of the printing press. Only these days we’re lucky enough to now have the electronic printing press, better known as the internet, the fortunate consequence being it’s no longer possible for “mental health professionals” to hide behind their iron curtain of pretention, aka “professionalism”. Likewise, the leaders of the catholic church went to town having people believe they needed a priest to absolve them of their “sins”, which was, of course, a load of pious bullshit. And now people are finding out just what the “experts” in “mental health” have been up to, which consists mainly of pledging allegiance to a biased system the dynamics of which are best describes as intractably narcissistic and therefore more beneficial for those who work in it.
Face it. The unhealthy desire to infantilize other adults, aka “psychiatry”, feeds the unhealthy desire to control other adults. It’s as simple as that.
Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that people in power, aka “psychiatry”, will ever willingly relinquish the feelings of control that infantilizing other adults inappropriately gives them.
Psychiatry routinely strips people’s dignity “hospitalized” or not. Its systematic dehumanization of the vulnerable acts as a safety valve for those in power because ultimately psychiatry is not about people’s health and wellbeing, it’s about the comfort and satisfaction and feelings of power of its practitioners.
“Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are often associated with mental illness.”
Bullshit. Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are usually associated with being on the receiving end of emotional abuse and neglect in a culture that is profoundly exploitive.
You are very kind, No-one. I thank you for speaking the truth, and eloquently at that, which helps make my day, too! And I’m sure the pigeons enjoyed the honey coated cashews as these treats are truly delish! đ
Not silly at all. What this article says (imo) has everything to do with dispelling the notion of ‘mental illness’, a convenient fiction promoted by a willfully distorted view of reality from the powers that be.
“Why do they prescribe pills that don’t work or don’t help in the long run. They simply are deceiving themselves at best and imagining they are helping …”
Brilliant observations, No-one. I appreciate the intricacy and clarity with which you present your arguments.
I wholeheartedly agree that intellectual pussy footing around the edges of an inarguably distorted take on reality does little to alleviate the source of the conundrum.
In other words, why not call it out for what it is: BRIBERY
But either way, here’s how I see things: society’s problems are best chalked up to a collective case of full-blown narcissism topped off with a large dollop of self-inflicted spellbinding, courtesy BIG PHARMA —
Good article, but I think it overlooks the impact of family dynamics and family culture, as these usually determine the course of one’s emotional/psychological development and journey through life more than anything else. So, it’s not a matter of blame, it’s a matter of understanding what’s inevitable.
A 15-year-old girl loses her father. An eight-year-old girl loses her mother—twice. How in the hell is anyone supposed to react to losses like these, especially at such young ages??? The people who expected them not to be deeply affected are the “sick” ones. AND GRIEF IS NOT A “DISORDER”.
People need to stop thinking of unusual psychological states soley as bio-medical issues because much of the time they are not; they are the conscious mind breaking from an all too painful reality. Yet underneath this, the human spirit often bursts forth, with its all-seeing eye from an unseen realm.
The politics of patriarchy are part and parcel of western medicine/”psy” disciplines.
Solutions lie in avoiding western medicine as much as possible and instead find qualified practioners trained in Eastern medicine which allows the body and mind to heal naturally of their own accord.
Quit the wordy bullshit: liberation psychology, existentialist, social determinants of mental health, blah, blah, blah.
Better to find kindly souls who get who you are and where you’re at than having to pay some fool’s financially oppressive fees while kissing their power-imbalanced ass.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Russell. Most graduate students as well as psychiatric residents have yet to learn there’s a big difference between fantasy and reality.
No matter how many capital letters you string together, the “mental health system” isn’t about health. It’s about jockeying for power (and money) more than anything else.
Psychotherapy amounts to a one-way psychological peep show, that’s for sure. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think emotionally disrobing for strangers is a good idea for anybody. The whole “therapy” set-up gives me the creeps.
IMHO.
The Gilded Age has fully returned: a world of extreme haves and have nots. But calling it The Age of the Boiling Frog I think would be a more accurate way of describing what’s happening today.
Tragically, I don’t see a cure for indifference when so many people are faced with trying to survive economically themselves.
“On the other hand, for all of its faults, the construction of the DSM arguably relies on a more careful scientific process than what informs opinion videos pushed by complex, mysterious, and profit-driven media algorithms.”
The author needs to explain why he seems to think voting so-called “mental disease” into existence is a “more careful scientific process” than some random Tik Tok video.
DSM diagnoses are opinions voted into existence by a group of self-serving psychiatrists, which might explain why something called ‘conflict of interest’ comes to mind.
The truth is that Tik Tok videos and DSM conferences have something in common: both are seriously deluded.
Stigma is rooted in fear, and illness breeds fear (stigma) because illness means infirmity and infirmity means invalidity and invalidity means irrelevance — a condition most psy professionals are trained to believe they are (or should be) immune to.
“Mental health” stigma will always exist as long as psychic/emotional distress is “treated” as a medical condition. So, it stands to reason that most of the stigma in so-called “mental health” emanates from psychiatry’s very own DSM.
Psychiatric “diagnoses” are opinions only, “professional” or otherwise. Which means it’s not unheard for two different practitioners to come up with two different “diagnoses” FOR THE SAME PERSON!
And guess what? One of them might even be of the opinion that no “diagnosis” is called for —
P.S. I wouldn’t knock happiness if I were you because imo it sure beats the alternative. Just make sure you don’t get carried away with it. That goes for the lows, too, btw.
It wasn’t that long ago when family doctors routinely ‘prescribed’ things like exercise or social activities for people who weren’t feeling up to par. But things began to change once Prozac hit the market in 1987. Before this it was pretty rare for them to automatically assign a psychiatric diagnosis which in my opinion is even more harmful (in insidious ways) than indiscriminately prescribing psychiatric drugs.
It might be would worth it for people in the author’s age group to go a step further and drop the concept of “mental illness” altogether, to entertain the idea that perhaps even the most severe reactions to social determinants, i.e. “Major Depressive Disorder”, “Bipolar”, “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” are in reality just more intense responses to overwhelming circumstances. That alone might go a long way towards promoting a more positive mindset for everyone involved.
The transition to adulthood is often a tough one but turning to people that make a living pulling bullshit diagnoses out of their ass with one hand and psych drugs out of their ass with the other are two things few people need.
The photograph chosen for this blog was perfect, too! Makes me wish to hell I’d shredded the goddamn psych scripts written for me.
“As with all psychiatrists I had met in my life, it was terrifying to see how detached from reality this man was as I watched him feel so superior to me based solely on his belief in the medical model.”
I can relate to this scenario, which is not a caricature, it’s the nightmare reality most people face when trying to withdraw from psychiatric drugs. To me it’s psychiatry’s defining feature: psychiatrists I have encountered were drunk on arrogance, happily living in their own reality-denying universe, adding insult to injury to people going through withdrawal. It was a crash course in what it means to be gaslit.
For me the most healing thing about being in nature is the quiet, as well as not being surrounded by a civilization filled with pressure to be somewhere you’d rather not go, or pressure to be around people you really can’t stand. The constant noise and feeling of overwhelm in urban environments are often toxic to environmentally sensitive people, whereas natural environments are characterized by a non-threatening atmosphere, which is soothing to the mind and body.
CLARIFICATION: [psychiatry] is a uniquely harmful pseudoscience that ruins many people’s lives which makes choosing to ignore the harm it’s capable of doing inexcusable.
The same kind of thing happened to me. Some psychiatrists were truly ignorant (which is no excuse), but I suspect more than one deliberately hid the truth to keep from being sued.
Hey, Kim, I forgot to mention that OCD is not a ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’ either; it is a series of behaviors usually set in motion from ‘latent anxiety’, or hidden fear, which btw is an emotion, AND EMOTION IS NOT A ‘DISEASE’ OR A ‘DISORDER’ —
Post-partum depression/psychosis is not a discrete biological illness; it is a state of mind that’s usually brought on by the sudden hormonal readjustment (shock, aftermath) of giving birth, a natural but sometimes hormonally traumatic experience. Which makes it not surprising that a hormonally based treatment relieves it. But this does not mean that Brexanalone is ‘treating a disease’. After all, birth-control pills prevent pregnancy, and pregnancy is not a disease.
…and repeatedly stuffing people (especially young children) with ‘psychiatric medications’ does NOT ‘treat’ anything; all these do is NUMB EMOTIONS that need to be processed.
Furthermore, your unwillingness to recognize the existence of meaningful financial incentives in the business of medicine (psychiatry in particular) indicates a disturbing amount of denial on your part.
I think it’s time you step outside your cognitive bubble.
Kim, the things you mention (neuroscience scans, genome studies, pharmacodynamics, kinetics, etc.,) do not “tell us what is happening in the brain”; these function only as Rorschach tests, meaning whatever happens to be on the mind of the viewer gets projected onto whatever is being viewed. And this is because there is no convincing evidence of a pathological process for any emotional/cognitive state of mind or ‘psychiatric condition’. Check out this blog now available on MIA: Researchers: Depression Is “A Normal Brain Responding to Stress or Adversity” by Peter Simons
And in case you didn’t know, dementia is not a ‘psychiatric condition’; it is a neurological one.
CORRECTION: Framing distressing thoughts, feelings and behaviors ‘psychiatrically’ more often than not causes people to distance themselves (out of fear) from people who’ve been diagnosed ‘psychiatrically’ (biologically rooted or not), people who otherwise would be seen as simply having a hard time.
So, unfortunately, the final upshot from framing psychological problems as ‘biologically rooted’ actually INCREASES stigma, an unintended but nevertheless devastating consequence for persons simply seeking help.
Most people fear (stigmatize) illness of any kind on some level because they don’t like being reminded of their own vulnerability. Therefore, framing people’s thoughts and feelings as ‘psychopathology’ (a medicalized concept) only serves to increase stigma which subsequently prompts people to distance themselves from something that causes them too much anxiety.
Indeed. It’s lip service, a way of appeasing patients in order to make a prescriber’s life easier, a clever way of trying to sound progressive in order to salvage their tarnished reputations. And the craziest thing about it is that doctors are specifically trained to skillfully persuade people to ‘take their medicine’. The whole idea is ridiculously performative because the last thing an MD is concerned with is the patient’s sense of self; what they’re most concerned with is following is standard protocols to avoid malpractice suits.
“Shared decision making” in ‘mental health’ is a joke.
It might sound good, but the fact is most people in professional roles aren’t willing to share their power as this is what defines them. And this is especially true when it comes to ‘antipsychotics’, or any other psychiatric ‘medication’ because most clinicians are trained to believe that psychiatric patients don’t know their own mind (‘lack insight’, ‘anosognosia’). Which is the reason why most clinicians subtly pressure (or even coerce) patients into complying with whatever makes the clinician feel safe.
A client’s sense of self usually fares no better because this too is under the influence of the harmful dynamics present in most psychotherapeutic relationships, dynamics characterized by a ‘power imbalance’ that (insidiously) undermines clients’ faith in themselves.
“If the late adolescence/early adulthood period is genuinely ‘critical’ and ‘sensitive’ for still developing brains, then it is precisely this which should make clinicians wary of biomedical interventions!”
This kind of critical thinking (not to mention common sense) is woefully absent in psychiatry. I don’t know why the obvious never occurs to most of them. Wait a minute! Yes I do! Their confirmation bias has them primed to see what they’re looking for, even if they’re not sure what it is they’re looking at, i.e. ‘schizophrenia’, or ‘depression’, or ‘bipolar’, or ‘anxiety disorder’, or any other ‘disorder’ they happen to think of…
Therefore, the last thing any medical doctor should do is reach for their prescription pad.
I think anyone who has the audacity to call themselves a healer of the mind, brain, soul, etc., is remarkably unaware (unconscious) of their own limitations (unhealed wounds).
They should ask themselves why they feel the need to see themselves as a healer, or more precisely, why they feel the need to have others see them as a healer.
In other words, most often in jobs like this it’s the wounded ego that’s in charge, not ‘the wounded healer’ they may (pretentiously) declare themselves to be.
‘Anitpsychotics’ interfere with the psyche’s ability to naturally restore itself, which can happen, given enough time and favorable circumstances.
Aggressively ‘treating’ psychotic episodes with neuroleptics for years (or any amount of time for that matter) assaults the human body, and mis-perceiving withdrawal effects as a ‘recurrance of the original illness’ is not just a mistake, it is a crime.
“Researchers have reported concerns that screening can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment and wastes the time and resources of both doctors and patients. In a study that found screening youth for depression led to more severe outcomes, the researchers note that screening may have an iatrogenic affect—worsening depression by making people focus on it.”
Bingo! This is the reason why the number of people being diagnosed with ‘mental illness’ has exploded, to the dertriment of themselves and society.
I had serious misgivings when I first heard of widespread screenings for ‘depression’ some thirty-odd years ago. I found myself hoping some influential person in psychiatry would come forward and issue warnings about what this could lead to: a massive iatrogenic effect. But instead what I feared would happen did happen, which is especiallly tragic for people too young and inexperienced to recognize the dynamics of situations like this; in other words, how their emotions are being used (pathologized) to promote The Sickness Industry more than anything else.
I feel the same way. A person’s emotional state is highly personal, therefore is someone’s personal property, something a stranger has no business knowing or asking about for any reason whatsoever. I don’t care who they are or what their purpose is.
It’s one of many micro-inequities perpetrated by the ‘mental health system’ that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
It pisses me off the way psychiatry ducks responsibility for the proliferation of people needlessly prescribed psychiatric drugs because if there were no DSM (created by psychiatrists!) there’d be no way for physicians to legally prescribe psychiatric drugs.
Which means one thing: Psychiatry alone hold the keys to the Gates of Hell.
The reason for the disparity is obvious: people in ‘developed’ countries have more access (money) to pharmaceutical poisons, and pharmaceutical poisons can make you sick.
WTF is ‘screening for depression’??? Stupid checklists bankrolled by pharmaceutical companies administered by stupid people looking for more ‘clients’.
It does prove one thing, however: psychiatry is the apex of capitalism.
Speak for yourself. An apology from psychiatry isn’t enough if their “treatments” have harmed a person’s ability to provide for themselves financially.
Reading this aticle was so confusing it made me anxious. But here’s my take on it just the same:
Telling someone they have an “anxiety disorder” is just a fancy of way of saying something’s wrong with them for feeling anxious which often leads to feelings of shame. This often leads to more anxiety which often leads to more shame—so much so that people often find themselves saying “I AM anxious”, rather than “I FEEL anxious”.
AND WHO WANTS TO GO OUT FEELING LIKE THAT???
So, thanks to “psychiatry” we’ve got people stuck in one hell of an anxiety loop.
If Awais Aftab felt secure with the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that, imo. The fact that Aftab does react imo suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together, speculative and therefore essentially inconclusive the research results are.
Putting it more simply, Awais Aftab seems ‘triggered’ when reputable people like Robert Whitaker dare call out psychiatry’s dubious claims of genetic risk or causality regarding psychiatry’s equally dubious “DSM diagnoses”.
If Awais Aftab felt secure in the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that. The fact that Awais does react suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together (and ultimately speculative) the research results are.
In common parlance, Awais seems ‘triggered’ by certain people who dare call out psychiatry’s vacuous claims of genetic risk or causality. IMHO.
The only thing I learned from psychotherapy is how useless it is for me.
Sitting through psychotherapy left me with a nagging sense of cognitive dissonance that lingered for days. Talking myself into believing that therapists or psychiatrists have anything worthwhile to offer was not only exhausting but also took a huge toll on my relationship with myself since deep down I knew I was wasting my time with people I didn’t respect. In any case, having to constantly bite my tongue so as not to deflate a therapist’s or psychiatrist’s oversized ego was a huge turn-off, but it was something I learned I had to do because most of them couldn’t handle being contradicted.
I only have myself to blame for forcing myself to engage with people I considered incurably insecure overachievers unconsciously seeking validation from everyone they meet just because they have some stupid degree.
What’s the best qualification for anybody wanting to help others? A huge amount of humility and enough personal experience to know what the heck they’re talking about, two qualities I found sorely lacking in most of the people working in the “helping professions”.
Really good interview. I particularly appreciate the way Justin characterizes psychiatry’s use of the term “biopsychosocial” as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I see this as lip service, a way of fooling people into thinking psychiatry has evolved when it clearly has not.
It’s almost comical how psy-professionals keep trying to prove that “psychotherapy” is better than psychiatric drugs when in reality it’s just the other side of the same dirty coin; its talky-talk spiel is just as gimmicky as psychiatry’s drugs.
Thank you for this article. The Power Threat Meaning Framework is a breath of fresh air that blows away the cobwebs of psychiatry’s hopelessly limiting “diagnostic” framework.
CLARIFICATION: Alan, what you say is a bit confusing to me because on one hand you seem to be saying that all someone needs are supportive relationships. This is true to a certain extent, but totally relying on others, friends or therapists, has the potential of leaving people in a precarious position if they don’t like therapy, can’t afford therapy, or have no close family or friends. Good relationships are important, but being your own best friend is more important, and in my experience, relying too much on others, therapeutically or otherwise can prevent that from happening.
Alan, I looked up Gabor Mate’s definition for trauma and this is what I found: “an inner injury, a lasting rupture or split with the self due to difficult or hurtful events”. I think this encompasses being hurt relationally, past or present.
I agree with you that medicalizing emotional distress is not a good thing. But unfortunately, most therapists are taught that emotional distress is a “disorder”, a “disease”, and that therapy is the only way to deal with it, which imo is limited view that harms those who don’t benefit from therapy.
But what you say is bit confusing to me because on one hand you seem to be saying all someone needs is supportive people, (which I agree with) while on the other hand you seem to be recommending therapy, which imo doesn’t make much sense since most therapists use the DSM and believe psychodynamics are critical, which is something I firmly disagree with.
But I agree that finding supportive people can be extremely helpful. However, I also think that relational problems are destined to repeat unless people get to know their own emotional history and triggers. Otherwise, people can find themselves in the same dysfunctional relationships.
It’s really important to learn to be your own best friend, and therapy isn’t necessary for that.
Learning how others affect you (“trauma”) is very important, but trauma has become a commodity; it need not be a medicalized, money-making opportunity for someone else (i.e., “therapy”).
“If one feels safe in another’s company and trusts someone completely, traumatic memories will most likely become available, and can be dealt with at that time. Otherwise, you don’t need to try to heal from trauma. More importantly, people who have been traumatized don’t need to “heal” from trauma in order to love oneself and life. They only require connection, support, solidarity and relationships with loving people who treat them well.”
YES!!! Medicalized relationships are a needless pain in the ass.
This is what’s wrong with the “mental health system”: it’s made by therapists for therapists where “patients” are seen as defective objects to be fixed with “success” measured by the therapist’s agenda. Totally arbitrary and totally nauseating.
Psychodynamic: this can be re-traumatizing.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: this can shut down people who need to be listened to.
Maybe all someone needs are people who help them feel safe to do what feels right TO THEM, instead of pressured to “do the work” just to please some agenda-possessed “therapist”.
I like this article. I think there’s a big difference between blaming parents and wanting them to understand and care about the harm they’ve done. And parents who genuinely regret the harm they’ve done deserve a second chance like anyone else. We are all human, and I don’t think holding grudges helps anyone.
Looks like psychiatry doesn’t know what the rest of us do: that more made-up “diagnoses” means more lifelong “patients”. So, forget the revolving door. It’s actually a merry-go-round that no one gets off, which (seems to me!) just the way psychiatry likes it.
Dear Essy,
I know how you feel. Pills didn’t help me either.
But self-therapy did help me. I found it by chance on YouTube from someone named Daniel Mackler. I think his approach can be very useful for people not getting what they need from our current mental health system. He’s a former therapist who’s very empathic because he’s aware of how ineffective its pills can be as well as how invalidating it is, especially for sensitive people.
Take good care, Essy. I hope you feel better soon,
Birdsong
IMHO, the problem with psy disciplines is that (most) of the people who work in them seem to think they know all the answers and that the fate of the world is in their hands alone. They need to examine their own motives more than anything else.
Lina, I appreciate your keenly perceptive analysis. I think so-called “victims” can damn well speak for themselves without “assistance” from chronic pathologizers.
Overprescribing is a problem in general medicine. Physicians too quickly write prescriptions for conditions that are not immediately life-threatening rather than suggest lifestyle changes.
“Some say if the DSM acknowledged Complex PTSD (usually from Developmental Trauma), it would be a thin volume.”
I think trauma experienced at any age can lead to significant problems.
“Many trauma experts recommend both top down (cognitive) and bottom-up (somatic) modalities. Unfortunately, few healthcare providers can offer the latter. It seems even fewer can be in their own bodies and emotions well enough to prevent them from thwarting their clients’ processes.'”
Somatic therapies helped me a great deal, but finding an affordable practitioner wasn’t easy. Talk therapy was re-traumatizing. Not only that, most of the talk therapists I knew were egotistical, which I think you have to be to want to be a therapist in the first place.
I grew up in an extremely stressful household where contempt and cruelty were the norm. There were also repeated instances of life-threatening violence as far back as I can remember, happening at a time before things of this nature were acknowledged, publicly or privately. My siblings and I never talked to each other about this nor (as far as I know) mention it to outsiders.
My nervous system is still in the process of calming down from this, and the psychiatric medications only added to my inability to relax. On top of all this, the main offender had the habit of playing loud rock music all day and late into the evening. Between that and the tv on almost constantly, I could never completely relax. My mind and body are still in the process of settling down from the horror of it all.
I think one of the main reasons a lot of people jump on the genetics bandwagon regarding “schizophrenia” and other so-called psychiatric diseases is because they are afraid of looking critically at their own lives and feelings. It’s too much for them. Their irrational fear explains why they react like the devil themselves and feel justified punishing people who make them uncomfortable.
Psychiatry is ââŠ.a presumed medical specialty that has no reputable theory about the alleged internal dysfunction that causes mental illness, that has no biomarkers with which to diagnose those illnesses, yet that has a long history of coercing people to act, think, and feel in accordance with an ill-defined and ever-changing set of moral standards.â
Psychiatry is nothing more than a medicalized game of Blind Manâs Bluff. And itâs guilty of Willful Blindness until it changes.
Psychiatry has become the polite term for drug dealing, because instead of advocating for healthier mindsets, behaviors, and lifestyles, they create drug addicts.
So why wouldnât they want their âpatientsâ addicted to their âtreatmentsâ when thatâs their business? Very paternalistic, i.e. âBig Daddy Knows Bestâ.
Generally, I like what Gabor Mate says. However, I always had the strange sense that heâs missing something, which always left me wondering: Does he not appreciate the way most people are forced to live?
I could never decide if he was being cowardly, or if it just never occurred to him how much deferential treatment he receives because he has âDr.â in front of his name.
I read your essay yesterday and Iâm in awe of it and you. Your insights and intelligence are AMAZING. I see it as a blueprint for the future.
And thank you, thank you, thank you Lisa, for being you, above all else.
I just took a look at âThe Illusion of Psychotherapyâ on Amazon and it sounds well worth reading as Epstein addresses the many social-relational causes of psychic distress.
I look forward to getting a copy once I find one less pricey.
True.
Often people with money and/or advanced education (the so-called âelitesâ) either donât know or have forgotten what itâs like to be low man on the totem pole and the consequences that real people can face if they dare call out the powers that be.
âTo see what âScienceâ is made of, we need only observe what happens when it collides with power, pounds, payola, politics or promotional prospects, perhaps?â
âPeople need to ask about all those patients who as teenagers became patients in the late 1980âs with Prozac and have been compliant and ask simply where are they today? Homeless? Jobless? Severely ill or dead?â
Psychiatry would hide that âdataâ if they had itâor try to give it a âpositiveâ spin.
