Published February 8, 2011
Updated May 14, 2025
I hear from quite a few people, generally part of special interest groups, who think psych meds are evil, psychiatrists are evil, or psychologists are evil. When groups like Scientology aren’t driving these ideas, these statements of hatred often come from negative personal experiences with psych meds or psychiatry/psychology. Often, these people are lashing out emotionally because they didn’t like how the medicine or other form of treatment went. I do get that. Once burned, twice an antipsychiatrist, I guess.
I Understand Why People Think Psychiatry and Psychiatric Treatments Are Evil
I get this. I really do. When you tie yourself in knots, live through painful psych treatments, and do things you never thought you would do to get better, and then you don’t get better, you get bitter. I’d say that’s pretty normal and understandable. I’ve certainly experienced this, although I’m far too logical and even-minded to exhibit the fanatical stance seen by others.
But here’s the thing: psychiatry is no more evil than any other branch of medicine; psychiatrists are just doing the best they can with the tools they have. (And yes, I wish they had better tools.)
Negatives About Psychiatry and Psych Meds
If we take me as an example, I have had many nasty interactions with the field of mental health:
- I’ve had a psychiatrist not listen to me or my symptoms, which led to a misdiagnosis.
- I’ve had doctors not care about painful side effects I experienced.
- Psychiatrists have typically not tracked blood pressure and weight, even when it is standard practice as defined by the prescribing information on many antipsychotics.
- I wasn’t made aware of the tardive dyskinesia and diabetes risks with antipsychotics.
- I had a doctor turn my vagus nerve stimulator five times higher than it was supposed to be, causing pain and trauma.
- I’ve had psychiatrists refuse to treat me because (essentially) I was a lost cause.
Granted, that sounds pretty bad. I get that. Totally. But keep in mind, some of these things could have been averted by me, and we’re talking about more than 20 years of data. Stuff happens in 20 years.
Positives About Psychiatry and Psych Meds
- I’m not dead
I could list others like quality of life and quality of skydive, but when it comes down to it, not being dead is really the key.
Special Interest Groups (Like Scientology) Skew Psychiatry Beyond Recognition
I don’t usually call people or groups out on my blog. That’s because I don’t want to engage in some sort of ridiculous war. I like to live and let live. But honestly, Scientologists and antipsychiatry groups like them harm the mentally ill so gravely that they cannot be ignored.
Lies and Misinformation from a Scientology Group
A major Scientology site that I will not name (and their connection with Scientology is hidden) has articles/information like the following as of 2025:
- Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock — Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of their favorite boogeymen. I can understand why. It’s a difficult treatment, and some people have had bad experiences. That said, it is nowhere near torture. It is a medical procedure that is given while the patient is under general anesthesia. One recent study showed that ECT was associated with a 50% reduction in the risk of suicide in patients with depression in the year after their hospitalization. This is particularly impressive as ECT tends to be given to patients who are in the worst situations and have failed many treatments. And yes, I have undergone this treatment.
- Psychiatric Disorders Are Not Medical Diseases — Psychiatric disorders are medical disorders. And while they can’t be pinpointed with biomarkers yet (researchers are working on it), this is also true of many other real medical issues like migraines. No one says that migraines aren’t real despite the fact that there is no biological proof of their existence (because there aren’t special interest groups dedicated to disparaging them).
- The Brain Is Not the Real Cause of Life’s Problems — Well, that depends. When you have a problem in life, it is not necessarily caused by your brain. It might be a divorce. Ot a death. Or one of a myriad other things. But that doesn’t mean that the brain can’t be the cause (or main cause) of some people’s problems. (such as those with bipolar). And we understand more and more every day about the functional and structural differences in the brain of those with illnesses like bipolar disorder. Yes, your brain can be causing your problems.
- Child Drugging: Psychiatry Destroying Lives — No one wants to put a child on medication. No one. Parents agonize about this choice. But the fact is, some children need medication in order to function in school and at home. I don’t need to tell you that any medication that is approved for use in children has to show benefit according to multiple studies submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. But if you want to get into the weeds about what psychotropic medication does to children’s brains, you can see here. I’ve also written specifically about children on lithium.
- Community Ruin: Psychiatry’s Coercive ‘Care’ — This is maybe the most ridiculous claim. Where I live, people who are experiencing homelessness are dying for more psychiatric care. This is a bit of an older number, but I suspect it has only gotten worse: It has been estimated that 25% of people who are homeless have a serious mental illness and 45% have any mental illness. If those people could get adequate treatment and help off the street, that would no doubt improve the community, not ruin it.
Note, when I make a claim, it is backed up by science. When antipsychiatrists make a claim, it is backed up by, what, a feeling’? An anecdote? The problem with that is that I can find an anecdote or a feeling that says anything. Anecdotes and feelings don’t actually make things true. That’s why science studies illness — so we know what is true.
Here are some additional thoughts on antipsychiatry.
Some Doctors Do Bad Things
I would never suggest that there aren’t bad, abusive, fraudulent, money-focused, uncaring doctors, psychiatrists or psychologists out there. They are like every other segment of the population: some of them are paragons of their profession and some of them definitely aren’t. And those who break the law should surely be prosecuted, just like anyone else.
But really, basing the opinion of an entire field of medicine on the minority who hurt others is like getting food poisoning at a restaurant and then never going out to eat again because “all restaurants are out to make you sick.”
Psychiatry and Psychology Have Saved 1000s of Lives
I could write an article every day for a year on how many people psychiatry has saved. I know nasty special interest groups deny it, but every day people are helped by mental health care professionals.
Mental Illness Exists
One of the more hurtful lies these people tell is that mental illness doesn’t exist. Again, I could fill an entire book proving the physical nature of mental illness, but for now I’ll just link to an in-depth explanation of what we know about the pathophysiology of bipolar.
Psychiatry and Psychology Have Saved My Life
I’m not kidding about that. For all their flaws, of which there are many, I wouldn’t have survived this long without psychiatry, psych meds, and psychology. Moreover, I wouldn’t have experienced the quality of life I have had for the past couple of decades.
Admittedly, now isn’t the best time for me. Now, psychiatry is having a really hard time with me. Now, things are looking bleak. But current failure does not destroy past success. It’s quite possible to rid someone of cancer only to have it reappear years later. This isn’t because the doctor did anything wrong per se, it’s just that we’re all working with the best tools we have, and they’re far from perfect.
If you hate psych meds, psychiatrists, and psychologists you are quite free to do so. I’m not going to forcably drag you to an appointment. But to make claims that essentially assert psychiatry and psychology are evil and that mental illness doesn’t exist is to be uninformed, disingenuous, ignorant and ultimately extremely harmful to the people around you.
Religious institutions are also capable of healing minds, locking people up against their will, torturing them, curing them, saving their lives, exorcising them, getting people to go around preaching about how the church saved them, etc. If you sent suicidal people to well-run monasteries, they could get better without all those nasty side effects.
