by Benjamin Merhav
The current anti-psychiatry movement was formed by psychiatrists some 60 years ago. If it would have been formed earlier, it might have been able to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of "mental patients", including the lives of 250,000 patients in Germany who had been mass murdered by top German shrinks during the Hitler regime there. Yet, even today, and even amongst the current anti-psychiatry shrinks, a firm and clear demand to outlaw psychiatry is not put forward. Most of them would be happy to just reform psychiatry, and to try to "improve" it.
The very term psychiatrist is wrong and misleading. The dictionary provides "Related Words for : psychiatrist head-shrinker, shrink". Shrink is a far more accurate term for the practitioners of psychiatry. By forcing Antipsychotic drugs "treatments" they cause the patients' brains to shrink. Such atrocities are worsened by the egregious electric shocks and/or lobotomies "treatments", and they are currently all legal in Australia and elsewhere. Yet they are all covered up by the frauds of psychiatry, frauds which are legal too , and are imposed on people with the full force of the entire state apparatus. Therefore, very little hope for humanity can be expected from the shrinks and from their supporters.
However, there have always been shrinks who had tried to make a name for themselves (as well as get the money - all kinds of payments and benefits - from the state and from Big Pharma) by dissenting, or even by exposing some psychiatric crimes. Amongst them all I managed to discover only one who is genuinely confused by psychiatry. He had been a veteran 38 years practicing psychiatrist, mind you. He is Dr. Michael Benjamin, and he had stated as follows : "As a Psychiatrist, I still do not know what our profession is trying to do." (See : http://3rdoutlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2007/07/confession-by-38-years-experienced.html ).
All the other shrinks know very well what their profession is trying to do, and that they themselves are accomplices to crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Big Pharma-psychiatry combine. Thus, for example, Dr. Thomas R. Insel, M.D., is the current Director of NIMH, a top psychiatry body in the USA, and he had confessed to a meeting of shrinks as follows :
"Insel told psychiatrists at the meeting that psychiatric diagnosis today is made by observation of symptoms, detection of illness is late, prediction of illness is poor, etiology is unknown, and treatment is trial and error. There are no cures and no vaccines."
(See : http://18thoutlawpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2011/05/httpalert.html).
The article below is another example of psychiatric frauds covered up by the shrinks as follows :
http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/01/psychiatrys-grand-confession/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=psychiatrys-grand-confession
"Psychiatry’s Grand Confession
The psychiatry profession has finally come clean and confessed on a national media outlet that there is no evidence to support the Serotonin Theory of Depression. Today, on NPR’s Morning Edition there is a segment about the chemical imbalance theory, and virtually all the psychiatrists who are interviewed acknowledge that the there was never any evidence in support of the idea that low serotonin causes depression. But then, amazingly, they go on to say that it is perfectly fine to tell patients that serotonin imbalance causes depression even though they know this isn’t the case.
Several years ago in PLoS Medicine we wrote a long piece about the serotonin theory and the disconnect between what research psychiatrists say in professional journals and textbooks and what the advertisements say. While the advertisements presented the theory as scientific fact, the scientific sources clearly did not. Given the enormous marketing programs that pushed this theory combined with the media’s lack of skepticism, we were sympathetic to the general public who could hardly be faulted for thinking that theory had some foundation in fact. Following the publication of our piece a reporter contacted us and suggested that we were attacking a well accepted theory. We pointed out to the reporter that we weren’t attacking a sacred cow but that instead we were pointing out the mainstream psychiatry didn’t even accept this theory. We urged the reporter to contact the FDA, NIMH, APA, etc and ask them about the science behind the advertisements. He did, and as expected, an expert from the FDA explained that the theory was really just a metaphor. The problem is that patients who heard their physician explain the serotonin theory thought they were hearing real science. They weren’t told it was a metaphor and hence thought it was a fact. When a doctor talks about high cholesterol, diabetes, or hypothyroidism, they are talking about scientific measurement, not a metaphor. How is a patient with high cholesterol and depression who listens to their doctor’s explanation of their conditions supposed to know when the doctor has moved from science to metaphor?
Several months ago Ronald Pies published an interesting article in Psychiatric Times entitled, “Psychiatry’s New Brain-Mind and the Legend of the Chemical Imbalance.” Pies, just like the experts on NPR, acknowledges that the Chemical Imbalance theory is not true. However, according to Pies, it was the pharmaceutical companies who espoused the theory, and not well-informed, practicing clinicians, because the psychiatry community has known all along that the theory is not true.
But if the Psychiatry Community knew all along that the theory was not true, then why did they not clarify this issue for the general public? Shouldn’t they have pointed out to the general public and patients that what the pharmaceutical companies were saying about psychological stress was not true? Why did the professional societies not publicly set the record straight?
There are many angry comments on the NPR website. These comments are interesting, because apparently many patients who were told that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance never understood that were hearing a metaphor and not science. Since the chemical imbalance theory is often presented as a rationale for taking SSRIs, such patients now understandably feel lied to by their clinicians.
Perhaps the most interesting part about the NPR piece is that the reporter seems to not understand that the idea of telling a falsehood to patients because you think it is good for them is a serious violation of informed consent. Shouldn’t the reporter have asked the obvious questions, such as:
1) Do you feel it is acceptable to present a scientific theory as fact even though you know it is false?
2) Is it okay for psychiatrists to tell patients stories about their conditions that psychiatrists know are false?
3) Is there not an ethical issue when a psychiatrist informs their patient that they have a serotonin imbalance, when the medical textbooks on the shelf clearly say this is a falsified theory?
In general, we are fans of NPR, but hopefully the next news outlet that covers this topic will be more investigative in their approach."
(Emphasis in red added - B.M.)
1 comments:
Great post, Ben. Thanks for sending me the link. I think the way NPR puts the case about serotonin deficiency and depression isn't exactly accurate. In my experience, I belong to a minority of psychiatrist who refuse to accept the serotonin deficiency theory of depression. Most psychiatrists are taught during their training that serotonin deficiency causes depression - this is what I was taught. The reason they are taught this is because most of the professors who teach them are doing research for Big Pharma and this is the drug company line.
I was always treated as a deviant for objecting to the way drug companies medicalize common problems of living as medical conditions requiring treatment with medication.
I think the main reason there is no call to abolish psychiatry is because of the invaluable social control function it plays (in the interest of the state and ruling elite). There are never enough jobs to go around in contemporary society. The people who are systematically excluded from the economic system usually aren't very happy about it. The main function of jails, prisons and the mental health system is to manage this unhappiness and keep it invisible.
Keep up the good work.
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