I used to snort coke and survived too but I wouldn’t recommend it.
I don’t see why someone doesn’t start up surveillance and censorship-free versions of some of these corrupted platforms and search engines. There’s obviously a market.
Hey, this is significant (and very ominous) — could you provide details, maybe reprint some of what they sent you? If this is happening to you the rest of us aren’t far behind. This would even be a good topic for an MIA article or research piece.
I’m a digital dunce with no social media knowledge at all though — what exactly IS Google+?
I was just wondering about your train of thought and looking for something to toss around. I might have been subconsciously triggered by the word neurobiology because it so closely resembles “neuropsychiatry,” which is a very disturbing concept.
Scientific-wise however there’s the question of not having objective data on people’s physical/brain condition prior to taking drugs; a plausible argument could be made that if they were “fine” prior to being diagnosed and drugged what were they doing in a shrink’s office in the first place, so it’s hard to study this in retrospect
Conversely, is a shrink going to say “you’re fine, now let’s see what happens when you take this”? So there are some methodological problems here.
All this irony…you’re making me think too hard. 🙂
That would be valid research if it did not start with a presumption that such a “thing” as bipolar exists and there are “cases” of “it.”
How would you do that kind of research anyway — give it to healthy people and see if it ruins them? (“We have some fresh data here, doctor…”)
I only had one psychiatrist I could call truly evil. On the other hand–out of more than a dozen–only two or maybe three talked to me like a human being.
Isn’t this sort of beside the point? Supposed all the shrinks you talked to were very nice and “talked to you like a human being” — if what they’re saying to you is based on fraudulent ideology the effect is the same or worse, so wouldn’t it be less confusing for them to drop the veneer of “politeness”?
Why are you asking this Rachel? — there must be a question in there somewhere. How do you think you might benefit by knowing about “neurobiology” — or am I going to have to actually read this article? 🙂
If you lose your liberty under the Constitution there is supposed to be a criminal conviction, the equivalent of a “diagnosis” by psychiatry (which is a branch of “law enforcement”). Involuntary “hospitalization” is loss of liberty by any definition, so should be entitled to any protections due those charged criminally — including Miranda warnings.
Well maybe we could have a one child policy like China, since the drugs following the first child could create defects in subsequent ones.
OK actually you were my original source for that tidbit, so if anything I said is inaccurate please correct me; and yeah, the original would be great. (Did you get my email btw?)
Off topic LS but I had an idea — go to your inbox and delete everything without looking at it. Then you can start fresh. 🙂 (Hope I’m not bugging you.)
How could they be truthful or informative — by mentioning in small print that “all the above is bullshit”?
I believe the transcript of a keynote speech at the American Psychiatric Assn. convention around 1942 by a shrink who advocated the murder (“euthanasia”) of mental patients has also been excised from the archives. Stephen Gilbert might know more about this.
Also as I’ve mentioned elsewhere be prepared for anti-psychiatry info to start getting pulled from social media search engines, etc., as they just did across the board with non-laudatory info about vaccines.
I think the Miranda Warning makes it more clear to non-involved people that this is not about helping, it’s about incarceration.
Exactly. Plus it would offer protection from one’s refusal to cooperate with psychiatric interrogation being considered a “symptom.” Not to mention it throwing a wrench in the works generally.
Common sense should apply to the psychiatric interview, NOT Miranda warnings.
Yeah, because the state is so open to reason, we should just trust their good intentions.
Miranda warnings would only give the authorities more justification for what they are doing
NOTHING gives them ANY justification.
Tell it LS!
Lawyers say this won’t work because it’s civil not criminal, but I think anything depriving one of liberty must be considered “criminal” or a legal equivalent. That’s the argument our lawyers should make anyway.
Well hopefully Sera doesn’t mind hosting our conversations.
I wonder how the whole anti-“pill shaming” rap would have worked on my parents back when I was tripping my brains out.
When you work to reform something it has to have some value to begin with. Consciousness-raising is for the population as a whole, so that they can reject the psychiatric narrative and stop giving it power. Those who profit from fraud are generally impervious to reason and genuine information; the goal should be to eliminate their legal and social power so that it doesn’t matter WHAT they think.
This is why Miranda warnings should apply to psychiatric interviews.
The vaxx info ban stretches across social media. Twitter has banned anti-vax searches I think, as has You tube, instagram & the others; when I checked google for “anti-vaccine info” I got links to stories about why anti-Vax info is so dangerous (to their agenda).
OK I know someone else who has been expressing very similar if not the same sentiments, and with whom you sound on the same page — too bad you can’t be conversing. You might even know who I mean. Maybe you could work, at your own pace, on distinguishing “the world” (or the system) from your friends and comrades, and start selectively re-engaging on that basis. In any case thanks for your thoughts & for saying hi, and for clarifying. Your consciousness, intelligence and compassion are greatly needed out here. Rather than get even more cryptic I’ll just leave it at that, anyway it’s really good to see you around. 🙂
Now you tell me! You know how to get in touch though, please do. You seem to be on a computer & there’s a lot of free emails you could hook up in an instant, if that’s the problem.
