Jay, great article: let’s prove you right! A (scientific) Study of Identical Twins Separated at Birth and Reunited in Adulthood (AFTER the study) will prove Jay correct; this has proven impossible with human subjects (as Jay has clearly explained previously and herein) but can be done easily with primates. With support from the community, scientists at primate research centers can easily disprove Behavioral Genetics and promote a breakthrough in “mental health” care.
A year ago, I asked a behavioral neuroscience lecturer about depression being genetic: isn’t it normal for a child falsely accused of seeking attention for reporting regular incestuous rapes to feel depressed? I wish that I had taped his confusing answer.
Good nutrition and good sleep are the foundation of emotional well-being so in that sense I agree, but “resilience” is far more a function of personal histories than diet. “Resilience” is a weapon to “blame the victim” for their traumas rather than address the injustices of most personal traumas.
Thank you for another science blog, Jay; I always enjoy them.
Have you considered proving yourself right? Theoretically speaking, a real study of reared apart identical twins (separated at birth and reunited by the study) would prove you correct: the environment rather than genetics predominately shapes behavior. While this seem impossible with a human population as witnessed by the details of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, it should be rather easy with non-human primates. Miniature monkeys regularly have twins that can be separated at birth and raised in different families; this would easily prove the critical importance of the environment.
Our national primate research centers annually accept citizen ideas about primate research; I hope you consider asking them to do an experiment to validate their behavioral genetics research.
I was thrown by your term “conscious evolution” because it seemed self-contradictory to me, but upon reconsideration, it actually better describes popular evolutionary theory.
Thank you for directing me to Sterling’s theory of allostatic load; it supports my criticism of his definitive neuroscience text: The Principles of Neural Design. Consistent with your better understanding of evolutionary theory, Sterling addresses specific details of an ambiguous theory before any agreement on general principles (I consider reproduction fundamental to survival). I asked Sterling but I should’ve asked you: doesn’t my science at NaturalPsychology.org explain and resolve anomalies of current science theory while explaining human psychology including “mental disorders?”
This is one of the most important blogs ever published at MIA! This blog was not properly introduced; Peter Sterling is one of the most eminent neuroscientists in the world and he just called “bullshit” on psychiatry! An international leader in neuroscience just said that natural stress (especially work alienation) causes the predominance of health problems (and all “mental health” problems?).
However, Peter Sterling expresses a typical “subjectivity” problem with understanding evolutionary theory when he states that: “Finally, evolution gave us the capacity to grow our skills over decades. Our species core need is to fulfill these capacities.” Like most neuroscientists, Peter fails to understand that evolution gave us “our species core need” of survival.
If the definition remains the same but who qualifies has completely changed, I retract my previous comment and defer to Steve’s previous comment (wisdom). Thank you for clarifying the issue for me, Marie; the definition of autism is too ambiguous to debate.
The definition of autism has not changed in the last fifty years but who qualifies has changed dramatically. Autism was holding steady at 1:2500 fifty years ago according to the CDC; it is diagnosed at nearly FIFTY TIMES that rate now (1:56). However, “autism spectrum disorder” no longer includes children who are “very severely disturbed”; they would now be described as “mentally ill.”
Ouch! I am sorry Robert Whitaker for the disappointment I share with you about the state of journalism; the corruption of a journalistic ethic that you describe is staggering.
Although I agree with much of Oldhead’s criticism, it seems like a heavily edited version of this blog should be widely published as a query about the state of journalism elsewhere.
I do not have a license to practice medicine so nothing that I say should substitute for professional medical advice: I believe that you describe a pattern of behaviors that suggest that your time with Jim was extremely traumatic – too painful for recall.
“I keep getting told by professionals that if anything had happened, I would have remembered it.” This is confusing to me; I thought that most psychologists and psychiatrists believed in “repressed memories” of extremely traumatic experiences.
Have you read any of the books by Jennifer Freyd? I understood her to be the daughter of parents who started one of the original “False Memory Syndrome” groups and a leading advocate of “repressed memories.”
Good point: a philosophy cannot be quantified.
My question: can a science theory predict an outcome percentage less than the percentage of their predicted fallibility rate? If the fallibility rate of data is plus or minus 5%, can it predict data less than 5% (like 0.5%)?
“Neuropsychiatry” is another word-game like “biopsychiatry”; if you want to make a philosophy of “mind” (psychiatry) appear more like a science, add a “sciency” prefix.
Although there is plenty wrong with the current state of neurology, I describe it as a “real medical science” in contrast to psychiatry because it addresses human physiology rather than a philosophy of “mind.”
Another great article that addresses the pseudoscience of psychiatry. I find this is the most telling comment from Dr. Pies: “One of us (Ronald Pies), a psychiatrist, has spent a large part of his career thinking and writing about the philosophical foundations of psychiatry…” Psychiatry is a pseudo medical science that causes the community historic harm by pretending to be a real science; a real medical science should be defended by science rather than philosophy. Neurology is the real medical science that addresses the brain and nervous system; psychiatry is pseudo medical science – pseudoscience.
Dr. Puras did great community service through the UN but I do not understand how it could be described as “Bringing Human Rights to ‘Mental Health’ Care.” The UN Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that it is a Human Right for people to have “freedom to make sense of experiences in their own way.” I do not understand human rights in any “mental health” care that accepts “coercive treatments”; Dr. Puras does not seem to address this fundamental human rights violation.
“Mental health” care harms the community by pathologizing painful social welfare problems – “sadness”; pathologizing sadness (the natural expression of sad experiences) with terms like “moral injury” denies our humanity. Employed “mental health” care workers will harm their desperate, unemployed clients by advocating that their painful sadness (from rightfully fearing that their children will go hungry and live destitute) is instead a pathology caused by a “genetic predisposition.”
Dr. Rashed’s article that describes identity problems for psychiatry from challenges to its legitimacy is confusing to me. Dr. Rashed advocates that clinicians obscure this crisis by distancing themselves from medical science rather than addressing logical criticisms to psychiatry’s validity.
Thank you for the community service of advocating that emotional suffering is natural rather than pathological; it is a critically important point for improving the quality of life in the community. What is difficult to understand about natural emotional suffering is how painful it can be when distressful experiences become extreme. I would not have believed that emotional pain could be as strong as physical pain until after experiencing trauma in early adulthood; for the following decade, I could no longer feel physical pain because the emotional pain was so strong. Thereafter, I came to believe that a prerequisite for discussing emotional suffering is to state outright that current theory discounts its painfulness.
Kenneth Blatt, MD, I believe that you underestimate the power of psychiatry to dominate the “mental health” care industry based on its purporting the “hard” sciences of biology and physiology – natural science. But while neurology is the medical science that addresses the biology and physiology of the brain, psychiatry is philosophy – an illegitimate medical science advocating the Myth of “mental illness.”
We are not “free of the medical model” when the pain of social, economic and/or spiritual distress causes sleep deprivation and resulting disorientation. The coerced “medical” treatment that results is a harmful violation of human rights as mandated by the UN Commission on Human Rights (1948). Until medical schools stop accrediting psychiatry as a medical science, it will continue iatrogenic harm of historic proportions.
I am a neuroscientist who can explain the theoretical problems with current neuroscience theory in a sidebar if you are interested.
Your writing is a valuable community service since it is articulate and insightful; you should be broadly published. Consistently, I believe in the natural science advocacy of our natural motivation to seek well-being (social affirmation and support) and that people generally seek “status” to promote well-being when the community is stingy with its affirmation and support.
What confuses me about your article is the apparent, standard disconnect between distressful experiences and stress. I understood you to describe brutal, distressful experiences as stressors and that the “potential impact of stressors like these on mental well being is shocking.” I am confused by your shock and our cultural belief that distressful experiences are not the sole cause of anxiety and stress. I believe that “mental health” is an oxymoron that effectively pathologizes natural emotional suffering from distressful experiences (social, economic and/or spiritual distress). By defining “mental health” as emotional well-being, psychiatry implies that emotional suffering is a sickness (regardless of predominately distressful experiences). While this is illogical, it is a common perspective on emotional suffering. Thus if you tell someone that you are considering killing yourself, they do not hear the obvious (that you are suffering emotionally); instead, they hear that you have a disease that worries them. They are afraid that your disease will kill you, that you lack insight about your need for professional help, and that they do not want to mistakenly appear to have any valuable expertice into your disease.
I believe that we all seek well-being (affirmation and social support) and that we all feel some degree of stress from cultural values. But I also believe that status anxiety is generally significantly greater for those without status and that there is substantial injustice around that issue.
I agree that the vast majority of people in the “mental health” care industry have good intentions. I also totally agree that the culture should become more civil to meet the needs of the community.
My problem is that I believe that the “mental health” care industry pathologizes social, economic and/or spiritual distress and denies basic human rights for suffering emotionally. As long as the industry believes that anxiety and depression are diseases rather than natural responses to distressing and depressing experiences, they could not possibly “see me.” As long as the industry cannot “see me”, they cannot possibly understand the impact that they are having on me and thus I would consider an apology not relevant.
I believe that if you want to understand someone, you must understand who they are arguing against. I am arguing against psychiatry for advocating the harmful Myth of “mental illness” that pathologizes natural “problems in living” and for their human rights abuses. Are you arguing against the general level of incivility in our culture, or how would you describe the community’s over-riding social problem related to “mental health” care?
I believe that apologizing is a nice thing to do after transgressing; it promotes a more civil society. However, our community is embattled so I agree with Oldhead that the issue lacks critical importance to me. I believe the slogan was: “I don’t care if The Man likes me; I just want his boot off my neck!”
Your ideas are not that radical; many non-clinicians similarly believe that current psychiatric drugs do not solve loniliness nor increase a sense of belonging. Some radicals even go as far as saying that pills will never solve loniliness and that we should instead consider a more civil, inclusive culture to promote a sense of belonging.
“Scientism” is a widespread problem but behavioral genetics takes it to the next level; what it passes off for science is ludicrous starting with the Minnesota Study of Identical Twins Reared Apart.
“EI refers to the ability to interpret, process, and apply understanding of emotion”: emotion that expresses the suffering of abuse from injustice will be pathologized by psychiatry.
Bonnie will be remembered as a courageous advocate for the marginalized who left a great legacy with her groundbreaking scholarship. RIP Bonnie; you led a noble life.
I believe that you misunderstand the blog: “If I’m reading this correctly, this is just another way of saying ontological insecurity is the result of major, entrenched dissociation caused by trauma.” I understand “ontological” to mean that something exists independently… not caused by experiences like trauma; I believe that it supports psychiatry in advocating a “genetic predisposition” for insecurity. The article is advocating that trauma does not cause the insecurity expressed in “mental illness”; it advocates that trauma does not impact human psychology. Instead, the article is advocating that the insecurity expressed in “mental illness” is caused by a genetic predisposition for insecurity that they label “ontological” insecurity. I believe that the article advocates “Pollyanna”; do others agree?
I have been confused about why psychiatry does not include suicide ideation in its DSM as a “mental disorder”; it seems most consistent with their pathologizing of social, economic and/or spiritual distress. I can only imagine psychiatry wanting to avoid criticism of its ineffectiveness… but that seems critical; can anyone provide a better explanation?
Thank you for your community service in leadership of important challenges to abuses by psychiatry.
“I often share my personal experiences to make clear that we are all much alike in both misery and recovery.” Do you believe that children experience similarly distressful experiences? Might being a financially secure, widely admired community leader make your “recovery” from “helplessness” appear more atypical than exemplary?
I really appreciate the emphasis of the post on promoting love and a more kind, caring community to reduce human suffering; thank you again for your community service.
This is a good example of “scientism”: the “science” of investigating a completely abstract, undefinable concept like “vulnerability” to “psychosis” (“ontological insecurity”).
“It is never an answer to remove children from their parents”; I agree with the sentiment of the post except in cases where parents continue to cause significant harm to their children.
Thank you for this wonderful tribute to Del; he bore witness to the cruelty of addressing childhood trauma with critical labels and drugs for the victims.
“We live in a trauma based society, and the Medical Model does everything to steer us away from understanding the connection between psychological pain and the surrounding environment.” Well said.
Thank you for your community service and your efforts for informed-consent. I believe that informed-consent should include the truth about psychiatric drugs as “medicines”; they subdue emotions rather than address a biological dysfunction.
The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart is the greatest fraud in history since the twins in the study were not actually reared apart (as documented in the study) and since it is the fulcrum of “scientific” support for the “medical model.”
“It is difficult to understand something when your livelihood depends upon you not understanding it”; I blame medical schools for accrediting the pathologizing of natural human suffering.
Well said. They believe that they will be vindicated for their scientific transgressions when biology finally proves them right about their erroneous medical model. Their mantra: “fake it till ya make it.”
“When psychiatry decided to become a laboratory science”, it is was still a medical science harming the community by pathologizing natural human suffering.
Thank you for continuing to engage with commenters.
Until I experienced trauma in early adulthood, I could not have imagined how painful “sadness” can feel and how desperate for relief I could feel. After the trauma, my life became a living nightmare and I was becoming disoriented from fatigue; I could not sleep because all dreams were nightmares. I desperately needed drugs to sleep and drugs to kill the pain so I could think “straight”; my situation was desperate and I needed sleep if I hoped to resolve real problems in living.
My experiences taught me that I had not understood sadness in my life before I experienced trauma, that it was far more painful than I imagined, and that psychiatry pathologizes it. Thereafter, I experienced suicidal ideation because it appeared to be the only logical path for relief from my pain. I could not access heavy enough drugs to promote sleep without a psychiatric label and a psychiatric label would have made my “recovery” impossible.
I believe that you misunderstand the importance of the validity of psychiatry and its labels. If psychiatry lacks biological validity in addressing human suffering, its theory is causing iatrogenic harm of historic proportions. Psychiatric drugs may provide short-term relief that clients seek, but convincing a culture that sadness is a disease promotes widespread drug abuse from believers and suicide from non-believers.
I also want to salute another articulate post by someone bringing clarity to the world. I especially appreciate the clarity of this comment: “Meanwhile, the true causes of these human concerns are hiding in plain sight: loss; inadequate training; traumatic history; painful events; etc.”
Thank you for articulating your perspective and for permitting comments.
“I propose that critiquing biological psychiatry is a straw man… as it is but one player in the crowded mental health industrial complex.” I believe that you underestimate the supreme power that psychiatry has in the “mental health industrial complex” based on its purported foundation on biology and physiology. Consistently, I consider “biological psychiatry” to be misleadingly redundant: all medical sciences are considered biological sciences by the community whether psychiatry is based on Freudian theory or is without an underlying theory. Psychiatry may be mocked by other medical science specialties but the community considers it a medical science and considers medical science to be the “holy grail” for addressing health problems. Medical schools are ultimately responsible for the calamity that psychiatry causes the community by accrediting a philosophy of “mind” as a medical (biological) science.
“Does this mean mental illnesses don’t exist?… Are you saying that people aren’t suffering?” People are suffering extreme pain from social, economic and/or spiritual distress (natural, painful emotional suffering) but their suffering is natural rather than a disease. Psychiatry advocates Pollyanna and a fairy tale world of kindness and goodness.
Thank you for your articulate comments about the relationship between emotional distress and pain; I believe that you understand more about pain than most physicians.
I agree. Since psychiatry pathologizes natural emotions and behaviors, the alternative is to stop pathologizing natural emotions and behaviors. Existing social services are intended to “support” people with social welfare problems but are totally inadequate to meet the crisis of human suffering caused by the economic and political system.
I consider myself a scientist who is alarmed at the absurdity of the scientism of psychiatry and its advocacy that lived experience hardly affects emotions. Thank you for articulately addressing this issue.
This “psychosis” study concludes that positive social relationships are helpful and negative social experiences are unhelpful; this supports the contention that lived experience affects human psychology. This is an astonishing prerequisite for considering whether “psychosis” pathologizes natural emotional suffering (sadness).
Excellent article. Unfortunately, the New York Times is running a simultaneous article today that celebrates DBS as a potential game changer; it does not mention the failure of research trials.
I respectfully disagree; our community considers science to be our best way of understanding ourselves and our environment. Consistently, psychiatry dominates the “mental health” care industry based on its false claim of being a biological science. Hence, I appreciate Joseph’s challenges to their pseudo genetics- to their garbage “science.”
Well said Rachel 777. It seems therapeutic to understand that depression is a natural reaction to depressing experiences so that depressing experiences can be addressed and countered. Consistently, if depression is understood as the natural reaction to depressing experiences, assistance would take the form of empathy and support rather than drugs and coercion.
Real biology explains depression as the natural expression of depressing experiences; psychiatry increases prognosis pessimism by pathologizing natural emotional suffering.
Steve McCrea is a smart fellow; you could learn a great deal by clicking on his name and reviewing some of his previous comments to other blogs. Steve said that there is no organic criteria for any DSM diagnoses and you disagreed with a link to the National Institute of Health that provides no organic criteria for any DSM diagnoses. The DSM criteria that you referenced are all descriptions of behavior patterns; there are no biological criteria for any DSM diagnoses.
Your satire is funny because it is articulate and painfully true. However, I thought that I understood the blog completely until Slayer questioned how the blog specified “biological” psychiatry; thereafter, I was confused about the distinction. As an accredited medical science (albeit an illegitimate medical science), all psychiatry is “biological” psychiatry. However, most people who use the term intend to make some distinction from “mainstream” psychiatry; what was your intent?
I was supporting this comment “thread” that I understood to address how our culture uses fear to pit people against each other – uses fear to “divide and conquer.” I did not understand this thread to challenge my contention that psychiatry pathologizes natural emotions and behaviors, and that this serves as a political tool to delegitimize criticism of social and economic injustice.
Thank you for the community service of speaking the truth about your life. Psychiatry is “trauma denial” in support of existing social structures; it falsely advocates that distressful experiences are an anomaly in an otherwise friendly environment. Psychiatry is trauma denial when advocating that people should “recover” from traumatic experiences without justice and often without cessation of the traumatic experiences. Psychiatry shames the victims of trauma by advocating Pollyanna and a fairy tale world of fairness and goodness; the truth about distressful human experience is antipsychiatry.
Your comment is confusing: my comment supports the main theme of the blog that criticizes blaming the “mentally ill” for mass shootings instead of blaming a societal failure. Criticizing a culture does not address the behavior of an individual within a culture. I believe that our epidemic of mass shootings is caused by an increasingly hateful and violent culture- a societal failure that includes sedating natural emotions and non-conforming behaviors with neurotoxins.
Thank you for this articulate and timely blog. It is unfortunate that the obvious truth is currently so difficult for so many people to see: “This blaming ultimately prevents us from acknowledging the obvious truth: the regular presence of mass murders in our society needs to be seen as a societal failure.”
Thank you for your community service in articulately advocating against how standard “mental health” care harms society by pathologizing suicide.
Since psychiatry pathologizes suicide consistent with other natural behaviors that it pathologizes, I am confused about why psychiatry does not include suicide ideation as another mythical DSM diagnosis.
I am troubled by psychiatry harming the community with the myth of “mental illness”- by pathologizing natural emotional suffering and natural, non-conforming behaviors. I am also trouble by the term “neurodiversity” when it advocates that “mental illness” is a passageway to special spiritual enlightenment; this puts a positive spin on a harmful myth. I support “neurodiversity” in some contexts but not as a new myth that supports a few people while obscuring the source of a calamity for a multitude of others.
Thank you for your response; I believe that I am using the term “neurodiverse” in a different context than others. I now understand you and others to use the term “neurodiverse” in a social context about what is “normal” brain functioning (wherein “normal” is understood as common or average). In contrast, I was focusing on a medical context about what is “natural” brain functioning. I agree that there is no “normal” brain functioning but believe that there is “natural” and “unnatural” brain functioning- natural and pathological functioning. I thought that advocates of “neurodiversity” were trying to put a positive spin on “mental disorders” that pathologize natural behaviors through the myth of “mental illness.” It now seems like the term is gaining a wider usage.
Perhaps victims of psychiatry may rally around the concept of “cognitive liberty”; as you say, time will tell. Most people exclude cognition considered “diseased” when considering “cognitive liberty”; my problem with advocating “cognitive liberty” is that it side-steps addressing the Disease Model that is causing the harm.
I believe that I misunderstood your previous comment; do you mind me asking about whether you believe that the terms “mad” and “neurodiversity” are without connotations of pathology?
Advocating cognitive liberty may be more inclusive of all critics of psychiatry but it does not address my fundamental criticism of psychiatry. Thus I support cognitive liberty but cannot rally behind it to challenge the harm caused by the myth of “mental illness”; it is too intellectually abstract to promote political action. I cannot imagine Jews rallying behind cognitive liberty with reformists to challenge the Holocaust or Abolitionists rallying behind cognitive liberty with reformists to challenge slavery. Isn’t advocating cognitive liberty for those suffering from coerced drugging or imprisonment based on a myth insulting to those without physical liberty?
I consider “neurodiverse” to be similar to “mad”; both terms put a positive spin on a harmful myth that pathologizes natural emotional suffering and other natural “problems in living.” I do not criticize oppressed people for naturally seeking a more positive self-image but doesn’t advocating a positive spin on an oppression detract from a political challenge?
Thank you for all of your community service in challenging psychiatry.
However, I am concerned that your posted advocacy of “cognitive liberty” discounts the context of psychiatry functioning as a medical science. The community supports human rights violations (and violations of “cognitive liberty”) as unfortunate parts of “medical treatment” for those with “cognitive impairments” that interfere with “sound” judgment. The community generally considers psychiatry to be an altruistic enterprise (albeit with problems).
In contrast, I consider psychiatry to be an illegitimate medical science advocating that natural emotional suffering and other natural problems in living are instead unnatural- medical problems. Psychiatry denies our humanity by advocating the myth of “mental illness”- that emotional suffering is unnatural regardless of cruel and unjust life circumstances. I consider the foundation of all of psychiatry’s harm to be the Myth advocating Pollyanna and a fairy tale world of goodness and fairness (in support of existing social structures). Doesn’t a reformist perspective of psychiatry imply that it has a legitimate goal that deserves reforming rather than being an illegitimate medical science pathologizing social welfare problems?
I agree that it seems critically important to have at least one person in your life who can affirm your personal value, but it also seems important to have some additional luck in navigating through life after such horrific childhood experiences.
Interesting point about free will; psychiatry is illogical, socially-constructed science that shifts positions about free will. Psychiatry implies that behavior it deems prosocial is a function of free will and behavior it deems antisocial is a function of genetics (unless the “antisocial” behavior is deemed criminal wherein it is again a function of free will).
Thank you for your community service in addressing harmful pseudoscience.
When a scientific inquiry is described as “political”, most people think of a disagreement between two different perspectives of an issue, but this is not the case with twin studies. The politics of twin studies is the worst in science because it is one-sided. The politics of twin studies is a “confirmation bias” that is so strong that almost anything passes for scientific support (as you well document in your books on behavioral genetics).
I appreciate Robert Whitaker responding to comments.
My preceding comment about MIA not rejecting the “fundamental legitimacy” of psychiatry references psychiatry’s legitimacy as a medical science. My opinion is based on MIA’s mission statement that seeks the goal of “remaking psychiatry.” Seeking to “remake psychiatry” implies that psychiatry’s goals warrant pursuing- that “mental disorders” are medical problems and the legitimate purview of medical science.
Thank you, Dr. Caplan; this excellent post is a valuable community service. I also want to thank Robert Whitaker for his support in its publication as well as his extremely valuable community service.
However, I believe that Dr. Caplan misunderstands MIA and its policies. Whitaker’s comments in this article and the MIA mission statement are extremely critical of psychiatry but do not describe psychiatry and its DSM as lacking fundamental legitimacy. Consistently, Whitaker is quoted as saying that MIA uses common diagnostic terms without intending to support their validity; he does not say that diagnostic terms completely lack validity. The myth of “mental illness” is a classical paradigm with deep roots; we should expect quotation marks around “psychiatric disorders” in the introduction to the MIA mission statement before expecting quotations in their blog postings.
Psychiatry is “trauma denial”; “trauma informed care” is dishonest. A trauma is a distressful experience of a distressful environment; in contrast, psychiatry implies that a trauma is a distressful experience of an otherwise friendly, supportive environment. Psychiatry denies trauma from bullying, discrimination, poverty and sexual assault by advocating that victims “recover” from their legitimate fears while their environments remain dangerous and hostile. Psychiatry similarly denies trauma from child abuse and the sorrow of war by advocating that victims “recover” from their distressful experiences while the community ostensibly ignores its reality.
Psychiatry believes that they are “working with a body” that is not affected by personal experience. Psychiatry denies our humanity when it relegates lived experience to “triggers of an underlying genetic time bomb.”
Psychiatry is a secondary police force that manages “non-productive, non-conforming and disruptive behaviors” with little legal restraint; it is unusual to obtain legal redress from the abuses of psychiatry. The World Health Organization supports psychiatry by defining “mental health” as a function of productivity- emotional well-being from productivity. The predominance of survivors of psychiatry were seen as “ne’er do wells” in order to qualify for psychiatric abuse.
Yeah_I_Survived, Szasz’s libertarianism has never been a problem for me; it seems like a natural reaction to his experiences of oppression and authoritarianism. Szasz understood the term “therapeutic state” to describe a secondary police force to manage dissent of authoritarianism; he was addressing social control rather than social welfare. The term “therapeutic state” is now more often used to describe a government that believes in social welfare; this is not how Szasz used the term.
Thank you for allowing me to comment. I believe that you and the book about Szasz misunderstand his greatness and legacy: he is the first to articulate that “mental illness” is a “myth.” The authors deny Szasz’s true legacy by denying that this is a medical issue of catastrophic proportion. Psychiatry has power as science- a medical science; Dr. James Knoll ignores this fact when he claims that psychiatry is “a hybrid profession of clinical science and humanities.” Consistently, Dr. Haldipur does Szasz a disservice when he states that “Szasz’s own writings are best read as philosophy rather than as psychiatry.” This misunderstanding of Szasz’s legacy permits the author to review a book from one of the greatest medical doctors in history as if it was a purview of the humanities. Szasz was the first articulate medical doctor to describe psychiatry as addressing a myth; this challenge to psychiatry’s legitimacy as a medical science will be his legacy!
This is really an excellent comment for two reasons: it articulately addresses Psychiatry’s advocacy of Pollyanna and how the community re-abuses those who have experienced childhood trauma. Psychiatry advocates Pollyanna in a fairy tale world of goodness. Psychiatry falsely implies that Adverse Childhood Experiences are an anomaly in a world of fairness and altruism wherein cruelty and social and economic injustice are successfully redressed through established social structures. Psychiatry denies the reality of trauma; it is an experience of a distressful environment rather than a distressful experience in an otherwise friendly environment. Also, I read an article at this website that described how adults who were “diagnosed” with Adverse Childhood Experiences were considered risky candidates for adoption; the cruelty and injustice are staggering.
Thank you for your painful community service. The thought of attaching electricity machines to children’s foreheads to address emotional suffering or other natural “problem with living” while disrupting needed sleep makes me cry too.
Anatomy of an Epidemic documents the epidemic of “mental illness” associated with an explosion of psychiatric drug prescriptions but does not focus on childhood statistics. The epidemic of autism for younger children and ADHD for older children is a greater epidemic than the epidemic for the general public. This is an iatrogenic public health crisis of historic proportions that lacks a historical perspective; anyone who grew up in the fifties can inform the community that childhood “mental illness” is a substantially modern invention.
Thank you for years of community service in challenging the harm of psychiatry.
Psychiatry has power in the community because it purports to be scientific; in contrast, the “mind-body problem” is a philosophical problem. This blog is an interesting philosophical commentary on human nature but our community considers science to be our best way to understand ourselves and our environment. The power of psychiatry to harm the community with the myth of “mental illness” rests substantially on a community belief that psychiatry is a legitimate biological (medical) science. Unfortunately, as a medical doctor discussing the “mind-body problem”, you create the implication that psychiatry has some legitimacy as a biological science.
“Life events have been relegated to the role of triggers of an underlying genetic time bomb.” I consider this an impactful quote and would like to quote the phrase. Read stated that “I stole that phrase. I have to give credit where credit’s due. That came from the chair of the American Psychiatric Association that year – Steven Sharfstein – who was a very brave psychiatrist and wrote a piece in Psychiatry News.” However, Sharfstein has only one article in Psychiatry News and it does not include the quote.
I believe that there is some truth in your anecdotal evidence but do not understand how the rate of autism has increased disproportionate to the rate and dosage of vaccinations. Trauma causes “problems with living” and a shot of toxins can be traumatic; therefore, I believe that doses of MMR should be reduced with more frequent injections. Thank you for your community service in supporting suffering parents.
Approaching a 100-fold increase in the rate of “Autism Spectrum Disorder” is a staggering epidemic of diagnoses! We have a substantial increase in childhood “problems with living’ but I do not believe that the problems are caused by screen time (or vaccines). I contend that the increase is substantially due to the increase in pediatric intervention in childhood since 1980, the shift in psychiatry to increased medicalization of all “problems with living”, and the substantial increase in childhood stress. Psychiatry and “childhood development” specialists are harming our children; no one can learn anything with someone watching over their shoulder, second-guessing every move!
I oppose the myth of “mental illness” as well as coerced “treatments” and do not believe that coerced treatments can be prevented without challenging the myth. Psychiatry advocates that natural emotional suffering (and other natural “problems with living”) is a medical problem that causes a loss of normal brain function wherein a moral society should intervene to assist. False medical legitimacy promotes the myth of “mental illness” that promotes the standard coercive “treatments” of psychiatry. Get rid of the medical science legitimacy of psychiatry and I have no problem with it operating as a philosophy or theology.
I believe that we will need a Truth and Reconciliation commission to figure how to go forward after Psychiatry has been delegitimized as a medical science.
I definitely believe that our society should provide social services to those who suffer emotionally or struggle with other natural problems with living.
Psychiatry pathologizes natural emotional suffering (and other natural problems with living); it advocates a Pollyanna World. Pathologizing sadness with the myth of “mental illness” is a crime against humanity; it causes increased emotional suffering (and other natural “problems with living”). Understanding psychiatry as a tool that delegitimizes natural emotional suffering in support of cultural practices is critical for challenging this harmful narrative.
Psychiatry pathologizes emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living”; this is a harmful, false narrative that causes more “problems with living” than could possibly be remedied by any “mental health” technology.
Sam and Rachel, my apologies; I state that “The myth of ‘mental illness’ serves the function of social control for a secular world consistent with ‘demonic possession’ for a theological world.” Thereafter, I erroneously (and misleadingly) substituted “exorcism” for “demonic possession”; exorcism is a “cure” for “demonic possession” similar to burning possessed people.
Our community believes in the myth of “mental illness” that advocates a Pollyanna World. Our culture believes that emotional suffering is unnatural regardless of cruel and unjust life experiences- regardless of predominately distressful life circumstances. The myth of a Pollyanna World must be exposed.
The myth of “mental illness” serves the function of social control for a secular world consistent with “demonic possession” for a theological world. Exorcism is difficult to understand as a means of social control for someone who believes in the myth of “demonic possession.” Exorcism is BOTH a “false” theological belief intended to “help people” AND a tool of social control. Consistently, psychiatry is both a false medical science intended to help people and a tool of social control. The myth of a Pollyanna World must be challenged.
I disagree with this post of mine. I defined psychiatry in a way that is both (A) and (B) and thereafter described these two definitions as “perceptions.”
Perhaps my problem comes with the term “assigned” in definition (B) above. I believe that psychiatry is “assigned” to help people but “serves” a controlling and repressive function like exorcism for “demonic possession.” We live in a community that predominately believes in the myth of “mental illness.”
“A key issue to be sorted out is exactly what IS psychiatry? Is it A) A rogue or “failed” branch of medicine meant to help people or B) A parallel police force assigned to control and repress people?” These are two different questions that are confusing because they are posed as one question; the first addresses psychiatry and the second addresses perceptions of psychiatry.
Psychiatry is an illegitimate medical science that pathologizes painful emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living” with the myth of “mental illness”; this serves community leaders as a tool of social control. Most people believe that psychiatry is meant to help people until it is understood as a harmful, false myth. Even when people understand the myth, it is so ingrained that people often have difficulty considering it as having the purpose of delegitimizing suffering for social control.
“Would the anti-psychiatry folks like those who are severely out of it (“mentally ill”) wandering around homeless muttering to themselves?” Psychiatry pathologizes emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living”; it worsens natural problems with living by defining them as diseases. Challenging this erroneous narrative will reduce community problems with living and promote assistance to the most needy in the community.
I do not believe that my comments were an “official narrative” but do agree that pathologizing emotional suffering (and other natural “problems with living”) is a tool of social control (and repression), and should be described within this context.
Thank you for your community service in challenging the harm of psychiatry. I agree that “the huge expansion of the mental health enterprise began in 1980, with the APA adopting its disease model, and that is the enterprise that swept Laura into its midst.” However, I disagree with connotations related to psychiatry’s “medical model” as if its previous model was not a “medical model.”
Prior to 1980, psychiatry advocated a “medical model” based on Freudian theory. Psychiatry is considered a medical profession; their previous model was therefore also a “medical model” albeit less expansive. Psychiatry’s current “medical model” was a response to criticism of its theoretical foundation on Freudian theory. The Freudian model was problematic for psychiatry because it was an indefensible narrative (ids, egos and superegos); it also described the vast majority of “mental disorders” (“neuroses”) as non-medical problems. Psychiatry was rightly criticized for an indefensible narrative and over-reach. Psychiatry was in trouble in 1980; it could stick with Freudian theory and loose domain over “neuroses”, or dump Freud and claim that all “neuroses” were thereafter medical problems (under their purview).
