I’m not sure what point you’re making here, but perhaps my point wasn’t clear either. Here’s what I meant:
When it comes to behavior, there are always multiple paths to the same point.
“Madness” exists on a continuum, and I think it could be argued that there’s a little madness in everyone.
Drugs, legal and illegal, can make people mad – sometimes slightly mad; other times very mad.
Lots of other things can make people mad.
One of the things that can make a person mad is when he/she is raised to anticipate a bright and glorious future, even though the ability to achieve this is lacking.
Some individuals in these circumstances manage OK. On leaving “the nest”, they adapt readily to the reality, and find skills/occupations in keeping with their abilities. Some, however, become very paranoid. They continue to try to live up to the parental expectations, and interpret their succession of failures as evidence of a vast conspiracy. Sometimes they come within the orbit of the pill-pushers, and it’s usually pretty much downhill from there.
This is not an exhaustive list of all the ways we can become mad.
There’s a lot of evidence that a history of childhood abuse can significantly impact this process.
And, of course, sometimes madness does actually stem from brain illness/damage, and calls for neurological intervention.
I think there can sometimes be a fine line between madness and genius. Almost all the great scientific discoveries of the twentieth century would have been considered, and sometimes were considered, crazy by the scientists of earlier generations.
So, there are many paths to madness, but only one is required. The prescription of psychiatric drugs, especially at a young age, is a major gateway.
Nice alcove, BTW.
Someone Else,
And thank you for your clear thinking and ideals.
Steve,
Absolutely. When one considers the history of philosophy, with its many dead ends, errors, and contradictions, the notion of founding a medical specialty on this is probably ill-advised.
Fiachra,
You’re right. They have no solutions. The Emperor Has No Clothes!
boans,
That’s a lot to have to deal with. Thanks for reminding me why I write these posts. Psychiatry’s victims live in a pre-civil rights world.
Steve,
Yes, that whole bag of drivel was way over the top.
Fiachra,
I don’t know if it’s 50%. It might be a lot more. I would also include adverse reactions to other drugs. Also, being raised to have extremely unrealistic career expectations can sometimes generate paranoid thinking which can lead to a “diagnosis”.
Sam,
My understanding is that they must specify a “diagnosis” before getting someone committed or prescribing a drug.
Sam,
Nice comparison.
Steve,
How indeed.
Oldhead,
Sure. But the term “mental illness” is in common use. We can discourage its use or put it inside quotation marks, but, in my view, it is only by thoroughly discrediting psychiatry that we can realistically hope to hasten its demise.
Sam,
Yes – for now.
Oldhead,
I’m afraid that “soon” is a relative term. Merriam-Webster’s current criterion for obsolescence is that the word hasn’t been used since 1755. Perhaps we might do better if we strove to have “psychiatrist” designated a term of disparagement akin to con-man or trickster.
Rachel777,
LoL
Frank,
Disgust is the absolutely appropriate reaction to the bilge that psychiatry pumps into the system every day, world-wide. It is not a medical profession in any true sense of the term. It has lost all credibility and survives on press releases and bald-faced lies. Let’s keep calling them out.
boans,
Good point. The friction is the tangible product of the car’s energy being dissipated.
Oldhead,
Yes, but “case closed” doesn’t mean that they’ll go away. They’ll simply re-package their nonsense and go on selling – as they’re doing now with the chemical imbalances. I think we also need to keep hammering away at the invalidity of their concepts and the blatant harm that they have done and continue to do.
Noology,
Thanks. I hadn’t heard of Thomas Armstrong, but I’ll look him up.
Sam,
Thanks. Psychiatry certainly is given to distorting reality.
You’re welcome. Actually, in a perverse way, psychiatry is a perfect system. It has insulated itself from criticism by accusing us of attacking the “patients” about whom they care so much.
JeffreyC,
I’d forgotten about that post. Thanks for bringing it back.
Oldhead,
Thanks for coming in.
Dictionaries try to present all the meanings of a word that are in common usage, including slang and other informal usages. Psychiatry, to our great dismay, has achieved a significant toe-hold in the language, and its terminology often shows up in dictionaries. I don’t think the lexicographers are trying to placate them; they’re just recognizing the reality. Hopefully most of these entries will soon be marked “obs” for obsolete.
