Dear Philip,

Thanks I appreciate your response to that science fiction writer’s religion person. It was right on.

If I only had the time and some years left I’d like to start my own religion. Religion seems to be a good profitable business without inventory and the obsolescence, thievery and spoilage factors to worry about and one could live pretty well off the hog (proceeds) as I’ve seen done. Then one can also authoritatively expound on many subjects naturally evidenced and backed up by the word of god.

Hey, that’s something maybe you ought to consider if you decide to get out of the reporting and advocacy business.

Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com

"in the main mental disorders do describe actual, real world conditions."
Coercively distributed labels for behavior are not diseases.

"How we treat them is, of course, open to debate. So far, none of the magical solutions proposed by Science or Scientology seem to work very well"
But if the "patient" has no problem, why/how would he look for a solution?

I have no interest in Scientology, but Szasz is too often misinterpreted. If you read his work, you will see that he clearly suggests that there exist countless problems in living, no doubt many of which psychiatric patients will experience. He instead argues that a) mental illness are necessarily metaphorical illnesses, and b) treating them with coercion is always wrong.

Your response to Hogan misses an obvious point, namely that in all of medicine, only psychiatry is founded upon the denying the wishes of the patient. Hence "Gynecology: Industry of Rape" is not only misplaced, but quite insulting towards those who suffered at the hands of psychiatrists.

Sincerely,
Ted

Problems in living: trivialization. Show some respect, man.

"Problems in living: trivialization. Show some respect, man."
Respect to whom? Describing very real and existing problems honestly requires courage, and by hiding behind medical misdescriptions, the psychiatric establishment and its loyal followers present a tragic disrespect for human life, in my opinion. If you define showing respect by coercive detention and drugging, man, then I can only disagree with you. Remove all special "rights" laws for the mentally ill, and they are free to reject any and all unwanted treatment and go about their business as they see fit. In that event, whether they or anyone else wants to call their situation an illness, a disease, or whatever, is not very important at all.

when you say that "only psychiatry is founded upon the denying the wishes of the patient", you very obviously have no earthly idea what you are talking about, and could probably use a good session with some kind of counselor yourself.
This kind of anger and misstatement about the facts of getting help is becoming far too frequent for anyone's good. Why turn off the folks who could really benefit from an objective view?

Ted, you made quite a logical leap in your post. Stating that disorders are coercively distributed labels for behavior as opposed to real diseases, and then implying that since patients are not suffering from a true disease thus there is no problem, does not hold up. One could say that describing a patient as homicidal is simply a label of his behavior, and not a true disease. To deny this person treatment which is most likely against his wishes would be incredible. One could say the same for uncountable other disorders, as they would bode best for the patient's (and perhaps public's) best interest.

Ted is essentially correct. I might have used slightly different words, but that's just me. Modern psychiatry and its practices can trace itself squarely to the eugenics movement. Don't take my word for it. Research the history of lobotomies - from psycho surgery, chemical lobotomy, and ECT/EST for starters.

I don't get how you guys think that because
Ted suggests that mental distress might be a problem of living he is suggesting such problems are insignificant and pain free. Since when did emotional distress have to be a medical disease to be significant? While I'm not a member of any religion, I suggest that CCHR's documentation efforts are real, valid, important and courageous and that all who have posted in this thread should check out the exhibit: "Psychiatry: Industry of Death." Ironically, gynecology has had a history of treating women in an abusive way, valuing the fetus above the woman, etc...sure psych patients have real pain but then so do all humans.

Study eugenics, look into lobotomy? Wow there's an idea, how come I never thought of that? Sally, the only one making the jump from illness to ZOMG it's the biopsychiatrymedicalmodelzzzzz!!!one!!e3levn!! is you and the rest of the anti-psychiatry cranks, who as it were are a fringe, marginalized, off-the-beaten path MINORITY view, assuming DEFINITIONAL POWERS you do not possess and are not entitled to declaim. Christ, Philip, I have no idea why you let these narcissists dominate your blog, toxic, vicious constrictive motherfuckers who's worldview could fit on the back of a 2 cent stamp.

