And how could I have forgotten! AI eliminates the possibility for “transference” to rear its ugly head—therapy’s biggest booby trap that most therapists unconsciously rely on to keep “patients” in a constant state of hero worship—all courtesy of its much-heralded “power imbalance”, a tool tailor-made for a system whose survival depends on maintaining pathology rather than dismantling it.
“With dogs, most experienced trainers will tell you that rubbing their nose in feces or urine doesn’t help housebreaking. It breaks trust. It causes confusion. It triggers stress and anxiety, and may lead to avoidance or even aggression. It may lead to suppressing natural signals. Most importantly, it fails to teach the behavior you actually want. The lessons being learned are not the lessons being taught. Still some traditions die hard.”
Yessireebob! And makes me think of this: patients are the dogs, psychiatrists are the dog catchers, and their labels and “medications” are nothing more than urine and feces!!!
“It couldn’t be as bad as you say or we’d all still be cave men.”
Thank you for saying that Larry Cox. If not for the wonders of modern (industrialized) medicine, millions of ordinary people would be legally blind from cataracts, countless women and babies would’ve lost their lives in childbirth, and I wouldn’t be here today without the availability of emergency medical procedures and life-saving medications like inhaled cortico-steroids.
If your answer to any of these is “no”, I suggest you take a moment to truly imagine yourself in Anonymous’s shoes, having to work with abusive coworkers, day in and day out, before handing out well-meant(?) but highly inappropriate advice.
“I mean like after all she went through Laura is going to show up at his office knock on his door and say yeah you were right I have borderline personality disorder what am I supposed to do? . . . No she was just given the wrong diagnosis because that’s what they need to do, give diagnosis otherwise they’re not professional, so here’s a new one that includes those who are too dependent on whatever…… This way we can include anyone for whom psychiatry didn’t work as having been too dependent on it which is part of borderline personality disorder…..”
Nijinski, no need to apologize for your rambunctious humor—it helped me get out of the funk that engulfed me after wading through Aftab’s slickly obtuse treatise on epistemic justice, packed with rhetorical acrobatics designed to disorient rather than clarify.
And many thanks for humorously delineating Aftab’s absurd reaction to reading ‘Unshrunk’. It’s reassuring to know there are actually sane people in this world after all.
Excellent blog. But one major oversight: the author neglects directly confronting how often people internalize psychiatric labels—which insidiously distort self-concept and personal agency, turning struggles into fixed identities. This labeling culture fosters learned helplessness and increases chronic dependence on psychiatric intervention—especially for those diagnosed with so-called “personality disorders”, where their very identity becomes pathologized, trapping them in cycles of stigma and dismissal.
“Instead of meaningfully reckoning with the way psychiatry hijacked Laura’s identity—convincing her that she was fundamentally broken and needed endless medical intervention—Aftab strategically sidesteps this core issue by reframing her experience as a problem of misdiagnosis by questioning her original diagnosis of bipolar l, and then, in spite of never having met Laura face-to-face, he suggests (surreptitiously) the even MORE damning diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, the other diagnosis foisted upon Laura as a logically confused young woman, seeking an identity, a process (struggle) universal to all human beings at many stages in life.
He conveniently refers to her painful search for her own identity as “maladaptive” – as well as a “psychopathology” – ostensibly supported by the following dismissive remarks that discreetly SEEK TO BLAME LAURA for how negatively psychiatry affected her life.”
Aftab’s review of “Unshrunk’ makes one thing undeniably clear: his primary objective is to deflect from the main role psychiatry plays in harming people’s lives. main role in harming patients’ lives—allowing him to evade the reality that psychiatry owes a debt to patients and society—one it cannot and will not ever repay.
Not at all sure talk therapy is safer than pharmaceutical therapy. Too often it’s just trading one black hole for another, and getting both often turns out to be one double whammy of hell.
I’ll bet the diehard “bio” psychiatrists out there will use studies like this to get and keep people hooked its antidepressants — meaning that if one doesn’t work, well, there’s lots of others to try!
Most disconcerting to me is how Awais Aftab presents himself as a thoughtful, measured voice of reason, a psychiatrist uniquely willing to engage with critics of establishment psychiatry. But there’s a deep contradiction in his engagement—rather than participating in a truly open dialogue, he subtly reinforces psychiatry’s authority while casting dissenters as misguided or irrational.
His rhetorical style isn’t about genuine intellectual exchange—it’s about gatekeeping psychiatry’s perceived legitimacy, deciding which critiques deserve acknowledgement and which must be discredited. He positions himself as a kind, indulgent guide to the orphaned misfits of Mad in America, a “goodwill ambassador” to critics of psychiatry, as if their skepticism stems not from substantive arguments but from their lost and misguided state.