Mental illness is a fundamentally spiritual concept. We all know mental experiences are correlated which physical patterns in the brain, but that does not prove that Depression is a physical illness any more than being A Jerk, a Greedy Bastard, a Bootlicker or a Self-Righteous Authoritarian. Psychiatry needs to be treated like a religion and given no more political power than a church.
AMEN!!!
I believe anti-pychiatric beliefs stem from the draconian natural of pychiatric medications themselves which changes the cognitive functioning of the brain and changes homeostasis of one’s brain. Antidepressants affect people’s ability not only to control their own emotionals but control themselves. Antidepressants typically are simply pills as such they are ingested in the stomach then and some of the medication stays in the liver. This build up in the liver creates the antidepressants affects for the user. When one is on antidepressants they typically feel emotionally numb this could be because the medication affects all pleasure centers and human happiness is kinda complex so initially i bet the antidepressants work. However, feeding the brain like that leads to the human user to become careless and reckless in there day to day lifes. People typically stop wash their hair as much or stop brushing their teeth. People stop doing things that once made them happy. Typically this leads to people to desire to stop using the medication. However, much like prescription pain medication antidepressants are fundamentally addictive. The body becomes dependent on the medication for it’s sense of homeostasis. Typically the affects of discontinuing antidepressants are not felt until 6 to two weeks after use is stopped. Suicides and manic episodes are common in this stage. I think 1/3 all antidepressants users commit suicide or something. Anyhow, it’s draconian that doctors use medication that changes cognitive function verse complementing it’s current function in order to make the patient happy. THC pills would be a far better antidepressant then current antidepressants. And i hope that one day THC will replace the serotonin and such in antidepressants.
Hi Julia,
Certainly you make many assertions there but with no evidence of any sort. People on antidepressants _can_ control themselves — far more than those who are acutely ill.
As for antidepressants being addictive, you have absolutely no proof of that nor that _taking_ antidepressant causes people to stop doing what they enjoy. In my experience, it is 100% the other way around.
By the way, I have written on antidepressants and addiction, here: https://natashatracy.com/mental-illness-issues/addiction/psych-meds-addictive-antidepressants/
And it is absolutely incorrect and irresponsible to suggest that so many people on antidepressants die of suicide.
You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. If you would like to submit any peer-reviewed material to support any of your points, please do so.
– Natasha Tracy
It is well established that psychiatry is not a science, and never has been. It has been one long, mutating, self-regulating and promoting failure. Sure, anyone can FEEL psychiatry “saved” them, but where’s the proof? Psychiatry fails miserably when it comes to this “proof” you yourself are demanding from a commenter. Sure, they use “science” to label all they do, but it is not possible to create replicatable data for what these people do because they do it on HUMAN beings. To this day, any psychiatrist will admit “we don’t know how the drugs we give you work, we just know they ‘help’ some people.” Why? Because if you research the history of psychiatry, you’ll see, among many fallacies, their claim to “treat” mental illness with “medication” was no more than a response to the fame and fortune modern doctors were achieving with things like penicillin. They wanted a “miracle cure”, too, so they started dosing patients with any chemical they decided to try, and began reporting their results as “cures”. With. No. Proof. And its been that way ever since. A good psychiatrist or psychologist may just happen to be gifted with wisdom, insight and true empathy, which will go along way toward helping a patient, but the rest is all BS. They created their own regulatory system to tell themselves, and the world, how great they are. With a history of horrible tortures and experiments on human beings, they are still at it. Freud was a crackpot, and his croneys were, also. They just made stuff up, for crying out loud, and decided, for themselves, with no independent assessment, oversight, proof, what they thought was wrong with people and how they could “cure” it.
Hi Andrew,
It is _not_ “well-establish” by anyone except antipsychiatrists. Reputable doctors and scientists understand psychiatry just fine.
With regard to drugs, we don’t know how lots of drugs work. We didn’t know how Aspirin worked for many, many years. That doesn’t mean those things don’t work, it means we don’t understand them.
And as for making up illnesses, this isn’t remotely true either. Bipolar disorder (the illness, not the name) has been around as long as there has been recorded medical history.
I appreciate that you don’t like psychiatry, but that doesn’t make the statement in your comment true.
— Natasha Tracy
The anti-psychiatrists protest with a vehement and disturbing rhetoric. They sound malaligned to society in general and are probably suffering from poorly treated mental health problems. I see psychiatry as an emerging science. There is not enough knowledge about brain function to make accurate, scientific diagnoses in all cases. For many years, with three different psychiatrists, I have measured the effect of different medications almost on a trial and error basis. It has in the end led to treatment with lithium and the consequent improvement in my quality of life. This process was collaborative with the medical profession and was not driven by pharmaceutical companies. I exercised patient choice. Lithium treatment is not a lucrative product for these companies. It is derived from a naturally occurring chemical element that has been used in psychiatry for decades.
At times I have been frustrated by the mental health care system in the UK. It is notoriously underfunded. And there are good ones and bad ones as in any other profession. But had I not been engaged with them in this life long process I might well be dead.
The anti-psychiatrists protest with a vehement and disturbing rhetoric. They sound malaligned to society in general and are probably suffering from poorly treated mental health problems. I see psychiatry as an emerging science. There is not enough knowledge about brain function to make accurate, scientific diagnoses in all cases. For many years, with three different psychiatrists, I have measured the effect of different medications almost on a trial and error basis. It has in the end led to treatment with lithium and the consequent improvement in my quality of life. This process was collaborative with the medical profession and was not driven by pharmaceutical companies. I exercised patient choice. Lithium treatment is not a lucrative product for these companies. It is derived from a naturally occurring chemical element that has been used in psychiatry for decades.
I have been frustrated by the mental health care system in the UK. It is notoriously underfunded. And there are good ones and bad ones as in any other profession. But where I not to have been involved in this life long process I might well be dead.
One of the particular, vicious ironies of antipsychiatry types (which often are also anti-psychiatric illness) is the misinformation feeds into the delusions of the most ill. Of course it’s always hazardous to make delusions too meaningful – people with persecutory delusions are going to have them whether they read Szasz or Scientology or whatnot. Still, I can’t help but wonder occasionally if it’s adding gasoline to a wood fire.
This is what I mean. All people in the psych field have to do is label you with something if you don’t agree with them, and, voila! YOU are sick, therefore anything you say is meaningless. The true sciences, not just us apparently worthless idiot individuals, do NO recognize psychiatry as a true science. Psychiatry has been, and still struggles with, being recognized by their own peers. Because most of what they do is NOT science. Science has specific, and not very complicated rules, including control for variables (how do you consistently do that with human beings on measures of mental wellness? You can’t) and being able to replicate findings? You just can’t put everything successfully into the science construct. No everything can be observed, measured and tested reliably. Period. Sure, you can invent “medications”, measure their doses precisely, measure how much passes the blood-brain barrier, how fast or slow it reaches the bloodstream, blah, blah. But they never have, and never will, be able to measure what happens and why in any consistent way what those chemicals do to different people’s brains. Psychiatrists keep trying to be medical doctors to gain legitimacy, but they never will, and people who try to prop them up are lying to themselves. And sadly, the psychiatric profession has gained so much status based on their own hubris and political influence, they will never admit the truth: psychiatry is not a true science, never will be, and they do more harm than good.