Do you have plans for when the “social” networks ban anti-psychiatry info like they just collectively decided to ban anti-vaccine info? The justification would be the same — that we’re spreading “dangerous misinformation.” We’re just not effective enough — yet — for them to notice us.
Because all psychiatric “research” is invalid by definition.
No government funds should be allocated for “mental health care,” period. Or alchemy, for that matter.
Will Mad In Sweden subject all comments to pre-screening like MITUK?
Doesn’t unwanted “contact” constitute battery under the law?
If you are overseeing people poisoning themselves you are complicit. And in denial.
Pretty soon the social networks will be shutting down anti-psychiatry information just like they announced last week they were doing with anti-vaccine info. Try to google that now and see what you get.
Looks like you have it covered.
Although neuroleptics are also neurotoxic.
I prefer parasites.
All countries are capitalist (or colonized) countries, except for Cuba and (arguably) Venezuela. That’s why the latter’s electricity has been taken down by Trump.
You are complicit any way you look at it.
what should “it” be referred to when a person is experiencing natural human reactions to difficult life circumstances and are distressed, depressed, or even become suicidal and are not in a good frame of mind?
There is no “it” to mislabel — that’s the whole point. Why do you need a label for what “a person” is experiencing (actually your own description was just fine)? We need to talk about specific individuals and their unique circumstances, not “categories of behavior.”
Also what to call psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers etc, if they are not “mental health” professionals? Can anyone clarify what they should be called?
Parasites? 🙂
“Mental health” is the flip side of “mental illness.” If you oppose the latter you must oppose both, or else you’re being totally inconsistent. Let’s stop this false “debate” and just stop using such terms. Move on.
I can’t see realistically replacing it with some other term at this point.
Exactly, it needs to be jettisoned completely, just like psychiatry and all its other fraudulent terminology.
Except that as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, “problems in living” is short for “problems in living under capitalism,” which for Szasz would have been a bridge too far.
Wow Stephen, how did you manage that?
And the essential misconception in that case is that there is an individual solution to capitalism to be found within a capitalist system. It may work for some people in some limited situations, but on the whole capitalism must be defeated, it can’t be ignored.
I think JC was just trying to help people save money.
Lots of people are using it here. We need to stop internalizing system terminology, it’s disempowering.
The fact that schizophrenia patients have long documented hard evidence of shrinking brain tissue isn’t disputed anywhere as far as I know. The only scientific dispute is the cause.
Was about to hang it up for the night but…”schizophrenia patients”? While I know you know there is no such thing, just people falsely labeled as such, I have to raise my eyebrows even at the suggestion that those labeled “schizophrenic” consistently reveal brain shrinkage. For one it’s not a legitimate category, other than in the sense of “people who got caught.” Plus who has their brain checked ahead of time to see if it will later shrink? Plus any study of “schizophrenics” is invalid by definition.
“Dysfunction” is a robot term. WTF is the “function” of the nuclear family anyway, other than as a unit of production?
And on which of these points do you think I disagree?
Check again my comments about MIA’s editorial approach in framing these sorts of stories. There’s never a solid solution proposed at the end, or a suggestion that there’s a way out. This could have an unconscious effect of planting the seeds of pessimism in people’s minds, rather than an attitude of “f these mf’ers!” (I know you would put it differently). 🙂
I was sort of thinking the same way, not that it could hurt I guess…
And please stop using terms like “mental health.”
I do think that this is a viable model and my husband would love to join an intentional community – has been pushing me in that direction for years – but I want to create an intentional community with people I know and not join a commune of strangers.
That’s fine on an individual level, but don’t people already tend to live and associate with people they get along with?
I was thinking more systemically. “Intentional communities” are fine, but they don’t contribute to ending psychiatry; it just felt like an “alternatives” discussion.
Communities of what? Self-identified crazy people using euphemistic self-descriptions? I already live in a community, and don’t want to be pressured to live with “my kind”; we need to jettison the capitalist structures which create an enforced state of alienation across the entire social milieu, not play into this idea that “we” are “special cases” who need separate “communities.” Though a sense of community is vital of course, for everybody.
It’s important to, if possible, inculcate among young people a sense that psychiatry is not “cool,” that taking neurotoxins is worse than smoking cigarettes, and that people who diagnose their friends and use terms like “pill-shaming” should be ridiculed and avoided.
However to expand some:
I mean, maybe the author does believe in such a thing as “mental illness” but his point was that the systems set up to “help” do harm by pathologizing situational distress as symptoms of disease.
My frustration is more with MIA than the author, who like most MIA authors writing of personal experiences are experiencing these things for the first time. But reading them I sometimes think of people who don’t watch “pet” movies because they know how they’re invariably going to end. The basic theme always seems to be a variation of “I put my hand on a hot stove and got burned.” Followed by suggestions by readers about how maybe the temperature could be lowered, or a different sort of stove used, or meditative techniques that could be learned for dealing with pain from burns. Never a suggestion that “maybe you should just stay away from these places.”
Excellent tactic — and pretty easy for motivated people to do.
Fair enough KS, there’s always a subtext though. My comment had nothing to do with this author per se. It’s addressed to everyone, as most of my posts are. Maybe I should have made that more clear.
