Sorry, unless you have some objective means to know what is happening and why, intentionally inducing brain damage in patients should be malpractice in every case.
BTW, there was a recent article on MIA showing that when depressed vets were given sham “treatments” of (I think) cranial magnetic stimulation, they got significantly better, even though they were classed as “treatment-resistant” (aka did badly on “antidepressants”) before the study. The real “treatment” they got was hope. Might be a much better starting point than electrocution and seizure induction.
You seem to believe that psychiatric “diagnoses” are legitimate “other conditions” that can be properly diagnosed in some people. I would strongly disagree with that assessment. There is no objective means to distinguish any psychiatric “disorder” from other “disorders” or normalcy, as the DSM itself admits in its very own introduction. How could you possibly know if someone suffered from “psychotic depression?” If it is merely based on the person being depressed and having delusions or hallucinations, how would you know what the cause of this condition was, let alone what the best approach to intervening is?
It is possible that passing electricity through one’s head may, for some people, create some kind of subjectively “positive” change in their life. It’s also a possibility that someone having a near-death experience after being hit by a truck could have positive changes in his/her life as a result. That doesn’t suggest pushing someone in front of a truck is a good “treatment” for “depression.”
ECT causes a grand mal seizure. Know anyone who has a seizure disorder? Do their doctors recommend allowing or inducing seizures, or do they want seizures to be avoided at all costs if at all possible? Clearly, seizures do damage to brain tissue, sometimes leading to death, and are avoided for that reason. Why on God’s earth would anyone want to induce one?
An excellent answer in my book!
No one in power, anyway.
I would pretty much guarantee that “commonly accepted knowledge” about Mumia Abu Jamal and the MOVE incident(s) are quite significant distortions of reality. History is written by the victors, as they say. It was a very ugly time in Philadelphia history, and I am absolutely sure that no one wanted the full story to emerge.
I guess that says as much about NAMI as it does about Uncle Joe. If that’s the kind of guy they admire, I’d steer very clear of them!
Neither will most of those suffering from what the DSM euphemistically calls “mental disorders.”
A sad story. I only wish it were a rare story. It is baffling when an obvious failure of the system like this doesn’t prompt people to observe that the system has obviously failed.
This is very true!
I think that’s kind of the point. Psychiatric patients need to be informed that they are not simply being admitted to a hospital, they are potentially having their legal rights taken away, completely analogous to being arrested. They need to understand that they are not talking to a therapist with an interest in helping them out. They are talking to a legal agent who has a great deal of arbitrary power to take away control of their life for an indeterminate period of time.
I believe they should be informed that what they say can be used to hold them against their will, that they don’t HAVE to stay anything at all, and they should be afforded the right to speak with an attorney to go over their rights and assist them in deciding what they should or should not say. In this way, the patient/potential inmate can be maximally empowered to make their best decisions with a full understanding of the potential consequences of their decisions.
Definitely a class action. Maybe start by seeing how Miranda was originally argued and won?
I really get both sides of this, and I don’t think either side is “wrong.” I see the viewpoint that radical change takes a long time, and meanwhile, other people are being damaged. I also get that people (actually MOST people) DO suffer from the negative effects of our bizarre social system, and such people need and deserve all the help they can get.
On the other hand, I’ve experienced first hand that being a “good player” in a bad system doesn’t really change the system. In fact, participation eventually felt like collusion, tacit acceptance of the system’s legitimacy. I believe we need to come up with new ways to help each other that don’t convey that kind of acceptance, that remains 100% opposed to the dismissive and abusive concepts behind the psychiatric worldview.
I don’t know the answer, but I think we need both – new ways to help people, and direct resistance to the system aimed not only at dethroning psychiatry, but at addressing the social power imbalances that make psychiatry appear necessary to the general population.
A tall order, to say the least!
Most likely people did like it, but the advertisers did not. Challenging psychiatry is pretty much challenging capitalism, and capitalists don’t like that much.
I don’t know all the details, but I was in Philly during the MOVE events, and I assure you, the Rizzo police force/mayoral administration would be quite capable of framing someone for murder.
You are right, of course. Unfortunately, there are a lot more ‘Wannabe psychiatrists’ out there than we might want to believe.
If one can’t think of something better to do than inducing a seizure by electrocuting one’s patient, it is time to step out of the way and let someone with a little more creativity and compassion take a turn.
It pretty much establishes the enforcement purpose of “hospitalization,” as well as helping folks know they can avoid trouble by not talking to the “enforcers.” Why did Tina think it a bad idea?
I really believe this is important for the short term. It may even be realistic to accomplish with a good court case. Probably have to go to the Supreme Court, but I think it’s a very winnable proposition, and I hope some hotshot attorney who is not too worried about money will take it on.
The “stigma” is anything that discourages people from taking more drugs.
Well said, indeed!
I have to disagree here. I think it is very important that research be done to disprove the lies that are being spread by psychiatry. I think it’s also important NOT to use their language to describe the research, except to the extent necessary to undermine psychiatry’s facade of “scientific” pretensions. There is always the danger of being coopted, and it’s also true that many researchers have not really “got” the reality that the DSM is a science fiction novel. But in the world of academia, research speaks loudly, and most of our society believes that people who claim to be scientists will give them accurate data. I don’t see any way to undermine people’s confidence in psychiatry without presenting solid, scientific data that show it’s a bunch of crap. That certainly isn’t enough in itself, but I don’t think we can win without it.
I know what you’re saying. My comment was not to suggest that New Amsterdam “got it right,” but my utter surprise at the very fact they brought up the possibility that the drug might be the problem and that communicating with compassion might be the solution. It is quite a contrast to the idea that brain scans can predict “sociopathic” behavior, or that the reason people are being violent is because they are “off their meds.”
Of course, the psychiatrist is totally unrealistic – they don’t much exist in the real world. But the show DID show a psychiatrist doing evil due to laziness and making excuses based on “lack of resources” – very real representations of what happens in most situations involving psychiatry or other “mental health” systems (not to mention the school system itself).