With the DSM-III, psychiatry abandoned an underlying (Freudian) theory and reasserted itself as a medical profession with its “medical model” as if the abandoned “Freudian model” was not a “medical model.” It is true that after 1980, psychiatry and Big Pharma cast a much wider net that is causing catastrophic harm but psychiatry’s model has always been medical; its survival depends upon it. All medical sciences consider themselves to be biological sciences; only “biological psychiatry” uses redundancy to promote legitimacy. Consistently, all medical sciences consider their models to be “medical models”; only psychiatry uses redundancy to promote legitimacy.
The legitimacy of psychiatric coercion is based on the legitimacy of psychiatry as a medical science addressing “broken brains” that cause personal and public harm. Based on the prevailing psychiatric narrative, psychiatric coercion is humane treatment since individuals have lost their ability to make sound judgments about their own behavior. The harm of psychiatric coercion will continue as long as psychiatry is an accredited medical science; only through delegitimizing psychiatry will its coercion become obvious human rights violations.
In reference to “abolishing” psychiatry, I want to delegitimize psychiatry as a medical science. Psychiatry advocates a harmful philosophy of “mind”; it should not be considered a medical, biological science since it does not address the physical world. I have no problem with psychiatry continuing as a philosophy or religion; I have a problem with psychiatry passing as a medical (biological) science.
It seems that initial targets of abolitionists should include the definition of “antipsychiatry” that instead defines “critical psychiatry”; Wikipedia for instance hardly mentions abolition in its definition. It seems difficult to “grow” a “movement” to abolish psychiatry as long as “antipsychiatry” does not mention abolition.
Thank you for this post and allowing comments; you make some good points but miss others. I believe that you misunderstand the problems caused by pathologizing natural emotional suffering. Most of your patients (and the community) believe that anxiety and depression are caused by a mythical “mental illness”; affirmation from a diagnosis is therefore often empowering. People have faith in medical treatments including medicines; a diagnosis is a cause for celebration when patients believe that it is the first step in identifying and resolving the cause of anxiety and depression. This is problematic because anxiety is caused by distressful experiences and depression is caused by depressing experiences rather than medical problems.
Please allow me to join the chorus of those praising this article as a valuable community service; “the message” is important and you are an articulate spokesperson.
My criticism of psychiatry focuses on medical schools who legitimize its harmful “medical model” narrative as medical science; a (harmful) philosophy of “mind” is not a biological, medical science. The “medical model” is actually the “disease model” since it has no medical legitimacy.
Pathologizing natural emotional suffering is a crime against humanity!
I do not understand how “the influence our bacterial makeup (microbiome) has on our thoughts, feelings and behaviors” implies that “the brain is not the sole (or perhaps even the primary) ‘home’ of cognition and affect.” Brain “health” (from nutrition, bacteria balance, rest, etc.) affects thoughts and behaviors.
I disagree with the underlying premise that supports this study; it is a generally accepted foundation for much of Behavioral Neuroscience but should not qualify as real science. Studying animal behavior to glean an understanding of human behavior and human genetic influences is based on two generations of abstractions. First scientists must decide how to model human behavior to study it; modeling human behavior is a difficult abstraction since scientists do not understand human behavior. Thereafter, behavioral scientists often attempt to apply the modeled human behavior to an animal population for research; this is so fraught with wild assumptions that the description of “wild abstraction” is an extreme understatement. Studying human psychology and genetic influences from an animal population is two levels of abstraction from directly studying human psychology and genetic influences; it should not qualify as real science.
“Biological” psychiatry replaced Freudian psychiatry but has now become synonymous with “psychiatry that pushes drugs hard” vs. “psychiatry that pushes drugs with more finesse.” As along as psychiatry is an accredited medical (biological) science, “biological psychiatry” is redundant and all psychiatry is biological psychiatry- a “medical science” that pathologizes natural behaviors.
Yes; I am opposed to psychiatry. Its existence as a medical science promotes the myth of “mental illness” that pathologizes natural emotional suffering or other natural problems with living.”
“Alarmingly, between 2005 and 2017, the occurrence of a major depressive episode in the last year leapt 52% among adolescents, and 63% among young adults.” This epidemic of “mental illness” represents either an alarming increase in depressing experiences among our adolescents and young adults or an alarming public health crisis. We must immediately consider whether an enemy has released some kind of mysterious pathogen targeting our youth or whether their “major depression” is caused by their “majorly depressing experiences.”
The researchers are unable to replicate any support for genetic causation of depression consistent with their inability to replicate any genetic causation for any “mental illness”; the inability to replicate is the story here. Jay Joseph has written books and blogs on this subject; genetic research is bad science based on failure to do “double-bind studies” and control for the confirmation bias (besides failure to replicate). Depressive experiences cause depression; unfortunately, researchers cannot quantify this hypothesis nor falsify it.
I am sorry that I was slow to realize that you responded here to my letter.
I believe that your blog post is exceptionally articulate and that you speak professionally on your YouTube productions; I want to encourage you further. I believe that there is a problem with publishing on YouTube; once a video is published, there is no opportunity to further edit it. I would like to suggest considering a video streaming website like Vimeo where you can publish, edit and republish for increased impact. You have excellent presentation skills; my criticism of psychiatry (https://vimeo.com/185916512) has improved substantially with editing but would nevertheless be much improved if I possessed your on-camera talent.
I look forward to your MIA interview and hope to discuss psychiatry with you further.
I agree that capitalism causes “problems with living” but you are implying that it is the only cause (and that only people in capitalist countries have “problems with living”).
What is wrong with Szasz’ term “problems with living” and “people experiencing ‘problems with living’?”
I contend that psychiatry pathologizes expressions of natural emotional suffering. The World Health Organization supports psychiatry by defining “mental health” as “emotional well-being” and thereby implying that natural emotional suffering is pathological. I like the term “problems with living” because it is broad enough to go beyond emotional suffering to include other natural problems with living that the DSM pathologizes as unnatural.
I mostly agree with you and admire your approach; it seems valuable for replicating. I believe that all emotional suffering is natural based on personal experience. I specify emotional suffering from “cruel and unjust life circumstances” as a means to challenge psychiatry’s advocacy that emotional suffering is unnatural regardless of life circumstances.
However, you seem to support my point about distressful life circumstances with this concluding remark: “Sometimes, we do it to ourelves, with our own critical and self-judgmental voices, which would be what we carry inside of us due to early trauma.” It seems like a distressful, “unjust life circumstance” to carry critical self-judgement due to early trauma.
Steve just said: “the problem with ‘mental health’ is that it implies that people who are suffering are somehow ‘ill'”; I agree totally. “Mental health” implicitly legitimizes “mental illness” and “mental illness” pathologizes natural emotional suffering (emotional pain) from distressful personal experience- from cruel and unjust life circumstances.
Steve also said that “mental health” “means not being upset in any way with the status quo.” I agree assuming that “the status quo” references the cruel and unjust life circumstances that cause natural emotional suffering.
Steve also said: “controlling language is part of controlling the narrative”; I totally agree. I have experienced extreme emotional suffering from cruel and unjust life circumstances that naturally promoted behaviors that the DSM describes as “bipolar disorder.” My emotional pain caused me to react in ways that others might consider “irrational” but this is unfair focus since expressions of physical pain are generally irrational and not judged as pathological. People experiencing physical torture see visions and hear voices but are not judged as “mentally ill.” Personally, I relate to having been an “emotional sufferer”; I consider terms like “crazy” or “nuts” or “bonkers” to falsely imply that my thinking or behavior was less than natural.
Thank you for this article; it is a community service. I contend that neuroleptics have a sedative affect that naturally causes a loss of brain volume (nervous tissue volume) through atrophy. Neuroleptics have a sedative effect that reduces nervous tissue usage; reduced nervous tissue usage causes atrophy consistent with how reduced usage causes atrophy of all other body tissues. Increased brain activity from cessation of neuroleptics will increase nervous tissue volume (brain volume) consistent with rebuilding muscle tissue when a cast is removed. It is illogical for scientists to attribute loss of brain volume to a mythical disease when it is readily understandable through basic physiology theory.
Psychiatry is a nocebo by advocating the myth of “mental illness”; a nocebo promotes negative health outcomes through negative thinking (consistent with how a placebo promotes positive health outcomes through positive thinking). Testing for “problems with living” that are intended to predict “psychosis” (increased “problems with living” pathologized by psychiatry) creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that harms health- real (physical) health.
This is an excellent article; thank you Bruce. I would like to add that psychiatrists are often more authoritarian than other “doctors” because they do not know what they are doing, have little success in their “practice”, and resent their patients for not affirming their medical school “expertise.” This is also the reason psychiatrists have a higher rate of suicide than other “medical” professions.
My previous post was intended for William but I now want it directed to you as well because a note that I emailed to your address at “Nyghtfalcon.com” was rejected by them.
I have a couple ideas that I would like to discuss with you about what I think that individuals can do to challenge the legitimacy of psychiatry. You can contact me through “Contact” information provided at an online therapy program that I administer at UnifiedAlternatives.org
I consider your blog post to be articulate and am interested in more of your work but find it difficult to follow. I expected your website to be collections of your criticisms of psychiatry; instead it looks like a “fabulous” collection of home furnishings for sale. You speak well on your 50 YouTube videos but they do not appear to be categorized or integrated so their relative value is hard to determine. Is there a way to contact you for more information about your work?
Psychiatry has reified the metaphor “mental illness” into a subject addressed by a “medical science”; the “debate” I envision addresses the illogic of reifying a metaphor. “Mental illness” is one of the few metaphors (together with “mental health”) that is considered literally true; this foolishness needs to be identified.
I consider the “debate” about whether human suffering is due to a “neurological problem” or “social conditions” to be equally foolish in nature but also equally important. The disconnect between distressful experiences and emotional suffering seems foolish but this denial of our basic humanity is widely accepted and needs challenging.
Nevertheless, I agree that the most important debate is about “messaging”- how best to expose the truth about psychiatry.
I agree that you are in excellent company in the belief that the biggest problem with psychiatry lies with its police power but the source of that power lies with its false scientific (medical) legitimacy. I agree that psychiatry would collapse from the weight of the truth if it lost its police powers but I do not believe that society will restrain psychiatry as long as medical science legitimizes the myth of “mental illness.” If a medical science tells society that “diagnosed people” are a “danger to themselves and others”, coercive “treatments” are a natural result… to protect “patients” from themselves (as well as protecting society). There may be plenty of situations where an MD might be helpful with “diagnosed people” but the legitimacy of psychiatry and its myth of “mental illness” seem like their biggest problem.
I find this article to be one of the more compelling and articulate that I have read here at MIA; thank you for your community service. Nevertheless, I have some disagreement with your conclusion.
“If it were recognized by our people that science is irrelevant to the debate over whether society’s fears should trump individual rights to liberty, then we could begin what will be the long struggle to win such a debate.”
I do not believe that “the debate” has ever been about whether “society’s fears should trump individual rights to liberty”; the debate is about whether “mental illness” is a real medical problem or a myth. You articulately argue that “mental illness” is a myth but do not advocate for the abolition of the “medical science” that legitimizes the myth. Psychiatry does substantial harm to the community by advocating that natural emotional suffering is a medical problem that inhibits “healthy” thinking and the ability to make “sound” judgments; this legitimizes the coercion. I contend that the issue is about “science”: a harmful narrative about natural emotional suffering that passes for medical “science.”
Please allow me to amend my above statement to: “With psychiatry and its myth of ‘mental illness’, the logic goes that life is fair and just (in the community) and therefore emotional suffering must be caused by a malfunctioning ‘mind’- with a medical (biological) problem.” Pathologizing natural emotional suffering is a tool that delegitimizes personal traumas (like child abuse) as well as political and economic injustice and alienation.
I disagree with your analogy; I consider psychiatry to be a fear mongering, secular religion that addresses emotional suffering (emotional pain) consistent with the way “demonic possession” is a fear mongering religious belief that addresses emotional suffering. With “demonic possession”, emotional suffering is considered an affront to religion; the logic goes that if people truly believe, then they would not be suffering emotionally. With psychiatry and its myth of “mental illness”, the logic goes that our culture is fair and just and therefore the marginalized and disenfranchised must be malfunctioning “mentally” with a medical (biological) problem.
Antipsychiatry is rejected by most anti-capitalists; it cannot become “closely linked” to anti-capitalism.
“Psychiatry is a harmful narrative, metaphor, oxymoron and pseudo biology”; that is the message that I believe will best promote antipsychiatry (as well as better economics and politics).
How far from an understanding of basic humanity must psychiatry move before it becomes a bad joke? Psychiatry is absurd in proposing that loneliness is a disease that causes isolation (a disconnect from the community) rather than isolation naturally causing loneliness.
I do not know about your experiences of the 1990’s, but it seems obnoxious to claim that “I was never a racist until that decade came along” in commenting about a tribute to Dr. King. Consistently, yes, I believe that racism had something to do with Trump winning.
Painfully true: “a guaranteed income would alleviate the need for many to identify with a “mental illness” label in order to receive receive sustenance.” I spoke with a woman this week who was struggling for sustenance; they would not give her food stamps because she could work even though she could not find employment and was hungry.
Open Dialogue is more successful than other “treatments” because it addresses “mental illness” like it is a myth (a social problem with living). It is more successful when addressing emotional suffering within a community that has more empathy for emotional sufferers. It is less successful within the US because the larger community is more hostile, and the program is more “technical” (like it is addressing “mental illness” rather than a problem with living) and therefore more expensive.
Please consider a different perspective: Your life experiences including your experiences with your “ex” are extremely distressful; your distress causes emotional suffering that is painful. It is natural for people in extreme fatigue and people in extreme pain (both physical and emotional) to have delusions and hallucinations. Unfortunately, you believe the accepted medical model paradigm led by psychiatry that advocates that delusions and hallucinations are symptoms of a pathology. It is hard to understand how psychiatry pathologizes sadness because its “medical model” is a classical paradigm. A classical paradigm is accepted by most people without question; our community generally believes that sadness is unnatural regardless of cruel and unjust life circumstances. The least fortunate 2% of the population have a human right to avoid abuse and a human right to suffer from abusive experiences according to the UN commission on human rights.
All emotions are natural; they are direct reflections of personal experience. Your fear of your ex is natural regardless of an “objective analysis”; you earned your fear the hard way. It is a crime against humanity to pathologize sadness.
Your husband comes from a family rife with emotional suffering from distressful circumstances (rather than “mental illness”). He learned empathy for emotional suffering including the suffering of an uncle who took his own life when the natural emotional pain (and hopelessness for relief) became overwhelming. He understands the value of emotional support for symptoms of emotional suffering rather than treat the behaviors as symptoms of “mental illness.” Supportive environments promote emotional well-being; in contrast, pathologizing natural emotional suffering worsens distress.
It sounds like “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” “Writing a memoir for years” is a great idea and will help you better understand yourself and the world around you. Your courage in addressing hostile comments will serve you well; you will become wiser in “learning to be less offensive” as you better understand views that “are difficult to explain.” I am looking forward to reading more of your perspective. Please feel free to use me for a sounding board if you like; I can be reached through a free therapy program that I administer at UnifiedAlternatives.org.
I experienced post-trauma stress; I suffered emotionally for years after the trauma. My response was a “normal” reaction to my unique experiences with the wrongful deaths of over a half million people. Instead of acknowledging my natural reaction to my life circumstances, psychiatry invented PTSD. “Personality disorders” exist like PTSD exists; they are made-up diseases that pathologize natural reactions to trauma.
I might add to Steve’s great description of the scientific method that hypotheses are to be stated in advance of research (to be proved or disproved) rather than concluded from research. Research on identical twins that legitimizes behavioral genetics is substantially based on a confirmation bias that accepts coincidences as science.
People seek emotional well-being (positive emotions) and avoid emotional suffering (negative emotions). Happiness and confidence are expressions of emotional well-being while sadness and fear are expressions of emotional suffering (and related coping styles deemed disabling). Consistently, common behavior patterns that express emotional suffering are described in categories by the DSM. Loving someone generally promotes emotional well-being for the person being loved; in contrast, psychiatry generally promotes emotional suffering for clients by pathologizing their natural emotional suffering.
The “scientific method” is the same in “hard science” and “soft science”; the difference is that “social science” applies the method to social philosophy while “real” science applies the method to the “real” (material) world.
This is a discussion of “Hard Science vs. Soft Science.” “Hard Science” is real science; it uses the “scientific method” to address the physical world. “Soft Science” is “sciency”; it uses the “scientific method” to address the non-physical world. Soft science contradicts the most fundamental principle of science (parsimony) and cannot be falsified (in contrast to the philosophy of science). Medical sciences are biological sciences- real science that addresses the physical world; actually, medical science is real science except for psychiatry that addresses a philosophy of “mind.” Psychiatry is soft science (“social science”) that masquerades as hard science- real science.
“If one takes the work of these researches work to ALL its ultimate conclusion (looking at the social and political role of psychiatry in today’s world), there is NO OTHER justice worthy conclusion than to *abolish* psychiatry.”
Richard, this makes perfect sense if the researchers were not hedging their bets with their terminology and thus implying that there is still some kind of medical “disorder” being addressed consistent with KindredSpriit’s larger comment above.
I wish that I had saved a post at MIA by a psychiatrist who described the brain volume loss as due to atrophy from under-utilization of nervous tissue. He described how brain volume loss was only common in older institutionalized patients until “biological” psychiatry replaced “Freudian” psychiatry with more drugs. Since then, he is witnessing brain atrophy in “patients” at substantially earlier ages based on sedating nervous tissue with neuroleptics.
I believe that “sad” and “frightened” better describe most people identified as having a “mental disorder”, but I cannot imagine feeling pride in my experience of extreme sadness (regardless of the righteous causation).
This may be a valuable intermediary step but the logic is difficult to understand. When the absurdity of PTSD addresses all “mental disorders”, pathologizing natural reactions to trauma should seem wrong. It is unfortunate that “trauma-informed-care” critically ignores the obvious- that distress is the natural (rather than pathological) reaction to trauma.
I am not uncomfortable with what you say; I am a neuroscientist who would love to talk neuroscience with an informed critic. Please consider my criticism of the “neuroscience” of psychiatry at (http://delegitimizepsychiatry.org/pdf/Coalition_Neuroscience.pdf); I seek feedback of the “real” science.
“From the very beginning, psychiatry was co-opted by governments to do the dirty work of eliminating people who are different from some arbitrary “norm.”
Not true: from the very beginning, religion was co-opted by governments to do the dirty work of eliminating people who are different from some arbitrary “norm” through accusations of “demonic possession.”
“It’s easier to call for the destruction of something than to engage in the process of inventing something new.”
I call for the destruction of “arbitrary ‘norms'” (both secular and non-secular); I do not want to “engage in the process of inventing something new” that can define “arbitrary norms.” Psychiatry pathologizes natural emotional suffering (and coping methods deemed disabling- non-conforming, non-productive and/or disruptive) consistent with “exorcist” priests who advocate against “demonic possession.” Actually, destroying psychiatry by exposing the hoax will “invent something new”: an understanding of our humanity (the expression of extreme emotional suffering from extremely distressful experiences).
This is a great article for parents who attend your workshop (parents with “regrets” or “shame”); parental honesty about shortcomings and weaknesses empowers children with more truth about their distressful experiences. Parents who care about their children and try to be nurturing deserve sympathy and more resources; parents who promote the myth of “mental illness” as a defense against parental shortcomings do not deserve sympathy.
Twin studies are the ultimate support for popular theories about genetic links to behavior; thank you for exposing the pseudoscience of this false, harmful narrative.
And if your life circumstances were traumatically cruel and unjust (creating a living hell for you and “causing severe disabling anxiety”), psychiatry would “gaslight” you by attributing causation to a mythical “mental illness.”
Scientology is an increasingly corrupt cult; conflating antipsychiatry with Scientology is psychiatry’s best defense so I consider any association problematic.
I consider myself a natural scientist so I appreciate the effort by Enrico to consider a natural science perspective of anxiety; I also appreciate his allowing me to offer a different perspective. In contrast to the most fundamental principle of science- parsimony, I believe that Enrico is presenting an “Evolutionary Psychology” perspective of anxiety that lacks “parsimony.” Parsimony is the principle of Ockham’s razor: “all other things being equal, simpler theories are better” (“Fewer assumptions make better science”). “Evolutionary Psychologists” freely move from general evolutionary theory to explaining specific behaviors while they do not understand the process; making broad assumptions about the product of an unknown mental process is not science.
Thereafter, Enrico shifts from a pseudo natural science perspective to a humanistic-existential perspective that describes anxiety as “signifying something of significance that is being emotionally disavowed, or that life-enhancing sources of self-fulfillment are not being attended to.” A simple evolutionary perspective seems like better science: anxiety is the negative feeling (emotion) of distressful experiences that promotes their avoidance.
“So you’ve got a depressed man with delusions and hallucinations – what’s the plan?” Since depression is a naturally painful expression of depressing life circumstances, I would ask if there was anything that I could do to help. I would promote more justice if possible, but since I would probably have little ability to promote more justice, I would generally offer empathy. I would also reference a therapy program that understands emotional suffering as natural consistent with Unified Alternative Therapies (free online at UnifiedAlternatives.org), Open Dialogue and e-CPR.
Psychiatry is the “main”, medical “means” of “dealing” with “mental/emotional distress”; this is harmful since emotional suffering is not a medical problem. An “alternative” to understanding emotional suffering as a medical problem is understanding emotional suffering as a spiritual problem as with “demonic possession.” A more truthful “alternative” to psychiatry and its medical interpretation of emotional suffering is understanding emotional expressions of distress as natural. I think people need to understand this alternative to psychiatry in order to understand psychiatry.
I thought that Abu-Jamal was widely heralded for justifiable homicide in response to racist police violence rather than for mistaken identity; I will investigate further.
I am a US citizen; any specific reason why you considered me to be Canadian?
I understand that Wikipedia is not an academic reference but I was criticized for not knowing “common” knowledge about racial injustice rather than “deeper” knowledge.
Annette’s list of icons all practiced non-violence; I assume that Abu-Jamal endured great injustice but do not believe he was framed for murder (and do not believe that he is white).
Numerous “survivors” may want to promote such a cause. Legal folks might have trouble with Miranda rights for a “psychiatric hold” since Miranda rights address an “arrest” and a “psychiatric hold” is not an “arrest.”
Therapists/counselors “take” money to “give” emotional support to “clients”; this obligates them to cease this business relationship before “taking” emotional support from “clients.”
I used the term “client” to address the “business” obligation of a “therapist/counselor” in our (capitalistic) society. Lawyers and therapists are contracted to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own interests related to the type of work provided. Sexual behavior is about self-interest so this type of relationship should not qualify for “tough love.”
I agree that this should not be about personalities and that Will could improve his “‘therapeutic’ skills” with more insight into psychiatry, but I sought more sensitivity to what I perceived as an expression of deep emotional suffering from a person working hard to do right by others.
I thought that the term “patient” was the worse term because it implied a business relationship based on medical science. I thought that “client” referenced the fact that counselors/therapists have a fiduciary (business) duty to people that they “counsel.” I assume that you dislike the term “client” because it implies a balanced relationship when many (most?) people do not voluntarily seek counseling (and fewer are treated with the respect that “clients” are due and generally are afforded). I believe that I used the term properly in the above context but agree that it hardly applies to most situations as counselors/therapists rarely respect the business relationship. What is your preferred term to reference those in “counseling/therapy”?
You have worked tirelessly in support of the marginalized; I am sorry that your work does not give you more comfort. The abuse that you have experienced in your life seems to make you especially sensitive to the emotional suffering of others. This seems to make you an especially good therapist for everyone but yourself; you are not protecting yourself from abuse.
Abused people often seek pure honesty and fail to notice the standard social practice of criticizing friends and colleagues with a “good cop, bad cop” routine. In other words, when a friend says something objectionable while thinking that you are supportive, people often respond about how others now consider the comment objectionable. This leaves your personal criticism vague while supporting the general criticism of the transgression. “Bold” people may consider this a “weak” approach to conflict resolution but I consider it a communication tool. It is easy to be bold with strangers and others’ companies but difficult to criticize friends and one’s business colleagues.
Abused people also tend to seek redemption for transgressions through public “confession”; I understand your article to promote this policy. I do not believe that most people are willing to avail themselves of honest confessions; it exposes them to more public ridicule. Most people seek redemption through private acts to protect themselves from criticism. Thus standard “office politics” promotes criticizing colleagues (or the company) in private and complimenting them in public. I believe that your old company feels like it provides the community a valuable service that is compromised by your public criticism; I believe it will focus more on protecting itself than on your criticism.
I have admired your work for years and am sorry to hear that you are not comforted more from your legacy of “giving.” I contend that all emotions are natural and that the DSM pathologizes the natural emotional suffering of the marginalized; I am sorry that your suffering has been pathologized and that you are sensitive to these false labels. You deserve to be appreciated for your commitment to justice and to live in a world with more justice.
Will has worked tirelessly to care for the marginalized in the community; he deserves the same respect we afford Dr. Breggin.
I disagree with your support of Frank’s comment- that this post “feels vaguely self-indulgent.” Will emotionally suffers from feeling complicit in working for a counseling company led by someone who denigrated the clientele; he tried to rectify the matter as best he knew how.
I also believe that the “women involved” are being “elevated” to “clients” rather than “reduced” to clients; the term “client” references the professional relationship and legal obligation to provide “professional” care.
I disagree: “Sexuality is ALWAYS going to be a sensitive issue. If one is going to blow the whistle on anything, I’d want it to be on something more important than some minor sexual indiscretion or other.” Sex is USUALLY a sensitive issue EXCEPT between a therapist and a client wherein I believe that it should be criminal- a breach of fiduciary duty.
Emotional suffering is natural but psychiatry claims that it is pathological; psychiatry promotes a harmful narrative that lacks any medical (biological) criteria. Understanding emotional suffering as a natural response to distressful experiences is critical for improving the human social condition.
Thank you for this article; it is an articulate solution to a public health epidemic. There are few comments because it seems mainstream and non-controversial; mainstream media should embrace it.
Your post makes sense to me except the paragraph about “antipschiatry”; “antipsychiatry” seeks to abolish psychiatry while “critical psychiatry” seeks to reform psychiatry. Were you exchanging the two terms or were you intending to be critical of abolishing psychiatry?
I believe that the line between a moral injury (a “neurosis”) and an illness (a “psychosis”) is hazy regarding “shell shock.” I believe that shell shock was generally considered a moral injury until it caused “psychosis” (an “illness”) but I generally do not understand these terms. I know that there were hundreds of thousands of allied vets treated in medical hospitals that were “cured” by the ending of the war.
Thank you for this heads-up. Please allow me to amend my post to reflect the fact that enduring heavy bombardment was a major cause of trauma among WWI soldiers.
In 1917, medical wards filled with soldiers traumatized by trench warfare; their “mental illness” was labeled “shell shock.” Freudian theory provided a revolutionary understanding of “mental illness” and was used to treat the “shell shocked.” After the war, Freudian theory proved so “effective” that it emptied the psych wards of the “psychotic”; it was heralded as a miracle understanding of “psychosis” and “therapy.”
The history of the “shell shocked” should teach us that “psychosis” is caused by trauma and that placebos are about hope. “Shell shocked” soldiers returned home as “cured” from a “common illness” rather than “cowards” from the trauma of orders to charge an entrenched enemy in trench warfare. Instead the history of the “shell shocked” was lost to the context of the War in Vietnam and the failure of Freudian theory to explain human psychology and “psychosis.” PTSD replaced “shell shocked” because the trauma had a different specific cause and PTSD enabled psychiatry to include other types of adult trauma as causation for their myth of “mental illness.”
All medicines cause some harm while treating diseases. Psychiatrists believe in the myth of “mental illness”- that emotional suffering is a disease causing a lack of “sound judgment.” This false foundation is the root of all their harm.
Love is about abolishing psychiatry since psychiatry harms the community by pathologizing natural sadness through the myth of “mental illness.” Psychiatrists can be great counselors when they disconnect from the principles of psychiatry but psychiatry is causing tremendous social harm by promoting the myth of “mental illness.”
Natural science theory 101: species evolve based on “the survival of the fittest.” However, Darwin (The Descent of Man) and many other “evolutionists” consider cooperation to be a better survival “tool” than competition; the “biggest, baddest ass” is no longer the “fittest.”
I experienced a reversal of fortune from experiences of extreme emotional well-being during my childhood to extreme emotional suffering following trauma during early adulthood. Since I have experienced the two extremes of emotions, I have experienced two different worlds. I did not know that I lived in a privileged world of emotional well-being because I worked so hard for my “successes” and advocated for the marginalized. I believed that I had empathy for the marginalized until I became marginalized. Thereafter, I realized that natural sadness (anxiety and depression) can be far more constant and painful than I could had imagined (and can promote suicide ideation from hopelessness about alleviating the pain). Emotional suffering can be far more painful than most people realize because most people cannot imagine emotional suffering greater than they have experienced (or distressful experiences more distressful than they experience).
I contend that psychiatry has reified sadness (emotional suffering) into a disease- that psychiatry is “trauma denial.” I assume that the “trauma-informed thing” will become increasingly popular because it is closer to the truth and pushed by most Critical Psychiatrists. I seek to understand why “trauma-informed care” does not equate to the abolition of psychiatry (“trauma denial”). I believe that emotional suffering will be understood as natural after exposing the myth of “mental illness” as the philosophical equivalent of the theological myth of “demonic possession.”
Rachel,
“Dr. Breggin has said abusive families and trauma cause the “break” which causes people to be psychiatrized.” I understand Dr. Breggin’s concept of “the break” to refer to the “medical model.” I experienced emotional suffering from trauma so intense that I could no longer sense physical pain as adverse, but it was all a natural reaction to unbelievably distressful experiences.
Physiology 101: under-utilized body tissue will atrophy. This is true for the brains of sedated adults as well as sedated children. Psychiatry’s new “brain volume” hypothesis is wrong to label evidence of this iatrogenic HARM as a symptom of a mythical disease.
It was wrong of me to speculate about what Dr. Breggin can imagine. I was projecting from my own experience; I had no idea how painful emotional suffering could be until I experienced trauma. I thought trauma was just about a distressful experience; thereafter I realized that trauma is about a distressful environment.
Doctor, thank you for allowing me to respond and for your community service. You describe happiness more specifically as “love” and then describe all “emotional disorders” as “disorders” of “love”; you are pathologizing sadness. There are no emotional “disorders”; all emotions are natural and valid. Consistent with most cultural leaders, you are unable to imagine true misfortune (unfortunate life circumstances). Natural emotional suffering can be as painful as any real pathology but is not a medical problem; psychiatry is “trauma denial.”
Thank you for this articulate description of the abuse that you have endured; your story is an unusually powerful condemnation of our current “system of care.”
Ms. Hurford heard a youth express pain and confusion after childhood abuse; Ms. Hurford suggests drugs, you suggest vitamins, and I suggest justice. Good nutrition is far better “therapy” than drugs but pales in comparison to justice which was obviously lacking for this confused youth as he tries to transition from childhood to adulthood.
Noel describes adversity impacting “mental health” as well as “overall well-being” and driving people to a “state” of “madness.” This implies that adversity causes more than a lack of overall well-being and I seek clarification.
Thank you for your community service and for this blog. My only disagreement pertains to confusion with your term “madness.”
“There is a pressing need to understand how things such as abuse, poverty, oppression, injustice, racism, and other adversity impact our mental health and overall well-being. Common sense, of course, would tell us that it essentially drives a person mad over time… Regardless, it’s imperative that any person or system in a helping position consider the context of suffering and what has happened in a person’s life that led to his or her current state of mind.”
I thought that “trauma-informed” care was about understanding how traumas cause mental distress (natural emotional suffering or coping styles deemed disabling) rather than about a “context of suffering” within a “mental state” of “madness.” How does a “mental state” of “madness” differ from other concepts of “mental disorders?”
Thank you for your community service; I am sorry that it is causing you hardship.
I am also a biologist and disagree with your belief that biology can address a philosophy (a philosophical concept of a “hero”); “evolutionary psychology” is too abstract to pass for biology.
Szasz articulately explains “mental illness” as a metaphor and a myth; this was a valuable public service. He was also a libertarian so some of his perspective may seem to lack compassion unless you were raised in an authoritarian environment.
Sad fact: if it is “science” that supports psychiatry, it is pseudoscience. It is pseudoscience to claim that 80% (of a small sampling) of FEP subject participants were deficient in vitamin D without noting that 75% of the general population is considered deficient in vitamin D. My source is the top entry from my Google search for vitamin D deficiency from a Scientific American article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/414878). The balance of the BS can be attributed to Confirmation Bias and/or Experimenter Bias.
My eighth grade science teacher explained science as based on transparency; otherwise, “scientific research” can prove the health benefits of smoking cigarettes for years before the corruption and pseudoscience is exposed. Consistently, medical journals are corrupted science- pseudoscience.
The “othering process” is problematic but I believe that the following statement is more problematic; “we all experience distress at some point in our lives” This statement erroneously implies that distressful experiences are similar- that the distressful experiences of community leaders are similar to the distressful experiences of the marginalized and disenfranchised. I believe that this false assumption provides psychiatry with substantial false legitimacy and should be criticized whenever possible.