Looking forward to hearing from you. My website is still open.
Dr. Caplan,
Excellent article. The great tragedy of all this, however, is that according to the psychiatric establishment, it doesn’t’ matter why we are upset or how valid our feelings and fears are. If you’ve got the fears and they meet psychiatry’s simplistic criteria, then you’re mentally ill! Period. It’s charlatanism, pure and simple.
Thanks for exposing it so graphically and clearly.
pkolpin,
You’re welcome, and best wishes in your endeavors.
Leg-breaking is a nice analogy, particularly because psychiatry studiously avoids addressing the true causes of the problems they “treat”. It’s called cause-neutrality“: it doesn’t matter how you got this “illness”; now that you’ve got it, we’ll “treat” it for you.
Sam,
You’re welcome; and thank you for your support.
Dr. Caplan,
And thank you for your support and encouragement.
oldhead,
Your points above are nicely put!
Frank,
Thanks for this clarification.
Steve,
Thanks for your detailed reply above.
Magdalene,
1. The essential message of the DSM is that an ever-widening group of people are sick and need the “care” of psychiatrists.
2. I’m not sure, but I suspect that there is a lot of mutual referral going on. You send him/her to us for drugs. We’ll send him/her back to you for counseling.
3. Probably. It’s easy to agree with a position that increases one’s perceived prestige and earning power.
4. I hesitate to use the word “diagnose”, but those of us in the anti-psychiatry movement are the only real dissenters at present.
5. Tragically, I think that the training you speak of is more likely to encourage collaboration with psychiatry than challenge or dissent.
6. Psychiatric disease-mongering has been a phenomenally successful endeavor largely thanks to pharma-funded advertising and corruption of the regulatory agencies.
Fiachra,
None whatsoever. Thanks for pointing this out.
Steve,
Wow! Wow!
Slaying_the_Dragon_of_Psychiatry,
Wow!
Rachel777,
Beautiful!
Richard,
Thanks. The world is indeed a very oppressive place.
boans,
Thank you.
oldhead,
Agreed wholeheartedly!
Rosalee,
And thank you for coming in.
anomie,
Good points. Thanks.
Rachel777,
The surgery metaphor is frighteningly apt!
Steve McCrea,
Absolutely best psychiatric science!
Steve,
Yes! Definitely!
KateL,
The “urban legend” drivel came from the eminent and scholarly Ronald Pies, MD. And yes, they will say anything to maintain their place in the hierarchy and their earning power.
Rachel777,
I think it is almost always the case that psychiatric pills cause more harm than good. This is especially true in the long term, but devastating reactions can also occur in the short term.
psmama,
Thanks for this.
KateL,
Nicely put.
IBTworks,
Thanks for coming in. Two thoughts come to mind. Firstly, depressive feelings can be relieved by addressing the issues that maintain them. Secondly, have you checked out the long-term consequences of inhibiting serotonin reuptake? Again, thanks for your perspective.
KateL,
Thanks. But in fact, Dr. Kendler handed it to me on a plate with the “enduring commitment” quote.
Rachel777,
Psychiatrists have integrated themselves so well into our culture that parents who refuse to take their child to a psychiatrist can find themselves in serious legal trouble.
Sam Plover,
I agree. The only source of the stigma is the “diagnosis”.
Miranda,
Nice!
Someone Else,
Thanks for this. We need to continually chip away at their credibility by exposing the hoax and the blatant conflicts of interest.
Andrei,
Yes. There probably are some psychiatrists who believe the hoax. But they should know better. Thanks for coming in.
Bradford,
Thanks for your encouraging words. “A catalog of billing codes” – that’s perfect!
Rosalee,
You’re welcome.
Someone Else,
Thanks. You’re correct in pointing out that psychiatric drugs can produce these “psychiatric illnesses”. But the primary psychiatric position is that these “illnesses” arise spontaneously in treatment-naïve individuals.
Oldhead,
Good points!
Steve,
Thanks.
Sam,
Thanks!
Fiachra,
Very astute!
Anomie,
You’re welcome.