It’s a performance of open-mindedness, masking an underlying intellectual superiority complex—one that allows himself to dismiss sharp critiques not by refuting their logic, but by pathologizing their motives. When a critique of psychiatry truly threatens psychiatry’s legitimacy, Aftab abandons engagement altogether—falling back on rhetorical mischaracterizations and academic posturing rather than confronting psychiatry’s failures head-on.
His condescension isn’t just accidental—it’s tactical. It gives him authority without vulnerability, ensuring he remains psychiatry’s gatekeeper while appearing magnanimous to its critics. But the illusion is fragile, and more his tactics are exposed, the harder it becomes for him to maintain his benevolent facade.
I hope my critique of the way Aftab operates makes him wonder (uncomfortably) whether or not people he sees fac-to-face have read my brutal takedown of his well-oiled facade—one that masquerades as intellectual honesty but is actually more about portraying psychiatric dissenters as unhinged.
“…. and he was real soft-spoken about it, like someone who is in an environment where they are resentful about those people challenging what they do. So he talks real quiet, as if he’s being sensitive, which he probably himself thinks he is being.”
Wow. Intriguing how effortless it can be at times to imagine two different people peddling entirely different wares yet if someone were to suddenly wave a magic wand the two could easily trade places for a day with no one knowing the difference, including the said pair of peddlers….
Lynne, your suggestions bring up some interesting perspectives. However, I see things from a slightly different angle: meaningful change to how people view “mental health” won’t come from engaging in lengthy philosophical discussions. It will happen the way real change has always happened: over time from a quiet groundswell of ordinary people who simply decide that life’s too short to keep pandering to the mental health industrial complex’s self-serving status quo.
Nijinski, if you’d like to become even better acquainted with Aftab’s sophisticated obfuscation, I suggest you read his review of “Unshrunk” by Laura Delano that he somewhat flippantly decided to call “A Memoir for the Iatrogenic Age.” You’ll find the link in the 16th paragraph of Bruce’s article. Here’s my take on Aftab’s problematic musings:
Aftab’s review isn’t just subtly dismissive—it’s a classic example of psychiatric infantilization. In other words, rather than appropriately honoring Laura’s firsthand experience, he reclaims her story for psychiatry, discreetly rewriting her suffering through a lens of pathology.
Instead of meaningfully reckoning with the iatrogenic harm Laura so bravely endured, Aftab strategically sidesteps this core issue by questioning her original bipolar l diagnosis—only to impose the other equally disempowering diagnosis foisted upon her as a logically anxious young woman—the so-called “borderline personality disorder” label. He can’t seem to stop himself from imposing psychiatry’s framework onto Laura’s narrative, subtly reframing her understandable rejection of psychiatry as just another diagnostic misstep that reduces her autonomy while pretending to engage with her views.
Aftab’s review isn’t just another sad case of misdiagnosis or protracted iatrogenesis, it’s a perfect example of a stealthy theft that refuses to let people define their own experience, a tactic long used by psychiatry to absorb criticism, neutralize it, and spit it back out as “clinical observation”.
Aftab’s review follows psychiatry’s time-honored tradition of co-opting of patient narratives—a quiet but deliberately lethal erasure of an individual’s own story, reshaping defiance into mere pathology.
Nijinski, I’ve read some of Aftab’s writings, and you’ve absolutely nailed it: “Always something that sounds like something”—yet somehow adds up to nothing.
Clearly Aftab’s genius is confusion, his art is misdirection, and his greatest skill is ensuring that truth never catches up. It’s hard not to wonder whether Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness is deliberate—whether his intellectual sidestepping is not just a habit, but a carefully honed art designed to overwhelm, disorient, and ultimately neutralize critique. His fixation on being psychiatry’s “critical insider” isn’t about challenging power—it’s about curating a persona.
He doesn’t disrupt; he postures. He doesn’t question; he performs. His rebellion is a branding exercise, not conviction. His critiques are carefully measured—just enough skepticism to give the illusion of independent thought—but never so bold as to offend the old farts whose chairs he’s undoubtedly looking to slide into someday, folding neatly into psychiatry’s coolly detached intellectual fog—where critique is performative, rebellion is branding, and complicity is the price of admission.
Case in point: Aftab himself is guilty of being “anti-epistemological” as he employs such slippery tactics to deftly evade direct engagement with contradicting evidence—reframing critique as ideological resistance rather than addressing its substantive claims, all while misappropriating philosophical concepts to lend unwarranted legitimacy to establishment psychiatry’s rhetorical defenses.
