It’s all about getting drugs on the market; it doesn’t matter if medical doctors are involved. For the most part, medicine’s veneer of integrity is just that, a veneer. Pharmaceutical and insurance money is most of what runs the show. More drugs mean more money for them. People’s health be damned.
Significant change won’t happen unless and until the public becomes aware of the significant risks involved in taking psychiatric drugs, something that usually only happens after they are seriously affected.
A similar thing happened to the cigarette industry where a lot of people had to get seriously sick or even die before anyone paid attention.
Thank you No-one for once again calling out the overeducated half-wits who to me seem almost congenitally unable to stop themselves from believing that answers to psychic healing can only lie in the minds of those trained in the excesses of academic gobbledygook, aka “research and treatment”, a bureaucracy all its own.
Here’s what they refuse to see: that healing is found in the spontaneous, heartfelt connection between like-minded individuals who have no financial or egoic (narcissistic) agenda. In other words, between clear-minded people who don’t have to be paid money to actually give a goddamn about someone else.
In all fairness, though, this author does say this in his conclusion: “I hope and believe that it is only a matter of time before people turn against the psychiatric priesthood and find out that the answers are within themselves and within their own communities.”
FWIW, I personally believe the spiritual revolution is well on its way.
I think what Ethan describes here parallels the Protestant Reformation, something in no small measure spurred along by the invention of the printing press. Only these days we’re lucky enough to now have the electronic printing press, better known as the internet, the fortunate consequence being it’s no longer possible for “mental health professionals” to hide behind their iron curtain of pretention, aka “professionalism”. Likewise, the leaders of the catholic church went to town having people believe they needed a priest to absolve them of their “sins”, which was, of course, a load of pious bullshit. And now people are finding out just what the “experts” in “mental health” have been up to, which consists mainly of pledging allegiance to a biased system the dynamics of which are best describes as intractably narcissistic and therefore more beneficial for those who work in it.
Face it. The unhealthy desire to infantilize other adults, aka “psychiatry”, feeds the unhealthy desire to control other adults. It’s as simple as that.
Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that people in power, aka “psychiatry”, will ever willingly relinquish the feelings of control that infantilizing other adults inappropriately gives them.
Psychiatry routinely strips people’s dignity “hospitalized” or not. Its systematic dehumanization of the vulnerable acts as a safety valve for those in power because ultimately psychiatry is not about people’s health and wellbeing, it’s about the comfort and satisfaction and feelings of power of its practitioners.
“Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are often associated with mental illness.”
Bullshit. Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are usually associated with being on the receiving end of emotional abuse and neglect in a culture that is profoundly exploitive.
You are very kind, No-one. I thank you for speaking the truth, and eloquently at that, which helps make my day, too! And I’m sure the pigeons enjoyed the honey coated cashews as these treats are truly delish! 🙂
Not silly at all. What this article says (imo) has everything to do with dispelling the notion of ‘mental illness’, a convenient fiction promoted by a willfully distorted view of reality from the powers that be.
“Why do they prescribe pills that don’t work or don’t help in the long run. They simply are deceiving themselves at best and imagining they are helping …”
Brilliant observations, No-one. I appreciate the intricacy and clarity with which you present your arguments.
I wholeheartedly agree that intellectual pussy footing around the edges of an inarguably distorted take on reality does little to alleviate the source of the conundrum.
In other words, why not call it out for what it is: BRIBERY
But either way, here’s how I see things: society’s problems are best chalked up to a collective case of full-blown narcissism topped off with a large dollop of self-inflicted spellbinding, courtesy BIG PHARMA —
Good article, but I think it overlooks the impact of family dynamics and family culture, as these usually determine the course of one’s emotional/psychological development and journey through life more than anything else. So, it’s not a matter of blame, it’s a matter of understanding what’s inevitable.
A 15-year-old girl loses her father. An eight-year-old girl loses her mother—twice. How in the hell is anyone supposed to react to losses like these, especially at such young ages??? The people who expected them not to be deeply affected are the “sick” ones. AND GRIEF IS NOT A “DISORDER”.
People need to stop thinking of unusual psychological states soley as bio-medical issues because much of the time they are not; they are the conscious mind breaking from an all too painful reality. Yet underneath this, the human spirit often bursts forth, with its all-seeing eye from an unseen realm.
The politics of patriarchy are part and parcel of western medicine/”psy” disciplines.
Solutions lie in avoiding western medicine as much as possible and instead find qualified practioners trained in Eastern medicine which allows the body and mind to heal naturally of their own accord.
Quit the wordy bullshit: liberation psychology, existentialist, social determinants of mental health, blah, blah, blah.
Better to find kindly souls who get who you are and where you’re at than having to pay some fool’s financially oppressive fees while kissing their power-imbalanced ass.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Russell. Most graduate students as well as psychiatric residents have yet to learn there’s a big difference between fantasy and reality.
No matter how many capital letters you string together, the “mental health system” isn’t about health. It’s about jockeying for power (and money) more than anything else.
Psychotherapy amounts to a one-way psychological peep show, that’s for sure. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think emotionally disrobing for strangers is a good idea for anybody. The whole “therapy” set-up gives me the creeps.
IMHO.
The Gilded Age has fully returned: a world of extreme haves and have nots. But calling it The Age of the Boiling Frog I think would be a more accurate way of describing what’s happening today.