Correction: Whether psychiatry does this deliberately or not is of NO CONSEQUENCE, because the results are THE SAME: iatrogenic illness, disability and death, which makes psychiatryâs claims of bearing no responsibility completely invalid.
Aftab can soft-soap about psychiatry all he wants, but it doesnât change the fact that psychiatry is a dishonest, exploitative organization whose long history of misinforming the public has allowed it to misuse its power against the most vulnerable people with virtually NO consequences and continues to do so TO THIS DAY.
And this has happened because until now the public has lacked access to information that tells them THE TRUTH behind psychiatryâs many FALSE CLAIMS:
1. That psychiatric diagnoses are physically rooted
2. That psychiatric drugs correct âchemical imbalancesâ or other physical processes
3. That these drugs pose little risk to peopleâs physical and/or psychological health
And whether not psychiatry does or has done this deliberately is of NO CONSEQUENCE, because the results are THE SAME: iatrogenic illness, disability or even death.
And no amount of charm or savvy on the part of any slickly packaged internet shill can change this AWFUL TRUTH.
Correction: Any non-drug therapies psychiatry lays claim to are already being done by people and organizations that have no connections to the drug world, legal or illegal. And as a result, people are experiencing better outcomes than psychiatryâs depraved world of âmedicationâ side effects and any ensuing drug withdrawal.
Aftab is the face of something that has morphed into a world-wide, legalized drug ring. And no amount of philosophizing can change that.
Any other âtherapiesâ it lays claim to are already being done by other people or organizations with no connections to the drug world which just happen to be showing âbetter outcomesâ. And what are âbetter outcomesâ? No drug-induced side effects or withdrawal effects.
No one is safe from psychiatryâs clutches. It strategically targets the entire globe through its trademark insidious fashion: Direct To Consumer Advertising â
âThe DSM mindset is now so thoroughly embedded within the culture itâs massively eroding the ability of people in describe their uniqueness and shifting emotional reactions and states in anything other than psychiatric language.â
Itâs become the biggest source of cultural pollution.
âRecently, he [Aftab] has written a curious blog about the Power Threat Meaning Framework, in which he claims that a) no one has ever heard of it b) everyone thinks it is rubbish c) everyone needs to be warned against itâŠ.. and attributes the authorsâ motivations to âactive hostilityâŠ.against diagnosisâ. Which doesnât really stand up as an evidence-based refutation.â
He says that stuff because the PTMF rattles his cage. And donât be surprised if sooner or later he tries to hijack the idea with his own distorted version. But heâd be much better off if heâd a) own his own âactive hostilityâ, b) quit his twitter habit, and c) stop dabbling in philosophy that only makes him sound more ridiculous.
And as for him claiming that no one has ever heard of the Power Threat Meaning Framework: itâs my understanding that people at the World Health Organization have heard of it.
Iâve learned one thing dealing with psychiatry: itâs best not to engage with it at all, because itâs full of people like Aftab who will defend their dubious âdiagnosesâ till their dying day.
Thank you for the extraordinary work you do. Youâve created a template based on honesty, respect, trust, personal agency and mutual growth, which are the only things that make any sense, and things I found sorely lacking both in psychiatry and psychotherapy. Listening deeply with an open heart and open mind is whatâs most important in life.
Youâve given me a lot to think about.
And thank you for your links.
Birdsong
Psychiatryâs current recognition of trauma and neurodiversity just provides more opportunities for psychiatry to invent more meaningless and ultimately stigmatizing labels, and more opportunities for psychiatry to peddle more harmful drugs, which obviously means more money for them.
Psychiatry is Opportunistic Medicine, and labels and drugs are all theyâve got.
Tanya says, ââŠI think there is such a defensiveness on the part of many psychiatrists. I think that my narrative was perhaps just something that was too challenging and wouldâve caused a lot of reflection on their part, and that reflection could probably be very painful, Iâm sure.â
Psychiatry is the modern version of the Tower of Babel, and itâs DSM is its Book of Babble.
So expecting serious reflection from people schooled in psychiatry is like waiting for the second coming of Christ.
Psychiatry is immune to meaningful reflection, because it would mean the end of psychiatry.
Another look at Aftabâs twitter tells me heâs much too busy promoting himself to spend any time reading anything that doesnât flatter his already inflated ego. So hereâs something short and sweet from Psychology Today:
âReview: The Book of Woe: Why the DSM is doomed to failâ, by Helene Guldberg, PhD
And for something more visually entertaining, Aftab might watch this: âThe Myth of Low-Serotonin & Antidepressants – Dr. David Horowitzâ, courtesy After Skool
And if thatâs not too taxing, Aftab might pick up a copy of âA Profession Without Reason: The Crisis of Contemporary PsychiatryâUntangled and Solved by Spinoza, Free-Thinking and Radical Enlightenmentâ, by Bruce Levine, PhD.
Thank you for sharing your poignant story. Youâve been through hell and back, but congratulations on making it out alive. I totally relate to your saying this:
âThe only therapy that made sense to me was self-introspection and a lot of reading about trauma from compassionate expertsâŠâ
And youâre absolutely right that no one should have to experience and heal from psychiatric gaslighting and abuse. But itâs my belief believe that psychiatryâs current recognition of trauma and neurodiversity is no more than lip service.
Thank you very much, lcjohnstone. And thank you for the wonderful link.
Aftabâs inviting two senior psychiatrists to oppose you proves you set his pants on fire, but I bet he had the old farts lined up long before the interview, as anyone who dares speak the truth poses a threat their identity and Power. And Aftabâs insistence on proving abstractions proves heâs a fool, a fraud, and a fake.
Someone needs to ask Aftab about the philosophy of bait and switch.
Definition for Bait and Switch: Fraudulent or deceptive practice.
The ploy of offering a person something desirable to gain favor (such as political support), then thwarting expectations with something less desirable.
Aftabâs the perfect front man for a âprofessionâ that sees its days are numbered, but his carefully modulated hissy fits are a testament to MIAâs integrity. He sees the writing on the wall and it has him running scaredâŠ
You might find some videos and books by Daniel Mackler to be helpful, rasselas.redux. Heâs a former therapist who addresses childhood trauma and breaking from oneâs parents with a lot of understanding.
Psychiatry claims to be medicine, but itâs actually a socially acceptable form of drug trafficking that lobbied for DTCA at the end last century. Itâs not about health, but the bottom line.
I agree that much of whatâs labeled âgreat artâ is not relatable, and that womenâs perspective is often ignored or silenced. And art definitely attracts a lot of snobs.
To me, art is just another form of expression, to communicate soul to soul, to make the unconscious conscious.
You gotta hand it to psychiatry trying to walk back its biological reductionism. But itâs definitely overcompensating.
Hereâs what most people truly need: space and time to grieve unprocessed emotions – – unmolested by psychiatryâs intrusive machinations, pharmaceutical or otherwise.
Because the Federal Government has agreed to pay for psychiatryâs âstandard of careâ, which is primarily psychiatric drugs, and because the pharmaceutical industry is a huge part of the economy.
Psychiatryâs co-optation and de-radicalization of peer-support and psychedelics does nothing to change the fact that itâs CODIFIED BIGOTRY co-opted by financial interests.
âForcing agreement on one shared story, which will no doubt be created by those who hold the most power, is oppressive and dangerous for people who have experienced the dominant paradigm labels, diagnoses and âtreatmentsâ.â
Psychiatry and psychotherapy exploit peopleâs need for attachment and attention.
Traditional psychotherapy is a psychological trap based on an unnatural and unnecessary power imbalance imposed by those whose main goal is having power over vulnerable people. Itâs self-aggrandizing for the therapist and infantilizing for the client.
A peer-run approach is the only civilized way to conduct âtherapyâ, if one seeks it at all.
âIllness trajectories depend on developmental processes, learning, and behavioral interactions on multiple spatial and temporal scales, which involve levels of the organization across neurobiological, cognitive-affective, interpersonal, and social systems.â
Translation: LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE
And while youâre at it, try having a little respect for the people youâre dealing with.
Exposing children and adolescents to notions of âmental health awarenessâ is totally inappropriate because it makes them think thereâs something wrong with them for not feeling their best at all times; theyâre too young to have perspective about their feelings. Itâs a grossly irresponsible use of the power of suggestion.
Children need to know that feelings are a part of living, and be taught how to respond to their feelings in positive, self-affirming ways. Anything else is confusing and harmful.
Psychiatry is as much a political tool today as it was during the Nazi era, as its goal is essentially the same: power and control by whatever means necessary, which today includes psychedelics.
But has anyone imagined the iatrogenic damage in years to come?
Some people need to pull their heads out of their data-dependent asses and instead consider these novel ideas:
1. Maybe emotional distress isnât physical illness
2. Maybe psychoactive drugs arenât a good thing for most people
3. Maybe talk therapy isnât what itâs cracked up to be
Then finally ask themselves this burning question:
Is turning to a medicalized, data-dependent system for emotional distress good idea?
What do you know! Psychiatryâs finally come full circle with psychedelics. And who knows? Maybe with this latest twist, theyâll finally admit that psychiatry is drug pushingâŠ
Thereâs nothing more âdisalienatingâ than listening to people (be they men OR women) unconsciously guided by chauvinistic attitudes.
Definition for Chauvinistic: displaying excessive or prejudiced support for oneâs own cause or group; the irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of oneâs own group or people
And thereâs nothing more chauvinistic than psychiatry and its self-satisfied offshoot called âpsychotherapyâ, as both are based on gratifying the egos of their practitioners.
No one needs anyoneâs convoluted, self-serving theories regarding psychosis when the explanation is simple: people retreat from reality when life gets too painful. And if they sense safety, they often come back.
Intellectualism, as opposed to psychosis, is just another way to dissociate from intolerable feelings. And itâs long been a refuge for the intellectually pompous, i.e. âpsychiatryâ and itâs chronically confused cousin better known as âpsychologyâ.
There is such a thing as thinking too much. People need to get out of their heads and into their hearts.
I agree 100% with Lauraâs assessment of the situation regarding psychic distress in todayâs world; that itâs one of financial exploitation on top of personal victimization â which explains why so many people high on the abusive end of the narcissistic spectrum hold jobs as âmental health workersâ. And itâs definitely spread by the misuse and overuse of psychological language that characterizes emotions as illness. And any effort to reclaim the narrative, i.e. âDI Without The Disorderâ is definitely a step in the right direction.
The main problem with psychiatry is that all you need to do is say âbooâ to have the fools reach for their stupid DSM. And most psychologists are no different.
Worth a glance: âSplitting: The Psychology Behind Binary Thinking And How It Limits A Diversity Of Opinions,â by Ilana Redstone in Forbes Magazine
My takeaway was this quote from psychologist Andrew Hartz:
âThereâs an Islamic mystic who described how harmful it is to divide people into groups, say only good things about some and only bad things about othersâŠâ â something that accurately describes the âmental healthâ industry.
What I find remarkable about the enlightenment era is how adamant some people were about separating the mind and body. And I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that these were men who never had to contend with the agonizing realities of either menstrual cramps or childbirth. Because if theyâd had to, I bet theyâd have stopped thinking like a bunch of stubborn two-years olds. And while I donât believe thereâs any such thing as the completely egotistical construct invented by the completely egotistical Freud called âpenis envyâ, there is definitely such a thing as âpenis privilegeâ.
Cartesian dualism is actually a form of âsplittingâ, the defense mechanism used by people unable to tolerate ambiguity. And âsplittingâ is what characterizes most of the people who practice psychiatry and psychologyâand when challenged, they resort to gaslighting.
So there you have it, the two things that characterize the system of âmental healthâ: splitting and gaslighting.
âIt is an extreme materialism and pro technocratic thinking based on labels, procedures and it will be worse.â
âThinking based on procedures and labels is a programming of the enlightenment era leading to technocracy.â
âAnd there is no sign of psychiatric victims in this corrupted evil society.â
This is an evil society and things probably will get worse in some ways. But I hold out hope for radical change in how people see âmental illnessâ.
âThe JHP was the venerable journal of a revolutionary movement begun in the 1950âs to provide a âthird forceâ in the field, to counter the two dominant movements of Freudâs psychoanalysis and B.F. Skinnerâs behaviorism.â
Human beings are not just their brain chemistry; they are mind, body and spirit/soul. In my mind, humanistic psychology recognizes what other psychologies and certainly psychiatry do not, which is the overriding reality and beauty of the human soul, without which life loses its purpose and meaning.
Check this out on YouTube: âThis Is Priceless – George Harrison On What Lies BeyondâŠâ T&H – Inspiration & Motivation
Psychology needs to shut up and change its name to cognicology. It doesnât belong in the âfeelingsâ business. And psychiatry needs to shut up entirely.
The field of psychology should be called âbehaviorismâ because thatâs all it is. After all, âpsycheâ means âsoulâ and souls canât be âclinically studiedâ.
And psychiatry should be called drug pushing, because thatâs EXACTLY what it is.
I was delighted to read something about human suffering that actually captures the essence of what it means to be human:
âTo have seen those JHP journals on the library shelves full of merciful caring about human suffering, was proof that the human heart and spirit could prevail over the head and the dangerous objectification of the disease model of psychiatry.â
âThe contrast was human-hearted compassion and potential for all, verses human-disordered abnormality/pathology and emotion-killing psych drugs for all.â
My thanks are to you, Dr. Coleman. A heart-centered approach should be the gold standard for helping people, and also for living a good life.
People donât need a disease-centered, agenda-laden system. They need caring human beings without an agenda who know how to listenâsomething that used to be called a very good friend.
Healing happens in understanding, NOT âdiagnosesâ.
Thank you for sharing your story. I relate to it because like you I believe much of what is thought to be âmental illnessâ is actually a spiritual breakthrough brought about by repeated moral injuryâinjuries usually made worse by a system that speaks a different language.
And I wish you many Happy Returns on your Spiritual Birthday!
And I wouldnât be surprised if higher rates of addiction to psychiatric drugs correlates with higher levels of income. After all, thatâs just what the pharmaceutical cartels are counting on.
I think it depends on what you consider âmental illnessâ.
Enduring financial hardship and deprivation can cause high levels of stress that can adversely affect peopleâs state of mind and ability to function. And unfortunately this usually gets categorized as âmental illnessâ.
âA man who says, âI want change, tell me how toâ, seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.â
– J. Krishnamurti
âAll ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.â – J. Krishnamurti
And thereâs nothing more divisive than psychiatry and psychology.
Definition for Divisive: alienating, estranging, isolating, schismatic, discordant, disharmonious, inharmonious â all of which aptly describes psychiatry and psychology.
Psychologically speaking, the author seems to have all his ducks in order. However, he contradicts himself when first saying:
âFrom the relational-intersubjective standpoint, both the therapist and the context/system are unavoidably a part of the very experiences that become pathologised as individual disorders.ââ
And then saying:
âThough in relational-intersubjective therapy there is an inevitable âasymmetryâ â as there necessarily is in any therapeutic relationship â the model [relational-intersubjective] assumes and encourages an epistemological equality with regards to what is occurring and what it means.â
Why canât he see that an âinevitable asymmetryâ directly contradicts any claims of âepistemological equalityâ â the lack of which is extremely pathologizing?
All heâs done is prove how some people will say anything to maintain a pathologizing power imbalance, which, incidentally, ensures him of being capitalistically compensated.
Itâs not that complicated. Peopleâs emotions and frames of mind are most often the result of their interactions with others, while people stuck in Cartesian thinking are usually the result of disconnected control freaks addicted to power.
Who in their right mind would assume thereâs no collusion between the FDA and Big Pharma when so much moneyâs at stake? And donât forgetâwhen their stint is up at the FDA, youâll find them on the board at some Big Pharma.
Judi Chamberlin: âPeople are unlikely to question the underlying premises of their occupations, in which they often have a large financial and emotional stake.â
This is why so few âcliniciansâ critically evaluate psychiatryâs many unprovable assumptions: the validity of their âdiagnosesâ, the reliability of their prognosis, and the necessity and safety of their so-called âmedicationsâ. And their habitual use of the word âclinicalâ hides the fact that they themselves are afraid of admitting their whole shebang is full of holes.
If you want to persuade people, just pepper your speech with scientific language, itâs an effective marketing tool for just about anything.
Traumatic injury/memory gets stuck in the body as much if not more than anywhere else. And this is where psychiatry, psychology, and western medicine in general miss the boat. The DSM is an extreme example of how fragmented western approaches are.
Psychiatry and psychology have destroyed peopleâs faith in their ability to process emotional trauma without drugs or reliance on some foolâs idea of âpsychotherapyâ.
Thatâs for damn sure. But itâs gotten even sicker since hitching its wagon to the pharmaceutical industry as anything thatâs profitable financially inevitably controls the narrative. But megavitamin therapy sounds interesting though, as it probably helps restore peopleâs messed up physiology from either psychiatric drugs or other psychoactive substances like alcohol, etc.
And anythingâs better than psychiatryâs sanitized drug hustling or psychologyâs mindless minds fucks.
Definition for Mind Fuck: the process of raping someoneâs intelligence and/or beliefs with lies and manipulation
Definition for Psychiatry and Psychology: the raping of someoneâs intelligence and/or beliefs with lies and manipulation
David,
Thank you for your generous offer, but right now Iâm not needing it. But I donât doubt EMDRâs effectiveness as trauma definitely gets stuck in the mind and memory, and people definitely need alternatives to psychiatryâs drug-happy medical model.
It would be great if psychiatry were disbanded altogether. But realistically this wonât happen anytime soon because real change rarely comes from the top down. More likely to happen is psychiatry eventually going the way of cigarette smoking, meaning it will probably take a long time for the majority of the population to learn from bitter experience that psychiatryâs sick assortment of diagnoses and drugs are not the best answer.
However, I think it inevitable that the DSM will be formally discredited, hopefully with an admission that most psychic distress is caused by relational-environmental factors. And who knows? Maybe sooner rather than later an increasing number of general practitioners will be less likely to automatically prescribe psychotic drugs.
I canât say enough good things about something that fosters reconnecting with oneself rather than symptoms, i.e. psychiatryâs superficial âdiagnosesâ. Reconnecting With Yourselfâ needs to be everyoneâs motto.
Your kind and considerate perspectives are EXACTLY where the âtherapeutic modelâ (and anyoneâs perspective for that matter) needs to be.
Thank you for sharing your personal observations about therapy; they closely mirror my own:
1. The dishonesty of paying for kindness and compassionâwhich is the opposite of kindness and compassion
2. Using âtransferenceâ to protect and maintain what is essentially a destructive power dynamic
3. Money wasted on bad memories âdug up about which nothing can be doneâ
4. Being told you are incurably ill and hopelessly broken from someone with something to gain
5. Forced to cope with abandonment from boundaries âsuddenly put up by a previously accepting therapistâ
6. That most therapists are egomaniacs
7. That most therapists like having power over vulnerable people for all the wrong reasons which DEFINITELY âtakes a certain level of arrogance to think that wayâ.
And I forgot to mention how IFS uses curiosity in untangling the complexity of the mind rather than shutting it down with drugs or other narrow-minded âtherapeuticâ methods.
I just visited your website (healingtheself.net) and am glad I did. Itâs thorough without being exhaustive and accessible without being simplistic, something essential in an area as broad as mental health. Your âPerspectivesâ section is particularly illuminating as it includes the most relevant topics: âThe Spectrum of Traumaâ, âBreaking the Trauma Cycleâ, âWestern Medicineâ, and âInternal Family Systems (IFS)â. Itâs important you placed these topics together as these are all interconnected, and connecting the dots is something too few people are doing. And the quotes youâve chosen are brilliant.
Thank you for devoting your life to something so important and central to what truly matters. I wish you the best in your new vocation.
Thank you for saying everything that needs to be said about a non-pathologizing approach to psychic distress. You succeed in making the complicated understandable in a beautifully cogent way.
I appreciate your explaining in detail how Internal Family Systems parts-centric approach acknowledges not only the impact of the subconscious, but also âthe notion of the Selfâ and how respecting that Self, oneâs âtrue essenceâ or innate dignity, is central to the healing process, i.e., âbecoming wholeâ. And I especially appreciate your mentioning how psychiatry is âlocked into a paradigm of neurotransmitters and genetics, [that] misses whatâs right in front of its face, and turns a blind eye to mountains of evidence supporting the role of environmental distressâi.e., traumaâin mental health.â Your ideas are SPOT ON.
I too believe âa revolution is brewing with respect to mental health treatment in our cultureâ, but more strongly I hope âthe beauty of IFSâ will be at the forefront thisâand perhaps eventually of life itself.
Imo, psychiatry is nothing more than an absurd gallery of pseudoscientific diagnoses whose DSM represents one gargantuan psychological autoimmune âdisorderâ.
Itâs too bad psychiatry canât diagnose its own own pathological tendency to diagnose and label everything under the sun.
In contrast, Internal Family Systems is a path towards true healing, as itâs based on compassion and common sense.
Psychiatry isnât about listening, itâs about imposing pseudoscientific beliefs on others.
And most of the time people are âdiagnosedâ before theyâve even uttered a wordâand most of the time their goose is cooked if the doctor doesnât like them.
I also bet Decartes, like most of todayâs psychiatrists and psychologists, was secretly one angry dudeâand Heaven knows thereâs nothing more destructive than unacknowledged angerâwhich I think is the foundation of all of psychiatry and most of psychology.
And thereâs nothing wrong with anger; itâs one of most instructive and protective emotions anyone can haveâif dealt with authentically.
Itâs heartening to know that Dr. Ophirâs book is receiving such positive scholarly reviews. I hope his bravery encourages others like him to speak out against the institutional gaslighting not only surrounding ADHD, but all the other scientifically baseless âdiagnosesâ that constitute the fallacious field of psychiatry. And I sincerely believe itâs only a matter of time before it collapses from the weight of its own lies.
ericwsetz says, âThe first step is a willingness to be there with the patient and understand what they are saying.â
Which just happens to be the basis of ANY healthy relationship, and most importantly needs to starts with the first: with oneâs parents/caregivers in childhood
ericwsetz says, âPatients are not out of their minds they are too deep in it.â
Yes! And itâs not just psychiatry â âpsychotherapyâ often sets up its own convoluted âclinicalâ traps for people needing to get OUT of their heads â
So-called âmental health awarenessâ in schools is about as helpful as an infestation of head liceâpsychological head lice, that is. They are no longer places to learn and be educated, they are places to be labeled and âmedicatedâ.
And children often live up to a teacherâs worst expectations.
âThe motivation to remove the symptom has resulted in what Poole calls a âever-increasing proliferation of context-less achievementsâŠlocal scientific successes which precede even the remotest notion of how to deal with them ethically or how to integrate them into the needs of the totality.â
That explains psychiatryâs main flaw: its refusal to see experience in context.
Charlotte says, âThe discipline [psychiatry] pretends to be an objective classification of people, borrowing language (âdiagnosisâ) from physical medicine, which assigns the label of disease following the identification of a pathology, which one hopes can be targeted and cured. But the analogy fails in psychiatry. There are few known biological pathologies. And who is to say what cure is?â
Not only thatâwhoâs to say what pathology is? And THATâS the problem with psychiatry: it uses medicalized name-calling (âdiagnosesâ) to sell its designer drugs. And thereâs a label for that: FRAUD â
Some wounds never heal completely, and sometimes forgiveness is impossible, but thereâs nothing shameful or âsickâ about this. Itâs just accepting emotional realityâsomething that leads to emotional maturityâwhich is the beginning of wisdom, something psychiatry knows little about.