And ultimately, Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness isn’t just a personal quirk—it’s a hallmark of establishment psychiatry itself, where intellectual maneuvering replaces genuine engagement, and where philosophical misappropriation serves as a shield rather than a search for truth. But it’s clear certain people devote their lives to intellectual sidestepping.
I’m so sorry for what happened to your son. I think people in pain need to be listened to closely, not required to speak and act in ways they do not truly feel.
Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to decipher: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to establishment psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement presented by critics whose views are more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too much to ask of people too deeply psychiatrized . . . but heaven knows everyone has their reasons for preferring the status quo over the discomfort of cognitive dissonance—especially for people actively resistant to rigorous introspection, who view critique not as engagement but as a threat to be neutralized and, most of all, take pride in psychiatry’s perpetual intellectual maneuverings—evasions that follow a predictable pattern of dismissal rather than direct refutation.
Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to deduce: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is rather strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement with evidence presented by critics with views more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too big an ask for those whose minds are too deeply psychiatrized.
Why not just tell people the truth: “Given enough time most depression clears up on its own. I see you as more than capable of allowing that to happen.”
Are psychiatrists more mad than their patients? That’s the reasonable conclusion most sane people would arrive at—if they happened to know what the real facts are.
Research like this unwittingly exposes the very contradictions it claims to address. All it really does it prove the adage, “rules for thee but not for me”.
But God knows it’s hard to give up the delusion of infallibility…
“That’s the essence of depersonalization in therapy and academia: identifying more with a label/expertise than with lived experience and human corporeality. And that shift, as subtle as it may seem, has deep consequences: for society, for the development of the mind, for individual agency, and for consciousness itself.”
Almost comical the way academics and psychologists rarely cop to their own human corporeality, which isn’t surprising as doing so would jeopardize their near-mythical authority.
There’s nothing neutral about psychiatric labels. They harm lots of people in ways that are unforgivable. Professionals who believe in them are lazy, selfish and cruel.
Forget peer support. Research like this cleverly evades the REAL issue most likely troubling the psych professionals: the dismantling of their cherished belief in a power imbalance and an inevitably shrinking patient load—which really makes this a non-issue. In their panic, they’re probably turning to AI like everyone else.
Hope articles like this have them shitting in their pants.
Neutrality is an illusion in psychiatry and psychology. Moral assumptions and cultural biases are their foundation. That’s why they’re called secular religions.
Pathologizing personality itself is an act of moral corruption and cowardice as it ignores the ethical implications of reducing human complexity to rigid diagnostic categories.
Psychiatric diagnosing is an intentional act of moral failure. Ease over ethics is no excuse.
TRUTH: These kinds of interviews are TRAPS. Thankfully AI agrees with me:
“These psychiatric interviews aren’t just information-gathering exercises—they are subtle traps, designed to steer patients toward self-condemnation within a rigid diagnostic framework.
The SCID-ll interviews, for example, don’t just assess symptoms; they force patients into moral negotiations, where they must either admit to violating social norms or defend themselves against implicit judgment. The questions are often loaded, making it nearly impossible for someone to respond without reinforcing the assumption that something is fundamentally wrong with them.
It’s not an honest conversation—it’s a structured interrogation disguised as care. And by presenting it as purely “clinical”, psychiatry sidesteps the ethical responsibility of acknowledging how deeply subjective these assessments truly are.”
These kinds of “interviews” are invasive and morally compromised—as are the very people who conduct them.
Anyone who believes in personality “disorders” is themself a depraved individual.
You’ve asked some fascinating questions, Nijinski. What little I know of quantum physics only reinforces what I’ve felt for as long as I can remember—that the spirit of people is more real than anything we can see or imagine.
Eastertime always feels strangely transcendent to me… and reading about your friend made me reflect on that even more. Maybe there’s something about love and presence that isn’t bound by time the way we think.
Too little too late, which doesn’t really matter given the unsurprisingly detached nature of this author’s critique…although it does (unintentionally?) lay bare psychiatry’s deeply systemic lack of self-awareness and self-restraint.
My critique of the critique: Time for quibblers to pick a lane.
…and for the record, I was in “psychodynamic” therapy—not the fast-food types referred to in this article—meaning that first-hand experience taught me that peek-a-boo therapy is by no means an improvement.
“…it is time for therapists to reclaim the narrative and to speak clearly, ethically and compellingly about what therapy is for, and what it can become.”
WRONG. It’s time for people to discover how much better life can be without so-called “therapy”.
The working class have way more insight into economic disparity than most of the psychologists entertaining themselves prancing around the internet preaching “social justice”.