“Atypical antipsychotics” affect the serotonin system, just like SSRIs. It makes total sense that they would have a similar impact on suicide rates.
Just looked it up – 20-30% of Americans don’t believe in climate change. I personally thought it would be even worse.
Another good reason to ban DTC advertising of drugs.
I have noticed that, too. “Chicago Med” also shows people magically coming around within seconds or minutes of an injection, and also asserts that they can determine if someone is a “sociopath” by looking at a brain scan, which is, of course, utter blather.
On the other hand, “New Amsterdam” ran a show where a kid’s difficulties were proven to be severely exacerbated by a school psychiatrist putting him on antipsychotics and completely ignoring the context of his distress. The hospital psychiatrist took on the school psych and assumed some personal risk to his job in order to prove that bullying and the loss of his dad were the real issues for this kid and start him on the path of feeling heard and cared about. I wrote the network to let them know how much I appreciated their raising this issue in such a clear manner. It gave me a little hope!
That was the part that really got me – zero responsibility, “You know how those borderlines are, she seduced me, what was I to do about it?”
Repulsive. My wife had one who cried when he was fired and begged her to still be his private client. She was horrified!
I agree wholeheartedly. This is in my view the most serious damage psychiatry has done to our society. It has removed context from our suffering and made it a trivial matter, as well as making it an entirely individual problem, as if any upset or disagreement with our social system is proof of personal malfunction, and the system itself is flawless.
A good analogy! “Your bones broke because you have ‘brittle bone syndrome,’ a genetic disorder. Most people are able to take that kind of hit without their bones breaking, so really, it’s your body that is deficient. It has nothing to do with the crowbar.”
I don’t disagree with you. For one thing, there is no way anyone can determine which “professionals” can help you re-learn these functions and which will drive you further into the “pit of despair.” (Sorry, I’m just running the Princess Bride lines today!) So what’s the point of having a “profession” where being a “professional” provides no guidance as to what the professional is able to provide?
It’s kind of the ultimate application of the profit motive. But it also shows that the profit motive is ultimately degrading, reducing even our own bodies to mere commodities to be bought and sold. No one should be reduced to the point that they are forced to do this. Those who genuinely choose to do this is a different issue, but let’s be honest, the vast majority of prostitutes are not in it because they think it’s a fun way to make a few extra bucks.
I am afraid there are no “quick fixes.” A quote from “The Princess Bride” movie applies here: “Life IS pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.” Psychiatry promises a magical no-effort solution to “mental illness” where no one needs to change anything and no one needs to take responsibility for everything and we can continue to pretend that life’s a lark and anyone who doesn’t feel that way needs to be “fixed.” Have you ever read “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley? That’s the direction the psychiatric industry is taking us. “A Gramme is better than a Damn!”
Well said on all points.
Good to know it’s not just me!
I agree. There is nothing minor about a therapist (or a doctor or an attorney) taking advantage of their position to have a sexual relationship with a client. It is often extremely destructive.
I think it took courage to write this, and that it raises a vitally important issue for professionals, one which ultimately drove me away from the field: even if an individual can do good work with individuals, does participation in the system convey tacit approval of the “status quo” ideas of chemical imbalances, subjective pseudo-medical “diagnoses,” and paternalistic force applied to “noncompliant patients?”
Recovery rates in industrialized countries are worse than in the developing world.
He is most definitely a survivor of both hospitalization and psychiatric drugging.
I love both quotes!
Well, we wouldn’t want any PASSION to slip out… that would be a sign of bipolar disorder, or maybe ADHD, or something pretty scary… no passion allowed in THIS society…
I would add that forcing people to meditate is the MOST likely way to take a potentially great thing and turn it to destructiveness.
I would add to that the fact that womens’ burden of abuse, poverty and discrimination is much higher on the average than men, yet psychiatry continues to refuse to take such stresses seriously as causal factors, and this attitude has spread to GPs as well. The Kaiser study showed that physiological problems like IBS and fibromyalgia, lupus, and others occur more frequently in trauma victims than the general public. But we can’t seem to get together as a society and admit that oppressive circumstances are preventable and are causal factors in many of the problems we see in adults.
Back in the 70s, feminist writers were all over this idea that women’s reactions to an oppressive society were minimized and trivialized and hidden by the psychiatric professions’ approach to diagnosis, and that real physiological issues were often also hidden through accusations of “hysteria” going back 100 years or more. But I don’t see much writing from feminists on these points lately. Am I missing something?
I am glad you said this. Many cases of “depression” involve chronic pain or other chronic conditions that impact quality of life, and of course, the psychiatric profession tends to ignore these completely, as they don’t fit with the “brain disorder” worldview the profession is trying to promote. Dealing with daily pain is draining and has dramatic effects on one’s view of life and the world.
As I’ve said many times, the first error of psychiatry is to believe that the same “symptoms” are always caused by the same thing and always require the same “treatment.” This goes for chronic pain as well, in my view. What works for one person won’t work for another, and the person who is best situated to determine what the best approach is would be the patient. Rigidity in either direction leads to stupid and often dangerous results.
Commenting as moderator here:
CCHR is a controversial subject, but their genesis or purposes are not particularly relevant to this discussion. I will ask that folks leave off on this aspect of the discussion, understanding that some people will find CCHR’s information and purpose worthwhile while others will find it disingenuous. Let’s leave it at that.
Sorry, that is in fact what I was referring to – politics writ small.
True enough.
I don’t disagree with you at all. I just find it sad that such a shock is needed when the evidence for these facts is long-standing and robust.
I have also found this to be true.
Commenting as moderator: It is a tough one when we’re talking about public figures. It’s generally accepted that being a public figure, especially a politician, leaves one open to attacks regarding one’s policies and actions. However, the comment threads ought to be focused on the goal of revising/eliminating psychiatry, and political discussions can pose a serious distraction.