Thank you for your article and allowing me to comment. Freudians might want to re-visit this statement; “The “Autism war” turned out to be very costly for psychoanalysts.” The rate of “autism” was documented at 1:2000 before Freudian theory was abandoned by psychiatry; the rate is now documented at 1:59.
I believe that psychiatry pathologizes emotional suffering (and coping styles deemed disabling) as a generally unrecognized tool of social control of the marginalized and disenfranchised. I believe that this is changing as criticism of psychiatry increases; consistently, I encourage Freudians to revisit the “autism wars” to address the epidemic of “autism.”
It sounds like you are an empathetic counselor that provides valuable assistance to the marginalized. However, I disagree with the implication of following statement: “Binary distinctions between ‘service users’ and ‘professionals’ … are often unhelpful as we all experience distress at some point in our lives.” I believe that different life circumstances naturally produce radically different intensity of distress and that few experience the intensity of emotional pain experienced by the least fortunate in the community. Thus describing some people acting “markedly differently to the way most people generally handle situations in their lives” discounts their unusually distressful experiences.
I am sorry to hear you needing to defend your mother against the injustice of the “mental health system” and a culture that has little time or patience for “old folks.” I am reminded of my experiences with my elderly mother after my father died; her doctor tortured her by treating her natural emotional suffering like a mysterious brain disease. Her doctor could have helped a little with a sincere comment of empathy for her plight but instead caused her more pain by pathologizing her natural suffering.
I am sorry that I am struggling with my own issues and have no ability to assist you more than offering a few suggestions. Perhaps there are some counselors or “peer specialists” in your area that could assist in getting you started with volunteer work and addressing unfair invasions into your world.
“Restorative justice” is rare and difficult to achieve in this world; people want to move past their mistakes (learn from them rather than pay restitution for them). That is why my suggestions center on seeking personal justice through seeking justice for others in similar circumstances.
I agree that “MIA is not fighting hard enough for restorative justice or even due process for juveniles”, but whose fault is it. MIA is comprised of individuals with a multitude of different complaints about the harm caused by the current “mental health system.” MIA is not a homogeneous entity; it fights only as hard as the sum of our collective voices including yours.
I agree that coercion causes the harm and that if we could stop the coercion we would stop the harm, but it is the legitimacy of psychiatry that legitimizes (causes) the coercion. Psychiatry advocates that some people are “mentally ill”- not of “sound mind.” Our society compassionately seeks medical assistance (psychiatry) for people when they are “mentally ill” and “not responsible” for their “antisocial” behaviors. Thus the coercion is widely considered “compassionate care” rather than terrifying “human rights abuses”; this is based on the legitimacy of psychiatry. Psychiatry legitimizes coercive “treatments”; you cannot stop the coercion while psychiatry retains legitimacy.
A child should never be the target of abuse; I am sorry that society failed you.
Evidently, forty years ago you behaved in a manner that was labeled a “hate crime”; these types of behaviors are hopefully unwanted in our society. Evidently, you consider this an unjust label for your behavior that continues to give you grief as an unfair reflection of who you are. You seem to have a problem distancing yourself from people who want to unfairly label you. Consistently, you seem illogically frustrated about an inability to enlighten others about their unjust attitude towards you while describing how their attitudes serve a valuable purpose for them.
I do not know you, and even if I did know you, any advice I offer could be completely wrong (so I hope others will chime in with criticism of my advice or offer better suggestions). Nevertheless, may I suggest you first try to understand whether you feel guilt about the 1981 incident, anger about misplaced blame for the incident, or both. If you feel guilt about the incident, I suggest that you spend time “clearing your conscience”; counter the guilt with behaviors that make you deserving of forgiveness. Thus if the incident targeted a specific race, gender, religion, etc., spend time supporting an organization that defends the rights of the targeted group. On the other hand, if you feel anger about being the “fall guy” for problems in different social circles, I suggest that you spend time countering the anger about misplaced blame. Specifically, I suggest that you support organizations that defend children against child abuse; it seems like you would be a passionate advocate for disenfranchised children. If you feel both guilt and anger about the 1981 incident, then I suggest that you spend time addressing both issues.
I agree more. Psychiatry’s false legitimacy as a medical science is the foundation of all of its harm; I blame medical schools for giving credibility to this “priesthood of the mind.” I plan to protest this calamity at my local medical school (OHSU).
I appreciate your willingness to allow me to respectfully disagree with you; I agree with your hypothesis but disagree with your conclusion. I agree with your hypothesis: “But the only way out of the epidemic of feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients is to rebrand and reframe feeling as a cultural collective.” But I disagree with your conclusion; “Thus, healing from depression necessarily involves a reframing of beliefs and a shifting of mindset around the meaning of this emotional bandwidth and more inclusive orientation.”
While much of your article implies that sadness is a natural human emotion, your conclusion implies that sadness is not directly related to sad experiences. Within the current psychology paradigm that pathologizes sadness, it may be difficult to understand the natural, direct connection. I contend that depressing experiences cause depression and that “healing” from depression involves avoiding depressing experiences. This typically means understanding causation (that can be difficult within the current psychology paradigm) and thereafter avoiding or countering the causal experiences. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to figure how to avoid significantly depressing experiences in our society today. Nevertheless, “clinical depression” pathologizes natural depression (especially of the marginalized and disenfranchised) that typically starts within a family nexus but is not limited therein.
The only way out of the epidemic of “feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients” is to reframe sadness as the natural response to sad experiences (and reframe depression as the natural response to depressing experiences). People experience the world differently; depressed victims of incestuous rape will generally “heal” faster with “justice” (an acknowledgement of the atypical injustice and a concerted effort by the community to “right the wrong”) than by rebranding the experience.
The DSM pathologizes the problem with “Attachment Reactive Disorder” but I do not believe a word of it.
I believe that we initially learn to understand the world through our parents; during formative years, we learn about happiness and how to achieve it and learn about distress and how to avoid it. If parents struggle to achieve emotional well-being, their children will often perceive of the world as cruel and unjust. This is traumatic for children (an Aversive Childhood Experience) and promotes sympathy for their parents’ plight and an attachment to the family. However, Aversive Childhood Experiences are often caused by abusive parental behaviors that make the relationship problematic. It might be preferable for children to believe that their parents are just plain crazy for targeting them unjustly for abuse (in contrast to the rest of the world) so it is easier to detach from the dysfunction and start anew.
I agree. Psychiatry’s legitimacy is based on its acceptance as a biological (medical) science by medical schools; “biological psychiatry” is a redundant attempt to disavow wacky Freudian psychiatry and commit to biological pseudoscience.
I agree, except I consider this understated: “The whole concept presented here, that “side effects” can even be measured by clinicians, seems ridiculous.”
Toddlers predominately learn stress from their parents; I contend that cultural stress is causing parents increasing stress that is problematic (confusing/distracting/distressful) for childhood development.
There is no general consensus about the statistics for “autism”; general confusion about the statistics prompted my questioning your figure (I was not mocking a math error). The baseline for my statistics comes from scientific research during 1980-2000; the CDC now rejects all statistics before 2000 as under-reported, but I do not. The CDC started over about 2000 with a much higher figure of 1:400-800 “based on better accounting” of the newly defined “spectrum.” Thereafter the CDC claimed better accounting for a 1:170 statistic until better accounting now promotes the 1:59 figure. The CDC claims no significant increase in “autism” while I claim that their own statistics since 2000 describe an epidemic. I do not know the real statistics (as if that is possible) but I did not want to let a “60-fold increase” pass unchallenged when I was defensive about my statistics of a 30-fold increase.
Specifically, I do not know what caused the behaviors expressed in the video referenced above but I believe that these types of behaviors generally express environmental stress (“an increase in cultural stress on children to ‘achieve’”). I believe that this is a “neuro-developmental” problem caused by an environmental change to a more stressful culture for children. I do not believe that radiation from modern technology can account for the epidemic. BTW, I have not heard of references to an increase in “autism” greater than 30-fold (which is a staggering figure).
I believe that an increase in cultural stress on children to “achieve” is a large part of the problem. This is harmful to childhood development especially when any faltering from childhood “success” is widely pathologized.
Pediatricians discount the epidemic because anti-vaxers have tied the increase to vaccines and are thereby causing a different childhood health problem of distrust of vaccines. This sad situation reminds me of Antipsychiatry discounted because people want to associate it with Scientology.
Thank you for this excellent article; consistently, I worry about “autism” when addressing the harm of pathologizing childhood. The statistics on “autism” are tragic (from 1:2000 in 1990 to 1:59 in 2018); “autism” is a childhood health epidemic of historic proportion.
All societies teach the avoidance of failure; unfortunately, western society is currently promoting lots of it. Nevertheless, it seems a bit arrogant for Steve Jobs to romanticize about failure as if luck played no role in his extraordinary business success.
Mania expresses desperation; mania is excitement that expresses desperation for relief from emotional suffering. Consistently, mania is generally associated with depression: “manic-depression” (relabeled “‘bi-polar’ disorder” to promote pathologizing). Mania and excitement are both “healthy” in that both are natural, normal reactions to personal experience but mania is substantially different than regular excitement.
Marilyn made a statement that seemed critically important to me: “Deeper family issues regarding the parent’s marriage and in-law problems would also need to be addressed.” Intruding parents are typically the “in-laws” that cause most marriage problems; I made an assumption. However, marriage problems that include an inability to manage intrusions from any in-laws seem problematic.
You misunderstood me; I do not “blame the parents.” Marilyn stated that Adam’s parents had marriage and in-law problems; this sounds like a hostile environment. I do not blame Adam’s parents for having marital problems, but until they can solve their issues, it seems like their young child will have difficulty solving his. I rarely consider “blame” because life is often really difficult and our community offers little assistance for parents.
When parents are struggling to manage their own lives, parenting a child can be a nightmare and children can seem like “beasts.” However, I do not believe that any young child has “horrible… innate tendencies.”
I disagree. Adam’s parents are struggling with marriage problems and he is struggling to find emotional well-being in the hostile environment; Adam has a “family environment” problem rather than a “temperament” problem. Adam’s temper tantrums are expressions of frustration that he learned from his parents’ struggles; he does not have a made-up disease (“oppositional defiant disorder”). Adam’s parents need counseling to address their inability to manage their parents and create a happy, stable environment for themselves and their child. Adam’s parents are struggling and he is confused about the hostile environment; he is not the problem in this scenario. However, I assume that he is the problem in other scenarios that include classmates and teachers. Until Adam’s “kind” parents can provide a stable, friendly family environment, they should be the focus of therapy.
I was trying to say that I believe that psychiatrists believe their BS but you are correct that the larger issue is about money and defending the socioeconomic system by pathologizing dissent.
Yes, money is a large factor especially after “practicing” for a while and finding the field frustrating from outside criticism and little career “success” with “clients.” But a larger factor that drives the “industry” (and promotes recruiting) is the substantial (albeit diminishing) public admiration for psychiatrists as “high priests” of our culture. Psychiatrists are the “high priests” of our secular religion of “scientism” (“science” addressing philosophy) that pathologizes the sadness of the disenfranchised as a tool of social control (thank you Szasz).
Excuse me; it was late and I misspoke. I intended to say that it is not a medical problem and Szasz failed to articulate that fact “with a simple, medical (biological) criticism.” I could be wrong since I have not read all of Szasz, but I believe that a simple biological (medical) criticism of psychiatry (as I outline above) is important and I have not read this from Szasz.
However, I did not mean to reference Szasz without more reverence; he was the first and remains the most articulate critic of the calamity of psychiatry’s pseudoscience.
Regardless of whether we consider it a natural science problem or a spiritual problem, it is not a medical problem and Szasz failed to articulate that fact. Szasz failed to make a strong medical argument against psychiatry: 1) medical science (health science) is based on biology, 2) biology is based on understanding physical body mechanisms, and 3) since psychiatry addresses philosophy (the philosophy of “mind”), it is biological, medical pseudoscience by definition.
Szasz describes mental distress as a spiritual problem while I consider it a social welfare (natural) problem. Seeking emotional well-being is accepted natural science motivation; cruel and/or otherwise unjust experiences (and physiological deficits) naturally cause painful emotional suffering (emotional distress).
Question: do psychiatrists believe their own words? Answer: sorta.
Psychiatrists believe that mental distress is a medical problem. Psychiatrists understand that there are problems with their theories but assume that they are on the right track and that science will catch up to them (“fake it till you make it”). Psychiatry is secular religion; scientific logic is unsettling for some “high priests” but their faith is heavily vested.
You seem to have responded to the vulnerability and injustice by dedicating much of your life to defending the marginalized against bullies; sounds like reason for hope.
I agree with most criticisms of a “man box”, but believe that a different “man box” is causing most suicides: “white male privilege.” Suicide statistics may be heavily skewed towards men but they are also heavily skewed towards white men. There is substantial racism and sexism in our community that often promotes substantially less empathy for the emotional suffering of white men.
I agree; the “medical model” of mental distress (the Disease Model) describes the obvious problem of a “cycle of abuse” as instead “evidence” of problematic family genetics!
Upon reconsideration, I believe that existential problems are social welfare problems about interpreting the environment, and agree that typical social welfare problems can cause existential problems. However, I do not believe that existential problems are as common as other types of mental distress. I believe that poor nutrition and poor sleep habits cause far more mental distress than existential problems. More importantly, I believe that the reality of distressful experiences or distressful life circumstances (a hostile environment) is the predominate cause of mental distress. The article seems to imply that mental distress is predominately a problem of interpreting the environment; I consider it predominately a problem caused by hostile environments.
More to my point is my contention that all emotions are real (natural reflections of personal experience) and should never be discounted.
Thank you for your community service; you provide some great advice on comforting the afflicted in the community.
However, you address mental distress as an existential problem rather than a social welfare problem, and discount the authenticity of emotions (“Remind them, though, that they are simply feeling a feeling; probably an ancient feeling that they were told wasn’t safe to feel early on in their lives.”). In contrast, I contend that all emotions are real, natural responses to distressful experiences and are important to confront and desensitize.
I understood the biggest myth about Maslow’s concept of self-actualization to be its universality; it is tied to western cultures with eastern cultures seeking more communal aspirations.
Thanks for clarifying. We seem to mostly agree if we can get beyond different perspectives of the world whereby I consider everyone “normal” and you considering no one “normal.” I’ll stick with my perspective for now but do not want to debate this issue since your perspective seems easier to defend.
I believe that this is an important blog; it identifies two great fallacies of psychiatry. First, psychiatry implies that human interactions are generally civil- that people generally treat each other with a minimum of “common decency and respect.” In reality, the community often treats people cruelly and denies them justice. Secondly, psychiatry implies that human cruelty does not cause emotional suffering- that unjust social ostracizing does not cause emotional suffering- emotional pain. Psychiatry denies our humanity.
I respectfully disagree with the implication that “mental distress” is not “normal”- natural; “mental distress” may not be typical but neither are the experiences (or life circumstances) that cause mental distress.
It seems like the bigger problem is the erroneous belief that “mental health” refers to “health” instead of natural emotional suffering or coping styles deemed “antisocial” (non-conforming, non-productive, disruptive). Human rights violations against people experiencing mental distress are predicated on the assumption that “mental illness” has robbed people of their natural, normal judgment processes; hence, they need saving from themselves.
Good point; the subconscious mantra of psychiatry is “fake it till you make it.” Psychiatrists are trying to be “sciency” until real science supports their BS; they can ignore numerous scientific fallacies because they have “faith” in their religion.
I agree with the main point of your article; psychiatry pathologizes disruptive (“non-productive” and “non-conforming”) coping styles- behavior patterns it deems “anti-social”).
However, I disagree with a common assumption underlying your conclusion that “We are all driven to find ways to adapt — some are called ill and others healthy.” Personal histories and life circumstances are not similar; whether coping styles are considered ill or healthy depends on what experiences people are adapting. There is a reason that the coping skills of cultural leaders are considered healthy while the coping skills of the marginalized and disenfranchised are considered ill.
When I became disenfranchised from the community, I learned something important about emotions; they are feelings directly related to personal experience. Our culture intellectualizes emotions but emotions are understood physically; affirming feelings of emotional well-being feel happy and distressful experiences feel sad (adverse). I only recognized emotions as physical “feelings” when my previous energetic sensations of happiness were contrasted with the sensation of extreme emotional pain following trauma. My life became so constantly painful that I was hardly able to sense physical trauma; my “coping style” expressed my desperation for relief.
Thank you; this is a valuable community service! However, I now worry that your scholarship students may face an uphill battle at school (may be targeted for abuse); you may need to consider supportive services.
I agree, but I also believe that it is the accepted paradigm; it is promoted by cultural leaders and many others besides psychiatrists and Big Pharma. Moreover, I believe that the general public has no idea about the BS that currently passes for science.
We need to document the history of genetic “breakthroughs” to give context to each new proclamation. The history of false promises should shine light on the corruption of career building that allows such BS to pass for legitimate science. As Steve clearly explains above, the genetics of research subjects blatantly disprove the conclusions of the genetic “research.”
Thank you Leon Kamin (and Jay Joseph) for challenging the harmful pseudoscience of genetic determinism. It is staggering how a strong confirmation bias can obscure any semblance of scientific methodology in studies of twins rear apart and still pass for science.
Doctor, thank you for making a logical medical (biological) analysis about the correlation between reduced brain volume and mental distress: it is the normal physiology of atrophy. Neuroleptic drugs have a sedative effect that reduces brain functioning; like all body tissues, nervous tissue will atrophy from reduced usage.
Unfortunately, it is logical to believe that psychiatry is a valuable, biological (medical) perspective of mental distress since it is an accredited medical (biological) science. Medical schools will pay a high price for legitimizing the pseudoscience of psychiatry and the calamity of pathologizing natural emotional suffering (natural, painful reactions to distressful experiences).
My answer: because “mental health” is an oxymoron that implies that something “mental” (a philosophical concept) can have “health” (a physical attribute). This is a harmful misnomer because it implies that natural emotional suffering (emotional pain) is a health problem regardless of personal circumstances. Hence, the term “mental health” maligns the marginalized in our community by pathologizing sadness (emotional pain)
Thank you for this valuable article; I agree with most of it but also agree with those who feel that the term “neurodiversity” implies support for erroneous concepts of “saneism.”
I believe that we will know when we overthrow the “mental health” system when psychiatry is no longer an accredited medical science. The process of delegitimizing psychiatry should expose “mental health” as a pseudoscientific hoax that maligns the marginalized. The process of delegitimizing psychiatry should also end the hoaxes by promoting an understanding of emotional suffering (and other naturally painful problems with living) as natural and conflating “mental illness” with “demonic possession.”
Emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living” are predominately solved with more social and economic justice. However, this is a far more monumental task than you imply in your article. Our society is often cruel and unjust at the bottom of our “social pecking order;” we lack the will to address social welfare problems far more than the means.
Frank, I understand the “Biomedical Model” to be the prevailing model of medical care throughout the western world, and to have different connotations than the “Medical Model” when it is used in psychiatry.
I understand the history of psychiatry; it is the “medicalized model” of “problems with living.” I contend that the term “medical model” falsely implies medical (biological) legitimacy. In contrast, I consider the “disease model” to imply that psychiatry is describing a medical problem but that other options (like wellness) exist. Hence, “medical model” and “disease model” are not the same thing.
The “Medical Model” did originate with people who were critical of “Biological Psychiatry” and its form of “treatment,” but it has the opposite affect. “Biological Psychiatry” is a redundancy (since psychiatry is currently an accredited medical, biological science) that is intended to promote biological legitimacy for psychiatry. “Biological Psychiatry” replaced Freudian Psychiatry to significantly expand the range of non-medical problems that psychiatry addresses, but both forms of psychiatry seek medical (biological) science legitimacy for treating non-medical problems. Psychiatry promotes a “Disease Model” of non-medical problems; the term “Medical Model” erroneously implies that their BS has anything to do with real medical (biological) science.
Unfortunately, I agree. I usually describe “problems with living” as “emotional suffering” but that also tends to lack the proper connotation of severity; I described anxiety and depression as “painful” because that is more accurate. Emotional suffering is painful and extreme emotional suffering is constantly as painful as a police taser (and can thereby nullify a taser’s intended affect). The popular paradigm controls the vocabulary so challenging it can cause vocabulary problems.
I disagree with a couple assumptions made in this article. First, I consider the “medical model” to be a misnomer; it gives credibility to the “disease model” of natural problems with living. The “medical model” falsely implies that psychiatry has any medical (biological) legitimacy. Second, I disagree with describing problems with living as “dysfunctional states.” Emotional suffering (and other natural problems with living) may be undesirable and may appear dysfunctional within our cultural paradigm, but that does not make them dysfunctional. A “dysfunctional state” implies a “mental disorder” which implies “dysfunctional biology.” Distressful experiences naturally cause painful anxiety and depressing experiences naturally cause painful depression; these experiences can be debilitating and unpleasant to witness, but they are not dysfunctional.
“But somehow, if you are a ‘neurological … minority’, you aren’t entitled to acceptance and accommodation, only ostracism and coercion. It’s not at all surprising that such institutionalized bullying drives people to seek death — often a better alternative than ‘treatment.’” This statement addresses my disagreement with your article. I do not believe that you are part of a “neurological minority;” we are all part of a common humanity that seeks acceptance. I understand “neurological minority” to be a positive spin on “mental ill” rather than an understanding that “mental illness” is a myth and that injustice (institutional bullying) naturally causes painful emotional suffering. I believe that injustice and the pseudoscience of psychiatry are to blame for your motivation to end your life; I hope you will instead choose to continue to advocate for social justice.
Thank you (and Steve) for your community service in supporting the disenfranchised. I believe that there is widespread corruption throughout mainstream “mental health” care because it defers its most fundamental understanding of “mental health” to psychiatry and psychiatry lacks legitimacy. Psychiatry pathologizes sadness (emotional pain) and other natural problems with living (behaviors considered “socially unacceptable” but not criminal); “mental illness” is a myth. I am not an Antipsychiatrist because psychiatrists are corrupt, over-prescribe drugs, and make mistakes; I am an Antipsychiatrist because “mental illness” is a harmful hoax.
I describe “anti-psychotics” as “neuroleptics” when I want to address the lie that they are “anti-psychotic.” “Neuroleptics” seems to address the tranquilizing affect of “anti-psychotics” that differentiates them from other neurotoxins like alcohol (depressants) or ADHD drugs (stimulants).
For someone suffering emotionally, a “placebo” is hope for relief; hope is a powerful force that promotes solutions to real problems with living. For someone suffering emotionally, a “nocebo” is hopelessness for relief; hopelessness is a powerful force that hinders solving real problems in life. Neither drugs nor mechanical implants can solve real problems in life; they hinder solutions and are often powerful nocebos that can promote suicide.
Richard, I do not believe that there are any “necessary political alliances needed to accomplish this goal.” It would be nice if a maligned group wanted to ally with us but I do not envision that as a possibility. Political groups align with each other to advance their own causes- not because they feel a philosophical alignment. Since the stigma of a “mental illness” is worse than most others, few political groups gain any advantage by aligning with us.
Single-issue political groups that center on human rights or disability rights seem like our only true allies. I concur with most of your criticism of psychiatry but I do not consider it representative of a political group. Regardless, I believe that you underestimate the power (and number) of those maligned by psychiatry to avenge their abuse when they become fully aware of the nature of the hoax and reach a “critical mass.”
It has taken me a minute to concede the primary definition of “scientism” to the establishment; the old definition had valuable connotations. Nevertheless, this does seem like a minor issue; hereafter I will describe psychiatry as “pseudoscience.”
I understand Richard to say that the definition of “scientism” has two different (almost opposite) meanings and that its use to discredit science is now more common than its use to discredit pseudoscience. However, I do not want to concede the definition of “scientism” to the “establishment;” it is important to have a term that describes pseudoscientific overreach. Psychiatry is my definition of “scientism!”
I understand “scientism” to describe “the uncritical application of scientific or quasi-scientific methods to inappropriate fields of study or investigation” rather than describing a belief that “science is the best way to understand ourselves and our environment.”
This is a great article and a valuable community service; thank you.
I believe that psychiatry is plagued with scientism because it is seeking the impossible; scientific legitimacy. Psychiatry seeks legitimacy as a medical science that addresses nonexistent biological (medical) malfunctioning in the minds/brains of people who experience natural emotional suffering (or other natural problem with living). Psychiatry is pseudoscience by definition; a medical (biological) science cannot address a philosophy of “mind.” Neurology is the medical science that addresses medical problems with behavior; psychiatry is “medical” pseudoscience that pathologizes natural emotional suffering (and other natural problems with living).
This is why I describe “mainstream ‘mental health’ care” as a classical paradigm in my video lecture; common terms have interrelated connotations and contexts that reinforce the false status quo.
I was contending that all emotions are natural and therefore “healthy,” but you are correct that addressing emotions in terms of “health” erroneously implies that some emotions are “healthier” than others.
And what is the official way to demystify the situation when someone says that they think that Bill has a “mental health” problem? How about a “psychological” problem? I understand you to advocate that “mental disorders” address “nothing;” this response does not seem demystifying.
I am an Antipsychiatrist because I believe that “mental illness” is a myth promoted by psychiatry; consistently, DSM definitions of “mental disorders” generally describe natural emotional suffering (or other natural problems with living). I accept the World Health Organization definition of “mental health” as “emotional well-being” but assume that emotions are natural while the WHO considers them diseases (without any biological support).
I am dancing a fine line with definitions. “Mental health” generally connotes something physical; in contrast, I use the term as a social judgment about the relative desirability of different emotions (and behaviors). I believe that everyone has the right to “mental health” (positive emotions). I also believe that human rights promote “emotional health” (“mental health”) and that human rights violations predominately cause “poor ‘mental health’” (emotional suffering and other natural problems with living). Consistently, I agree with MHE about the right to “mental health” (“emotional well-being”) free of human rights abuses, and support your efforts.
However, I do not understand how “mental health” can be promoted while simultaneously accepting the legitimacy of psychiatry- a “medical science” that assumes that emotional suffering (or other natural problem with living) is instead a disease.
I agree Slayer, but at least neurology addresses a biological/medical subject; psychiatry addresses a philosophical (non-physical, non-medical) subject.
I respectfully disagree with your implication that psychiatry represents biology. Neurology represents biology while psychiatry is fundamentally pseudoscience; a biology of “mind” is pseudoscience by definition. Consistently, no DSM diagnosis will ever have a biological basis because mental distress is human biology (the natural reaction to distressful experiences)- not a disease. Our culture supports “hard science” over “soft science;” any implication of psychiatric credibility as real biology is a disservice to the disenfranchised.
Well said… except I do not understand why you directed your criticism at “Biological Psychiatry” as if there is a different kind of psychiatry that is not legitimized by medical science as based on biology.
I am an antipsychiatrist because I consider mental distress to be natural emotional suffering or other natural problem with living. Psychiatry implies that mental distress is a medical problem by virtue of it being a medical specialty; this worsens natural problems with living by ignoring real causation (and drugging real emotions).
I believe that Szasz was an “Antipsychiatrist” (common usage of the term) because he believed that “mental illness” was a myth. Szasz abhorred the term because he was an anti-authoritarian and supported any “contractual” relationship between adults (including one whereby a “psychiatrist” preaches mumbo jumbo).
“The researchers attempted to control for a number of alternative explanations, which makes their case much stronger” but did not control for the obvious explanation. It seems unbelievable that they failed to consider that growing up with parents considered “clinically depressed” is distressful (naturally causes increased emotional problems). It is not fair to children to have so many negative (depressing) messages directed at their parents; it causes inter-generational problems.
The contempt for the “mentally ill” began as the world shifted to a secular perspective of the previous (religious) contempt for witches- “demonic possession.”
Well said, especially about “The unwillingness of the psychiatric profession to admit that such abuse is common and harmful, and is responsible for much of what is called “mental illness.” This is an important point; psychiatry promotes an erroneous, skewed concept of the general level of civility of our culture that denies the reality of the distressful experiences of the disenfranchised.
Thank you for this article; I agree that Freud advances great psychology theory especially with exposing repressed traumas. However, I understood Freud to advocate that psychosis is a medical problem (the “purview” of psychiatry) unlike neuroses (most mental distress that he considered symptomatic of natural problems with living). Moreover, it is difficult to consider Freud to be an Antipsychiatrist while his followers consider Freudian theory to be psychiatry.
Thank you for this article; I agree with most of it. However… “Sadly, there is no sign that the field is ready or willing to adopt a non-biological explanation of schizophrenia:” Psychiatry seeks legitimacy as a medical/biological science so it will never adopt a non-biological explanation of its subject matter.
I totally agree with your criticism of this article (together with Steve); however, I am slightly less supportive of your criticism of Rossa. I agree that Rossa over-hypes the value of nutrition based on the placebo effect, but I also believe that physical health has critical value in promoting “mental health” (emotional well-being) . Emotional crises are often exasperated by biological problems with sleep (and worsened when people get sucked into the “system” while seeking sleep medication), nutritional deficits (“garbage in, garbage out”), and environmental allergens and toxins (the “mad” hatter). Consistently, better nutrition, regular sleep, reduced environmental toxins and regular exercise are biologically helpful in promoting “mental health.” It is the placebo effect supports the erroneous belief that exercise alone or improved nutrition alone can reverse the effects of distressful life circumstances.
Psychoanalysis is extremely valuable therapy but it is not a medical intervention. I consider psychoanalysis invaluable “psychology theory” but harmful “medical theory” because I believe psychiatry pathologizes natural problems with living (including emotional suffering). Unfortunately, the value of psychoanalysis is rapidly becoming “forgotten knowledge” as Freudian psychiatrists retire and psychiatry seeks legitimacy through a stronger connection to medical science. Nevertheless, Freudian psychiatrists could offer valuable healing services to the community by promoting psychoanalysis through creating a new field: “Therapists with a Medical Degree.” As noted by Richard, dissident psychiatrists could also address the drug epidemic that was promoted by mainstream medical science.
I believe that psychiatry promotes a “disease model” rather than a “medical model.” Pathologizing natural problems with living is not real medical (biological) science; the “medical model” is a misnomer- a PR victory for psychiatry.
I contend that this article is biological, medical science until it switches to philosophy: “However, there are some situations that we universally think of as brain diseases that do not have characteristic and distinguishing bodily features. Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease is one of these.” This statement describes our cultural ageism and a universal lack of empathy for the emotional suffering of the elderly. I agree with Szasz and do not understand how “Alzheimer’s disease” can prove him wrong.
This is a critically important topic that may be easier to understand in the reverse- through investigating nocebos. While placebos describe the affect of positive outcome expectations, nocebos describe the impact of negative outcome expectations. I believe that most suicides are caused by nocebos (including Matt Stevenson); negative outcome expectations are powerful.
I agree… but the value of science is that it is based on “scientific methodology” that is structured to reduce the confirmation bias; this includes the demand for transparency. I greatly appreciate this article for calling bullshit on what is currently passing for the scientific method in “mental health” care and for proposals to correct the pseudoscience.
It seems basic to our humanity that physical health (especially nutrition) directly affects brain health and that “brain health” directly affects “mental health.” However, after basic physical needs are met, it is far more human to advocate that distressful experiences cause emotional suffering rather than maintain a singular focus on physical health (either nutrition or exercise) and ignore the social experiences of the disenfranchised.
Thank you for this article; these are startling statistics that deserve proper attention.
The fact that white American “mental health” is dramatically worse than others is a critical point for Psychiatry to address; why are they silent on this issue? Psychiatry proposes that “mental health” problems are medical (biological); why are white psychiatrists not primarily investigating (or apparently even concerned) about their own biological (or genetic) failings?
These statistics prove “mental health” problems are not biological (or support an extreme anti-white prejudice).
“These questions would heal. They would bring us back together with the truth…” is an extremely articulate description of causation for most “mental health” problems. Psychiatry is currently deemed a medical science and thereby advocates that “mental health” problems are medical problems rather than social problems; this obscures the truth and thereby worsens “mental health” problems.
The UN Resolution on Human Rights (1948) addresses the right to a unique interpretation of one’s environment; this seems to cover “cognitive liberty” as a human rights issue. Psychiatry seeks complexity to obscure human rights violations; I believe that it is more in our interest to focus on UN human rights violations than invent a new concept.
Science has lost its way: anything can now pass. Parsimony is the most basic principle of science: fewer assumptions make better science. Hence, the most basic principle of the philosophy of science is falsifiablility: a science theory must identify its assumptions by explaining how to disprove itself. This “science” makes so many assumptions that it is pure philosophy; prestigious science journals now let any philosophy pass for science.
There is nothing biological about the current bio model; it is pure pseudoscience. The most fundamental principle of biology is biological reductionism (an organism is understandable through its physical mechanisms); biology cannot investigate a philosophy of “mind” by definition.
I believe that the biopsychosocial model is standard psychology (economic and political issues are included); my problem is with what passes for biology and neuroscience. Psychiatry’s neuroscience contradicts the most fundamental principle of every science that informs it (biology, physiology, natural science and general science); it also contradicts the most basic principle of the philosophy of science.
I consider emotional pain to be a natural response to painfully distressful experiences; I support drug therapy for emotional pain managed by general practitioners consistent with medical science guidelines for addressing physical pain.
Thank you for your response and again for your community service. Perhaps it is me that is misunderstanding “labels;” somehow I understood you to consider yourself a “Critical Psychiatrist.” I understand Critical Psychiatry to criticize the practice of psychiatry but support its legitimacy in addressing “madness.” I am an “Antipsychiatrist” because I am more critical of the harm caused by the illegitimacy of psychiatry in addressing natural problems with living than the resulting harmful practices.