Tragically, I don’t see a cure for indifference when so many people are faced with trying to survive economically themselves.
“On the other hand, for all of its faults, the construction of the DSM arguably relies on a more careful scientific process than what informs opinion videos pushed by complex, mysterious, and profit-driven media algorithms.”
The author needs to explain why he seems to think voting so-called “mental disease” into existence is a “more careful scientific process” than some random Tik Tok video.
DSM diagnoses are opinions voted into existence by a group of self-serving psychiatrists, which might explain why something called ‘conflict of interest’ comes to mind.
The truth is that Tik Tok videos and DSM conferences have something in common: both are seriously deluded.
Stigma is rooted in fear, and illness breeds fear (stigma) because illness means infirmity and infirmity means invalidity and invalidity means irrelevance — a condition most psy professionals are trained to believe they are (or should be) immune to.
“Mental health” stigma will always exist as long as psychic/emotional distress is “treated” as a medical condition. So, it stands to reason that most of the stigma in so-called “mental health” emanates from psychiatry’s very own DSM.
Psychiatric “diagnoses” are opinions only, “professional” or otherwise. Which means it’s not unheard for two different practitioners to come up with two different “diagnoses” FOR THE SAME PERSON!
And guess what? One of them might even be of the opinion that no “diagnosis” is called for —
P.S. I wouldn’t knock happiness if I were you because imo it sure beats the alternative. Just make sure you don’t get carried away with it. That goes for the lows, too, btw.
It wasn’t that long ago when family doctors routinely ‘prescribed’ things like exercise or social activities for people who weren’t feeling up to par. But things began to change once Prozac hit the market in 1987. Before this it was pretty rare for them to automatically assign a psychiatric diagnosis which in my opinion is even more harmful (in insidious ways) than indiscriminately prescribing psychiatric drugs.
It might be would worth it for people in the author’s age group to go a step further and drop the concept of “mental illness” altogether, to entertain the idea that perhaps even the most severe reactions to social determinants, i.e. “Major Depressive Disorder”, “Bipolar”, “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” are in reality just more intense responses to overwhelming circumstances. That alone might go a long way towards promoting a more positive mindset for everyone involved.
The transition to adulthood is often a tough one but turning to people that make a living pulling bullshit diagnoses out of their ass with one hand and psych drugs out of their ass with the other are two things few people need.
The photograph chosen for this blog was perfect, too! Makes me wish to hell I’d shredded the goddamn psych scripts written for me.
“As with all psychiatrists I had met in my life, it was terrifying to see how detached from reality this man was as I watched him feel so superior to me based solely on his belief in the medical model.”
I can relate to this scenario, which is not a caricature, it’s the nightmare reality most people face when trying to withdraw from psychiatric drugs. To me it’s psychiatry’s defining feature: psychiatrists I have encountered were drunk on arrogance, happily living in their own reality-denying universe, adding insult to injury to people going through withdrawal. It was a crash course in what it means to be gaslit.
For me the most healing thing about being in nature is the quiet, as well as not being surrounded by a civilization filled with pressure to be somewhere you’d rather not go, or pressure to be around people you really can’t stand. The constant noise and feeling of overwhelm in urban environments are often toxic to environmentally sensitive people, whereas natural environments are characterized by a non-threatening atmosphere, which is soothing to the mind and body.
CLARIFICATION: [psychiatry] is a uniquely harmful pseudoscience that ruins many people’s lives which makes choosing to ignore the harm it’s capable of doing inexcusable.
The same kind of thing happened to me. Some psychiatrists were truly ignorant (which is no excuse), but I suspect more than one deliberately hid the truth to keep from being sued.
Hey, Kim, I forgot to mention that OCD is not a ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’ either; it is a series of behaviors usually set in motion from ‘latent anxiety’, or hidden fear, which btw is an emotion, AND EMOTION IS NOT A ‘DISEASE’ OR A ‘DISORDER’ —
Post-partum depression/psychosis is not a discrete biological illness; it is a state of mind that’s usually brought on by the sudden hormonal readjustment (shock, aftermath) of giving birth, a natural but sometimes hormonally traumatic experience. Which makes it not surprising that a hormonally based treatment relieves it. But this does not mean that Brexanalone is ‘treating a disease’. After all, birth-control pills prevent pregnancy, and pregnancy is not a disease.
…and repeatedly stuffing people (especially young children) with ‘psychiatric medications’ does NOT ‘treat’ anything; all these do is NUMB EMOTIONS that need to be processed.
Furthermore, your unwillingness to recognize the existence of meaningful financial incentives in the business of medicine (psychiatry in particular) indicates a disturbing amount of denial on your part.
I think it’s time you step outside your cognitive bubble.
Kim, the things you mention (neuroscience scans, genome studies, pharmacodynamics, kinetics, etc.,) do not “tell us what is happening in the brain”; these function only as Rorschach tests, meaning whatever happens to be on the mind of the viewer gets projected onto whatever is being viewed. And this is because there is no convincing evidence of a pathological process for any emotional/cognitive state of mind or ‘psychiatric condition’. Check out this blog now available on MIA: Researchers: Depression Is “A Normal Brain Responding to Stress or Adversity” by Peter Simons
And in case you didn’t know, dementia is not a ‘psychiatric condition’; it is a neurological one.