I appreciate you bringing this up and will give some serious thought to when a “Trump” or other political figure comment is actually contributing to the conversation or detracting from it.
Wow, this is great information! I’m pretty well informed about “ADHD” and stimulants, and this is very new to me. Thanks for sharing!
Glasser is amazing. He’s one of my very few heroes in life.
Who said non-violence needs to be polite?
Totally understandable. It’s hard to keep calm when you know the damage that is being done. But I also agree that taking a strategic approach is crucial, and sometimes that means focusing the anger/rage toward a particular approach that is most likely to work.
Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good!
It’s a win-win. Well, for everyone except the patients…
I agree. There has to be proper intention, and that can’t be accomplished by forcing someone to meditate.
I have frequently accepted a lot of other peoples’ “shit” into my life – it’s almost like opening my heart to it draws it to me like some kind of magnet. I have to be sure I’m fully ready to go where I need to go before I agree to enter into such an engagement, but I seem to have many such encounters per week, and actually on some level seem to seek them out. Some of these have been professional encounters, some have not, but I think I have a pretty good idea what is needed to be helpful in most cases. And when I don’t, I’m perfectly comfortable letting people know that. Which in itself seems to be helpful much of the time.
But I agree, I can’t always be prepared to “be there” for others, and I have moments of self-centeredness, sadly most often with the people I care about the most (and am most comfortable with, easiest to take for granted, but also most capable of draining my reserves). We all have our limitations, which is why we need more people to be available to provide love and caring to our fellow humans.
I agree, rage and righteous indignation are the drivers of major social change. But I believe that strategic focusing of rage is the most effective strategy.
Maybe we can start a new therapy model – we’ll call it the “Give a Shit” (GAS) model of therapy. We can study the results when therapists appear to give a shit about their clients compared to control groups whose therapists are uninvolved or actively controlling and/or hostile. We can publish papers on GAS and sell workbooks and do national seminars showing people how actually caring about the person you’re talking to seems to help them feel as if you care about them, whereas not caring about them seems to have the opposite effect.
Would it sell?
It IS important. That’s the sad point. There is clearly some powerful denial going on if this kind of research conclusion is ground-breaking or controversial!
Or does wetness CAUSE water? We’ll have to commit to further study on the matter…
Ha! I’ll have to steal that one!
Most families have a scapegoat.
We also moved to the West Coast to escape East Coast rigidity and artificiality. Haven’t escaped it completely, but we have found the West Coast much more amenable to us feeling like a part of it.
Unaware or don’t care.
Kids know this instinctively. If you can get them to stop parroting the lines they’ve been given, most kids on psych drugs will tell you they take them “because I act bad” or “because I get in trouble.” That’s my experience, anyway, and I have talked to lots of kids about this issue.
But then again, as Tim McCarver once said, “If it were that common, more people would have it!”
That sounds good for starters.
Yeah, whod’a thunk it?
Here is an example of speciation that has happened in the 20th century:
They forgot the third factor: school! Being grouped together with kids the same age and “assessed” and “evaluated” and compared to “norms” is the beginning of the shaming process that eventually leads to the kind of bullying she experienced. Of course, labeling her “ADHD” and giving drugs only adds insult to injury, not to mention the emotionally destructive adverse effects that some kid experience. It is hard to imagine a less effective approach, yet we continue to do the same thing, expecting different results.
Another no-brainer study. Time to quit focusing so much on ‘techniques,’ which anyone can learn, and focus instead on the qualities that actually distinguish a capable helper, regardless of label. Empathy is, of course, the number one quality that is required, and no matter how many years of college and grad school one attends, it is not something that can be “trained” into anyone. It’s a very personal thing.
Why would anyone be surprised by this?
Not weird at all. I’ve seen it happen.
Not much good I can find in the DSM. None, really.
Sounds like you found your own form of “mindfulness.” As someone said above, there is no guarantee that being present in the moment means you’ll be happy or relaxed. You appear to have contacted the present moment and remained in it despite the pain, and it had positive results.
No one should tell anyone else “how to meditate.” It’s an offense against the concept.
We don’t know. Every generation of frogs will be slightly different than the last. If there isn’t any great change in the environment they have to live in, they’ll probably just become better frogs. But if there is a sudden big shift, a lot of the froggies may die off, leaving an odd lot who may have some characteristics that “normal” frogs lack.
The antibiotic example is the easiest to get. We kill off 98% of the bacteria in a person’s body with an antibiotic. Of the 2% that remain, a lot of them may have a particular genetic mutation that allows them to sometimes live through an antibiotic attack. Normally, they’d only be 2% of the population, but now they’ve suddenly become most of the population. These are the only bacteria to reproduce themselves, so that the next generation is made ONLY of survivors. If these survivors are attacked by the same antibiotics, a much larger percentage survive this time, say 20%. These are even MORE strongly selected for the resistance gene, and they’re the only ones again to reproduce. After a few rounds of this, we find that 80% of the bacteria are no longer killed by the antibiotics! New species. Can’t kill them with these antibiotics any longer, and we need to develop a new approach. Keep this up with a course of 3 or 4 different antibiotics over time, and you have “superbugs.”
It’s way quicker with bacteria because they reproduce multiple times a day. But there are classic observations with moths in England turning from black-brown to grey because of ash being deposited on trees due to coal burning in the early 20th Century. The color change took a few years to happen, but it was observable pretty easily. The light ones used to get eaten, but when the trees got ashy, suddenly the black ones got eaten and the light ones survived. That’s natural selection. Continued through hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of years, if two parts of a species are living in different environments, it can lead to new species entirely.
That’s the theory, anyway. Makes sense to me, and it fits with all the data we know about species. There may be some things not explained by evolution, but it explains a hell of a lot.
What that article doesn’t really address is the additional problem of WHO IS RUNNING THE BRAIN? A computer can’t operate without an operator telling it what to do. So even if we accept that the brain is running itself, the computer analogy completely fails us.