Thank you for all of your community service in support of the disenfranchised; however, not so much in this post. I contend that psychiatry is a (harmful) philosophy that masquerades as a medical science and that it is illogical to defend psychiatry (or any medical science) based on philosophy. Wittgenstein implicitly rejects psychiatry and other “real” medical sciences when challenging “physicalism” because physicalism is the foundation of medical science. You explain how the DSM categorizes social welfare problems, but thereafter you continue to assume that they are somehow medical problems anyway (the subject of psychiatry). It is difficult for cultural leaders to imagine the natural emotional suffering (pain) of the disenfranchised; they have different experiences. However, tagging social welfare problems as medical problems is staggeringly oppressive for the disenfranchised; it promotes suicide. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive (C.S. Lewis).”
“The question becomes why, if both mental ‘illnesses’ and physical illnesses are equivalent, only the ‘mental’ ones justify force.” Your answer (and Szasz’ answer) has a great deal of truth to it (psychiatry plays a major role of social control) but it is not the most understandable answer. “Mental illnesses” are believed to cause a lack of “normal, healthy” judgment; thus, society (led by psychiatry) protects patients (and society) from themselves. This is consistent with the “insanity” defense against criminal prosecution and how we portend to treat children. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive (C.S. Lewis).”
Thank you for your in-depth scientific analysis; I always appreciate truth.
The power of placebos and especially nocebos is greatly underestimated/misunderstood.
Moreover, all studies shorter than 5-10 years are predicated on the assumption that depression is a disease. Otherwise, it would be assumed that any study shorter than 5 years would be unable to assess whether outcomes were due to the effects of the drugs or a reduction of depression. Light doses of morphine can outperform “antidepressants” during most trial periods but will worsen depression significantly over time.
I believe that the only way to undermine the DSM (psychiatry) without “running afoul of the worship of ‘medical science'” is to challenge its legitimacy as a medical science. A medical science is (by definition) a biological science and a biological science that addresses a philosophy of “mind” is pseudoscience by definition. I believe that our greatest allies are medical students who “bash” psychiatry as “not a real medical science;” they have credibility. Medical students will defend the integrity of medical science (before they become more vested in its defense); students are more reverent of the truth. I am planning to take my protest against psychiatry to the local medical school and protest near the student union.
Nothing has changed. “The emerging view is that the more overt psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia…often reflect underlying issues and conflicts in the lives of the sufferers. Most mental health experts today reject classical Freudian explanations for mental illness, such as repressed sexuality or a domineering mother or father.” I rarely defend Freud but a childhood environment of trauma (physical and sexual) remain the largest cause of “mental health” problems (if Freud’s “domineering” parents are today’s “abusive” parents).
It seems wrong to abstractly judge who has more of a right to suffer emotionally. Economic privilege certainly is of great value in a materialistic society but emotionally supportive parents seems like a greater privilege.
I am cheering: congratulations on bringing some tiny bit of justice to those abused at Oak Ridge and others similarly treated; their “‘treatments” have now been “officially” explained as “torture!”
I am also cheering because all legal briefs used to support a legal challenge to solitary confinement as torture in prisons should be stronger legal support for a challenge to its use as coerced “therapy!”
Does the public have access to archive photos of the torture?
When I think about problems with psychiatric drugs, I think about someone in a fog from a heavy dose; when I think about anecdotal advocates for psychiatric drugs, I think about someone taking a light dose. It seems like a discussion about drug therapies should include information about dosages.
Thank you for forty years of community service and the formation of the Coalition against Psychiatric Assault.
This is a great article in introducing significant problems caused by different definitions of “antipsychiatry.” I understand “antipsychiatry” to have two meanings; the first is related to being “against” the field of psychiatry (as lacking legitimacy as a medical science) and the second is being “against” the practice of psychiatry (for coercion and pushing drugs). Unfortunately, linguistics is about usage (and the power to define usage) and the power currently seems in the hands of reformists; Dictionary.com defines “antipsychiatry” as “an approach to mental disorders that makes use of concepts derived from existentialism, psychoanalysis, and sociological theory.” I advocate against the legitimacy of psychiatry as a medical science and will continue to use “antipsychiatry” to connote abolition rather than reform.
I have followed your work and wanted to join the Coalition against Psychiatric Assault because the organization’s name is the most articulate (and I agree with the website). However, while you contend that CAPA is open to everyone who advocates abolishing psychiatry, the guidelines (being voted into the group after attending two meetings) restrict most abolitionists.
The research categories are vague (and rely on subjective interpretation) and it is impossible to isolate the variables; it is troubling to see such pseudoscience pass for research.
I agree with your original comment; I do not accept the term “mad” to describe my mental distress. The first definition of “mad” at Dictionary.com is “mentally disturbed; deranged; insane; demented;” none of this describes my natural reaction to traumatic injustice.
However, I did review the MindFreedom manifesto and believe that it needs revising. It does not clearly state that the medical model is a false narrative and it is too long (and redundant).
You are an articulate advocate for the disenfranchised; you deserve admiration for your community service. It is extremely valuable to “bear witness” to the cruelty of our current “mental health care” system and comforting the disenfranchised. Your story is an inspiration.
“So little compassion, understanding and humanity. When and how is the system going to change?” I contend that the system will change with the advocacy of thousands of people working independently to create a critical mass that de-legitimizes psychiatry and its medical model. I believe that your writing supports a “social welfare model” of mental distress- a natural response to social injustice (I blogged about the “social welfare model” here at MIA on 1/17/17). Consistently, “delusional thinking” is “a protective coping strategy which has been helpful and adaptive for this patient.”
Understanding natural emotions is difficult in our cultures. I had no idea emotions were physical until the warm energy that motivated my happy youth slowly turned to a nondescript aversion after experiencing extreme traumatic injustice. The mental aversion of extremely distressful experiences is naturally painful; emotional suffering is not a disease.
Best wishes, Steve
PS- A single caveat: psychiatry only purports “biological reductionism.” Psychiatry lacks any scientific validity; its “biological reductionism” is pure pseudoscience and any reference to psychiatry should be placed in quotes.
Thank you for this article; “forgotten knowledge” is a problem in psychology/psychiatry. I consider dream interpretation (based on simile and metaphor) to be an extremely valuable tool in retrieving memories of extremely traumatic injustices that are typically too painful for recall. I consider it extremely important to “mental health” to recall traumatic injustices in order to neutralize and counter them. I believe that the value of dream interpretation is forgotten knowledge because it is part of Freudian theory that is no longer accepted. It is also forgotten knowledge because the “false memory syndrome” fad of the nineties damaged the credibility of dream interpretation.
Thank you for your community service. I believe that mental distress is a social welfare problem rather than a medical problem; a medical (biological) science that addresses a social “philosophy of mind” is fundamentally pseudoscience. Pathologizing natural emotional suffering worsens outcomes; counselors and social workers should lead “mental health” care with family physicians prescribing drugs (that address the emotional pain and sleep problems caused by emotional suffering). Psychiatry only makes sense if mental distress is a medical problem; psychiatry is THE problem if mental distress is not a medical (biological) problem.
Thank you for your community service and this eloquent, engaging, insightful essay.
However, I believe that you are creating a false dichotomy when juxtaposing “accepting responsibility for overcoming distress” against “identifying as having a biological, chemical brain disease.” I believe that accepting responsibility for personal “mental health care” is critical but that is not the same as taking responsibility for traumatic injustices. The disenfranchised are rarely responsible for the “life circumstances” that cause emotional suffering- mental distress; emotional suffering is not a brain disease (psychiatry has no scientific validity). I agree with Thomas Szasz who advocated that “mental illness” is a tool used to subjugate the disenfranchised (blaming the victims of cultural abuse).
Thank you for promoting civil dialogue among critics of “mental health care” and forty years of service to the community. While I agree that deep polarization is harming our country, I respectfully disagree with a basic assumption of your article. Although you describe most critics on the “other side” of DJ Jaffe’s world, a large number of critics have a more fundamental, theoretical criticism of psychiatry. Many critics contend that psychiatry addresses social welfare problems and thus lacks any validity as a medical science. They contend that it significantly harms community “mental health” to treat the social welfare problems of the disenfranchised (“problems with living”) as if addressing diseases. More to the point, many critics contend that the legitimacy of psychiatry and its concept of “mental illness” is the main problem with “mental health care.”
Well said… except I believe that you omitted that educated women (people) often struggle to understand the perspective of uneducated women (who are far more likely to be victims of sexual assault than college colleagues).
I understand appreciating “critical psychiatry” for providing most of the academic support for abolishing psychiatry; however, our goals are radically different. The “tenets of psychiatry are faulty… (anti-psychiatrists) see reform as having a tendency, irrespective of intent, to reinforce the status quo (Burstow, MIA, 10/26/2014).”
A slash is punctuation used to identify “non-contrasting terms.” Anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry may be non-contrasting terms under specific circumstances: “anti-psychiatry/critical psychiatry” believe that psychiatrists over-prescribe drugs.” However, anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry are philosophically contrasting terms that should not be combined.
Congratulations; your scholarship is quite a feat and quite a legacy!
However, I do not understand one concluding remark: “May they help us slowly but surely turn antipsychiatry/critical psychiatry into an accepted form of knowledge.” I do not understand including “critical psychiatry;” I thought you made a strong case for anti-psychiatry (an abolitionist movement) and understand “critical psychiatry” to be a reformist movement. I do not understand how to reform psychiatry (a “medical science”) from pathologizing natural emotional suffering (seeking medical legitimacy).
Thank you for your community service in challenging NAMI corruption; however, I disagree with you, Frank and Oldhead about making NAMI a focus of criticism. Our society holds medical science in highest esteem; it seems ill-advised to focus criticism of mainstream “mental health” care at NAMI for advocating support for medical science (and their “medicines”).
I contend that the harm caused by mainstream “mental health care” can be directly attributed to legitimized pseudoscience: psychiatry accepted as a legitimate medical science. Medical schools are having problems with students who “bash psychiatry as not real medical science;” these students are our greatest allies. Medical schools legitimizing psychiatry is our greatest and weakest enemy since they pride themselves on real science.
Thank you for your community service; your work has insured you a prestigious place in history!
However, I respectfully disagree with one premise. In 1980, psychiatry abandoned Freudian Theory and lumped neuroses (problems with living) together with their established “diseases” (psychoses); thus, psychiatry “doubled-down” on the “disease model” rather than “adopted” it. Addressing neuroses (social welfare problems) hurt psychiatry’s legitimacy as a medical science so they redefined them as psychoses- medical problems (and abandoned Freudian Theory). Psychiatry has always been based on the “disease model” since it considers itself a medical science.
Your recommendation is a good one; challenge medical students on the legitimacy of their science (or their field). I advocate that mental distress is a social welfare problem and that “First, do no harm” is impossible when believing that natural human suffering from traumatic injustices (or physical problems) is a disease.
Thank you for allowing me to comment on your article and your work in challenging the harm of long-term drug “therapy.”
Well said Steve; the current mental health system’s focus on mythical diseases rather than traumatic injustices is the largest obstacle to suicide prevention.
Psychology’s neuroscience is pure pseudoscience; it contradicts the most basic principle of every science that informs it. Psychology’s neuroscience contradicts the most fundamental tenet of biology, physiology, natural science and general science theory; it also contradicts the most fundamental principle of the philosophy of science.
Psychology’s neuroscience uses neuroscience research to support the status quo, but the foundation of the research is all pseudoscience. Thereafter, they are comfortable describing how addictive drugs can “capture the individual’s motivation system” but cannot explain what the hell it means to “capture” a motivation system?
Autism: The Anatomy of an Epidemic!!! The autism rate has increased from 3 per 10,000 in 1970 to 150-220 per 10,000 today (depending on the government study). The statistics are staggering and deserve a book of their own!!!
I do not understand why the most obvious answer is never considered: atrophy of nervous tissue causes brain shrinkage in “diagnosed people” from depression and especially from sedation reducing brain activity.
“One fundamental mistake I believe is repeatedly made today when it comes to working with those who feel disenfranchised, marginalized, discounted, or discriminated against is believing that the opposite response must be the best response.”
This sentence clearly states the problem. Those “who feel disenfranchised” are at the bottom of a social pecking order of emotional abuse; their “unusual beliefs and behaviors” generally reflect the emotional pain. The “opposite response” is by far “the best response:” emotional support is the best response to traumatic injustice (and behaviors that reflect emotional suffering). It is difficult to empathize with emotional suffering without experiencing true misfortune; emotional suffering is not a disease. Believing emotional suffering to be unnatural leads counselors to discount the distress caused by traumatic injustice and to exaggerate their ability to solve a client’s distressful life circumstances. If a child writes a parent a note “I hate miself,” the parent should not be thinking that their child has a spelling problem.
This article clarifies what confuses me about popular criticism of psychology at this website. I am an anti-psychiatrist because psychiatry is pseudoscience; it has no legitimate (scientific) connection to neuroscience and biology (biological reductionism). In contrast, the author (and most psychology critics) wrongly assumes that psychiatry represents a biological reductionism perspective. Critics understand that psychiatry is without scientific support but they seem fearful that real neuroscience might eventually support psychiatry instead of assuming that real neuroscience will prove psychiatry wrong!
I said repeatedly that physical health directly affects “mental health,” and that prior to understanding the basics of nutrition, nutritional deficiencies were the main source of “mental health” problems. What is trite is arguing that nutritional deficiencies that were understood centuries ago could still be the main source of “mental health” problems. You are suggesting that psychiatry should morph into gastroenterology without support from gastroenterologists.
I clearly state that nutrition greatly influences “mental health” in the first sentence and assume that it was the predominate influence circa Hippocrates. However, today in the US, socially distressful experiences are the predominate cause of mental distress. What I said was illogical is replacing the old medical model (of mystery diseases) with a new one based on dietary problems. Consistently, a new medical model paradigm of dietary problems continues to advocate that injustice and socially distressful experiences do not affect “mental health.”
I advocate a free, unified alternative therapies program that includes Nutritional Therapy because better nutrition (better physical health) promotes better “mental health” (UnifiedAlternatives.org). However, claiming that mental distress is caused by nutritional deficiencies and solved by improved nutrition is advocating a new “medical model” that seems illogical for numerous reasons.
What I believe:
“Depression and anxiety may be familiar to all of us to some degree, but … I think that true psychotic experiences are rare” “True psychotic experiences are rare” because the extreme distressfulness of the experiences that produce “psychotic experiences” are rare.
“Therefore I do not think it makes sense to suggest that psychosis is on a continuum with normal experience.” “True psychotic experiences are rare” on a bell-curve that plots the distressfulness of experiences (of distressful life circumstances); they are the extreme end of “a continuum with normal experience.”
“What attracted me to psychiatry … is the intuition that mental disorder has something profound to teach us about the nature of being human.” Good intuition on your part; mental distress teaches us that emotions are feelings that are understood physically rather than intellectually. Extreme mental distress teaches us that the brain has a natural aversion to distressful experiences. Natural emotional suffering from extremely distressful experiences is experienced by the brain as averse- similarly to extreme physical pain (except it does not subside like physical pain). Mental distress is human nature; human aversion to mental distress naturally motivates behavior to avoid distressful experiences. The problem arises when the brain cannot find a behavior to relieve the distress; “fight or flight” will not solve most modern distressful experiences.
“And it does this not by reflecting brain abnormalities, but by consisting of extreme, bizarre, usually dysfunctional and sometimes unfathomable manifestations of human agency.” I would have totally agreed with this sentence until I experienced a reversal of fortune in early adulthood; thereafter, I found my “bizarre” and often “dysfunctional” behavior to completely understandable. The commanding emotional pain of psychosis is analogous to extreme physical pain that does not subside; if you want to understand psychosis, submit to physical torture for a couple months.
When a person lives “on top of the stack” (as I did during my youth), it is hard to imagine what life feels like “at the bottom of the pecking order” (as I did for a couple decades).
This would be great news if mental distress is a disease that cures itself without intervention and only gets worse when the natural emotions being expressed are heavily drugged for extended periods.
The real Open Dialogue is successful because it tries to assist people in solving real “problems with living” within the context of a clients life (at their home with their family/roommates). The real Open Dialogue tries not to pull people out of their lives and put them in an institution and expect their lives to be better when they return home (as if a disease is cured).
This spinoff and others in the US seem doomed to failure for three reasons: 1) clients can rarely solve their real “problems with living” while believing that they are medical problems, 2) clients can rarely solve their real “problems with living” while isolated in a mental institution, and 3) the treatments are expensive and opposed by most psychiatrists.
This spinoff and others in the US miss the central characteristic of the real Open Dialogue that makes it successful; extreme mental distress is natural emotional suffering rather than a medical problem.
I believe that the practice of psychotherapy is valuable (substantially underrated) but that its context as addressing medical (psychiatric) problems causes more harm than it can solve.
Thank you for your community service in challenging mainstream “mental health care.”
“Such a paradigm needs to explain human struggle and how and why suffering occurs. It requires an appropriate treatment approach that heals pain and shows why and how it works;” I propose a “Social Welfare Model” to replace the “Medical Model.” The “Social Welfare Model” describes mental distress as natural emotional suffering from distressful experiences and from physical ailments, rather than a medical problem of a biological dysfunction. This model describes emotions as understandable physically rather than intellectually. Extreme emotional suffering (from extremely distressful experiences) is perceived by the brain similar to extreme physical pain.
The theory of a “The play of consciousness in the theater of the brain” describes an intellectual understanding of emotions. Instead, we physically feel the joy of a happy surprise and physically feel the pain of extremely distressful experiences.
Emotional suffering is the natural, painful reaction to distressful experiences; it is natural, “normal” psychology- natural neurobiology. Most “psychiatric symptoms” misinterpret natural expressions of emotional suffering as a medical problem; psychiatry is a medical science addressing social welfare problems. This misinterpretation of natural psychology causes great social harm.
There is no treatment for natural emotional suffering beyond time and positive experiences of emotional well-being. In contrast, there is a great deal we can do to prevent trauma in the community by promoting more social justice.
Same old BS from psychiatry: label people “‘pathological’ worriers” with only support from a strong affirmation bias and without any biological support. Same old BS from psychiatry: assume that unusual worrying is a medical problem instead of natural emotional suffering from (natural) fear of repetitive (unresolved) distressful experiences (a social welfare problem).
Certainly the desire to avoid painfully “gloomy, pessimistic thoughts” can motivate a hyperactive drive for relief. Promoting experiences of emotional well-being is therapeutic; drugging natural emotions hardly seems therapeutic.
The more fundamental question is about whether there is a relationship between “mental distress” and “enlarged ventricles” and the implications thereof. I understand the skull to contain the brain and ventricles (air pockets for cushioning against impact). To say that someone has “enlarged ventricles” seems like a funny way of saying that a person has “decreased brain volume.” Decreased brain volume seems like a logical result of depression. Depressing experiences cause depression- emotionally painful hopelessness; hopelessness causes a radical reduction of thinking and behavior. Physiologists contend that “use it or loose it” is the motto for every body tissue; long-term depression causes nervous tissue atrophy- a natural “decrease of brain volume.”
“Enlarged ventricles” can be explained with elemental physiology; it is unfortunate that psychiatry’s neuroscience ignores basic physiology theory while trying to explain their erroneous medical narrative.
The distressful experiences of First Nations are staggering; they cannot watch a world series without witnessing unequaled racist caricatures of themselves. The Cleveland Indians mascot (“Chief Wahoo”) is a vulgarity that has no equal since they removed “Little Black Sambo” from my grade school classroom fifty years ago.
I did not intend the video to imply the the “medical model” began with the DSM-III; it began when it replaced the “religious model” (demonic possession) in describing extreme emotional suffering. In the video, I describe the first two editions of the DSM as based on Freudian theory; Freud describes psychoses as medical problems. The DSM-III moved from Freudian theory that described most of the DSM-II categories as problems with living (neuroses) to a biological interpretation of all categories.
Thank you for your comments; I will edit my video to clarify that the DSM-III doubled-down on the “medical model” by claiming that all DSM categories were thereinafter diseases rather than only psychoses.
I did not understand the term “biological psychiatry” to specifically refer to the difference between the psychiatry of the DSM-III and the psychiatry of the DSM-II. The term is confusing because it is redundant; I consider all psychiatrists to be biological psychiatrists since psychiatry claims to be a biological (medical) science.
Yes, the murky, cloudy, swirling image was intended to reflect the increased complexity of the DSM-IV-TR from adding multiple axes (perspectives) while adding nothing of value.
Efforts to promote more justice for children in distressful circumstances is admirable (albeit difficult); thank you for your community service.
The video is posted on Vimeo- a free video dissemination website competitor of YouTube. I assume that the access for TV viewing is similar to YouTube (simply go to their website and search for “DSM&MedicalModel”). However, I also assume that the video can be accessed for TV viewing from the MIA website. I posted my video at the Vimeo website so I could periodically edit it for clarity without revised versions competing with the latest version (as would be the case on YouTube).
I use the term “medical model” exactly as Szasz does- as a “portrayal of problems in living, of thought, behavior and emotion, as medical diseases.” I intend “social welfare” problems to describe “problems in living.”
“Mental illness” is a metaphor better understood as an oxymoron; a philosophy of mind cannot have a medical (biological) illness. Nevertheless, some “problems in living” cause extreme emotional pain that is frequently considered a disease based on the predominate paradigm. Extreme emotional suffering is distressful to witness; most people believe that life is generally cheerful and cannot imagine the emotional suffering of the disenfranchised. The social welfare narrative advocates that extreme emotional suffering is a natural response to extremely distressful experiences. I agree that “mental health” is another metaphor (oxymoron), but I believe that it is a necessary term for communicating about emotional well-being and emotional suffering.
I use the term “medical model” differently than the definitions identified by Graham. I contend that the APA uses a “medical model” to explain behaviors described in the DSM that were previously explained with a “religious model” and are better explained with a “social welfare model.” The “medical model” began when it replaced the “religious model.” Later, Freudian theory dominated the “medical model” until the DSM-III; it described a few medical problems of “psychoses” and numerous social welfare problems of “neuroses.” Psychiatry was losing public legitimacy as a medical science addressing social welfare problems and the non-existent boundaries dividing the two. Psychiatry was forced to either abandon oversight of neuroses (the majority of diagnoses) or double-down on the “medical model” and claim that neuroses were thereinafter medical problems rather than social welfare problems.
I use the term “medical model” to describe the DSM disease narrative of behaviors that I describe as natural with a “social welfare narrative.” The definitions Graham identifies all assume the disease narrative (paradigm) and use the term in a variety of other ways.
The images were obviously intended to add impact rather than confuse; do you remember which image seemed inconsistent with the message?
I have ambivalent feelings about Freud; I admire some of his ideas far more than most others while detesting other ideas of his. My point about Freud was that the DSM was founded on his theories and then abandoned by committee vote for a foundation with more popular support; this is not science.
Concerning my tone, I consider myself a scientist and have always tried to write with a (cold) scientific tone while targeting academics and professionals; this is my first effort to write for a public audience. I wanted an exasperated tone at the punch lines to express the calamity of the situation. I wanted to give voice to the pain caused by considering natural emotional suffering and other natural behaviors to be diseases. However, I wanted to sound exasperated rather than angry; I will reconsider my tone.
I do not agree with your characterization of our conversation. I understood you to say that the social ills of psychiatry can only be solved by focusing on challenging capitalism and I advocated that psychiatry will collapse under the weight of its pseudoscience and human rights abuses. I believe that it will be death by a thousand blows with medical students contributing to the critical mass. I thought that Bonnie Burstow’s New Year’s Eve Resolutions blog (December 28) offered a lot of options for people to consider a comfortable way to contribute. I believe that this website and the bloggers and commenters at this website contribute with a valuable, expanding dialogue.
One must be careful when joking about psychiatry because their “truth can be stranger than fiction!” Mainstream psychiatry has already claimed that “new neuro-imaging breakthroughs have been made that allow the diagnosis of ADHD to be precisely made via having children wear brain-wave measuring helmets.” Evidently, you have not heard of the renown psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Amen.
Dr. Amen was the darling of public television a decade ago for famously claiming exactly what you joke about! Wikipedia introduces Dr. Amen as follows: Daniel Gregory Amen (born 1954) is an American psychiatrist, a brain disorder specialist, director of the Amen Clinics, and a ten-times New York Times bestselling author. Amen’s clinics offer medical services to people who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other disorders. They use single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) as a purported diagnostic tool to identify supposed sub-categories of these disorders, as devised by Amen.”
This was all the rage a decade ago, but has waned from criticism; however, Dr. Amen is still getting rich pushing this BS because it is such logical support for psychiatry… IF IT WAS TRUE!
Best wishes, Steve
PS- Comments to a previous post: the APA introduced “clinically significant criteria” for their diagnoses (starting with the DSM-IV). With this simple phrase, the APA states that only clinicians can understand their diagnostic criteria, and properly use their manual. Hence, the APA cleverly discounts criticism of the DSM based on the lack proper insight by non-clinicians. Also, I am unable to offer IT advice about videotaping because I am completely dependent on assistance.
I describe social problems that cause a community harm; political problems do not cause all of the social ills in a community. Any community benefits from eliminating the disease narrative of emotional suffering regardless of their political system. Every political system is plagued by class privilege that is supported by the disease narrative of natural emotional suffering. Obviously, some political systems promote far more social justice than others but I do not want to highjack my social commentary with a political discussion.
I believe that the most fundamental contradiction of psychiatry is that it is a medical science addressing a social welfare problem.
My “social welfare” paradigm is not a “social welfare system” paradigm. Social welfare (emotional well-being) is promoted by comforting, affirming experiences of social justice (and physical health); conversely, social welfare (emotional well-being) is reduced by distressful experiences of social injustice (and poor physical health). A community promotes social welfare primarily through social justice and harms social welfare primarily through social injustices.
I intended to include behaviors that distress others when describing behaviors that the APA considers “anti-social.” Certainly, psychiatry can induce distress where there was none.
Public assistance is difficult; it is easier to reduce the need for public assistance through more social justice. It is harmful to community “mental health” for eight people to be as wealthy as half the world’s population. This obscenity developed through politics as usual but things can always change. Thank you for your comments.
The medical model (disease model) started when secularists gained control of the narrative about “anti-social” behaviors away from theologians. However, I used the term “medical model” to refer to the DSM-III changing the definition of “neuroses” (most “mental disorders”) from social welfare problems to medical problems. I would consider other terms for the model but I have a problem with the term “biomedical” because it reminds me of the term “biological psychiatry.” The term “biological psychiatry” creates confusion with its redundancy; medical sciences consider themselves to be based on biology. “Biological psychiatry” is used to criticize some psychiatrists as misusing biology while wrongly implying that other psychiatrists are properly using biology- the foundation of their legitimacy as a medical science.
I agree with your analysis of the term “mental illness” but believe that focusing on the absurdity of the term obscures a more important issue. The term describes a widely accepted philosophy advanced by the APA that considers natural emotional suffering to be a disease.
Excellent point; thank you for reiterating it! It is a glaring omission to fail to reference leading critics of mainstream mental health care for further reading at the conclusion of the video. I will seek your advice for a reference page before re-editing.
My comment below was intended to affirm the neuroplasticity of the brain responding to personal experiences that include “mindfulness.” However, trying to think differently about personal injustices has little therapeutic value compared to confronting or countering the injustices.
The video does not address mental health care within a social welfare narrative, but it is a critically important subject that you understand something about.
Thank you for your valuable comments; I will consider them while re-editing the video.
I believe that much your criticisms express a desire for a more academic overview of mainstream mental health care rather than one targeting the general public. I did not believe that I could communicate an overview of criticism of mainstream mental health care in a half hour video (a public information format) with constant interruptions for references. I believe that my video rings true with much of the public, especially those who have experienced mental distress.
Academics and professions also need an overview of the criticisms of their profession; this is an important point that cannot be done in a half hour video (and should probably include more collaboration).
Thank you for your comments. It is hard to imagine mental abuse worse than “gaslighting”- the unfortunate outcome of the medical model of mental distress.
Also, it never occurred to me that “real” medical sciences could benefit from (be vested in) psychiatry creating ambiguity around iatrogenesis.
I do not know about the intent of the DSM but I totally agree that it is unfortunately the primary source for defaming, torturing and silencing the victims of child abuse.
Right on!
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Jay, great article: let’s prove you right! A (scientific) Study of Identical Twins Separated at Birth and Reunited in Adulthood (AFTER the study) will prove Jay correct; this has proven impossible with human subjects (as Jay has clearly explained previously and herein) but can be done easily with primates. With support from the community, scientists at primate research centers can easily disprove Behavioral Genetics and promote a breakthrough in “mental health” care.
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Thank you for addressing this crisis in medical science integrity especially related to psychiatry.
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I salute a leader in defense of the marginalized.
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Right on!
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A year ago, I asked a behavioral neuroscience lecturer about depression being genetic: isn’t it normal for a child falsely accused of seeking attention for reporting regular incestuous rapes to feel depressed? I wish that I had taped his confusing answer.
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Good nutrition and good sleep are the foundation of emotional well-being so in that sense I agree, but “resilience” is far more a function of personal histories than diet. “Resilience” is a weapon to “blame the victim” for their traumas rather than address the injustices of most personal traumas.
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Right on.
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Well said.
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Thank you for another science blog, Jay; I always enjoy them.
Have you considered proving yourself right? Theoretically speaking, a real study of reared apart identical twins (separated at birth and reunited by the study) would prove you correct: the environment rather than genetics predominately shapes behavior. While this seem impossible with a human population as witnessed by the details of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, it should be rather easy with non-human primates. Miniature monkeys regularly have twins that can be separated at birth and raised in different families; this would easily prove the critical importance of the environment.
Our national primate research centers annually accept citizen ideas about primate research; I hope you consider asking them to do an experiment to validate their behavioral genetics research.
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I was thrown by your term “conscious evolution” because it seemed self-contradictory to me, but upon reconsideration, it actually better describes popular evolutionary theory.
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There’s only one expert so there is no “match”; my honorary “BS” opens no doors.
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I agree; “scientism” has now replaced “science” in the community.
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My foul; I thought that you asked about “conscious evolution” as a joke since it seems self-contradictory to me.
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Thank you for directing me to Sterling’s theory of allostatic load; it supports my criticism of his definitive neuroscience text: The Principles of Neural Design. Consistent with your better understanding of evolutionary theory, Sterling addresses specific details of an ambiguous theory before any agreement on general principles (I consider reproduction fundamental to survival). I asked Sterling but I should’ve asked you: doesn’t my science at NaturalPsychology.org explain and resolve anomalies of current science theory while explaining human psychology including “mental disorders?”
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Yes, we need “conscious evolution” consistent with the goals of many MIA commenters.
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This is one of the most important blogs ever published at MIA! This blog was not properly introduced; Peter Sterling is one of the most eminent neuroscientists in the world and he just called “bullshit” on psychiatry! An international leader in neuroscience just said that natural stress (especially work alienation) causes the predominance of health problems (and all “mental health” problems?).
However, Peter Sterling expresses a typical “subjectivity” problem with understanding evolutionary theory when he states that: “Finally, evolution gave us the capacity to grow our skills over decades. Our species core need is to fulfill these capacities.” Like most neuroscientists, Peter fails to understand that evolution gave us “our species core need” of survival.
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Thank you, Steve
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If the definition remains the same but who qualifies has completely changed, I retract my previous comment and defer to Steve’s previous comment (wisdom). Thank you for clarifying the issue for me, Marie; the definition of autism is too ambiguous to debate.
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The definition of autism has not changed in the last fifty years but who qualifies has changed dramatically. Autism was holding steady at 1:2500 fifty years ago according to the CDC; it is diagnosed at nearly FIFTY TIMES that rate now (1:56). However, “autism spectrum disorder” no longer includes children who are “very severely disturbed”; they would now be described as “mentally ill.”
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Well said.
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Thank you; I remain confused about “mental illness” and about how a philosophy (of “mind”) can possibly have physical health or physical illness.
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I totally agree: the best Anti-Psychiatry book would be some mostly edited comments and segments of the great articles posted at MIA.
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Right On!
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Right On!
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Ouch! I am sorry Robert Whitaker for the disappointment I share with you about the state of journalism; the corruption of a journalistic ethic that you describe is staggering.
Although I agree with much of Oldhead’s criticism, it seems like a heavily edited version of this blog should be widely published as a query about the state of journalism elsewhere.
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Right on!
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Thank you for the community service of your advocacy.
Best wishes, Steve
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Good point: that was a tragic chapter in the history of psychology.
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I do not have a license to practice medicine so nothing that I say should substitute for professional medical advice: I believe that you describe a pattern of behaviors that suggest that your time with Jim was extremely traumatic – too painful for recall.
“I keep getting told by professionals that if anything had happened, I would have remembered it.” This is confusing to me; I thought that most psychologists and psychiatrists believed in “repressed memories” of extremely traumatic experiences.
Have you read any of the books by Jennifer Freyd? I understood her to be the daughter of parents who started one of the original “False Memory Syndrome” groups and a leading advocate of “repressed memories.”
Best wishes, Steve-2
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Good point: a philosophy cannot be quantified.
My question: can a science theory predict an outcome percentage less than the percentage of their predicted fallibility rate? If the fallibility rate of data is plus or minus 5%, can it predict data less than 5% (like 0.5%)?