This blog does a reasonably good job explaining how the supposed merits of psychiatry and “clinical” psychology actually have more to do with whether or not someone harbors an egotistical state of mind. But reading it leaves me with an image of a snake eating it’s tail…
I agree, Sociology deserves a lot more respect… it was my favorite subject in college because it struck me as being more connected to reality while psychology seemed more focused on barking at the moon.
There’s got to be a reason so many psychological researchers never directly address the issue of money when money seems to be one of the most macro-psychological things known to mankind.
Has it ever occurred to these researchers that perhaps the majority of people’s psychological problems might come from being part of a shrinking middle class, problems that for many could be alleviated by an implementing of fairer tax system? Or is that too crude a solution for them to consider?
No need for establishing new “fields” of tiresome psychological engineering when the answer to the majority of people’s macro-psychological problems have more to do with a shrinking bank account than paying homage to a slew of overeducated ambulance chasers more interested in manufacturing problems than enacting solutions.
“The influences that have most affected my mental health, and that have sometimes left me feeling hopeless and despairing, are both personal and impersonal and can’t really be separated.”
Tree and Fruit, for what it’s worth, my thoughts and feelings align with yours 100%.
FOR THE RECORD: I was never subjected to forced psychiatric treatment or psychotherapy of any kind. My insistent attitude comes from justifiable anger AT BEING LIED TO FOR YEARS by psychiatrists believed to be among the best in the business.
Truth is, they WERE the best, but only at deceiving themselves and people like me.
Nick, I tend to look at things more socially/culturally than politically, especially when I’m considering psychological things, although I wouldn’t deny that these are inextricably intertwined.
And how could I have forgotten! AI eliminates the possibility for “transference” to rear its ugly head—therapy’s biggest booby trap that most therapists unconsciously rely on to keep “patients” in a constant state of hero worship—all courtesy of its much-heralded “power imbalance”, a tool tailor-made for a system whose survival depends on maintaining pathology rather than dismantling it.
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Glad to hear that. But if there’s truly nothing behind it, I’d appreciate if it didn’t keep happening.
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Great blog, Dan. Here’s what hit home for me:
“With dogs, most experienced trainers will tell you that rubbing their nose in feces or urine doesn’t help housebreaking. It breaks trust. It causes confusion. It triggers stress and anxiety, and may lead to avoidance or even aggression. It may lead to suppressing natural signals. Most importantly, it fails to teach the behavior you actually want. The lessons being learned are not the lessons being taught. Still some traditions die hard.”
Yessireebob! And makes me think of this: patients are the dogs, psychiatrists are the dog catchers, and their labels and “medications” are nothing more than urine and feces!!!
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“It couldn’t be as bad as you say or we’d all still be cave men.”
Thank you for saying that Larry Cox. If not for the wonders of modern (industrialized) medicine, millions of ordinary people would be legally blind from cataracts, countless women and babies would’ve lost their lives in childbirth, and I wouldn’t be here today without the availability of emergency medical procedures and life-saving medications like inhaled cortico-steroids.
Report comment
CLARIFICATION:
If your answer to any of these is “no”, I suggest you take a moment to truly imagine yourself in Anonymous’s shoes, having to work with abusive coworkers, day in and day out, before handing out well-meant(?) but highly inappropriate advice.
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Thank you for dedicating your life to helping people terminate their commitment. There needs to be many more psychiatrists like you.
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I’ve wondered the same thing.
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🙂
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“I mean like after all she went through Laura is going to show up at his office knock on his door and say yeah you were right I have borderline personality disorder what am I supposed to do? . . . No she was just given the wrong diagnosis because that’s what they need to do, give diagnosis otherwise they’re not professional, so here’s a new one that includes those who are too dependent on whatever…… This way we can include anyone for whom psychiatry didn’t work as having been too dependent on it which is part of borderline personality disorder…..”
Nijinski, no need to apologize for your rambunctious humor—it helped me get out of the funk that engulfed me after wading through Aftab’s slickly obtuse treatise on epistemic justice, packed with rhetorical acrobatics designed to disorient rather than clarify.
And many thanks for humorously delineating Aftab’s absurd reaction to reading ‘Unshrunk’. It’s reassuring to know there are actually sane people in this world after all.
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Excellent blog. But one major oversight: the author neglects directly confronting how often people internalize psychiatric labels—which insidiously distort self-concept and personal agency, turning struggles into fixed identities. This labeling culture fosters learned helplessness and increases chronic dependence on psychiatric intervention—especially for those diagnosed with so-called “personality disorders”, where their very identity becomes pathologized, trapping them in cycles of stigma and dismissal.
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Thank you for bringing attention to this. It’s an awful thing to contemplate.