Paul: What is the relevance of the history of modern psychiatry?

Sally: What are your grounds for suggesting that CCHR's documentation efforts are "real, valid, important and courageous"?

Well comrade anonymous, I'll take a shot at part one. History is essential for oppressed groups in the creation of a political identity, a sense of solidarity and above all to put a necessary leash on the actors of today who replace the original oppressors, those fuckers. Progress means modern worlders can avail themselves of the lovelygood and the nice, thanks to the statutory reforms put in place by the descendants of the original oppressors. Which is no excuse for what the wreckers did, and does not mean they still aren't a threat, and we have every reason to continue to hold their feet to the fire. The operative word here is "complexity"; needless to say it takes a little time to pull apart the nuances.

Anonymous, My grounds for suggesting that CCHR's documentation efforts are real, valid and courageous are these, they are telling the truth about abuses by psychiatry, no one disputes that (meaning no one claims the abuses they mention haven't happened and aren't happening now. Some may claim such abuses necessary but none deny they happen), it is valid to tell the truth about the horrible abuses of psychiatry, and courageous to do so. Here's a link to the museum: http://www.cchr.org/video/current_campaigns/museum_video_tour.html

Much like the Catholic Church's opinions on homosexuality and abortion, the Church of Scientology's opinions on these matters are objectionable and offensive to me. Still, like the Catholic Church's human rights work in 3rd world nations, CCHR's work in exposing psychiatry is real, valid, important and courageous.

FP,

It's good you're back but you still seem a little disoriented. I couldn't quite make out what you meant by this:

"Sally, the only one making the jump from illness to ZOMG.""

You seem to lock on terms like "definitional powers" and "identity politics." I get the feeling you're pulling from some part of the psychology canon. Where?

Me and the other anti-psychiatry cranks are a peaceful bunch, and our margin is getting wider.

I'm wondering why you get off on the name calling so much and why we scare you so much if we're marginalized and support your right to choose any course of treatment you want.

flywheel:

"when you say that "only psychiatry is founded upon the denying the wishes of the patient", you very obviously have no earthly idea what you are talking about"
Are you denying that laws legalizing the coerced detention and drugging of persons deemed mentally ill don't exist?

"This kind of anger and misstatement about the facts"
See above comment.

Mike:
"Stating that disorders are coercively distributed labels for behavior as opposed to real diseases"
It is true that some persons now diagnosed as mentally ill could have a real (brain) disease, but after a century of looking, nothing has turned up. As for coercive labelling, see my reply to flywheel.

"implying that since patients are not suffering from a true disease thus there is no problem"
But I was at pains in my first comment post to show that this is not the case. It seems Sally and Paul understood what I was saying.

"One could say that describing a patient as homicidal is simply a label of his behavior, and not a true disease."
Being "homicidal" is not a disease, nor is it even even necessarily a label of behavior, but rather the opinion of one person concerning another person, backed up by the threat of coercion.

"To deny this person treatment which is most likely against his wishes would be incredible"
Medical treatment rests upon consent. When a person with cancer is operated on against his will, this constitutes assault and battery by the surgeon, regardless of how objectively better the procedure makes the patient. If I were locked up and drugged against my will, I would not be calling it "treatment." So, the issue is one of having the power to define, which is presently enjoyed by the psychiatric establishment via police powers of the state.

flawedplan:
"assuming DEFINITIONAL POWERS you do not possess and are not entitled to declaim"
Can you expand on that? I don't follow the point you are making.

Anonymous:
"What is the relevance of the history of modern psychiatry"
You didn't ask me, but I'll answer anyway. The history of psychiatry shows that people (mostly social deviants of one form or another) have been locked up for centuries, but only relatively recently did the psychiatric excuses come to justify such detentions. Looking at the historical origin of something helps to understand what it *is*. In some ways, the biological psychiatrists on the early 20th C get a bad press --- they were at least trying to find a brain disease in those occupying the institutions of the time. Their not finding anything didn't stop many people from believing that psychiatry is fundamentally a medical science. Remove the coercive element from psychiatry and very little remains.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more verbose in my original post. I was tired and offered just a quip instead. Hardly makes me narcissistic though...