Don’t listen to psychiatrist they’re evil manipulators I’m lucky my doctor didn’t kill me they don’t care about their patients all they want to do is dope you up the higher the dose the better the more medication the better if you tell a doctor you believe in God they think you’re a psychotic and delusional my psychiatrist is an evil doctor that ruined my life I can’t even get him arrested or have his medical license cold the state of Illinois is considered my doctor to be a fraud
This field is not real science. It’s history is rooted in quack science and evil and it is only alive today off pharmaceutical financial gain and kick backs.
Case 1
Me I was a mental hospital 5 time. Ever once did they do a neurotransmitter test. A test that tells the brain chemistry of a brain. Yes there is a test and they don’t do it because they want to use patients and investment vehicles for big pharma. Now here is the point i went into the hospital with a high white blood count no doctor checked to see where the infection was it was not a priority. Each time I had a high white blood count I know because it has been high for 15 years. ER doctors dismissed the blood work that showed I had an invention and they 51/50 me. As soon as I came out I went to my interfunctional medicine doctor and told her I started taking GABA and it help me with sleep. Now everytime I have been institutionlized I could not sleep also went on a vegan diet but we will get to that later back to the GABA. IT turns out that GABA should not be able to cross the blood brain barrier so when I told my doctor that the GABA I decided to take was working she was alarmed. You see I had a Nuetranmitter test and my GABA level where the lowest she had ever seen. The GABA shield she gave did not work so I went to whole foods and got actual GABA. So my doctor deciede to test my blood to see if my bold brain barrier had been breached since the GABA was working. The test result were positive. My blood brain barrier (BBB) had been breached and the infection went to my brain. Not only that but my B12 levels were low because of the vegan diet. They they gave me b12 in the hospital and it did work. In fact every other time I was in the hospital i broke down and ate meat but my b12 levels where on low side so imagine what is was when I was vegan. I bring this up because b12 defiency can cause mental illness type symptoms up to hearing voices and seeing thing. I never experience that. So far we have
Insomnia. From low GABA
An infection that went to my brain
And B12 defiency
But there is more then I got a genetic test done and more lab work. It turns ou I have a genetic methylation disorder were my body uses up b12 quickly this is responsible for regulating key neurotransmitter. Without it you can trigger cell death ie Parkinson disease or mental illness type symptoms. So my cure . VITAMIN B12 . Five years of my love because doctor don’t run test. As for the rest of the blood work. It turned out my lithium level were no existent. Before you say aha you should no most of the population has lithium defiency and doctor oz even recommend taking a small supplement. So how much lithium did she give 4 mg that is right 4 because any more that 5 is toxic to the body and give you side effects and the body does not need anymore. Lithium is a naturally occuring substance in the body. It is like taking a vitamin but big pharma prescribe doeses of 50 mg and above to induce side effect so patients can get side effect and get on the pill cocktail. That right ever notice how people have to take 3,4,5 sometimes 6 different drugs just to get “better” oh lithium is responsible for helping b12
Not only does my body need help absorbing b12 it uses it up quickly. To lithium helps with the absobtion. So
The cure
Special B12
Non pharma lithium but supplemental lithium orotate literally my pills are not in pharmacy containers and they literally have Supplement Facts on the back like regular supplement/vitamins because they are supplement.
As for the infection. We still need to find the source because that has been what was breaking down my BBB. Recent studies have shown that some case of mental illness may in fact be a brain bacterial infection. Remember the brain that thing that controls our body including our mood.
CASE 2
Many people have been fount to have BRAIN rumors in autopsies who were diagnosed with mental illness. How can people say people are mentally ill and never do a physical exam or CT and MRI scan of the brain. The first time I was in the hospital I came in the ER with a history of a double concussion. I had hurt my head again and want to get it checked out. I told the doctor I had not sleep in 3 day. He refusesed to check my head. I told him I was afraid to sleep because of the double concussions he did not care. I yelled at him he did not like it he called in the psyc for an eval I was rude and told them I hade no desire to talk to them bamb they showed their power and I was in the mental hospital with a diagnoses that would follow me giving very other ER doctor permission to ignore my high WHITE BLOOD COUNT, it is called overshadow diagnosis. Back to brain rumors. There was a man who after having intense rage was found to have a brain tumor right in the area that effect anger. But no these God doctors don’t need to test the body.
Case 3
My friend. My friend was also in a mental hospital. Funny how that happened to her after she abandoned me because of ‘mental illness’ after years of trying pill after pill she gave up. I never did in fact I would spit out the pills in the hospitals because I never believed in the industry. My friend after year was diagnosed with hassimotos. This is a desease that auto immune of the thyroid. You guessed it. It can cause mental illness type symptoms.
She was also diagnosed with fribromialga
My point “mental illness” is not a desease it is a symptom. These so call doctors are treating the symptoms and not looking for the cause. For the people who say that psycology worked for you did it really? Did you get other test or are you masking symptoms. People with mental illness diagnoses tend to die young because of overshadow diagnoses where the medical industry ignores the body and focuses on the mental illness. Do you have a methylation disorder. What about a brain tumor which by that way could be masked with medication. If the tumor effect the are of the brain that produces happy transmitters so they give you happy drugs you will fell happy but the tumore is still there. Do you have Hasshimotos which could lead to death? Do you have any other physical issue that may be producing mental illness result.
For the person who said their brother died and they lived. Interesting get you genes tested. You may have genetic disorder like me. Yes he died but a lot of people die because of medication. I am sorry for your loss but his death does not validate psycology nor does your apparent success. I say apparent because what test have you done rule out other diagnoses. My family has a history of schizophrenia something I never told any doctor because that would make things easy for them. As it turns out my genetic test was the key for my whole family. Which was diagnosed prior to the test for the disease. Low b12 levels can cause schizophrenia type symptoms. They look identical. My inter family has been misdiagnosed. I thank God because my inter family tree will be affect by my victory. B12 that is all they will need if there have normal lithium level but if the are like most people in America they are deficient. Please get tested tract everything. I would not be surprise if you have physical issues like poor sleeping, fatigue, constant infections or anything else that you may not be linking to mental illness. For some reason we treat the mind as if it is separate from the body. It is not. It is an organ and never accept anyone telling you to take any drug with out running test on the organ. You would not accept breast cancer treatment on by a doctor who never did an exam or test. You would not take cancer treatment without getting a mammogram. Nor would you with out getting a biopsy. Why do we accept this behavior fort mental illness. Money an discrimination. Discrimination because the general public is scared of people with mental illness and because people think they are less than others. They will give you that line that a diabetic takes their medication you have a brain sickness you you have to take pills like a diabetic. Wrong I diabetic has had test done. People with mental illness have no test don’t. Not the same. And yes diabetic message actually make it impossible to recover and when given to pre diabetics it can induces full blown diabetes because the body does need to produce insulin so it completely stops it. It also blocks key hormones for regulating glucose symptoms. There are so many different thing a person could take like cinnamon which opens the insulin receptors so the body can actually accept the sugar being transported by insulin so glucose does not float in the blood. Alpha Lapoic Acid, r Lapoic acid protolythic enzymes and good diet. No but there is no cure outside of western medicine. Doctors of death. High blood pressure. Take potassium most people are deficient. It cause Harding of arteries and strokes. No they tell you take statins which killed millions of people. When the root cause is potassium deficiency.