Any way other abolitionist survivors can contact you?
Pretty much the state of the art, thanks for reminding people.
Again Frank you seem unduly concerned with who slips a few coins out of the capitalists’ coffers — money which has been stolen to begin with.
Should we be locking up record amounts of people and paying for profit companies to run prisons, or should a basic standard of living provided directly to people who would offend to get their needs met otherwise a more reasonable violence prevention measure?
Well, “we” aren’t going to be doing anything as we are not in control here. But while capitalism still holds sway I think a basic income is a great demand; it would also resolve the issue of whether anyone is “really” disabled, as the right to a basic income would not be based on alleged medical need.
I don’t think “being employed” should be seen as a goal. “Employed” towards what end? Until people collectively determined what “work” has value this is a meaningless goal.
Putting quotation marks around “mental illness” is meaningless if one accepts that there is a “thing” which can be named, even if not referred to as “mental illness.” If you think you “have” something you have fallen for the fundamental deception of psychiatry. All other problems emanate from there.
the word authoritarianism also describes a political system.
The fact that someone has a pet conception (again with the “models”) doesn’t change a whole lot. Authoritarianism describes a style of governance, based on obedience as a “value” perhaps, but that doesn’t constitute an ideology in and of itself, and has characterized fascist as well as (at least in name) socialist states.
Why would you want to measure consciousness? Consciousness doesn’t play the numbers game. Quantum theory, which I make no pretense of understanding, changes the equation when it comes to materialism, time, space and dimension.
Lee, you’re not avoiding my question, are you? 🙂
Between Poles 1 and 2: the middle market of people leaving psychiatric hospitals, supposedly “free” but actually subject to economic, social and family pressures to stay in the circuit, for example under the threat of rehospitalization, obliged to see a psychiatrist to continue to receive an invalidity pension, signing “therapeutic contracts” in which they agree to undergo injections in exchange for housing, etc., etc.
This is exactly what I mean when I speak of “psychiatric OUTmates.”
Consider it reparations.
Drink the Kool-Aid y’all. This whole blog has actually been a behavioral experiment to see how many people would join a contest to “rename” something that doesn’t exist.
Considering the time of year, this makes me nostalgic for past debates on MIA about what the Easter Bunny “really” is. Dragonslayer, you up? 🙂
Wasn’t speaking to you in particular so much as anyone who might think their neurotoxins would not be one of the systemic crises a psychedelic experience would keep them focused on. I imagine it could be pretty awful, though illuminating.
I think the idea that psychedelics “mimic psychoses” is bizarre and based on assumptions made by psychiatrists about how people think, feel and perceive.
I think what sort of misses the mark here is that the use of the term “authoritarian” is problematic in the same way as is often the case with “racist” — it can be used as a noun, to identify a person as embodying or embracing such a characteristic, or as an adjective, to describe an attitude or behavior. There is no “Authoritarian Party” as there is a Libertarian Party or a Democratic Party, so one is not “an Authoritarian” in that sense either; “authoritarianism” does not embody an ideology but a style of behavior. All governments exert “authority,” ultimately via force (violence).
Psychiatry is more than an expression of “attitude”; it is a tool used on behalf of governments, corporations, and other institutions holding up a specific world economic order — the one we live under. Whether or not it can theoretically be used to prop up some other system is academic, because THIS is where we are RIGHT NOW. So I would zero in here to be a little more precise — psychiatry in 2019 is an expression of corporate monopoly capitalism, not “authoritarianism.” Again, ALL governments are “authoritarian,” even those one might support; that’s the definition of government.
Same here — it’s good that Bernie is standing up for Venezuela, but last time he was hopelessly pro-mh. I wonder if he’ll support the recent upping of social network totalitarianism with the across-the-board banning of comments against mandatory “vaccinations,” and I wonder if similar tactics are in store for us, as we are after all “anti-science.”
Will the European Elections Be a Chance for Mental Health?
What does this even mean? Is it a suggestion that the European Elections be stopped at all costs? Hopefully it is a rhetorical question designed to elicit a response of “OMG NO!!!”
My experience in this field 🙂 led me to conclude long ago that such pre/proscriptions can only represent the experiences and perspectives of the one making them. If I were to offer my own opinion, it would be that the most inarguable “never” would be to never mix any psych drugs with psychedelics, unless you’re prepared to experience intense epiphanies about how poisonous they are.
It is also what happens when you brand “school attendance” a basic human function along the lines of hunting & gathering, self-defense, child care and learning to cook.
If school attendance = “mental health” that should say something about both.
Though I heard that a recent AP video production was recently ascribed to Scientology rather than using CCHR as a surrogate.
.
Racism cannot be “healed,” it must be defeated.
Psychedelics and psychiatry do not and should not mix.
Mainly what I’ve been connecting up is how they focus on the tumor as the problem rather than dealing with whatever toxicity is causing the tumor. Not that it’s easy differentiating between the tens of thousands of possibilities, but maybe that’s where the science should be focused, rather than on attacking the immune system to eliminate the tumor, which is likely an immune response meant to protect the organism. It’s just that same “medical” pattern of attacking a symptom rather than the underlying problem.