They WAKE YOU UP to make you meditate!!!!! OMG, that is idiocy in the extreme!
You’re not the first person I’ve heard this from. Being forced to do “mindfulness” is ironic in the extreme. It’s not mindfulness if you’re feeling like someone else is making you do it. Any Buddhist monk would cringe at the thought. And two hours is also a VERY long time, especially for beginners! I’ve been advised that you have a person work UP to 20 minutes at a time. Only a person who has practiced for a good long while can do two hours without needing to alter their activity. Way to ruin a good practice, folks!
That’s my theory on how “ECT” “works.” After receiving several “treatments,” the victims say to the psychiatrist, “You know, I feel SO much better now. THANK YOU, thank you SO much for all that wonderful ‘treatment!’ I’m sure I’ll never feel depressed again! Now, can you please unlock that door so I can get out of this place?”
Frogs are still evolving. It just takes a really, really, REALLY long time! But it’s a lot quicker for bacteria, hence “antibiotic-resistant” strains are developing all around us.
I would suggest that lack of love by those who have power over us is what he’s really talking about. When we are kids, we have little power to do or change anything in our world, and we’re totally dependent on those who care for us. How those people care for us teaches us a lot about what to expect of the world and how to treat ourselves.
In adult life, a lot more goes into success than giving and receiving love, as others have remarked. And adults don’t HAVE to rely on their parents for care any more. But there are still plenty of areas where “big people” have power and control and don’t use it in a very loving fashion. It is also difficult to escape those lessons we learned as kids when dealing with people we consider more powerful than us.
I think I see a pattern developing…
I think you said it well. Being who we are without concern for others’ opinions about it (except when consciously deciding to work with others’ opinions to get something done) is at the core of getting clear of most of what gets labeled “mental illness.” I have similarly used meditation as I have come to understand it to work for me. I would not expect the same approach to work for anyone else. The only measure of success is that feeling of authenticity and calmness that comes with rejecting the “lessons” someone else has forced down our throats, including “lessons” about how we should meditate.
But what if psychiatry is based on things that are not really true? You’ve seen the damage that can be done – isn’t the loving thing to do to stop the damage and expose the lies so that people (including those doing the hurting) can start to heal?
But why call it a “disorder?” Why not call it “stuckness” or “lack of self love” or “unwillingness to risk connection” or call it what it IS rather than pathologizing it? I’d say “stuckness” is pretty much a universal attribute of anyone growing up in Western social/economic networks. It’s not a “disorder,” I regard it as a way of coping with a difficult reality. If we can find yet better ways to effect change in that reality rather than merely coping, more power to us, but it doesn’t mean that our means of coping were “disordered.”
Nah, that’s not right. Species develop into whatever fits into the niche provided for food, shelter, etc. Obviously fish can’t develop into humans because they have to live underwater to breathe. Humans are just one branch of many thousands of developing branches.
Darwin certainly hasn’t explained everything, any more than the “big bang theory” explains how the universe began. (What was it that banged? WHERE did it bang? WHY did it bang? What happened right before it banged?) I just wanted to make sure we’re clear that he would never say that all species ultimately have to evolve into humans. If they did, we’d have nothing for food but cannibalism!
Chilling!
Any therapist who recommends “medication” should quickly become an ex-therapist.
I think this is very well said, and resonates with my own experience. I’d only add that there is a general hostility toward “attention seeking” by children that goes back many generations, and that this is particularly evident in the structure of the average school classroom. Even kids with loving and rational parents are exposed to massive anti-attention-seeking propaganda and punishment from their school in the majority of cases. To intentionally seek attention in an assertive way is very much discouraged in society. It is much preferred if we keep quiet and go along with the program, in my experience.
I think healthy relationships with other human beings are the key to recovering from abuse, neglect, etc., in combination with having sufficient means to survive in the current seemingly heartless world. These relationships COULD be with someone called a “counselor” or “therapist,” but there is no guarantee (or even necessarily odds in favor) that a particular person in that role will be of any assistance, or that a person who does NOT have that label might not be just the person needed to promote healing. The idea that “counseling” can be quantified and delivered by someone who has X training is nonsense of the highest degree. The only judge of what is helpful is the person ostensibly being helped. I don’t judge anyone as disqualified because they happen to carry the moniker “counselor,” but I’d estimate that each such person must be judged on his/her own merits.
Thanks for sharing this sad but moving story. It is a perfect example of how wrong-headed the current form of “help” really is. Well done to you and to her for figuring out what the issues were really about. What they call “symptoms” are not meaningless, but full of meaning, and the invalidation of this meaning is perhaps the most heinous thing they do to their “charges.” I hope that you will find peace and a pathway forward.
You might consider a “moving meditation” like Tai Chi or Qi Gong. Some people have a hard time sitting in one place, especially after drug damage from your friendly psychiatric pushers.
Exactly!
Posting as moderator:
That is the correct spelling. I’m not sure that MIA does the redlining – I think it may be your spellchecker on your own computer, in which case, adding “akathisia” to your computer’s spellchecking dictionary (usually an option if you right-click the word) will make it go away.
I just did that on my own computer and it worked!
Because we don’t believe there are any other choices.
In societal terms, pretending to “treat” someone with an invented “diagnosis” in the way we do is VERY expensive!
I mean “left-right” politics as described and played out in today’s media and public conversations in the USA. It’s a long time since the USA has an actual “left” in the old 1930s “let’s organized and take on the capitalists” sense. When Bernie Sanders is considered a radical leftist and Hillary Clinton is called a “socialist,” the term “leftist” has long since lost any rational meaning in the USA. So perhaps “Democrat/Republican” is a better description, but in truth, that’s what the vast majority of US citizens think of when someone says “left” and “right” these days, at least over here.
Sorry, unless you have some objective means to know what is happening and why, intentionally inducing brain damage in patients should be malpractice in every case.