Slaying_the_Dragon_of_Psychiatry,
Thanks.
Bonnie,
Thanks for a very compelling, though disturbing, article. It’s always enlightening to read your material.
Sandra,
I don’t idealize real medicine. My general point is that real medicine discovers its illnesses in nature; psychiatry invents its “illnesses”, and its “treatment” of these “illnesses” differs little from street drug pushing. Real medicine is a valid, bona fide profession. Psychiatry is a hoax.
Rachel777,
And a very pointed satire. Thanks.
Miranda,
I agree. The good doctor doth protest way too much!
CatNight,
“Trauma defines us all…” That’s a very helpful concept. We need to address these things, not occlude our self-perception with pills. Thanks.
You’re right. Chemical imbalance is a marketing slogan.
Steve,
Absolutely never!
Brett,
So the hoax has, literally, gone round the world!
PacificDawn,
I’m not sure what this means: perhaps that we’re all a little different neurologically? I would agree with that. We’re all a little different in almost every respect.
Slaying_the_Dragon_of_Psychiatry,
Thanks for your support.
johnbitz,
I don’t, routinely or otherwise, “erase the experiences of those who *have* found meds helpful”, though I do challenge the notion that psychiatric drugs can be considered meds.
I have never claimed that “everyone agrees that other medical diagnoses are entirely homogenous with clear cut etiologies”.
My position is really very simple: that the loose collections of vaguely-defined problems of thinking, feeling, and behaving that psychiatry calls mental illnesses are not illnesses in any ordinary sense of the term, and that the drugs that psychiatry dispenses so liberally to “treat” these so-called illnesses almost always do more harm than good, especially in the long term.
Feel free to critique my work, but please confine your critiques to material that I have actually written. I make myself very clear.
Phoebe,
Thanks for coming in. You’re absolutely right – sadness is the natural response to loss and adverse experiences. The distinction between “endogenous depression” and “exogenous depression” was always a hoax. Endogenous depression was, by definition, sadness for which psychiatrists couldn’t identify a precipitating event(s). It was a very pure kind of arrogance (unique, I think, to psychiatry) to conclude that therefore no precipitating source of the sadness exists. As you so correctly say, they didn’t find these sources because they didn’t look hard enough. And they didn’t look hard enough because it suited their purpose not to find them. As you say: money and power.
Salimur,
You’ve identified a major issue. A chemical process is not necessarily pathological.
Rachel777,
Yeah, right. Lol.
bcharris,
Very true. Thanks for this important point.
Lawrence,
Nice!
Rosalee,
I think that’s a good answer. At present, psychiatry has a stifling effect on these kinds of creative ideas. Psychiatry says: Send them to us – we’ll take care of them. And society shrugs, and says OK. Take psychiatry out of the picture, and we’ll find that there are other non-medical ways to help people.
KateL,
Helping people to cope with depression is not a hi-tech activity. People have been doing it successfully for thousands of years. As psychiatry fades, I expect we’ll see a return to these ways.
KateL,
Thanks.
Rachel777,
It would also be great if the real doctors would start to point out psychiatry’s flaws.
Slaying the Dragon,
Thanks.
Rosalee,
Putting dents in the façade of psychiatry. That’s a perfect description. Enough dents, and the thing breaks.
Frank,
Thanks for the correction. And yes, the quackery, with its disastrous results, continues.
Julie,
Psychiatry has lost the intellectual and moral arguments. All they have left is PR – spin. Calling us deniers is just another example of this. But spin can only take one so far.
Rosalee,
Thank you for your kind words of encouragement.
i_e_cox,
Very good points.
Fiachra,
I’m not sure what point you’re making here, but perhaps my point wasn’t clear either. Here’s what I meant:
When it comes to behavior, there are always multiple paths to the same point.
“Madness” exists on a continuum, and I think it could be argued that there’s a little madness in everyone.
Drugs, legal and illegal, can make people mad – sometimes slightly mad; other times very mad.
Lots of other things can make people mad.
One of the things that can make a person mad is when he/she is raised to anticipate a bright and glorious future, even though the ability to achieve this is lacking.