Also peeps get a heavy metal test. It can also cause mental/physical issues. My antimony test was off the charts positive. I need chelation therapy. Remember those doctor people are defending have been giving us vaccines with liquid mercury and aborted fetus cells. Think about liquid mercury and the brain. Now think of the rise of mental illness. Now think about the fact that most people feel at the mercy of doctors think the are so much smarter and blindly do as told and will never get a heavy metal test.
Case a baby was diagnosed with autism is inter functional medical doctor did a heavy metal test. Turns out it was positive for mercury and a ton of other metals. The mother asked were did he get this. The doc replied the vaccines. They are all metals used in vaccines. But our wonderful government is telling us it is now the law because of SAFTY. Liquid mercury, thimerosal. And aborted fetus cells. My mother used to mock me for telling her this because she could not believe it was true. She got vertigo so I drove her to the hospital and the doc offered her the flu shot so thing she mocked me do not getting. I answered he and said no. The doctor asked why. I said because of liquid mercury and aborted fetus cells. She replied that if requested we could get the thimerosal free one. She said nothing on the fetus cells. My mother replied no I skip it this year. Now she is on a vitamin d regimen with me. Also I can’t remember but yes vertigo is caused by a lack of a supplement.
So while yes some are bitter because they have Ben mistreated by the system do not dismiss their story because one people like me have real test and science to back up their destain for psychology. There are million who went hunting for a cure and got one. And the cure did not come from people stating mental illness can never be cured. Of course they will say that because if you never cured you need the needs and you a lifetime customer for their kickbacks. Conflict of interest. They get paid by pharmaceutical companies for every prescription. So the prescribe based on wallet the hottest drug and not for the patient. That is sick. No test and no cure but plenty of pills. Don’t let discrimination blind you. That industry is dark. The still fry people with electro therapy to make them vegetables so they are no longer a problem for society. Frying a brain with electricity is never an answer. But when the victims are put cast no one case. The only reason the are not convulsing turning the shock treatment is because they are strapped down and given a temporary paralyzed . No shit do the research on the history of electric shock. Stay the fuck away from those who practice in that field. Stay away.
Thank you so much for taking the time to tell your story. It is so helpful I will use it to share information wih others. Both medical and psychiatric fields in western culture are based on acquiring wealth and power, not with healing the sick and maintaining wellness. There is no money or power to be taken from people who are well, so you keep them sick and make them think they are mentally ill. Thank you again.
I think this anti psychiatry thinking also comes from some notion that feelings are ‘magic’.I know some people have had negative experiences,I know I have,but I am alive and that was the point.Although there have been many trials the alternative was leaving my daughter with her mother’s suicide.I suppose some consider this statement hyperbole.It isn’t.I sought treatment for her.Unfortunately the support system I thought I had built fell away once I decided to go the meds route.I did it alone and I don’t think that is unusual.I blame the anti psychiatry people for poisoning people’s minds.These are very intelligent people and I don’t understand why , if they care about me…and I believe they do,why they don’t ask me about it.When a friend had HEP C I was completely there for her.She shuts me down when I want to talk about what I am going though ( relapse,med changes etc).
More harmful than any pdoc or treatment is the lack understanding,ridicule and secrecy .every .single. day.I have had my fair share of bad experiences with psychiatry but I have had an equal amount with other medical professionals.
Psychologists might be evil though ;-)
I kind of agree that meds are evil, because I take antipsychotics, and I live with the side effects everyday, BUT, the side effects are sort of worth it, because I don’t have suicidal thoughts anymore, unless I am in an episode. I used to have them every single day, and the fact that I’m still alive, and 100 times more stable day-to-day is all down to my meds.
I couldn’t have worked hard to get better without my meds, I’ve tried for years. I’ve also taken about 20 different antidepressants which all made me worse, even after taking them for months on end. I think people who bash meds, and tell you not to take them, are people who do not understand the complexity of mental illness, or how it varies on an individual basis. One med maybe absolutely evil to one person, like all antidepressants in my case, but may help other people, just because I had negative side effects, it’s not fair to write it off for other people.
All medications carry side effects, but so does mental illness. In my case, it’s been about the lesser of the evils, which is how I arrived at my meds. I have to deal with lack of concentration, low motivation, lack of creativity (And I am super creative off meds and miss it terribly), language problems, and muscle weakness, but without them, I cannot function, at all.
Psychiatry is always deemed as a lesser science, because it’s mostly a social science. I used to study physics, and there were always jokes about those being involved in lesser sciences. As if anything they said or did didn’t have a lot of credibility. I’ve met awesome psychiatrists, and I’ve met terrible ones. Because of my prejudice about social science not being an actual science, it gave me reasons to carry on being in denial about my own problems. It gave me reasons to not listen, which is what I wanted when I first got help. I didn’t want to have to accept that I had bipolar, or PTSD, or an ED etc etc. But when I listened to them, and googled what they said, I found science papers supporting their diagnoses, and suggestions. I started to get better, the moment I started to take my psychiatrists seriously. There’s a lot of people out there like me, finding reasons to not listen to their psych team, because they don’t want to admit they are telling the truth, that they need help, and that meds might help them. I never wanted to take meds, I was dead against it, but I’m so glad I did now.
Psychiatry is evil. it rests on no moral centre, unlike most instances of medicine. It’s really a tool to control, which is why it was invented in the 19th century. Most contemporary psychiatrists still adhere to this paradigm. Your point on restaurants is nonsensical, since people need to eat and the vast majority of persons don’t get sick from eating food. Cooking and selling food is benign. Psychiatry is an intrinsically malign practice.
“psychiatrists” have told me that being an atheist is “mentally unhealthy”, and none of them actually understand how modern society is structured.
Stop being an apologist for a malevolent practice.
As I heard the mayor of Connecticut say ‘evil visited this community today’ I found this statement to be naive and talking like he was from the 1800’s. On CNN a church sermon blaming the media, violence on TV and video games. We need to be better educated and understand mental illness, and how mental illness is rising in the world. Just searching for any good info on this subject I was very surprised to read so many times how there is no such thing as mental illness. We have so much to learn with too many people unwilling to listen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601831.html
hi,
I haven’t had any negative experiences w/ psychiatry. I am not part of a special-interest group.
psychiatry is evil because it medicates many millions of people who don’t need to be medicated. diseases (non-normative behavior) that don’t exist are created and then treated. for instance, look at the rise of the diagnosis of ADHD. this “disease” didn’t exist 50 years ago. and now public policy is to treat it with drugs that are essentially low-doses of cocaine and cause brain atrophy in much the same way.