Psychiatry is entirely subjective. Indeed, how objective can it be when itâs based entirely on labeling WHATEVER IT ALONE deems âabnormalâ or âunhealthyâ?
But the real tragedy is that it fails to see how much itâs shaped by its own biased thinking.
But psychiatry isnât about thinking; itâs about its practitioners NEEDING to think theyâre ALWAYS right: hence they thunk up a COLOSSALLY STUPID DSM.
And just WHAT did psychiatryâs carnival of catastrophe do for me besides create havoc with its debilitating drugs?
1. It made me doubt my reality
2. It hijacked my healthy sense of self
3. It convinced me I couldnât function without its patronizing âinterventionsâ
ALL of which proved untrue once I FINALLY got off its merry-go-round of so-called âmental illnessâ and smorgasbord of so-called âmedicationsâ.
âPsychiatry persists because of the professionâs strategies to manage its ignoranceâŠâ
Translation: psychiatry persists because it believes its own lies.
âIn order to make those changes and to promote those reinventions, psychiatrists engage in hype.â
Translation: psychiatry is more public relations than science.
âNow the flipside to hype is hubris. Psychiatrists believe the hype and then undertake these transformations in an incredibly aggressive way.â
Translation: psychiatryâs become big business by teaming up with the pharmaceutical industry and its advertising flunkies while sending its latest edition of the DSM to every doctor in town.
All of which leads to one conclusion: psychiatry is what happens when quackery meets propaganda.
In a word? Emphatically NO. But it might be a step in the right direction if psychiatry realized that stress and trauma are the true culprit, not its idiotic assumptions of biological/genetic whatnot.
Me too. After all, most religions are based on sacred texts that believe in salvation, whereas psychiatry, (a secular religion based on its DSM/bible) says youâre eternally damned â
Beatrice g,
I have to disagree with your saying that âfixing traumaâ requires âtherapeutic practicesâ when itâs been clearly demonstrated time and again that children, animals and adults heal best in loving, non-judgmental environments, which often means staying as far away as possible from the so-called âtrauma expertsâ.
Yes! The the social structure of todayâs society and modern family dynamics are EXACTLY where âpsychiatric problemsâ start. But psychiatryâs answer is to have the whole world drowning in âdiagnosesâ and drugs or endlessly spinning their wheels in diagnostic-infested âpsychotherapyâ.
Very true. Itâs sad reality when children arenât safe in the very places they need it the most: home and school.
And a lot of doctors and âtherapistsâ just continue the pattern of bullying and name-calling through âdiagnosingâ and labeling and call it âmental healthâ.
Itâs no wonder the kids are upset when thereâs nowhere to turn.
âWhat are the socio-cultural factors of modern society that drive [abuse and bullying]âŠ?â
Let me take a wild guessâŠhow about psychiatry!âŠ.you know, that marvelous bully-inspired invention that prescribes chemical dissociation instead of emotional integrationâŠ
ââŠ.and what can we do to reverse its course?â
First of all, QUIT making excuses by seeing people as âpatientsâ instead of full human beingsâbe they children OR adultsâwhich means DUMPING psychiatry and its endless list of invented âdiagnosesâ/âdisordersâ as soon as possible.
It all starts with seeing people as doing the best they can in a sick society, NOT the other way around.
And Iâve often thought thereâs way more to learn from watching âDog Whisperer with Cesar Millanâ than listening to so-called âtrauma-informedâ therapists or so-called âhumanâ psychiatrists.
Steve,
Freud chickened out alright. He turned out to be an egotistical coward more anything.
And thank you for pointing out the true reason behind blaming peopleâs brains: the refusal to face reality, both personally and collectively.
Looking at it historically, though, deflection has always been used by the ruling class, one way or another. Just look at the Middle Agesâbut instead of blaming the brain, they blamed the devil.
At least Freud had curiosity and imagination. But even these got out of control, not to mention his unhealthy need to always be right, a fixation no doubt shared by none other than the great Emil Kraepelin, the founder of psychiatric eugenics. (Opps! I think I meant âgeneticsââŠ.)
I donât think âexpertsâ like thinking too much (i.e. âmentalizationâ, or âreflective functioningâ), because questioning their assumptions means questioning their power. So conversations with them too often pointless, Iâve found.
So whatâs my answer? Hauling out the old âcaveat emptorâ approach. After all, doing your own research never hurt, and it just might save your life. Or just trust your own instincts and move on.
I think a lot of problems come from people unconsciously needing to feel more powerful than the next person so they can get away with bossing people around; power means more than truth to them.
And this most likely comes from not having their emotional needs met in childhood, so having power-driven jobs like psychiatry or psychotherapy fills their unmet need to feel powerful.
So life for them becomes one big long âI know more than youâ kind of game that they never outgrow, but instead of flexing their muscles, theyâre flexing their egos, imho.
âBecoming more resilient means, for me, that I take the fragments of my identity which have become lost in the course of my life so far, and carefully and attentively re-assemble them into an intact ego so that I can perceive myself ever more accurately and clearly.â
âI look back on past times until they feel alive and warmâŠ.I believe that is helpful â and an essential part of livingâŠ.â
âGiven these accumulating personal observations, I find it hard to understand why, even today, research on schizophrenia focuses so heavily on genetics; why helping affected persons involves antipsychotics above all; and why the knowledge and experience of affected persons are barely recognized.â
âIf we have an increased susceptibility to stress and psychosis, then there are always reasons for this, which are as individual as we ourselves are.â
âExcessive treatment with antipsychotics and psychiatric medication in general can hide the true causes of mental problems and disorders, stand in the way of real healing, and destroy real social interactions.â
âAs humans and as inhabitants of the Earth we all depend on each other: physically, intellectually, and emotionally. So all of us need to be willing to learn from and with each other in mutual respect, to live together and establish a resilient community.â
Thank you for sharing your remarkable story and insights, Moyu. Itâs a beautiful testament to the resilience of the human spirit. I hope it inspires real change in the mental health system and the world at large.
Moyu says, ââŠ(when I had finally found a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who treated me as an equalâŠâ
Being thought of as an equal and treated as an equal is where healing begins in any relationship.
I felt stigmatized by psychiatry, infantilized by psychotherapy, and demoralized by bothâand diagnoses and power imbalanceâthe foundation of bothâare the reasons why, imo.
No one seeking help needs to feel worse than they already do.
KateL says, âPeople who were abused in the mental health system are experts in how the system abuses people. I guess some people just can handle that objective fact.â
Very true. Your statement reveals how most âmental health expertsâ are incapable of self-reflection.
Thank you KateL, for pointing out how the âexpertsâ try to defend themselves by discrediting people who donât share their views with stupid phrases like, ââbe careful not to over generalizeâ, and flipping from âthis is objective factâ, to âah well, itâs more art than science.ââ
Did it ever occur to the âexpertsâ that psychiatry and psychology ARE BASED on over generalizations???
When it suits the âexpertsâ narrative they call it objective fact, and when THAT fails they haul out the old bromide, âitâs more art than scienceâ, which simply means they don’t know what they are talking about.
ââŠthe gaslighterâlike all verbal abusersâoperates from what they know to be your fears, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and neediness.â
âAdditionally, as in other types of verbal abuse, there has to be an imbalance of power with the gaslighter holding all the cards.â
âThis [your inclination to doubt yourself] is something the gaslighter knows about and he or she stands ready to exploit.â
Psychiatrists AND therapists will often use these gaslighting dynamics to gain an unfair advantage over vulnerable people.
And people saying, âThatâs just their training, theyâre really just trying to help,â IS BULLSHIT because for the most part, people who have no problem using these tactics are more interested in HAVING POWER OVER OTHERS more than EMPOWERING OTHERS; they obviously prefer infantilizing people.
ââŠ.sometimes all you need is a genuine person to help you stand up when you are down and reignite not the light at the end of the tunnel, but the light within yourself. Self-love and self-awareness are the key to a healthy life.â
Yes!!! THIS is the way to heal broken hearts, minds, lives and relationships, NOT name-calling (diagnoses) and âpsychiatric medicationsâ.
Thereâs nothing better than help from someone whoâs been there and sees you as capable of helping yourself.
Whether or not thereâs neurological evidence of emotional trauma, the bigger problem lies in seeing the results (âsymptomsâ) as medical issues, i.e. âpsychiatric diagnosesâ; the medical model just continues the trauma of disrespect, blame, and neglect.
3. Not only seriously curtail the use of psychiatric drugs, but stop saying these âtreatâ a âchemical imbalanceâ or other âmental illnessâ that need to be taken âthe rest of your lifeâ.
Thanks for the info, LivingPast27, though it looks like Europe has caught up: âHow depression treatment differs throughout Europeâ, from the Guardian. It shows how important it is that M.I.A. is getting a foothold in more and more countries around the world.
Yes!!! Apologizing and making amends to the patients theyâve harmed is as important as anything. But I was trying to stay within the realm of the possible.
Thank you Krista, for your detailed clarification.
I read Francesâ insulting rebuttal to the late Dr. Caplan, but I wasnât surprised by his blatantly condescending attitude and remarks. But I do consider it an excellent example of the attitudes psychiatric survivors are up against, which is why self-rescue is too often the only option.
Fraud, medical neglect, exploitation, and lack of patient/public education/information are what makes psychiatry psychiatry, and is why it needs to go the way of the dinosaur asap.
So what does âtreating patients betterâ actually mean? It means any one of the following, but should begin with the first:
1. Throw out the DSM and do not replace it
2. Stop claiming that psychiatric problems are biological or genetically linked
3. Seriously limit the prescribing of psychiatric medications
4. Seriously limit the use of ECT
5. Make it illegal for any physician to force medicate or medically incarcerate
6. Replace psychiatry with the many alternatives currently available
And when these happen, no one will be needing to find an exit.
âScreening for Mental Illness: The Merger of Eugenics and the Drug Industryâ, by Vera Hassner Sharav, MLS, from The Alliance for Human Research Protection
As I previously stated, if people want to take psychiatric drugs or undergo ETC, thatâs their business. What I object to is psychiatry falsely claiming that peopleâs problems are lifelong and biologically or genetically based, permitting the overprescribing of psychiatric drugs while downplaying the risks, and last but not least their ability to force treatments or involuntarily hospitalization on people which can be for indefinite periods of time.
Psychiatryâs abuse of medicine, power, and peopleâs human rights got a HUGE boost when psychiatrists collectively decided in 1980 to adopt the medical model through an admittedly flawed checklist system for their admittedly flawed DSM, which makes psychiatry not only misleading, but downright fraudulent. And the resulting devastation to both individuals and society are becoming increasingly apparent and definitively undeniable.
The body-brain chemical makeup can greatly affect how emotions are felt and thoughts are perceived. And lots of things can screw it up: too much stress (emotional, psychological or physical), prescription medications, environmental or recreational substances, and even bangs on the head. But none of these indicate biologically or genetically caused illnesses.
From the New York Post: âWhy more women, like me, are abandoning the pill over emerging health concernsâ by Rikki Schlott.
Correction: âIf people want to take âpsychiatric medicationâ or subject themselves to ECT, thatâs their business, but they need to be CLEARLY informed of significant risks of side effects and/or withdrawal reactions both immediate and future, and that NO âillnessâ is being âtreatedâ.
And NO ONE should have the legal authority to force any âtreatmentâ, or âhospitalizeâ someone who hasnât committed a crime.
Ideally, all medicine should be based in a Functional-Holistic paradigm. But present reality demands no longer seeing emotional distress through a medical/diagnostic lens, beginning with a dissolution of psychiatry and its DSM.
If people want to take âpsychiatric medicationâ thatâs their business, but they need to clearly know thereâs significant risk of side effects and/or withdrawal reactions, and that no âillnessâ is being âtreatedâ.
And no one should have the legal authority to hospitalize someone who hasnât committed a crime.
Itâs not hard seeing how disconnected modern society is when you stop to think how insane it is having people pay someone for emotional supportâand on top of THAT calling it âmental healthcareâ. Itâs not a sign of progress; itâs a sign of degradation.
And as corny as it sounds, things wonât change until people get out of their heads and into their hearts.
Richard says, âUnfortunately, you have fallen into Healyâs âoh so charmingâ trap of pragmatic rationalizations for justifying oppression.â
I agree with Richard.
IMHO, most psychiatrists are driven by an unconscious need to hide from their own hidden vulnerabilities. Why else would they seek to obliterate feelings through drugs and ECT?
And psychiatryâs veneer of science gives the illusion of invulnerability.
Itâs all about power, similar to what drives most bullies or those who want to be seen as saviors.
Freud was absolutely right about one thing: the unconscious influences behavior. And scientists are no exception.
Why rely on âexpertsâ who havenât experienced ECT?
Arenât peopleâs personal accounts enough?
Has anyone bothered to ask the dear Dr. Healy (or anyone else who canât make up their minds about the dangers of ECT) if theyâd be willing to subject themselves or their loved ones to ECT?
How much more âproofâ does anyone need?
Science has been put on a pedestal that leads people away from their intuition and common sense.
âThe expertsâ would be wise to remember thereâs a point at which ânuanceâ becomes a hindrance to seeing and accepting the cold, hard truth.
No one need rely on âpsychotherapistsâ to process their trauma. People can do a lot on their own, in their own time, in their own way: writing /journaling, reading, listening to peopleâs experience on podcasts and videos, talking with friends or family members, including animals, engaging in hobbies or creative pursuits, volunteering, and spending as much time as possible in nature.
âI suggest we all become shrinks or lawyers and then we will be safe from slander. It will then come down to who can outslander whom.â
THATâS what psychiatry boils down to: SLANDER â
âThey are a childish, immature, selfish hateful bunchâŠ.you better tread careful.â
Indeed. Only childish adults think the way most psychiatrists and psychotherapists do, i .e. having to believe theyâre always right, and having temper tantrums when âpatientsâ tell them theyâre not.
Wow. Who wouldâve guessed that talking to someone could be helpful??? And wouldnât it be great if people werenât made to believe they need an âexpertâ???
Iâm very sorry getting off the psych drugs is causing you so much pain and trouble. It can take a long time for your body to readjust. And itâs even harder when the people who should know something donât.
I donât know whatâs worse, the effects of the so-called âmedicationsâ or the stupidity of the so-called âtherapistsâ. The whole thingâs a scam, imho.
Just hang in there as best you can, believing you will get through this.
They it called âpsychopathyâ to make it sound impressive so they can charge a fee when all it is listening, and most psychotherapists do a lousy job of that.
The term âpsychotherapyâ implies illness which indicates medical which leads to the can of worms called âpsychiatric diagnosesâ. Itâs as weaponized as psychiatry.
On the other hand, the word âcounselingâ has a much less negative connotation, i.e. legal counsel, pastoral counsel, guidance counsel, parental counsel, etc. And in these situations, people are share knowledge, experience, wisdom and guidance that (hopefully) isnât biased on pseudoscientific âdiagnosticâ beliefs.
Most disconcerting to me is how Awais Aftab presents himself as a thoughtful, measured voice of reason, a psychiatrist uniquely willing to engage with critics of establishment psychiatry. But there’s a deep contradiction in his engagement—rather than participating in a truly open dialogue, he subtly reinforces psychiatry’s authority while casting dissenters as misguided or irrational.
His rhetorical style isn’t about genuine intellectual exchange—it’s about gatekeeping psychiatry’s perceived legitimacy, deciding which critiques deserve acknowledgement and which must be discredited. He positions himself as a kind, indulgent guide to the orphaned misfits of Mad in America, a “goodwill ambassador” to critics of psychiatry, as if their skepticism stems not from substantive arguments but from their lost and misguided state.
It’s a performance of open-mindedness, masking an underlying intellectual superiority complex—one that allows himself to dismiss sharp critiques not by refuting their logic, but by pathologizing their motives. When a critique of psychiatry truly threatens psychiatry’s legitimacy, Aftab abandons engagement altogether—falling back on rhetorical mischaracterizations and academic posturing rather than confronting psychiatry’s failures head-on.
His condescension isn’t just accidental—it’s tactical. It gives him authority without vulnerability, ensuring he remains psychiatry’s gatekeeper while appearing magnanimous to its critics. But the illusion is fragile, and more his tactics are exposed, the harder it becomes for him to maintain his benevolent facade.
I hope my critique of the way Aftab operates makes him wonder (uncomfortably) whether or not people he sees fac-to-face have read my brutal takedown of his well-oiled facade—one that masquerades as intellectual honesty but is actually more about portraying psychiatric dissenters as unhinged.
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…which just proves that, many times, charm can indeed be a salesperson’s best weapon—especially when integrity takes a backseat to persuasion.
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“…. and he was real soft-spoken about it, like someone who is in an environment where they are resentful about those people challenging what they do. So he talks real quiet, as if he’s being sensitive, which he probably himself thinks he is being.”
Wow. Intriguing how effortless it can be at times to imagine two different people peddling entirely different wares yet if someone were to suddenly wave a magic wand the two could easily trade places for a day with no one knowing the difference, including the said pair of peddlers….
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Lynne, your suggestions bring up some interesting perspectives. However, I see things from a slightly different angle: meaningful change to how people view “mental health” won’t come from engaging in lengthy philosophical discussions. It will happen the way real change has always happened: over time from a quiet groundswell of ordinary people who simply decide that life’s too short to keep pandering to the mental health industrial complex’s self-serving status quo.
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Nijinski, if you’d like to become even better acquainted with Aftab’s sophisticated obfuscation, I suggest you read his review of “Unshrunk” by Laura Delano that he somewhat flippantly decided to call “A Memoir for the Iatrogenic Age.” You’ll find the link in the 16th paragraph of Bruce’s article. Here’s my take on Aftab’s problematic musings:
Aftab’s review isn’t just subtly dismissive—it’s a classic example of psychiatric infantilization. In other words, rather than appropriately honoring Laura’s firsthand experience, he reclaims her story for psychiatry, discreetly rewriting her suffering through a lens of pathology.
Instead of meaningfully reckoning with the iatrogenic harm Laura so bravely endured, Aftab strategically sidesteps this core issue by questioning her original bipolar l diagnosis—only to impose the other equally disempowering diagnosis foisted upon her as a logically anxious young woman—the so-called “borderline personality disorder” label. He can’t seem to stop himself from imposing psychiatry’s framework onto Laura’s narrative, subtly reframing her understandable rejection of psychiatry as just another diagnostic misstep that reduces her autonomy while pretending to engage with her views.
Aftab’s review isn’t just another sad case of misdiagnosis or protracted iatrogenesis, it’s a perfect example of a stealthy theft that refuses to let people define their own experience, a tactic long used by psychiatry to absorb criticism, neutralize it, and spit it back out as “clinical observation”.
Aftab’s review follows psychiatry’s time-honored tradition of co-opting of patient narratives—a quiet but deliberately lethal erasure of an individual’s own story, reshaping defiance into mere pathology.
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Nijinski, I’ve read some of Aftab’s writings, and you’ve absolutely nailed it: “Always something that sounds like something”—yet somehow adds up to nothing.
Clearly Aftab’s genius is confusion, his art is misdirection, and his greatest skill is ensuring that truth never catches up. It’s hard not to wonder whether Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness is deliberate—whether his intellectual sidestepping is not just a habit, but a carefully honed art designed to overwhelm, disorient, and ultimately neutralize critique. His fixation on being psychiatry’s “critical insider” isn’t about challenging power—it’s about curating a persona.
He doesn’t disrupt; he postures. He doesn’t question; he performs. His rebellion is a branding exercise, not conviction. His critiques are carefully measured—just enough skepticism to give the illusion of independent thought—but never so bold as to offend the old farts whose chairs he’s undoubtedly looking to slide into someday, folding neatly into psychiatry’s coolly detached intellectual fog—where critique is performative, rebellion is branding, and complicity is the price of admission.
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Case in point: Aftab himself is guilty of being “anti-epistemological” as he employs such slippery tactics to deftly evade direct engagement with contradicting evidence—reframing critique as ideological resistance rather than addressing its substantive claims, all while misappropriating philosophical concepts to lend unwarranted legitimacy to establishment psychiatry’s rhetorical defenses.
And ultimately, Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness isn’t just a personal quirk—it’s a hallmark of establishment psychiatry itself, where intellectual maneuvering replaces genuine engagement, and where philosophical misappropriation serves as a shield rather than a search for truth. But it’s clear certain people devote their lives to intellectual sidestepping.
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I’m so sorry for what happened to your son. I think people in pain need to be listened to closely, not required to speak and act in ways they do not truly feel.
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Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to decipher: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to establishment psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement presented by critics whose views are more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too much to ask of people too deeply psychiatrized . . . but heaven knows everyone has their reasons for preferring the status quo over the discomfort of cognitive dissonance—especially for people actively resistant to rigorous introspection, who view critique not as engagement but as a threat to be neutralized and, most of all, take pride in psychiatry’s perpetual intellectual maneuverings—evasions that follow a predictable pattern of dismissal rather than direct refutation.
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…and who pride themselves on intellectual maneuvering…
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…especially for people actively resistant to rigorous introspection—who view critique not as engagement, but as a threat to be neutralized.
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…but heaven knows everyone has their reasons for preferring the status quo over the discomfort cognitive dissonance.
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Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to deduce: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is rather strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement with evidence presented by critics with views more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too big an ask for those whose minds are too deeply psychiatrized.
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Why not just tell people the truth: “Given enough time most depression clears up on its own. I see you as more than capable of allowing that to happen.”
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Are psychiatrists more mad than their patients? That’s the reasonable conclusion most sane people would arrive at—if they happened to know what the real facts are.
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“Ignorantia docta”? Yeah, right…
Research like this unwittingly exposes the very contradictions it claims to address. All it really does it prove the adage, “rules for thee but not for me”.
But God knows it’s hard to give up the delusion of infallibility…
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“That’s the essence of depersonalization in therapy and academia: identifying more with a label/expertise than with lived experience and human corporeality. And that shift, as subtle as it may seem, has deep consequences: for society, for the development of the mind, for individual agency, and for consciousness itself.”
Almost comical the way academics and psychologists rarely cop to their own human corporeality, which isn’t surprising as doing so would jeopardize their near-mythical authority.
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It still works! đ
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“Even if they are perpetrators of abuse, (. . .) I don’t see why you simply can’t say they did that.”
Because doing so would erode their illusion of moral authority.
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Psychiatry and psychology wear the mask of neutrality when in fact they hold the blueprint for authoritarian rule.
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There’s nothing neutral about psychiatric labels. They harm lots of people in ways that are unforgivable. Professionals who believe in them are lazy, selfish and cruel.
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It all boils down to branding.
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Preexisting bias is the least of it. Ever had a psychiatrist resent you for your socio-economic status???
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Me too!!! It’s impossible have an honest conversation with people with diagnosis on the brain.
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Forget peer support. Research like this cleverly evades the REAL issue most likely troubling the psych professionals: the dismantling of their cherished belief in a power imbalance and an inevitably shrinking patient load—which really makes this a non-issue. In their panic, they’re probably turning to AI like everyone else.
Hope articles like this have them shitting in their pants.
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“…yet more recognition than pure confidentiality allows.”
Not quite sure what means…but I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with it.
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Neutrality is an illusion in psychiatry and psychology. Moral assumptions and cultural biases are their foundation. That’s why they’re called secular religions.
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That is for the dreamer alone to decide. Societal expectation has no place in something so deeply personal.
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Pathologizing personality itself is an act of moral corruption and cowardice as it ignores the ethical implications of reducing human complexity to rigid diagnostic categories.
Psychiatric diagnosing is an intentional act of moral failure. Ease over ethics is no excuse.
