Mad in America

Comments by Birdsong

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• You can add Charlie Chaplin to the mix: “A Message For All Of Humanity – Charlie Chaplin” courtesy T&H – Inspiration & Motivation on YouTube

• And that’s about as far as it goes—y’all can keep your stupid floppy-sack!

• The main problem with psychiatry is that all you need to do is say “boo” to have the fools reach for their stupid DSM. And most psychologists are no different.

• Worth a glance: “Splitting: The Psychology Behind Binary Thinking And How It Limits A Diversity Of Opinions,” by Ilana Redstone in Forbes Magazine

  My takeaway was this quote from psychologist Andrew Hartz:

  “There’s an Islamic mystic who described how harmful it is to divide people into groups, say only good things about some and only bad things about others…” — something that accurately describes the “mental health” industry.

• What I find remarkable about the enlightenment era is how adamant some people were about separating the mind and body. And I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that these were men who never had to contend with the agonizing realities of either menstrual cramps or childbirth. Because if they’d had to, I bet they’d have stopped thinking like a bunch of stubborn two-years olds. And while I don’t believe there’s any such thing as the completely egotistical construct invented by the completely egotistical Freud called “penis envy”, there is definitely such a thing as “penis privilege”.

• Cartesian dualism is actually a form of ‘splitting’, the defense mechanism used by people unable to tolerate ambiguity. And ‘splitting’ is what characterizes most of the people who practice psychiatry and psychology—and when challenged, they resort to gaslighting.

  So there you have it, the two things that characterize the system of “mental health”: splitting and gaslighting.

• I agree, feeling and thinking are intricately intertwined. But as you say, “Feelings do not lie…”

• James Hillman is brilliant:

  “….medical jargon refers to nothing.”

  “It is an extreme materialism and pro technocratic thinking based on labels, procedures and it will be worse.”

  “Thinking based on procedures and labels is a programming of the enlightenment era leading to technocracy.”

  “And there is no sign of psychiatric victims in this corrupted evil society.”

  This is an evil society and things probably will get worse in some ways. But I hold out hope for radical change in how people see “mental illness”.

• Your most welcome, Penni.

  And I agree, the metaphors used by the mental illness industry are a huge disservice to humankind.

• Correction: Dr. Cornwall, not “Coleman”. I do apologize for my oversight.

• Listen and enjoy: “Awaiting on You All” by George Harrison, courtesy Soft lyric on YouTube

• “The JHP was the venerable journal of a revolutionary movement begun in the 1950’s to provide a “third force” in the field, to counter the two dominant movements of Freud’s psychoanalysis and B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism.”

  Human beings are not just their brain chemistry; they are mind, body and spirit/soul. In my mind, humanistic psychology recognizes what other psychologies and certainly psychiatry do not, which is the overriding reality and beauty of the human soul, without which life loses its purpose and meaning.

  Check this out on YouTube: “This Is Priceless – George Harrison On What Lies Beyond…” T&H – Inspiration & Motivation

• Uncomfortable feelings labeled as “mental illness” are messages from within that something is wrong in our life, not in our “brain chemistry”.

• What happens in a world without mercy? You get things like psychiatry and psychology.

• By the time some chooses to train as a psychiatrist, it’s usually too late to make any headway.

• For the most part, NAMI is a support group for the families of “The Identified Patient”.

• Psychology needs to shut up and change its name to cognicology. It doesn’t belong in the “feelings” business. And psychiatry needs to shut up entirely.

• I used to think having a medical degree indicated an ability to think critically. Needless to say I no longer think this way.

  But Dr. Gotzsche is that rare exception.

• And sometimes extremes states are caused by living under too much stress.

• The field of psychology should be called ‘behaviorism’ because that’s all it is. After all, ‘psyche’ means ‘soul’ and souls can’t be “clinically studied”.

  And psychiatry should be called drug pushing, because that’s EXACTLY what it is.