One answer might be to stop funding foreign wars and route that money back to American interest like funding exceptional schools.
Good one KS, have you ever considered doing stand-up? 🙂
No arguments, I just think it’s important to keep pointing out that American psychiatry was complicit with Nazi psychiatry, as the tendency is always to point “over there.” What’s happening today is simply a “kinder, gentler” version of genocide, so it’s important to be aware of the historical context. Good article, as always.
@Rachel — Don’t give them any ideas; they’ll have psychiatric astrologers setting up shop recommending SSRI’s when Mars is in Scorpio.
You mean scratch the nice veneer?
Very well organized Richard, nothing I can see here to argue with. Most articulate thing you’ve written in a while. 🙂
I think the problem is more your putting blame not on doctors but on the “patients” who are raised to trust them, for acting on the deceptive “information” they have been given.
Venus flytraps? I’ll have to remember that one. 🙂
What Bruce doesn’t mention is the support for murder of psychiatric inmates in the U.S. during the same era:
The 1942 ‘euthanasia’ debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry
This paper discusses and analyses three articles appearing in a 1942 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. In the first, neurologist Foster Kennedy argued that ‘feebleminded’ people should be killed (an act which he referred to as ‘euthanasia’). The rebuttal was written by psychiatrist Leo Kanner, who argued against ‘euthanasia’. An unsigned editorial discussing these positions clearly sided with Kennedy: that ‘euthanasia’ would be appropriate in some cases, and that parents’ opposition to this procedure should be the subject of psychiatric concern. The arguments are analysed and discussed within the context of eugenics and the murder of mental patients in Germany. Finally, the author points out that currently ascendant genetic theories in psychiatry could be a precursor for future proposals similar to Kennedy’s.
If you think you have reached the point where you consider psychiatry to be worthy of abolishing I’d be happy to make further contact with you. Let me know (here) & we’ll find a way to get in touch!
You also deny free will, by saying voluntary clients’ minds are controlled by psychiatry’s propaganda. So you are on the same side as psychiatry, and furthering its cause/power
That’s ridiculous Lawrence. People may not be literally controlled by psychiatric propaganda but when desperate people are grabbing at straws and your straw is the closest one, reinforced by the many influences Steve mentioned, it’s obvious what the “choice” will be. As for “giving psychiatry power,” to update Mao’s famous quote, psychiatric power comes from the barrel of a gun.
What is your point William? And btw astrology is more legitimate than psychiatry.
The AMA cannot abolish psychiatry, but it can stop giving it quarters and sanction under the guise of medicine. That will contribute hugely to its demise, probably definitively, to be followed by laws against forced treatment, or maybe the other way around.
It will take an enormous campaign to get it to do that of course.
Don’t forget how the cancer industry is terrorizing people into fucking up their immune systems by exploiting the fear of death.
Still hitting those nails squarely I see, DS. Looks like you have more time on your hands recently. Anyway, yeah, people are responsible for their decisions, nonetheless they can’t all be expected to be experts on the history and lies of psychiatry, hence in a position to make informed choices, especially when the “experts” are all pushing them in the same direction.
I still think it’s better to use words like “drugs” or “neurotoxins,” otherwise you validate people’s ignorance.
You didn’t answer my “biological psychiatry” question.
Hi Lawrence. Why do you use the term “medications”?
Also it is disappointing to see you glom onto the “biological psychiatry” meme. ALL psychiatry is “biological” if there are drugs involved, and this implies that there is a “better” form of psychiatry that is NON-“biological.”
Lee, unless I missed it you don’t seem to use the term “anti-psychiatry” at all; is this because you do not actually support the abolition of psychiatry?
They don’t have the guts it takes to lift delicate subjects that, for some reason are not enough fashion.
Nothing to do with guts, there’s not even the desire, that’s not he media’s job. It is to keep people mystified and confused.
They don’t have to be afraid, they have no one to answer to. Especially us. They just don’t bite the hand that feeds them.
My dad was always railing against “capitalism,” and lived like a king.
Two different levels here. I don’t know what your father does, but unless he’s a billionaire he can know the experience of his labor being exploited by others for profit, it’s just a matter of degree; just as a football player can have a million dollar contract as the team stockholders makes exponentially more from his performance. Marx himself came from the upper classes; this doesn’t preclude one from being conscious of the system’s workings, sometimes it makes that understanding sharper.
Also briefly, on the level you are referencing, I believe consciousness and matter create each other simultaneously; there is no chicken or egg.
Exposing the truth is just the first step. Getting people to act on what they know is much more involved.
the “debate” I envision addresses the illogic of reifying a metaphor.
Maybe you should refer to it as something other than a debate. Again, a high school English teacher could cover this pretty well.
Also — I’m not being sarcastic — EF Torrey addresses this very well in his 1st book The Death of Psychiatry. Seriously!
That’s a more definitive presentation of your position I think, and I completely agree that a key pillar of the attack on psychiatry’s legitimacy must be the demand for the A.M.A. and other official medical bodies to expell psychiatry as a branch of medicine.
As for “the state”…it seems that psychiatry developed pretty much along the same timeline as capitalism; all states are not the same.
I used to snort coke and survived too but I wouldn’t recommend it.