I have a cousin who’s such a smart young kid, totally functional, but his grades aren’t good enough to please his parents, and so they put him on these drugs. this is seen as good parenting today. psychiatry facilitates this great misuse of medicine. medicine prescribed by a doctor to cure a disease that has no cause.
some people should be medicated. it certainly can help some people. it should be each individual’s choice. this isn’t the case today. my cousin doesn’t have a choice, and his parents have been fed pro-drug propaganda much like this article, and so they believe it’s justified and good to drug their child. this is true for how many millions of kids in the USA? sad, I think.
Hi Natasha, Thank you for always hosting such great debates! I didn’t realize that there were so many people against psychiatry and psych meds. It has really opened up my eyes. The rants seem to be coming from people who don’t have any facts, just personal opinion and I would be willing to bet that they are not suffering from mental illness.
Many of us have personal experience and I have educated myself with all of the meds I am taking. The meds have quite literally saved my life and I’m sure the lives of many others. How is that for factual reasearch for you?
Thank you Natasha for hosting such great debates. I didn’t realize that there were people out there that were so against pshchiatry and psych meds. It has really opened my eyes. These peoples rants seem to be uneducated in the field of pshchiatry and I highly doubt that they suffer with a mental illness. If they did they would understand what the meds actually provide for us so that we may funtion in the “normal” world.
Oops . Didn’t think the first one went through sorry!
Hi Patricia,
No problem. Your first comment was just moderated as all first-time commenters are moderated here, for obvious reasons.
Yes, the vehemence with which some people are against psychiatry really can’t be understated and many people aren’t aware of this force that exacts itself on psychiatry and society as a whole. I think it’s important to be aware of these people because it explains some of the myths and stigma people carry around. The influence of these groups can be very harmful.
And yes, I’m aware that many of these people have had very negative experience with mental healthcare and that colors their view. I don’t know what to say about that other than to say I’m sorry when people experience mistreatment. It’s something that happens in the world. It’s never OK.
And yes, I agree, it’s not the drugs are magical but they do allow many people to function in the normal world, which is all we really want (and, by and large, get).
– Natasha Tracy
I find it ridiculous that these anti-psychiatry people constantly say people are forced into treatment and brainwashed. Many people need medicated at least temporarily for their own safety and many more people (like myself) actively sought psychiatric help and asked to be put on meds. Psychiatry meds aren’t perfect but neither are meds for plenty of other illnesses. Mental illness is very complex so it is natural we don’t have all the answers yet.
Great article, natasha :)
Hi Caitlin,
Thanks. And thank-you so much for what I think is a common-sense response to this topic. I was starting to think there was none of such sense left :)
I honestly don’t know why people insist on perpetuating the idea that we’re force and brainwashed all the time. It just seems so ridiculous. I know a lot of mentally ill people, I must have talked to more than 1000 and they seem to think plenty of their own thoughts to me.
– Natasha Tracy
Usually these statements of hatred come from negative personal experiences with psych meds or psychiatry/psychology. Usually these people are lashing out emotionally because they didn’t like how the medicine or other form of treatment went.
Many of the worst statements come from impatient psychiatric abuse victims.
Then “Victim blaming” occurs when the victim(s) of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment are held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against them (regardless of whether the victim actually had any responsibility for the incident). adding insult to injury.
We all argue about all these things but when you look at the end of the day nobody knows what’s right. Life is complex too complex but we humans like to share stories, debate over whatever stuff, like to spread rumours and stuff you know what i am talking about. But the thing is we all die at the end. So i think that it is always better that a person controls their life than somebody else controls theirs because at the end you will feel more happy. So if you want psychiatric drugs take them if not than don’t take them that’s your decision. And anyways psychiatric drugs are trial and error so if now we have 4 antidepressants lets say and in 4 years we have 6 so you try all six until you get the lucky one in another 4 years you will have to trial and error maybe 10 antidepressants (i guess that’s what psychiatrist say it’s all trial and error).
The last sentence meant to be funny and partly true when you see how many medications average person tries.
Hi ssss,
You are correct, no one knows and people should control their own lives and do what they want. But I think the important thing is that people don’t write off options because of fear, stigma and rhetoric. The problem with writing off psychiatry is it’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Just because sometimes it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it, in general, doesn’t work or that it can’t work for any individual. Oncology often fails and yet no one seems to want to write them off.
– Natasha Tracy
You people need to read a little more closely. To quote from the article itself…
“Now isn’t the best time for me. Now psychiatry is having a really hard time with me. Now things are looking extremely bleak. But current failure does not destroy past success.”
Addiction can be a sad, sad thing…especially when it is reinforced by a doctor! The writer of this article admits that the meds are not working, though they seemed to work in the past.
I got the dubious honor of learning at a young age just what it meant to be on the receiving end of the modern form of torture known as “psychiatry”. Therefore, when I read this, I read the words of a pathetic person who cannot live life without a crutch. The worst thing is that, the longer they take those drugs, the more hopelessly dependent they will become.
I am a survivor of Psychiatric abuse and I am not ashamed. There are billions like me out there, and all the slick excuses in the world will not change that.
So keep on telling your lies, shrinks…that’s all you’ve ever been good at anyway.
hmmm. You’re still paranoid aren’t you?
There’s a whole lot that’s both right and wrong with medicine in general, but twelve years ago a nurse told me that if I took lithium I’d turn into a zombie and my kidneys would soon be wrecked. At that time I was increasingly suicidal and she was pointing me towards yet another worthless alternative remedy.
If I’d listened to her I would be dead by now. Lithium isn’t perfect, but it took away my suicidal thoughts like magic. I still suffer deep clinical depression every winter but I knew there wasn’t such a thing as a cure anyway.
I denied that I was bipolar for too many years. Tried all kinds of complementary remedies while my mood swings got worse year by year. The anti-psychiatry people should be tried for mass murder because it’s certain that they’ve been responsible for countless suicides and deaths through risky behaviour by keeping people from getting the right treatment. Many of them are completely unaware that they’re suffering from delusions caused by their illnesses, and those who aren’t bipolar have no right to speak for us. Denial is such a huge part of being bipolar, and it was not wanting to be labelled with it, like my father, that caused me to turn to ‘cures’ that were obviously fake.
Bipolar disorder is so obviously a genetic and physiological illness that only biochemical solutions can work to treat the core of it. Anyone who can’t see that is, by definition, not thinking logically. Once the right medication is found it allows you to be more rational and see the disorder for what it really is.
Thanks for that article. Only found your blog today. Great to find someone who thinks so clearly on the subject.
Hi Genevieve,
Sounds like that nurse was going to be need of a good lawyer.
Lithium absolutely is a life-saver and “magic” for many for whom it works. No doubt, the side effects can be awful, but continuous monitoring of kidney function can minimize that risk. It’s too bad the nurse didn’t mention that.