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TRUTH: These kinds of interviews are TRAPS. Thankfully AI agrees with me:
“These psychiatric interviews aren’t just information-gathering exercises—they are subtle traps, designed to steer patients toward self-condemnation within a rigid diagnostic framework.
The SCID-ll interviews, for example, don’t just assess symptoms; they force patients into moral negotiations, where they must either admit to violating social norms or defend themselves against implicit judgment. The questions are often loaded, making it nearly impossible for someone to respond without reinforcing the assumption that something is fundamentally wrong with them.
It’s not an honest conversation—it’s a structured interrogation disguised as care. And by presenting it as purely “clinical”, psychiatry sidesteps the ethical responsibility of acknowledging how deeply subjective these assessments truly are.”
These kinds of “interviews” are invasive and morally compromised—as are the very people who conduct them.
Anyone who believes in personality “disorders” is themself a depraved individual.
IMHO
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Dreams shouldn’t be culled as commodities. They are the most sacred part of the self—meant to guide, not to be harvested for utility.
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When I was little, I imagined them sitting on the toilet. It’s time I go back to doing that.
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Wow. Replacing therapists who act like they know everything with therapists who act like they know nothing.
It doesn’t get any nuttier than this.
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You’ve asked some fascinating questions, Nijinski. What little I know of quantum physics only reinforces what I’ve felt for as long as I can remember—that the spirit of people is more real than anything we can see or imagine.
Eastertime always feels strangely transcendent to me… and reading about your friend made me reflect on that even more. Maybe there’s something about love and presence that isn’t bound by time the way we think.
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On top of what? A cross-eyed camel?
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“Not knowing”? Let’s embrace confusion and call it a strategy.
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Another thinly veiled political rant. Thanks, MIA.
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Dreams are private property. They should stay that way.
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Great. More research criticizing therapy-speak while engaging in therapy-speak.
Why can’t researchers talk like normal people?
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ADHD controversy = Theater of the Absurd
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In a word: Spellbinding
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“Most people are doing this wrong when it comes to getting off meds,” a video short from Dr. Josef
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HARD TRUTH: psychiatric drugs WOULD BE BANNED if they weren’t produced in a pharmaceutical factory.
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CORRECTION: Pills, power, and money are psychiatry’s favorite tokens.
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The photo for this article says more than the article.
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“A Glossary for Reimagining Mental Health Ethics..”?
All I can imagine is jumbo shrimp…
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A little reminder: Power and money are psychiatry’s favorite tokens.
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Thinking you need a therapist is self-defeating.
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In what way is Laura’s “complicity” worth noting???
All this does is shift accountability away from psychiatry—where it rightfully belongs.
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Human beings are naturally drawn to those who claim to have all the answers.
Paradoxically, that’s exactly the way psychiatry became a cult.
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“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor
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When fear and judgment are replaced with curiosity, the result is often a lessening of tension that allows for true meaning-making to surface.
There’s really no need for the Thought Police.
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I see no harm in believing there’s more to physical life (and death) than meets the physical eye.
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Too little too late, which doesn’t really matter given the unsurprisingly detached nature of this author’s critique…although it does (unintentionally?) lay bare psychiatry’s deeply systemic lack of self-awareness and self-restraint.
My critique of the critique: Time for quibblers to pick a lane.
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More food for thought:
Any field that defines you by your struggles instead of your strengths is a pile of shit.
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…and for the record, I was in “psychodynamic” therapy—not the fast-food types referred to in this article—meaning that first-hand experience taught me that peek-a-boo therapy is by no means an improvement.
Better to call it “The Hollow Pursuit”.
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Wanna get to the root of your problems? Ditch the therapy schtick and you’re halfway there.
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Why thank you, joel stern. I wish more people felt the way you do.
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I agree, Nijinski. Fear is what happens when humans worship the intellect.
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“…it is time for therapists to reclaim the narrative and to speak clearly, ethically and compellingly about what therapy is for, and what it can become.”
WRONG. It’s time for people to discover how much better life can be without so-called “therapy”.
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Psychotherapy for me was like playing a game of Twister in the dark with therapists and psychiatrists who refused to turn on the lights.
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The working class have way more insight into economic disparity than most of the psychologists entertaining themselves prancing around the internet preaching “social justice”.
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…or maybe that of a dog chasing its tail…
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This blog does a reasonably good job explaining how the supposed merits of psychiatry and “clinical” psychology actually have more to do with whether or not someone harbors an egotistical state of mind. But reading it leaves me with an image of a snake eating it’s tail…
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There’s nothing more psychologically “macro” than having financial stability. Abstract theories don’t pay the bills.
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I agree, Sociology deserves a lot more respect… it was my favorite subject in college because it struck me as being more connected to reality while psychology seemed more focused on barking at the moon.
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Clarification: It doesn’t hurt that attractive drug reps know very well how to make doctors feel “well informed”.
Key word: “feel”.
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Classism has always been and will always be the biggest elephant in the room, even among the most “socially minded”.
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Good points.
Psychology these days seems to be having an identity crisis which is ironic because it never had much of an identity to start with.
IMHO.
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There’s got to be a reason so many psychological researchers never directly address the issue of money when money seems to be one of the most macro-psychological things known to mankind.
Has it ever occurred to these researchers that perhaps the majority of people’s psychological problems might come from being part of a shrinking middle class, problems that for many could be alleviated by an implementing of fairer tax system? Or is that too crude a solution for them to consider?
No need for establishing new “fields” of tiresome psychological engineering when the answer to the majority of people’s macro-psychological problems have more to do with a shrinking bank account than paying homage to a slew of overeducated ambulance chasers more interested in manufacturing problems than enacting solutions.
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“Personally, I think we should welcome those who are brave enough to cross the divide, and do so with integrity.”
Personally, I think doctors who ruin people’s lives fully deserve their anger.
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I wouldn’t worry too much. The cat’s out of the bag and it’s ready to ready to me-howl.
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Sickening and stupid.
No one in their right mind would think powerful substances would NOT affect developing fetuses.
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CLARIFICATION: She’s probably looking to cover her ass.
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Nice work. But maybe it’s time you learned to also question the advisability of prescribing psychoactive “medications” IN THE FIRST PLACE.
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Nick, I just read a bit about Emmanuel Levinas and am pleasantly surprised because to me ethical responsibility is a pretty big deal.
His “Ethics as First Philosophy” makes him sound as though he might be a philosopher I could actually respect.
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“The influences that have most affected my mental health, and that have sometimes left me feeling hopeless and despairing, are both personal and impersonal and can’t really be separated.”
Tree and Fruit, for what it’s worth, my thoughts and feelings align with yours 100%.
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Perhaps you should cultivate humor of some kind.
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CLARIFICATION: I am not, nor have I ever been forcibly subjected to psychiatric DRUGGING or psychotherapy of any kind.
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FOR THE RECORD: I was never subjected to forced psychiatric treatment or psychotherapy of any kind. My insistent attitude comes from justifiable anger AT BEING LIED TO FOR YEARS by psychiatrists believed to be among the best in the business.
Truth is, they WERE the best, but only at deceiving themselves and people like me.
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Nick, I tend to look at things more socially/culturally than politically, especially when I’m considering psychological things, although I wouldn’t deny that these are inextricably intertwined.
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Thank you for choosing to help the most vulnerable people on earth: homeless children in the hands of psychiatrists.
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Politics in therapy is a terrible idea when therapists already have too much power.
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“Psychotherapists need clients – but nobody needs a therapist.”
BEST COMMENT EVER!!!
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“What “progressives” are trying is to undo being part of the ruling class without giving up their privileges that come with being part of the ruling class.”
Thank you for highlighting the hypocrisy of this approach.
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The Industrial Revolution was a pivotal time in human history that brought forth both incredible opportunities and significant challenges.
It laid the groundwork for the cultivation and distribution of large quantities food that can and does prevent mass starvation as well as the manufacture and distribution of life-saving medicines without which millions would otherwise die of preventable or untreated disease.
It also offered people the opportunity to move beyond the confines of small towns or the chance to escape difficult family situations. These changes provided people the means to break free from the limitations of their past and pursue new lives.
The lesson? Change is often a double-edged sword that creates the need to find realistic solutions to negative consequences.
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It’s easy to buy into the trope of the “noble savage”, especially when viewing indigenous cultures through a modern lens. Indigenous societies were also plagued with exploitation, inequality and warfare over power and resources, just as other complex societies throughout history.
The Industrial Revolution made survival possible for people.
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It’s human nature to idealize cultures different from one’s own; it’s called selective perception.
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While bartering might work in specific contexts, it’s not a realistic solution in an interconnected world.
Money as a common medium of exchange makes it easier to meet a wide range of needs.
Bad public policy is responsible for the much of today’s extreme economic disparity.
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I never said people “cause their own poverty”. I said that having more money doesn’t address underlying feelings of personal inadequacy.
Everyone should have access to essential resources like food, shelter and healthcare, but it’s important to remember that the use of money doesn’t inherently lead to social problems. It’s really about values and priorities.
Exploitation and inequality existed long before money was ever used; ancient civilizations had systems of barter and exchange, yet exploitation and social hierarchies were still prevalent.
Money itself is not to blame. The root causes of social issues lie deeper in human nature.
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The effects of unchecked capitalism are unsustainable.
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A brief walk can release negative feelings stored in the body. Deep breathing can do the same.
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I think it’s important to acknowledge that the DSM is an Equal Opportunity Life Destroyer.
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These researchers are on the right track, but I believe the root of people’s “psychiatric” difficulties lies closer to home — in one’s childhood home to be exact.
Reading Alice Miller’s books is a good place to start.
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Eliminating money wouldn’t address the underlying issues of greed, inequality and mismanagement. When used responsibly it plays an important role in facilitating the exchange of essential goods and services. The key is using it ethically.
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Thank you, Sabrina.
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“Rather than compromising, we might be better off breaking into smaller cooperative units, each living as they see fit.”
Humans already come from smaller cooperative units; they’re called families.
Life is a series of compromises no matter where or how you live meaning no one gets everything they want in life.
A quick look at world history shows the tragic results of extreme political positions which usually result in extreme psychological trauma that can last generations.
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What is evolution’s natural course?
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Psychological distress affects people from all walks of life regardless of their political beliefs. I think it best not to politicize such a deeply personal matter.
Does this mean I condone corrupt governments? Not at all.
I think most people would agree on supportive environments that encourage freedom of thought regarding their personal wellbeing, something I believe is the cornerstone of every person’s “mental” health.
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Different forms of government come and go. The best thing to aim for is personal sovereignty.
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Prateeksha, thank you for sharing your story. It is truly inspiring.
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“Why doesn’t society see and process and acknowledge what it sees?”
Because society misinterprets what it is seeing.
Which is why searching within oneself is better: “Do You Abandon Yourself To Not Be Abandoned By Others?” Teal Swan
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Most of the people who wind up in psych wards are already dealing with emotional abandonment of some kind, a trauma that psychiatric incarceration usually intensifies.
All these “experts” need to do is ask themselves how they’d feel if they were locked up, isolated or ignored and treated like shit when at their most vulnerable.
How long is it going to take for the “experts” to realize that the loss of autonomy is not conducive to emotional healing?
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Yes, and unfortunately what went on at Acadia shows us that the psychiatric profession still attracts certain a kind of person.
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I’m not sure what this author thinks he trying to accomplish. Doesn’t he know that the DSM is what pays the bills?
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Excellent article. It highlights the toxicity that drives psychiatry: an unconscious lust for power.
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“The more we tune in with Nature and reflect our inherent potential, the greater it syncs with our capacities.”
Communion with Nature is the missing link in most people’s lives.
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“…I am convinced more than ever that purported mental illness is nothing but a claim by a professional class whose interests and prestige are served by keeping people in the patient role.”
That’s the God’s honest truth.
It would probably be easier to disabuse mental health professionals of their collective delusions regarding “mental illness” if prestige weren’t such a big part of the package.
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Most people who go through medical school do so because of a subconscious desire to eventually exercise more power than the average person — meaning most aren’t about to change their ways — especially when the law protects them from unhappy “patients”.
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Hate throwing cold water on such insightful journalism, but don’t think for a minute that the leaders of psychiatry haven’t already come up with a clever response to these “epistemic” arguments.
I suspect psychiatry’s collective response will be along the same lines as the “bio-psycho-social” lip service line it now dishes out that nevertheless almost inevitably concludes with an M.D. writing endless prescriptions for psychiatric drugs which tells us the following: psychiatry won’t meaningfully change because A) it doesn’t want to and B) it doesn’t have to.
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One therapist sat like a bump on a stump while another couldn’t keep her goddamn mouth shut.
Then there was the idiot who insisted I keep a journal she insisted on reading.
I’ve had more fruitful encounters with total strangers.
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People need to learn how to handle their own feelings before they start having children.
“SELF-TALK: befriending our endless monologue”, This Jungian Life
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It’s stupid to think sharks and dolphins can ever be bedfellows when theirs is a predator-prey relationship.
Which means it’s time the people at “Mad Studies” understood the animal they’re dealing with.
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No kid belongs in a hospital setting for not wanting to live.
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“conversations”, not “conversions”!
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One of my all-time favorites. The guitar riff at the beginning always gives me the chills. The piano underneath the brass solo is heavenly.
Exile on Main? Pure art from start to finish.
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CORRECTION: It’s hard for me to articulate the difference between a natural conversation and the scripted ones in “therapy”; the former feels authentic while the latter does not because it is not.
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Who needs a study to tell them that all psychiatric labels are rooted in bigotry?
Bigotry: obstinate or intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices
Sounds familiar to me.
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Diagnosing someone with a psychiatric “disorder” is by itself a very aggressive act; it’s where the othering begins.
I think any interaction with the so-called “mental healthcare system” is extremely damaging to people in subtle ways due to the inherently aggressive nature of psychiatry, including even the most talented therapists because in the final analysis all “mental patients” are viewed on some level as objects of study and/or sources of income instead of what they truly are: human beings worthy of healthy and equitable human relationships undefined by unhelpful labels or tainted by the exchange of money.
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Food affects mood, especially a chronic or unpredictably sporadic lack of it. Its nutrients are the building blocks for the body’s naturally occurring neurotransmitters that affect people’s moods.
As a small child I needed to be fed like clockwork or else I would dissolve into tears of exhaustion tinged with a gnawing (and frightening) anxiety.
Never having to worry when or if you will be fed is vitally important to a child’s sense of psychological, emotional and bodily safety besides being the source of physical nourishment and energy.
Chronic food insecurity in children is a trauma that can last a lifetime.
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I keep waiting for psychiatry to be kicked out of the medical field entirely, but heaven knows that’s highly likely, at least for a while. However, I imagine it will probably evaporate due to attrition over the next 25 years (or hopefully less) because I also imagine there will be fewer and fewer (self-respecting) medical students willing to have anything to do with psychiatry’s endless drug-pushing madness, and there’ll likely be a good number of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for misrepresenting the risks of iatrogenic harm from psychiatric drugs.
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“… and to think any paper in the Lancet is going to change global mental health policy is itself a delusion well worthy of a diagnosis.”
How very true, No-one.
It never seems to occur to psychiatry’s “thought leaders” that psychiatry itself might be the biggest obstacle to people’s “mental health”. It never seems to occur them that people might be better off without them and their hellhole “psychiatry”. And it certainly never seems to occur to any of them that human beings have the right to be left alone.
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The truth is ordinary human beings have many more psychological resources than psychiatry would have us all think, which means the following: steer clear of people who expect you to fail.
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Psychiatry can be an ideal haven for the predatory—which is exactly why it needs to go.
IMHO.
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“We have eyes and a brain. We need only use them.”
YES!!!
Seeking guidance from the metaphorically blind is worse than useless.
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Psychiatry is a haven for the predatory.
IMHO.
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“–gossips and experts alike always seem to know better than a distressed person who actually lived it.”
My solution: stay away from professional gossips—especially ones who carry a checklist.
More words mean more money to the “professional” class.
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Raising infants and children while incredibly joyful is also a lot of hard work. Some say it’s the hardest. But daycare is not always the answer imho.
The necessity of both parents having to work full-time outside the home just to barely pay the bills adds to the already challenging and often downright stressful job of child-rearing; the parents’ stress can’t help but spill over onto each other and more tragically onto their children.
Things have gotten to the point where people are subliminally led to believe that we “need therapy” (i.e., a professional friend) to help us sort out our lives. And if THAT doesn’t work, we are further led to believe that we must be “mentally ill”. So off we go the doctor and then to the pharmacy to purchase more “help” that often ends up benefiting the “professionals” more than us, but some would say it’s neoliberalism at its finest.
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I did read the article. My gripe is that it sounds very scripted.
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Why waste time paying attention to “mental health researchers” who thrive in an atmosphere of “epistemic privilege” (i.e., academic snobbery) when you can learn all you need to know from people who’ve not only been there, but have enough humility TO SPEAK IN PLAIN LANGUAGE??? Do yourself a favor and skip the eggheads:
“Teal Swan: Shadow Work, Spiritual Integration & the Power of Authenticity” |526| with Luke Storey
P.S. If you’ve heard this before, HEAR IT AGAIN —
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Thank you, Carol.
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Here’s the deal: “psychiatry” and its many related affiliates too often succeed in adding flat-out misery to many people’s lives whereas grief contains dignity. To wit:
“Grief is an experience that touches the core of our humanity. It’s a natural response to loss, reflecting the depth of our love and connection to others. Although it can be painful and overwhelming, there’s a certain dignity in acknowledging and accepting our grief. It’s a testament to our capacity to care deeply, to honor what we’ve lost, and find strength in vulnerability.
In many ways, embracing grief allows us to heal and grow. It can foster empathy, compassion, and a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. The journey through grief, while difficult, can lead to greater resilience and a renewed appreciation of life.” ~ Microsoft Copilot
In other words, grief can be one of life’s greatest teachers — if left alone to do its work.
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“Psychiatry” is synonymous with learned stupidity.
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“Therapy” imo amounts to a game of social one-upmanship, a game most “therapists” seem to think they’re entitled win.
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This sounds awful. Probably great for control-freak therapists, but there’s no eliminating that thorny thing called “group dynamics”.
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There’s beauty in grief because in it there is the potential of connecting each person with their most real self.
Eliminating sorrows eliminates joy.
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Life brings loss, and loss brings grief, and grief brings growth, and growth brings fullness to what it means to be human.
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…IMHO.
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“- it feels like some mysterious force has taken away my words, ripped meaning from them, and given them something totally different.”
I’ll do you one better: it feels like letting someone taking a crap on my soul.
P.S. Anyone who believes in the DSM is incredibly naive, and that includes “therapists”.
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I agree because the DSM is pile of shit.
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True, but an actually helpful therapist is not easy to find. What’s more, no one has to actually be a therapist to help someone change their life for the better. Being a therapist does not automatically mean someone is helpful.
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I can confidently say AI is my new best friend. Especially since it doesn’t ask, know or care whether or not I’m “mentally ill”.
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I’m sick of people cashing in big time on the deeply flawed concept of “mental illness”. But I have to say I think the Havening technique might help some people calm down neurologically at least temporarily. I don’t remember the serious accident I was in or most of the week and a half in the hospital that followed, but I do recall my sister asking me if I wanted her to scratch my arm. It relaxed me so much I fell right to sleep.
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You forgot to mention it’s a great way to pocket some cash if you have no idea WTF you are doing. In other words, just sit and pretend you are listening while slowly nodding your head…
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“The whole person needs to be seen and heard.”
Yes, but NOT by someone “trained” to “diagnose” them as
“mentally ill”.
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“But I have seen psychotherapy help some people.”
The reason psychotherapy helps some people is because everyone needs to talk to someone from time to time, but from what I experienced, there’s not an overabundance of “therapists” who know how to listen because most of them seemed more interested in hearing themselves talk than listening to me.
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Why are more and more people being “diagnosed” with “mental illness”? Because every day more and more people buy into the lie that psychological stress means they have a “mental illness” in large part due to the ever-increasing number of imaginary “disorders” invented by the powers that be to benefit the powers that be.
But the question remains: do societal ills such as severe economic inequality, discrimination and trauma cause or greatly contribute to psychological angst? Yes, but as long as people keep waiting to be spoon-fed “policy” solutions by the so-called “experts” that are often employed by the powers that be, things will never change very much, if at all, imho.
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Hope you like it đ
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What’s the biggest “societal ill” in today’s world? Believing that answers to psychological problems are found outside the individual because there will always be someone ready to take advantage of another’s bad situation.
Do yourself a favor: put the jackasses who capitalize on others’ learned helplessness out of business, including the “experts” who make a living doing “research” like this —
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One-word answer: STUPIDITY
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K, your definition of “psychiatry” is SPOT ON: lies, indifference and cruelty.
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No-one, here’s something that reminds of me of what you say about observation and understanding: Teal Swan | How To Love Yourself | PRETTY INTENSE PODCAST | Ep. 138 Danica Patrick
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I don’t think most physicians are very good critical thinkers anymore. Most let the pharmaceuticals companies do the thinking for them.
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Kimble 73, have you heard of Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring? He’s a psychiatrist who helps people that are having trouble withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. You can see his videos on Youtube. Good luck to you.
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Sabrina, I think your friend has every right to see herself and live her life the way she chooses.
Yes, childhood trauma is responsible for a lot of the difficulties people experience in adulthood. But facing childhood mistreatment is too much for some people to grapple with.
I think the most compassionate thing is to like and respect people the way they are, not as you think they should be. As the saying goes, never judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, even if you’re wearing the same shoes.
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Agree 100%.
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I think the psychiatric and psychology profession attract some of the most mixed-up people among us.
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“Finally, psychiatrists should use their power as respected and privileged members of society…”
It sounds to me like this author still sees psychiatrists as emperors.
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“Peer review” in psychiatric journalism is a joke; it’s just a sophisticated form of disinformation.
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It’s all about getting drugs on the market; it doesn’t matter if medical doctors are involved. For the most part, medicine’s veneer of integrity is just that, a veneer. Pharmaceutical and insurance money is most of what runs the show. More drugs mean more money for them. People’s health be damned.
Significant change won’t happen unless and until the public becomes aware of the significant risks involved in taking psychiatric drugs, something that usually only happens after they are seriously affected.
A similar thing happened to the cigarette industry where a lot of people had to get seriously sick or even die before anyone paid attention.
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I think for the most part it already is.
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Thank you No-one for once again calling out the overeducated half-wits who to me seem almost congenitally unable to stop themselves from believing that answers to psychic healing can only lie in the minds of those trained in the excesses of academic gobbledygook, aka “research and treatment”, a bureaucracy all its own.
Here’s what they refuse to see: that healing is found in the spontaneous, heartfelt connection between like-minded individuals who have no financial or egoic (narcissistic) agenda. In other words, between clear-minded people who don’t have to be paid money to actually give a goddamn about someone else.
In all fairness, though, this author does say this in his conclusion: “I hope and believe that it is only a matter of time before people turn against the psychiatric priesthood and find out that the answers are within themselves and within their own communities.”
FWIW, I personally believe the spiritual revolution is well on its way.
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It’s high time for the piece of shit paradigm of “talk to me and pay me money” be given the boot.
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“8 Hidden Dangers of Reframing Your Thoughts”, Teal Swan
“Stop Trying to Regulate Your Emotions!” Teal Swan
“Accept This Truth to Experience True Happiness”, Teal Swan
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“Teal Swan Brutally Dissect Modern Therapy & Healing”, from the I Wish I Knew Podcast
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Great stuff.