• I was delighted to read something about human suffering that actually captures the essence of what it means to be human:

  “To have seen those JHP journals on the library shelves full of merciful caring about human suffering, was proof that the human heart and spirit could prevail over the head and the dangerous objectification of the disease model of psychiatry.”

  “The contrast was human-hearted compassion and potential for all, verses human-disordered abnormality/pathology and emotion-killing psych drugs for all.”

  My thanks are to you, Dr. Coleman. A heart-centered approach should be the gold standard for helping people, and also for living a good life.

• Correction: SHARING kindness and REALLY meaning it —

• Wonderful article and wonderful quote:

  “Merciful love can help relieve the emotional suffering of extreme states.”

  Not receiving merciful love is usually the reason people find themselves in an extreme state. And showing kindness can bring them back.

• The “mental health system” mutilates human relationships.

• All part of the new colonialism.

• A scarily accurate depiction of modern medicine—and psychiatry in particular.

• Psychiatry calls it psychosis.

• People don’t need a disease-centered, agenda-laden system. They need caring human beings without an agenda who know how to listen—something that used to be called a very good friend.

  Healing happens in understanding, NOT “diagnoses”.

• Someone should ask these characters if they’d feel comfortable having a robot look after their kids.

• Dear Penni,

  Thank you for sharing your story. I relate to it because like you I believe much of what is thought to be ‘mental illness’ is actually a spiritual breakthrough brought about by repeated moral injury—injuries usually made worse by a system that speaks a different language.

  And I wish you many Happy Returns on your Spiritual Birthday!

• ”Ego collapse” is a great term. When the ego dies the spirit survives.

• And I wouldn’t be surprised if higher rates of addiction to psychiatric drugs correlates with higher levels of income. After all, that’s just what the pharmaceutical cartels are counting on.

• I agree, physics can’t replace the psyche. And for the most part, distressed people are suffering from soul sickness, not “mental illness”.

• I think it depends on what you consider “mental illness”.

  Enduring financial hardship and deprivation can cause high levels of stress that can adversely affect people’s state of mind and ability to function. And unfortunately this usually gets categorized as “mental illness”.

• Who needs “brain imaging” to prove that poverty and maltreatment damages children in lasting ways?

  Only idiots needs brain scans to realize that emotional scars are as real as physical ones.

• The researchers’ stupidity is rooted in assuming that “depression” is an illness in the physical sense.

  It’s time these people put away their electronic toys and signed up for some courses in semantics and logic.

• “….the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.” – J. Krishnamurti

  “Freedom from the desire for answer is essential for the understanding of a problem.” – J. Krishnamurti

• “Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is.” – J. Krishnamurti

  Thought is never free because it is based on knowledge, and knowledge is always limited.” – J. Krishnamurti

• “A man who says, ‘I want change, tell me how to’, seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.”
  – J. Krishnamurti

  “All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.” – J. Krishnamurti

  And there’s nothing more divisive than psychiatry and psychology.

  Definition for Divisive: alienating, estranging, isolating, schismatic, discordant, disharmonious, inharmonious — all of which aptly describes psychiatry and psychology.

• Correction: Ramesh is the author, not Rasx.

• “They talk about the psyche without the psyche itself, it is as if they were talking about theology without God. It is insanity.”

  Psychiatry and psychology are the products of an insane society.

  Psychiatry and psychology fail society because they ignore the reality and transcendence of the human soul.

• “The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.” – J. Krishnamurti

• “If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.” – J. Krishnamurti

• If more people found peace in themselves, fewer would end up taking psychiatric drugs or paying some mannequin to listen to them.

• Rasx says, “…not to project the image of what you want to be as against paying attention to what you are…”

  Psychiatry and psychology exploit people’s confusion.

• The author asks, “What alternatives do you have to simply coping with it? Simply adjusting to it?”

  I think finding some kind of peace within yourself is what needs to happen before anything else.

• Imo, “therapy” itself is a pathololgized relationship.

• Psychologically speaking, the author seems to have all his ducks in order. However, he contradicts himself when first saying:

  “From the relational-intersubjective standpoint, both the therapist and the context/system are unavoidably a part of the very experiences that become pathologised as individual disorders.’”