Some individuals in these circumstances manage OK. On leaving “the nest”, they adapt readily to the reality, and find skills/occupations in keeping with their abilities. Some, however, become very paranoid. They continue to try to live up to the parental expectations, and interpret their succession of failures as evidence of a vast conspiracy. Sometimes they come within the orbit of the pill-pushers, and it’s usually pretty much downhill from there.
This is not an exhaustive list of all the ways we can become mad.
There’s a lot of evidence that a history of childhood abuse can significantly impact this process.
And, of course, sometimes madness does actually stem from brain illness/damage, and calls for neurological intervention.
I think there can sometimes be a fine line between madness and genius. Almost all the great scientific discoveries of the twentieth century would have been considered, and sometimes were considered, crazy by the scientists of earlier generations.
So, there are many paths to madness, but only one is required. The prescription of psychiatric drugs, especially at a young age, is a major gateway.
Nice alcove, BTW.
Someone Else,
And thank you for your clear thinking and ideals.
Steve,
Absolutely. When one considers the history of philosophy, with its many dead ends, errors, and contradictions, the notion of founding a medical specialty on this is probably ill-advised.
Fiachra,
You’re right. They have no solutions. The Emperor Has No Clothes!
boans,
That’s a lot to have to deal with. Thanks for reminding me why I write these posts. Psychiatry’s victims live in a pre-civil rights world.
Steve,
Yes, that whole bag of drivel was way over the top.
Fiachra,
I don’t know if it’s 50%. It might be a lot more. I would also include adverse reactions to other drugs. Also, being raised to have extremely unrealistic career expectations can sometimes generate paranoid thinking which can lead to a “diagnosis”.
Sam,
My understanding is that they must specify a “diagnosis” before getting someone committed or prescribing a drug.
Sam,
Nice comparison.
Steve,
How indeed.
Oldhead,
Sure. But the term “mental illness” is in common use. We can discourage its use or put it inside quotation marks, but, in my view, it is only by thoroughly discrediting psychiatry that we can realistically hope to hasten its demise.
Sam,
Yes – for now.
Oldhead,
I’m afraid that “soon” is a relative term. Merriam-Webster’s current criterion for obsolescence is that the word hasn’t been used since 1755. Perhaps we might do better if we strove to have “psychiatrist” designated a term of disparagement akin to con-man or trickster.
Rachel777,
LoL
Frank,
Disgust is the absolutely appropriate reaction to the bilge that psychiatry pumps into the system every day, world-wide. It is not a medical profession in any true sense of the term. It has lost all credibility and survives on press releases and bald-faced lies. Let’s keep calling them out.
boans,
Good point. The friction is the tangible product of the car’s energy being dissipated.
Oldhead,
Yes, but “case closed” doesn’t mean that they’ll go away. They’ll simply re-package their nonsense and go on selling – as they’re doing now with the chemical imbalances. I think we also need to keep hammering away at the invalidity of their concepts and the blatant harm that they have done and continue to do.
Noology,
Thanks. I hadn’t heard of Thomas Armstrong, but I’ll look him up.
Sam,
Thanks. Psychiatry certainly is given to distorting reality.
streetphotobeing,
Allen Frances is no friend of the anti-psychiatry movement. But I have to acknowledge that he did call out the akathisia problem long before it was on most people’s radar. In August 1983, he and Katherine Shear and Peter Weiden wrote an essay on akathisia-induced suicide. I wrote a post on it here.. https://www.behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2016/11/08/neuroleptic-drugs-akathisia-and-suicide-and-violence/
Rachel777,
Nice. Gee you’re wonderful, Dr. Murgatroyd!
markps2,,
You’re welcome. Actually, in a perverse way, psychiatry is a perfect system. It has insulated itself from criticism by accusing us of attacking the “patients” about whom they care so much.
JeffreyC,
I’d forgotten about that post. Thanks for bringing it back.
Oldhead,
Thanks for coming in.
Dictionaries try to present all the meanings of a word that are in common usage, including slang and other informal usages. Psychiatry, to our great dismay, has achieved a significant toe-hold in the language, and its terminology often shows up in dictionaries. I don’t think the lexicographers are trying to placate them; they’re just recognizing the reality. Hopefully most of these entries will soon be marked “obs” for obsolete.