To repeat myself: the history of psychiatry and psychiatric practices can be gobsmacking. The eugenics movements (as there have been several) are strongly among the roots of modern psychiatry. Did I say psychiatrists are "eugenecists"? Of course not. But it's useful to understand how this field of "medicine" came to be what it is today.

EST/ECT is still being practiced today. A review of its hostory is equally interesting as it also relates to the biopsychiatric use of pharmaceuticals. The point is that both methods achieve a result desired by psychioatrists, not necessarily the patients - some perhaps, but for many the results all orthogonal with living.

So, what are the results? Brain dsyfunction. Sufficient dsyfunction so that patients are "manageable", quiet, not causing the staff any problems - so that everyone but the patient feels better. The patient loses higher brain function, a shortened life, and sometimes relief of symptoms. Is it worth it? Perhaps in some cases. The problem is that patients too often don't get to decide this - psychiatry does.

I hate to have such a disclaimer: I am not a bloody scientologist. I read scifi not worship it. I work in pharmacogenomics as it relates in clinical drug devleopment (CNS and oncology). I have wistnessed first hand and personally much of what I have related in my postings here, but ymmv...

Not everybody who believes the that the label "schizophrenia" is un-scientific is a scientologist. The book "Models of Madness," by Loren Mosher, clarifies the difference between psychosis and "schizophrenia." This book states that psychosis is a state of mind that any and every human has the potential to experience given certain types and levels of stressors, while "schizophrenia" is a supposed brain disease a person would have to be born with, and with a very dark prognosis for ever overcoming. The author of this book has helped many people to overcome this very real, valid, distressing and distrubing state. He also believes that "schizophrenia" is a fabrication.

That's a very well-worded response, Philip. I actually got a similar invitation from a CoS member after my LA Times publication. When I replied with my polite decline of the offer, she wrote back to me again to re-request that I visit the museum. I just ignored the second email outright. Maybe if I'd sent a response like yours, I wouldn't have heard back from her a second time! :)

This is intertube entertainment, how the Internets work when rational people are confronted with wanking idealogues. Fun to watch the anti-pscychiatry talking points trotted out like Bu$hco's wingnunts: the surge is working, Iraq knocked down the towers, the Geneva conventions don't count when interrogating un-uniformed enemy combatants. Why do you hate America?

The arrogance of assuming you know things others don't, while giving no documentation, links or sources of course, except one and that was wrong (John Read edited Models of Madness, Mosher collaborated on 3 chapters). That's a wingnut; hypocrisy, projection and generalizing your own experience into the way of the world, with no idea how insulting your rhetoric is or how stupid you look in the eyes of others.

You deny you're authoritarian, but you say "NO." (Hint: saying no to how your fellows conceive of, interpret and define their world is the essence of authoritarianism. Schooling them as if they were blind ignorant sheep is projection.)

Take this for instance:

no one claims the abuses they mention haven't happened and aren't happening now. Some may claim such abuses necessary but none deny they happen

Source? No need, every patriot knows the surge is working.

Gah. Can we get a preview button?

there is a preview button i think already.

Thanks, I'm fighting with a virus, messing up the browser. Old Zotl is at my place now throwing straw all over the place, he's pissed about this thread and he was banned here so he's mine, all mine.

http://writhesafely.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/a-message-from-my-therapist/#comment-27843

Of course, last time I googled "antipsychiatry blogs" mine was the third hit. Fuck.

Okay then FP, go to the Psychiatry an industry of death website and find what you disagree with meanwhile the surge is working seems a h*ll of lot more like the psych drugs are working its just that you're chemical imbalance is different that what we thought than your human suffering is valid, anyone in your position would feel the same way and locking you up to change your mind will harm not help you. Finally though I think I know what a preview button is.

Psychiatry: and industry of death is somewhat plausable, in that some areas of medicine (including psyichatry) have high iatrogenic harm/death rates. But gynecology: an industry of rape? there is no iatrogenic rape, rape is not a sanctioned medical treatment as far as I know. I don't see the plausability of the parallel between these two examples. Why even go there? I don't understand, and am somewhat nauseated by the reference (in my state of ignorance).