BTW, there was a recent article on MIA showing that when depressed vets were given sham “treatments” of (I think) cranial magnetic stimulation, they got significantly better, even though they were classed as “treatment-resistant” (aka did badly on “antidepressants”) before the study. The real “treatment” they got was hope. Might be a much better starting point than electrocution and seizure induction.
You seem to believe that psychiatric “diagnoses” are legitimate “other conditions” that can be properly diagnosed in some people. I would strongly disagree with that assessment. There is no objective means to distinguish any psychiatric “disorder” from other “disorders” or normalcy, as the DSM itself admits in its very own introduction. How could you possibly know if someone suffered from “psychotic depression?” If it is merely based on the person being depressed and having delusions or hallucinations, how would you know what the cause of this condition was, let alone what the best approach to intervening is?
It is possible that passing electricity through one’s head may, for some people, create some kind of subjectively “positive” change in their life. It’s also a possibility that someone having a near-death experience after being hit by a truck could have positive changes in his/her life as a result. That doesn’t suggest pushing someone in front of a truck is a good “treatment” for “depression.”
ECT causes a grand mal seizure. Know anyone who has a seizure disorder? Do their doctors recommend allowing or inducing seizures, or do they want seizures to be avoided at all costs if at all possible? Clearly, seizures do damage to brain tissue, sometimes leading to death, and are avoided for that reason. Why on God’s earth would anyone want to induce one?
An excellent answer in my book!
No one in power, anyway.
I would pretty much guarantee that “commonly accepted knowledge” about Mumia Abu Jamal and the MOVE incident(s) are quite significant distortions of reality. History is written by the victors, as they say. It was a very ugly time in Philadelphia history, and I am absolutely sure that no one wanted the full story to emerge.
I guess that says as much about NAMI as it does about Uncle Joe. If that’s the kind of guy they admire, I’d steer very clear of them!
Neither will most of those suffering from what the DSM euphemistically calls “mental disorders.”
A sad story. I only wish it were a rare story. It is baffling when an obvious failure of the system like this doesn’t prompt people to observe that the system has obviously failed.
This is very true!
I think that’s kind of the point. Psychiatric patients need to be informed that they are not simply being admitted to a hospital, they are potentially having their legal rights taken away, completely analogous to being arrested. They need to understand that they are not talking to a therapist with an interest in helping them out. They are talking to a legal agent who has a great deal of arbitrary power to take away control of their life for an indeterminate period of time.
I believe they should be informed that what they say can be used to hold them against their will, that they don’t HAVE to stay anything at all, and they should be afforded the right to speak with an attorney to go over their rights and assist them in deciding what they should or should not say. In this way, the patient/potential inmate can be maximally empowered to make their best decisions with a full understanding of the potential consequences of their decisions.
Definitely a class action. Maybe start by seeing how Miranda was originally argued and won?
I really get both sides of this, and I don’t think either side is “wrong.” I see the viewpoint that radical change takes a long time, and meanwhile, other people are being damaged. I also get that people (actually MOST people) DO suffer from the negative effects of our bizarre social system, and such people need and deserve all the help they can get.
On the other hand, I’ve experienced first hand that being a “good player” in a bad system doesn’t really change the system. In fact, participation eventually felt like collusion, tacit acceptance of the system’s legitimacy. I believe we need to come up with new ways to help each other that don’t convey that kind of acceptance, that remains 100% opposed to the dismissive and abusive concepts behind the psychiatric worldview.
I don’t know the answer, but I think we need both – new ways to help people, and direct resistance to the system aimed not only at dethroning psychiatry, but at addressing the social power imbalances that make psychiatry appear necessary to the general population.
A tall order, to say the least!
Most likely people did like it, but the advertisers did not. Challenging psychiatry is pretty much challenging capitalism, and capitalists don’t like that much.
I don’t know all the details, but I was in Philly during the MOVE events, and I assure you, the Rizzo police force/mayoral administration would be quite capable of framing someone for murder.
You are right, of course. Unfortunately, there are a lot more ‘Wannabe psychiatrists’ out there than we might want to believe.
If one can’t think of something better to do than inducing a seizure by electrocuting one’s patient, it is time to step out of the way and let someone with a little more creativity and compassion take a turn.
It pretty much establishes the enforcement purpose of “hospitalization,” as well as helping folks know they can avoid trouble by not talking to the “enforcers.” Why did Tina think it a bad idea?
I really believe this is important for the short term. It may even be realistic to accomplish with a good court case. Probably have to go to the Supreme Court, but I think it’s a very winnable proposition, and I hope some hotshot attorney who is not too worried about money will take it on.
The “stigma” is anything that discourages people from taking more drugs.
Well said, indeed!
I have to disagree here. I think it is very important that research be done to disprove the lies that are being spread by psychiatry. I think it’s also important NOT to use their language to describe the research, except to the extent necessary to undermine psychiatry’s facade of “scientific” pretensions. There is always the danger of being coopted, and it’s also true that many researchers have not really “got” the reality that the DSM is a science fiction novel. But in the world of academia, research speaks loudly, and most of our society believes that people who claim to be scientists will give them accurate data. I don’t see any way to undermine people’s confidence in psychiatry without presenting solid, scientific data that show it’s a bunch of crap. That certainly isn’t enough in itself, but I don’t think we can win without it.
I know what you’re saying. My comment was not to suggest that New Amsterdam “got it right,” but my utter surprise at the very fact they brought up the possibility that the drug might be the problem and that communicating with compassion might be the solution. It is quite a contrast to the idea that brain scans can predict “sociopathic” behavior, or that the reason people are being violent is because they are “off their meds.”
Of course, the psychiatrist is totally unrealistic – they don’t much exist in the real world. But the show DID show a psychiatrist doing evil due to laziness and making excuses based on “lack of resources” – very real representations of what happens in most situations involving psychiatry or other “mental health” systems (not to mention the school system itself).