I think what Ethan describes here parallels the Protestant Reformation, something in no small measure spurred along by the invention of the printing press. Only these days we’re lucky enough to now have the electronic printing press, better known as the internet, the fortunate consequence being it’s no longer possible for “mental health professionals” to hide behind their iron curtain of pretention, aka “professionalism”. Likewise, the leaders of the catholic church went to town having people believe they needed a priest to absolve them of their “sins”, which was, of course, a load of pious bullshit. And now people are finding out just what the “experts” in “mental health” have been up to, which consists mainly of pledging allegiance to a biased system the dynamics of which are best describes as intractably narcissistic and therefore more beneficial for those who work in it.
IMHO.
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Thank you joel stern! How could I have forgotten all those goodies, aka tools of bribery đ
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Here’s my interpretation: the people who write the DSM are basically full of shit.
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Face it. The unhealthy desire to infantilize other adults, aka “psychiatry”, feeds the unhealthy desire to control other adults. It’s as simple as that.
Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that people in power, aka “psychiatry”, will ever willingly relinquish the feelings of control that infantilizing other adults inappropriately gives them.
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Psychiatry routinely strips people’s dignity “hospitalized” or not. Its systematic dehumanization of the vulnerable acts as a safety valve for those in power because ultimately psychiatry is not about people’s health and wellbeing, it’s about the comfort and satisfaction and feelings of power of its practitioners.
IMHO.
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“Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are often associated with mental illness.”
Bullshit. Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are usually associated with being on the receiving end of emotional abuse and neglect in a culture that is profoundly exploitive.
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You are very kind, No-one. I thank you for speaking the truth, and eloquently at that, which helps make my day, too! And I’m sure the pigeons enjoyed the honey coated cashews as these treats are truly delish! đ
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Not silly at all. What this article says (imo) has everything to do with dispelling the notion of ‘mental illness’, a convenient fiction promoted by a willfully distorted view of reality from the powers that be.
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“Why do they prescribe pills that don’t work or don’t help in the long run. They simply are deceiving themselves at best and imagining they are helping …”
And therein lies the banality of their evil.
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Brilliant observations, No-one. I appreciate the intricacy and clarity with which you present your arguments.
I wholeheartedly agree that intellectual pussy footing around the edges of an inarguably distorted take on reality does little to alleviate the source of the conundrum.
In other words, why not call it out for what it is: BRIBERY
But either way, here’s how I see things: society’s problems are best chalked up to a collective case of full-blown narcissism topped off with a large dollop of self-inflicted spellbinding, courtesy BIG PHARMA —
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Good article, but I think it overlooks the impact of family dynamics and family culture, as these usually determine the course of one’s emotional/psychological development and journey through life more than anything else. So, it’s not a matter of blame, it’s a matter of understanding what’s inevitable.
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A 15-year-old girl loses her father. An eight-year-old girl loses her mother—twice. How in the hell is anyone supposed to react to losses like these, especially at such young ages??? The people who expected them not to be deeply affected are the “sick” ones. AND GRIEF IS NOT A “DISORDER”.
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People need to stop thinking of unusual psychological states soley as bio-medical issues because much of the time they are not; they are the conscious mind breaking from an all too painful reality. Yet underneath this, the human spirit often bursts forth, with its all-seeing eye from an unseen realm.
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Making millions, perhaps billions, is their main objective, no matter the cost to society.
They know not the meaning of integrity.
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The politics of patriarchy are part and parcel of western medicine/”psy” disciplines.
Solutions lie in avoiding western medicine as much as possible and instead find qualified practioners trained in Eastern medicine which allows the body and mind to heal naturally of their own accord.
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I wish it were common knowledge, too, but it will be sooner rather than later thanks to people like you.
Thank you for writing your moving story. I greatly admire your courage and tenacity.
Birdsong đ
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Quit the wordy bullshit: liberation psychology, existentialist, social determinants of mental health, blah, blah, blah.
Better to find kindly souls who get who you are and where you’re at than having to pay some fool’s financially oppressive fees while kissing their power-imbalanced ass.
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You’re welcome, Bill.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Russell. Most graduate students as well as psychiatric residents have yet to learn there’s a big difference between fantasy and reality.
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It’s long past time to cut the head off the snake.
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No matter how many capital letters you string together, the “mental health system” isn’t about health. It’s about jockeying for power (and money) more than anything else.
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Omar, I think some humility on your part is called for. After all, the big wide world is quite a bit larger than your little practice.
P.S. Perhaps you should spend time on websites run by people who are struggling with iatrogenic illness caused by psychiatric drugs.
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Psychiatry itself is a pathology of the spirit, intentionally medicalized to accommodate/disguise its drug pushing agenda.
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I don’t think this approach honors the individual.
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Karl, you have my deepest admiration. Thank you for choosing to be a beacon of light đ
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Why not try this armchair experiment: quit using pseudo-technical jargon.
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Psychological porn is right.
Psychotherapy amounts to a one-way psychological peep show, that’s for sure. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think emotionally disrobing for strangers is a good idea for anybody. The whole “therapy” set-up gives me the creeps.
IMHO.
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The Gilded Age has fully returned: a world of extreme haves and have nots. But calling it The Age of the Boiling Frog I think would be a more accurate way of describing what’s happening today.
Tragically, I don’t see a cure for indifference when so many people are faced with trying to survive economically themselves.
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If Ghaemi & Co. felt truly secure in the quality of their research, I doubt they’d have responded at all.
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“On the other hand, for all of its faults, the construction of the DSM arguably relies on a more careful scientific process than what informs opinion videos pushed by complex, mysterious, and profit-driven media algorithms.”
The author needs to explain why he seems to think voting so-called “mental disease” into existence is a “more careful scientific process” than some random Tik Tok video.
DSM diagnoses are opinions voted into existence by a group of self-serving psychiatrists, which might explain why something called ‘conflict of interest’ comes to mind.
The truth is that Tik Tok videos and DSM conferences have something in common: both are seriously deluded.
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Nothing’s more immutably caste-ridden (hierarchical, invisibly power driven) than the so-called ‘psy disciplines’.
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“America’s ‘untouchables’: the silent power of the caste system”, by Isabel Wilkerson. theguardian.com
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Stigma is rooted in fear, and illness breeds fear (stigma) because illness means infirmity and infirmity means invalidity and invalidity means irrelevance — a condition most psy professionals are trained to believe they are (or should be) immune to.
“Mental health” stigma will always exist as long as psychic/emotional distress is “treated” as a medical condition. So, it stands to reason that most of the stigma in so-called “mental health” emanates from psychiatry’s very own DSM.
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… I forgot to include schizophrenia and OCD — not to mention just about every so-called “disorder” in psychiatry’s Damned Stupid Manuel, (DSM) —
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“Psychology of Imposter Syndrome — A Former Therapist Speaks”, Daniel Mackler on Youtube —
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Why thank you, No-one. I think your answers are BANG ON, too! đ
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LOVE the term “bio-babble” —
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Psychiatric “diagnoses” are opinions only, “professional” or otherwise. Which means it’s not unheard for two different practitioners to come up with two different “diagnoses” FOR THE SAME PERSON!
And guess what? One of them might even be of the opinion that no “diagnosis” is called for —
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“Pharma Corruption Revealed!” Dr. Josef interviews Dr. Jon Jurideni on YouTube
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Just because Drapetomania no longer appears in the DSM doesn’t mean psychiatry has changed for the better.
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Tom, thank you for saying such kind things.
P.S. I wouldn’t knock happiness if I were you because imo it sure beats the alternative. Just make sure you don’t get carried away with it. That goes for the lows, too, btw.
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It wasn’t that long ago when family doctors routinely ‘prescribed’ things like exercise or social activities for people who weren’t feeling up to par. But things began to change once Prozac hit the market in 1987. Before this it was pretty rare for them to automatically assign a psychiatric diagnosis which in my opinion is even more harmful (in insidious ways) than indiscriminately prescribing psychiatric drugs.
It might be would worth it for people in the author’s age group to go a step further and drop the concept of “mental illness” altogether, to entertain the idea that perhaps even the most severe reactions to social determinants, i.e. “Major Depressive Disorder”, “Bipolar”, “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” are in reality just more intense responses to overwhelming circumstances. That alone might go a long way towards promoting a more positive mindset for everyone involved.
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TG was gaslighted again and again and again — as is anyone unfortunate enough to be psychiatrically diagnosed, imho.
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… and feelings of sorrow and worry can be signs of emotional health, (imho).
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People who have awakened often frighten those who have not, (imho).
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…which makes me think there ought to be a national “Shred Your Psych Scripts Day”.
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Question: So why are half the people with “depression” getting medical intervention THEY DON’T NEED???
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“It’s the other half that don’t get better who need the medical intervention.”
That’s a disturbingly even-handed statement.
A word to the wise: Politics has no place in medicine.
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Great blog.
The transition to adulthood is often a tough one but turning to people that make a living pulling bullshit diagnoses out of their ass with one hand and psych drugs out of their ass with the other are two things few people need.
The photograph chosen for this blog was perfect, too! Makes me wish to hell I’d shredded the goddamn psych scripts written for me.
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“As with all psychiatrists I had met in my life, it was terrifying to see how detached from reality this man was as I watched him feel so superior to me based solely on his belief in the medical model.”
I can relate to this scenario, which is not a caricature, it’s the nightmare reality most people face when trying to withdraw from psychiatric drugs. To me it’s psychiatry’s defining feature: psychiatrists I have encountered were drunk on arrogance, happily living in their own reality-denying universe, adding insult to injury to people going through withdrawal. It was a crash course in what it means to be gaslit.
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Acupuncture DOES NOT CHEMICALLY POISON or ELECTRICALLY SHOCK the human system; it enables the human system TO HEAL ITSELF —
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The researchers didn’t mention how yoga’s become a form of exhibitionism—one that can ruin people’s knees and hips.
Human beings are built to walk, not twist themselves into a pretzel for likes on Instagram.
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Psychiatrists are trained in a medical school.
Psychiatrists write the DSM.
MD’s write prescriptions for psychiatric drugs.
But since (most) emotional problems aren’t caused by physiological problems, why seek help from a physician???
Wrong context leads to wrong care.
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Great quote!
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For me the most healing thing about being in nature is the quiet, as well as not being surrounded by a civilization filled with pressure to be somewhere you’d rather not go, or pressure to be around people you really can’t stand. The constant noise and feeling of overwhelm in urban environments are often toxic to environmentally sensitive people, whereas natural environments are characterized by a non-threatening atmosphere, which is soothing to the mind and body.
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CLARIFICATION: [psychiatry] is a uniquely harmful pseudoscience that ruins many people’s lives which makes choosing to ignore the harm it’s capable of doing inexcusable.
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The same kind of thing happened to me. Some psychiatrists were truly ignorant (which is no excuse), but I suspect more than one deliberately hid the truth to keep from being sued.
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Hey, Kim, I forgot to mention that OCD is not a ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’ either; it is a series of behaviors usually set in motion from ‘latent anxiety’, or hidden fear, which btw is an emotion, AND EMOTION IS NOT A ‘DISEASE’ OR A ‘DISORDER’ —
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Post-partum depression/psychosis is not a discrete biological illness; it is a state of mind that’s usually brought on by the sudden hormonal readjustment (shock, aftermath) of giving birth, a natural but sometimes hormonally traumatic experience. Which makes it not surprising that a hormonally based treatment relieves it. But this does not mean that Brexanalone is ‘treating a disease’. After all, birth-control pills prevent pregnancy, and pregnancy is not a disease.
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…and repeatedly stuffing people (especially young children) with ‘psychiatric medications’ does NOT ‘treat’ anything; all these do is NUMB EMOTIONS that need to be processed.
Furthermore, your unwillingness to recognize the existence of meaningful financial incentives in the business of medicine (psychiatry in particular) indicates a disturbing amount of denial on your part.
I think it’s time you step outside your cognitive bubble.
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Kim, the things you mention (neuroscience scans, genome studies, pharmacodynamics, kinetics, etc.,) do not “tell us what is happening in the brain”; these function only as Rorschach tests, meaning whatever happens to be on the mind of the viewer gets projected onto whatever is being viewed. And this is because there is no convincing evidence of a pathological process for any emotional/cognitive state of mind or ‘psychiatric condition’. Check out this blog now available on MIA: Researchers: Depression Is “A Normal Brain Responding to Stress or Adversity” by Peter Simons
And in case you didn’t know, dementia is not a ‘psychiatric condition’; it is a neurological one.
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Thank you! đ I enjoy reading your articles very much.
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“Neither an Eeyore nor a Tigger be.”
“The Overselling of Gratitude — Always being positive makes no more sense than always being negative”, by Alfie Kohn in Psychology Today
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Agree 100%
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The graphic for this article was very well chosen because unfortunately many people who ingest antipsychotics become shadows of themselves.
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CORRECTION: Framing distressing thoughts, feelings and behaviors ‘psychiatrically’ more often than not causes people to distance themselves (out of fear) from people who’ve been diagnosed ‘psychiatrically’ (biologically rooted or not), people who otherwise would be seen as simply having a hard time.
So, unfortunately, the final upshot from framing psychological problems as ‘biologically rooted’ actually INCREASES stigma, an unintended but nevertheless devastating consequence for persons simply seeking help.
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Most people fear (stigmatize) illness of any kind on some level because they don’t like being reminded of their own vulnerability. Therefore, framing people’s thoughts and feelings as ‘psychopathology’ (a medicalized concept) only serves to increase stigma which subsequently prompts people to distance themselves from something that causes them too much anxiety.
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I donate every month yet the same thing happens to me.
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Indeed. It’s lip service, a way of appeasing patients in order to make a prescriber’s life easier, a clever way of trying to sound progressive in order to salvage their tarnished reputations. And the craziest thing about it is that doctors are specifically trained to skillfully persuade people to ‘take their medicine’. The whole idea is ridiculously performative because the last thing an MD is concerned with is the patient’s sense of self; what they’re most concerned with is following is standard protocols to avoid malpractice suits.
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“Shared decision making” in ‘mental health’ is a joke.
It might sound good, but the fact is most people in professional roles aren’t willing to share their power as this is what defines them. And this is especially true when it comes to ‘antipsychotics’, or any other psychiatric ‘medication’ because most clinicians are trained to believe that psychiatric patients don’t know their own mind (‘lack insight’, ‘anosognosia’). Which is the reason why most clinicians subtly pressure (or even coerce) patients into complying with whatever makes the clinician feel safe.
A client’s sense of self usually fares no better because this too is under the influence of the harmful dynamics present in most psychotherapeutic relationships, dynamics characterized by a ‘power imbalance’ that (insidiously) undermines clients’ faith in themselves.
So, in effect, nothing really changes.
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“If the late adolescence/early adulthood period is genuinely ‘critical’ and ‘sensitive’ for still developing brains, then it is precisely this which should make clinicians wary of biomedical interventions!”
This kind of critical thinking (not to mention common sense) is woefully absent in psychiatry. I don’t know why the obvious never occurs to most of them. Wait a minute! Yes I do! Their confirmation bias has them primed to see what they’re looking for, even if they’re not sure what it is they’re looking at, i.e. ‘schizophrenia’, or ‘depression’, or ‘bipolar’, or ‘anxiety disorder’, or any other ‘disorder’ they happen to think of…
Therefore, the last thing any medical doctor should do is reach for their prescription pad.
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I think anyone who has the audacity to call themselves a healer of the mind, brain, soul, etc., is remarkably unaware (unconscious) of their own limitations (unhealed wounds).
They should ask themselves why they feel the need to see themselves as a healer, or more precisely, why they feel the need to have others see them as a healer.
In other words, most often in jobs like this it’s the wounded ego that’s in charge, not ‘the wounded healer’ they may (pretentiously) declare themselves to be.
IMHO.
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Awesome podcast. Informative, absorbing and uplifting.
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‘Anitpsychotics’ interfere with the psyche’s ability to naturally restore itself, which can happen, given enough time and favorable circumstances.
Aggressively ‘treating’ psychotic episodes with neuroleptics for years (or any amount of time for that matter) assaults the human body, and mis-perceiving withdrawal effects as a ‘recurrance of the original illness’ is not just a mistake, it is a crime.
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“Researchers have reported concerns that screening can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment and wastes the time and resources of both doctors and patients. In a study that found screening youth for depression led to more severe outcomes, the researchers note that screening may have an iatrogenic affect—worsening depression by making people focus on it.”
Bingo! This is the reason why the number of people being diagnosed with ‘mental illness’ has exploded, to the dertriment of themselves and society.
I had serious misgivings when I first heard of widespread screenings for ‘depression’ some thirty-odd years ago. I found myself hoping some influential person in psychiatry would come forward and issue warnings about what this could lead to: a massive iatrogenic effect. But instead what I feared would happen did happen, which is especiallly tragic for people too young and inexperienced to recognize the dynamics of situations like this; in other words, how their emotions are being used (pathologized) to promote The Sickness Industry more than anything else.
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I feel the same way. A person’s emotional state is highly personal, therefore is someone’s personal property, something a stranger has no business knowing or asking about for any reason whatsoever. I don’t care who they are or what their purpose is.
It’s one of many micro-inequities perpetrated by the ‘mental health system’ that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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It pisses me off the way psychiatry ducks responsibility for the proliferation of people needlessly prescribed psychiatric drugs because if there were no DSM (created by psychiatrists!) there’d be no way for physicians to legally prescribe psychiatric drugs.
Which means one thing: Psychiatry alone hold the keys to the Gates of Hell.
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The reason for the disparity is obvious: people in ‘developed’ countries have more access (money) to pharmaceutical poisons, and pharmaceutical poisons can make you sick.
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WTF is ‘screening for depression’??? Stupid checklists bankrolled by pharmaceutical companies administered by stupid people looking for more ‘clients’.
It does prove one thing, however: psychiatry is the apex of capitalism.
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Speak for yourself. An apology from psychiatry isn’t enough if their “treatments” have harmed a person’s ability to provide for themselves financially.
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Reading this aticle was so confusing it made me anxious. But here’s my take on it just the same:
Telling someone they have an “anxiety disorder” is just a fancy of way of saying something’s wrong with them for feeling anxious which often leads to feelings of shame. This often leads to more anxiety which often leads to more shame—so much so that people often find themselves saying “I AM anxious”, rather than “I FEEL anxious”.
AND WHO WANTS TO GO OUT FEELING LIKE THAT???
So, thanks to “psychiatry” we’ve got people stuck in one hell of an anxiety loop.
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If Awais Aftab felt secure with the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that, imo. The fact that Aftab does react imo suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together, speculative and therefore essentially inconclusive the research results are.
Putting it more simply, Awais Aftab seems ‘triggered’ when reputable people like Robert Whitaker dare call out psychiatry’s dubious claims of genetic risk or causality regarding psychiatry’s equally dubious “DSM diagnoses”.
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If Awais Aftab felt secure in the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that. The fact that Awais does react suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together (and ultimately speculative) the research results are.
In common parlance, Awais seems ‘triggered’ by certain people who dare call out psychiatry’s vacuous claims of genetic risk or causality. IMHO.
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Psychotherapy for me was the adverse event.
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How did this scapegoat experience traumatic invalidation? By seeing a psychiatrist and other “psy-professionals”.
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“The treatment process can often be uncomfortable for many patients as they often avoid experiences that have the potential to improve their lives.”
THAT is an arrogant statement.
I suggest the author put aside his therapist’s agenda and consider that maybe the “patient” knows best.
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The only thing I learned from psychotherapy is how useless it is for me.
Sitting through psychotherapy left me with a nagging sense of cognitive dissonance that lingered for days. Talking myself into believing that therapists or psychiatrists have anything worthwhile to offer was not only exhausting but also took a huge toll on my relationship with myself since deep down I knew I was wasting my time with people I didn’t respect. In any case, having to constantly bite my tongue so as not to deflate a therapist’s or psychiatrist’s oversized ego was a huge turn-off, but it was something I learned I had to do because most of them couldn’t handle being contradicted.
I only have myself to blame for forcing myself to engage with people I considered incurably insecure overachievers unconsciously seeking validation from everyone they meet just because they have some stupid degree.
What’s the best qualification for anybody wanting to help others? A huge amount of humility and enough personal experience to know what the heck they’re talking about, two qualities I found sorely lacking in most of the people working in the “helping professions”.
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Psychiatric drugs are radioactive imo and consequently should be treated as such.
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Psychiatric handbooks aren’t handbooks, they’re playbooks.
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Really good interview. I particularly appreciate the way Justin characterizes psychiatry’s use of the term “biopsychosocial” as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I see this as lip service, a way of fooling people into thinking psychiatry has evolved when it clearly has not.
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It’s almost comical how psy-professionals keep trying to prove that “psychotherapy” is better than psychiatric drugs when in reality it’s just the other side of the same dirty coin; its talky-talk spiel is just as gimmicky as psychiatry’s drugs.
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I agree with Yeah-i-survived. The talking profession is systemized gaslighting.
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The current mental health system isn’t about helping people, it’s about exerting power over emotionally vulnerable people.
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I can understand that.
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I couldnât agree more.
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Thank you for this article. The Power Threat Meaning Framework is a breath of fresh air that blows away the cobwebs of psychiatry’s hopelessly limiting “diagnostic” framework.
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I’ll never understand people’s worship of “science”. It has no place in situations having to do with peoples’ subjective, (“nuanced”) experience.
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CLARIFICATION: Alan, what you say is a bit confusing to me because on one hand you seem to be saying that all someone needs are supportive relationships. This is true to a certain extent, but totally relying on others, friends or therapists, has the potential of leaving people in a precarious position if they don’t like therapy, can’t afford therapy, or have no close family or friends. Good relationships are important, but being your own best friend is more important, and in my experience, relying too much on others, therapeutically or otherwise can prevent that from happening.
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Alan, I looked up Gabor Mate’s definition for trauma and this is what I found: “an inner injury, a lasting rupture or split with the self due to difficult or hurtful events”. I think this encompasses being hurt relationally, past or present.
I agree with you that medicalizing emotional distress is not a good thing. But unfortunately, most therapists are taught that emotional distress is a “disorder”, a “disease”, and that therapy is the only way to deal with it, which imo is limited view that harms those who don’t benefit from therapy.
But what you say is bit confusing to me because on one hand you seem to be saying all someone needs is supportive people, (which I agree with) while on the other hand you seem to be recommending therapy, which imo doesn’t make much sense since most therapists use the DSM and believe psychodynamics are critical, which is something I firmly disagree with.
But I agree that finding supportive people can be extremely helpful. However, I also think that relational problems are destined to repeat unless people get to know their own emotional history and triggers. Otherwise, people can find themselves in the same dysfunctional relationships.
It’s really important to learn to be your own best friend, and therapy isn’t necessary for that.
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Donât forget ânuanceâ; itâs the professional obfuscatorsâ favorite word.
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Research like this makes me wonder about the researchers….
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I’m having a hard time understanding Alan’s dislike of Gabor Mate, who I think is on the right track…
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I disagree. There’s nothing sophisticated or complex about mistreating people, however subtle. It’s just plain rotten, in anyone’s language.
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âșïž
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Learning how others affect you (“trauma”) is very important, but trauma has become a commodity; it need not be a medicalized, money-making opportunity for someone else (i.e., “therapy”).
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“If one feels safe in another’s company and trusts someone completely, traumatic memories will most likely become available, and can be dealt with at that time. Otherwise, you don’t need to try to heal from trauma. More importantly, people who have been traumatized don’t need to “heal” from trauma in order to love oneself and life. They only require connection, support, solidarity and relationships with loving people who treat them well.”