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“Neuropsychiatry” is another word-game like “biopsychiatry”; if you want to make a philosophy of “mind” (psychiatry) appear more like a science, add a “sciency” prefix.
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Although there is plenty wrong with the current state of neurology, I describe it as a “real medical science” in contrast to psychiatry because it addresses human physiology rather than a philosophy of “mind.”
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Another great article that addresses the pseudoscience of psychiatry. I find this is the most telling comment from Dr. Pies: “One of us (Ronald Pies), a psychiatrist, has spent a large part of his career thinking and writing about the philosophical foundations of psychiatry…” Psychiatry is a pseudo medical science that causes the community historic harm by pretending to be a real science; a real medical science should be defended by science rather than philosophy. Neurology is the real medical science that addresses the brain and nervous system; psychiatry is pseudo medical science – pseudoscience.
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Well said.
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Thank you for this science; a confirmation bias is powerful for those seeking fame.
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Dr. Puras did great community service through the UN but I do not understand how it could be described as “Bringing Human Rights to ‘Mental Health’ Care.” The UN Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that it is a Human Right for people to have “freedom to make sense of experiences in their own way.” I do not understand human rights in any “mental health” care that accepts “coercive treatments”; Dr. Puras does not seem to address this fundamental human rights violation.
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Well said.
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Thank you Robert Whitaker for bringing real science to the discussion of antipsychotics.
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I agree; it deserves re-printing!
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“Mental health” care harms the community by pathologizing painful social welfare problems – “sadness”; pathologizing sadness (the natural expression of sad experiences) with terms like “moral injury” denies our humanity. Employed “mental health” care workers will harm their desperate, unemployed clients by advocating that their painful sadness (from rightfully fearing that their children will go hungry and live destitute) is instead a pathology caused by a “genetic predisposition.”
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Thank you for your critically important community service in advocating for the marginalized and disenfranchised.
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Well said.
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Real science reads like “therapy” to me; thank you.
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Right on!
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Dr. Rashed’s article that describes identity problems for psychiatry from challenges to its legitimacy is confusing to me. Dr. Rashed advocates that clinicians obscure this crisis by distancing themselves from medical science rather than addressing logical criticisms to psychiatry’s validity.
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Thank you for the community service of advocating that emotional suffering is natural rather than pathological; it is a critically important point for improving the quality of life in the community. What is difficult to understand about natural emotional suffering is how painful it can be when distressful experiences become extreme. I would not have believed that emotional pain could be as strong as physical pain until after experiencing trauma in early adulthood; for the following decade, I could no longer feel physical pain because the emotional pain was so strong. Thereafter, I came to believe that a prerequisite for discussing emotional suffering is to state outright that current theory discounts its painfulness.
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Kenneth Blatt, MD, I believe that you underestimate the power of psychiatry to dominate the “mental health” care industry based on its purporting the “hard” sciences of biology and physiology – natural science. But while neurology is the medical science that addresses the biology and physiology of the brain, psychiatry is philosophy – an illegitimate medical science advocating the Myth of “mental illness.”
We are not “free of the medical model” when the pain of social, economic and/or spiritual distress causes sleep deprivation and resulting disorientation. The coerced “medical” treatment that results is a harmful violation of human rights as mandated by the UN Commission on Human Rights (1948). Until medical schools stop accrediting psychiatry as a medical science, it will continue iatrogenic harm of historic proportions.
I am a neuroscientist who can explain the theoretical problems with current neuroscience theory in a sidebar if you are interested.
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Thank you for this insightful blog addressing the issue of “status”; psychiatry should be defined as “gatekeepers of status.”
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Your writing is a valuable community service since it is articulate and insightful; you should be broadly published. Consistently, I believe in the natural science advocacy of our natural motivation to seek well-being (social affirmation and support) and that people generally seek “status” to promote well-being when the community is stingy with its affirmation and support.
What confuses me about your article is the apparent, standard disconnect between distressful experiences and stress. I understood you to describe brutal, distressful experiences as stressors and that the “potential impact of stressors like these on mental well being is shocking.” I am confused by your shock and our cultural belief that distressful experiences are not the sole cause of anxiety and stress. I believe that “mental health” is an oxymoron that effectively pathologizes natural emotional suffering from distressful experiences (social, economic and/or spiritual distress). By defining “mental health” as emotional well-being, psychiatry implies that emotional suffering is a sickness (regardless of predominately distressful experiences). While this is illogical, it is a common perspective on emotional suffering. Thus if you tell someone that you are considering killing yourself, they do not hear the obvious (that you are suffering emotionally); instead, they hear that you have a disease that worries them. They are afraid that your disease will kill you, that you lack insight about your need for professional help, and that they do not want to mistakenly appear to have any valuable expertice into your disease.
I believe that we all seek well-being (affirmation and social support) and that we all feel some degree of stress from cultural values. But I also believe that status anxiety is generally significantly greater for those without status and that there is substantial injustice around that issue.
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I agree that the vast majority of people in the “mental health” care industry have good intentions. I also totally agree that the culture should become more civil to meet the needs of the community.
My problem is that I believe that the “mental health” care industry pathologizes social, economic and/or spiritual distress and denies basic human rights for suffering emotionally. As long as the industry believes that anxiety and depression are diseases rather than natural responses to distressing and depressing experiences, they could not possibly “see me.” As long as the industry cannot “see me”, they cannot possibly understand the impact that they are having on me and thus I would consider an apology not relevant.
I believe that if you want to understand someone, you must understand who they are arguing against. I am arguing against psychiatry for advocating the harmful Myth of “mental illness” that pathologizes natural “problems in living” and for their human rights abuses. Are you arguing against the general level of incivility in our culture, or how would you describe the community’s over-riding social problem related to “mental health” care?
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I believe that apologizing is a nice thing to do after transgressing; it promotes a more civil society. However, our community is embattled so I agree with Oldhead that the issue lacks critical importance to me. I believe the slogan was: “I don’t care if The Man likes me; I just want his boot off my neck!”
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Your ideas are not that radical; many non-clinicians similarly believe that current psychiatric drugs do not solve loniliness nor increase a sense of belonging. Some radicals even go as far as saying that pills will never solve loniliness and that we should instead consider a more civil, inclusive culture to promote a sense of belonging.
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“Scientism” is a widespread problem but behavioral genetics takes it to the next level; what it passes off for science is ludicrous starting with the Minnesota Study of Identical Twins Reared Apart.
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“EI refers to the ability to interpret, process, and apply understanding of emotion”: emotion that expresses the suffering of abuse from injustice will be pathologized by psychiatry.
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Bonnie will be remembered as a courageous advocate for the marginalized who left a great legacy with her groundbreaking scholarship. RIP Bonnie; you led a noble life.
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Well said.
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Thank you for this response, Steve
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I believe that you misunderstand the blog: “If I’m reading this correctly, this is just another way of saying ontological insecurity is the result of major, entrenched dissociation caused by trauma.” I understand “ontological” to mean that something exists independently… not caused by experiences like trauma; I believe that it supports psychiatry in advocating a “genetic predisposition” for insecurity. The article is advocating that trauma does not cause the insecurity expressed in “mental illness”; it advocates that trauma does not impact human psychology. Instead, the article is advocating that the insecurity expressed in “mental illness” is caused by a genetic predisposition for insecurity that they label “ontological” insecurity. I believe that the article advocates “Pollyanna”; do others agree?
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Your blogs are a community service; thank you.
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I have been confused about why psychiatry does not include suicide ideation in its DSM as a “mental disorder”; it seems most consistent with their pathologizing of social, economic and/or spiritual distress. I can only imagine psychiatry wanting to avoid criticism of its ineffectiveness… but that seems critical; can anyone provide a better explanation?
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Thank you for your community service in leadership of important challenges to abuses by psychiatry.
“I often share my personal experiences to make clear that we are all much alike in both misery and recovery.” Do you believe that children experience similarly distressful experiences? Might being a financially secure, widely admired community leader make your “recovery” from “helplessness” appear more atypical than exemplary?
I really appreciate the emphasis of the post on promoting love and a more kind, caring community to reduce human suffering; thank you again for your community service.
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This is a good example of “scientism”: the “science” of investigating a completely abstract, undefinable concept like “vulnerability” to “psychosis” (“ontological insecurity”).
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What a radical idea these researchers are proposing; who would have thought that depressing experiences could cause depression?
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Well said; the systemic lack of caring in our foster “care” programs is a crime against humanity.
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“It is never an answer to remove children from their parents”; I agree with the sentiment of the post except in cases where parents continue to cause significant harm to their children.
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Thank you for this wonderful tribute to Del; he bore witness to the cruelty of addressing childhood trauma with critical labels and drugs for the victims.
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Well said.
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“We live in a trauma based society, and the Medical Model does everything to steer us away from understanding the connection between psychological pain and the surrounding environment.” Well said.
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Thank you for the community service of continuing to campaign against medical ghostwriting; it is astonishingly sad that this fraud continues.
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Thank you for your community service and your efforts for informed-consent. I believe that informed-consent should include the truth about psychiatric drugs as “medicines”; they subdue emotions rather than address a biological dysfunction.
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The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart is the greatest fraud in history since the twins in the study were not actually reared apart (as documented in the study) and since it is the fulcrum of “scientific” support for the “medical model.”
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Well said.
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“It is difficult to understand something when your livelihood depends upon you not understanding it”; I blame medical schools for accrediting the pathologizing of natural human suffering.
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Well said. They believe that they will be vindicated for their scientific transgressions when biology finally proves them right about their erroneous medical model. Their mantra: “fake it till ya make it.”
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I do not know if I have read as articulate a description of iatrogenic harm!
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Right on!
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“When psychiatry decided to become a laboratory science”, it is was still a medical science harming the community by pathologizing natural human suffering.
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Thank you for continuing to engage with commenters.
Until I experienced trauma in early adulthood, I could not have imagined how painful “sadness” can feel and how desperate for relief I could feel. After the trauma, my life became a living nightmare and I was becoming disoriented from fatigue; I could not sleep because all dreams were nightmares. I desperately needed drugs to sleep and drugs to kill the pain so I could think “straight”; my situation was desperate and I needed sleep if I hoped to resolve real problems in living.
My experiences taught me that I had not understood sadness in my life before I experienced trauma, that it was far more painful than I imagined, and that psychiatry pathologizes it. Thereafter, I experienced suicidal ideation because it appeared to be the only logical path for relief from my pain. I could not access heavy enough drugs to promote sleep without a psychiatric label and a psychiatric label would have made my “recovery” impossible.
I believe that you misunderstand the importance of the validity of psychiatry and its labels. If psychiatry lacks biological validity in addressing human suffering, its theory is causing iatrogenic harm of historic proportions. Psychiatric drugs may provide short-term relief that clients seek, but convincing a culture that sadness is a disease promotes widespread drug abuse from believers and suicide from non-believers.
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I also want to salute another articulate post by someone bringing clarity to the world. I especially appreciate the clarity of this comment: “Meanwhile, the true causes of these human concerns are hiding in plain sight: loss; inadequate training; traumatic history; painful events; etc.”
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I also found her comments insightful and am sorry to hear of her passing.
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Thank you for articulating your perspective and for permitting comments.
“I propose that critiquing biological psychiatry is a straw man… as it is but one player in the crowded mental health industrial complex.” I believe that you underestimate the supreme power that psychiatry has in the “mental health industrial complex” based on its purported foundation on biology and physiology. Consistently, I consider “biological psychiatry” to be misleadingly redundant: all medical sciences are considered biological sciences by the community whether psychiatry is based on Freudian theory or is without an underlying theory. Psychiatry may be mocked by other medical science specialties but the community considers it a medical science and considers medical science to be the “holy grail” for addressing health problems. Medical schools are ultimately responsible for the calamity that psychiatry causes the community by accrediting a philosophy of “mind” as a medical (biological) science.
“Does this mean mental illnesses don’t exist?… Are you saying that people aren’t suffering?” People are suffering extreme pain from social, economic and/or spiritual distress (natural, painful emotional suffering) but their suffering is natural rather than a disease. Psychiatry advocates Pollyanna and a fairy tale world of kindness and goodness.
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Thank you for your articulate comments about the relationship between emotional distress and pain; I believe that you understand more about pain than most physicians.
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At this time of reflection, I salute the community service of this website and its evolving mission statement!
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Thank you for the community service of articulately describing the “scientism” of psychiatry.
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I agree. Since psychiatry pathologizes natural emotions and behaviors, the alternative is to stop pathologizing natural emotions and behaviors. Existing social services are intended to “support” people with social welfare problems but are totally inadequate to meet the crisis of human suffering caused by the economic and political system.
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I consider myself a scientist who is alarmed at the absurdity of the scientism of psychiatry and its advocacy that lived experience hardly affects emotions. Thank you for articulately addressing this issue.
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This “psychosis” study concludes that positive social relationships are helpful and negative social experiences are unhelpful; this supports the contention that lived experience affects human psychology. This is an astonishing prerequisite for considering whether “psychosis” pathologizes natural emotional suffering (sadness).
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Excellent article. Unfortunately, the New York Times is running a simultaneous article today that celebrates DBS as a potential game changer; it does not mention the failure of research trials.
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Depressing life circumstances do not induce depression?
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Well said.
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I agree; they are denying our humanity by “relegating personal histories to ‘triggers’ of an underlying genetic time bomb.”
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I respectfully disagree; our community considers science to be our best way of understanding ourselves and our environment. Consistently, psychiatry dominates the “mental health” care industry based on its false claim of being a biological science. Hence, I appreciate Joseph’s challenges to their pseudo genetics- to their garbage “science.”
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Well said Rachel 777. It seems therapeutic to understand that depression is a natural reaction to depressing experiences so that depressing experiences can be addressed and countered. Consistently, if depression is understood as the natural reaction to depressing experiences, assistance would take the form of empathy and support rather than drugs and coercion.
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Real biology explains depression as the natural expression of depressing experiences; psychiatry increases prognosis pessimism by pathologizing natural emotional suffering.
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Well said.
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In 1984, the Thought Police force Happy Pills on everyone; in 2019, the Thought Police only force Happy Pills on people when they act unhappy. Beware.
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Steve McCrea is a smart fellow; you could learn a great deal by clicking on his name and reviewing some of his previous comments to other blogs. Steve said that there is no organic criteria for any DSM diagnoses and you disagreed with a link to the National Institute of Health that provides no organic criteria for any DSM diagnoses. The DSM criteria that you referenced are all descriptions of behavior patterns; there are no biological criteria for any DSM diagnoses.
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Your satire is funny because it is articulate and painfully true. However, I thought that I understood the blog completely until Slayer questioned how the blog specified “biological” psychiatry; thereafter, I was confused about the distinction. As an accredited medical science (albeit an illegitimate medical science), all psychiatry is “biological” psychiatry. However, most people who use the term intend to make some distinction from “mainstream” psychiatry; what was your intent?
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Well said.
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I was supporting this comment “thread” that I understood to address how our culture uses fear to pit people against each other – uses fear to “divide and conquer.” I did not understand this thread to challenge my contention that psychiatry pathologizes natural emotions and behaviors, and that this serves as a political tool to delegitimize criticism of social and economic injustice.
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Whitaker and Kindredspirit, Right On!
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Right on!
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Thank you for the community service of speaking the truth about your life. Psychiatry is “trauma denial” in support of existing social structures; it falsely advocates that distressful experiences are an anomaly in an otherwise friendly environment. Psychiatry is trauma denial when advocating that people should “recover” from traumatic experiences without justice and often without cessation of the traumatic experiences. Psychiatry shames the victims of trauma by advocating Pollyanna and a fairy tale world of fairness and goodness; the truth about distressful human experience is antipsychiatry.
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Your comment is confusing: my comment supports the main theme of the blog that criticizes blaming the “mentally ill” for mass shootings instead of blaming a societal failure. Criticizing a culture does not address the behavior of an individual within a culture. I believe that our epidemic of mass shootings is caused by an increasingly hateful and violent culture- a societal failure that includes sedating natural emotions and non-conforming behaviors with neurotoxins.
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Thank you for this articulate and timely blog. It is unfortunate that the obvious truth is currently so difficult for so many people to see: “This blaming ultimately prevents us from acknowledging the obvious truth: the regular presence of mass murders in our society needs to be seen as a societal failure.”
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Well said: “Of course all psychiatric terminology is hate speech.”
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Thank you for your community service in articulately advocating against how standard “mental health” care harms society by pathologizing suicide.
Since psychiatry pathologizes suicide consistent with other natural behaviors that it pathologizes, I am confused about why psychiatry does not include suicide ideation as another mythical DSM diagnosis.
Best wishes, Steve
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Right on!
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I am troubled by psychiatry harming the community with the myth of “mental illness”- by pathologizing natural emotional suffering and natural, non-conforming behaviors. I am also trouble by the term “neurodiversity” when it advocates that “mental illness” is a passageway to special spiritual enlightenment; this puts a positive spin on a harmful myth. I support “neurodiversity” in some contexts but not as a new myth that supports a few people while obscuring the source of a calamity for a multitude of others.
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Thank you for your response; I believe that I am using the term “neurodiverse” in a different context than others. I now understand you and others to use the term “neurodiverse” in a social context about what is “normal” brain functioning (wherein “normal” is understood as common or average). In contrast, I was focusing on a medical context about what is “natural” brain functioning. I agree that there is no “normal” brain functioning but believe that there is “natural” and “unnatural” brain functioning- natural and pathological functioning. I thought that advocates of “neurodiversity” were trying to put a positive spin on “mental disorders” that pathologize natural behaviors through the myth of “mental illness.” It now seems like the term is gaining a wider usage.
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Perhaps victims of psychiatry may rally around the concept of “cognitive liberty”; as you say, time will tell. Most people exclude cognition considered “diseased” when considering “cognitive liberty”; my problem with advocating “cognitive liberty” is that it side-steps addressing the Disease Model that is causing the harm.
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I believe that I misunderstood your previous comment; do you mind me asking about whether you believe that the terms “mad” and “neurodiversity” are without connotations of pathology?
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Advocating cognitive liberty may be more inclusive of all critics of psychiatry but it does not address my fundamental criticism of psychiatry. Thus I support cognitive liberty but cannot rally behind it to challenge the harm caused by the myth of “mental illness”; it is too intellectually abstract to promote political action. I cannot imagine Jews rallying behind cognitive liberty with reformists to challenge the Holocaust or Abolitionists rallying behind cognitive liberty with reformists to challenge slavery. Isn’t advocating cognitive liberty for those suffering from coerced drugging or imprisonment based on a myth insulting to those without physical liberty?
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I consider “neurodiverse” to be similar to “mad”; both terms put a positive spin on a harmful myth that pathologizes natural emotional suffering and other natural “problems in living.” I do not criticize oppressed people for naturally seeking a more positive self-image but doesn’t advocating a positive spin on an oppression detract from a political challenge?
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Thank you for all of your community service in challenging psychiatry.
However, I am concerned that your posted advocacy of “cognitive liberty” discounts the context of psychiatry functioning as a medical science. The community supports human rights violations (and violations of “cognitive liberty”) as unfortunate parts of “medical treatment” for those with “cognitive impairments” that interfere with “sound” judgment. The community generally considers psychiatry to be an altruistic enterprise (albeit with problems).
In contrast, I consider psychiatry to be an illegitimate medical science advocating that natural emotional suffering and other natural problems in living are instead unnatural- medical problems. Psychiatry denies our humanity by advocating the myth of “mental illness”- that emotional suffering is unnatural regardless of cruel and unjust life circumstances. I consider the foundation of all of psychiatry’s harm to be the Myth advocating Pollyanna and a fairy tale world of goodness and fairness (in support of existing social structures). Doesn’t a reformist perspective of psychiatry imply that it has a legitimate goal that deserves reforming rather than being an illegitimate medical science pathologizing social welfare problems?
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Thank you for this post; I am also uncomfortable with the term “neurodiverse” for all of the reasons that you articulately state.
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I agree that it seems critically important to have at least one person in your life who can affirm your personal value, but it also seems important to have some additional luck in navigating through life after such horrific childhood experiences.
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Interesting point about free will; psychiatry is illogical, socially-constructed science that shifts positions about free will. Psychiatry implies that behavior it deems prosocial is a function of free will and behavior it deems antisocial is a function of genetics (unless the “antisocial” behavior is deemed criminal wherein it is again a function of free will).
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Thank you for your community service in addressing harmful pseudoscience.
When a scientific inquiry is described as “political”, most people think of a disagreement between two different perspectives of an issue, but this is not the case with twin studies. The politics of twin studies is the worst in science because it is one-sided. The politics of twin studies is a “confirmation bias” that is so strong that almost anything passes for scientific support (as you well document in your books on behavioral genetics).
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I appreciate Robert Whitaker responding to comments.
My preceding comment about MIA not rejecting the “fundamental legitimacy” of psychiatry references psychiatry’s legitimacy as a medical science. My opinion is based on MIA’s mission statement that seeks the goal of “remaking psychiatry.” Seeking to “remake psychiatry” implies that psychiatry’s goals warrant pursuing- that “mental disorders” are medical problems and the legitimate purview of medical science.
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Thank you, Dr. Caplan; this excellent post is a valuable community service. I also want to thank Robert Whitaker for his support in its publication as well as his extremely valuable community service.
However, I believe that Dr. Caplan misunderstands MIA and its policies. Whitaker’s comments in this article and the MIA mission statement are extremely critical of psychiatry but do not describe psychiatry and its DSM as lacking fundamental legitimacy. Consistently, Whitaker is quoted as saying that MIA uses common diagnostic terms without intending to support their validity; he does not say that diagnostic terms completely lack validity. The myth of “mental illness” is a classical paradigm with deep roots; we should expect quotation marks around “psychiatric disorders” in the introduction to the MIA mission statement before expecting quotations in their blog postings.
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Psychiatry is “trauma denial”; “trauma informed care” is dishonest. A trauma is a distressful experience of a distressful environment; in contrast, psychiatry implies that a trauma is a distressful experience of an otherwise friendly, supportive environment. Psychiatry denies trauma from bullying, discrimination, poverty and sexual assault by advocating that victims “recover” from their legitimate fears while their environments remain dangerous and hostile. Psychiatry similarly denies trauma from child abuse and the sorrow of war by advocating that victims “recover” from their distressful experiences while the community ostensibly ignores its reality.
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Your comments are staggeringly articulate!
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Psychiatry believes that they are “working with a body” that is not affected by personal experience. Psychiatry denies our humanity when it relegates lived experience to “triggers of an underlying genetic time bomb.”
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Psychiatry is a secondary police force that manages “non-productive, non-conforming and disruptive behaviors” with little legal restraint; it is unusual to obtain legal redress from the abuses of psychiatry. The World Health Organization supports psychiatry by defining “mental health” as a function of productivity- emotional well-being from productivity. The predominance of survivors of psychiatry were seen as “ne’er do wells” in order to qualify for psychiatric abuse.
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Yeah_I_Survived, Szasz’s libertarianism has never been a problem for me; it seems like a natural reaction to his experiences of oppression and authoritarianism. Szasz understood the term “therapeutic state” to describe a secondary police force to manage dissent of authoritarianism; he was addressing social control rather than social welfare. The term “therapeutic state” is now more often used to describe a government that believes in social welfare; this is not how Szasz used the term.
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Thank you for allowing me to comment. I believe that you and the book about Szasz misunderstand his greatness and legacy: he is the first to articulate that “mental illness” is a “myth.” The authors deny Szasz’s true legacy by denying that this is a medical issue of catastrophic proportion. Psychiatry has power as science- a medical science; Dr. James Knoll ignores this fact when he claims that psychiatry is “a hybrid profession of clinical science and humanities.” Consistently, Dr. Haldipur does Szasz a disservice when he states that “Szasz’s own writings are best read as philosophy rather than as psychiatry.” This misunderstanding of Szasz’s legacy permits the author to review a book from one of the greatest medical doctors in history as if it was a purview of the humanities. Szasz was the first articulate medical doctor to describe psychiatry as addressing a myth; this challenge to psychiatry’s legitimacy as a medical science will be his legacy!
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This is really an excellent comment for two reasons: it articulately addresses Psychiatry’s advocacy of Pollyanna and how the community re-abuses those who have experienced childhood trauma. Psychiatry advocates Pollyanna in a fairy tale world of goodness. Psychiatry falsely implies that Adverse Childhood Experiences are an anomaly in a world of fairness and altruism wherein cruelty and social and economic injustice are successfully redressed through established social structures. Psychiatry denies the reality of trauma; it is an experience of a distressful environment rather than a distressful experience in an otherwise friendly environment. Also, I read an article at this website that described how adults who were “diagnosed” with Adverse Childhood Experiences were considered risky candidates for adoption; the cruelty and injustice are staggering.
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Thank you for your painful community service. The thought of attaching electricity machines to children’s foreheads to address emotional suffering or other natural “problem with living” while disrupting needed sleep makes me cry too.
Anatomy of an Epidemic documents the epidemic of “mental illness” associated with an explosion of psychiatric drug prescriptions but does not focus on childhood statistics. The epidemic of autism for younger children and ADHD for older children is a greater epidemic than the epidemic for the general public. This is an iatrogenic public health crisis of historic proportions that lacks a historical perspective; anyone who grew up in the fifties can inform the community that childhood “mental illness” is a substantially modern invention.
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Thank you for years of community service in challenging the harm of psychiatry.
Psychiatry has power in the community because it purports to be scientific; in contrast, the “mind-body problem” is a philosophical problem. This blog is an interesting philosophical commentary on human nature but our community considers science to be our best way to understand ourselves and our environment. The power of psychiatry to harm the community with the myth of “mental illness” rests substantially on a community belief that psychiatry is a legitimate biological (medical) science. Unfortunately, as a medical doctor discussing the “mind-body problem”, you create the implication that psychiatry has some legitimacy as a biological science.
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“Life events have been relegated to the role of triggers of an underlying genetic time bomb.” I consider this an impactful quote and would like to quote the phrase. Read stated that “I stole that phrase. I have to give credit where credit’s due. That came from the chair of the American Psychiatric Association that year – Steven Sharfstein – who was a very brave psychiatrist and wrote a piece in Psychiatry News.” However, Sharfstein has only one article in Psychiatry News and it does not include the quote.
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I believe that there is some truth in your anecdotal evidence but do not understand how the rate of autism has increased disproportionate to the rate and dosage of vaccinations. Trauma causes “problems with living” and a shot of toxins can be traumatic; therefore, I believe that doses of MMR should be reduced with more frequent injections. Thank you for your community service in supporting suffering parents.
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Approaching a 100-fold increase in the rate of “Autism Spectrum Disorder” is a staggering epidemic of diagnoses! We have a substantial increase in childhood “problems with living’ but I do not believe that the problems are caused by screen time (or vaccines). I contend that the increase is substantially due to the increase in pediatric intervention in childhood since 1980, the shift in psychiatry to increased medicalization of all “problems with living”, and the substantial increase in childhood stress. Psychiatry and “childhood development” specialists are harming our children; no one can learn anything with someone watching over their shoulder, second-guessing every move!
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I oppose the myth of “mental illness” as well as coerced “treatments” and do not believe that coerced treatments can be prevented without challenging the myth. Psychiatry advocates that natural emotional suffering (and other natural “problems with living”) is a medical problem that causes a loss of normal brain function wherein a moral society should intervene to assist. False medical legitimacy promotes the myth of “mental illness” that promotes the standard coercive “treatments” of psychiatry. Get rid of the medical science legitimacy of psychiatry and I have no problem with it operating as a philosophy or theology.
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I_e_cox,
I believe that we will need a Truth and Reconciliation commission to figure how to go forward after Psychiatry has been delegitimized as a medical science.
I definitely believe that our society should provide social services to those who suffer emotionally or struggle with other natural problems with living.
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In this Comments section of this blog on this website, this post seems like a troll.
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Psychiatry pathologizes natural emotional suffering (and other natural problems with living); it advocates a Pollyanna World. Pathologizing sadness with the myth of “mental illness” is a crime against humanity; it causes increased emotional suffering (and other natural “problems with living”). Understanding psychiatry as a tool that delegitimizes natural emotional suffering in support of cultural practices is critical for challenging this harmful narrative.
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Your comment makes sense; I cannot imagine slaves discussing reparations before they were freed.
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Psychiatry pathologizes emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living”; this is a harmful, false narrative that causes more “problems with living” than could possibly be remedied by any “mental health” technology.
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I agree; expecting an “alternative” to psychiatry implies that there is a valuable service provided.
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Sam and Rachel, my apologies; I state that “The myth of ‘mental illness’ serves the function of social control for a secular world consistent with ‘demonic possession’ for a theological world.” Thereafter, I erroneously (and misleadingly) substituted “exorcism” for “demonic possession”; exorcism is a “cure” for “demonic possession” similar to burning possessed people.
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Our community believes in the myth of “mental illness” that advocates a Pollyanna World. Our culture believes that emotional suffering is unnatural regardless of cruel and unjust life experiences- regardless of predominately distressful life circumstances. The myth of a Pollyanna World must be exposed.
The myth of “mental illness” serves the function of social control for a secular world consistent with “demonic possession” for a theological world. Exorcism is difficult to understand as a means of social control for someone who believes in the myth of “demonic possession.” Exorcism is BOTH a “false” theological belief intended to “help people” AND a tool of social control. Consistently, psychiatry is both a false medical science intended to help people and a tool of social control. The myth of a Pollyanna World must be challenged.
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I disagree with this post of mine. I defined psychiatry in a way that is both (A) and (B) and thereafter described these two definitions as “perceptions.”
Perhaps my problem comes with the term “assigned” in definition (B) above. I believe that psychiatry is “assigned” to help people but “serves” a controlling and repressive function like exorcism for “demonic possession.” We live in a community that predominately believes in the myth of “mental illness.”
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“A key issue to be sorted out is exactly what IS psychiatry? Is it A) A rogue or “failed” branch of medicine meant to help people or B) A parallel police force assigned to control and repress people?” These are two different questions that are confusing because they are posed as one question; the first addresses psychiatry and the second addresses perceptions of psychiatry.
Psychiatry is an illegitimate medical science that pathologizes painful emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living” with the myth of “mental illness”; this serves community leaders as a tool of social control. Most people believe that psychiatry is meant to help people until it is understood as a harmful, false myth. Even when people understand the myth, it is so ingrained that people often have difficulty considering it as having the purpose of delegitimizing suffering for social control.
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“Would the anti-psychiatry folks like those who are severely out of it (“mentally ill”) wandering around homeless muttering to themselves?” Psychiatry pathologizes emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living”; it worsens natural problems with living by defining them as diseases. Challenging this erroneous narrative will reduce community problems with living and promote assistance to the most needy in the community.
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What a touching tribute; we should all celebrate such community service!
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“Failure to replicate” is an often repeated phrase in psychiatry research; perhaps they should reconsider the hypothesis.
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Psychiatry is a strong nocebo.
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I did not intend to make light of psychiatric abuses prior to 1980.
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I do not believe that my comments were an “official narrative” but do agree that pathologizing emotional suffering (and other natural “problems with living”) is a tool of social control (and repression), and should be described within this context.
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Thank you for your community service in challenging the harm of psychiatry. I agree that “the huge expansion of the mental health enterprise began in 1980, with the APA adopting its disease model, and that is the enterprise that swept Laura into its midst.” However, I disagree with connotations related to psychiatry’s “medical model” as if its previous model was not a “medical model.”
Prior to 1980, psychiatry advocated a “medical model” based on Freudian theory. Psychiatry is considered a medical profession; their previous model was therefore also a “medical model” albeit less expansive. Psychiatry’s current “medical model” was a response to criticism of its theoretical foundation on Freudian theory. The Freudian model was problematic for psychiatry because it was an indefensible narrative (ids, egos and superegos); it also described the vast majority of “mental disorders” (“neuroses”) as non-medical problems. Psychiatry was rightly criticized for an indefensible narrative and over-reach. Psychiatry was in trouble in 1980; it could stick with Freudian theory and loose domain over “neuroses”, or dump Freud and claim that all “neuroses” were thereafter medical problems (under their purview).
With the DSM-III, psychiatry abandoned an underlying (Freudian) theory and reasserted itself as a medical profession with its “medical model” as if the abandoned “Freudian model” was not a “medical model.” It is true that after 1980, psychiatry and Big Pharma cast a much wider net that is causing catastrophic harm but psychiatry’s model has always been medical; its survival depends upon it. All medical sciences consider themselves to be biological sciences; only “biological psychiatry” uses redundancy to promote legitimacy. Consistently, all medical sciences consider their models to be “medical models”; only psychiatry uses redundancy to promote legitimacy.
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This is well written and deserved to be published.
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I agree that “if people are being given drugs for fraudulent and deceptive purposes, THAT should be the issue.”
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Good point; psychiatry is a powerful nocebo!
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“People are living up or down to expectations.” The power of placebos and nocebos is vastly underrated.
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Well said.
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The legitimacy of psychiatric coercion is based on the legitimacy of psychiatry as a medical science addressing “broken brains” that cause personal and public harm. Based on the prevailing psychiatric narrative, psychiatric coercion is humane treatment since individuals have lost their ability to make sound judgments about their own behavior. The harm of psychiatric coercion will continue as long as psychiatry is an accredited medical science; only through delegitimizing psychiatry will its coercion become obvious human rights violations.
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In reference to “abolishing” psychiatry, I want to delegitimize psychiatry as a medical science. Psychiatry advocates a harmful philosophy of “mind”; it should not be considered a medical, biological science since it does not address the physical world. I have no problem with psychiatry continuing as a philosophy or religion; I have a problem with psychiatry passing as a medical (biological) science.