I don’t see why someone doesn’t start up surveillance and censorship-free versions of some of these corrupted platforms and search engines. There’s obviously a market.
Hey, this is significant (and very ominous) — could you provide details, maybe reprint some of what they sent you? If this is happening to you the rest of us aren’t far behind. This would even be a good topic for an MIA article or research piece.
I’m a digital dunce with no social media knowledge at all though — what exactly IS Google+?
I was just wondering about your train of thought and looking for something to toss around. I might have been subconsciously triggered by the word neurobiology because it so closely resembles “neuropsychiatry,” which is a very disturbing concept.
Scientific-wise however there’s the question of not having objective data on people’s physical/brain condition prior to taking drugs; a plausible argument could be made that if they were “fine” prior to being diagnosed and drugged what were they doing in a shrink’s office in the first place, so it’s hard to study this in retrospect
Conversely, is a shrink going to say “you’re fine, now let’s see what happens when you take this”? So there are some methodological problems here.
All this irony…you’re making me think too hard. 🙂
That would be valid research if it did not start with a presumption that such a “thing” as bipolar exists and there are “cases” of “it.”
How would you do that kind of research anyway — give it to healthy people and see if it ruins them? (“We have some fresh data here, doctor…”)
I only had one psychiatrist I could call truly evil. On the other hand–out of more than a dozen–only two or maybe three talked to me like a human being.
Isn’t this sort of beside the point? Supposed all the shrinks you talked to were very nice and “talked to you like a human being” — if what they’re saying to you is based on fraudulent ideology the effect is the same or worse, so wouldn’t it be less confusing for them to drop the veneer of “politeness”?
Why are you asking this Rachel? — there must be a question in there somewhere. How do you think you might benefit by knowing about “neurobiology” — or am I going to have to actually read this article? 🙂
If you lose your liberty under the Constitution there is supposed to be a criminal conviction, the equivalent of a “diagnosis” by psychiatry (which is a branch of “law enforcement”). Involuntary “hospitalization” is loss of liberty by any definition, so should be entitled to any protections due those charged criminally — including Miranda warnings.
Well maybe we could have a one child policy like China, since the drugs following the first child could create defects in subsequent ones.
OK actually you were my original source for that tidbit, so if anything I said is inaccurate please correct me; and yeah, the original would be great. (Did you get my email btw?)
Off topic LS but I had an idea — go to your inbox and delete everything without looking at it. Then you can start fresh. 🙂 (Hope I’m not bugging you.)
How could they be truthful or informative — by mentioning in small print that “all the above is bullshit”?
I believe the transcript of a keynote speech at the American Psychiatric Assn. convention around 1942 by a shrink who advocated the murder (“euthanasia”) of mental patients has also been excised from the archives. Stephen Gilbert might know more about this.
Also as I’ve mentioned elsewhere be prepared for anti-psychiatry info to start getting pulled from social media search engines, etc., as they just did across the board with non-laudatory info about vaccines.
I think the Miranda Warning makes it more clear to non-involved people that this is not about helping, it’s about incarceration.
Exactly. Plus it would offer protection from one’s refusal to cooperate with psychiatric interrogation being considered a “symptom.” Not to mention it throwing a wrench in the works generally.
Common sense should apply to the psychiatric interview, NOT Miranda warnings.
Yeah, because the state is so open to reason, we should just trust their good intentions.
Miranda warnings would only give the authorities more justification for what they are doing
NOTHING gives them ANY justification.
Tell it LS!
Lawyers say this won’t work because it’s civil not criminal, but I think anything depriving one of liberty must be considered “criminal” or a legal equivalent. That’s the argument our lawyers should make anyway.
Well hopefully Sera doesn’t mind hosting our conversations.
I wonder how the whole anti-“pill shaming” rap would have worked on my parents back when I was tripping my brains out.
When you work to reform something it has to have some value to begin with. Consciousness-raising is for the population as a whole, so that they can reject the psychiatric narrative and stop giving it power. Those who profit from fraud are generally impervious to reason and genuine information; the goal should be to eliminate their legal and social power so that it doesn’t matter WHAT they think.
This is why Miranda warnings should apply to psychiatric interviews.
The vaxx info ban stretches across social media. Twitter has banned anti-vax searches I think, as has You tube, instagram & the others; when I checked google for “anti-vaccine info” I got links to stories about why anti-Vax info is so dangerous (to their agenda).
OK I know someone else who has been expressing very similar if not the same sentiments, and with whom you sound on the same page — too bad you can’t be conversing. You might even know who I mean. Maybe you could work, at your own pace, on distinguishing “the world” (or the system) from your friends and comrades, and start selectively re-engaging on that basis. In any case thanks for your thoughts & for saying hi, and for clarifying. Your consciousness, intelligence and compassion are greatly needed out here. Rather than get even more cryptic I’ll just leave it at that, anyway it’s really good to see you around. 🙂
Now you tell me! You know how to get in touch though, please do. You seem to be on a computer & there’s a lot of free emails you could hook up in an instant, if that’s the problem.
Do you have plans for when the “social” networks ban anti-psychiatry info like they just collectively decided to ban anti-vaccine info? The justification would be the same — that we’re spreading “dangerous misinformation.” We’re just not effective enough — yet — for them to notice us.