What you point out is one of the problems with alternative medicine – is while you’re doing it, you’re getting worse. The “alternative” is doing nothing beneficial and the underlying disorder is getting worse – which it naturally will do over time. And all that while people can continue to deny they have a problem and this usually worsens their treatment outcome when they finally do get treatment.
“The anti-psychiatry people should be tried for mass murder because it’s certain that they’ve been responsible for countless suicides and deaths through risky behaviour by keeping people from getting the right treatment.”
I’ve heard that statement before and tend to feel similarly. Providing imbalanced information can always hurt people and with mental illness you’re dealing with life and death and the harm is just not something everyone gets to walk away from.
“Denial is such a huge part of being bipolar, and it was not wanting to be labelled with it, like my father, that caused me to turn to ‘cures’ that were obviously fake.”
I agree completely. None of us wants that “bipolar” label. And we run from it. Many people have delusions that make them believe they are well, which is even more likely to latch onto antipsychiatry dogma.
“Bipolar disorder is so obviously a genetic and physiological illness that only biochemical solutions can work to treat the core of it. Anyone who can’t see that is, by definition, not thinking logically. Once the right medication is found it allows you to be more rational and see the disorder for what it really is.”
Not always true, but mostly true I would say. There are some cases where therapy and lifestyle changes really can hold a person’s illness at bay.
You’re welcome. Glad to see you here.
– Natasha Tracy
Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. . . .” Bertrand Russell,1953
This is good?
If psychiatry is evil, then what the hell are you supposed to do if you if you can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t and the voices never leave you alone? Meditate? Some of you people are sick.
Hey, great write up. I think the anti-psychiatry folks consist mainly of people who don’t respond well to treatment. They are bitter and frustrated because meds don’t make them well. There’s quite a few of them. Let’s says 1 % of the U.S. population has bipolar disorder. If the U.S. population is 300 million then that’s 3 million people with bipolar. If treatment is 90% successful then there are 300,000 people in the U.S. with treatment resistant bipolar that could be upset with the psychiatric community. I used conservative numbers. The actual numbers are higher.
Hi Jeff,
Yes, in my experience antipsychiatry folks have either had bad experiences with mental health or love people who have had bad experiences. Our experiences can shape us profoundly that way and can push us past the point of rationale.
And yes, regardless of the actual numbers, just doing the math means that there are going to be a lot of unhappy people.
– Natasha Tracy
It’s normal to hate your oppressors. Psychiatry regularly preys on people, especially women, children, and POC.
Hi Azure,
I can appreciate that you may have that perspective, but that is nothing but an opinion, and mine is radically different. To me, psychiatry is just a branch of medicine, like any other.
[I’m leaving this comment here so people have a sense of what those of us who need psychiatric services are facing.]
— Natasha Tracy
what a self referencing polemical piece of junk.
psychiatry is pseudo science full stop .
In my opinion you’ve found a comfort zone and happy to be labelled .
enjoy !!
For Millions of others though …this junk science has wrecked lives already wrecked.
I agree with Steve in that psychiatry is bogus, fraud, junk science in bed with BIG PHARMA and has destroyed countless lives. Those who haven’t gotten that and think they have been or are being helped have been brainwashed, deprived of informed consent, are “spellbound” by the toxic poisons pushed as meds and fraud stigmas and have simply not researched this total evil monstrosity. I realize that such massive huge fraud and evil perpetrated against a whole world much like Nazi psychopathy is hard to grasp and accept, but the book, POLITICAL PONEROLOGY, does explain how psychopaths who invented psychiatry and use it to stigmatize and destroy people, now children and toddlers no less, manage to hijack various groups, fields, organizations with the pretense they share the same goals when they are intent are destroying and corrupting the true mission of the entities they invade. To promote psychiatry is to promote robbing fellow human beings of all their civil, democratic, constitutional, human, freedom, bodily and other rights based of a bogus lie invented label invented with BIG PHARMA to push toxic drugs. This is truly evil and appalling. My comments have been based on years and years of tons and tons of research and personal family suffering and I urge you to rethink this horrific plague against humanity!
I think people will pay more attention to you if you stood atop a national monument wielding a lightsaber, yelling “psychiatry is the dark side!” If you do this I promise to lend you my talking robot.
Hi – Great argument and I really don’t support the anti-psychiatry movement, but you grouped Mad Pride with them, and I’m all for any movement who raise awareness and fight stigma of mental illness.
Apart from that, I fully support what you’ve said here. On occasion I’ve been harangued by people who try to tell me to stop taking my antipsychotics for one million reasons or another. I tell them to get off my case – I was 34 yrs old before I got properly diagnosed and those were terribly years. I lived a reckless and miserable life before I got these pills and people telling me I now live as a ‘zombie’ can go take their un-medicated ass and shove their ‘attitude’ and ’cause’ and ‘advise for my own benefit’ right up tight!
I’m all for those who don’t need longterm medication. I’m all for those who stop taking it if they have a full support system around them. My niece had a bipolar 2 breakdown after her dad died and it lasted around three years, where she took way too much meds at one point. She went in and out of hospital. Then they found something which worked and pulled back on all but one anti-psychotic. (This was my experience too) She got better. Herr life became controlled and balanced.
After a while, she discussed coming off them. She doesn’t take anything (occasionally sleeping meds if she needs them for a week, occasionally diazepam if she becomes anxious in the short term) now and she’s getting married, has had a baby and is deliriously happy (not manic). Her moods do fluctuate, but her partner and family steer her and maintain her balance in life now they understand why she is the way she is.. My husband does the same for me. She’s a success story!
My brother – her dad (Bipolar 1 like me) – didn’t want to take meds – he didn’t trust them nor his psychiatrist. He hung himself 2004! Enough said.
Shah X
Hi Shah,
I guess the reason I grouped in Mad Pride is because of things like this:
“specifically organized as a Pride event by people who identify as psychiatric survivors/consumer/ex-patients”
“Psychiatric survivors” really tick me off.
And they’re involved with Mind Freedom which, while I know they say they aren’t antipsychiatry, well, I would suggest their public stance and what their members actually end up doing is quite different.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_pride)
Anywho…
I like to tell people that as soon as they live in my brain they can decide how to handle it, until then, I’m the foremost authority.
“My brother – her dad (Bipolar 1 like me) – didn’t want to take meds – he didn’t trust them nor his psychiatrist. He hung himself 2004!”
I’m sorry, that’s awful. As someone mentioned here once, often the people who need medication the most are those with the most paranoid beliefs around it. Unfortunately, sometimes that is a symptom. But with all the people yelling online, it’s pretty easy to get wrapped up in it and it may make certain delusions seem more real.
I am glad to hear of your success stories though. That is wonderful. It’s alway good to remember that successes happen. And in your family it would seem the genetics are awfully strong so for you and people like your niece, to come through it, is amazing.
Congratulations on not letting the illness take your life from you. That’s a powerful thing. Thanks for sharing.
– Natasha Tracy
I disagree completely in no small measure because I had the privilege of experiencing institutional psychiatry first at the age of 11.