  And then saying:

  “Though in relational-intersubjective therapy there is an inevitable ‘asymmetry’ — as there necessarily is in any therapeutic relationship — the model [relational-intersubjective] assumes and encourages an epistemological equality with regards to what is occurring and what it means.”

  Why can’t he see that an “inevitable asymmetry” directly contradicts any claims of “epistemological equality” — the lack of which is extremely pathologizing?

  All he’s done is prove how some people will say anything to maintain a pathologizing power imbalance, which, incidentally, ensures him of being capitalistically compensated.

• There’s no point in having a discussion with people already convinced the moon is made of green cheese.

• It’s not that complicated. People’s emotions and frames of mind are most often the result of their interactions with others, while people stuck in Cartesian thinking are usually the result of disconnected control freaks addicted to power.

• This article does a good job of explaining how Freud and Descartes’ dissociative ideas became a gaslighting technique that exists to this day

  “Relational-intersubjective” is just a fancy term for seeing the person in front of you.

• Dr. Gotzsche says, “ADHD is the product of vested commercial, political, and institutional interests.”

  Psychiatry itself is a product of vested commercial, political, and institutional interests.

• Who in their right mind would assume there’s no collusion between the FDA and Big Pharma when so much money’s at stake? And don’t forget—when their stint is up at the FDA, you’ll find them on the board at some Big Pharma.

  Financial interests always win out.

• Psychiatry is propaganda disguised as science.

• Judi Chamberlin: “People are unlikely to question the underlying premises of their occupations, in which they often have a large financial and emotional stake.”

  This is why so few “clinicians” critically evaluate psychiatry’s many unprovable assumptions: the validity of their “diagnoses”, the reliability of their prognosis, and the necessity and safety of their so-called “medications”. And their habitual use of the word “clinical” hides the fact that they themselves are afraid of admitting their whole shebang is full of holes.

  If you want to persuade people, just pepper your speech with scientific language, it’s an effective marketing tool for just about anything.

• Correction: “doubt my reality” means doubt my intuition

• And I don’t think anyone can successfully argue that psychiatry is anything more than a glorified drug racket and medicalized con game.

• The complexity of the mind first and foremost includes the emotions, as these are ultimately what guides people’s thoughts and actions.

• Traumatic injury/memory gets stuck in the body as much if not more than anywhere else. And this is where psychiatry, psychology, and western medicine in general miss the boat. The DSM is an extreme example of how fragmented western approaches are.

  Psychiatry and psychology have destroyed people’s faith in their ability to process emotional trauma without drugs or reliance on some fool’s idea of “psychotherapy”.

• That’s for damn sure. But it’s gotten even sicker since hitching its wagon to the pharmaceutical industry as anything that’s profitable financially inevitably controls the narrative. But megavitamin therapy sounds interesting though, as it probably helps restore people’s messed up physiology from either psychiatric drugs or other psychoactive substances like alcohol, etc.

  And anything’s better than psychiatry’s sanitized drug hustling or psychology’s mindless minds fucks.

  Definition for Mind Fuck: the process of raping someone’s intelligence and/or beliefs with lies and manipulation

  Definition for Psychiatry and Psychology: the raping of someone’s intelligence and/or beliefs with lies and manipulation

• David,
  Thank you for your generous offer, but right now I’m not needing it. But I don’t doubt EMDR’s effectiveness as trauma definitely gets stuck in the mind and memory, and people definitely need alternatives to psychiatry’s drug-happy medical model.

• Correction: psycho-TROPIC drugs, not “psychotic” drugs, although in my experience there’s not much difference —

• Scwnorway,
  Thank you for the fantastic link.

  It would be great if psychiatry were disbanded altogether. But realistically this won’t happen anytime soon because real change rarely comes from the top down. More likely to happen is psychiatry eventually going the way of cigarette smoking, meaning it will probably take a long time for the majority of the population to learn from bitter experience that psychiatry’s sick assortment of diagnoses and drugs are not the best answer.