Because all psychiatric “research” is invalid by definition.
No government funds should be allocated for “mental health care,” period. Or alchemy, for that matter.
Will Mad In Sweden subject all comments to pre-screening like MITUK?
Doesn’t unwanted “contact” constitute battery under the law?
If you are overseeing people poisoning themselves you are complicit. And in denial.
Pretty soon the social networks will be shutting down anti-psychiatry information just like they announced last week they were doing with anti-vaccine info. Try to google that now and see what you get.
Looks like you have it covered.
Although neuroleptics are also neurotoxic.
I prefer parasites.
All countries are capitalist (or colonized) countries, except for Cuba and (arguably) Venezuela. That’s why the latter’s electricity has been taken down by Trump.
You are complicit any way you look at it.
what should “it” be referred to when a person is experiencing natural human reactions to difficult life circumstances and are distressed, depressed, or even become suicidal and are not in a good frame of mind?
There is no “it” to mislabel — that’s the whole point. Why do you need a label for what “a person” is experiencing (actually your own description was just fine)? We need to talk about specific individuals and their unique circumstances, not “categories of behavior.”
Also what to call psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers etc, if they are not “mental health” professionals? Can anyone clarify what they should be called?
Parasites? 🙂
“Mental health” is the flip side of “mental illness.” If you oppose the latter you must oppose both, or else you’re being totally inconsistent. Let’s stop this false “debate” and just stop using such terms. Move on.
I can’t see realistically replacing it with some other term at this point.
Exactly, it needs to be jettisoned completely, just like psychiatry and all its other fraudulent terminology.
Except that as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, “problems in living” is short for “problems in living under capitalism,” which for Szasz would have been a bridge too far.
Wow Stephen, how did you manage that?
And the essential misconception in that case is that there is an individual solution to capitalism to be found within a capitalist system. It may work for some people in some limited situations, but on the whole capitalism must be defeated, it can’t be ignored.
I think JC was just trying to help people save money.
Lots of people are using it here. We need to stop internalizing system terminology, it’s disempowering.
The fact that schizophrenia patients have long documented hard evidence of shrinking brain tissue isn’t disputed anywhere as far as I know. The only scientific dispute is the cause.
Was about to hang it up for the night but…”schizophrenia patients”? While I know you know there is no such thing, just people falsely labeled as such, I have to raise my eyebrows even at the suggestion that those labeled “schizophrenic” consistently reveal brain shrinkage. For one it’s not a legitimate category, other than in the sense of “people who got caught.” Plus who has their brain checked ahead of time to see if it will later shrink? Plus any study of “schizophrenics” is invalid by definition.
“Dysfunction” is a robot term. WTF is the “function” of the nuclear family anyway, other than as a unit of production?
And on which of these points do you think I disagree?
Check again my comments about MIA’s editorial approach in framing these sorts of stories. There’s never a solid solution proposed at the end, or a suggestion that there’s a way out. This could have an unconscious effect of planting the seeds of pessimism in people’s minds, rather than an attitude of “f these mf’ers!” (I know you would put it differently). 🙂
I was sort of thinking the same way, not that it could hurt I guess…
And please stop using terms like “mental health.”
I do think that this is a viable model and my husband would love to join an intentional community – has been pushing me in that direction for years – but I want to create an intentional community with people I know and not join a commune of strangers.
That’s fine on an individual level, but don’t people already tend to live and associate with people they get along with?
I was thinking more systemically. “Intentional communities” are fine, but they don’t contribute to ending psychiatry; it just felt like an “alternatives” discussion.
Communities of what? Self-identified crazy people using euphemistic self-descriptions? I already live in a community, and don’t want to be pressured to live with “my kind”; we need to jettison the capitalist structures which create an enforced state of alienation across the entire social milieu, not play into this idea that “we” are “special cases” who need separate “communities.” Though a sense of community is vital of course, for everybody.
It’s important to, if possible, inculcate among young people a sense that psychiatry is not “cool,” that taking neurotoxins is worse than smoking cigarettes, and that people who diagnose their friends and use terms like “pill-shaming” should be ridiculed and avoided.
However to expand some:
I mean, maybe the author does believe in such a thing as “mental illness” but his point was that the systems set up to “help” do harm by pathologizing situational distress as symptoms of disease.
My frustration is more with MIA than the author, who like most MIA authors writing of personal experiences are experiencing these things for the first time. But reading them I sometimes think of people who don’t watch “pet” movies because they know how they’re invariably going to end. The basic theme always seems to be a variation of “I put my hand on a hot stove and got burned.” Followed by suggestions by readers about how maybe the temperature could be lowered, or a different sort of stove used, or meditative techniques that could be learned for dealing with pain from burns. Never a suggestion that “maybe you should just stay away from these places.”
Excellent tactic — and pretty easy for motivated people to do.
Fair enough KS, there’s always a subtext though. My comment had nothing to do with this author per se. It’s addressed to everyone, as most of my posts are. Maybe I should have made that more clear.
Any way other abolitionist survivors can contact you?
Pretty much the state of the art, thanks for reminding people.