CORRECTION: Framing distressing thoughts, feelings and behaviors ‘psychiatrically’ more often than not causes people to distance themselves (out of fear) from people who’ve been diagnosed ‘psychiatrically’ (biologically rooted or not), people who otherwise would be seen as simply having a hard time.
So, unfortunately, the final upshot from framing psychological problems as ‘biologically rooted’ actually INCREASES stigma, an unintended but nevertheless devastating consequence for persons simply seeking help.
Most people fear (stigmatize) illness of any kind on some level because they don’t like being reminded of their own vulnerability. Therefore, framing people’s thoughts and feelings as ‘psychopathology’ (a medicalized concept) only serves to increase stigma which subsequently prompts people to distance themselves from something that causes them too much anxiety.
Indeed. It’s lip service, a way of appeasing patients in order to make a prescriber’s life easier, a clever way of trying to sound progressive in order to salvage their tarnished reputations. And the craziest thing about it is that doctors are specifically trained to skillfully persuade people to ‘take their medicine’. The whole idea is ridiculously performative because the last thing an MD is concerned with is the patient’s sense of self; what they’re most concerned with is following is standard protocols to avoid malpractice suits.
“Shared decision making” in ‘mental health’ is a joke.
It might sound good, but the fact is most people in professional roles aren’t willing to share their power as this is what defines them. And this is especially true when it comes to ‘antipsychotics’, or any other psychiatric ‘medication’ because most clinicians are trained to believe that psychiatric patients don’t know their own mind (‘lack insight’, ‘anosognosia’). Which is the reason why most clinicians subtly pressure (or even coerce) patients into complying with whatever makes the clinician feel safe.
A client’s sense of self usually fares no better because this too is under the influence of the harmful dynamics present in most psychotherapeutic relationships, dynamics characterized by a ‘power imbalance’ that (insidiously) undermines clients’ faith in themselves.
“If the late adolescence/early adulthood period is genuinely ‘critical’ and ‘sensitive’ for still developing brains, then it is precisely this which should make clinicians wary of biomedical interventions!”
This kind of critical thinking (not to mention common sense) is woefully absent in psychiatry. I don’t know why the obvious never occurs to most of them. Wait a minute! Yes I do! Their confirmation bias has them primed to see what they’re looking for, even if they’re not sure what it is they’re looking at, i.e. ‘schizophrenia’, or ‘depression’, or ‘bipolar’, or ‘anxiety disorder’, or any other ‘disorder’ they happen to think of…
Therefore, the last thing any medical doctor should do is reach for their prescription pad.
I think anyone who has the audacity to call themselves a healer of the mind, brain, soul, etc., is remarkably unaware (unconscious) of their own limitations (unhealed wounds).
They should ask themselves why they feel the need to see themselves as a healer, or more precisely, why they feel the need to have others see them as a healer.
In other words, most often in jobs like this it’s the wounded ego that’s in charge, not ‘the wounded healer’ they may (pretentiously) declare themselves to be.
‘Anitpsychotics’ interfere with the psyche’s ability to naturally restore itself, which can happen, given enough time and favorable circumstances.
Aggressively ‘treating’ psychotic episodes with neuroleptics for years (or any amount of time for that matter) assaults the human body, and mis-perceiving withdrawal effects as a ‘recurrance of the original illness’ is not just a mistake, it is a crime.
“Researchers have reported concerns that screening can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment and wastes the time and resources of both doctors and patients. In a study that found screening youth for depression led to more severe outcomes, the researchers note that screening may have an iatrogenic affect—worsening depression by making people focus on it.”
Bingo! This is the reason why the number of people being diagnosed with ‘mental illness’ has exploded, to the dertriment of themselves and society.
I had serious misgivings when I first heard of widespread screenings for ‘depression’ some thirty-odd years ago. I found myself hoping some influential person in psychiatry would come forward and issue warnings about what this could lead to: a massive iatrogenic effect. But instead what I feared would happen did happen, which is especiallly tragic for people too young and inexperienced to recognize the dynamics of situations like this; in other words, how their emotions are being used (pathologized) to promote The Sickness Industry more than anything else.
I feel the same way. A person’s emotional state is highly personal, therefore is someone’s personal property, something a stranger has no business knowing or asking about for any reason whatsoever. I don’t care who they are or what their purpose is.
It’s one of many micro-inequities perpetrated by the ‘mental health system’ that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
It pisses me off the way psychiatry ducks responsibility for the proliferation of people needlessly prescribed psychiatric drugs because if there were no DSM (created by psychiatrists!) there’d be no way for physicians to legally prescribe psychiatric drugs.
Which means one thing: Psychiatry alone hold the keys to the Gates of Hell.
The reason for the disparity is obvious: people in ‘developed’ countries have more access (money) to pharmaceutical poisons, and pharmaceutical poisons can make you sick.
WTF is ‘screening for depression’??? Stupid checklists bankrolled by pharmaceutical companies administered by stupid people looking for more ‘clients’.
It does prove one thing, however: psychiatry is the apex of capitalism.
Speak for yourself. An apology from psychiatry isn’t enough if their “treatments” have harmed a person’s ability to provide for themselves financially.