Here is one link: https://davidhealy.org/benefit-risk-madness-antipsychotics-and-suicide/
“Atypical antipsychotics” affect the serotonin system, just like SSRIs. It makes total sense that they would have a similar impact on suicide rates.
Just looked it up – 20-30% of Americans don’t believe in climate change. I personally thought it would be even worse.
Another good reason to ban DTC advertising of drugs.
I have noticed that, too. “Chicago Med” also shows people magically coming around within seconds or minutes of an injection, and also asserts that they can determine if someone is a “sociopath” by looking at a brain scan, which is, of course, utter blather.
On the other hand, “New Amsterdam” ran a show where a kid’s difficulties were proven to be severely exacerbated by a school psychiatrist putting him on antipsychotics and completely ignoring the context of his distress. The hospital psychiatrist took on the school psych and assumed some personal risk to his job in order to prove that bullying and the loss of his dad were the real issues for this kid and start him on the path of feeling heard and cared about. I wrote the network to let them know how much I appreciated their raising this issue in such a clear manner. It gave me a little hope!
That was the part that really got me – zero responsibility, “You know how those borderlines are, she seduced me, what was I to do about it?”
Repulsive. My wife had one who cried when he was fired and begged her to still be his private client. She was horrified!
I agree wholeheartedly. This is in my view the most serious damage psychiatry has done to our society. It has removed context from our suffering and made it a trivial matter, as well as making it an entirely individual problem, as if any upset or disagreement with our social system is proof of personal malfunction, and the system itself is flawless.
A good analogy! “Your bones broke because you have ‘brittle bone syndrome,’ a genetic disorder. Most people are able to take that kind of hit without their bones breaking, so really, it’s your body that is deficient. It has nothing to do with the crowbar.”
I don’t disagree with you. For one thing, there is no way anyone can determine which “professionals” can help you re-learn these functions and which will drive you further into the “pit of despair.” (Sorry, I’m just running the Princess Bride lines today!) So what’s the point of having a “profession” where being a “professional” provides no guidance as to what the professional is able to provide?
It’s kind of the ultimate application of the profit motive. But it also shows that the profit motive is ultimately degrading, reducing even our own bodies to mere commodities to be bought and sold. No one should be reduced to the point that they are forced to do this. Those who genuinely choose to do this is a different issue, but let’s be honest, the vast majority of prostitutes are not in it because they think it’s a fun way to make a few extra bucks.
I am afraid there are no “quick fixes.” A quote from “The Princess Bride” movie applies here: “Life IS pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.” Psychiatry promises a magical no-effort solution to “mental illness” where no one needs to change anything and no one needs to take responsibility for everything and we can continue to pretend that life’s a lark and anyone who doesn’t feel that way needs to be “fixed.” Have you ever read “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley? That’s the direction the psychiatric industry is taking us. “A Gramme is better than a Damn!”
Well said on all points.
Good to know it’s not just me!
I agree. There is nothing minor about a therapist (or a doctor or an attorney) taking advantage of their position to have a sexual relationship with a client. It is often extremely destructive.
I think it took courage to write this, and that it raises a vitally important issue for professionals, one which ultimately drove me away from the field: even if an individual can do good work with individuals, does participation in the system convey tacit approval of the “status quo” ideas of chemical imbalances, subjective pseudo-medical “diagnoses,” and paternalistic force applied to “noncompliant patients?”
Recovery rates in industrialized countries are worse than in the developing world.
He is most definitely a survivor of both hospitalization and psychiatric drugging.
I love both quotes!
Well, we wouldn’t want any PASSION to slip out… that would be a sign of bipolar disorder, or maybe ADHD, or something pretty scary… no passion allowed in THIS society…
I would add that forcing people to meditate is the MOST likely way to take a potentially great thing and turn it to destructiveness.
I would add to that the fact that womens’ burden of abuse, poverty and discrimination is much higher on the average than men, yet psychiatry continues to refuse to take such stresses seriously as causal factors, and this attitude has spread to GPs as well. The Kaiser study showed that physiological problems like IBS and fibromyalgia, lupus, and others occur more frequently in trauma victims than the general public. But we can’t seem to get together as a society and admit that oppressive circumstances are preventable and are causal factors in many of the problems we see in adults.
Back in the 70s, feminist writers were all over this idea that women’s reactions to an oppressive society were minimized and trivialized and hidden by the psychiatric professions’ approach to diagnosis, and that real physiological issues were often also hidden through accusations of “hysteria” going back 100 years or more. But I don’t see much writing from feminists on these points lately. Am I missing something?
I am glad you said this. Many cases of “depression” involve chronic pain or other chronic conditions that impact quality of life, and of course, the psychiatric profession tends to ignore these completely, as they don’t fit with the “brain disorder” worldview the profession is trying to promote. Dealing with daily pain is draining and has dramatic effects on one’s view of life and the world.
As I’ve said many times, the first error of psychiatry is to believe that the same “symptoms” are always caused by the same thing and always require the same “treatment.” This goes for chronic pain as well, in my view. What works for one person won’t work for another, and the person who is best situated to determine what the best approach is would be the patient. Rigidity in either direction leads to stupid and often dangerous results.
Commenting as moderator here:
CCHR is a controversial subject, but their genesis or purposes are not particularly relevant to this discussion. I will ask that folks leave off on this aspect of the discussion, understanding that some people will find CCHR’s information and purpose worthwhile while others will find it disingenuous. Let’s leave it at that.
Sorry, that is in fact what I was referring to – politics writ small.
True enough.
I don’t disagree with you at all. I just find it sad that such a shock is needed when the evidence for these facts is long-standing and robust.
I have also found this to be true.
Commenting as moderator: It is a tough one when we’re talking about public figures. It’s generally accepted that being a public figure, especially a politician, leaves one open to attacks regarding one’s policies and actions. However, the comment threads ought to be focused on the goal of revising/eliminating psychiatry, and political discussions can pose a serious distraction.