  However, I think it inevitable that the DSM will be formally discredited, hopefully with an admission that most psychic distress is caused by relational-environmental factors. And who knows? Maybe sooner rather than later an increasing number of general practitioners will be less likely to automatically prescribe psychotic drugs.

• I can’t say enough good things about something that fosters reconnecting with oneself rather than symptoms, i.e. psychiatry’s superficial “diagnoses”. Reconnecting With Yourself” needs to be everyone’s motto.

  Your kind and considerate perspectives are EXACTLY where the “therapeutic model” (and anyone’s perspective for that matter) needs to be.

• And “talk therapy” is not only the epitome of capitalism, it’s capitalism at its worst —

• maedhbh,

  Thank you for sharing your personal observations about therapy; they closely mirror my own:

  1. The dishonesty of paying for kindness and compassion—which is the opposite of kindness and compassion

  2. Using “transference” to protect and maintain what is essentially a destructive power dynamic

  3. Money wasted on bad memories “dug up about which nothing can be done”

  4. Being told you are incurably ill and hopelessly broken from someone with something to gain

  5. Forced to cope with abandonment from boundaries “suddenly put up by a previously accepting therapist”

  6. That most therapists are egomaniacs

  7. That most therapists like having power over vulnerable people for all the wrong reasons which DEFINITELY “takes a certain level of arrogance to think that way”.

  Thank you maedhbh for saying it all.

• And I forgot to mention how IFS uses curiosity in untangling the complexity of the mind rather than shutting it down with drugs or other narrow-minded “therapeutic” methods.

• Yes! Psychiatry’s continuous diagnostic rambling is enough to drive anyone batty.

• And because pharmaceutical companies are greedy —

• So what’s the point of “talk therapy”?

• Pictures speak louder than words.

• Thank you for agreeing with me, Someone Else. I just hope the world is finally ready to listen to something that’s long overdue.

• Terry,

  I just visited your website (healingtheself.net) and am glad I did. It’s thorough without being exhaustive and accessible without being simplistic, something essential in an area as broad as mental health. Your “Perspectives” section is particularly illuminating as it includes the most relevant topics: “The Spectrum of Trauma”, “Breaking the Trauma Cycle”, “Western Medicine”, and “Internal Family Systems (IFS)”. It’s important you placed these topics together as these are all interconnected, and connecting the dots is something too few people are doing. And the quotes you’ve chosen are brilliant.

  Thank you for devoting your life to something so important and central to what truly matters. I wish you the best in your new vocation.

  Birdsong

• My anger at psychiatry ultimately lead to my leaving psychiatry—and in that way anger proved valuable.

• Dear Terry,

  Thank you for saying everything that needs to be said about a non-pathologizing approach to psychic distress. You succeed in making the complicated understandable in a beautifully cogent way.

  I appreciate your explaining in detail how Internal Family Systems parts-centric approach acknowledges not only the impact of the subconscious, but also “the notion of the Self” and how respecting that Self, one’s “true essence” or innate dignity, is central to the healing process, i.e., “becoming whole”. And I especially appreciate your mentioning how psychiatry is “locked into a paradigm of neurotransmitters and genetics, [that] misses what’s right in front of its face, and turns a blind eye to mountains of evidence supporting the role of environmental distress—i.e., trauma—in mental health.” Your ideas are SPOT ON.

  I too believe “a revolution is brewing with respect to mental health treatment in our culture”, but more strongly I hope “the beauty of IFS” will be at the forefront this—and perhaps eventually of life itself.

• Psychiatry isn’t about humility, it’s about disconnection and judgment; it’s a psychological cancer that affects all of society.

• Imo, psychiatry is nothing more than an absurd gallery of pseudoscientific diagnoses whose DSM represents one gargantuan psychological autoimmune “disorder”.

  It’s too bad psychiatry can’t diagnose its own own pathological tendency to diagnose and label everything under the sun.

  In contrast, Internal Family Systems is a path towards true healing, as it’s based on compassion and common sense.