Many years later I discovered I had a major triad of digestive diseases(lifelong) and am aiming toward liver failure as a result. I’m not a drinker, drugee, or anything like that. Indeed, not only Psychiatry is morally evil, but other branches of medicine are morally evil as well, with very few people therein truly dedicated enouigh to fight ignorance, and ignorance is one of the main items, ie, medical ignorance, that Psychiatry feeds off.
Now on this board I have observed an obvious item, which is that most posting on here are female. I don’t think that’s a fluke and I think that somehow females tend to think of Psychiatry and Psychology as more valid than males do. Of course there are exceptions but that appears to be the trend. How interesting to see the statement “Scientology seems to just _scream money-centric to me.” I am not a SCientologist, but I’m completely happy that a moneyed organization is standing up against the evil professions here. And how much money does anyone THINK/SPECULATE/KNOW is involved in American Psychiatry per annum–including doctors hospitals social workers and other anciallary professional snobs? I’ve read $200 Billion. Let’s compare that with the annual worldwide budget of Scientology. I doiubt it compares, and we are talking WORLD versus NATION.
Kind of puts a different perspective on things eh?
In case ya didn’t guess, I am TOTALLY on the side of those awful radical anti-Psychiatry people who are simply “too extreme”. They’re much too victim-i-oriented for me to ignore!! And in case you don’t somehow or won’t somehow fully realize your victimhood(as is EVERYONE in the mental health system or who ever got caught up therein), that’s an objective fact and the sooner in my opinion you start to realize it the better off the powerLESS in the system(ie, “clients”, “patients”, “consumers”–or whatever other euphemism we want to see–will see some kind of actual empowerment process instead of the slavery–which is what this is whether we all just want to sit here and ignore this fact—that patients in the mental health system as it is run today and has been run for my lifetime—truly ARE.
And regardless of how strongly I feel about it based on all the evidence, my purpose is truly not to Scientologize anyone nor put down anyone but to persuade everyone to join hands like these groups are doing to opposed Psychiatry because without that, anyone in the system for whatever reason is going to continue to be abused, dehumanized, devalued, stigmatized, and treated like an animal in the zoo.
So medicine is morally wrong – glad you cleared that up for me. Indulge me please, in educating me as to what is morally right?
Is it right to harass someone who is just trying to get treatment for their illness, because YOU personally had a bad experience?
Is it morally right to decide that YOU are the person who decides what is morally wrong?
Now, if you were specific as to which behaviours of psychiatists you feel were abusive, when and where this occurred, and what the outcomes were, and you gathered some support for your cause, then you would be on the way to getting some justice for yourself.
A generalised rant is not going to change anything. We aren’t going to throw out the whole dozen eggs just because one of them is cracked.
great post, Mental health is like the cancer industry, there are agendas, snake oil salesmen and people with questionable fiscal reasons to attack main stream care.
Hi Steven,
It’s true, and some groups get me terribly riled up. Some people have really interesting points to make and can do so quite reasonably, but then there are groups that just attack for, well, attacking from what I can see. And sheesh. Scientology seems to just _scream_ money-centric to me.
– Natasha
Excellent stuff Natasha. This is an important part of my pet peeves. I was hospitalized recently and the guy who takes patients from their room to where ever and back again was trying to tell me I can control my condition homemedicly and through meditation. I told my insurance company. I never received a response. Does anyone care? Doubtful.
Hi Cathy,
What the heck was that guy doing espousing his personal beliefs to hospital patients? That is utter nonsense. At the very least people should be nutbar on their own time. (You might try telling your doctor or the hospital. I’m not surprised the health insurance company didn’t care. It’s not really in their purview.)
Obviously these anti-psychiatry people are more than a pet peeve for me. They often follow me around and hit me at HealthyPlace and there was one guy who went just hate-tastic on Twitter.
But really, it comes down to just what I said, feel free to do what you want, but leave the rest of us out of it. This hatred stops people from getting help, sometimes makes people stop getting their current help and ultimately, can end up killing people. More then a pet peeve, I have to say.
I’m left in this ridiculous position of having to defend psychiatry and psychology, which I have no real desire to do, but I have even more of a desire not to let these claims to go unchallenged. Someone needs to protect my crazy brothers and sisters who are just doing the best they can to make it through another day.
– Natasha
great article! Very comprehensive. Thanks for shedding light on some of the crap out there.
Thanks Meredith. I’ve got to keep up the fight now and then.
A few typos, but I liked your piece. Still feel like the system could be more “user friendly” but part of it is I guess as with most of medicine there’s so much more funding and attention on “crisis management” rather than preventive and maintenance care.
MMC, yes, typed-os the bane of my existence. Did another edit pass fixed a couple. (There are quite a few in the quotes, but, naturally, I’m not editing other people’s stuff.)
I agree, I’d love to see a more “user-friendly” model.
The problems actually stem from the 1950s when thorzene first started getting prescribed. At that time “insane asylums” were chock full, and that one drug allowed thousands of people to leave the asylums and move back into the community. Which is, of course, a wonderful thing. So focus became on “community care” rather than asylums, which is also good.
But community care is infinitely more difficult to handle than in-patient because, well, the person isn’t there. Med affordability, med compliance, socioeconomic status are all major factors. The system just wasn’t set up to address these things. (Of course, this is a mistake.) I really don’t have the answer to that one, but definitely see the problem.
(FYI, in Canada once someone is assigned a case-worker things get a bit better in that there is someone to shepherd a person through the process. I’m not sure exactly when this is applied, however.)
– Natasha
Ridiculous article. You say psychiatry is just like any other branch of medicine. Nothing you could possibly expiate the embarrassment and ignorance of that comment. People with demonstrable diseases, with proper evidentiary support for their existence, have rights treated as indefeasible and inviolable by the practitioners entrusted to their tretament. People with non-demonstrable diseases on the other hand, are often medicalized from above, the diagnosis of mental illness used as a semantic implement for the the deprivation of the indivdual’s rights. Sadly, I very much doubt you are capable of the kind of complexity of analysis of the instrumental functions of psychiatric diagnoses and how they are used in different situational contexts against individuals because, despite all the sanctimonious posturing, you couldn’t give a damn.
Comparing the institutional psychiatrist to other medical professionals is like comparing someone who engages in consensual sexual relations with a rapist, and coercion is pretty much the defining characteristic of psychiatric history, and coercion is just as ubiquitous as ever, though the procedure is predominantly reserved for the denominated ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘depressive’. Perhaps you find deem it morally unproblematic that psychiatrists are given carte blanche to pump indivduals full of neuropathogenic and diabetogenic drugs, and if so, you are living in a moral abyss.
Everyone is entitled to their own mythologies, and I have no problems with psychiatrists and patients engaging in equal relations, but there is and can be no constitutionality and moral propriety in the procedure of the imposition of treatments on patients, with no legal recourse for their righteous grievances.
You ridicule the survivor movement, making no mention of the fact that most survivors are people who have had treatment imposed upon them against their expressed wishes.