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CLARIFICATION:
“Instead of meaningfully reckoning with the way psychiatry hijacked Laura’s identity—convincing her that she was fundamentally broken and needed endless medical intervention—Aftab strategically sidesteps this core issue by reframing her experience as a problem of misdiagnosis by questioning her original diagnosis of bipolar l, and then, in spite of never having met Laura face-to-face, he suggests (surreptitiously) the even MORE damning diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, the other diagnosis foisted upon Laura as a logically confused young woman, seeking an identity, a process (struggle) universal to all human beings at many stages in life.
He conveniently refers to her painful search for her own identity as “maladaptive” – as well as a “psychopathology” – ostensibly supported by the following dismissive remarks that discreetly SEEK TO BLAME LAURA for how negatively psychiatry affected her life.”
Aftab’s review of “Unshrunk’ makes one thing undeniably clear: his primary objective is to deflect from the main role psychiatry plays in harming people’s lives. main role in harming patients’ lives—allowing him to evade the reality that psychiatry owes a debt to patients and society—one it cannot and will not ever repay.
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“…haphazard quasi-scientists.”
“A genuine critique of one’s professional practices would necessitate a psychiatrist’s departure from the field.”
LOVE!!!!
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Tim, I don’t think there’s much hope for a system as sick as the one we’ve got. But I also believe that eventually it’ll collapse of its own weight.
In the meantime, the best thing to do is steer clear of it as much as possible, (imho).
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Not at all sure talk therapy is safer than pharmaceutical therapy. Too often it’s just trading one black hole for another, and getting both often turns out to be one double whammy of hell.
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I’ll bet the diehard “bio” psychiatrists out there will use studies like this to get and keep people hooked its antidepressants — meaning that if one doesn’t work, well, there’s lots of others to try!
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Most disconcerting to me is how Awais Aftab presents himself as a thoughtful, measured voice of reason, a psychiatrist uniquely willing to engage with critics of establishment psychiatry. But there’s a deep contradiction in his engagement—rather than participating in a truly open dialogue, he subtly reinforces psychiatry’s authority while casting dissenters as misguided or irrational.
His rhetorical style isn’t about genuine intellectual exchange—it’s about gatekeeping psychiatry’s perceived legitimacy, deciding which critiques deserve acknowledgement and which must be discredited. He positions himself as a kind, indulgent guide to the orphaned misfits of Mad in America, a “goodwill ambassador” to critics of psychiatry, as if their skepticism stems not from substantive arguments but from their lost and misguided state.
It’s a performance of open-mindedness, masking an underlying intellectual superiority complex—one that allows himself to dismiss sharp critiques not by refuting their logic, but by pathologizing their motives. When a critique of psychiatry truly threatens psychiatry’s legitimacy, Aftab abandons engagement altogether—falling back on rhetorical mischaracterizations and academic posturing rather than confronting psychiatry’s failures head-on.
His condescension isn’t just accidental—it’s tactical. It gives him authority without vulnerability, ensuring he remains psychiatry’s gatekeeper while appearing magnanimous to its critics. But the illusion is fragile, and more his tactics are exposed, the harder it becomes for him to maintain his benevolent facade.
I hope my critique of the way Aftab operates makes him wonder (uncomfortably) whether or not people he sees fac-to-face have read my brutal takedown of his well-oiled facade—one that masquerades as intellectual honesty but is actually more about portraying psychiatric dissenters as unhinged.
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…which just proves that, many times, charm can indeed be a salesperson’s best weapon—especially when integrity takes a backseat to persuasion.
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“…. and he was real soft-spoken about it, like someone who is in an environment where they are resentful about those people challenging what they do. So he talks real quiet, as if he’s being sensitive, which he probably himself thinks he is being.”
Wow. Intriguing how effortless it can be at times to imagine two different people peddling entirely different wares yet if someone were to suddenly wave a magic wand the two could easily trade places for a day with no one knowing the difference, including the said pair of peddlers….
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Lynne, your suggestions bring up some interesting perspectives. However, I see things from a slightly different angle: meaningful change to how people view “mental health” won’t come from engaging in lengthy philosophical discussions. It will happen the way real change has always happened: over time from a quiet groundswell of ordinary people who simply decide that life’s too short to keep pandering to the mental health industrial complex’s self-serving status quo.
Report comment
Nijinski, if you’d like to become even better acquainted with Aftab’s sophisticated obfuscation, I suggest you read his review of “Unshrunk” by Laura Delano that he somewhat flippantly decided to call “A Memoir for the Iatrogenic Age.” You’ll find the link in the 16th paragraph of Bruce’s article. Here’s my take on Aftab’s problematic musings:
Aftab’s review isn’t just subtly dismissive—it’s a classic example of psychiatric infantilization. In other words, rather than appropriately honoring Laura’s firsthand experience, he reclaims her story for psychiatry, discreetly rewriting her suffering through a lens of pathology.