Reading this aticle was so confusing it made me anxious. But here’s my take on it just the same:
Telling someone they have an “anxiety disorder” is just a fancy of way of saying something’s wrong with them for feeling anxious which often leads to feelings of shame. This often leads to more anxiety which often leads to more shame—so much so that people often find themselves saying “I AM anxious”, rather than “I FEEL anxious”.
AND WHO WANTS TO GO OUT FEELING LIKE THAT???
So, thanks to “psychiatry” we’ve got people stuck in one hell of an anxiety loop.
If Awais Aftab felt secure with the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that, imo. The fact that Aftab does react imo suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together, speculative and therefore essentially inconclusive the research results are.
Putting it more simply, Awais Aftab seems ‘triggered’ when reputable people like Robert Whitaker dare call out psychiatry’s dubious claims of genetic risk or causality regarding psychiatry’s equally dubious “DSM diagnoses”.
If Awais Aftab felt secure in the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that. The fact that Awais does react suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together (and ultimately speculative) the research results are.
In common parlance, Awais seems ‘triggered’ by certain people who dare call out psychiatry’s vacuous claims of genetic risk or causality. IMHO.
The only thing I learned from psychotherapy is how useless it is for me.
Sitting through psychotherapy left me with a nagging sense of cognitive dissonance that lingered for days. Talking myself into believing that therapists or psychiatrists have anything worthwhile to offer was not only exhausting but also took a huge toll on my relationship with myself since deep down I knew I was wasting my time with people I didn’t respect. In any case, having to constantly bite my tongue so as not to deflate a therapist’s or psychiatrist’s oversized ego was a huge turn-off, but it was something I learned I had to do because most of them couldn’t handle being contradicted.
I only have myself to blame for forcing myself to engage with people I considered incurably insecure overachievers unconsciously seeking validation from everyone they meet just because they have some stupid degree.
What’s the best qualification for anybody wanting to help others? A huge amount of humility and enough personal experience to know what the heck they’re talking about, two qualities I found sorely lacking in most of the people working in the “helping professions”.
Really good interview. I particularly appreciate the way Justin characterizes psychiatry’s use of the term “biopsychosocial” as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I see this as lip service, a way of fooling people into thinking psychiatry has evolved when it clearly has not.
It’s almost comical how psy-professionals keep trying to prove that “psychotherapy” is better than psychiatric drugs when in reality it’s just the other side of the same dirty coin; its talky-talk spiel is just as gimmicky as psychiatry’s drugs.
“Peer review” in psychiatric journalism is a joke; it’s just a sophisticated form of disinformation.
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It’s all about getting drugs on the market; it doesn’t matter if medical doctors are involved. For the most part, medicine’s veneer of integrity is just that, a veneer. Pharmaceutical and insurance money is most of what runs the show. More drugs mean more money for them. People’s health be damned.
Significant change won’t happen unless and until the public becomes aware of the significant risks involved in taking psychiatric drugs, something that usually only happens after they are seriously affected.
A similar thing happened to the cigarette industry where a lot of people had to get seriously sick or even die before anyone paid attention.
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I think for the most part it already is.
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Thank you No-one for once again calling out the overeducated half-wits who to me seem almost congenitally unable to stop themselves from believing that answers to psychic healing can only lie in the minds of those trained in the excesses of academic gobbledygook, aka “research and treatment”, a bureaucracy all its own.
Here’s what they refuse to see: that healing is found in the spontaneous, heartfelt connection between like-minded individuals who have no financial or egoic (narcissistic) agenda. In other words, between clear-minded people who don’t have to be paid money to actually give a goddamn about someone else.
In all fairness, though, this author does say this in his conclusion: “I hope and believe that it is only a matter of time before people turn against the psychiatric priesthood and find out that the answers are within themselves and within their own communities.”
FWIW, I personally believe the spiritual revolution is well on its way.
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It’s high time for the piece of shit paradigm of “talk to me and pay me money” be given the boot.
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“8 Hidden Dangers of Reframing Your Thoughts”, Teal Swan
“Stop Trying to Regulate Your Emotions!” Teal Swan
“Accept This Truth to Experience True Happiness”, Teal Swan
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“Teal Swan Brutally Dissect Modern Therapy & Healing”, from the I Wish I Knew Podcast
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Great stuff.
I think what Ethan describes here parallels the Protestant Reformation, something in no small measure spurred along by the invention of the printing press. Only these days we’re lucky enough to now have the electronic printing press, better known as the internet, the fortunate consequence being it’s no longer possible for “mental health professionals” to hide behind their iron curtain of pretention, aka “professionalism”. Likewise, the leaders of the catholic church went to town having people believe they needed a priest to absolve them of their “sins”, which was, of course, a load of pious bullshit. And now people are finding out just what the “experts” in “mental health” have been up to, which consists mainly of pledging allegiance to a biased system the dynamics of which are best describes as intractably narcissistic and therefore more beneficial for those who work in it.
IMHO.
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Thank you joel stern! How could I have forgotten all those goodies, aka tools of bribery 🙂
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Here’s my interpretation: the people who write the DSM are basically full of shit.
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Face it. The unhealthy desire to infantilize other adults, aka “psychiatry”, feeds the unhealthy desire to control other adults. It’s as simple as that.
Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that people in power, aka “psychiatry”, will ever willingly relinquish the feelings of control that infantilizing other adults inappropriately gives them.
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Psychiatry routinely strips people’s dignity “hospitalized” or not. Its systematic dehumanization of the vulnerable acts as a safety valve for those in power because ultimately psychiatry is not about people’s health and wellbeing, it’s about the comfort and satisfaction and feelings of power of its practitioners.
IMHO.
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“Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are often associated with mental illness.”
Bullshit. Suicide and self-injury are profoundly complicated behaviors that are usually associated with being on the receiving end of emotional abuse and neglect in a culture that is profoundly exploitive.
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You are very kind, No-one. I thank you for speaking the truth, and eloquently at that, which helps make my day, too! And I’m sure the pigeons enjoyed the honey coated cashews as these treats are truly delish! 🙂
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Not silly at all. What this article says (imo) has everything to do with dispelling the notion of ‘mental illness’, a convenient fiction promoted by a willfully distorted view of reality from the powers that be.
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“Why do they prescribe pills that don’t work or don’t help in the long run. They simply are deceiving themselves at best and imagining they are helping …”
And therein lies the banality of their evil.
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Brilliant observations, No-one. I appreciate the intricacy and clarity with which you present your arguments.
I wholeheartedly agree that intellectual pussy footing around the edges of an inarguably distorted take on reality does little to alleviate the source of the conundrum.
In other words, why not call it out for what it is: BRIBERY
But either way, here’s how I see things: society’s problems are best chalked up to a collective case of full-blown narcissism topped off with a large dollop of self-inflicted spellbinding, courtesy BIG PHARMA —
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Good article, but I think it overlooks the impact of family dynamics and family culture, as these usually determine the course of one’s emotional/psychological development and journey through life more than anything else. So, it’s not a matter of blame, it’s a matter of understanding what’s inevitable.
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A 15-year-old girl loses her father. An eight-year-old girl loses her mother—twice. How in the hell is anyone supposed to react to losses like these, especially at such young ages??? The people who expected them not to be deeply affected are the “sick” ones. AND GRIEF IS NOT A “DISORDER”.
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People need to stop thinking of unusual psychological states soley as bio-medical issues because much of the time they are not; they are the conscious mind breaking from an all too painful reality. Yet underneath this, the human spirit often bursts forth, with its all-seeing eye from an unseen realm.
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Making millions, perhaps billions, is their main objective, no matter the cost to society.
They know not the meaning of integrity.
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The politics of patriarchy are part and parcel of western medicine/”psy” disciplines.
Solutions lie in avoiding western medicine as much as possible and instead find qualified practioners trained in Eastern medicine which allows the body and mind to heal naturally of their own accord.
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I wish it were common knowledge, too, but it will be sooner rather than later thanks to people like you.
Thank you for writing your moving story. I greatly admire your courage and tenacity.
Birdsong 🙂
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Quit the wordy bullshit: liberation psychology, existentialist, social determinants of mental health, blah, blah, blah.
Better to find kindly souls who get who you are and where you’re at than having to pay some fool’s financially oppressive fees while kissing their power-imbalanced ass.
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You’re welcome, Bill.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Russell. Most graduate students as well as psychiatric residents have yet to learn there’s a big difference between fantasy and reality.
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It’s long past time to cut the head off the snake.
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No matter how many capital letters you string together, the “mental health system” isn’t about health. It’s about jockeying for power (and money) more than anything else.
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Omar, I think some humility on your part is called for. After all, the big wide world is quite a bit larger than your little practice.
P.S. Perhaps you should spend time on websites run by people who are struggling with iatrogenic illness caused by psychiatric drugs.
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Psychiatry itself is a pathology of the spirit, intentionally medicalized to accommodate/disguise its drug pushing agenda.
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I don’t think this approach honors the individual.
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Karl, you have my deepest admiration. Thank you for choosing to be a beacon of light 🙂
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Why not try this armchair experiment: quit using pseudo-technical jargon.
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Psychological porn is right.
Psychotherapy amounts to a one-way psychological peep show, that’s for sure. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think emotionally disrobing for strangers is a good idea for anybody. The whole “therapy” set-up gives me the creeps.
IMHO.
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The Gilded Age has fully returned: a world of extreme haves and have nots. But calling it The Age of the Boiling Frog I think would be a more accurate way of describing what’s happening today.
Tragically, I don’t see a cure for indifference when so many people are faced with trying to survive economically themselves.
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If Ghaemi & Co. felt truly secure in the quality of their research, I doubt they’d have responded at all.
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“On the other hand, for all of its faults, the construction of the DSM arguably relies on a more careful scientific process than what informs opinion videos pushed by complex, mysterious, and profit-driven media algorithms.”
The author needs to explain why he seems to think voting so-called “mental disease” into existence is a “more careful scientific process” than some random Tik Tok video.
DSM diagnoses are opinions voted into existence by a group of self-serving psychiatrists, which might explain why something called ‘conflict of interest’ comes to mind.
The truth is that Tik Tok videos and DSM conferences have something in common: both are seriously deluded.
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Nothing’s more immutably caste-ridden (hierarchical, invisibly power driven) than the so-called ‘psy disciplines’.