Again Frank you seem unduly concerned with who slips a few coins out of the capitalists’ coffers — money which has been stolen to begin with.
Should we be locking up record amounts of people and paying for profit companies to run prisons, or should a basic standard of living provided directly to people who would offend to get their needs met otherwise a more reasonable violence prevention measure?
Well, “we” aren’t going to be doing anything as we are not in control here. But while capitalism still holds sway I think a basic income is a great demand; it would also resolve the issue of whether anyone is “really” disabled, as the right to a basic income would not be based on alleged medical need.
I don’t think “being employed” should be seen as a goal. “Employed” towards what end? Until people collectively determined what “work” has value this is a meaningless goal.
Putting quotation marks around “mental illness” is meaningless if one accepts that there is a “thing” which can be named, even if not referred to as “mental illness.” If you think you “have” something you have fallen for the fundamental deception of psychiatry. All other problems emanate from there.
the word authoritarianism also describes a political system.
The fact that someone has a pet conception (again with the “models”) doesn’t change a whole lot. Authoritarianism describes a style of governance, based on obedience as a “value” perhaps, but that doesn’t constitute an ideology in and of itself, and has characterized fascist as well as (at least in name) socialist states.
Why would you want to measure consciousness? Consciousness doesn’t play the numbers game. Quantum theory, which I make no pretense of understanding, changes the equation when it comes to materialism, time, space and dimension.
Lee, you’re not avoiding my question, are you? 🙂
Between Poles 1 and 2: the middle market of people leaving psychiatric hospitals, supposedly “free” but actually subject to economic, social and family pressures to stay in the circuit, for example under the threat of rehospitalization, obliged to see a psychiatrist to continue to receive an invalidity pension, signing “therapeutic contracts” in which they agree to undergo injections in exchange for housing, etc., etc.
This is exactly what I mean when I speak of “psychiatric OUTmates.”
Consider it reparations.
Drink the Kool-Aid y’all. This whole blog has actually been a behavioral experiment to see how many people would join a contest to “rename” something that doesn’t exist.
Considering the time of year, this makes me nostalgic for past debates on MIA about what the Easter Bunny “really” is. Dragonslayer, you up? 🙂
Wasn’t speaking to you in particular so much as anyone who might think their neurotoxins would not be one of the systemic crises a psychedelic experience would keep them focused on. I imagine it could be pretty awful, though illuminating.
I think the idea that psychedelics “mimic psychoses” is bizarre and based on assumptions made by psychiatrists about how people think, feel and perceive.
I think what sort of misses the mark here is that the use of the term “authoritarian” is problematic in the same way as is often the case with “racist” — it can be used as a noun, to identify a person as embodying or embracing such a characteristic, or as an adjective, to describe an attitude or behavior. There is no “Authoritarian Party” as there is a Libertarian Party or a Democratic Party, so one is not “an Authoritarian” in that sense either; “authoritarianism” does not embody an ideology but a style of behavior. All governments exert “authority,” ultimately via force (violence).
Psychiatry is more than an expression of “attitude”; it is a tool used on behalf of governments, corporations, and other institutions holding up a specific world economic order — the one we live under. Whether or not it can theoretically be used to prop up some other system is academic, because THIS is where we are RIGHT NOW. So I would zero in here to be a little more precise — psychiatry in 2019 is an expression of corporate monopoly capitalism, not “authoritarianism.” Again, ALL governments are “authoritarian,” even those one might support; that’s the definition of government.
Same here — it’s good that Bernie is standing up for Venezuela, but last time he was hopelessly pro-mh. I wonder if he’ll support the recent upping of social network totalitarianism with the across-the-board banning of comments against mandatory “vaccinations,” and I wonder if similar tactics are in store for us, as we are after all “anti-science.”
Will the European Elections Be a Chance for Mental Health?
What does this even mean? Is it a suggestion that the European Elections be stopped at all costs? Hopefully it is a rhetorical question designed to elicit a response of “OMG NO!!!”
My experience in this field 🙂 led me to conclude long ago that such pre/proscriptions can only represent the experiences and perspectives of the one making them. If I were to offer my own opinion, it would be that the most inarguable “never” would be to never mix any psych drugs with psychedelics, unless you’re prepared to experience intense epiphanies about how poisonous they are.
It is also what happens when you brand “school attendance” a basic human function along the lines of hunting & gathering, self-defense, child care and learning to cook.
If school attendance = “mental health” that should say something about both.
Though I heard that a recent AP video production was recently ascribed to Scientology rather than using CCHR as a surrogate.
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Racism cannot be “healed,” it must be defeated.
Psychedelics and psychiatry do not and should not mix.
Mainly what I’ve been connecting up is how they focus on the tumor as the problem rather than dealing with whatever toxicity is causing the tumor. Not that it’s easy differentiating between the tens of thousands of possibilities, but maybe that’s where the science should be focused, rather than on attacking the immune system to eliminate the tumor, which is likely an immune response meant to protect the organism. It’s just that same “medical” pattern of attacking a symptom rather than the underlying problem.
One answer might be to stop funding foreign wars and route that money back to American interest like funding exceptional schools.