Instead of meaningfully reckoning with the iatrogenic harm Laura so bravely endured, Aftab strategically sidesteps this core issue by questioning her original bipolar l diagnosis—only to impose the other equally disempowering diagnosis foisted upon her as a logically anxious young woman—the so-called “borderline personality disorder” label. He can’t seem to stop himself from imposing psychiatry’s framework onto Laura’s narrative, subtly reframing her understandable rejection of psychiatry as just another diagnostic misstep that reduces her autonomy while pretending to engage with her views.
Aftab’s review isn’t just another sad case of misdiagnosis or protracted iatrogenesis, it’s a perfect example of a stealthy theft that refuses to let people define their own experience, a tactic long used by psychiatry to absorb criticism, neutralize it, and spit it back out as “clinical observation”.
Aftab’s review follows psychiatry’s time-honored tradition of co-opting of patient narratives—a quiet but deliberately lethal erasure of an individual’s own story, reshaping defiance into mere pathology.
Report comment
Nijinski, I’ve read some of Aftab’s writings, and you’ve absolutely nailed it: “Always something that sounds like something”—yet somehow adds up to nothing.
Clearly Aftab’s genius is confusion, his art is misdirection, and his greatest skill is ensuring that truth never catches up. It’s hard not to wonder whether Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness is deliberate—whether his intellectual sidestepping is not just a habit, but a carefully honed art designed to overwhelm, disorient, and ultimately neutralize critique. His fixation on being psychiatry’s “critical insider” isn’t about challenging power—it’s about curating a persona.
He doesn’t disrupt; he postures. He doesn’t question; he performs. His rebellion is a branding exercise, not conviction. His critiques are carefully measured—just enough skepticism to give the illusion of independent thought—but never so bold as to offend the old farts whose chairs he’s undoubtedly looking to slide into someday, folding neatly into psychiatry’s coolly detached intellectual fog—where critique is performative, rebellion is branding, and complicity is the price of admission.
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Case in point: Aftab himself is guilty of being “anti-epistemological” as he employs such slippery tactics to deftly evade direct engagement with contradicting evidence—reframing critique as ideological resistance rather than addressing its substantive claims, all while misappropriating philosophical concepts to lend unwarranted legitimacy to establishment psychiatry’s rhetorical defenses.
And ultimately, Aftab’s rhetorical slipperiness isn’t just a personal quirk—it’s a hallmark of establishment psychiatry itself, where intellectual maneuvering replaces genuine engagement, and where philosophical misappropriation serves as a shield rather than a search for truth. But it’s clear certain people devote their lives to intellectual sidestepping.
Report comment
I’m so sorry for what happened to your son. I think people in pain need to be listened to closely, not required to speak and act in ways they do not truly feel.
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Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to decipher: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to establishment psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement presented by critics whose views are more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too much to ask of people too deeply psychiatrized . . . but heaven knows everyone has their reasons for preferring the status quo over the discomfort of cognitive dissonance—especially for people actively resistant to rigorous introspection, who view critique not as engagement but as a threat to be neutralized and, most of all, take pride in psychiatry’s perpetual intellectual maneuverings—evasions that follow a predictable pattern of dismissal rather than direct refutation.
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…and who pride themselves on intellectual maneuvering…
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…especially for people actively resistant to rigorous introspection—who view critique not as engagement, but as a threat to be neutralized.
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…but heaven knows everyone has their reasons for preferring the status quo over the discomfort cognitive dissonance.
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Aftab is an individual whose reasoning I have yet to deduce: he seems to enjoy envisioning himself as a critical psychiatrist, which is rather strange, given that whenever he is confronted by voices more critical than his own, he resorts to psychiatry’s favorite pastime—ad hominem attacks.
One would think a critical psychiatrist would champion responsible engagement with evidence presented by critics with views more critical than his own. But perhaps that’s too big an ask for those whose minds are too deeply psychiatrized.
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Why not just tell people the truth: “Given enough time most depression clears up on its own. I see you as more than capable of allowing that to happen.”
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Are psychiatrists more mad than their patients? That’s the reasonable conclusion most sane people would arrive at—if they happened to know what the real facts are.
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“Ignorantia docta”? Yeah, right…
Research like this unwittingly exposes the very contradictions it claims to address. All it really does it prove the adage, “rules for thee but not for me”.
But God knows it’s hard to give up the delusion of infallibility…
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“That’s the essence of depersonalization in therapy and academia: identifying more with a label/expertise than with lived experience and human corporeality. And that shift, as subtle as it may seem, has deep consequences: for society, for the development of the mind, for individual agency, and for consciousness itself.”