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“America’s ‘untouchables’: the silent power of the caste system”, by Isabel Wilkerson. theguardian.com
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Stigma is rooted in fear, and illness breeds fear (stigma) because illness means infirmity and infirmity means invalidity and invalidity means irrelevance — a condition most psy professionals are trained to believe they are (or should be) immune to.
“Mental health” stigma will always exist as long as psychic/emotional distress is “treated” as a medical condition. So, it stands to reason that most of the stigma in so-called “mental health” emanates from psychiatry’s very own DSM.
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… I forgot to include schizophrenia and OCD — not to mention just about every so-called “disorder” in psychiatry’s Damned Stupid Manuel, (DSM) —
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“Psychology of Imposter Syndrome — A Former Therapist Speaks”, Daniel Mackler on Youtube —
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Why thank you, No-one. I think your answers are BANG ON, too! 🙂
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LOVE the term “bio-babble” —
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Psychiatric “diagnoses” are opinions only, “professional” or otherwise. Which means it’s not unheard for two different practitioners to come up with two different “diagnoses” FOR THE SAME PERSON!
And guess what? One of them might even be of the opinion that no “diagnosis” is called for —
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“Pharma Corruption Revealed!” Dr. Josef interviews Dr. Jon Jurideni on YouTube
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Just because Drapetomania no longer appears in the DSM doesn’t mean psychiatry has changed for the better.
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Tom, thank you for saying such kind things.
P.S. I wouldn’t knock happiness if I were you because imo it sure beats the alternative. Just make sure you don’t get carried away with it. That goes for the lows, too, btw.
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It wasn’t that long ago when family doctors routinely ‘prescribed’ things like exercise or social activities for people who weren’t feeling up to par. But things began to change once Prozac hit the market in 1987. Before this it was pretty rare for them to automatically assign a psychiatric diagnosis which in my opinion is even more harmful (in insidious ways) than indiscriminately prescribing psychiatric drugs.
It might be would worth it for people in the author’s age group to go a step further and drop the concept of “mental illness” altogether, to entertain the idea that perhaps even the most severe reactions to social determinants, i.e. “Major Depressive Disorder”, “Bipolar”, “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” are in reality just more intense responses to overwhelming circumstances. That alone might go a long way towards promoting a more positive mindset for everyone involved.
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TG was gaslighted again and again and again — as is anyone unfortunate enough to be psychiatrically diagnosed, imho.
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… and feelings of sorrow and worry can be signs of emotional health, (imho).
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People who have awakened often frighten those who have not, (imho).
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…which makes me think there ought to be a national “Shred Your Psych Scripts Day”.
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Question: So why are half the people with “depression” getting medical intervention THEY DON’T NEED???
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“It’s the other half that don’t get better who need the medical intervention.”
That’s a disturbingly even-handed statement.
A word to the wise: Politics has no place in medicine.
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Great blog.
The transition to adulthood is often a tough one but turning to people that make a living pulling bullshit diagnoses out of their ass with one hand and psych drugs out of their ass with the other are two things few people need.
The photograph chosen for this blog was perfect, too! Makes me wish to hell I’d shredded the goddamn psych scripts written for me.
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“As with all psychiatrists I had met in my life, it was terrifying to see how detached from reality this man was as I watched him feel so superior to me based solely on his belief in the medical model.”
I can relate to this scenario, which is not a caricature, it’s the nightmare reality most people face when trying to withdraw from psychiatric drugs. To me it’s psychiatry’s defining feature: psychiatrists I have encountered were drunk on arrogance, happily living in their own reality-denying universe, adding insult to injury to people going through withdrawal. It was a crash course in what it means to be gaslit.
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Acupuncture DOES NOT CHEMICALLY POISON or ELECTRICALLY SHOCK the human system; it enables the human system TO HEAL ITSELF —
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The researchers didn’t mention how yoga’s become a form of exhibitionism—one that can ruin people’s knees and hips.
Human beings are built to walk, not twist themselves into a pretzel for likes on Instagram.
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Psychiatrists are trained in a medical school.
Psychiatrists write the DSM.
MD’s write prescriptions for psychiatric drugs.
But since (most) emotional problems aren’t caused by physiological problems, why seek help from a physician???
Wrong context leads to wrong care.
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Great quote!
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For me the most healing thing about being in nature is the quiet, as well as not being surrounded by a civilization filled with pressure to be somewhere you’d rather not go, or pressure to be around people you really can’t stand. The constant noise and feeling of overwhelm in urban environments are often toxic to environmentally sensitive people, whereas natural environments are characterized by a non-threatening atmosphere, which is soothing to the mind and body.
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CLARIFICATION: [psychiatry] is a uniquely harmful pseudoscience that ruins many people’s lives which makes choosing to ignore the harm it’s capable of doing inexcusable.
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The same kind of thing happened to me. Some psychiatrists were truly ignorant (which is no excuse), but I suspect more than one deliberately hid the truth to keep from being sued.