I appreciate you bringing this up and will give some serious thought to when a “Trump” or other political figure comment is actually contributing to the conversation or detracting from it.
Wow, this is great information! I’m pretty well informed about “ADHD” and stimulants, and this is very new to me. Thanks for sharing!
Glasser is amazing. He’s one of my very few heroes in life.
Who said non-violence needs to be polite?
Totally understandable. It’s hard to keep calm when you know the damage that is being done. But I also agree that taking a strategic approach is crucial, and sometimes that means focusing the anger/rage toward a particular approach that is most likely to work.
Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good!
It’s a win-win. Well, for everyone except the patients…
I agree. There has to be proper intention, and that can’t be accomplished by forcing someone to meditate.
I have frequently accepted a lot of other peoples’ “shit” into my life – it’s almost like opening my heart to it draws it to me like some kind of magnet. I have to be sure I’m fully ready to go where I need to go before I agree to enter into such an engagement, but I seem to have many such encounters per week, and actually on some level seem to seek them out. Some of these have been professional encounters, some have not, but I think I have a pretty good idea what is needed to be helpful in most cases. And when I don’t, I’m perfectly comfortable letting people know that. Which in itself seems to be helpful much of the time.
But I agree, I can’t always be prepared to “be there” for others, and I have moments of self-centeredness, sadly most often with the people I care about the most (and am most comfortable with, easiest to take for granted, but also most capable of draining my reserves). We all have our limitations, which is why we need more people to be available to provide love and caring to our fellow humans.
I agree, rage and righteous indignation are the drivers of major social change. But I believe that strategic focusing of rage is the most effective strategy.
Maybe we can start a new therapy model – we’ll call it the “Give a Shit” (GAS) model of therapy. We can study the results when therapists appear to give a shit about their clients compared to control groups whose therapists are uninvolved or actively controlling and/or hostile. We can publish papers on GAS and sell workbooks and do national seminars showing people how actually caring about the person you’re talking to seems to help them feel as if you care about them, whereas not caring about them seems to have the opposite effect.
Would it sell?
It IS important. That’s the sad point. There is clearly some powerful denial going on if this kind of research conclusion is ground-breaking or controversial!
Or does wetness CAUSE water? We’ll have to commit to further study on the matter…
Ha! I’ll have to steal that one!
Most families have a scapegoat.
We also moved to the West Coast to escape East Coast rigidity and artificiality. Haven’t escaped it completely, but we have found the West Coast much more amenable to us feeling like a part of it.
Unaware or don’t care.
Kids know this instinctively. If you can get them to stop parroting the lines they’ve been given, most kids on psych drugs will tell you they take them “because I act bad” or “because I get in trouble.” That’s my experience, anyway, and I have talked to lots of kids about this issue.
But then again, as Tim McCarver once said, “If it were that common, more people would have it!”
That sounds good for starters.
Yeah, whod’a thunk it?
Here is an example of speciation that has happened in the 20th century:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/evolution-watching-speciation-occur-observations/
They forgot the third factor: school! Being grouped together with kids the same age and “assessed” and “evaluated” and compared to “norms” is the beginning of the shaming process that eventually leads to the kind of bullying she experienced. Of course, labeling her “ADHD” and giving drugs only adds insult to injury, not to mention the emotionally destructive adverse effects that some kid experience. It is hard to imagine a less effective approach, yet we continue to do the same thing, expecting different results.
Another no-brainer study. Time to quit focusing so much on ‘techniques,’ which anyone can learn, and focus instead on the qualities that actually distinguish a capable helper, regardless of label. Empathy is, of course, the number one quality that is required, and no matter how many years of college and grad school one attends, it is not something that can be “trained” into anyone. It’s a very personal thing.
Why would anyone be surprised by this?
Not weird at all. I’ve seen it happen.
Not much good I can find in the DSM. None, really.
Sounds like you found your own form of “mindfulness.” As someone said above, there is no guarantee that being present in the moment means you’ll be happy or relaxed. You appear to have contacted the present moment and remained in it despite the pain, and it had positive results.
No one should tell anyone else “how to meditate.” It’s an offense against the concept.
We don’t know. Every generation of frogs will be slightly different than the last. If there isn’t any great change in the environment they have to live in, they’ll probably just become better frogs. But if there is a sudden big shift, a lot of the froggies may die off, leaving an odd lot who may have some characteristics that “normal” frogs lack.
The antibiotic example is the easiest to get. We kill off 98% of the bacteria in a person’s body with an antibiotic. Of the 2% that remain, a lot of them may have a particular genetic mutation that allows them to sometimes live through an antibiotic attack. Normally, they’d only be 2% of the population, but now they’ve suddenly become most of the population. These are the only bacteria to reproduce themselves, so that the next generation is made ONLY of survivors. If these survivors are attacked by the same antibiotics, a much larger percentage survive this time, say 20%. These are even MORE strongly selected for the resistance gene, and they’re the only ones again to reproduce. After a few rounds of this, we find that 80% of the bacteria are no longer killed by the antibiotics! New species. Can’t kill them with these antibiotics any longer, and we need to develop a new approach. Keep this up with a course of 3 or 4 different antibiotics over time, and you have “superbugs.”
It’s way quicker with bacteria because they reproduce multiple times a day. But there are classic observations with moths in England turning from black-brown to grey because of ash being deposited on trees due to coal burning in the early 20th Century. The color change took a few years to happen, but it was observable pretty easily. The light ones used to get eaten, but when the trees got ashy, suddenly the black ones got eaten and the light ones survived. That’s natural selection. Continued through hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of years, if two parts of a species are living in different environments, it can lead to new species entirely.
That’s the theory, anyway. Makes sense to me, and it fits with all the data we know about species. There may be some things not explained by evolution, but it explains a hell of a lot.