Just consider this, when I say "mental illness" I don't think that word means what you think I think it means. A good rule of thumb whenever you hear someone say anything.

Check it out; new site just started up by 3 brave young women:

Ex-Scientology Kids.

From the FAQ page:

Just to get this one out of the way: Does ESK support Anonymous?

Yup. We most certainly do.

While we do not, in any way, shape or form, support illegal activities, the protests and pickets that Anonymous has recently staged has raised public awareness regarding the dangers of Scientology. Anonymous is actively and constructively working to ensure that the general public is aware of what goes on behind the Church of Scientology's closed doors, and we at ESK feel that any action that educates is a positive action.

Anonymous' actions have also been instrumental in assisting those who have never spoken out feel that they may now do so without fear of reprisal.

The war is being documented at youtube:

Anonymous v. Scientology

i found the comments and article very interesting, and really got me thinking about how i define mental illness (i come from a family of bipolars).

i will link to your site in one of my future posts as i think the students who visit mine will get a lot from yours.

Jenna,

You are right that gynecology is not an industry of rape, and yet the abuses against women perpetrated by mainstream ob/gyn are well known. Unnecessary hysterectomies, involuntary sterilization, and of course the current anti abortion movement, are good examples. People who are opposed to abortion will tell you that it is simply impossible for a woman who is raped to get pregnant and hence pregnancy is proof a woman isn't raped and so an exclusion to anti abortion laws for rape is unnecessary. And of course there's the abstinence movement, pretty oppressive and sexist itself though it's proponents market it as pro woman, sort of like TAC claiming to advocate for the civil rights of people with psych labels.

These folks really believe this, pro life ob/gyn's really believe such nonsense, and yet, like in psychiatry, with greats like Mosher, Caplan, and Chesler, some of the greatest heros of the women's movement are dissident women's health heros like Betty Friedan and Carol Downer.

And then there's the fact that so many women who take psych drugs get them by prescriptions written by their gynecologists, and the big phrama deadly forays into women's health such as thalidomide, the IUD, and Ortho Evra. Women, like people labeled as mentally ill, have not in the past been listened to or leveled with in their ob/gyn's offices, though I think women have made more strides than those of us with psych labels.

my OB/GYN saved all 3 of my daughter's lives at birth each one needed oxygen.Never once did she rx me psych med. I've never been abused by mainstream anything, as a woman, I'm open-minded, women control their bodies and no one else should; but sometimes these comments here go a bit far. I say that with respect for each person's opinion, but they sure as hell are not mine.

If you want to take a look at how pharma played a role in the Evra Patch, take a look at this post at Scienfific Misconduct.THAT should get you pissed off, it pisses me off.

Stephany, it's great that you've had good experiences with ob/gyn's and I suspect at least partly because of the long hard work of women in the women's health movement, sort of like how Obama is in some part a result of the civil rights movement. As for the Evra Patch, the big pharma legal defense there will likely effect lots of folks harmed by psych drugs: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/washington/06patch.html?hp

thanks for the elucidation sally

If you had three children who needed oxygen at birth, or even one, you had a negligent gyne who caused that. Your gyne didn't save your children your gyne nearly killed them by mismanaging your labour, timing, drugs (or not).

That's called Gyne Rape.

NE-- having a umbilical cord that was too short wrapped around a baby's neck and strangling the baby to the point of being born without oxygen flow and in need of oxygen, is actually having a life saving expert save my daughter's life. Though your comment is off base and not relevant to my life in any way shape or form, I thought it might be a good primer for those who have had bad (and unfortunate experiences) understand that this is not a view point.

My daughter is lucky to be alive and if it wasn't for her doctor she wouldn't be. A cord wrapped 3 times around a 7 lb babies neck, that did not show up on ultrasound days before is nothing short of a miracle that she is here.

This comment most likely is off topic for this post and it is in response to others who took the topic into this arena. This is my point--these opinions are merely that. Good luck.