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It seems that initial targets of abolitionists should include the definition of “antipsychiatry” that instead defines “critical psychiatry”; Wikipedia for instance hardly mentions abolition in its definition. It seems difficult to “grow” a “movement” to abolish psychiatry as long as “antipsychiatry” does not mention abolition.
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Right on!
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Thank you for this post and allowing comments; you make some good points but miss others. I believe that you misunderstand the problems caused by pathologizing natural emotional suffering. Most of your patients (and the community) believe that anxiety and depression are caused by a mythical “mental illness”; affirmation from a diagnosis is therefore often empowering. People have faith in medical treatments including medicines; a diagnosis is a cause for celebration when patients believe that it is the first step in identifying and resolving the cause of anxiety and depression. This is problematic because anxiety is caused by distressful experiences and depression is caused by depressing experiences rather than medical problems.
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Please allow me to join the chorus of those praising this article as a valuable community service; “the message” is important and you are an articulate spokesperson.
My criticism of psychiatry focuses on medical schools who legitimize its harmful “medical model” narrative as medical science; a (harmful) philosophy of “mind” is not a biological, medical science. The “medical model” is actually the “disease model” since it has no medical legitimacy.
Pathologizing natural emotional suffering is a crime against humanity!
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I do not understand how “the influence our bacterial makeup (microbiome) has on our thoughts, feelings and behaviors” implies that “the brain is not the sole (or perhaps even the primary) ‘home’ of cognition and affect.” Brain “health” (from nutrition, bacteria balance, rest, etc.) affects thoughts and behaviors.
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I disagree with the underlying premise that supports this study; it is a generally accepted foundation for much of Behavioral Neuroscience but should not qualify as real science. Studying animal behavior to glean an understanding of human behavior and human genetic influences is based on two generations of abstractions. First scientists must decide how to model human behavior to study it; modeling human behavior is a difficult abstraction since scientists do not understand human behavior. Thereafter, behavioral scientists often attempt to apply the modeled human behavior to an animal population for research; this is so fraught with wild assumptions that the description of “wild abstraction” is an extreme understatement. Studying human psychology and genetic influences from an animal population is two levels of abstraction from directly studying human psychology and genetic influences; it should not qualify as real science.
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Well said.
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“Biological” psychiatry replaced Freudian psychiatry but has now become synonymous with “psychiatry that pushes drugs hard” vs. “psychiatry that pushes drugs with more finesse.” As along as psychiatry is an accredited medical (biological) science, “biological psychiatry” is redundant and all psychiatry is biological psychiatry- a “medical science” that pathologizes natural behaviors.
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Well said, Kindredspirit, and great followup Steve.
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Yes; I am opposed to psychiatry. Its existence as a medical science promotes the myth of “mental illness” that pathologizes natural emotional suffering or other natural problems with living.”
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Right on.
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Consistent with Steve’s comment below, drug abuse from neuroleptics causes “majorly depressing experiences”- majorly depressing iatrogenic harm.
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I agree and appreciate the clarification.
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“Alarmingly, between 2005 and 2017, the occurrence of a major depressive episode in the last year leapt 52% among adolescents, and 63% among young adults.” This epidemic of “mental illness” represents either an alarming increase in depressing experiences among our adolescents and young adults or an alarming public health crisis. We must immediately consider whether an enemy has released some kind of mysterious pathogen targeting our youth or whether their “major depression” is caused by their “majorly depressing experiences.”
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The researchers are unable to replicate any support for genetic causation of depression consistent with their inability to replicate any genetic causation for any “mental illness”; the inability to replicate is the story here. Jay Joseph has written books and blogs on this subject; genetic research is bad science based on failure to do “double-bind studies” and control for the confirmation bias (besides failure to replicate). Depressive experiences cause depression; unfortunately, researchers cannot quantify this hypothesis nor falsify it.
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Sounds great… and I’ll definitely check out your Reign of Error; sounds like you’ve been a heavy hitter for decades.
Best wishes, Steve
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I am sorry that I was slow to realize that you responded here to my letter.
I believe that your blog post is exceptionally articulate and that you speak professionally on your YouTube productions; I want to encourage you further. I believe that there is a problem with publishing on YouTube; once a video is published, there is no opportunity to further edit it. I would like to suggest considering a video streaming website like Vimeo where you can publish, edit and republish for increased impact. You have excellent presentation skills; my criticism of psychiatry (https://vimeo.com/185916512) has improved substantially with editing but would nevertheless be much improved if I possessed your on-camera talent.
I look forward to your MIA interview and hope to discuss psychiatry with you further.
Best wishes, Steve
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I agree that capitalism causes “problems with living” but you are implying that it is the only cause (and that only people in capitalist countries have “problems with living”).
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What is wrong with Szasz’ term “problems with living” and “people experiencing ‘problems with living’?”
I contend that psychiatry pathologizes expressions of natural emotional suffering. The World Health Organization supports psychiatry by defining “mental health” as “emotional well-being” and thereby implying that natural emotional suffering is pathological. I like the term “problems with living” because it is broad enough to go beyond emotional suffering to include other natural problems with living that the DSM pathologizes as unnatural.
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I mostly agree with you and admire your approach; it seems valuable for replicating. I believe that all emotional suffering is natural based on personal experience. I specify emotional suffering from “cruel and unjust life circumstances” as a means to challenge psychiatry’s advocacy that emotional suffering is unnatural regardless of life circumstances.
However, you seem to support my point about distressful life circumstances with this concluding remark: “Sometimes, we do it to ourelves, with our own critical and self-judgmental voices, which would be what we carry inside of us due to early trauma.” It seems like a distressful, “unjust life circumstance” to carry critical self-judgement due to early trauma.
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Steve just said: “the problem with ‘mental health’ is that it implies that people who are suffering are somehow ‘ill'”; I agree totally. “Mental health” implicitly legitimizes “mental illness” and “mental illness” pathologizes natural emotional suffering (emotional pain) from distressful personal experience- from cruel and unjust life circumstances.
Steve also said that “mental health” “means not being upset in any way with the status quo.” I agree assuming that “the status quo” references the cruel and unjust life circumstances that cause natural emotional suffering.
Steve also said: “controlling language is part of controlling the narrative”; I totally agree. I have experienced extreme emotional suffering from cruel and unjust life circumstances that naturally promoted behaviors that the DSM describes as “bipolar disorder.” My emotional pain caused me to react in ways that others might consider “irrational” but this is unfair focus since expressions of physical pain are generally irrational and not judged as pathological. People experiencing physical torture see visions and hear voices but are not judged as “mentally ill.” Personally, I relate to having been an “emotional sufferer”; I consider terms like “crazy” or “nuts” or “bonkers” to falsely imply that my thinking or behavior was less than natural.
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Thank you for this article; it is a community service. I contend that neuroleptics have a sedative affect that naturally causes a loss of brain volume (nervous tissue volume) through atrophy. Neuroleptics have a sedative effect that reduces nervous tissue usage; reduced nervous tissue usage causes atrophy consistent with how reduced usage causes atrophy of all other body tissues. Increased brain activity from cessation of neuroleptics will increase nervous tissue volume (brain volume) consistent with rebuilding muscle tissue when a cast is removed. It is illogical for scientists to attribute loss of brain volume to a mythical disease when it is readily understandable through basic physiology theory.
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Steve, well said.
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Psychiatry kills more with its nocebo effect than with its drugs.
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Psychiatry is a nocebo by advocating the myth of “mental illness”; a nocebo promotes negative health outcomes through negative thinking (consistent with how a placebo promotes positive health outcomes through positive thinking). Testing for “problems with living” that are intended to predict “psychosis” (increased “problems with living” pathologized by psychiatry) creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that harms health- real (physical) health.
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This is an excellent article; thank you Bruce. I would like to add that psychiatrists are often more authoritarian than other “doctors” because they do not know what they are doing, have little success in their “practice”, and resent their patients for not affirming their medical school “expertise.” This is also the reason psychiatrists have a higher rate of suicide than other “medical” professions.
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My previous post was intended for William but I now want it directed to you as well because a note that I emailed to your address at “Nyghtfalcon.com” was rejected by them.
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I have a couple ideas that I would like to discuss with you about what I think that individuals can do to challenge the legitimacy of psychiatry. You can contact me through “Contact” information provided at an online therapy program that I administer at UnifiedAlternatives.org
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I consider your blog post to be articulate and am interested in more of your work but find it difficult to follow. I expected your website to be collections of your criticisms of psychiatry; instead it looks like a “fabulous” collection of home furnishings for sale. You speak well on your 50 YouTube videos but they do not appear to be categorized or integrated so their relative value is hard to determine. Is there a way to contact you for more information about your work?
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Psychiatry has reified the metaphor “mental illness” into a subject addressed by a “medical science”; the “debate” I envision addresses the illogic of reifying a metaphor. “Mental illness” is one of the few metaphors (together with “mental health”) that is considered literally true; this foolishness needs to be identified.
I consider the “debate” about whether human suffering is due to a “neurological problem” or “social conditions” to be equally foolish in nature but also equally important. The disconnect between distressful experiences and emotional suffering seems foolish but this denial of our basic humanity is widely accepted and needs challenging.
Nevertheless, I agree that the most important debate is about “messaging”- how best to expose the truth about psychiatry.
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I agree that you are in excellent company in the belief that the biggest problem with psychiatry lies with its police power but the source of that power lies with its false scientific (medical) legitimacy. I agree that psychiatry would collapse from the weight of the truth if it lost its police powers but I do not believe that society will restrain psychiatry as long as medical science legitimizes the myth of “mental illness.” If a medical science tells society that “diagnosed people” are a “danger to themselves and others”, coercive “treatments” are a natural result… to protect “patients” from themselves (as well as protecting society). There may be plenty of situations where an MD might be helpful with “diagnosed people” but the legitimacy of psychiatry and its myth of “mental illness” seem like their biggest problem.
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I find this article to be one of the more compelling and articulate that I have read here at MIA; thank you for your community service. Nevertheless, I have some disagreement with your conclusion.
“If it were recognized by our people that science is irrelevant to the debate over whether society’s fears should trump individual rights to liberty, then we could begin what will be the long struggle to win such a debate.”
I do not believe that “the debate” has ever been about whether “society’s fears should trump individual rights to liberty”; the debate is about whether “mental illness” is a real medical problem or a myth. You articulately argue that “mental illness” is a myth but do not advocate for the abolition of the “medical science” that legitimizes the myth. Psychiatry does substantial harm to the community by advocating that natural emotional suffering is a medical problem that inhibits “healthy” thinking and the ability to make “sound” judgments; this legitimizes the coercion. I contend that the issue is about “science”: a harmful narrative about natural emotional suffering that passes for medical “science.”
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Please allow me to amend my above statement to: “With psychiatry and its myth of ‘mental illness’, the logic goes that life is fair and just (in the community) and therefore emotional suffering must be caused by a malfunctioning ‘mind’- with a medical (biological) problem.” Pathologizing natural emotional suffering is a tool that delegitimizes personal traumas (like child abuse) as well as political and economic injustice and alienation.
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I disagree with your analogy; I consider psychiatry to be a fear mongering, secular religion that addresses emotional suffering (emotional pain) consistent with the way “demonic possession” is a fear mongering religious belief that addresses emotional suffering. With “demonic possession”, emotional suffering is considered an affront to religion; the logic goes that if people truly believe, then they would not be suffering emotionally. With psychiatry and its myth of “mental illness”, the logic goes that our culture is fair and just and therefore the marginalized and disenfranchised must be malfunctioning “mentally” with a medical (biological) problem.
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Antipsychiatry is rejected by most anti-capitalists; it cannot become “closely linked” to anti-capitalism.
“Psychiatry is a harmful narrative, metaphor, oxymoron and pseudo biology”; that is the message that I believe will best promote antipsychiatry (as well as better economics and politics).
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How far from an understanding of basic humanity must psychiatry move before it becomes a bad joke? Psychiatry is absurd in proposing that loneliness is a disease that causes isolation (a disconnect from the community) rather than isolation naturally causing loneliness.
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I do not know about your experiences of the 1990’s, but it seems obnoxious to claim that “I was never a racist until that decade came along” in commenting about a tribute to Dr. King. Consistently, yes, I believe that racism had something to do with Trump winning.
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Painfully true: “a guaranteed income would alleviate the need for many to identify with a “mental illness” label in order to receive receive sustenance.” I spoke with a woman this week who was struggling for sustenance; they would not give her food stamps because she could work even though she could not find employment and was hungry.
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“Picking up trash and raking leaves” has not brought the community much justice since Dr. King passed.
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Thank you Cat and Steve for your community service.
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Right on.
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Open Dialogue is more successful than other “treatments” because it addresses “mental illness” like it is a myth (a social problem with living). It is more successful when addressing emotional suffering within a community that has more empathy for emotional sufferers. It is less successful within the US because the larger community is more hostile, and the program is more “technical” (like it is addressing “mental illness” rather than a problem with living) and therefore more expensive.
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It is really hard to understand something when your livelihood depends on not understanding it.
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Please consider a different perspective: Your life experiences including your experiences with your “ex” are extremely distressful; your distress causes emotional suffering that is painful. It is natural for people in extreme fatigue and people in extreme pain (both physical and emotional) to have delusions and hallucinations. Unfortunately, you believe the accepted medical model paradigm led by psychiatry that advocates that delusions and hallucinations are symptoms of a pathology. It is hard to understand how psychiatry pathologizes sadness because its “medical model” is a classical paradigm. A classical paradigm is accepted by most people without question; our community generally believes that sadness is unnatural regardless of cruel and unjust life circumstances. The least fortunate 2% of the population have a human right to avoid abuse and a human right to suffer from abusive experiences according to the UN commission on human rights.
All emotions are natural; they are direct reflections of personal experience. Your fear of your ex is natural regardless of an “objective analysis”; you earned your fear the hard way. It is a crime against humanity to pathologize sadness.
Your husband comes from a family rife with emotional suffering from distressful circumstances (rather than “mental illness”). He learned empathy for emotional suffering including the suffering of an uncle who took his own life when the natural emotional pain (and hopelessness for relief) became overwhelming. He understands the value of emotional support for symptoms of emotional suffering rather than treat the behaviors as symptoms of “mental illness.” Supportive environments promote emotional well-being; in contrast, pathologizing natural emotional suffering worsens distress.
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It sounds like “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” “Writing a memoir for years” is a great idea and will help you better understand yourself and the world around you. Your courage in addressing hostile comments will serve you well; you will become wiser in “learning to be less offensive” as you better understand views that “are difficult to explain.” I am looking forward to reading more of your perspective. Please feel free to use me for a sounding board if you like; I can be reached through a free therapy program that I administer at UnifiedAlternatives.org.
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This website does not appear to welcome “spammers and scammers”; I assume that they would manage the site better with more volunteers.
Also, the moderator seems apolitical; perhaps more than “leftists” found your comments “offensive.”
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Thank you for your community service.
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Your first post was right on.
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I experienced post-trauma stress; I suffered emotionally for years after the trauma. My response was a “normal” reaction to my unique experiences with the wrongful deaths of over a half million people. Instead of acknowledging my natural reaction to my life circumstances, psychiatry invented PTSD. “Personality disorders” exist like PTSD exists; they are made-up diseases that pathologize natural reactions to trauma.
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I might add to Steve’s great description of the scientific method that hypotheses are to be stated in advance of research (to be proved or disproved) rather than concluded from research. Research on identical twins that legitimizes behavioral genetics is substantially based on a confirmation bias that accepts coincidences as science.
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People seek emotional well-being (positive emotions) and avoid emotional suffering (negative emotions). Happiness and confidence are expressions of emotional well-being while sadness and fear are expressions of emotional suffering (and related coping styles deemed disabling). Consistently, common behavior patterns that express emotional suffering are described in categories by the DSM. Loving someone generally promotes emotional well-being for the person being loved; in contrast, psychiatry generally promotes emotional suffering for clients by pathologizing their natural emotional suffering.
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Right on.
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The “scientific method” is the same in “hard science” and “soft science”; the difference is that “social science” applies the method to social philosophy while “real” science applies the method to the “real” (material) world.
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This is a discussion of “Hard Science vs. Soft Science.” “Hard Science” is real science; it uses the “scientific method” to address the physical world. “Soft Science” is “sciency”; it uses the “scientific method” to address the non-physical world. Soft science contradicts the most fundamental principle of science (parsimony) and cannot be falsified (in contrast to the philosophy of science). Medical sciences are biological sciences- real science that addresses the physical world; actually, medical science is real science except for psychiatry that addresses a philosophy of “mind.” Psychiatry is soft science (“social science”) that masquerades as hard science- real science.
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“If one takes the work of these researches work to ALL its ultimate conclusion (looking at the social and political role of psychiatry in today’s world), there is NO OTHER justice worthy conclusion than to *abolish* psychiatry.”
Richard, this makes perfect sense if the researchers were not hedging their bets with their terminology and thus implying that there is still some kind of medical “disorder” being addressed consistent with KindredSpriit’s larger comment above.
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Interesting point; I embraced the term in the sixties as empowering.
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Language is about usage; I personally consider the terms “mad” and “crazy” to have negative connotations about experiences that are labeled as such.
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I wish that I had saved a post at MIA by a psychiatrist who described the brain volume loss as due to atrophy from under-utilization of nervous tissue. He described how brain volume loss was only common in older institutionalized patients until “biological” psychiatry replaced “Freudian” psychiatry with more drugs. Since then, he is witnessing brain atrophy in “patients” at substantially earlier ages based on sedating nervous tissue with neuroleptics.
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I believe that “sad” and “frightened” better describe most people identified as having a “mental disorder”, but I cannot imagine feeling pride in my experience of extreme sadness (regardless of the righteous causation).
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“Dementia” is substantially “old age denial”, but who cares about (non-productive) old people?
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This may be a valuable intermediary step but the logic is difficult to understand. When the absurdity of PTSD addresses all “mental disorders”, pathologizing natural reactions to trauma should seem wrong. It is unfortunate that “trauma-informed-care” critically ignores the obvious- that distress is the natural (rather than pathological) reaction to trauma.
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I would value your feedback.
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I am not uncomfortable with what you say; I am a neuroscientist who would love to talk neuroscience with an informed critic. Please consider my criticism of the “neuroscience” of psychiatry at (http://delegitimizepsychiatry.org/pdf/Coalition_Neuroscience.pdf); I seek feedback of the “real” science.
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“From the very beginning, psychiatry was co-opted by governments to do the dirty work of eliminating people who are different from some arbitrary “norm.”
Not true: from the very beginning, religion was co-opted by governments to do the dirty work of eliminating people who are different from some arbitrary “norm” through accusations of “demonic possession.”
“It’s easier to call for the destruction of something than to engage in the process of inventing something new.”
I call for the destruction of “arbitrary ‘norms'” (both secular and non-secular); I do not want to “engage in the process of inventing something new” that can define “arbitrary norms.” Psychiatry pathologizes natural emotional suffering (and coping methods deemed disabling- non-conforming, non-productive and/or disruptive) consistent with “exorcist” priests who advocate against “demonic possession.” Actually, destroying psychiatry by exposing the hoax will “invent something new”: an understanding of our humanity (the expression of extreme emotional suffering from extremely distressful experiences).
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“Voice hearing simulations” are problematic because they falsely imply that voices do not have personal meaning.
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This is a great article for parents who attend your workshop (parents with “regrets” or “shame”); parental honesty about shortcomings and weaknesses empowers children with more truth about their distressful experiences. Parents who care about their children and try to be nurturing deserve sympathy and more resources; parents who promote the myth of “mental illness” as a defense against parental shortcomings do not deserve sympathy.
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There is none.
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Twin studies are the ultimate support for popular theories about genetic links to behavior; thank you for exposing the pseudoscience of this false, harmful narrative.
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And if your life circumstances were traumatically cruel and unjust (creating a living hell for you and “causing severe disabling anxiety”), psychiatry would “gaslight” you by attributing causation to a mythical “mental illness.”
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Scientology is an increasingly corrupt cult; conflating antipsychiatry with Scientology is psychiatry’s best defense so I consider any association problematic.
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I consider myself a natural scientist so I appreciate the effort by Enrico to consider a natural science perspective of anxiety; I also appreciate his allowing me to offer a different perspective. In contrast to the most fundamental principle of science- parsimony, I believe that Enrico is presenting an “Evolutionary Psychology” perspective of anxiety that lacks “parsimony.” Parsimony is the principle of Ockham’s razor: “all other things being equal, simpler theories are better” (“Fewer assumptions make better science”). “Evolutionary Psychologists” freely move from general evolutionary theory to explaining specific behaviors while they do not understand the process; making broad assumptions about the product of an unknown mental process is not science.
Thereafter, Enrico shifts from a pseudo natural science perspective to a humanistic-existential perspective that describes anxiety as “signifying something of significance that is being emotionally disavowed, or that life-enhancing sources of self-fulfillment are not being attended to.” A simple evolutionary perspective seems like better science: anxiety is the negative feeling (emotion) of distressful experiences that promotes their avoidance.
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“So you’ve got a depressed man with delusions and hallucinations – what’s the plan?” Since depression is a naturally painful expression of depressing life circumstances, I would ask if there was anything that I could do to help. I would promote more justice if possible, but since I would probably have little ability to promote more justice, I would generally offer empathy. I would also reference a therapy program that understands emotional suffering as natural consistent with Unified Alternative Therapies (free online at UnifiedAlternatives.org), Open Dialogue and e-CPR.
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Psychiatry is the “main”, medical “means” of “dealing” with “mental/emotional distress”; this is harmful since emotional suffering is not a medical problem. An “alternative” to understanding emotional suffering as a medical problem is understanding emotional suffering as a spiritual problem as with “demonic possession.” A more truthful “alternative” to psychiatry and its medical interpretation of emotional suffering is understanding emotional expressions of distress as natural. I think people need to understand this alternative to psychiatry in order to understand psychiatry.
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I thought that Abu-Jamal was widely heralded for justifiable homicide in response to racist police violence rather than for mistaken identity; I will investigate further.
I am a US citizen; any specific reason why you considered me to be Canadian?
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I understand that Wikipedia is not an academic reference but I was criticized for not knowing “common” knowledge about racial injustice rather than “deeper” knowledge.
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Oldhead, I am not a racist for disagreeing about Abu-Jamal; his extensive Wikipedia article does not mention a “passenger in Mumia’s brother’s car.”
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Annette’s list of icons all practiced non-violence; I assume that Abu-Jamal endured great injustice but do not believe he was framed for murder (and do not believe that he is white).
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Numerous “survivors” may want to promote such a cause. Legal folks might have trouble with Miranda rights for a “psychiatric hold” since Miranda rights address an “arrest” and a “psychiatric hold” is not an “arrest.”
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Well said, Out and LavenderSage.
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Well said.
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Therapists/counselors “take” money to “give” emotional support to “clients”; this obligates them to cease this business relationship before “taking” emotional support from “clients.”
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I used the term “client” to address the “business” obligation of a “therapist/counselor” in our (capitalistic) society. Lawyers and therapists are contracted to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own interests related to the type of work provided. Sexual behavior is about self-interest so this type of relationship should not qualify for “tough love.”
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I agree that this should not be about personalities and that Will could improve his “‘therapeutic’ skills” with more insight into psychiatry, but I sought more sensitivity to what I perceived as an expression of deep emotional suffering from a person working hard to do right by others.
I thought that the term “patient” was the worse term because it implied a business relationship based on medical science. I thought that “client” referenced the fact that counselors/therapists have a fiduciary (business) duty to people that they “counsel.” I assume that you dislike the term “client” because it implies a balanced relationship when many (most?) people do not voluntarily seek counseling (and fewer are treated with the respect that “clients” are due and generally are afforded). I believe that I used the term properly in the above context but agree that it hardly applies to most situations as counselors/therapists rarely respect the business relationship. What is your preferred term to reference those in “counseling/therapy”?
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You have worked tirelessly in support of the marginalized; I am sorry that your work does not give you more comfort. The abuse that you have experienced in your life seems to make you especially sensitive to the emotional suffering of others. This seems to make you an especially good therapist for everyone but yourself; you are not protecting yourself from abuse.
Abused people often seek pure honesty and fail to notice the standard social practice of criticizing friends and colleagues with a “good cop, bad cop” routine. In other words, when a friend says something objectionable while thinking that you are supportive, people often respond about how others now consider the comment objectionable. This leaves your personal criticism vague while supporting the general criticism of the transgression. “Bold” people may consider this a “weak” approach to conflict resolution but I consider it a communication tool. It is easy to be bold with strangers and others’ companies but difficult to criticize friends and one’s business colleagues.
Abused people also tend to seek redemption for transgressions through public “confession”; I understand your article to promote this policy. I do not believe that most people are willing to avail themselves of honest confessions; it exposes them to more public ridicule. Most people seek redemption through private acts to protect themselves from criticism. Thus standard “office politics” promotes criticizing colleagues (or the company) in private and complimenting them in public. I believe that your old company feels like it provides the community a valuable service that is compromised by your public criticism; I believe it will focus more on protecting itself than on your criticism.
I have admired your work for years and am sorry to hear that you are not comforted more from your legacy of “giving.” I contend that all emotions are natural and that the DSM pathologizes the natural emotional suffering of the marginalized; I am sorry that your suffering has been pathologized and that you are sensitive to these false labels. You deserve to be appreciated for your commitment to justice and to live in a world with more justice.
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Will has worked tirelessly to care for the marginalized in the community; he deserves the same respect we afford Dr. Breggin.
I disagree with your support of Frank’s comment- that this post “feels vaguely self-indulgent.” Will emotionally suffers from feeling complicit in working for a counseling company led by someone who denigrated the clientele; he tried to rectify the matter as best he knew how.
I also believe that the “women involved” are being “elevated” to “clients” rather than “reduced” to clients; the term “client” references the professional relationship and legal obligation to provide “professional” care.
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I disagree: “Sexuality is ALWAYS going to be a sensitive issue. If one is going to blow the whistle on anything, I’d want it to be on something more important than some minor sexual indiscretion or other.” Sex is USUALLY a sensitive issue EXCEPT between a therapist and a client wherein I believe that it should be criminal- a breach of fiduciary duty.
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Emotional suffering is natural but psychiatry claims that it is pathological; psychiatry promotes a harmful narrative that lacks any medical (biological) criteria. Understanding emotional suffering as a natural response to distressful experiences is critical for improving the human social condition.
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This hardly seems “sciency”; the hypothesis uses vague, undefined terms and the study does not isolate unidentified variables.
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Thank you for this article; it is an articulate solution to a public health epidemic. There are few comments because it seems mainstream and non-controversial; mainstream media should embrace it.
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Your post makes sense to me except the paragraph about “antipschiatry”; “antipsychiatry” seeks to abolish psychiatry while “critical psychiatry” seeks to reform psychiatry. Were you exchanging the two terms or were you intending to be critical of abolishing psychiatry?
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I believe that the line between a moral injury (a “neurosis”) and an illness (a “psychosis”) is hazy regarding “shell shock.” I believe that shell shock was generally considered a moral injury until it caused “psychosis” (an “illness”) but I generally do not understand these terms. I know that there were hundreds of thousands of allied vets treated in medical hospitals that were “cured” by the ending of the war.
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Thank you for this heads-up. Please allow me to amend my post to reflect the fact that enduring heavy bombardment was a major cause of trauma among WWI soldiers.
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In 1917, medical wards filled with soldiers traumatized by trench warfare; their “mental illness” was labeled “shell shock.” Freudian theory provided a revolutionary understanding of “mental illness” and was used to treat the “shell shocked.” After the war, Freudian theory proved so “effective” that it emptied the psych wards of the “psychotic”; it was heralded as a miracle understanding of “psychosis” and “therapy.”
The history of the “shell shocked” should teach us that “psychosis” is caused by trauma and that placebos are about hope. “Shell shocked” soldiers returned home as “cured” from a “common illness” rather than “cowards” from the trauma of orders to charge an entrenched enemy in trench warfare. Instead the history of the “shell shocked” was lost to the context of the War in Vietnam and the failure of Freudian theory to explain human psychology and “psychosis.” PTSD replaced “shell shocked” because the trauma had a different specific cause and PTSD enabled psychiatry to include other types of adult trauma as causation for their myth of “mental illness.”
PTSD pathologizes natural reactions to trauma.
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All medicines cause some harm while treating diseases. Psychiatrists believe in the myth of “mental illness”- that emotional suffering is a disease causing a lack of “sound judgment.” This false foundation is the root of all their harm.
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Love is about abolishing psychiatry since psychiatry harms the community by pathologizing natural sadness through the myth of “mental illness.” Psychiatrists can be great counselors when they disconnect from the principles of psychiatry but psychiatry is causing tremendous social harm by promoting the myth of “mental illness.”
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And sorry that you can identify with such pain Rachel.
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Natural science theory 101: species evolve based on “the survival of the fittest.” However, Darwin (The Descent of Man) and many other “evolutionists” consider cooperation to be a better survival “tool” than competition; the “biggest, baddest ass” is no longer the “fittest.”
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I experienced a reversal of fortune from experiences of extreme emotional well-being during my childhood to extreme emotional suffering following trauma during early adulthood. Since I have experienced the two extremes of emotions, I have experienced two different worlds. I did not know that I lived in a privileged world of emotional well-being because I worked so hard for my “successes” and advocated for the marginalized. I believed that I had empathy for the marginalized until I became marginalized. Thereafter, I realized that natural sadness (anxiety and depression) can be far more constant and painful than I could had imagined (and can promote suicide ideation from hopelessness about alleviating the pain). Emotional suffering can be far more painful than most people realize because most people cannot imagine emotional suffering greater than they have experienced (or distressful experiences more distressful than they experience).
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I contend that psychiatry has reified sadness (emotional suffering) into a disease- that psychiatry is “trauma denial.” I assume that the “trauma-informed thing” will become increasingly popular because it is closer to the truth and pushed by most Critical Psychiatrists. I seek to understand why “trauma-informed care” does not equate to the abolition of psychiatry (“trauma denial”). I believe that emotional suffering will be understood as natural after exposing the myth of “mental illness” as the philosophical equivalent of the theological myth of “demonic possession.”
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Rachel,
“Dr. Breggin has said abusive families and trauma cause the “break” which causes people to be psychiatrized.” I understand Dr. Breggin’s concept of “the break” to refer to the “medical model.” I experienced emotional suffering from trauma so intense that I could no longer sense physical pain as adverse, but it was all a natural reaction to unbelievably distressful experiences.
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Physiology 101: under-utilized body tissue will atrophy. This is true for the brains of sedated adults as well as sedated children. Psychiatry’s new “brain volume” hypothesis is wrong to label evidence of this iatrogenic HARM as a symptom of a mythical disease.
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It was wrong of me to speculate about what Dr. Breggin can imagine. I was projecting from my own experience; I had no idea how painful emotional suffering could be until I experienced trauma. I thought trauma was just about a distressful experience; thereafter I realized that trauma is about a distressful environment.
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Good nutrition may be better than psychotherapy but neither can “fortify” a child against traumatic abuse.
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Doctor, thank you for allowing me to respond and for your community service. You describe happiness more specifically as “love” and then describe all “emotional disorders” as “disorders” of “love”; you are pathologizing sadness. There are no emotional “disorders”; all emotions are natural and valid. Consistent with most cultural leaders, you are unable to imagine true misfortune (unfortunate life circumstances). Natural emotional suffering can be as painful as any real pathology but is not a medical problem; psychiatry is “trauma denial.”
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Thank you for this articulate description of the abuse that you have endured; your story is an unusually powerful condemnation of our current “system of care.”
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It is sad to understand that social and economic justice is limited by expense and that injustice is promoted by the myth of “mental illness.”
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Thank you for this valuable, articulate post.
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Ms. Hurford heard a youth express pain and confusion after childhood abuse; Ms. Hurford suggests drugs, you suggest vitamins, and I suggest justice. Good nutrition is far better “therapy” than drugs but pales in comparison to justice which was obviously lacking for this confused youth as he tries to transition from childhood to adulthood.
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Well said.
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Noel describes adversity impacting “mental health” as well as “overall well-being” and driving people to a “state” of “madness.” This implies that adversity causes more than a lack of overall well-being and I seek clarification.
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Thank you for your community service and for this blog. My only disagreement pertains to confusion with your term “madness.”
“There is a pressing need to understand how things such as abuse, poverty, oppression, injustice, racism, and other adversity impact our mental health and overall well-being. Common sense, of course, would tell us that it essentially drives a person mad over time… Regardless, it’s imperative that any person or system in a helping position consider the context of suffering and what has happened in a person’s life that led to his or her current state of mind.”
I thought that “trauma-informed” care was about understanding how traumas cause mental distress (natural emotional suffering or coping styles deemed disabling) rather than about a “context of suffering” within a “mental state” of “madness.” How does a “mental state” of “madness” differ from other concepts of “mental disorders?”
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Thank you for your community service; I am sorry that it is causing you hardship.
I am also a biologist and disagree with your belief that biology can address a philosophy (a philosophical concept of a “hero”); “evolutionary psychology” is too abstract to pass for biology.
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Thank you for exposing the pseudo science of behavioral genetics; it causes the community tremendous harm.
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I salute a great idea including its ability to offer people a chance to express their feelings about the harm that they have experienced.
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Szasz articulately explains “mental illness” as a metaphor and a myth; this was a valuable public service. He was also a libertarian so some of his perspective may seem to lack compassion unless you were raised in an authoritarian environment.