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Hey, Kim, I forgot to mention that OCD is not a ‘disease’ or ‘disorder’ either; it is a series of behaviors usually set in motion from ‘latent anxiety’, or hidden fear, which btw is an emotion, AND EMOTION IS NOT A ‘DISEASE’ OR A ‘DISORDER’ —
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Post-partum depression/psychosis is not a discrete biological illness; it is a state of mind that’s usually brought on by the sudden hormonal readjustment (shock, aftermath) of giving birth, a natural but sometimes hormonally traumatic experience. Which makes it not surprising that a hormonally based treatment relieves it. But this does not mean that Brexanalone is ‘treating a disease’. After all, birth-control pills prevent pregnancy, and pregnancy is not a disease.
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…and repeatedly stuffing people (especially young children) with ‘psychiatric medications’ does NOT ‘treat’ anything; all these do is NUMB EMOTIONS that need to be processed.
Furthermore, your unwillingness to recognize the existence of meaningful financial incentives in the business of medicine (psychiatry in particular) indicates a disturbing amount of denial on your part.
I think it’s time you step outside your cognitive bubble.
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Kim, the things you mention (neuroscience scans, genome studies, pharmacodynamics, kinetics, etc.,) do not “tell us what is happening in the brain”; these function only as Rorschach tests, meaning whatever happens to be on the mind of the viewer gets projected onto whatever is being viewed. And this is because there is no convincing evidence of a pathological process for any emotional/cognitive state of mind or ‘psychiatric condition’. Check out this blog now available on MIA: Researchers: Depression Is “A Normal Brain Responding to Stress or Adversity” by Peter Simons
And in case you didn’t know, dementia is not a ‘psychiatric condition’; it is a neurological one.
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Thank you! 🙂 I enjoy reading your articles very much.
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“Neither an Eeyore nor a Tigger be.”
“The Overselling of Gratitude — Always being positive makes no more sense than always being negative”, by Alfie Kohn in Psychology Today
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Agree 100%
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The graphic for this article was very well chosen because unfortunately many people who ingest antipsychotics become shadows of themselves.
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CORRECTION: Framing distressing thoughts, feelings and behaviors ‘psychiatrically’ more often than not causes people to distance themselves (out of fear) from people who’ve been diagnosed ‘psychiatrically’ (biologically rooted or not), people who otherwise would be seen as simply having a hard time.
So, unfortunately, the final upshot from framing psychological problems as ‘biologically rooted’ actually INCREASES stigma, an unintended but nevertheless devastating consequence for persons simply seeking help.
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Most people fear (stigmatize) illness of any kind on some level because they don’t like being reminded of their own vulnerability. Therefore, framing people’s thoughts and feelings as ‘psychopathology’ (a medicalized concept) only serves to increase stigma which subsequently prompts people to distance themselves from something that causes them too much anxiety.
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I donate every month yet the same thing happens to me.
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Indeed. It’s lip service, a way of appeasing patients in order to make a prescriber’s life easier, a clever way of trying to sound progressive in order to salvage their tarnished reputations. And the craziest thing about it is that doctors are specifically trained to skillfully persuade people to ‘take their medicine’. The whole idea is ridiculously performative because the last thing an MD is concerned with is the patient’s sense of self; what they’re most concerned with is following is standard protocols to avoid malpractice suits.
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“Shared decision making” in ‘mental health’ is a joke.
It might sound good, but the fact is most people in professional roles aren’t willing to share their power as this is what defines them. And this is especially true when it comes to ‘antipsychotics’, or any other psychiatric ‘medication’ because most clinicians are trained to believe that psychiatric patients don’t know their own mind (‘lack insight’, ‘anosognosia’). Which is the reason why most clinicians subtly pressure (or even coerce) patients into complying with whatever makes the clinician feel safe.
A client’s sense of self usually fares no better because this too is under the influence of the harmful dynamics present in most psychotherapeutic relationships, dynamics characterized by a ‘power imbalance’ that (insidiously) undermines clients’ faith in themselves.
So, in effect, nothing really changes.
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“If the late adolescence/early adulthood period is genuinely ‘critical’ and ‘sensitive’ for still developing brains, then it is precisely this which should make clinicians wary of biomedical interventions!”
This kind of critical thinking (not to mention common sense) is woefully absent in psychiatry. I don’t know why the obvious never occurs to most of them. Wait a minute! Yes I do! Their confirmation bias has them primed to see what they’re looking for, even if they’re not sure what it is they’re looking at, i.e. ‘schizophrenia’, or ‘depression’, or ‘bipolar’, or ‘anxiety disorder’, or any other ‘disorder’ they happen to think of…
Therefore, the last thing any medical doctor should do is reach for their prescription pad.
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I think anyone who has the audacity to call themselves a healer of the mind, brain, soul, etc., is remarkably unaware (unconscious) of their own limitations (unhealed wounds).
They should ask themselves why they feel the need to see themselves as a healer, or more precisely, why they feel the need to have others see them as a healer.
In other words, most often in jobs like this it’s the wounded ego that’s in charge, not ‘the wounded healer’ they may (pretentiously) declare themselves to be.
IMHO.
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Awesome podcast. Informative, absorbing and uplifting.
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‘Anitpsychotics’ interfere with the psyche’s ability to naturally restore itself, which can happen, given enough time and favorable circumstances.
Aggressively ‘treating’ psychotic episodes with neuroleptics for years (or any amount of time for that matter) assaults the human body, and mis-perceiving withdrawal effects as a ‘recurrance of the original illness’ is not just a mistake, it is a crime.