YES!!! Medicalized relationships are a needless pain in the ass.
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“In my opinion, to suggest that people can and should heal from trauma will end up doing more harm than good.”
It already has, imo.
The word “trauma” is now used to tell people how to live. It’s become a way to condemn people who don’t live up to your expectations.
Bad feelings need not be pathologized. It makes me feel bad about feeling bad.
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Thank you, Deepali, for sharing your moving story.
Girls and women are often pathologized for voicing their needs, even in so-called “progressive” cultures.
I’m delighted you found encouraging people that helped you find ways to live
that are meaningful to you.
“The power of women’s anger | Soroya Chemaly”, courtesy TED
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“…this is just from therapist perspective…”.
This is what’s wrong with the “mental health system”: it’s made by therapists for therapists where “patients” are seen as defective objects to be fixed with “success” measured by the therapist’s agenda. Totally arbitrary and totally nauseating.
Psychodynamic: this can be re-traumatizing.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: this can shut down people who need to be listened to.
Maybe all someone needs are people who help them feel safe to do what feels right TO THEM, instead of pressured to “do the work” just to please some agenda-possessed “therapist”.
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…although I strongly believe in holding psychiatry accountable for despicable harm it’s done and continues to do. It should never be let off the hook.
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And Essy, more than anything, please try not to get too discouraged, even though feeling better can be a long haul.
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I like this article. I think there’s a big difference between blaming parents and wanting them to understand and care about the harm they’ve done. And parents who genuinely regret the harm they’ve done deserve a second chance like anyone else. We are all human, and I don’t think holding grudges helps anyone.
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Looks like psychiatry doesn’t know what the rest of us do: that more made-up “diagnoses” means more lifelong “patients”. So, forget the revolving door. It’s actually a merry-go-round that no one gets off, which (seems to me!) just the way psychiatry likes it.
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Dear Essy,
I know how you feel. Pills didn’t help me either.
But self-therapy did help me. I found it by chance on YouTube from someone named Daniel Mackler. I think his approach can be very useful for people not getting what they need from our current mental health system. He’s a former therapist who’s very empathic because he’s aware of how ineffective its pills can be as well as how invalidating it is, especially for sensitive people.
Take good care, Essy. I hope you feel better soon,
Birdsong
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Lina is right.
IMHO, the problem with psy disciplines is that (most) of the people who work in them seem to think they know all the answers and that the fate of the world is in their hands alone. They need to examine their own motives more than anything else.
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Lina, I appreciate your keenly perceptive analysis. I think so-called “victims” can damn well speak for themselves without “assistance” from chronic pathologizers.
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Overprescribing is a problem in general medicine. Physicians too quickly write prescriptions for conditions that are not immediately life-threatening rather than suggest lifestyle changes.
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No need to apologize for the fact that a lot of what you write goes right over my head.
Here’s my take on the situation: the chump intentionally acted like a simon-pure asshole. End of story.
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Clarification: “JNANI: The Silent Sage of Arunachala – Ramana Maharshi”
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Agree 100%.
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CORRECTION: Universities teach a lot of things, but NOT what is truly important, WHICH MAKES THEM A WASTE OF MONEY.
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CORRECTION: Blasphemy is the word that best describes the DSM.
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They certainly aren’t merely the stuff of anyone’s imagination.
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Maybe TA needs to hear about this…
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John, science is great, but it’s no excuse for putting the cart before the horse.
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Prove it.
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The sooner the better, if you ask me.
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đ
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A Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis is code for “I can’t stand this person so don’t take their concerns seriously”.
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Universities teach lots of things, except what is truly important.
On YouTube: “6 Ways To Be In Flow With Your Life – Lao Tsu(Taoism)”, courtesy Philosophies for Life
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I’m still waiting for your response.
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That doesn’t mean they aren’t also stupid.
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“Some say if the DSM acknowledged Complex PTSD (usually from Developmental Trauma), it would be a thin volume.”
I think trauma experienced at any age can lead to significant problems.
“Many trauma experts recommend both top down (cognitive) and bottom-up (somatic) modalities. Unfortunately, few healthcare providers can offer the latter. It seems even fewer can be in their own bodies and emotions well enough to prevent them from thwarting their clients’ processes.'”
Somatic therapies helped me a great deal, but finding an affordable practitioner wasn’t easy. Talk therapy was re-traumatizing. Not only that, most of the talk therapists I knew were egotistical, which I think you have to be to want to be a therapist in the first place.
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I relate to this comment.
I grew up in an extremely stressful household where contempt and cruelty were the norm. There were also repeated instances of life-threatening violence as far back as I can remember, happening at a time before things of this nature were acknowledged, publicly or privately. My siblings and I never talked to each other about this nor (as far as I know) mention it to outsiders.
My nervous system is still in the process of calming down from this, and the psychiatric medications only added to my inability to relax. On top of all this, the main offender had the habit of playing loud rock music all day and late into the evening. Between that and the tv on almost constantly, I could never completely relax. My mind and body are still in the process of settling down from the horror of it all.
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Clarification: How do you change a paradigm/culture that subtly encourages people to feel superior to the person next to them?
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Clarification: genes play a role in everything, but not a direct one in psychological distress.
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I liken psychiatric drugs to pesticides used in gardens or factory farms.
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I think one of the main reasons a lot of people jump on the genetics bandwagon regarding “schizophrenia” and other so-called psychiatric diseases is because they are afraid of looking critically at their own lives and feelings. It’s too much for them. Their irrational fear explains why they react like the devil themselves and feel justified punishing people who make them uncomfortable.
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Nothing’s more calming and spiritually restorative than the beauty and quiet of nature. It’s my favorite companion, day or night.
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Why not call it Psychiatric Projective Disorder, or âPPDâ?
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On YouTube: “Sri Ramana Maharshi — JNANI” courtesy Cinefx Productions
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Definition for Blind Manâs Bluff:
TAKING A CHANCE ON A SOMETHING WITHOUT RHYME OR REASON TO YOUR POSITION
Definition for Willful Blindness: intentionally keeping unaware of facts that would render liability or implication
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Psychiatry is ââŠ.a presumed medical specialty that has no reputable theory about the alleged internal dysfunction that causes mental illness, that has no biomarkers with which to diagnose those illnesses, yet that has a long history of coercing people to act, think, and feel in accordance with an ill-defined and ever-changing set of moral standards.â
Psychiatry is nothing more than a medicalized game of Blind Manâs Bluff. And itâs guilty of Willful Blindness until it changes.
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And hereâs where the âcureâ lies:
âDigging In the Dirtâ, by Peter Gabriel
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Psychiatry has become the polite term for drug dealing, because instead of advocating for healthier mindsets, behaviors, and lifestyles, they create drug addicts.
So why wouldnât they want their âpatientsâ addicted to their âtreatmentsâ when thatâs their business? Very paternalistic, i.e. âBig Daddy Knows Bestâ.
Itâs the new white collar crime.
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And hereâs a song that should be on everyoneâs playlist:
âTwistedâ, sung by Joni Mitchell
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Iâm dizzy with cognitive dissonance at the insanity of it allâŠ
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Definitely one of Class and privilege.
Generally, I like what Gabor Mate says. However, I always had the strange sense that heâs missing something, which always left me wondering: Does he not appreciate the way most people are forced to live?
I could never decide if he was being cowardly, or if it just never occurred to him how much deferential treatment he receives because he has âDr.â in front of his name.
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Your most welcome, Lisa.
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I read your essay yesterday and Iâm in awe of it and you. Your insights and intelligence are AMAZING. I see it as a blueprint for the future.
And thank you, thank you, thank you Lisa, for being you, above all else.
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Fascinating.
Brought to mind this classic music video from once upon a timeâŠ.
âShock The Monkeyâ, by Peter Gabriel
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What speaks to people is entirely personal, and often canât be anticipated. And Iâve no idea what âright-brain malenessâ means.
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Absolutely. But Iâm more committed to honoring the human being from which all art springs.
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Topher,
I just took a look at âThe Illusion of Psychotherapyâ on Amazon and it sounds well worth reading as Epstein addresses the many social-relational causes of psychic distress.
I look forward to getting a copy once I find one less pricey.
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And hereâs something NO ONE should miss:
âMay Cause Side Effectsâ, by Brooke Siem
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COMPLETELY INVALID!!!
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True.
Often people with money and/or advanced education (the so-called âelitesâ) either donât know or have forgotten what itâs like to be low man on the totem pole and the consequences that real people can face if they dare call out the powers that be.
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âTo see what âScienceâ is made of, we need only observe what happens when it collides with power, pounds, payola, politics or promotional prospects, perhaps?â
Welcome to the 21st century.
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âMy Story Is Full of Liesâ, by Pata Suyemoto
Moving. Haunting. AND FULL OF TRUTH.
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I feel the need to hurl every time I hear the term âcharacter defectâ.
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Big Pharma and Big Psychiatry are always planning ahead. Itâs what Big Business does.
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âPeople need to ask about all those patients who as teenagers became patients in the late 1980âs with Prozac and have been compliant and ask simply where are they today? Homeless? Jobless? Severely ill or dead?â
Psychiatry would hide that âdataâ if they had itâor try to give it a âpositiveâ spin.
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Agree 100%. All talk, no substance.
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And psychiatry DOESNâT GIVE A DAMN about the people it harms; it only sees âpatientsâ as COLLATERAL DAMAGE â
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ââŠideology over reality..â
Thatâs the perfect definition for psychiatry.
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Correction: Whether psychiatry does this deliberately or not is of NO CONSEQUENCE, because the results are THE SAME: iatrogenic illness, disability and death, which makes psychiatryâs claims of bearing no responsibility completely invalid.
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Aftab can soft-soap about psychiatry all he wants, but it doesnât change the fact that psychiatry is a dishonest, exploitative organization whose long history of misinforming the public has allowed it to misuse its power against the most vulnerable people with virtually NO consequences and continues to do so TO THIS DAY.
And this has happened because until now the public has lacked access to information that tells them THE TRUTH behind psychiatryâs many FALSE CLAIMS:
1. That psychiatric diagnoses are physically rooted
2. That psychiatric drugs correct âchemical imbalancesâ or other physical processes
3. That these drugs pose little risk to peopleâs physical and/or psychological health
And whether not psychiatry does or has done this deliberately is of NO CONSEQUENCE, because the results are THE SAME: iatrogenic illness, disability or even death.
And no amount of charm or savvy on the part of any slickly packaged internet shill can change this AWFUL TRUTH.
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Correction: Any non-drug therapies psychiatry lays claim to are already being done by people and organizations that have no connections to the drug world, legal or illegal. And as a result, people are experiencing better outcomes than psychiatryâs depraved world of âmedicationâ side effects and any ensuing drug withdrawal.
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Aftab is the face of something that has morphed into a world-wide, legalized drug ring. And no amount of philosophizing can change that.
Any other âtherapiesâ it lays claim to are already being done by other people or organizations with no connections to the drug world which just happen to be showing âbetter outcomesâ. And what are âbetter outcomesâ? No drug-induced side effects or withdrawal effects.
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But maybe heâd be able to catch the beat by cranking up the hurdy gurdy to this snappy tune: âOne Thing Leads To Anotherâ, by The Fixx
But I doubt he could handle the lyrics.
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No one is safe from psychiatryâs clutches. It strategically targets the entire globe through its trademark insidious fashion: Direct To Consumer Advertising â
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Correction: Psychiatryâs a profession of Power, HUGE egos, and deliberate MISREPRESENTATION.
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Or maybe itâs groupthink. Or even gaslightingâŠ.
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And dispensing an endless supply of cognitive dissonance.
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And VERY thirsty for validation.
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Heâs tripping over himself trying to dance the Ad Hominem Shuffle.
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Hereâs Aftabâs idea of progress:
1. More diagnoses
2. More drugs
3. Less dissenting opinion
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âThe DSM mindset is now so thoroughly embedded within the culture itâs massively eroding the ability of people in describe their uniqueness and shifting emotional reactions and states in anything other than psychiatric language.â
Itâs become the biggest source of cultural pollution.
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Aftabâs keeping busy, alright. He just posted a response to Mr. Whitakerâs essay, which, unsurprisingly, is quite condescending.
All I can say is Aftab seems like one touchy guy.
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lcjohnstone says:
âRecently, he [Aftab] has written a curious blog about the Power Threat Meaning Framework, in which he claims that a) no one has ever heard of it b) everyone thinks it is rubbish c) everyone needs to be warned against itâŠ.. and attributes the authorsâ motivations to âactive hostilityâŠ.against diagnosisâ. Which doesnât really stand up as an evidence-based refutation.â
He says that stuff because the PTMF rattles his cage. And donât be surprised if sooner or later he tries to hijack the idea with his own distorted version. But heâd be much better off if heâd a) own his own âactive hostilityâ, b) quit his twitter habit, and c) stop dabbling in philosophy that only makes him sound more ridiculous.
And as for him claiming that no one has ever heard of the Power Threat Meaning Framework: itâs my understanding that people at the World Health Organization have heard of it.
Iâve learned one thing dealing with psychiatry: itâs best not to engage with it at all, because itâs full of people like Aftab who will defend their dubious âdiagnosesâ till their dying day.
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Dear Lauren,
Thank you for the extraordinary work you do. Youâve created a template based on honesty, respect, trust, personal agency and mutual growth, which are the only things that make any sense, and things I found sorely lacking both in psychiatry and psychotherapy. Listening deeply with an open heart and open mind is whatâs most important in life.
Youâve given me a lot to think about.
And thank you for your links.
Birdsong
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âBPDâ is a wastebasket diagnosisâŠâ.
So is every other âpsychiatric diagnosisâ.
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Correction: BPD is the medicalized TERM for âbitchâ.
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Psychiatryâs current recognition of trauma and neurodiversity just provides more opportunities for psychiatry to invent more meaningless and ultimately stigmatizing labels, and more opportunities for psychiatry to peddle more harmful drugs, which obviously means more money for them.
Psychiatry is Opportunistic Medicine, and labels and drugs are all theyâve got.
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Tanya says, ââŠI think there is such a defensiveness on the part of many psychiatrists. I think that my narrative was perhaps just something that was too challenging and wouldâve caused a lot of reflection on their part, and that reflection could probably be very painful, Iâm sure.â
Psychiatry is the modern version of the Tower of Babel, and itâs DSM is its Book of Babble.
So expecting serious reflection from people schooled in psychiatry is like waiting for the second coming of Christ.
Psychiatry is immune to meaningful reflection, because it would mean the end of psychiatry.
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âThis story is all too typical of psychiatric oppression.â
Absolutely. And itâs a story that needs to be told, desperately.
Thank you Tanya.
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But Aftab obviously has Schizoid disorder. Must be from trying to mix psychiatry with philosophy.
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More on Bait and Switch:
1. Psychiatry promises relief from pain through drugs that cause iatrogenic harm, which it then denies
2. Psychotherapy promises psychological freedom by creating emotional dependence on âtherapyâ, which it then denies
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Rasx says, ââŠ.ad hominem is psychiatryâs stock in tradeâŠâ.
You forgot drug pushing.
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Another look at Aftabâs twitter tells me heâs much too busy promoting himself to spend any time reading anything that doesnât flatter his already inflated ego. So hereâs something short and sweet from Psychology Today:
âReview: The Book of Woe: Why the DSM is doomed to failâ, by Helene Guldberg, PhD
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Correction: Aftabâs inviting two psychiatrists to oppose you proves his pants are on fire.
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But like all politicians, Aftabâs greatest strength lies in talking out of both sides of his mouth.
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And for something more visually entertaining, Aftab might watch this: âThe Myth of Low-Serotonin & Antidepressants – Dr. David Horowitzâ, courtesy After Skool
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Correction: psychiatry is a profession of insults (DSM) practiced by insulting people.
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And if thatâs not too taxing, Aftab might pick up a copy of âA Profession Without Reason: The Crisis of Contemporary PsychiatryâUntangled and Solved by Spinoza, Free-Thinking and Radical Enlightenmentâ, by Bruce Levine, PhD.
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BPD is medical misogyny.
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Dear Lisa,
Thank you for sharing your poignant story. Youâve been through hell and back, but congratulations on making it out alive. I totally relate to your saying this:
âThe only therapy that made sense to me was self-introspection and a lot of reading about trauma from compassionate expertsâŠâ
And youâre absolutely right that no one should have to experience and heal from psychiatric gaslighting and abuse. But itâs my belief believe that psychiatryâs current recognition of trauma and neurodiversity is no more than lip service.
Thank you again for your remarkable testimony.
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I believe itâs called collective insanity.
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Or their half-cocked âgeneticsâ theory.
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Definition for Magical Thinking: believing that genetics explains psychic suffering
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Psychiatry is a profession of Power, big egos, and deliberate misperception.
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Itâs obvious that getting under Aftabâs skin is easy.
Heâd be well advised to fix the carefully concealed chip on his shoulder.
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Correction: psychiatry is a religion more than anything else, because it believes in magical thinking.
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And psychiatry has no answers to explain that either.
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Psychiatryâs poisoned chalice is a jug of Kool-Aid. And Aftabâs the perfect Kool-Aid Man.
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He clearly loves being psychiatryâs latest Golden Boy.
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Thank you very much, lcjohnstone. And thank you for the wonderful link.
Aftabâs inviting two senior psychiatrists to oppose you proves you set his pants on fire, but I bet he had the old farts lined up long before the interview, as anyone who dares speak the truth poses a threat their identity and Power. And Aftabâs insistence on proving abstractions proves heâs a fool, a fraud, and a fake.
And thank you for lighting the match.
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Aftabâs a politician, more than anything else, because psychiatry is politics, more than anything else.
And if that were not the case, thereâd be no cause for argument.
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Correction: Aftab needs to realize he canât out-philosophize the truth.
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BPD is the medicalized form for âbitchâ.
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Iâm so glad you finally you finally heard a voice. It must have been your own.
Daniel was that voice for me.
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An even better question: What makes Aftab want to be a publicity hound?
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Hereâs the âscienceâ behind Aftabâs psychiatry: âIt IS so because we SAY so!â
Yet for all his disorganized rhetoric, he fails to answer the most basic philosophical question: WHAT THE FUCK IS PSYCHIATRY TRYING TO DO?
Hereâs more food for thought: âOn the Heels of Ignorance: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowingâ by Owen Whooley
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Is psychiatry mostly hard or soft power?
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How is Brand a hypocrite?
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I think Aftab wears two hats at the same time: drug-pushing theologian AND drug-pushing propagandist.
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You gotta hand it to Aftab. After all, it must be tough being an apologist for psychiatry in this day and age.
But as the saying goes, âItâs a dirty job, but somebodyâs gotta do it.â
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Maybe Aftab should spend a little less time twittering and a little more time listening.
And hereâs something that just might expand his awareness a wee bit:
âPsychiatryâs Cycle of Ignorance and Reinvention: An Interview with Owen Whooleyâ, a conversation with Ayurdhi Dahl, PhD, courtesy MIA
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Someone needs to ask Aftab about the philosophy of bait and switch.
Definition for Bait and Switch: Fraudulent or deceptive practice.
The ploy of offering a person something desirable to gain favor (such as political support), then thwarting expectations with something less desirable.
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Psychiatry needs to go the way of the girdle.
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Believe this:
Psychiatry has no facts to back up its claims, by god.
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Doctors in general give me the creeps.
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It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same:
âMotherâs Little Helper: The History of Valiumâ, historyhit.com
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If Aftab felt secure in his convictions, he wouldnât bother with MIA â
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Psychiatry doesnât âtreat diseaseâ, it creates iatrogenic illness.
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Correction: Aftab needs to realize he canât outtalk the truth.
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What Aftab fails to see is this:
Psychiatry will eventually collapse under the weight of its own liesâwith or without MIA.
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Aftab needs to check his calendar: itâs 2023, not 1983, so controlling the narrativeâs a thing of the past, thanks to the internet.
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It used to be barefoot and pregnant. Now itâs drugged and compliant.
âMotherâs little helperâ: Vintage Drug Ads Aimed at Women, goretro.com
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Aftab needs to realize he canât outrun the truth.
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Aftabâs the perfect front man for a âprofessionâ that sees its days are numbered, but his carefully modulated hissy fits are a testament to MIAâs integrity. He sees the writing on the wall and it has him running scaredâŠ
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No, but the robots who prescribe sure do.
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You might find some videos and books by Daniel Mackler to be helpful, rasselas.redux. Heâs a former therapist who addresses childhood trauma and breaking from oneâs parents with a lot of understanding.
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Psychiatry claims to be medicine, but itâs actually a socially acceptable form of drug trafficking that lobbied for DTCA at the end last century. Itâs not about health, but the bottom line.
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What world do these researchers live in?
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Sad how much things have changedâŠ.
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Doctors will remain ignorant and afraid of lawsuits until theyâre offered more guidelines.
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I agree. Psychedelics have the potential to make opiates look like childâs play.
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I agree 100%. The professionalization of emotional support is a terrible invention.
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I agree that much of whatâs labeled âgreat artâ is not relatable, and that womenâs perspective is often ignored or silenced. And art definitely attracts a lot of snobs.
To me, art is just another form of expression, to communicate soul to soul, to make the unconscious conscious.
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You gotta hand it to psychiatry trying to walk back its biological reductionism. But itâs definitely overcompensating.
Hereâs what most people truly need: space and time to grieve unprocessed emotions – – unmolested by psychiatryâs intrusive machinations, pharmaceutical or otherwise.
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Psychiatry isnât medicine. Itâs a criminal enterprise of drugging and jailing.
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Hereâs a novel idea: Donât start antidepressants in the first place.
A YouTube video to watch BEFORE starting antidepressants:
âThe Myth of Low-Serotonin & Antidepressants – Dr. Mark Horowitzâ, courtesy After Skool
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Living in a state of numbness is not living.
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Perhaps it shouldnât be.
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Reductionism is not the answer. But neither is brain clutter.
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A drug-dependent society is a terrible legacy to pass onto the young.
A related video on YouTube: âHOLY SH*T! Big Food Is Profiting Off Sick Kidsâ, courtesy Russell Brand
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I wish you good luck, as you certainly have your work cut out for you!
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Itâs long been an open secret: âpsychotherapyâ is a potential playhouse for predators.
And why doesnât it matter to these people that the psychiatric drugs already prescribed produce similarly negative outcomes?
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I donât think increasing disability rates spell victory, especially when accompanied by a rise in psychiatric drug prescribing.
The side effects of psychiatric drugs are destroying peopleâs ability to support themselves in increasingly large numbers.
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Exactly. Psychiatry is all about âdiseases and disordersâ, and imaginary ones at that.
And âpsychotherapyâ is no better in that it creates an unhealthy dependence on âtherapyâ.
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Maintaining the status quo through drug sedation (psychiatry) is a form of oppression.
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Not quite the same. Psychiatry claims to be medicine.
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Psychiatry and its drugs ruins the quality of life for many.
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Art, humanities and psychiatry do have something thing in common: all are unwisely placed on pedestals.
Living should be revered, not someoneâs rendition of it.
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Indeed. The arts give meaning and expression to the human experience, whereas psychiatry destroys what it means to be human.
And âpsychotherapyâ caricatures human relationships.
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Because the Federal Government has agreed to pay for psychiatryâs âstandard of careâ, which is primarily psychiatric drugs, and because the pharmaceutical industry is a huge part of the economy.
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YES!!! Psychiatry doesnât âtreatâ drug dependence, it PRESCRIBES drug dependence, INDEFINITELY â
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Psychiatryâs co-optation and de-radicalization of peer-support and psychedelics does nothing to change the fact that itâs CODIFIED BIGOTRY co-opted by financial interests.