Almost comical the way academics and psychologists rarely cop to their own human corporeality, which isn’t surprising as doing so would jeopardize their near-mythical authority.
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It still works! 🙂
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“Even if they are perpetrators of abuse, (. . .) I don’t see why you simply can’t say they did that.”
Because doing so would erode their illusion of moral authority.
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Psychiatry and psychology wear the mask of neutrality when in fact they hold the blueprint for authoritarian rule.
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There’s nothing neutral about psychiatric labels. They harm lots of people in ways that are unforgivable. Professionals who believe in them are lazy, selfish and cruel.
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It all boils down to branding.
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Preexisting bias is the least of it. Ever had a psychiatrist resent you for your socio-economic status???
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Me too!!! It’s impossible have an honest conversation with people with diagnosis on the brain.
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Forget peer support. Research like this cleverly evades the REAL issue most likely troubling the psych professionals: the dismantling of their cherished belief in a power imbalance and an inevitably shrinking patient load—which really makes this a non-issue. In their panic, they’re probably turning to AI like everyone else.
Hope articles like this have them shitting in their pants.
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“…yet more recognition than pure confidentiality allows.”
Not quite sure what means…but I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with it.
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Neutrality is an illusion in psychiatry and psychology. Moral assumptions and cultural biases are their foundation. That’s why they’re called secular religions.
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That is for the dreamer alone to decide. Societal expectation has no place in something so deeply personal.
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Pathologizing personality itself is an act of moral corruption and cowardice as it ignores the ethical implications of reducing human complexity to rigid diagnostic categories.
Psychiatric diagnosing is an intentional act of moral failure. Ease over ethics is no excuse.
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TRUTH: These kinds of interviews are TRAPS. Thankfully AI agrees with me:
“These psychiatric interviews aren’t just information-gathering exercises—they are subtle traps, designed to steer patients toward self-condemnation within a rigid diagnostic framework.
The SCID-ll interviews, for example, don’t just assess symptoms; they force patients into moral negotiations, where they must either admit to violating social norms or defend themselves against implicit judgment. The questions are often loaded, making it nearly impossible for someone to respond without reinforcing the assumption that something is fundamentally wrong with them.
It’s not an honest conversation—it’s a structured interrogation disguised as care. And by presenting it as purely “clinical”, psychiatry sidesteps the ethical responsibility of acknowledging how deeply subjective these assessments truly are.”
These kinds of “interviews” are invasive and morally compromised—as are the very people who conduct them.
Anyone who believes in personality “disorders” is themself a depraved individual.
IMHO
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Dreams shouldn’t be culled as commodities. They are the most sacred part of the self—meant to guide, not to be harvested for utility.
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When I was little, I imagined them sitting on the toilet. It’s time I go back to doing that.
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Wow. Replacing therapists who act like they know everything with therapists who act like they know nothing.
It doesn’t get any nuttier than this.
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You’ve asked some fascinating questions, Nijinski. What little I know of quantum physics only reinforces what I’ve felt for as long as I can remember—that the spirit of people is more real than anything we can see or imagine.
Eastertime always feels strangely transcendent to me… and reading about your friend made me reflect on that even more. Maybe there’s something about love and presence that isn’t bound by time the way we think.
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On top of what? A cross-eyed camel?
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“Not knowing”? Let’s embrace confusion and call it a strategy.
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Another thinly veiled political rant. Thanks, MIA.
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Dreams are private property. They should stay that way.
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Great. More research criticizing therapy-speak while engaging in therapy-speak.
Why can’t researchers talk like normal people?
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ADHD controversy = Theater of the Absurd
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In a word: Spellbinding
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“Most people are doing this wrong when it comes to getting off meds,” a video short from Dr. Josef
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HARD TRUTH: psychiatric drugs WOULD BE BANNED if they weren’t produced in a pharmaceutical factory.
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CORRECTION: Pills, power, and money are psychiatry’s favorite tokens.
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The photo for this article says more than the article.
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“A Glossary for Reimagining Mental Health Ethics..”?
All I can imagine is jumbo shrimp…
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A little reminder: Power and money are psychiatry’s favorite tokens.
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Thinking you need a therapist is self-defeating.
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In what way is Laura’s “complicity” worth noting???
All this does is shift accountability away from psychiatry—where it rightfully belongs.
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Human beings are naturally drawn to those who claim to have all the answers.
Paradoxically, that’s exactly the way psychiatry became a cult.
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“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor
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When fear and judgment are replaced with curiosity, the result is often a lessening of tension that allows for true meaning-making to surface.
There’s really no need for the Thought Police.