Looking forward to hearing from you. My website is still open.
Dr. Caplan,
Excellent article. The great tragedy of all this, however, is that according to the psychiatric establishment, it doesn’t’ matter why we are upset or how valid our feelings and fears are. If you’ve got the fears and they meet psychiatry’s simplistic criteria, then you’re mentally ill! Period. It’s charlatanism, pure and simple.
Thanks for exposing it so graphically and clearly.
pkolpin,
You’re welcome, and best wishes in your endeavors.
Leg-breaking is a nice analogy, particularly because psychiatry studiously avoids addressing the true causes of the problems they “treat”. It’s called cause-neutrality“: it doesn’t matter how you got this “illness”; now that you’ve got it, we’ll “treat” it for you.
Sam,
You’re welcome; and thank you for your support.
Dr. Caplan,
And thank you for your support and encouragement.
oldhead,
Your points above are nicely put!
Frank,
Thanks for this clarification.
Steve,
Thanks for your detailed reply above.
Magdalene,
1. The essential message of the DSM is that an ever-widening group of people are sick and need the “care” of psychiatrists.
2. I’m not sure, but I suspect that there is a lot of mutual referral going on. You send him/her to us for drugs. We’ll send him/her back to you for counseling.
3. Probably. It’s easy to agree with a position that increases one’s perceived prestige and earning power.
4. I hesitate to use the word “diagnose”, but those of us in the anti-psychiatry movement are the only real dissenters at present.
5. Tragically, I think that the training you speak of is more likely to encourage collaboration with psychiatry than challenge or dissent.
6. Psychiatric disease-mongering has been a phenomenally successful endeavor largely thanks to pharma-funded advertising and corruption of the regulatory agencies.
Fiachra,
None whatsoever. Thanks for pointing this out.
Steve,
Wow! Wow!
Slaying_the_Dragon_of_Psychiatry,
Wow!
Rachel777,
Beautiful!
Richard,
Thanks. The world is indeed a very oppressive place.
boans,
Thank you.
oldhead,
Agreed wholeheartedly!
Rosalee,
And thank you for coming in.
anomie,
Good points. Thanks.
Rachel777,
The surgery metaphor is frighteningly apt!
Steve McCrea,
Absolutely best psychiatric science!
Steve,
Yes! Definitely!
KateL,
The “urban legend” drivel came from the eminent and scholarly Ronald Pies, MD. And yes, they will say anything to maintain their place in the hierarchy and their earning power.
Rachel777,
I think it is almost always the case that psychiatric pills cause more harm than good. This is especially true in the long term, but devastating reactions can also occur in the short term.
psmama,
Thanks for this.
KateL,
Nicely put.
IBTworks,
Thanks for coming in. Two thoughts come to mind. Firstly, depressive feelings can be relieved by addressing the issues that maintain them. Secondly, have you checked out the long-term consequences of inhibiting serotonin reuptake? Again, thanks for your perspective.
KateL,
Thanks. But in fact, Dr. Kendler handed it to me on a plate with the “enduring commitment” quote.
Rachel777,
Psychiatrists have integrated themselves so well into our culture that parents who refuse to take their child to a psychiatrist can find themselves in serious legal trouble.
Sam Plover,
I agree. The only source of the stigma is the “diagnosis”.
Miranda,
Nice!
Someone Else,
Thanks for this. We need to continually chip away at their credibility by exposing the hoax and the blatant conflicts of interest.
Andrei,
Yes. There probably are some psychiatrists who believe the hoax. But they should know better. Thanks for coming in.
Bradford,
Thanks for your encouraging words. “A catalog of billing codes” – that’s perfect!
Rosalee,
You’re welcome.
Someone Else,
Thanks. You’re correct in pointing out that psychiatric drugs can produce these “psychiatric illnesses”. But the primary psychiatric position is that these “illnesses” arise spontaneously in treatment-naïve individuals.
Oldhead,
Good points!
Steve,
Thanks.
Sam,
Thanks!
Fiachra,
Very astute!
Anomie,
You’re welcome.
Slaying_the_Dragon_of_Psychiatry,
Thanks.