Good one KS, have you ever considered doing stand-up? 🙂
No arguments, I just think it’s important to keep pointing out that American psychiatry was complicit with Nazi psychiatry, as the tendency is always to point “over there.” What’s happening today is simply a “kinder, gentler” version of genocide, so it’s important to be aware of the historical context. Good article, as always.
@Rachel — Don’t give them any ideas; they’ll have psychiatric astrologers setting up shop recommending SSRI’s when Mars is in Scorpio.
You mean scratch the nice veneer?
Very well organized Richard, nothing I can see here to argue with. Most articulate thing you’ve written in a while. 🙂
I think the problem is more your putting blame not on doctors but on the “patients” who are raised to trust them, for acting on the deceptive “information” they have been given.
Venus flytraps? I’ll have to remember that one. 🙂
What Bruce doesn’t mention is the support for murder of psychiatric inmates in the U.S. during the same era:
The 1942 ‘euthanasia’ debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry
This paper discusses and analyses three articles appearing in a 1942 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. In the first, neurologist Foster Kennedy argued that ‘feebleminded’ people should be killed (an act which he referred to as ‘euthanasia’). The rebuttal was written by psychiatrist Leo Kanner, who argued against ‘euthanasia’. An unsigned editorial discussing these positions clearly sided with Kennedy: that ‘euthanasia’ would be appropriate in some cases, and that parents’ opposition to this procedure should be the subject of psychiatric concern. The arguments are analysed and discussed within the context of eugenics and the murder of mental patients in Germany. Finally, the author points out that currently ascendant genetic theories in psychiatry could be a precursor for future proposals similar to Kennedy’s.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c10d/3408c200077d9123f802a92408859c37d90c.pdf
I do. But I have to ask someone. Stay tuned.
If you think you have reached the point where you consider psychiatry to be worthy of abolishing I’d be happy to make further contact with you. Let me know (here) & we’ll find a way to get in touch!
You also deny free will, by saying voluntary clients’ minds are controlled by psychiatry’s propaganda. So you are on the same side as psychiatry, and furthering its cause/power
That’s ridiculous Lawrence. People may not be literally controlled by psychiatric propaganda but when desperate people are grabbing at straws and your straw is the closest one, reinforced by the many influences Steve mentioned, it’s obvious what the “choice” will be. As for “giving psychiatry power,” to update Mao’s famous quote, psychiatric power comes from the barrel of a gun.
What is your point William? And btw astrology is more legitimate than psychiatry.
The AMA cannot abolish psychiatry, but it can stop giving it quarters and sanction under the guise of medicine. That will contribute hugely to its demise, probably definitively, to be followed by laws against forced treatment, or maybe the other way around.
It will take an enormous campaign to get it to do that of course.
Don’t forget how the cancer industry is terrorizing people into fucking up their immune systems by exploiting the fear of death.
Still hitting those nails squarely I see, DS. Looks like you have more time on your hands recently. Anyway, yeah, people are responsible for their decisions, nonetheless they can’t all be expected to be experts on the history and lies of psychiatry, hence in a position to make informed choices, especially when the “experts” are all pushing them in the same direction.
I still think it’s better to use words like “drugs” or “neurotoxins,” otherwise you validate people’s ignorance.
You didn’t answer my “biological psychiatry” question.
Hi Lawrence. Why do you use the term “medications”?
Also it is disappointing to see you glom onto the “biological psychiatry” meme. ALL psychiatry is “biological” if there are drugs involved, and this implies that there is a “better” form of psychiatry that is NON-“biological.”
Lee, unless I missed it you don’t seem to use the term “anti-psychiatry” at all; is this because you do not actually support the abolition of psychiatry?
They don’t have the guts it takes to lift delicate subjects that, for some reason are not enough fashion.
Nothing to do with guts, there’s not even the desire, that’s not he media’s job. It is to keep people mystified and confused.
They don’t have to be afraid, they have no one to answer to. Especially us. They just don’t bite the hand that feeds them.
My dad was always railing against “capitalism,” and lived like a king.
Two different levels here. I don’t know what your father does, but unless he’s a billionaire he can know the experience of his labor being exploited by others for profit, it’s just a matter of degree; just as a football player can have a million dollar contract as the team stockholders makes exponentially more from his performance. Marx himself came from the upper classes; this doesn’t preclude one from being conscious of the system’s workings, sometimes it makes that understanding sharper.
Also briefly, on the level you are referencing, I believe consciousness and matter create each other simultaneously; there is no chicken or egg.
Exposing the truth is just the first step. Getting people to act on what they know is much more involved.
the “debate” I envision addresses the illogic of reifying a metaphor.
Maybe you should refer to it as something other than a debate. Again, a high school English teacher could cover this pretty well.
Also — I’m not being sarcastic — EF Torrey addresses this very well in his 1st book The Death of Psychiatry. Seriously!
That’s a more definitive presentation of your position I think, and I completely agree that a key pillar of the attack on psychiatry’s legitimacy must be the demand for the A.M.A. and other official medical bodies to expell psychiatry as a branch of medicine.
As for “the state”…it seems that psychiatry developed pretty much along the same timeline as capitalism; all states are not the same.