• Psychiatry isn’t about listening, it’s about imposing pseudoscientific beliefs on others.

  And most of the time people are “diagnosed” before they’ve even uttered a word—and most of the time their goose is cooked if the doctor doesn’t like them.

• Never underestimate the power of the internet, and M.IA. is a good place to start.

• Correction: DIDDLY-SQUAT

• You can’t talk yourself into forgiving—it has to be felt—something I suspect Decartes knew diddly about.

• And psychiatry is neither intuitive NOR thoughtful—but it IS emotional nitpicking – –

• CORRECTION: Healthy forgiveness isn’t about inducing shame through emotional power plays.

• Imho, healthy forgiveness isn’t about inflicting guilt through emotional power plays.

  And I think it’s more important to forgive oneself for not wanting to forgive those who have hurt us.

• I also bet Decartes, like most of today’s psychiatrists and psychologists, was secretly one angry dude—and Heaven knows there’s nothing more destructive than unacknowledged anger—which I think is the foundation of all of psychiatry and most of psychology.

  And there’s nothing wrong with anger; it’s one of most instructive and protective emotions anyone can have—if dealt with authentically.

• There’s nothing objective about psychiatry; it sees people through a psychologically distorted lens.

• Dear Dr. Ophir,

  There’s now a fighting chance—thanks to people like you—for which I’m eternally grateful.

  And as word of your book gets out among the general public, I seriously believe you’ll find way more allies than foes.

  Thank you for fighting the good fight, Dr. Ophir. I wish you all the best from now on in your truth-telling quest.

  Birdsong

• Rasx,

  Thank you for the wonderful quote from Heidegger:

  “…there are thoughtless emotions but no emotionless thoughts…”

  I think CBT is an exceptionally thoughtless approach. And how do I know this? Ummm…I’m not sure…I just had a feeling.…

• Thank you for thoroughly explaining the true nature of healthy forgiveness and questioning its value when it’s used to control people.

• Yet another attempt by the “mental health industry” to psychiatrize every culture with its tone-deaf heavy-handedness.

• Thank you for an outstanding article.

  It’s heartening to know that Dr. Ophir’s book is receiving such positive scholarly reviews. I hope his bravery encourages others like him to speak out against the institutional gaslighting not only surrounding ADHD, but all the other scientifically baseless “diagnoses” that constitute the fallacious field of psychiatry. And I sincerely believe it’s only a matter of time before it collapses from the weight of its own lies.

• ericwsetz says, “The first step is a willingness to be there with the patient and understand what they are saying.”

  Which just happens to be the basis of ANY healthy relationship, and most importantly needs to starts with the first: with one’s parents/caregivers in childhood

• ericwsetz says, “Patients are not out of their minds they are too deep in it.”

  Yes! And it’s not just psychiatry — “psychotherapy” often sets up its own convoluted “clinical” traps for people needing to get OUT of their heads —

• CORRECTION: Decartes’ way of thinking always struck me as pretty ONE-SIDED — which has turned out to be a detriment to humanity, imho.

• So-called “mental health awareness” in schools is about as helpful as an infestation of head lice—psychological head lice, that is. They are no longer places to learn and be educated, they are places to be labeled and “medicated”.

  And children often live up to a teacher’s worst expectations.

• And for what it’s worth, Descartes’ way of thinking always struck me as pretty narrow-minded—and I bet he was an egomaniac to boot!

• Psychological issues don’t belong in a medical textbook.

• Making value judgments based on forgiveness is not conducive to the healing process; it’s an entirely personal matter that can’t be dictated.

  People forgive in their own time and in their own way, if at all—and whether or not that’s good or bad is for them alone to decide.

• Rebel,
  Please note: nowhere did I claim that “forgiveness is impossible” — I said forgiveness is SOMETIMES impossible.

  And I respectfully find your attitude towards a lack of forgiveness to be—for lack of a better word—unforgiving.

• CORRECTION: “That explains psychiatry’s main flaw: it refuses to see “SYMPTOMS” in context.