You presumptuously say you have had bad experiences psychiatrists. That ‘s nothing compared to what other people have had and amounts to little less than a tacit mockery of the suffering consequent to a sytem that since its inception has systematically oppressed, abused and tortured people, hiding its acts behind the architecture of the hospital (de facto carceral institutions) and idiom and imagery of therapy and caring.
I love how you sidestep the onerous burden of having to discredit what an opponent says with the thought-terminating cliche ‘I really don’t have time to refute…’ I’ll take that as a tacit admission of your inability to refute those claims.
You need to get out of the habit of comparing psychiatrists to other medical professionals. Although the psychiatrist’s functions change according to the different situational contexts in which they operate, the comparison isn’t viable for patients who are medicalized from above and forced into a lifetime of psychiatric slavery, one of its constituent elements being the repeated forced drugging of the patient, a phenomenon consubstantial with rape, and something you seem hell bent on trivialising through denying its common usage, which can be learnt about on sites like psychrights.
As for the point about ‘mental illness’ existing, first off, I and many others don’t deny the existence of different mindsets, of seemingly untractable obsessions etc. Yet to say that a mind can be ‘ill’ is a category error. How can you prove something that isn’t locatable in space to be ill? What we call the ‘mind’ (there is no entity called the mind, and the referent of that concept is merely an activity, not an entity) is a theoretical concept that can be no more ill than an ‘ego’ can be ill or an ‘economy’ can be ill. ‘Mental illness’ is a literalized metaphor.
If a person has Alzheimer’s, he has a brain illness with cognitive symptoms, not the contradiction in terms that is ‘mental illness’. Even if a biological substrate is found, all that does is prove that the so-called ‘mentally ill’ person has a proper, empirically verifiable illness of the body that affects his experience of the world, and his treatment should fall within the purview a real medical professional who won’t hold it against him. Of course, the reason why psychiatrists don’t use laboratory tests is because they know they won’t find anything.
As for the point about Thorazine emptying out the hospitals, this is just nonsense. ‘Deinstitutionalization’ (a misnomer, because most were merely transferred to other facilities where patients’ treatment was just as crap) happened ten years after the introduction of these pathogenic-by-design drugs (it was known from the start that the drug in its mechanism of action mimics the effect of a neurological disease), and was the result of a social and political policy, not the medical miracle that makes more palatable to the profession the shamefulness of evicitng insitutionalised patients from their only home
To use Lenin’s memorable term, you are just a ‘useful idiot’..
Big words for such a small mind.
And you, Andrew, are a [moderated]. What’s your beef with psychiatry? Or are you just a Scientologist?
Hi Roxanne,
I know you were just responding to the fact that Andrew sunk to the level of name-calling, but I do try to moderate that sort of stuff from the discussion. The fact that he did it speaks for itself.
– Natasha
this is the best post on this article by 1000x. and no attempt at any response. surprise surprise.
i don’t think all those who work in the profession are evil. but many are very inadequate,even if things are better in some ways than they were years ago. i think pharmaceutical companies are to be wary of. i also agree that many of these groups go way too far. one shouldn’t be condemned because they choose to use a medication because it is better than the alternative. but one shouldn’t be forced to take meds either. none of it is very simple,but it doesn’t help to go too far in one direction…or the other.
Hi Diane,
Sure, some doctors suck. Some GPs suck. Some (eesh) surgeons suck. Someone has to finish last in their class.
I’m the first to admit that navigating the world of mental health professionals is treacherous. But I truly believe _most_ of these doctors are doing the very best they can to help.
Pharmaceutical companies are another matter. People somehow think these companies are there to _help_people_, They are not. They are there to make money – Like Every Other Company In The World. That is why they are regulated. Lord only knows what would happen if they weren’t.
(And yes, pharmaceutical companies are allowed to do things in the US, like advertise, that I think hurts everyone.)
That being said, pharmaceutical companies don’t typically lie. They hide things. They tell their sales people to lie (which they are being prosecuted for). They do bad things, sure, but if you look at the prescribing information for a drug pretty much everything you need to know is there. It’s OK for patients to get mad because their doctors didn’t warn them about something serious, but that doesn’t mean the information isn’t out there for anyone who knows how to type.
Additionally, new drugs are always dangerous. _Always_. No one can predict what will happen when thousands of people start taking a drug. The studies they do just aren’t of huge enough scale to pick things up, some of the time. That’s why some drugs are pulled from the market. (Phen Phen anyone?) The way to protect yourself against that is to use an older drug. We have over 30 years of data on Prozac. That’s quite a bit. We have very few on Pristiq. The choice is yours. Personally, I’ve had very aggressive doctors that prescribe the latest drugs and I’ve had very conservative doctors who don’t. (Canada is more conservative than the US, it seems.)
Forcing drugs is another matter. I’ve written a piece on that topic and I think in a small number of emergent cases it’s warranted, but your average person walking down the street, no one can force them to take a drug. They’re the ones alone with a pill and a glass of water. No one is putting a gun to their head.
I’m not pro-drug I’m pro-patient. And part of that is patients taking responsibility for their own health care. Sure, in an ideal world every doctor would make the right call every time, but it’s your body so you decide if you’d like to rely on that fairy tale.
– Natasha
lol..
Why are you being so apologetic? I don’t get how we continually excuse bad behaviour in modern society, and how we think those who transgress shouldn’t be scolded for it.
You cite that psychiatrists are only doing the best that they can, but I would wager that a higher proportion of persons in the field hold no desire to assist their patients. This is probably distinct from most other branches of medicine.
One of the major factors in this regard is that mental illness doesn’t exist. It’s an entirely made up label, of which people who don’t “fit in” or “adhere to social norms” (does anybody do as such?) get assigned. People who are goths/emos don’t adhere to “social norms”, are they mentally ill? Mental illness doesn’t even have a firm definition.
This is a great article. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. I will definitely let others know about it. It’s hard enough living with a mental illness. The lack of understanding and stigma only makes it harder.
Hi Kelly,
“The lack of understanding and stigma only makes it harder.”
Yes! Exactly. Now you see where people get their nutty “information.”
And what ticks me off is these special interest groups are often very slick, very convincing and pretty much always cloak themselves in “patient’s rights” or “psychiatrist abuse” causes. Which means everyone is scared to confront them on their core beliefs.
Piffle, I say.
– Natasha
excellent. Thank you for those of us struggling with mental illness. Paychiatry has saved my life. Literally.
Thanks for your feedback Martha.
Hahhaha, you literally just said you have evidence of proof to dispute all those claims you have listed above. I’m sorry but you’re full of shit. You just don’t have the “time” ?? Haha show me proof of a chemical.imbalance, with proof of it being cause of a disorder. Show me proof or mechanism of action for the anti-depressants and antipsychotics and how and what and why they are doing what they are doing, and is for the better for that matter. Antidepressants and antipsychotics i took for 15 yrs have absolutely ducked my brain up permanently. It’s all poison which an extremely small percentage should be on to perhaps keep them from killing people a s the can just force feed them their Thorazine shuffle and drool until their demise. Pseudo-science nothing more.