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Your welcome, Lauren, and thank you for your warmly insightful article.
I agree. Open minds and hearts works wonders. And BELIEVING in ourselves is key.
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Psychiatry is the only profession where a practitionerâs self-actualization depends on destroying the self-actualization of others.
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âForcing agreement on one shared story, which will no doubt be created by those who hold the most power, is oppressive and dangerous for people who have experienced the dominant paradigm labels, diagnoses and âtreatmentsâ.â
Psychiatry and psychotherapy exploit peopleâs need for attachment and attention.
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Thereâs nothing more co-dependent than the therapist-client ârelationshipâ.
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Good article.
The arts and humanities embrace and express the reality of human suffering in ways that are incredibly healing.
Neuropsychiatry is a haven for the heartless, and for those unable to accept the vagaries of life.
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Traditional psychotherapy is a psychological trap based on an unnatural and unnecessary power imbalance imposed by those whose main goal is having power over vulnerable people. Itâs self-aggrandizing for the therapist and infantilizing for the client.
A peer-run approach is the only civilized way to conduct âtherapyâ, if one seeks it at all.
People heal best on their own.
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Get a load of this:
âIllness trajectories depend on developmental processes, learning, and behavioral interactions on multiple spatial and temporal scales, which involve levels of the organization across neurobiological, cognitive-affective, interpersonal, and social systems.â
Translation: LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE
And while youâre at it, try having a little respect for the people youâre dealing with.
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People who abuse psychiatric patients need to be held accountable.
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Psychiatry dominates and disempowers through diagnoses and drugs.
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Who needs psychiatryâreductionist or otherwiseâwhen a little Jung is all you need?
On YouTube: âCarl Jung – How to Find Your Soulâ, courtesy After Skool
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Psychiatrists, and medical doctors in general, are now the âmiddle menâ of the pharmaceutical industry.
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Psychiatry needs to learn one thing: wordiness only goes so far.
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âPsychiatric disordersâ are autoimmune âdiseasesâ of the soul.
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By choosing to disregard the data compiled by Robert Whitaker and Joanna Moncreiff, psychiatry is guilty of criminal negligence.
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Psychiatry is the elephantâs turd.
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Exposing children and adolescents to notions of âmental health awarenessâ is totally inappropriate because it makes them think thereâs something wrong with them for not feeling their best at all times; theyâre too young to have perspective about their feelings. Itâs a grossly irresponsible use of the power of suggestion.
Children need to know that feelings are a part of living, and be taught how to respond to their feelings in positive, self-affirming ways. Anything else is confusing and harmful.
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Psychiatry has all the data it needs, thanks to Robert Whitaker and Joanna Moncreiff.
And by ignoring this data, it remains a profession of negligence by its own choice.
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Conventional psychiatry isnât medicine, itâs the nuclear option.
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Healing comes from collaboration, not domination.
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Psychiatry is as much a political tool today as it was during the Nazi era, as its goal is essentially the same: power and control by whatever means necessary, which today includes psychedelics.
But has anyone imagined the iatrogenic damage in years to come?
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Trauma has turned the world into a gathering of re-traumatizing psychiatrists and psychotherapists.
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Whatâs a âsuccessful outcomeâ in psychiatry? People chronically dependent on its âmedicationsâ.
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Psychiatry will never admit to being a total crock of shit.
But thanks to the internet, fewer and fewer people look to the likes of âJAMAâ.
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maradel says, âThey [doctors] are very insecure and enjoy their massive power trips.â
100% TRUTH.
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Doctors who rely on the DSM are completely irrational.
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Maybe people should stop being data-dependent and instead ask themselves this burning question:
WHY rely on âdataâ more than your own intuition?
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Some people need to pull their heads out of their data-dependent asses and instead consider these novel ideas:
1. Maybe emotional distress isnât physical illness
2. Maybe psychoactive drugs arenât a good thing for most people
3. Maybe talk therapy isnât what itâs cracked up to be
Then finally ask themselves this burning question:
Is turning to a medicalized, data-dependent system for emotional distress good idea?
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Psychiatry is colonialism at its most extreme.
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What do you know! Psychiatryâs finally come full circle with psychedelics. And who knows? Maybe with this latest twist, theyâll finally admit that psychiatry is drug pushingâŠ
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The people at JAMA need to pull their heads out of their data-dependent asses and instead consider these novel ideas:
1. Maybe emotional distress isnât illness
2. Maybe psychiatric drugs are a bad thing
3. Maybe talk therapy isnât what itâs cracked up to be
Then finally ask each other this burning question:
Why turn to the medical community for emotional distress in the first place?
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Thereâs nothing more âdisalienatingâ than listening to people (be they men OR women) unconsciously guided by chauvinistic attitudes.
Definition for Chauvinistic: displaying excessive or prejudiced support for oneâs own cause or group; the irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of oneâs own group or people
And thereâs nothing more chauvinistic than psychiatry and its self-satisfied offshoot called âpsychotherapyâ, as both are based on gratifying the egos of their practitioners.
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No one needs anyoneâs convoluted, self-serving theories regarding psychosis when the explanation is simple: people retreat from reality when life gets too painful. And if they sense safety, they often come back.
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Definition for Intellectualism: the exercise of the intellect at the expense of the emotions.
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No one learns to empathize by living in an intellectual bubble.
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Who would have thought that treating people with dignity could actually be a good thing?
But I guess thatâs not enough for people more interested in making a name for themselves, i.e. Freud, Lacan, etc.
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Intellectualism, as opposed to psychosis, is just another way to dissociate from intolerable feelings. And itâs long been a refuge for the intellectually pompous, i.e. âpsychiatryâ and itâs chronically confused cousin better known as âpsychologyâ.
There is such a thing as thinking too much. People need to get out of their heads and into their hearts.
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I agree 100% with Lauraâs assessment of the situation regarding psychic distress in todayâs world; that itâs one of financial exploitation on top of personal victimization â which explains why so many people high on the abusive end of the narcissistic spectrum hold jobs as âmental health workersâ. And itâs definitely spread by the misuse and overuse of psychological language that characterizes emotions as illness. And any effort to reclaim the narrative, i.e. âDI Without The Disorderâ is definitely a step in the right direction.
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The mental illness industry is exactly that, as itâs misuse of language has infected an entire generation.
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Never underestimate the power of words.
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Itâs all a matter of subjective interpretation, imo. And why define it at all?
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Well, I have to admit Iâve never thought that much about it, so Iâll leave the answer to that question up to youâŠ
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You can add Charlie Chaplin to the mix: âA Message For All Of Humanity – Charlie Chaplinâ courtesy T&H – Inspiration & Motivation on YouTube
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And thatâs about as far as it goesâyâall can keep your stupid floppy-sack!
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The main problem with psychiatry is that all you need to do is say âbooâ to have the fools reach for their stupid DSM. And most psychologists are no different.
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Worth a glance: âSplitting: The Psychology Behind Binary Thinking And How It Limits A Diversity Of Opinions,â by Ilana Redstone in Forbes Magazine
My takeaway was this quote from psychologist Andrew Hartz:
âThereâs an Islamic mystic who described how harmful it is to divide people into groups, say only good things about some and only bad things about othersâŠâ â something that accurately describes the âmental healthâ industry.
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What I find remarkable about the enlightenment era is how adamant some people were about separating the mind and body. And I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that these were men who never had to contend with the agonizing realities of either menstrual cramps or childbirth. Because if theyâd had to, I bet theyâd have stopped thinking like a bunch of stubborn two-years olds. And while I donât believe thereâs any such thing as the completely egotistical construct invented by the completely egotistical Freud called âpenis envyâ, there is definitely such a thing as âpenis privilegeâ.
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Cartesian dualism is actually a form of âsplittingâ, the defense mechanism used by people unable to tolerate ambiguity. And âsplittingâ is what characterizes most of the people who practice psychiatry and psychologyâand when challenged, they resort to gaslighting.
So there you have it, the two things that characterize the system of âmental healthâ: splitting and gaslighting.
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I agree, feeling and thinking are intricately intertwined. But as you say, âFeelings do not lieâŠâ
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However, I do consider âmental illness industryâ an appropriate metaphor.
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James Hillman is brilliant:
ââŠ.medical jargon refers to nothing.â
âIt is an extreme materialism and pro technocratic thinking based on labels, procedures and it will be worse.â
âThinking based on procedures and labels is a programming of the enlightenment era leading to technocracy.â
âAnd there is no sign of psychiatric victims in this corrupted evil society.â
This is an evil society and things probably will get worse in some ways. But I hold out hope for radical change in how people see âmental illnessâ.
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Your most welcome, Penni.
And I agree, the metaphors used by the mental illness industry are a huge disservice to humankind.
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Correction: Dr. Cornwall, not âColemanâ. I do apologize for my oversight.
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Listen and enjoy: âAwaiting on You Allâ by George Harrison, courtesy Soft lyric on YouTube
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âThe JHP was the venerable journal of a revolutionary movement begun in the 1950âs to provide a âthird forceâ in the field, to counter the two dominant movements of Freudâs psychoanalysis and B.F. Skinnerâs behaviorism.â
Human beings are not just their brain chemistry; they are mind, body and spirit/soul. In my mind, humanistic psychology recognizes what other psychologies and certainly psychiatry do not, which is the overriding reality and beauty of the human soul, without which life loses its purpose and meaning.
Check this out on YouTube: âThis Is Priceless – George Harrison On What Lies BeyondâŠâ T&H – Inspiration & Motivation
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Uncomfortable feelings labeled as âmental illnessâ are messages from within that something is wrong in our life, not in our âbrain chemistryâ.
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What happens in a world without mercy? You get things like psychiatry and psychology.
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By the time some chooses to train as a psychiatrist, itâs usually too late to make any headway.
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For the most part, NAMI is a support group for the families of âThe Identified Patientâ.
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Psychology needs to shut up and change its name to cognicology. It doesnât belong in the âfeelingsâ business. And psychiatry needs to shut up entirely.
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I used to think having a medical degree indicated an ability to think critically. Needless to say I no longer think this way.
But Dr. Gotzsche is that rare exception.
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And sometimes extremes states are caused by living under too much stress.
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The field of psychology should be called âbehaviorismâ because thatâs all it is. After all, âpsycheâ means âsoulâ and souls canât be âclinically studiedâ.
And psychiatry should be called drug pushing, because thatâs EXACTLY what it is.
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I was delighted to read something about human suffering that actually captures the essence of what it means to be human:
âTo have seen those JHP journals on the library shelves full of merciful caring about human suffering, was proof that the human heart and spirit could prevail over the head and the dangerous objectification of the disease model of psychiatry.â
âThe contrast was human-hearted compassion and potential for all, verses human-disordered abnormality/pathology and emotion-killing psych drugs for all.â
My thanks are to you, Dr. Coleman. A heart-centered approach should be the gold standard for helping people, and also for living a good life.
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Correction: SHARING kindness and REALLY meaning it â
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Wonderful article and wonderful quote:
âMerciful love can help relieve the emotional suffering of extreme states.â
Not receiving merciful love is usually the reason people find themselves in an extreme state. And showing kindness can bring them back.
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The âmental health systemâ mutilates human relationships.
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All part of the new colonialism.
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A scarily accurate depiction of modern medicineâand psychiatry in particular.
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Psychiatry calls it psychosis.
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People donât need a disease-centered, agenda-laden system. They need caring human beings without an agenda who know how to listenâsomething that used to be called a very good friend.
Healing happens in understanding, NOT âdiagnosesâ.
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Someone should ask these characters if theyâd feel comfortable having a robot look after their kids.
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Dear Penni,
Thank you for sharing your story. I relate to it because like you I believe much of what is thought to be âmental illnessâ is actually a spiritual breakthrough brought about by repeated moral injuryâinjuries usually made worse by a system that speaks a different language.
And I wish you many Happy Returns on your Spiritual Birthday!
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âEgo collapseâ is a great term. When the ego dies the spirit survives.
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And I wouldnât be surprised if higher rates of addiction to psychiatric drugs correlates with higher levels of income. After all, thatâs just what the pharmaceutical cartels are counting on.
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I agree, physics canât replace the psyche. And for the most part, distressed people are suffering from soul sickness, not âmental illnessâ.
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I think it depends on what you consider âmental illnessâ.
Enduring financial hardship and deprivation can cause high levels of stress that can adversely affect peopleâs state of mind and ability to function. And unfortunately this usually gets categorized as âmental illnessâ.
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Who needs âbrain imagingâ to prove that poverty and maltreatment damages children in lasting ways?
Only idiots needs brain scans to realize that emotional scars are as real as physical ones.
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The researchersâ stupidity is rooted in assuming that âdepressionâ is an illness in the physical sense.
Itâs time these people put away their electronic toys and signed up for some courses in semantics and logic.
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ââŠ.the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.â – J. Krishnamurti
âFreedom from the desire for answer is essential for the understanding of a problem.â – J. Krishnamurti
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âDo not pursue what should be, but understand what is.â – J. Krishnamurti
Thought is never free because it is based on knowledge, and knowledge is always limited.â – J. Krishnamurti
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âA man who says, âI want change, tell me how toâ, seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.â
– J. Krishnamurti
âAll ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.â – J. Krishnamurti
And thereâs nothing more divisive than psychiatry and psychology.
Definition for Divisive: alienating, estranging, isolating, schismatic, discordant, disharmonious, inharmonious â all of which aptly describes psychiatry and psychology.
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Correction: Ramesh is the author, not Rasx.
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âThey talk about the psyche without the psyche itself, it is as if they were talking about theology without God. It is insanity.â
Psychiatry and psychology are the products of an insane society.
Psychiatry and psychology fail society because they ignore the reality and transcendence of the human soul.
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âThe primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.â – J. Krishnamurti
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âIf you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.â – J. Krishnamurti
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If more people found peace in themselves, fewer would end up taking psychiatric drugs or paying some mannequin to listen to them.
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Rasx says, ââŠnot to project the image of what you want to be as against paying attention to what you areâŠâ
Psychiatry and psychology exploit peopleâs confusion.
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The author asks, âWhat alternatives do you have to simply coping with it? Simply adjusting to it?â
I think finding some kind of peace within yourself is what needs to happen before anything else.
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Imo, âtherapyâ itself is a pathololgized relationship.
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Psychologically speaking, the author seems to have all his ducks in order. However, he contradicts himself when first saying:
âFrom the relational-intersubjective standpoint, both the therapist and the context/system are unavoidably a part of the very experiences that become pathologised as individual disorders.ââ
And then saying:
âThough in relational-intersubjective therapy there is an inevitable âasymmetryâ â as there necessarily is in any therapeutic relationship â the model [relational-intersubjective] assumes and encourages an epistemological equality with regards to what is occurring and what it means.â
Why canât he see that an âinevitable asymmetryâ directly contradicts any claims of âepistemological equalityâ â the lack of which is extremely pathologizing?
All heâs done is prove how some people will say anything to maintain a pathologizing power imbalance, which, incidentally, ensures him of being capitalistically compensated.
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Thereâs no point in having a discussion with people already convinced the moon is made of green cheese.
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Itâs not that complicated. Peopleâs emotions and frames of mind are most often the result of their interactions with others, while people stuck in Cartesian thinking are usually the result of disconnected control freaks addicted to power.
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This article does a good job of explaining how Freud and Descartesâ dissociative ideas became a gaslighting technique that exists to this day
âRelational-intersubjectiveâ is just a fancy term for seeing the person in front of you.
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Dr. Gotzsche says, âADHD is the product of vested commercial, political, and institutional interests.â
Psychiatry itself is a product of vested commercial, political, and institutional interests.
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Who in their right mind would assume thereâs no collusion between the FDA and Big Pharma when so much moneyâs at stake? And donât forgetâwhen their stint is up at the FDA, youâll find them on the board at some Big Pharma.
Financial interests always win out.
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Psychiatry is propaganda disguised as science.
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Judi Chamberlin: âPeople are unlikely to question the underlying premises of their occupations, in which they often have a large financial and emotional stake.â
This is why so few âcliniciansâ critically evaluate psychiatryâs many unprovable assumptions: the validity of their âdiagnosesâ, the reliability of their prognosis, and the necessity and safety of their so-called âmedicationsâ. And their habitual use of the word âclinicalâ hides the fact that they themselves are afraid of admitting their whole shebang is full of holes.
If you want to persuade people, just pepper your speech with scientific language, itâs an effective marketing tool for just about anything.
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Correction: âdoubt my realityâ means doubt my intuition
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And I donât think anyone can successfully argue that psychiatry is anything more than a glorified drug racket and medicalized con game.
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The complexity of the mind first and foremost includes the emotions, as these are ultimately what guides peopleâs thoughts and actions.
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Traumatic injury/memory gets stuck in the body as much if not more than anywhere else. And this is where psychiatry, psychology, and western medicine in general miss the boat. The DSM is an extreme example of how fragmented western approaches are.
Psychiatry and psychology have destroyed peopleâs faith in their ability to process emotional trauma without drugs or reliance on some foolâs idea of âpsychotherapyâ.
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Thatâs for damn sure. But itâs gotten even sicker since hitching its wagon to the pharmaceutical industry as anything thatâs profitable financially inevitably controls the narrative. But megavitamin therapy sounds interesting though, as it probably helps restore peopleâs messed up physiology from either psychiatric drugs or other psychoactive substances like alcohol, etc.
And anythingâs better than psychiatryâs sanitized drug hustling or psychologyâs mindless minds fucks.
Definition for Mind Fuck: the process of raping someoneâs intelligence and/or beliefs with lies and manipulation
Definition for Psychiatry and Psychology: the raping of someoneâs intelligence and/or beliefs with lies and manipulation
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David,
Thank you for your generous offer, but right now Iâm not needing it. But I donât doubt EMDRâs effectiveness as trauma definitely gets stuck in the mind and memory, and people definitely need alternatives to psychiatryâs drug-happy medical model.
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Correction: psycho-TROPIC drugs, not âpsychoticâ drugs, although in my experience thereâs not much difference â
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Scwnorway,
Thank you for the fantastic link.
It would be great if psychiatry were disbanded altogether. But realistically this wonât happen anytime soon because real change rarely comes from the top down. More likely to happen is psychiatry eventually going the way of cigarette smoking, meaning it will probably take a long time for the majority of the population to learn from bitter experience that psychiatryâs sick assortment of diagnoses and drugs are not the best answer.
However, I think it inevitable that the DSM will be formally discredited, hopefully with an admission that most psychic distress is caused by relational-environmental factors. And who knows? Maybe sooner rather than later an increasing number of general practitioners will be less likely to automatically prescribe psychotic drugs.
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I canât say enough good things about something that fosters reconnecting with oneself rather than symptoms, i.e. psychiatryâs superficial âdiagnosesâ. Reconnecting With Yourselfâ needs to be everyoneâs motto.
Your kind and considerate perspectives are EXACTLY where the âtherapeutic modelâ (and anyoneâs perspective for that matter) needs to be.
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And âtalk therapyâ is not only the epitome of capitalism, itâs capitalism at its worst â
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maedhbh,
Thank you for sharing your personal observations about therapy; they closely mirror my own:
1. The dishonesty of paying for kindness and compassionâwhich is the opposite of kindness and compassion
2. Using âtransferenceâ to protect and maintain what is essentially a destructive power dynamic
3. Money wasted on bad memories âdug up about which nothing can be doneâ
4. Being told you are incurably ill and hopelessly broken from someone with something to gain
5. Forced to cope with abandonment from boundaries âsuddenly put up by a previously accepting therapistâ
6. That most therapists are egomaniacs
7. That most therapists like having power over vulnerable people for all the wrong reasons which DEFINITELY âtakes a certain level of arrogance to think that wayâ.
Thank you maedhbh for saying it all.
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And I forgot to mention how IFS uses curiosity in untangling the complexity of the mind rather than shutting it down with drugs or other narrow-minded âtherapeuticâ methods.
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Yes! Psychiatryâs continuous diagnostic rambling is enough to drive anyone batty.
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And because pharmaceutical companies are greedy â
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So whatâs the point of âtalk therapyâ?
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Pictures speak louder than words.
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Thank you for agreeing with me, Someone Else. I just hope the world is finally ready to listen to something thatâs long overdue.
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Terry,
I just visited your website (healingtheself.net) and am glad I did. Itâs thorough without being exhaustive and accessible without being simplistic, something essential in an area as broad as mental health. Your âPerspectivesâ section is particularly illuminating as it includes the most relevant topics: âThe Spectrum of Traumaâ, âBreaking the Trauma Cycleâ, âWestern Medicineâ, and âInternal Family Systems (IFS)â. Itâs important you placed these topics together as these are all interconnected, and connecting the dots is something too few people are doing. And the quotes youâve chosen are brilliant.
Thank you for devoting your life to something so important and central to what truly matters. I wish you the best in your new vocation.
Birdsong
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My anger at psychiatry ultimately lead to my leaving psychiatryâand in that way anger proved valuable.
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Dear Terry,
Thank you for saying everything that needs to be said about a non-pathologizing approach to psychic distress. You succeed in making the complicated understandable in a beautifully cogent way.
I appreciate your explaining in detail how Internal Family Systems parts-centric approach acknowledges not only the impact of the subconscious, but also âthe notion of the Selfâ and how respecting that Self, oneâs âtrue essenceâ or innate dignity, is central to the healing process, i.e., âbecoming wholeâ. And I especially appreciate your mentioning how psychiatry is âlocked into a paradigm of neurotransmitters and genetics, [that] misses whatâs right in front of its face, and turns a blind eye to mountains of evidence supporting the role of environmental distressâi.e., traumaâin mental health.â Your ideas are SPOT ON.
I too believe âa revolution is brewing with respect to mental health treatment in our cultureâ, but more strongly I hope âthe beauty of IFSâ will be at the forefront thisâand perhaps eventually of life itself.
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Psychiatry isnât about humility, itâs about disconnection and judgment; itâs a psychological cancer that affects all of society.
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Imo, psychiatry is nothing more than an absurd gallery of pseudoscientific diagnoses whose DSM represents one gargantuan psychological autoimmune âdisorderâ.
Itâs too bad psychiatry canât diagnose its own own pathological tendency to diagnose and label everything under the sun.
In contrast, Internal Family Systems is a path towards true healing, as itâs based on compassion and common sense.
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Psychiatry isnât about listening, itâs about imposing pseudoscientific beliefs on others.
And most of the time people are âdiagnosedâ before theyâve even uttered a wordâand most of the time their goose is cooked if the doctor doesnât like them.
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Never underestimate the power of the internet, and M.IA. is a good place to start.
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Correction: DIDDLY-SQUAT
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You canât talk yourself into forgivingâit has to be feltâsomething I suspect Decartes knew diddly about.
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And psychiatry is neither intuitive NOR thoughtfulâbut it IS emotional nitpicking – –
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CORRECTION: Healthy forgiveness isnât about inducing shame through emotional power plays.
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Imho, healthy forgiveness isnât about inflicting guilt through emotional power plays.
And I think itâs more important to forgive oneself for not wanting to forgive those who have hurt us.
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I also bet Decartes, like most of todayâs psychiatrists and psychologists, was secretly one angry dudeâand Heaven knows thereâs nothing more destructive than unacknowledged angerâwhich I think is the foundation of all of psychiatry and most of psychology.
And thereâs nothing wrong with anger; itâs one of most instructive and protective emotions anyone can haveâif dealt with authentically.
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Thereâs nothing objective about psychiatry; it sees people through a psychologically distorted lens.
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Dear Dr. Ophir,
Thereâs now a fighting chanceâthanks to people like youâfor which Iâm eternally grateful.