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What a great community service; there is no group more deserving of support.
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Sad fact: if it is “science” that supports psychiatry, it is pseudoscience. It is pseudoscience to claim that 80% (of a small sampling) of FEP subject participants were deficient in vitamin D without noting that 75% of the general population is considered deficient in vitamin D. My source is the top entry from my Google search for vitamin D deficiency from a Scientific American article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/414878). The balance of the BS can be attributed to Confirmation Bias and/or Experimenter Bias.
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Good point: a warning is not a warning when it is common to ignore it.
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My eighth grade science teacher explained science as based on transparency; otherwise, “scientific research” can prove the health benefits of smoking cigarettes for years before the corruption and pseudoscience is exposed. Consistently, medical journals are corrupted science- pseudoscience.
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The “othering process” is problematic but I believe that the following statement is more problematic; “we all experience distress at some point in our lives” This statement erroneously implies that distressful experiences are similar- that the distressful experiences of community leaders are similar to the distressful experiences of the marginalized and disenfranchised. I believe that this false assumption provides psychiatry with substantial false legitimacy and should be criticized whenever possible.
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Well said.
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Thank you for your article and allowing me to comment. Freudians might want to re-visit this statement; “The “Autism war” turned out to be very costly for psychoanalysts.” The rate of “autism” was documented at 1:2000 before Freudian theory was abandoned by psychiatry; the rate is now documented at 1:59.
I believe that psychiatry pathologizes emotional suffering (and coping styles deemed disabling) as a generally unrecognized tool of social control of the marginalized and disenfranchised. I believe that this is changing as criticism of psychiatry increases; consistently, I encourage Freudians to revisit the “autism wars” to address the epidemic of “autism.”
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It sounds like you are an empathetic counselor that provides valuable assistance to the marginalized. However, I disagree with the implication of following statement: “Binary distinctions between ‘service users’ and ‘professionals’ … are often unhelpful as we all experience distress at some point in our lives.” I believe that different life circumstances naturally produce radically different intensity of distress and that few experience the intensity of emotional pain experienced by the least fortunate in the community. Thus describing some people acting “markedly differently to the way most people generally handle situations in their lives” discounts their unusually distressful experiences.
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I am sorry to hear you needing to defend your mother against the injustice of the “mental health system” and a culture that has little time or patience for “old folks.” I am reminded of my experiences with my elderly mother after my father died; her doctor tortured her by treating her natural emotional suffering like a mysterious brain disease. Her doctor could have helped a little with a sincere comment of empathy for her plight but instead caused her more pain by pathologizing her natural suffering.
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I am sorry that I am struggling with my own issues and have no ability to assist you more than offering a few suggestions. Perhaps there are some counselors or “peer specialists” in your area that could assist in getting you started with volunteer work and addressing unfair invasions into your world.
“Restorative justice” is rare and difficult to achieve in this world; people want to move past their mistakes (learn from them rather than pay restitution for them). That is why my suggestions center on seeking personal justice through seeking justice for others in similar circumstances.
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I agree that “MIA is not fighting hard enough for restorative justice or even due process for juveniles”, but whose fault is it. MIA is comprised of individuals with a multitude of different complaints about the harm caused by the current “mental health system.” MIA is not a homogeneous entity; it fights only as hard as the sum of our collective voices including yours.
I agree that coercion causes the harm and that if we could stop the coercion we would stop the harm, but it is the legitimacy of psychiatry that legitimizes (causes) the coercion. Psychiatry advocates that some people are “mentally ill”- not of “sound mind.” Our society compassionately seeks medical assistance (psychiatry) for people when they are “mentally ill” and “not responsible” for their “antisocial” behaviors. Thus the coercion is widely considered “compassionate care” rather than terrifying “human rights abuses”; this is based on the legitimacy of psychiatry. Psychiatry legitimizes coercive “treatments”; you cannot stop the coercion while psychiatry retains legitimacy.
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A child should never be the target of abuse; I am sorry that society failed you.
Evidently, forty years ago you behaved in a manner that was labeled a “hate crime”; these types of behaviors are hopefully unwanted in our society. Evidently, you consider this an unjust label for your behavior that continues to give you grief as an unfair reflection of who you are. You seem to have a problem distancing yourself from people who want to unfairly label you. Consistently, you seem illogically frustrated about an inability to enlighten others about their unjust attitude towards you while describing how their attitudes serve a valuable purpose for them.
I do not know you, and even if I did know you, any advice I offer could be completely wrong (so I hope others will chime in with criticism of my advice or offer better suggestions). Nevertheless, may I suggest you first try to understand whether you feel guilt about the 1981 incident, anger about misplaced blame for the incident, or both. If you feel guilt about the incident, I suggest that you spend time “clearing your conscience”; counter the guilt with behaviors that make you deserving of forgiveness. Thus if the incident targeted a specific race, gender, religion, etc., spend time supporting an organization that defends the rights of the targeted group. On the other hand, if you feel anger about being the “fall guy” for problems in different social circles, I suggest that you spend time countering the anger about misplaced blame. Specifically, I suggest that you support organizations that defend children against child abuse; it seems like you would be a passionate advocate for disenfranchised children. If you feel both guilt and anger about the 1981 incident, then I suggest that you spend time addressing both issues.
Best wishes, Steve
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I do not understand how my comments could be considered ridicule (or scapegoating) and am sorry if you understand them as such.
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Yes, and I believe that Chaya is local to the area as well; we should consider meeting to discuss our views on psychiatry… at OHSU.
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I agree more. Psychiatry’s false legitimacy as a medical science is the foundation of all of its harm; I blame medical schools for giving credibility to this “priesthood of the mind.” I plan to protest this calamity at my local medical school (OHSU).
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I appreciate your willingness to allow me to respectfully disagree with you; I agree with your hypothesis but disagree with your conclusion. I agree with your hypothesis: “But the only way out of the epidemic of feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients is to rebrand and reframe feeling as a cultural collective.” But I disagree with your conclusion; “Thus, healing from depression necessarily involves a reframing of beliefs and a shifting of mindset around the meaning of this emotional bandwidth and more inclusive orientation.”
While much of your article implies that sadness is a natural human emotion, your conclusion implies that sadness is not directly related to sad experiences. Within the current psychology paradigm that pathologizes sadness, it may be difficult to understand the natural, direct connection. I contend that depressing experiences cause depression and that “healing” from depression involves avoiding depressing experiences. This typically means understanding causation (that can be difficult within the current psychology paradigm) and thereafter avoiding or countering the causal experiences. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to figure how to avoid significantly depressing experiences in our society today. Nevertheless, “clinical depression” pathologizes natural depression (especially of the marginalized and disenfranchised) that typically starts within a family nexus but is not limited therein.
The only way out of the epidemic of “feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients” is to reframe sadness as the natural response to sad experiences (and reframe depression as the natural response to depressing experiences). People experience the world differently; depressed victims of incestuous rape will generally “heal” faster with “justice” (an acknowledgement of the atypical injustice and a concerted effort by the community to “right the wrong”) than by rebranding the experience.
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Thank you for this insightful article; it is good to hear your voice again.
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The DSM pathologizes the problem with “Attachment Reactive Disorder” but I do not believe a word of it.
I believe that we initially learn to understand the world through our parents; during formative years, we learn about happiness and how to achieve it and learn about distress and how to avoid it. If parents struggle to achieve emotional well-being, their children will often perceive of the world as cruel and unjust. This is traumatic for children (an Aversive Childhood Experience) and promotes sympathy for their parents’ plight and an attachment to the family. However, Aversive Childhood Experiences are often caused by abusive parental behaviors that make the relationship problematic. It might be preferable for children to believe that their parents are just plain crazy for targeting them unjustly for abuse (in contrast to the rest of the world) so it is easier to detach from the dysfunction and start anew.
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I agree. Psychiatry’s legitimacy is based on its acceptance as a biological (medical) science by medical schools; “biological psychiatry” is a redundant attempt to disavow wacky Freudian psychiatry and commit to biological pseudoscience.
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I agree, except I consider this understated: “The whole concept presented here, that “side effects” can even be measured by clinicians, seems ridiculous.”
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Right On!
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There is an anachronism for that: TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read).
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Toddlers predominately learn stress from their parents; I contend that cultural stress is causing parents increasing stress that is problematic (confusing/distracting/distressful) for childhood development.
There is no general consensus about the statistics for “autism”; general confusion about the statistics prompted my questioning your figure (I was not mocking a math error). The baseline for my statistics comes from scientific research during 1980-2000; the CDC now rejects all statistics before 2000 as under-reported, but I do not. The CDC started over about 2000 with a much higher figure of 1:400-800 “based on better accounting” of the newly defined “spectrum.” Thereafter the CDC claimed better accounting for a 1:170 statistic until better accounting now promotes the 1:59 figure. The CDC claims no significant increase in “autism” while I claim that their own statistics since 2000 describe an epidemic. I do not know the real statistics (as if that is possible) but I did not want to let a “60-fold increase” pass unchallenged when I was defensive about my statistics of a 30-fold increase.
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Specifically, I do not know what caused the behaviors expressed in the video referenced above but I believe that these types of behaviors generally express environmental stress (“an increase in cultural stress on children to ‘achieve’”). I believe that this is a “neuro-developmental” problem caused by an environmental change to a more stressful culture for children. I do not believe that radiation from modern technology can account for the epidemic. BTW, I have not heard of references to an increase in “autism” greater than 30-fold (which is a staggering figure).
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Thank you for this critically important community service!
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I believe that an increase in cultural stress on children to “achieve” is a large part of the problem. This is harmful to childhood development especially when any faltering from childhood “success” is widely pathologized.
Pediatricians discount the epidemic because anti-vaxers have tied the increase to vaccines and are thereby causing a different childhood health problem of distrust of vaccines. This sad situation reminds me of Antipsychiatry discounted because people want to associate it with Scientology.
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Thank you for this excellent article; consistently, I worry about “autism” when addressing the harm of pathologizing childhood. The statistics on “autism” are tragic (from 1:2000 in 1990 to 1:59 in 2018); “autism” is a childhood health epidemic of historic proportion.
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All societies teach the avoidance of failure; unfortunately, western society is currently promoting lots of it. Nevertheless, it seems a bit arrogant for Steve Jobs to romanticize about failure as if luck played no role in his extraordinary business success.
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Mania expresses desperation; mania is excitement that expresses desperation for relief from emotional suffering. Consistently, mania is generally associated with depression: “manic-depression” (relabeled “‘bi-polar’ disorder” to promote pathologizing). Mania and excitement are both “healthy” in that both are natural, normal reactions to personal experience but mania is substantially different than regular excitement.
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Marilyn made a statement that seemed critically important to me: “Deeper family issues regarding the parent’s marriage and in-law problems would also need to be addressed.” Intruding parents are typically the “in-laws” that cause most marriage problems; I made an assumption. However, marriage problems that include an inability to manage intrusions from any in-laws seem problematic.
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You misunderstood me; I do not “blame the parents.” Marilyn stated that Adam’s parents had marriage and in-law problems; this sounds like a hostile environment. I do not blame Adam’s parents for having marital problems, but until they can solve their issues, it seems like their young child will have difficulty solving his. I rarely consider “blame” because life is often really difficult and our community offers little assistance for parents.
When parents are struggling to manage their own lives, parenting a child can be a nightmare and children can seem like “beasts.” However, I do not believe that any young child has “horrible… innate tendencies.”
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I disagree. Adam’s parents are struggling with marriage problems and he is struggling to find emotional well-being in the hostile environment; Adam has a “family environment” problem rather than a “temperament” problem. Adam’s temper tantrums are expressions of frustration that he learned from his parents’ struggles; he does not have a made-up disease (“oppositional defiant disorder”). Adam’s parents need counseling to address their inability to manage their parents and create a happy, stable environment for themselves and their child. Adam’s parents are struggling and he is confused about the hostile environment; he is not the problem in this scenario. However, I assume that he is the problem in other scenarios that include classmates and teachers. Until Adam’s “kind” parents can provide a stable, friendly family environment, they should be the focus of therapy.
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I was trying to say that I believe that psychiatrists believe their BS but you are correct that the larger issue is about money and defending the socioeconomic system by pathologizing dissent.
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Yes, money is a large factor especially after “practicing” for a while and finding the field frustrating from outside criticism and little career “success” with “clients.” But a larger factor that drives the “industry” (and promotes recruiting) is the substantial (albeit diminishing) public admiration for psychiatrists as “high priests” of our culture. Psychiatrists are the “high priests” of our secular religion of “scientism” (“science” addressing philosophy) that pathologizes the sadness of the disenfranchised as a tool of social control (thank you Szasz).
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Excuse me; it was late and I misspoke. I intended to say that it is not a medical problem and Szasz failed to articulate that fact “with a simple, medical (biological) criticism.” I could be wrong since I have not read all of Szasz, but I believe that a simple biological (medical) criticism of psychiatry (as I outline above) is important and I have not read this from Szasz.
However, I did not mean to reference Szasz without more reverence; he was the first and remains the most articulate critic of the calamity of psychiatry’s pseudoscience.
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Regardless of whether we consider it a natural science problem or a spiritual problem, it is not a medical problem and Szasz failed to articulate that fact. Szasz failed to make a strong medical argument against psychiatry: 1) medical science (health science) is based on biology, 2) biology is based on understanding physical body mechanisms, and 3) since psychiatry addresses philosophy (the philosophy of “mind”), it is biological, medical pseudoscience by definition.
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Szasz describes mental distress as a spiritual problem while I consider it a social welfare (natural) problem. Seeking emotional well-being is accepted natural science motivation; cruel and/or otherwise unjust experiences (and physiological deficits) naturally cause painful emotional suffering (emotional distress).
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Question: do psychiatrists believe their own words? Answer: sorta.
Psychiatrists believe that mental distress is a medical problem. Psychiatrists understand that there are problems with their theories but assume that they are on the right track and that science will catch up to them (“fake it till you make it”). Psychiatry is secular religion; scientific logic is unsettling for some “high priests” but their faith is heavily vested.
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Thank you for the community service of your work with MIA and good luck on your future endeavors!
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I became disenfranchised from the community over the War in Vietnam (“the American War”); the world looked and felt much different afterwards.
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You seem to have responded to the vulnerability and injustice by dedicating much of your life to defending the marginalized against bullies; sounds like reason for hope.
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Suicide is about hopelessness (typically about injustice); people get angry about injustice when they envision a path towards justice.
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I agree with most criticisms of a “man box”, but believe that a different “man box” is causing most suicides: “white male privilege.” Suicide statistics may be heavily skewed towards men but they are also heavily skewed towards white men. There is substantial racism and sexism in our community that often promotes substantially less empathy for the emotional suffering of white men.
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I agree; the “medical model” of mental distress (the Disease Model) describes the obvious problem of a “cycle of abuse” as instead “evidence” of problematic family genetics!
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Right on!
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Upon reconsideration, I believe that existential problems are social welfare problems about interpreting the environment, and agree that typical social welfare problems can cause existential problems. However, I do not believe that existential problems are as common as other types of mental distress. I believe that poor nutrition and poor sleep habits cause far more mental distress than existential problems. More importantly, I believe that the reality of distressful experiences or distressful life circumstances (a hostile environment) is the predominate cause of mental distress. The article seems to imply that mental distress is predominately a problem of interpreting the environment; I consider it predominately a problem caused by hostile environments.
More to my point is my contention that all emotions are real (natural reflections of personal experience) and should never be discounted.
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Thank you for your community service; you provide some great advice on comforting the afflicted in the community.
However, you address mental distress as an existential problem rather than a social welfare problem, and discount the authenticity of emotions (“Remind them, though, that they are simply feeling a feeling; probably an ancient feeling that they were told wasn’t safe to feel early on in their lives.”). In contrast, I contend that all emotions are real, natural responses to distressful experiences and are important to confront and desensitize.
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I understood the biggest myth about Maslow’s concept of self-actualization to be its universality; it is tied to western cultures with eastern cultures seeking more communal aspirations.
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Thanks for clarifying. We seem to mostly agree if we can get beyond different perspectives of the world whereby I consider everyone “normal” and you considering no one “normal.” I’ll stick with my perspective for now but do not want to debate this issue since your perspective seems easier to defend.
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I believe that this is an important blog; it identifies two great fallacies of psychiatry. First, psychiatry implies that human interactions are generally civil- that people generally treat each other with a minimum of “common decency and respect.” In reality, the community often treats people cruelly and denies them justice. Secondly, psychiatry implies that human cruelty does not cause emotional suffering- that unjust social ostracizing does not cause emotional suffering- emotional pain. Psychiatry denies our humanity.
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I respectfully disagree with the implication that “mental distress” is not “normal”- natural; “mental distress” may not be typical but neither are the experiences (or life circumstances) that cause mental distress.
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It seems like the bigger problem is the erroneous belief that “mental health” refers to “health” instead of natural emotional suffering or coping styles deemed “antisocial” (non-conforming, non-productive, disruptive). Human rights violations against people experiencing mental distress are predicated on the assumption that “mental illness” has robbed people of their natural, normal judgment processes; hence, they need saving from themselves.
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Excellent, articulate article describing one aspect of how psychiatry is creating a staggering epidemic of disabilities.
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Good point; the subconscious mantra of psychiatry is “fake it till you make it.” Psychiatrists are trying to be “sciency” until real science supports their BS; they can ignore numerous scientific fallacies because they have “faith” in their religion.
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I agree with the main point of your article; psychiatry pathologizes disruptive (“non-productive” and “non-conforming”) coping styles- behavior patterns it deems “anti-social”).
However, I disagree with a common assumption underlying your conclusion that “We are all driven to find ways to adapt — some are called ill and others healthy.” Personal histories and life circumstances are not similar; whether coping styles are considered ill or healthy depends on what experiences people are adapting. There is a reason that the coping skills of cultural leaders are considered healthy while the coping skills of the marginalized and disenfranchised are considered ill.
When I became disenfranchised from the community, I learned something important about emotions; they are feelings directly related to personal experience. Our culture intellectualizes emotions but emotions are understood physically; affirming feelings of emotional well-being feel happy and distressful experiences feel sad (adverse). I only recognized emotions as physical “feelings” when my previous energetic sensations of happiness were contrasted with the sensation of extreme emotional pain following trauma. My life became so constantly painful that I was hardly able to sense physical trauma; my “coping style” expressed my desperation for relief.
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Excellent.
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Thank you; this is a valuable community service! However, I now worry that your scholarship students may face an uphill battle at school (may be targeted for abuse); you may need to consider supportive services.
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I agree, but I also believe that it is the accepted paradigm; it is promoted by cultural leaders and many others besides psychiatrists and Big Pharma. Moreover, I believe that the general public has no idea about the BS that currently passes for science.
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I agree.
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Right on!
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Thank you Jim (and Bonnie) for your community service.
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We need to document the history of genetic “breakthroughs” to give context to each new proclamation. The history of false promises should shine light on the corruption of career building that allows such BS to pass for legitimate science. As Steve clearly explains above, the genetics of research subjects blatantly disprove the conclusions of the genetic “research.”
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Thank you Leon Kamin (and Jay Joseph) for challenging the harmful pseudoscience of genetic determinism. It is staggering how a strong confirmation bias can obscure any semblance of scientific methodology in studies of twins rear apart and still pass for science.
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Doctor, thank you for making a logical medical (biological) analysis about the correlation between reduced brain volume and mental distress: it is the normal physiology of atrophy. Neuroleptic drugs have a sedative effect that reduces brain functioning; like all body tissues, nervous tissue will atrophy from reduced usage.
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Unfortunately, it is logical to believe that psychiatry is a valuable, biological (medical) perspective of mental distress since it is an accredited medical (biological) science. Medical schools will pay a high price for legitimizing the pseudoscience of psychiatry and the calamity of pathologizing natural emotional suffering (natural, painful reactions to distressful experiences).
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Great question; I hope we get several answers.
My answer: because “mental health” is an oxymoron that implies that something “mental” (a philosophical concept) can have “health” (a physical attribute). This is a harmful misnomer because it implies that natural emotional suffering (emotional pain) is a health problem regardless of personal circumstances. Hence, the term “mental health” maligns the marginalized in our community by pathologizing sadness (emotional pain)
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Excellent point!
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Thank you for the community service of challenging the harmful pseudoscience of psychiatric drug therapy.
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Thank you for this valuable article; I agree with most of it but also agree with those who feel that the term “neurodiversity” implies support for erroneous concepts of “saneism.”
I believe that we will know when we overthrow the “mental health” system when psychiatry is no longer an accredited medical science. The process of delegitimizing psychiatry should expose “mental health” as a pseudoscientific hoax that maligns the marginalized. The process of delegitimizing psychiatry should also end the hoaxes by promoting an understanding of emotional suffering (and other naturally painful problems with living) as natural and conflating “mental illness” with “demonic possession.”
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Emotional suffering and other natural “problems with living” are predominately solved with more social and economic justice. However, this is a far more monumental task than you imply in your article. Our society is often cruel and unjust at the bottom of our “social pecking order;” we lack the will to address social welfare problems far more than the means.
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Frank, I understand the “Biomedical Model” to be the prevailing model of medical care throughout the western world, and to have different connotations than the “Medical Model” when it is used in psychiatry.
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I understand the history of psychiatry; it is the “medicalized model” of “problems with living.” I contend that the term “medical model” falsely implies medical (biological) legitimacy. In contrast, I consider the “disease model” to imply that psychiatry is describing a medical problem but that other options (like wellness) exist. Hence, “medical model” and “disease model” are not the same thing.
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The “Medical Model” did originate with people who were critical of “Biological Psychiatry” and its form of “treatment,” but it has the opposite affect. “Biological Psychiatry” is a redundancy (since psychiatry is currently an accredited medical, biological science) that is intended to promote biological legitimacy for psychiatry. “Biological Psychiatry” replaced Freudian Psychiatry to significantly expand the range of non-medical problems that psychiatry addresses, but both forms of psychiatry seek medical (biological) science legitimacy for treating non-medical problems. Psychiatry promotes a “Disease Model” of non-medical problems; the term “Medical Model” erroneously implies that their BS has anything to do with real medical (biological) science.
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Unfortunately, I agree. I usually describe “problems with living” as “emotional suffering” but that also tends to lack the proper connotation of severity; I described anxiety and depression as “painful” because that is more accurate. Emotional suffering is painful and extreme emotional suffering is constantly as painful as a police taser (and can thereby nullify a taser’s intended affect). The popular paradigm controls the vocabulary so challenging it can cause vocabulary problems.
Best wishes, Steve
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I disagree with a couple assumptions made in this article. First, I consider the “medical model” to be a misnomer; it gives credibility to the “disease model” of natural problems with living. The “medical model” falsely implies that psychiatry has any medical (biological) legitimacy. Second, I disagree with describing problems with living as “dysfunctional states.” Emotional suffering (and other natural problems with living) may be undesirable and may appear dysfunctional within our cultural paradigm, but that does not make them dysfunctional. A “dysfunctional state” implies a “mental disorder” which implies “dysfunctional biology.” Distressful experiences naturally cause painful anxiety and depressing experiences naturally cause painful depression; these experiences can be debilitating and unpleasant to witness, but they are not dysfunctional.
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I guess that I was “projecting” about my problems in life; I am sorry for intruding.
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“But somehow, if you are a ‘neurological … minority’, you aren’t entitled to acceptance and accommodation, only ostracism and coercion. It’s not at all surprising that such institutionalized bullying drives people to seek death — often a better alternative than ‘treatment.’” This statement addresses my disagreement with your article. I do not believe that you are part of a “neurological minority;” we are all part of a common humanity that seeks acceptance. I understand “neurological minority” to be a positive spin on “mental ill” rather than an understanding that “mental illness” is a myth and that injustice (institutional bullying) naturally causes painful emotional suffering. I believe that injustice and the pseudoscience of psychiatry are to blame for your motivation to end your life; I hope you will instead choose to continue to advocate for social justice.
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Psychiatry using Adverse Childhood Experiences to support harmful prejudice against victims is absurdly cruel.
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Right on.
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Thank you (and Steve) for your community service in supporting the disenfranchised. I believe that there is widespread corruption throughout mainstream “mental health” care because it defers its most fundamental understanding of “mental health” to psychiatry and psychiatry lacks legitimacy. Psychiatry pathologizes sadness (emotional pain) and other natural problems with living (behaviors considered “socially unacceptable” but not criminal); “mental illness” is a myth. I am not an Antipsychiatrist because psychiatrists are corrupt, over-prescribe drugs, and make mistakes; I am an Antipsychiatrist because “mental illness” is a harmful hoax.
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“Mental illness” is “pathologized unhappiness?”
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I describe “anti-psychotics” as “neuroleptics” when I want to address the lie that they are “anti-psychotic.” “Neuroleptics” seems to address the tranquilizing affect of “anti-psychotics” that differentiates them from other neurotoxins like alcohol (depressants) or ADHD drugs (stimulants).
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For someone suffering emotionally, a “placebo” is hope for relief; hope is a powerful force that promotes solutions to real problems with living. For someone suffering emotionally, a “nocebo” is hopelessness for relief; hopelessness is a powerful force that hinders solving real problems in life. Neither drugs nor mechanical implants can solve real problems in life; they hinder solutions and are often powerful nocebos that can promote suicide.
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Richard, I do not believe that there are any “necessary political alliances needed to accomplish this goal.” It would be nice if a maligned group wanted to ally with us but I do not envision that as a possibility. Political groups align with each other to advance their own causes- not because they feel a philosophical alignment. Since the stigma of a “mental illness” is worse than most others, few political groups gain any advantage by aligning with us.
Single-issue political groups that center on human rights or disability rights seem like our only true allies. I concur with most of your criticism of psychiatry but I do not consider it representative of a political group. Regardless, I believe that you underestimate the power (and number) of those maligned by psychiatry to avenge their abuse when they become fully aware of the nature of the hoax and reach a “critical mass.”
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It has taken me a minute to concede the primary definition of “scientism” to the establishment; the old definition had valuable connotations. Nevertheless, this does seem like a minor issue; hereafter I will describe psychiatry as “pseudoscience.”
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I understand Richard to say that the definition of “scientism” has two different (almost opposite) meanings and that its use to discredit science is now more common than its use to discredit pseudoscience. However, I do not want to concede the definition of “scientism” to the “establishment;” it is important to have a term that describes pseudoscientific overreach. Psychiatry is my definition of “scientism!”
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I understand “scientism” to describe “the uncritical application of scientific or quasi-scientific methods to inappropriate fields of study or investigation” rather than describing a belief that “science is the best way to understand ourselves and our environment.”
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This is a great article and a valuable community service; thank you.
I believe that psychiatry is plagued with scientism because it is seeking the impossible; scientific legitimacy. Psychiatry seeks legitimacy as a medical science that addresses nonexistent biological (medical) malfunctioning in the minds/brains of people who experience natural emotional suffering (or other natural problem with living). Psychiatry is pseudoscience by definition; a medical (biological) science cannot address a philosophy of “mind.” Neurology is the medical science that addresses medical problems with behavior; psychiatry is “medical” pseudoscience that pathologizes natural emotional suffering (and other natural problems with living).
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Right on.
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This is why I describe “mainstream ‘mental health’ care” as a classical paradigm in my video lecture; common terms have interrelated connotations and contexts that reinforce the false status quo.
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I was contending that all emotions are natural and therefore “healthy,” but you are correct that addressing emotions in terms of “health” erroneously implies that some emotions are “healthier” than others.
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And what is the official way to demystify the situation when someone says that they think that Bill has a “mental health” problem? How about a “psychological” problem? I understand you to advocate that “mental disorders” address “nothing;” this response does not seem demystifying.
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I am an Antipsychiatrist because I believe that “mental illness” is a myth promoted by psychiatry; consistently, DSM definitions of “mental disorders” generally describe natural emotional suffering (or other natural problems with living). I accept the World Health Organization definition of “mental health” as “emotional well-being” but assume that emotions are natural while the WHO considers them diseases (without any biological support).
I am dancing a fine line with definitions. “Mental health” generally connotes something physical; in contrast, I use the term as a social judgment about the relative desirability of different emotions (and behaviors). I believe that everyone has the right to “mental health” (positive emotions). I also believe that human rights promote “emotional health” (“mental health”) and that human rights violations predominately cause “poor ‘mental health’” (emotional suffering and other natural problems with living). Consistently, I agree with MHE about the right to “mental health” (“emotional well-being”) free of human rights abuses, and support your efforts.
However, I do not understand how “mental health” can be promoted while simultaneously accepting the legitimacy of psychiatry- a “medical science” that assumes that emotional suffering (or other natural problem with living) is instead a disease.
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I agree Slayer, but at least neurology addresses a biological/medical subject; psychiatry addresses a philosophical (non-physical, non-medical) subject.
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I respectfully disagree with your implication that psychiatry represents biology. Neurology represents biology while psychiatry is fundamentally pseudoscience; a biology of “mind” is pseudoscience by definition. Consistently, no DSM diagnosis will ever have a biological basis because mental distress is human biology (the natural reaction to distressful experiences)- not a disease. Our culture supports “hard science” over “soft science;” any implication of psychiatric credibility as real biology is a disservice to the disenfranchised.
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Well said… except I do not understand why you directed your criticism at “Biological Psychiatry” as if there is a different kind of psychiatry that is not legitimized by medical science as based on biology.
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I am an antipsychiatrist because I consider mental distress to be natural emotional suffering or other natural problem with living. Psychiatry implies that mental distress is a medical problem by virtue of it being a medical specialty; this worsens natural problems with living by ignoring real causation (and drugging real emotions).
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I believe that Szasz was an “Antipsychiatrist” (common usage of the term) because he believed that “mental illness” was a myth. Szasz abhorred the term because he was an anti-authoritarian and supported any “contractual” relationship between adults (including one whereby a “psychiatrist” preaches mumbo jumbo).
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Are you saying that what we eat and breath predominately causes depressed moods rather than depressing social experiences?
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“The researchers attempted to control for a number of alternative explanations, which makes their case much stronger” but did not control for the obvious explanation. It seems unbelievable that they failed to consider that growing up with parents considered “clinically depressed” is distressful (naturally causes increased emotional problems). It is not fair to children to have so many negative (depressing) messages directed at their parents; it causes inter-generational problems.
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Right on!
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The contempt for the “mentally ill” began as the world shifted to a secular perspective of the previous (religious) contempt for witches- “demonic possession.”
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Well said, especially about “The unwillingness of the psychiatric profession to admit that such abuse is common and harmful, and is responsible for much of what is called “mental illness.” This is an important point; psychiatry promotes an erroneous, skewed concept of the general level of civility of our culture that denies the reality of the distressful experiences of the disenfranchised.
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Thank you for this article; I agree that Freud advances great psychology theory especially with exposing repressed traumas. However, I understood Freud to advocate that psychosis is a medical problem (the “purview” of psychiatry) unlike neuroses (most mental distress that he considered symptomatic of natural problems with living). Moreover, it is difficult to consider Freud to be an Antipsychiatrist while his followers consider Freudian theory to be psychiatry.
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Thank you for this article; I agree with most of it. However… “Sadly, there is no sign that the field is ready or willing to adopt a non-biological explanation of schizophrenia:” Psychiatry seeks legitimacy as a medical/biological science so it will never adopt a non-biological explanation of its subject matter.
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I totally agree with your criticism of this article (together with Steve); however, I am slightly less supportive of your criticism of Rossa. I agree that Rossa over-hypes the value of nutrition based on the placebo effect, but I also believe that physical health has critical value in promoting “mental health” (emotional well-being) . Emotional crises are often exasperated by biological problems with sleep (and worsened when people get sucked into the “system” while seeking sleep medication), nutritional deficits (“garbage in, garbage out”), and environmental allergens and toxins (the “mad” hatter). Consistently, better nutrition, regular sleep, reduced environmental toxins and regular exercise are biologically helpful in promoting “mental health.” It is the placebo effect supports the erroneous belief that exercise alone or improved nutrition alone can reverse the effects of distressful life circumstances.
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Psychoanalysis is extremely valuable therapy but it is not a medical intervention. I consider psychoanalysis invaluable “psychology theory” but harmful “medical theory” because I believe psychiatry pathologizes natural problems with living (including emotional suffering). Unfortunately, the value of psychoanalysis is rapidly becoming “forgotten knowledge” as Freudian psychiatrists retire and psychiatry seeks legitimacy through a stronger connection to medical science. Nevertheless, Freudian psychiatrists could offer valuable healing services to the community by promoting psychoanalysis through creating a new field: “Therapists with a Medical Degree.” As noted by Richard, dissident psychiatrists could also address the drug epidemic that was promoted by mainstream medical science.
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I believe that psychiatry promotes a “disease model” rather than a “medical model.” Pathologizing natural problems with living is not real medical (biological) science; the “medical model” is a misnomer- a PR victory for psychiatry.
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Psychiatry addresses a philosophy of “mind” and is thus “anti-biology” by definition; I advocate for neurobiology so I am an Antipsychiatrist.
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Yes, renaming “senility” did not make it any more pathological.
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I contend that this article is biological, medical science until it switches to philosophy: “However, there are some situations that we universally think of as brain diseases that do not have characteristic and distinguishing bodily features. Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease is one of these.” This statement describes our cultural ageism and a universal lack of empathy for the emotional suffering of the elderly. I agree with Szasz and do not understand how “Alzheimer’s disease” can prove him wrong.
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You are an articulate advocate for social justice; thank you for your community service.