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“Researchers have reported concerns that screening can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment and wastes the time and resources of both doctors and patients. In a study that found screening youth for depression led to more severe outcomes, the researchers note that screening may have an iatrogenic affect—worsening depression by making people focus on it.”
Bingo! This is the reason why the number of people being diagnosed with ‘mental illness’ has exploded, to the dertriment of themselves and society.
I had serious misgivings when I first heard of widespread screenings for ‘depression’ some thirty-odd years ago. I found myself hoping some influential person in psychiatry would come forward and issue warnings about what this could lead to: a massive iatrogenic effect. But instead what I feared would happen did happen, which is especiallly tragic for people too young and inexperienced to recognize the dynamics of situations like this; in other words, how their emotions are being used (pathologized) to promote The Sickness Industry more than anything else.
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I feel the same way. A person’s emotional state is highly personal, therefore is someone’s personal property, something a stranger has no business knowing or asking about for any reason whatsoever. I don’t care who they are or what their purpose is.
It’s one of many micro-inequities perpetrated by the ‘mental health system’ that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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It pisses me off the way psychiatry ducks responsibility for the proliferation of people needlessly prescribed psychiatric drugs because if there were no DSM (created by psychiatrists!) there’d be no way for physicians to legally prescribe psychiatric drugs.
Which means one thing: Psychiatry alone hold the keys to the Gates of Hell.
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The reason for the disparity is obvious: people in ‘developed’ countries have more access (money) to pharmaceutical poisons, and pharmaceutical poisons can make you sick.
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WTF is ‘screening for depression’??? Stupid checklists bankrolled by pharmaceutical companies administered by stupid people looking for more ‘clients’.
It does prove one thing, however: psychiatry is the apex of capitalism.
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Speak for yourself. An apology from psychiatry isn’t enough if their “treatments” have harmed a person’s ability to provide for themselves financially.
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Reading this aticle was so confusing it made me anxious. But here’s my take on it just the same:
Telling someone they have an “anxiety disorder” is just a fancy of way of saying something’s wrong with them for feeling anxious which often leads to feelings of shame. This often leads to more anxiety which often leads to more shame—so much so that people often find themselves saying “I AM anxious”, rather than “I FEEL anxious”.
AND WHO WANTS TO GO OUT FEELING LIKE THAT???
So, thanks to “psychiatry” we’ve got people stuck in one hell of an anxiety loop.
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If Awais Aftab felt secure with the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that, imo. The fact that Aftab does react imo suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together, speculative and therefore essentially inconclusive the research results are.
Putting it more simply, Awais Aftab seems ‘triggered’ when reputable people like Robert Whitaker dare call out psychiatry’s dubious claims of genetic risk or causality regarding psychiatry’s equally dubious “DSM diagnoses”.
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If Awais Aftab felt secure in the results of psychiatry’s genetic research, he wouldn’t bother reacting to articles in MIA that highlight the dubious nature of psychiatry’s genetic research results. It’s as simple as that. The fact that Awais does react suggests he harbors feelings of inadequacy around the subject, which is easy to understand considering how cobbled together (and ultimately speculative) the research results are.
In common parlance, Awais seems ‘triggered’ by certain people who dare call out psychiatry’s vacuous claims of genetic risk or causality. IMHO.
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Psychotherapy for me was the adverse event.
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How did this scapegoat experience traumatic invalidation? By seeing a psychiatrist and other “psy-professionals”.
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“The treatment process can often be uncomfortable for many patients as they often avoid experiences that have the potential to improve their lives.”
THAT is an arrogant statement.
I suggest the author put aside his therapist’s agenda and consider that maybe the “patient” knows best.
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The only thing I learned from psychotherapy is how useless it is for me.
Sitting through psychotherapy left me with a nagging sense of cognitive dissonance that lingered for days. Talking myself into believing that therapists or psychiatrists have anything worthwhile to offer was not only exhausting but also took a huge toll on my relationship with myself since deep down I knew I was wasting my time with people I didn’t respect. In any case, having to constantly bite my tongue so as not to deflate a therapist’s or psychiatrist’s oversized ego was a huge turn-off, but it was something I learned I had to do because most of them couldn’t handle being contradicted.
I only have myself to blame for forcing myself to engage with people I considered incurably insecure overachievers unconsciously seeking validation from everyone they meet just because they have some stupid degree.
What’s the best qualification for anybody wanting to help others? A huge amount of humility and enough personal experience to know what the heck they’re talking about, two qualities I found sorely lacking in most of the people working in the “helping professions”.
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Psychiatric drugs are radioactive imo and consequently should be treated as such.
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Psychiatric handbooks aren’t handbooks, they’re playbooks.
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Really good interview. I particularly appreciate the way Justin characterizes psychiatry’s use of the term “biopsychosocial” as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. I see this as lip service, a way of fooling people into thinking psychiatry has evolved when it clearly has not.
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It’s almost comical how psy-professionals keep trying to prove that “psychotherapy” is better than psychiatric drugs when in reality it’s just the other side of the same dirty coin; its talky-talk spiel is just as gimmicky as psychiatry’s drugs.
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I agree with Yeah-i-survived. The talking profession is systemized gaslighting.
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The current mental health system isn’t about helping people, it’s about exerting power over emotionally vulnerable people.
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I can understand that.
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