And as word of your book gets out among the general public, I seriously believe youâll find way more allies than foes.
Thank you for fighting the good fight, Dr. Ophir. I wish you all the best from now on in your truth-telling quest.
Birdsong
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Rasx,
Thank you for the wonderful quote from Heidegger:
ââŠthere are thoughtless emotions but no emotionless thoughtsâŠâ
I think CBT is an exceptionally thoughtless approach. And how do I know this? UmmmâŠIâm not sureâŠI just had a feeling.âŠ
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Thank you for thoroughly explaining the true nature of healthy forgiveness and questioning its value when itâs used to control people.
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Yet another attempt by the âmental health industryâ to psychiatrize every culture with its tone-deaf heavy-handedness.
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Thank you for an outstanding article.
Itâs heartening to know that Dr. Ophirâs book is receiving such positive scholarly reviews. I hope his bravery encourages others like him to speak out against the institutional gaslighting not only surrounding ADHD, but all the other scientifically baseless âdiagnosesâ that constitute the fallacious field of psychiatry. And I sincerely believe itâs only a matter of time before it collapses from the weight of its own lies.
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ericwsetz says, âThe first step is a willingness to be there with the patient and understand what they are saying.â
Which just happens to be the basis of ANY healthy relationship, and most importantly needs to starts with the first: with oneâs parents/caregivers in childhood
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ericwsetz says, âPatients are not out of their minds they are too deep in it.â
Yes! And itâs not just psychiatry â âpsychotherapyâ often sets up its own convoluted âclinicalâ traps for people needing to get OUT of their heads â
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CORRECTION: Decartesâ way of thinking always struck me as pretty ONE-SIDED â which has turned out to be a detriment to humanity, imho.
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So-called âmental health awarenessâ in schools is about as helpful as an infestation of head liceâpsychological head lice, that is. They are no longer places to learn and be educated, they are places to be labeled and âmedicatedâ.
And children often live up to a teacherâs worst expectations.
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And for what itâs worth, Descartesâ way of thinking always struck me as pretty narrow-mindedâand I bet he was an egomaniac to boot!
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Psychological issues donât belong in a medical textbook.
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Making value judgments based on forgiveness is not conducive to the healing process; itâs an entirely personal matter that canât be dictated.
People forgive in their own time and in their own way, if at allâand whether or not thatâs good or bad is for them alone to decide.
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Rebel,
Please note: nowhere did I claim that âforgiveness is impossibleâ â I said forgiveness is SOMETIMES impossible.
And I respectfully find your attitude towards a lack of forgiveness to beâfor lack of a better wordâunforgiving.
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CORRECTION: âThat explains psychiatryâs main flaw: it refuses to see âSYMPTOMSâ in context.
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Psychiatric labeling isnât medical progress; itâs pejorative language/thinking caught in a time warp.
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âThe motivation to remove the symptom has resulted in what Poole calls a âever-increasing proliferation of context-less achievementsâŠlocal scientific successes which precede even the remotest notion of how to deal with them ethically or how to integrate them into the needs of the totality.â
That explains psychiatryâs main flaw: its refusal to see experience in context.
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Charlotte says, âThe discipline [psychiatry] pretends to be an objective classification of people, borrowing language (âdiagnosisâ) from physical medicine, which assigns the label of disease following the identification of a pathology, which one hopes can be targeted and cured. But the analogy fails in psychiatry. There are few known biological pathologies. And who is to say what cure is?â
Not only thatâwhoâs to say what pathology is? And THATâS the problem with psychiatry: it uses medicalized name-calling (âdiagnosesâ) to sell its designer drugs. And thereâs a label for that: FRAUD â
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Some wounds never heal completely, and sometimes forgiveness is impossible, but thereâs nothing shameful or âsickâ about this. Itâs just accepting emotional realityâsomething that leads to emotional maturityâwhich is the beginning of wisdom, something psychiatry knows little about.
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Fear of emotion is why some people see intellect as separate from the somatic.
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And the irony is psychiatry lacks the insight it accuses âpatientsâ of lackingâwhich is WHY itâs ethically and scientifically vacant.
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The DSM isnât objective; itâs evidence of psychiatryâs warped subjectivity.
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Psychiatry is entirely subjective. Indeed, how objective can it be when itâs based entirely on labeling WHATEVER IT ALONE deems âabnormalâ or âunhealthyâ?
But the real tragedy is that it fails to see how much itâs shaped by its own biased thinking.
But psychiatry isnât about thinking; itâs about its practitioners NEEDING to think theyâre ALWAYS right: hence they thunk up a COLOSSALLY STUPID DSM.
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CORRECTION:
Psychiatry INVENTS âillnessâ to defend its ignorance.
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Psychiatry creates âillnessâ to DEFEND its ignorance â
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Psychiatryâs âcycle of ignoranceâ is a revolving door that creates âillnessâ to maintain its ignorance.
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Psychiatry taught me to hate myself.
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Psychiatry isnât medicine; itâs a medicalized Hall of Mirrors.
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And just WHAT did psychiatryâs carnival of catastrophe do for me besides create havoc with its debilitating drugs?
1. It made me doubt my reality
2. It hijacked my healthy sense of self
3. It convinced me I couldnât function without its patronizing âinterventionsâ
ALL of which proved untrue once I FINALLY got off its merry-go-round of so-called âmental illnessâ and smorgasbord of so-called âmedicationsâ.
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Professor Whooley says:
âPsychiatry persists because of the professionâs strategies to manage its ignoranceâŠâ
Translation: psychiatry persists because it believes its own lies.
âIn order to make those changes and to promote those reinventions, psychiatrists engage in hype.â
Translation: psychiatry is more public relations than science.
âNow the flipside to hype is hubris. Psychiatrists believe the hype and then undertake these transformations in an incredibly aggressive way.â
Translation: psychiatryâs become big business by teaming up with the pharmaceutical industry and its advertising flunkies while sending its latest edition of the DSM to every doctor in town.
All of which leads to one conclusion: psychiatry is what happens when quackery meets propaganda.
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In a word? Emphatically NO. But it might be a step in the right direction if psychiatry realized that stress and trauma are the true culprit, not its idiotic assumptions of biological/genetic whatnot.
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And the same goes for psychology, too.
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Me too. After all, most religions are based on sacred texts that believe in salvation, whereas psychiatry, (a secular religion based on its DSM/bible) says youâre eternally damned â
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And whatâs the BIGGEST source of neuroticism be it animal or human? The âmental healthâ industry, imho; itâs one big neuroticism factory
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Beatrice g,
I have to disagree with your saying that âfixing traumaâ requires âtherapeutic practicesâ when itâs been clearly demonstrated time and again that children, animals and adults heal best in loving, non-judgmental environments, which often means staying as far away as possible from the so-called âtrauma expertsâ.
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Yes! The the social structure of todayâs society and modern family dynamics are EXACTLY where âpsychiatric problemsâ start. But psychiatryâs answer is to have the whole world drowning in âdiagnosesâ and drugs or endlessly spinning their wheels in diagnostic-infested âpsychotherapyâ.
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Very true. Itâs sad reality when children arenât safe in the very places they need it the most: home and school.
And a lot of doctors and âtherapistsâ just continue the pattern of bullying and name-calling through âdiagnosingâ and labeling and call it âmental healthâ.
Itâs no wonder the kids are upset when thereâs nowhere to turn.
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I see psychiatry as medicalized bullying, and itâs important to stop bullying at its source.
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âWhat are the socio-cultural factors of modern society that drive [abuse and bullying]âŠ?â
Let me take a wild guessâŠhow about psychiatry!âŠ.you know, that marvelous bully-inspired invention that prescribes chemical dissociation instead of emotional integrationâŠ
ââŠ.and what can we do to reverse its course?â
First of all, QUIT making excuses by seeing people as âpatientsâ instead of full human beingsâbe they children OR adultsâwhich means DUMPING psychiatry and its endless list of invented âdiagnosesâ/âdisordersâ as soon as possible.
It all starts with seeing people as doing the best they can in a sick society, NOT the other way around.
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And Iâve often thought thereâs way more to learn from watching âDog Whisperer with Cesar Millanâ than listening to so-called âtrauma-informedâ therapists or so-called âhumanâ psychiatrists.
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Is there a difference between genetics and eugenics in psychiatry? Not much, imho.
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Psychiatry is just another way for egotistical people to deny reality in any way possible at otherâs expense in more ways than one.
Alice Miller places blame where it belongs.
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Steve,
Freud chickened out alright. He turned out to be an egotistical coward more anything.
And thank you for pointing out the true reason behind blaming peopleâs brains: the refusal to face reality, both personally and collectively.
Looking at it historically, though, deflection has always been used by the ruling class, one way or another. Just look at the Middle Agesâbut instead of blaming the brain, they blamed the devil.
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At least Freud had curiosity and imagination. But even these got out of control, not to mention his unhealthy need to always be right, a fixation no doubt shared by none other than the great Emil Kraepelin, the founder of psychiatric eugenics. (Opps! I think I meant âgeneticsââŠ.)
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Imo, psychiatry keeps going around in circles because itâs main goal is power, not truth.
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I donât think âexpertsâ like thinking too much (i.e. âmentalizationâ, or âreflective functioningâ), because questioning their assumptions means questioning their power. So conversations with them too often pointless, Iâve found.
So whatâs my answer? Hauling out the old âcaveat emptorâ approach. After all, doing your own research never hurt, and it just might save your life. Or just trust your own instincts and move on.
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I think a lot of problems come from people unconsciously needing to feel more powerful than the next person so they can get away with bossing people around; power means more than truth to them.
And this most likely comes from not having their emotional needs met in childhood, so having power-driven jobs like psychiatry or psychotherapy fills their unmet need to feel powerful.
So life for them becomes one big long âI know more than youâ kind of game that they never outgrow, but instead of flexing their muscles, theyâre flexing their egos, imho.
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The honor and pleasure is mine, Moyu. The world needs more people like you
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Dear Moyu,
Your art is amazing, just like you.
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Krista says, âThe lack of apparent insight by the self-appointed âexpertsâ in human behavior is perfect bitter irony.â
Not only perfect bitter irony, but an uniquely cruel one that places misery upon misery, imho.
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Moyu says:
âBecoming more resilient means, for me, that I take the fragments of my identity which have become lost in the course of my life so far, and carefully and attentively re-assemble them into an intact ego so that I can perceive myself ever more accurately and clearly.â
âI look back on past times until they feel alive and warmâŠ.I believe that is helpful â and an essential part of livingâŠ.â
âGiven these accumulating personal observations, I find it hard to understand why, even today, research on schizophrenia focuses so heavily on genetics; why helping affected persons involves antipsychotics above all; and why the knowledge and experience of affected persons are barely recognized.â
âIf we have an increased susceptibility to stress and psychosis, then there are always reasons for this, which are as individual as we ourselves are.â
âExcessive treatment with antipsychotics and psychiatric medication in general can hide the true causes of mental problems and disorders, stand in the way of real healing, and destroy real social interactions.â
âAs humans and as inhabitants of the Earth we all depend on each other: physically, intellectually, and emotionally. So all of us need to be willing to learn from and with each other in mutual respect, to live together and establish a resilient community.â
Thank you for sharing your remarkable story and insights, Moyu. Itâs a beautiful testament to the resilience of the human spirit. I hope it inspires real change in the mental health system and the world at large.
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Excellent comment.
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Moyu says, ââŠ(when I had finally found a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who treated me as an equalâŠâ
Being thought of as an equal and treated as an equal is where healing begins in any relationship.
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Thereâs a world of difference between trying to help people and trying to âfixâ them. And imo, psychiatry doesnât see the difference.
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I felt stigmatized by psychiatry, infantilized by psychotherapy, and demoralized by bothâand diagnoses and power imbalanceâthe foundation of bothâare the reasons why, imo.
No one seeking help needs to feel worse than they already do.
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Why not just leave âthe expertsâ out of it?
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Hereâs another word for shape-shifter: VAMPIRE.
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ââŠa shape-shifter who knows how to market himself.â
THAT says it all.
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Psychology has always had an inferiority complex when it comes to other sciences, but adding neurology to the mix just adds to the confusion.
Come to think of it, both psychology and psychiatry have an identity crisis because both believe theyâre sciences.
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Professor Whooley says:
âPsychiatry persists because of the professionâs strategies to manage its ignoranceâŠâ
âIn order to make those changes and to promote those reinventions, psychiatrists engage in hype.â
âNow the flipside to hype is hubris. Psychiatrists believe the hype and then undertake these transformations in an incredibly aggressive way.â
Excellent interview, but imho itâs just a long way of saying psychiatry is quackery.
And the definition for quackery is: dishonest practices and claims to have special knowledge and skill in some field, typically medicine.
Sounds like psychiatry to me.
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KateL says, âPeople who were abused in the mental health system are experts in how the system abuses people. I guess some people just can handle that objective fact.â
Very true. Your statement reveals how most âmental health expertsâ are incapable of self-reflection.
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Thank you KateL, for pointing out how the âexpertsâ try to defend themselves by discrediting people who donât share their views with stupid phrases like, ââbe careful not to over generalizeâ, and flipping from âthis is objective factâ, to âah well, itâs more art than science.ââ
Did it ever occur to the âexpertsâ that psychiatry and psychology ARE BASED on over generalizations???
When it suits the âexpertsâ narrative they call it objective fact, and when THAT fails they haul out the old bromide, âitâs more art than scienceâ, which simply means they don’t know what they are talking about.
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ââŠthe gaslighterâlike all verbal abusersâoperates from what they know to be your fears, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and neediness.â
âAdditionally, as in other types of verbal abuse, there has to be an imbalance of power with the gaslighter holding all the cards.â
âThis [your inclination to doubt yourself] is something the gaslighter knows about and he or she stands ready to exploit.â
Psychiatrists AND therapists will often use these gaslighting dynamics to gain an unfair advantage over vulnerable people.
And people saying, âThatâs just their training, theyâre really just trying to help,â IS BULLSHIT because for the most part, people who have no problem using these tactics are more interested in HAVING POWER OVER OTHERS more than EMPOWERING OTHERS; they obviously prefer infantilizing people.
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ââŠ.sometimes all you need is a genuine person to help you stand up when you are down and reignite not the light at the end of the tunnel, but the light within yourself. Self-love and self-awareness are the key to a healthy life.â
Yes!!! THIS is the way to heal broken hearts, minds, lives and relationships, NOT name-calling (diagnoses) and âpsychiatric medicationsâ.
Thereâs nothing better than help from someone whoâs been there and sees you as capable of helping yourself.
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Whether or not thereâs neurological evidence of emotional trauma, the bigger problem lies in seeing the results (âsymptomsâ) as medical issues, i.e. âpsychiatric diagnosesâ; the medical model just continues the trauma of disrespect, blame, and neglect.
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Addition to number 3:
3. Not only seriously curtail the use of psychiatric drugs, but stop saying these âtreatâ a âchemical imbalanceâ or other âmental illnessâ that need to be taken âthe rest of your lifeâ.
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Thanks for the info, LivingPast27, though it looks like Europe has caught up: âHow depression treatment differs throughout Europeâ, from the Guardian. It shows how important it is that M.I.A. is getting a foothold in more and more countries around the world.
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Yes!!! Apologizing and making amends to the patients theyâve harmed is as important as anything. But I was trying to stay within the realm of the possible.
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True. But I think things will eventually change; itâs just going to take a lot more time and lot more needless suffering.
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Thank you Krista, for your detailed clarification.
I read Francesâ insulting rebuttal to the late Dr. Caplan, but I wasnât surprised by his blatantly condescending attitude and remarks. But I do consider it an excellent example of the attitudes psychiatric survivors are up against, which is why self-rescue is too often the only option.
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Fraud, medical neglect, exploitation, and lack of patient/public education/information are what makes psychiatry psychiatry, and is why it needs to go the way of the dinosaur asap.
So what does âtreating patients betterâ actually mean? It means any one of the following, but should begin with the first:
1. Throw out the DSM and do not replace it
2. Stop claiming that psychiatric problems are biological or genetically linked
3. Seriously limit the prescribing of psychiatric medications
4. Seriously limit the use of ECT
5. Make it illegal for any physician to force medicate or medically incarcerate
6. Replace psychiatry with the many alternatives currently available
And when these happen, no one will be needing to find an exit.
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Psychiatry is eugenics in action:
âScreening for Mental Illness: The Merger of Eugenics and the Drug Industryâ, by Vera Hassner Sharav, MLS, from The Alliance for Human Research Protection
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As I previously stated, if people want to take psychiatric drugs or undergo ETC, thatâs their business. What I object to is psychiatry falsely claiming that peopleâs problems are lifelong and biologically or genetically based, permitting the overprescribing of psychiatric drugs while downplaying the risks, and last but not least their ability to force treatments or involuntarily hospitalization on people which can be for indefinite periods of time.
Psychiatryâs abuse of medicine, power, and peopleâs human rights got a HUGE boost when psychiatrists collectively decided in 1980 to adopt the medical model through an admittedly flawed checklist system for their admittedly flawed DSM, which makes psychiatry not only misleading, but downright fraudulent. And the resulting devastation to both individuals and society are becoming increasingly apparent and definitively undeniable.
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The body-brain chemical makeup can greatly affect how emotions are felt and thoughts are perceived. And lots of things can screw it up: too much stress (emotional, psychological or physical), prescription medications, environmental or recreational substances, and even bangs on the head. But none of these indicate biologically or genetically caused illnesses.
From the New York Post: âWhy more women, like me, are abandoning the pill over emerging health concernsâ by Rikki Schlott.
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Correction: âIf people want to take âpsychiatric medicationâ or subject themselves to ECT, thatâs their business, but they need to be CLEARLY informed of significant risks of side effects and/or withdrawal reactions both immediate and future, and that NO âillnessâ is being âtreatedâ.
And NO ONE should have the legal authority to force any âtreatmentâ, or âhospitalizeâ someone who hasnât committed a crime.
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Ideally, all medicine should be based in a Functional-Holistic paradigm. But present reality demands no longer seeing emotional distress through a medical/diagnostic lens, beginning with a dissolution of psychiatry and its DSM.
If people want to take âpsychiatric medicationâ thatâs their business, but they need to clearly know thereâs significant risk of side effects and/or withdrawal reactions, and that no âillnessâ is being âtreatedâ.
And no one should have the legal authority to hospitalize someone who hasnât committed a crime.
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Itâs not hard seeing how disconnected modern society is when you stop to think how insane it is having people pay someone for emotional supportâand on top of THAT calling it âmental healthcareâ. Itâs not a sign of progress; itâs a sign of degradation.
And as corny as it sounds, things wonât change until people get out of their heads and into their hearts.
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Worth a listen: âRelease Trapped Emotions in 2023â, a video by Eckhart Tolle
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Daisy Valley is right. Psychiatry and Big Pharma have become a huge, financially driven bureaucracy.
If only more people knew just how petty psychiatry really is, then maybe things would start to change.
And all they need to do is look in the DSM.
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dogworld says, ââŠthe power structure of psychiatry is the root of the issueâŠâ
Thatâs where the problem begins and why psychiatry needs to end.
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Richard says, âUnfortunately, you have fallen into Healyâs âoh so charmingâ trap of pragmatic rationalizations for justifying oppression.â
I agree with Richard.
IMHO, most psychiatrists are driven by an unconscious need to hide from their own hidden vulnerabilities. Why else would they seek to obliterate feelings through drugs and ECT?
And psychiatryâs veneer of science gives the illusion of invulnerability.
Itâs all about power, similar to what drives most bullies or those who want to be seen as saviors.
Freud was absolutely right about one thing: the unconscious influences behavior. And scientists are no exception.
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Psychiatry uses science as a smokescreen for its evil.
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Most psychiatrists unconsciously expect people to kowtow to their supposed âexpertiseâ.
And those who wonât can expect to be punished, i.e. diagnoses, drugs, and ECT.
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Thereâs one way people can cut their losses: simply call a spade a spade.
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Thereâs surgical lobotomy, chemical lobotomy, and electrical lobotomy.
What more does anyone need to know???
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ââŠ.an impoverished sense of selfâŠ.â
THATâS the defining feature of âpsychiatryâ and âpsychologyâ.
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Thank you for pointing this out. Your example sounds much better. My sentence wasnât grammatically correct, but I do try my best.
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Steve,
Expecting people to kowtow reveals the kind of people working in the âmental healthâ system.
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Freud was by no means the first to divine the meaning of dreams. Any study of ancient cultures would show you that.
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KateL says, âWe have a basic right to human dignityâŠI was robbed of that rightâŠâ
This is why psychiatry should be abolished.
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Why rely on âexpertsâ who havenât experienced ECT?
Arenât peopleâs personal accounts enough?
Has anyone bothered to ask the dear Dr. Healy (or anyone else who canât make up their minds about the dangers of ECT) if theyâd be willing to subject themselves or their loved ones to ECT?
How much more âproofâ does anyone need?
Science has been put on a pedestal that leads people away from their intuition and common sense.
âThe expertsâ would be wise to remember thereâs a point at which ânuanceâ becomes a hindrance to seeing and accepting the cold, hard truth.
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No one need rely on âpsychotherapistsâ to process their trauma. People can do a lot on their own, in their own time, in their own way: writing /journaling, reading, listening to peopleâs experience on podcasts and videos, talking with friends or family members, including animals, engaging in hobbies or creative pursuits, volunteering, and spending as much time as possible in nature.
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Sam Plover says:
âI suggest we all become shrinks or lawyers and then we will be safe from slander. It will then come down to who can outslander whom.â
THATâS what psychiatry boils down to: SLANDER â
âThey are a childish, immature, selfish hateful bunchâŠ.you better tread careful.â
Indeed. Only childish adults think the way most psychiatrists and psychotherapists do, i .e. having to believe theyâre always right, and having temper tantrums when âpatientsâ tell them theyâre not.
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Wow. Who wouldâve guessed that talking to someone could be helpful??? And wouldnât it be great if people werenât made to believe they need an âexpertâ???
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Psychiatry and psychology are the inevitable result when the denigration and exploitation of human beings becomes second nature.
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Thank you, Lori.
Iâm very sorry getting off the psych drugs is causing you so much pain and trouble. It can take a long time for your body to readjust. And itâs even harder when the people who should know something donât.
I donât know whatâs worse, the effects of the so-called âmedicationsâ or the stupidity of the so-called âtherapistsâ. The whole thingâs a scam, imho.
Just hang in there as best you can, believing you will get through this.
Birdsong
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Yes!!! Everything in psychiatry and psychology is morally wrong and NOTHING they believe is beneficial and therefore IS NOT JUSTIFIED.
And spending time in nature is magical.
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Psychiatryâs political abuse ALWAYS exists in some form, beginning with its so-called âdiagnosesâ.
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They it called âpsychopathyâ to make it sound impressive so they can charge a fee when all it is listening, and most psychotherapists do a lousy job of that.
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Somehow, the destructive idea that psychological problems are medical has to be discredited and dismantled.
Universities no longer educate; they complicate and discriminate.
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Most psychotherapists see people as âdisorderedâ, just like most psychiatrists do
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The term âpsychotherapyâ implies illness which indicates medical which leads to the can of worms called âpsychiatric diagnosesâ. Itâs as weaponized as psychiatry.
On the other hand, the word âcounselingâ has a much less negative connotation, i.e. legal counsel, pastoral counsel, guidance counsel, parental counsel, etc. And in these situations, people are share knowledge, experience, wisdom and guidance that (hopefully) isnât biased on pseudoscientific âdiagnosticâ beliefs.
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