Bonnie,
Thanks for a very compelling, though disturbing, article. It’s always enlightening to read your material.
Sandra,
I don’t idealize real medicine. My general point is that real medicine discovers its illnesses in nature; psychiatry invents its “illnesses”, and its “treatment” of these “illnesses” differs little from street drug pushing. Real medicine is a valid, bona fide profession. Psychiatry is a hoax.
Rachel777,
And a very pointed satire. Thanks.
Miranda,
I agree. The good doctor doth protest way too much!
CatNight,
“Trauma defines us all…” That’s a very helpful concept. We need to address these things, not occlude our self-perception with pills. Thanks.
Rosalee,
Thanks for coming in and for your encouragement.
Steve,
I agree.
Frank,
Beautiful!
[email protected],
You’re right. Chemical imbalance is a marketing slogan.
Steve,
Absolutely never!
Brett,
So the hoax has, literally, gone round the world!
PacificDawn,
I’m not sure what this means: perhaps that we’re all a little different neurologically? I would agree with that. We’re all a little different in almost every respect.
Slaying_the_Dragon_of_Psychiatry,
Thanks for your support.
johnbitz,
I don’t, routinely or otherwise, “erase the experiences of those who *have* found meds helpful”, though I do challenge the notion that psychiatric drugs can be considered meds.
I have never claimed that “everyone agrees that other medical diagnoses are entirely homogenous with clear cut etiologies”.
My position is really very simple: that the loose collections of vaguely-defined problems of thinking, feeling, and behaving that psychiatry calls mental illnesses are not illnesses in any ordinary sense of the term, and that the drugs that psychiatry dispenses so liberally to “treat” these so-called illnesses almost always do more harm than good, especially in the long term.
Feel free to critique my work, but please confine your critiques to material that I have actually written. I make myself very clear.
Phoebe,
Thanks for coming in. You’re absolutely right – sadness is the natural response to loss and adverse experiences. The distinction between “endogenous depression” and “exogenous depression” was always a hoax. Endogenous depression was, by definition, sadness for which psychiatrists couldn’t identify a precipitating event(s). It was a very pure kind of arrogance (unique, I think, to psychiatry) to conclude that therefore no precipitating source of the sadness exists. As you so correctly say, they didn’t find these sources because they didn’t look hard enough. And they didn’t look hard enough because it suited their purpose not to find them. As you say: money and power.
Salimur,
You’ve identified a major issue. A chemical process is not necessarily pathological.
Rachel777,
Yeah, right. Lol.
bcharris,
Very true. Thanks for this important point.
Lawrence,
Nice!
Rosalee,
I think that’s a good answer. At present, psychiatry has a stifling effect on these kinds of creative ideas. Psychiatry says: Send them to us – we’ll take care of them. And society shrugs, and says OK. Take psychiatry out of the picture, and we’ll find that there are other non-medical ways to help people.
KateL,
Helping people to cope with depression is not a hi-tech activity. People have been doing it successfully for thousands of years. As psychiatry fades, I expect we’ll see a return to these ways.
KateL,
Thanks.
Rachel777,
It would also be great if the real doctors would start to point out psychiatry’s flaws.
Slaying the Dragon,
Thanks.
Rosalee,
Putting dents in the façade of psychiatry. That’s a perfect description. Enough dents, and the thing breaks.
Frank,
Thanks for the correction. And yes, the quackery, with its disastrous results, continues.
Julie,
Psychiatry has lost the intellectual and moral arguments. All they have left is PR – spin. Calling us deniers is just another example of this. But spin can only take one so far.
KindRegards,
Thank you for the encouraging words.
Fiachra,
Thanks. It’s nice to be back.
Stephen,
Her name is Paula Caplan. She wrote an article titled Diagnosisgate: Conflict of Interest at the Top of the Psychiatric Apparatus, published in Aporia in 2015. http://www.oa.uottawa.ca/journals/aporia/articles/2015_01/commentary.pdf
There’s a link to this in my post.
Bramble,
Thanks for the info and the link.
Eric,
Thanks.
Frank,
Nice!
Auntie,
Nice summary of psychiatric defense strategy!