The analogy of brains as computers has long since been debunked, even though it is very commonly referred to: https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
What that article doesn’t really address is the additional problem of WHO IS RUNNING THE BRAIN? A computer can’t operate without an operator telling it what to do. So even if we accept that the brain is running itself, the computer analogy completely fails us.
They WAKE YOU UP to make you meditate!!!!! OMG, that is idiocy in the extreme!
You’re not the first person I’ve heard this from. Being forced to do “mindfulness” is ironic in the extreme. It’s not mindfulness if you’re feeling like someone else is making you do it. Any Buddhist monk would cringe at the thought. And two hours is also a VERY long time, especially for beginners! I’ve been advised that you have a person work UP to 20 minutes at a time. Only a person who has practiced for a good long while can do two hours without needing to alter their activity. Way to ruin a good practice, folks!
That’s my theory on how “ECT” “works.” After receiving several “treatments,” the victims say to the psychiatrist, “You know, I feel SO much better now. THANK YOU, thank you SO much for all that wonderful ‘treatment!’ I’m sure I’ll never feel depressed again! Now, can you please unlock that door so I can get out of this place?”
Frogs are still evolving. It just takes a really, really, REALLY long time! But it’s a lot quicker for bacteria, hence “antibiotic-resistant” strains are developing all around us.
I would suggest that lack of love by those who have power over us is what he’s really talking about. When we are kids, we have little power to do or change anything in our world, and we’re totally dependent on those who care for us. How those people care for us teaches us a lot about what to expect of the world and how to treat ourselves.
In adult life, a lot more goes into success than giving and receiving love, as others have remarked. And adults don’t HAVE to rely on their parents for care any more. But there are still plenty of areas where “big people” have power and control and don’t use it in a very loving fashion. It is also difficult to escape those lessons we learned as kids when dealing with people we consider more powerful than us.
I think I see a pattern developing…
I think you said it well. Being who we are without concern for others’ opinions about it (except when consciously deciding to work with others’ opinions to get something done) is at the core of getting clear of most of what gets labeled “mental illness.” I have similarly used meditation as I have come to understand it to work for me. I would not expect the same approach to work for anyone else. The only measure of success is that feeling of authenticity and calmness that comes with rejecting the “lessons” someone else has forced down our throats, including “lessons” about how we should meditate.
But what if psychiatry is based on things that are not really true? You’ve seen the damage that can be done – isn’t the loving thing to do to stop the damage and expose the lies so that people (including those doing the hurting) can start to heal?
But why call it a “disorder?” Why not call it “stuckness” or “lack of self love” or “unwillingness to risk connection” or call it what it IS rather than pathologizing it? I’d say “stuckness” is pretty much a universal attribute of anyone growing up in Western social/economic networks. It’s not a “disorder,” I regard it as a way of coping with a difficult reality. If we can find yet better ways to effect change in that reality rather than merely coping, more power to us, but it doesn’t mean that our means of coping were “disordered.”
Nah, that’s not right. Species develop into whatever fits into the niche provided for food, shelter, etc. Obviously fish can’t develop into humans because they have to live underwater to breathe. Humans are just one branch of many thousands of developing branches.
Darwin certainly hasn’t explained everything, any more than the “big bang theory” explains how the universe began. (What was it that banged? WHERE did it bang? WHY did it bang? What happened right before it banged?) I just wanted to make sure we’re clear that he would never say that all species ultimately have to evolve into humans. If they did, we’d have nothing for food but cannibalism!
Chilling!
Any therapist who recommends “medication” should quickly become an ex-therapist.
I think this is very well said, and resonates with my own experience. I’d only add that there is a general hostility toward “attention seeking” by children that goes back many generations, and that this is particularly evident in the structure of the average school classroom. Even kids with loving and rational parents are exposed to massive anti-attention-seeking propaganda and punishment from their school in the majority of cases. To intentionally seek attention in an assertive way is very much discouraged in society. It is much preferred if we keep quiet and go along with the program, in my experience.
I think healthy relationships with other human beings are the key to recovering from abuse, neglect, etc., in combination with having sufficient means to survive in the current seemingly heartless world. These relationships COULD be with someone called a “counselor” or “therapist,” but there is no guarantee (or even necessarily odds in favor) that a particular person in that role will be of any assistance, or that a person who does NOT have that label might not be just the person needed to promote healing. The idea that “counseling” can be quantified and delivered by someone who has X training is nonsense of the highest degree. The only judge of what is helpful is the person ostensibly being helped. I don’t judge anyone as disqualified because they happen to carry the moniker “counselor,” but I’d estimate that each such person must be judged on his/her own merits.
Thanks for sharing this sad but moving story. It is a perfect example of how wrong-headed the current form of “help” really is. Well done to you and to her for figuring out what the issues were really about. What they call “symptoms” are not meaningless, but full of meaning, and the invalidation of this meaning is perhaps the most heinous thing they do to their “charges.” I hope that you will find peace and a pathway forward.
You might consider a “moving meditation” like Tai Chi or Qi Gong. Some people have a hard time sitting in one place, especially after drug damage from your friendly psychiatric pushers.
Exactly!
Posting as moderator:
That is the correct spelling. I’m not sure that MIA does the redlining – I think it may be your spellchecker on your own computer, in which case, adding “akathisia” to your computer’s spellchecking dictionary (usually an option if you right-click the word) will make it go away.
I just did that on my own computer and it worked!
Because we don’t believe there are any other choices.
In societal terms, pretending to “treat” someone with an invented “diagnosis” in the way we do is VERY expensive!
I mean “left-right” politics as described and played out in today’s media and public conversations in the USA. It’s a long time since the USA has an actual “left” in the old 1930s “let’s organized and take on the capitalists” sense. When Bernie Sanders is considered a radical leftist and Hillary Clinton is called a “socialist,” the term “leftist” has long since lost any rational meaning in the USA. So perhaps “Democrat/Republican” is a better description, but in truth, that’s what the vast majority of US citizens think of when someone says “left” and “right” these days, at least over here.
Sorry, I got too excited…