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I see no harm in believing there’s more to physical life (and death) than meets the physical eye.
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Too little too late, which doesn’t really matter given the unsurprisingly detached nature of this author’s critique…although it does (unintentionally?) lay bare psychiatry’s deeply systemic lack of self-awareness and self-restraint.
My critique of the critique: Time for quibblers to pick a lane.
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More food for thought:
Any field that defines you by your struggles instead of your strengths is a pile of shit.
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…and for the record, I was in “psychodynamic” therapy—not the fast-food types referred to in this article—meaning that first-hand experience taught me that peek-a-boo therapy is by no means an improvement.
Better to call it “The Hollow Pursuit”.
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Wanna get to the root of your problems? Ditch the therapy schtick and you’re halfway there.
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Why thank you, joel stern. I wish more people felt the way you do.
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I agree, Nijinski. Fear is what happens when humans worship the intellect.
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“…it is time for therapists to reclaim the narrative and to speak clearly, ethically and compellingly about what therapy is for, and what it can become.”
WRONG. It’s time for people to discover how much better life can be without so-called “therapy”.
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Psychotherapy for me was like playing a game of Twister in the dark with therapists and psychiatrists who refused to turn on the lights.
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The working class have way more insight into economic disparity than most of the psychologists entertaining themselves prancing around the internet preaching “social justice”.
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…or maybe that of a dog chasing its tail…
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This blog does a reasonably good job explaining how the supposed merits of psychiatry and “clinical” psychology actually have more to do with whether or not someone harbors an egotistical state of mind. But reading it leaves me with an image of a snake eating it’s tail…
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There’s nothing more psychologically “macro” than having financial stability. Abstract theories don’t pay the bills.
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I agree, Sociology deserves a lot more respect… it was my favorite subject in college because it struck me as being more connected to reality while psychology seemed more focused on barking at the moon.
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Clarification: It doesn’t hurt that attractive drug reps know very well how to make doctors feel “well informed”.
Key word: “feel”.
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Classism has always been and will always be the biggest elephant in the room, even among the most “socially minded”.
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Good points.
Psychology these days seems to be having an identity crisis which is ironic because it never had much of an identity to start with.
IMHO.
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There’s got to be a reason so many psychological researchers never directly address the issue of money when money seems to be one of the most macro-psychological things known to mankind.
Has it ever occurred to these researchers that perhaps the majority of people’s psychological problems might come from being part of a shrinking middle class, problems that for many could be alleviated by an implementing of fairer tax system? Or is that too crude a solution for them to consider?
No need for establishing new “fields” of tiresome psychological engineering when the answer to the majority of people’s macro-psychological problems have more to do with a shrinking bank account than paying homage to a slew of overeducated ambulance chasers more interested in manufacturing problems than enacting solutions.
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“Personally, I think we should welcome those who are brave enough to cross the divide, and do so with integrity.”
Personally, I think doctors who ruin people’s lives fully deserve their anger.
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I wouldn’t worry too much. The cat’s out of the bag and it’s ready to ready to me-howl.
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Sickening and stupid.
No one in their right mind would think powerful substances would NOT affect developing fetuses.
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CLARIFICATION: She’s probably looking to cover her ass.
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Nice work. But maybe it’s time you learned to also question the advisability of prescribing psychoactive “medications” IN THE FIRST PLACE.
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Nick, I just read a bit about Emmanuel Levinas and am pleasantly surprised because to me ethical responsibility is a pretty big deal.
His “Ethics as First Philosophy” makes him sound as though he might be a philosopher I could actually respect.
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“The influences that have most affected my mental health, and that have sometimes left me feeling hopeless and despairing, are both personal and impersonal and can’t really be separated.”
Tree and Fruit, for what it’s worth, my thoughts and feelings align with yours 100%.
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Perhaps you should cultivate humor of some kind.
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CLARIFICATION: I am not, nor have I ever been forcibly subjected to psychiatric DRUGGING or psychotherapy of any kind.
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FOR THE RECORD: I was never subjected to forced psychiatric treatment or psychotherapy of any kind. My insistent attitude comes from justifiable anger AT BEING LIED TO FOR YEARS by psychiatrists believed to be among the best in the business.
Truth is, they WERE the best, but only at deceiving themselves and people like me.
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Nick, I tend to look at things more socially/culturally than politically, especially when I’m considering psychological things, although I wouldn’t deny that these are inextricably intertwined.
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Thank you for choosing to help the most vulnerable people on earth: homeless children in the hands of psychiatrists.
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Politics in therapy is a terrible idea when therapists already have too much power.
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“Psychotherapists need clients – but nobody needs a therapist.”
BEST COMMENT EVER!!!
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