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This is a critically important topic that may be easier to understand in the reverse- through investigating nocebos. While placebos describe the affect of positive outcome expectations, nocebos describe the impact of negative outcome expectations. I believe that most suicides are caused by nocebos (including Matt Stevenson); negative outcome expectations are powerful.
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I agree… but the value of science is that it is based on “scientific methodology” that is structured to reduce the confirmation bias; this includes the demand for transparency. I greatly appreciate this article for calling bullshit on what is currently passing for the scientific method in “mental health” care and for proposals to correct the pseudoscience.
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Yeah, this is a great discussion about an important article; it deserves a bigger audience.
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It seems basic to our humanity that physical health (especially nutrition) directly affects brain health and that “brain health” directly affects “mental health.” However, after basic physical needs are met, it is far more human to advocate that distressful experiences cause emotional suffering rather than maintain a singular focus on physical health (either nutrition or exercise) and ignore the social experiences of the disenfranchised.
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Thank you for this article; these are startling statistics that deserve proper attention.
The fact that white American “mental health” is dramatically worse than others is a critical point for Psychiatry to address; why are they silent on this issue? Psychiatry proposes that “mental health” problems are medical (biological); why are white psychiatrists not primarily investigating (or apparently even concerned) about their own biological (or genetic) failings?
These statistics prove “mental health” problems are not biological (or support an extreme anti-white prejudice).
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“These questions would heal. They would bring us back together with the truth…” is an extremely articulate description of causation for most “mental health” problems. Psychiatry is currently deemed a medical science and thereby advocates that “mental health” problems are medical problems rather than social problems; this obscures the truth and thereby worsens “mental health” problems.
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Excellent list Steve; I believe you only missed improved nutrition (and avoiding toxins).
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The UN Resolution on Human Rights (1948) addresses the right to a unique interpretation of one’s environment; this seems to cover “cognitive liberty” as a human rights issue. Psychiatry seeks complexity to obscure human rights violations; I believe that it is more in our interest to focus on UN human rights violations than invent a new concept.
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Thank you for this articulate description of the harmful hoax of “mental disorders.”
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Science has lost its way: anything can now pass. Parsimony is the most basic principle of science: fewer assumptions make better science. Hence, the most basic principle of the philosophy of science is falsifiablility: a science theory must identify its assumptions by explaining how to disprove itself. This “science” makes so many assumptions that it is pure philosophy; prestigious science journals now let any philosophy pass for science.
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There is nothing biological about the current bio model; it is pure pseudoscience. The most fundamental principle of biology is biological reductionism (an organism is understandable through its physical mechanisms); biology cannot investigate a philosophy of “mind” by definition.
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I believe that the biopsychosocial model is standard psychology (economic and political issues are included); my problem is with what passes for biology and neuroscience. Psychiatry’s neuroscience contradicts the most fundamental principle of every science that informs it (biology, physiology, natural science and general science); it also contradicts the most basic principle of the philosophy of science.
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I consider emotional pain to be a natural response to painfully distressful experiences; I support drug therapy for emotional pain managed by general practitioners consistent with medical science guidelines for addressing physical pain.
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Yes, I understand physicalism and materialism to be synonymous.
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Thank you for your response and again for your community service. Perhaps it is me that is misunderstanding “labels;” somehow I understood you to consider yourself a “Critical Psychiatrist.” I understand Critical Psychiatry to criticize the practice of psychiatry but support its legitimacy in addressing “madness.” I am an “Antipsychiatrist” because I am more critical of the harm caused by the illegitimacy of psychiatry in addressing natural problems with living than the resulting harmful practices.
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Thank you for all of your community service in support of the disenfranchised; however, not so much in this post. I contend that psychiatry is a (harmful) philosophy that masquerades as a medical science and that it is illogical to defend psychiatry (or any medical science) based on philosophy. Wittgenstein implicitly rejects psychiatry and other “real” medical sciences when challenging “physicalism” because physicalism is the foundation of medical science. You explain how the DSM categorizes social welfare problems, but thereafter you continue to assume that they are somehow medical problems anyway (the subject of psychiatry). It is difficult for cultural leaders to imagine the natural emotional suffering (pain) of the disenfranchised; they have different experiences. However, tagging social welfare problems as medical problems is staggeringly oppressive for the disenfranchised; it promotes suicide. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive (C.S. Lewis).”
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Well said… again.
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This is a great tribute; Matt was an articulate defender of the disenfranchised and will be sorely missed.
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“The question becomes why, if both mental ‘illnesses’ and physical illnesses are equivalent, only the ‘mental’ ones justify force.” Your answer (and Szasz’ answer) has a great deal of truth to it (psychiatry plays a major role of social control) but it is not the most understandable answer. “Mental illnesses” are believed to cause a lack of “normal, healthy” judgment; thus, society (led by psychiatry) protects patients (and society) from themselves. This is consistent with the “insanity” defense against criminal prosecution and how we portend to treat children. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive (C.S. Lewis).”
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Matt was an articulate voice defending the disenfranchised; he will be sorely missed by many.
Thank you for this blog; it is an excellent tribute.
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Thank you for your in-depth scientific analysis; I always appreciate truth.
The power of placebos and especially nocebos is greatly underestimated/misunderstood.
Moreover, all studies shorter than 5-10 years are predicated on the assumption that depression is a disease. Otherwise, it would be assumed that any study shorter than 5 years would be unable to assess whether outcomes were due to the effects of the drugs or a reduction of depression. Light doses of morphine can outperform “antidepressants” during most trial periods but will worsen depression significantly over time.
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This is an excellent article; “schizophrenia” cannot be genetic if you kill all “schizophrenics” in a population and the number doubles thereafter.
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Well said; I always appreciate your comments.
I believe that the only way to undermine the DSM (psychiatry) without “running afoul of the worship of ‘medical science'” is to challenge its legitimacy as a medical science. A medical science is (by definition) a biological science and a biological science that addresses a philosophy of “mind” is pseudoscience by definition. I believe that our greatest allies are medical students who “bash” psychiatry as “not a real medical science;” they have credibility. Medical students will defend the integrity of medical science (before they become more vested in its defense); students are more reverent of the truth. I am planning to take my protest against psychiatry to the local medical school and protest near the student union.
Best wishes, Steve
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And told by a “medical science” that his brain was malfunctioning.
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It is shameful that the US abandoned the Geneva Conventions by supporting the “Nuremberg defense” with impunity for war crimes (Raul v. Rumsfeld).
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Nothing has changed. “The emerging view is that the more overt psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia…often reflect underlying issues and conflicts in the lives of the sufferers. Most mental health experts today reject classical Freudian explanations for mental illness, such as repressed sexuality or a domineering mother or father.” I rarely defend Freud but a childhood environment of trauma (physical and sexual) remain the largest cause of “mental health” problems (if Freud’s “domineering” parents are today’s “abusive” parents).
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It seems wrong to abstractly judge who has more of a right to suffer emotionally. Economic privilege certainly is of great value in a materialistic society but emotionally supportive parents seems like a greater privilege.
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It seems unconscionable to put a positive spin on child abuse based on an unknown theory of adaptation.
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I am cheering: congratulations on bringing some tiny bit of justice to those abused at Oak Ridge and others similarly treated; their “‘treatments” have now been “officially” explained as “torture!”
I am also cheering because all legal briefs used to support a legal challenge to solitary confinement as torture in prisons should be stronger legal support for a challenge to its use as coerced “therapy!”
Does the public have access to archive photos of the torture?
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When I think about problems with psychiatric drugs, I think about someone in a fog from a heavy dose; when I think about anecdotal advocates for psychiatric drugs, I think about someone taking a light dose. It seems like a discussion about drug therapies should include information about dosages.
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Thank you for forty years of community service and the formation of the Coalition against Psychiatric Assault.
This is a great article in introducing significant problems caused by different definitions of “antipsychiatry.” I understand “antipsychiatry” to have two meanings; the first is related to being “against” the field of psychiatry (as lacking legitimacy as a medical science) and the second is being “against” the practice of psychiatry (for coercion and pushing drugs). Unfortunately, linguistics is about usage (and the power to define usage) and the power currently seems in the hands of reformists; Dictionary.com defines “antipsychiatry” as “an approach to mental disorders that makes use of concepts derived from existentialism, psychoanalysis, and sociological theory.” I advocate against the legitimacy of psychiatry as a medical science and will continue to use “antipsychiatry” to connote abolition rather than reform.
I have followed your work and wanted to join the Coalition against Psychiatric Assault because the organization’s name is the most articulate (and I agree with the website). However, while you contend that CAPA is open to everyone who advocates abolishing psychiatry, the guidelines (being voted into the group after attending two meetings) restrict most abolitionists.
Best wishes, Steve
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The research categories are vague (and rely on subjective interpretation) and it is impossible to isolate the variables; it is troubling to see such pseudoscience pass for research.
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I agree with your original comment; I do not accept the term “mad” to describe my mental distress. The first definition of “mad” at Dictionary.com is “mentally disturbed; deranged; insane; demented;” none of this describes my natural reaction to traumatic injustice.
However, I did review the MindFreedom manifesto and believe that it needs revising. It does not clearly state that the medical model is a false narrative and it is too long (and redundant).
Best wishes, Steve
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You are an articulate advocate for the disenfranchised; you deserve admiration for your community service. It is extremely valuable to “bear witness” to the cruelty of our current “mental health care” system and comforting the disenfranchised. Your story is an inspiration.
“So little compassion, understanding and humanity. When and how is the system going to change?” I contend that the system will change with the advocacy of thousands of people working independently to create a critical mass that de-legitimizes psychiatry and its medical model. I believe that your writing supports a “social welfare model” of mental distress- a natural response to social injustice (I blogged about the “social welfare model” here at MIA on 1/17/17). Consistently, “delusional thinking” is “a protective coping strategy which has been helpful and adaptive for this patient.”
Understanding natural emotions is difficult in our cultures. I had no idea emotions were physical until the warm energy that motivated my happy youth slowly turned to a nondescript aversion after experiencing extreme traumatic injustice. The mental aversion of extremely distressful experiences is naturally painful; emotional suffering is not a disease.
Best wishes, Steve
PS- A single caveat: psychiatry only purports “biological reductionism.” Psychiatry lacks any scientific validity; its “biological reductionism” is pure pseudoscience and any reference to psychiatry should be placed in quotes.
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Thank you for this article; “forgotten knowledge” is a problem in psychology/psychiatry. I consider dream interpretation (based on simile and metaphor) to be an extremely valuable tool in retrieving memories of extremely traumatic injustices that are typically too painful for recall. I consider it extremely important to “mental health” to recall traumatic injustices in order to neutralize and counter them. I believe that the value of dream interpretation is forgotten knowledge because it is part of Freudian theory that is no longer accepted. It is also forgotten knowledge because the “false memory syndrome” fad of the nineties damaged the credibility of dream interpretation.
Respectfully, Steve
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Thank you for your community service. I believe that mental distress is a social welfare problem rather than a medical problem; a medical (biological) science that addresses a social “philosophy of mind” is fundamentally pseudoscience. Pathologizing natural emotional suffering worsens outcomes; counselors and social workers should lead “mental health” care with family physicians prescribing drugs (that address the emotional pain and sleep problems caused by emotional suffering). Psychiatry only makes sense if mental distress is a medical problem; psychiatry is THE problem if mental distress is not a medical (biological) problem.
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Thank you for your community service and this eloquent, engaging, insightful essay.
However, I believe that you are creating a false dichotomy when juxtaposing “accepting responsibility for overcoming distress” against “identifying as having a biological, chemical brain disease.” I believe that accepting responsibility for personal “mental health care” is critical but that is not the same as taking responsibility for traumatic injustices. The disenfranchised are rarely responsible for the “life circumstances” that cause emotional suffering- mental distress; emotional suffering is not a brain disease (psychiatry has no scientific validity). I agree with Thomas Szasz who advocated that “mental illness” is a tool used to subjugate the disenfranchised (blaming the victims of cultural abuse).
Best wishes, Steve
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Thank you for promoting civil dialogue among critics of “mental health care” and forty years of service to the community. While I agree that deep polarization is harming our country, I respectfully disagree with a basic assumption of your article. Although you describe most critics on the “other side” of DJ Jaffe’s world, a large number of critics have a more fundamental, theoretical criticism of psychiatry. Many critics contend that psychiatry addresses social welfare problems and thus lacks any validity as a medical science. They contend that it significantly harms community “mental health” to treat the social welfare problems of the disenfranchised (“problems with living”) as if addressing diseases. More to the point, many critics contend that the legitimacy of psychiatry and its concept of “mental illness” is the main problem with “mental health care.”
Best wishes, Steve
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Well said… except I believe that you omitted that educated women (people) often struggle to understand the perspective of uneducated women (who are far more likely to be victims of sexual assault than college colleagues).
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I agree with Steve.
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I understand appreciating “critical psychiatry” for providing most of the academic support for abolishing psychiatry; however, our goals are radically different. The “tenets of psychiatry are faulty… (anti-psychiatrists) see reform as having a tendency, irrespective of intent, to reinforce the status quo (Burstow, MIA, 10/26/2014).”
A slash is punctuation used to identify “non-contrasting terms.” Anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry may be non-contrasting terms under specific circumstances: “anti-psychiatry/critical psychiatry” believe that psychiatrists over-prescribe drugs.” However, anti-psychiatry and critical psychiatry are philosophically contrasting terms that should not be combined.
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Congratulations; your scholarship is quite a feat and quite a legacy!
However, I do not understand one concluding remark: “May they help us slowly but surely turn antipsychiatry/critical psychiatry into an accepted form of knowledge.” I do not understand including “critical psychiatry;” I thought you made a strong case for anti-psychiatry (an abolitionist movement) and understand “critical psychiatry” to be a reformist movement. I do not understand how to reform psychiatry (a “medical science”) from pathologizing natural emotional suffering (seeking medical legitimacy).
Best wishes, Steve Spiegel
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Thank you for your community service in challenging NAMI corruption; however, I disagree with you, Frank and Oldhead about making NAMI a focus of criticism. Our society holds medical science in highest esteem; it seems ill-advised to focus criticism of mainstream “mental health” care at NAMI for advocating support for medical science (and their “medicines”).
I contend that the harm caused by mainstream “mental health care” can be directly attributed to legitimized pseudoscience: psychiatry accepted as a legitimate medical science. Medical schools are having problems with students who “bash psychiatry as not real medical science;” these students are our greatest allies. Medical schools legitimizing psychiatry is our greatest and weakest enemy since they pride themselves on real science.
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Thank you for your community service; your work has insured you a prestigious place in history!
However, I respectfully disagree with one premise. In 1980, psychiatry abandoned Freudian Theory and lumped neuroses (problems with living) together with their established “diseases” (psychoses); thus, psychiatry “doubled-down” on the “disease model” rather than “adopted” it. Addressing neuroses (social welfare problems) hurt psychiatry’s legitimacy as a medical science so they redefined them as psychoses- medical problems (and abandoned Freudian Theory). Psychiatry has always been based on the “disease model” since it considers itself a medical science.
Your recommendation is a good one; challenge medical students on the legitimacy of their science (or their field). I advocate that mental distress is a social welfare problem and that “First, do no harm” is impossible when believing that natural human suffering from traumatic injustices (or physical problems) is a disease.
Thank you for allowing me to comment on your article and your work in challenging the harm of long-term drug “therapy.”
Best wishes, Steve Spiegel
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Well said Steve; the current mental health system’s focus on mythical diseases rather than traumatic injustices is the largest obstacle to suicide prevention.
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Psychology’s neuroscience is pure pseudoscience; it contradicts the most basic principle of every science that informs it. Psychology’s neuroscience contradicts the most fundamental tenet of biology, physiology, natural science and general science theory; it also contradicts the most fundamental principle of the philosophy of science.
Psychology’s neuroscience uses neuroscience research to support the status quo, but the foundation of the research is all pseudoscience. Thereafter, they are comfortable describing how addictive drugs can “capture the individual’s motivation system” but cannot explain what the hell it means to “capture” a motivation system?
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Autism: The Anatomy of an Epidemic!!! The autism rate has increased from 3 per 10,000 in 1970 to 150-220 per 10,000 today (depending on the government study). The statistics are staggering and deserve a book of their own!!!
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I do not understand why the most obvious answer is never considered: atrophy of nervous tissue causes brain shrinkage in “diagnosed people” from depression and especially from sedation reducing brain activity.
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“One fundamental mistake I believe is repeatedly made today when it comes to working with those who feel disenfranchised, marginalized, discounted, or discriminated against is believing that the opposite response must be the best response.”
This sentence clearly states the problem. Those “who feel disenfranchised” are at the bottom of a social pecking order of emotional abuse; their “unusual beliefs and behaviors” generally reflect the emotional pain. The “opposite response” is by far “the best response:” emotional support is the best response to traumatic injustice (and behaviors that reflect emotional suffering). It is difficult to empathize with emotional suffering without experiencing true misfortune; emotional suffering is not a disease. Believing emotional suffering to be unnatural leads counselors to discount the distress caused by traumatic injustice and to exaggerate their ability to solve a client’s distressful life circumstances. If a child writes a parent a note “I hate miself,” the parent should not be thinking that their child has a spelling problem.
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The video seems to (correctly) imply that the DSM is a Cultural Moral Code rather than exclusively an Atheist Moral Code.
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This article clarifies what confuses me about popular criticism of psychology at this website. I am an anti-psychiatrist because psychiatry is pseudoscience; it has no legitimate (scientific) connection to neuroscience and biology (biological reductionism). In contrast, the author (and most psychology critics) wrongly assumes that psychiatry represents a biological reductionism perspective. Critics understand that psychiatry is without scientific support but they seem fearful that real neuroscience might eventually support psychiatry instead of assuming that real neuroscience will prove psychiatry wrong!
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I said repeatedly that physical health directly affects “mental health,” and that prior to understanding the basics of nutrition, nutritional deficiencies were the main source of “mental health” problems. What is trite is arguing that nutritional deficiencies that were understood centuries ago could still be the main source of “mental health” problems. You are suggesting that psychiatry should morph into gastroenterology without support from gastroenterologists.
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I clearly state that nutrition greatly influences “mental health” in the first sentence and assume that it was the predominate influence circa Hippocrates. However, today in the US, socially distressful experiences are the predominate cause of mental distress. What I said was illogical is replacing the old medical model (of mystery diseases) with a new one based on dietary problems. Consistently, a new medical model paradigm of dietary problems continues to advocate that injustice and socially distressful experiences do not affect “mental health.”
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I advocate a free, unified alternative therapies program that includes Nutritional Therapy because better nutrition (better physical health) promotes better “mental health” (UnifiedAlternatives.org). However, claiming that mental distress is caused by nutritional deficiencies and solved by improved nutrition is advocating a new “medical model” that seems illogical for numerous reasons.
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What I believe:
“Depression and anxiety may be familiar to all of us to some degree, but … I think that true psychotic experiences are rare” “True psychotic experiences are rare” because the extreme distressfulness of the experiences that produce “psychotic experiences” are rare.
“Therefore I do not think it makes sense to suggest that psychosis is on a continuum with normal experience.” “True psychotic experiences are rare” on a bell-curve that plots the distressfulness of experiences (of distressful life circumstances); they are the extreme end of “a continuum with normal experience.”
“What attracted me to psychiatry … is the intuition that mental disorder has something profound to teach us about the nature of being human.” Good intuition on your part; mental distress teaches us that emotions are feelings that are understood physically rather than intellectually. Extreme mental distress teaches us that the brain has a natural aversion to distressful experiences. Natural emotional suffering from extremely distressful experiences is experienced by the brain as averse- similarly to extreme physical pain (except it does not subside like physical pain). Mental distress is human nature; human aversion to mental distress naturally motivates behavior to avoid distressful experiences. The problem arises when the brain cannot find a behavior to relieve the distress; “fight or flight” will not solve most modern distressful experiences.
“And it does this not by reflecting brain abnormalities, but by consisting of extreme, bizarre, usually dysfunctional and sometimes unfathomable manifestations of human agency.” I would have totally agreed with this sentence until I experienced a reversal of fortune in early adulthood; thereafter, I found my “bizarre” and often “dysfunctional” behavior to completely understandable. The commanding emotional pain of psychosis is analogous to extreme physical pain that does not subside; if you want to understand psychosis, submit to physical torture for a couple months.
When a person lives “on top of the stack” (as I did during my youth), it is hard to imagine what life feels like “at the bottom of the pecking order” (as I did for a couple decades).
Best wishes, Steve
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This would be great news if mental distress is a disease that cures itself without intervention and only gets worse when the natural emotions being expressed are heavily drugged for extended periods.
The real Open Dialogue is successful because it tries to assist people in solving real “problems with living” within the context of a clients life (at their home with their family/roommates). The real Open Dialogue tries not to pull people out of their lives and put them in an institution and expect their lives to be better when they return home (as if a disease is cured).
This spinoff and others in the US seem doomed to failure for three reasons: 1) clients can rarely solve their real “problems with living” while believing that they are medical problems, 2) clients can rarely solve their real “problems with living” while isolated in a mental institution, and 3) the treatments are expensive and opposed by most psychiatrists.
This spinoff and others in the US miss the central characteristic of the real Open Dialogue that makes it successful; extreme mental distress is natural emotional suffering rather than a medical problem.
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I meant daily physical assaults of a control group; they currently allow daily physical assaults of patients in their “care.”
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Thankfully, ethics panels prohibit the academic investigation of whether daily assaults promote anxiety.
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It seems like you two should put quotes around your usage of the term “communism” if your definition is so idealistic that no examples exist.
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I believe that the practice of psychotherapy is valuable (substantially underrated) but that its context as addressing medical (psychiatric) problems causes more harm than it can solve.
Best wishes, Steve
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Thank you for your community service in challenging mainstream “mental health care.”
“Such a paradigm needs to explain human struggle and how and why suffering occurs. It requires an appropriate treatment approach that heals pain and shows why and how it works;” I propose a “Social Welfare Model” to replace the “Medical Model.” The “Social Welfare Model” describes mental distress as natural emotional suffering from distressful experiences and from physical ailments, rather than a medical problem of a biological dysfunction. This model describes emotions as understandable physically rather than intellectually. Extreme emotional suffering (from extremely distressful experiences) is perceived by the brain similar to extreme physical pain.
The theory of a “The play of consciousness in the theater of the brain” describes an intellectual understanding of emotions. Instead, we physically feel the joy of a happy surprise and physically feel the pain of extremely distressful experiences.
Emotional suffering is the natural, painful reaction to distressful experiences; it is natural, “normal” psychology- natural neurobiology. Most “psychiatric symptoms” misinterpret natural expressions of emotional suffering as a medical problem; psychiatry is a medical science addressing social welfare problems. This misinterpretation of natural psychology causes great social harm.
There is no treatment for natural emotional suffering beyond time and positive experiences of emotional well-being. In contrast, there is a great deal we can do to prevent trauma in the community by promoting more social justice.
Best wishes, Steve
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Same old BS from psychiatry: label people “‘pathological’ worriers” with only support from a strong affirmation bias and without any biological support. Same old BS from psychiatry: assume that unusual worrying is a medical problem instead of natural emotional suffering from (natural) fear of repetitive (unresolved) distressful experiences (a social welfare problem).
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Certainly the desire to avoid painfully “gloomy, pessimistic thoughts” can motivate a hyperactive drive for relief. Promoting experiences of emotional well-being is therapeutic; drugging natural emotions hardly seems therapeutic.
Best wishes, Steve
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The more fundamental question is about whether there is a relationship between “mental distress” and “enlarged ventricles” and the implications thereof. I understand the skull to contain the brain and ventricles (air pockets for cushioning against impact). To say that someone has “enlarged ventricles” seems like a funny way of saying that a person has “decreased brain volume.” Decreased brain volume seems like a logical result of depression. Depressing experiences cause depression- emotionally painful hopelessness; hopelessness causes a radical reduction of thinking and behavior. Physiologists contend that “use it or loose it” is the motto for every body tissue; long-term depression causes nervous tissue atrophy- a natural “decrease of brain volume.”
“Enlarged ventricles” can be explained with elemental physiology; it is unfortunate that psychiatry’s neuroscience ignores basic physiology theory while trying to explain their erroneous medical narrative.
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Correction: search for “DSM & Medical Model” at Vimeo website.
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Correction: sixty years ago.
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The distressful experiences of First Nations are staggering; they cannot watch a world series without witnessing unequaled racist caricatures of themselves. The Cleveland Indians mascot (“Chief Wahoo”) is a vulgarity that has no equal since they removed “Little Black Sambo” from my grade school classroom fifty years ago.
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I did not intend the video to imply the the “medical model” began with the DSM-III; it began when it replaced the “religious model” (demonic possession) in describing extreme emotional suffering. In the video, I describe the first two editions of the DSM as based on Freudian theory; Freud describes psychoses as medical problems. The DSM-III moved from Freudian theory that described most of the DSM-II categories as problems with living (neuroses) to a biological interpretation of all categories.
Thank you for your comments; I will edit my video to clarify that the DSM-III doubled-down on the “medical model” by claiming that all DSM categories were thereinafter diseases rather than only psychoses.
I did not understand the term “biological psychiatry” to specifically refer to the difference between the psychiatry of the DSM-III and the psychiatry of the DSM-II. The term is confusing because it is redundant; I consider all psychiatrists to be biological psychiatrists since psychiatry claims to be a biological (medical) science.
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Yes, the murky, cloudy, swirling image was intended to reflect the increased complexity of the DSM-IV-TR from adding multiple axes (perspectives) while adding nothing of value.
Efforts to promote more justice for children in distressful circumstances is admirable (albeit difficult); thank you for your community service.
The video is posted on Vimeo- a free video dissemination website competitor of YouTube. I assume that the access for TV viewing is similar to YouTube (simply go to their website and search for “DSM&MedicalModel”). However, I also assume that the video can be accessed for TV viewing from the MIA website. I posted my video at the Vimeo website so I could periodically edit it for clarity without revised versions competing with the latest version (as would be the case on YouTube).
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I use the term “medical model” exactly as Szasz does- as a “portrayal of problems in living, of thought, behavior and emotion, as medical diseases.” I intend “social welfare” problems to describe “problems in living.”
“Mental illness” is a metaphor better understood as an oxymoron; a philosophy of mind cannot have a medical (biological) illness. Nevertheless, some “problems in living” cause extreme emotional pain that is frequently considered a disease based on the predominate paradigm. Extreme emotional suffering is distressful to witness; most people believe that life is generally cheerful and cannot imagine the emotional suffering of the disenfranchised. The social welfare narrative advocates that extreme emotional suffering is a natural response to extremely distressful experiences. I agree that “mental health” is another metaphor (oxymoron), but I believe that it is a necessary term for communicating about emotional well-being and emotional suffering.
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I use the term “medical model” differently than the definitions identified by Graham. I contend that the APA uses a “medical model” to explain behaviors described in the DSM that were previously explained with a “religious model” and are better explained with a “social welfare model.” The “medical model” began when it replaced the “religious model.” Later, Freudian theory dominated the “medical model” until the DSM-III; it described a few medical problems of “psychoses” and numerous social welfare problems of “neuroses.” Psychiatry was losing public legitimacy as a medical science addressing social welfare problems and the non-existent boundaries dividing the two. Psychiatry was forced to either abandon oversight of neuroses (the majority of diagnoses) or double-down on the “medical model” and claim that neuroses were thereinafter medical problems rather than social welfare problems.
I use the term “medical model” to describe the DSM disease narrative of behaviors that I describe as natural with a “social welfare narrative.” The definitions Graham identifies all assume the disease narrative (paradigm) and use the term in a variety of other ways.
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The images were obviously intended to add impact rather than confuse; do you remember which image seemed inconsistent with the message?
I have ambivalent feelings about Freud; I admire some of his ideas far more than most others while detesting other ideas of his. My point about Freud was that the DSM was founded on his theories and then abandoned by committee vote for a foundation with more popular support; this is not science.
Concerning my tone, I consider myself a scientist and have always tried to write with a (cold) scientific tone while targeting academics and professionals; this is my first effort to write for a public audience. I wanted an exasperated tone at the punch lines to express the calamity of the situation. I wanted to give voice to the pain caused by considering natural emotional suffering and other natural behaviors to be diseases. However, I wanted to sound exasperated rather than angry; I will reconsider my tone.
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Thank you, Steve
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I do not agree with your characterization of our conversation. I understood you to say that the social ills of psychiatry can only be solved by focusing on challenging capitalism and I advocated that psychiatry will collapse under the weight of its pseudoscience and human rights abuses. I believe that it will be death by a thousand blows with medical students contributing to the critical mass. I thought that Bonnie Burstow’s New Year’s Eve Resolutions blog (December 28) offered a lot of options for people to consider a comfortable way to contribute. I believe that this website and the bloggers and commenters at this website contribute with a valuable, expanding dialogue.
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One must be careful when joking about psychiatry because their “truth can be stranger than fiction!” Mainstream psychiatry has already claimed that “new neuro-imaging breakthroughs have been made that allow the diagnosis of ADHD to be precisely made via having children wear brain-wave measuring helmets.” Evidently, you have not heard of the renown psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Amen.
Dr. Amen was the darling of public television a decade ago for famously claiming exactly what you joke about! Wikipedia introduces Dr. Amen as follows: Daniel Gregory Amen (born 1954) is an American psychiatrist, a brain disorder specialist, director of the Amen Clinics, and a ten-times New York Times bestselling author. Amen’s clinics offer medical services to people who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other disorders. They use single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) as a purported diagnostic tool to identify supposed sub-categories of these disorders, as devised by Amen.”
This was all the rage a decade ago, but has waned from criticism; however, Dr. Amen is still getting rich pushing this BS because it is such logical support for psychiatry… IF IT WAS TRUE!
Best wishes, Steve
PS- Comments to a previous post: the APA introduced “clinically significant criteria” for their diagnoses (starting with the DSM-IV). With this simple phrase, the APA states that only clinicians can understand their diagnostic criteria, and properly use their manual. Hence, the APA cleverly discounts criticism of the DSM based on the lack proper insight by non-clinicians. Also, I am unable to offer IT advice about videotaping because I am completely dependent on assistance.
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Oldhead,
I describe social problems that cause a community harm; political problems do not cause all of the social ills in a community. Any community benefits from eliminating the disease narrative of emotional suffering regardless of their political system. Every political system is plagued by class privilege that is supported by the disease narrative of natural emotional suffering. Obviously, some political systems promote far more social justice than others but I do not want to highjack my social commentary with a political discussion.
Best wishes, Steve
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I believe that the most fundamental contradiction of psychiatry is that it is a medical science addressing a social welfare problem.
My “social welfare” paradigm is not a “social welfare system” paradigm. Social welfare (emotional well-being) is promoted by comforting, affirming experiences of social justice (and physical health); conversely, social welfare (emotional well-being) is reduced by distressful experiences of social injustice (and poor physical health). A community promotes social welfare primarily through social justice and harms social welfare primarily through social injustices.
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I intended to include behaviors that distress others when describing behaviors that the APA considers “anti-social.” Certainly, psychiatry can induce distress where there was none.
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Public assistance is difficult; it is easier to reduce the need for public assistance through more social justice. It is harmful to community “mental health” for eight people to be as wealthy as half the world’s population. This obscenity developed through politics as usual but things can always change. Thank you for your comments.
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The medical model (disease model) started when secularists gained control of the narrative about “anti-social” behaviors away from theologians. However, I used the term “medical model” to refer to the DSM-III changing the definition of “neuroses” (most “mental disorders”) from social welfare problems to medical problems. I would consider other terms for the model but I have a problem with the term “biomedical” because it reminds me of the term “biological psychiatry.” The term “biological psychiatry” creates confusion with its redundancy; medical sciences consider themselves to be based on biology. “Biological psychiatry” is used to criticize some psychiatrists as misusing biology while wrongly implying that other psychiatrists are properly using biology- the foundation of their legitimacy as a medical science.
I agree with your analysis of the term “mental illness” but believe that focusing on the absurdity of the term obscures a more important issue. The term describes a widely accepted philosophy advanced by the APA that considers natural emotional suffering to be a disease.
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Excellent point; thank you for reiterating it! It is a glaring omission to fail to reference leading critics of mainstream mental health care for further reading at the conclusion of the video. I will seek your advice for a reference page before re-editing.
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My comment below was intended to affirm the neuroplasticity of the brain responding to personal experiences that include “mindfulness.” However, trying to think differently about personal injustices has little therapeutic value compared to confronting or countering the injustices.
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The video does not address mental health care within a social welfare narrative, but it is a critically important subject that you understand something about.
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Thank you for your valuable comments; I will consider them while re-editing the video.
I believe that much your criticisms express a desire for a more academic overview of mainstream mental health care rather than one targeting the general public. I did not believe that I could communicate an overview of criticism of mainstream mental health care in a half hour video (a public information format) with constant interruptions for references. I believe that my video rings true with much of the public, especially those who have experienced mental distress.
Academics and professions also need an overview of the criticisms of their profession; this is an important point that cannot be done in a half hour video (and should probably include more collaboration).
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Thank you for your comments. It is hard to imagine mental abuse worse than “gaslighting”- the unfortunate outcome of the medical model of mental distress.
Also, it never occurred to me that “real” medical sciences could benefit from (be vested in) psychiatry creating ambiguity around iatrogenesis.
I do not know about the intent of the DSM but I totally agree that it is unfortunately the primary source for defaming, torturing and silencing the victims of child abuse.
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