On Saturday, 20/September, the XIVth World Congress of Psychiatry opens its doors in Prague, Chech Republic. Their motto is “Science and Humanism: For a Person-Centered Psychiatry” What a blatant lie!
First of all, psychiatry is NOT a science. For what is science? Let’s see a few definitions:
“a systematically organized body of knowledge on any subject”
“the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experiment”
“the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding”
“knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method”
How does this apply to psychiatry?
“In 1886, Emil Kraepelin, the undisputed founder of modern psychiatry as a medical specialty and science, declared: “Our science has not arrived at a consensus on even its most fundamental principles, let alone on appropriate ends or even on the means to those ends.” Eighty years later, the encyclopedic American Handbook of Psychiatry opened with this statement: “Perhaps no other field of human endeavor is so … difficult to define as that of psychiatry.” Andrew Lakoff, a professor of sociology at the University of California in San Diego, airily opines: “Two centuries after its invention, psychiatry’s illnesses have neither known causes nor definitive treatments.”
Theodor Meynert, an Austrian psychiatrist stated in his textbook in 1984 that “The reader will find no other definition of ‘Psychiatry’ in this book but the one given on the title page: Clinical Treatise on Diseases of the Forebrain. The historical term for psychiatry, i.e., ‘treatment of the soul,’ implies more than we can accomplish, and transcends the bounds of accurate scientific investigation.”
Clearly put. A “science” that is illogical already in its name! How can one then expect logical principles, theories and methods from such a branch?
Here are some examples of methods used in psychiatry:
This event was reported in a letter to the editor of Psychiatric News, by Natalie Shainess, recounting a personal encounter with such “research” at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Atlanta, in May, 1978. “Arriving late in the evening at the Omni Hotel,” she writes, “I was unpacking when my phone rang at about 11:30 p.m. Wondering who might be calling at that hour, I picked up the phone receiver to hear a man’s voice say, ‘Would you like us to send up a gentleman to pleasure you?” Offended by this offer, Dr. Shainess interrogated the hotel manager about the incident, only to learn that “a member of the American Psychiatric Association was conducting a piece of *** research and had arranged for 25 women arriving alone to receive this call.” By representing himself as a scientific investigator, this unidentified psychiatrist deceived not only his victims, but also the hotel manager.”
“The low level of intellectual effort was shocking. Diagnoses were developed by majority vote on the level we would use to choose a restaurant. You feel like Italian, I feel like Chinese, so let’s go to the cafeteria. Then it’s typed into a computer.” – a psychologist, about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
But let’s assume that indeed, in the field of psychiatry there exist laboratory tests and other means, generally used in real sciences like medicine, to observe phenomena and find solutions to problems.
We see publications and news all the time about a new psychiatric drug being developed, a “new pattern of the brain function” discovered, that “recent study shows that substance ABC is present/missing in the brain of patients suffering from XYZ mental disorder. Scientists add that developing a new medicine will give hope to these patients”, and so on.
I am not a physician, chemist, neurologist or any of the like, but one doesn’t need 3 university degrees to ask this simple question: how do they prove that a mental condition (i.e. feeling depressed, sad, stressed, etc) is caused by the cherished term of “chemical imbalance” and not the way around?
Well, they don’t. Plainly by their authoritarian powers, psychiatrists claim such “truths”, lobbying in the media, governments, official medicine et al, to spread obviously irrational statements, “search results”.
How can one believe that a woman who has lost her family, is unhappy because of a chemical imbalance in her brain, therefore she needs to take pills as a treatment?
How can one believe that an overworked manager is stressed because of certain substance in his brain and it can be corrected with a drug? Will he be not overworked any more?
How can one believe that a lively child has to be “cooled down” with drugs, because he has a “deficiency”? (As a personal experience: when my son was 6, he was diagnosed with ADHD, because he got bored of the stupid questions of the psychologist testing him if he was matured enough to go to school, and instead of sitting nicely on the chair through 45 minutes, wanted to go out and play with the other kids…)
It’s very easy to believe such idiocies, one just needs to stop thinking for himself and believe everything the alleged experts have to say.
It is also interesting to observe that all these “scientific studies” lead to developing newer and newer drugs, to “handle” certain “mental disorders”. If you are curious about how the giant pharmaceutical companies have a vast amount of power to cook the results of drug tests and make researchers and even the FDA itself bow to their will and how they also use their power and money to silence their critics, just do a google search on these two terms: psychiatry and pharmaceutical industry.
This way it is no wonder that the upcoming congress of psychiatrists is sponsored by 4 drug companies: Lundbeck, Lilly, Pfizer and Krka. It would be a fantastic naivety to assume that the manufacturers and sellers of psychiatric drugs finance this event merely out of humanity, with the glorious intent of helping Mankind to get rid of unwanted mental conditions…
Lundbeck for instance, made donations of DKK 281 million in 2007 for scientific researches. That is to say they gave this much money for studies that will prove that an effective drug is needed to handle certain problem. And guess who will produce and sell that drug?
A key section of their website is about finances, inviting investors to this highly profitable business. Money, money, money…
After looking at only a very few aspects of how “scientific” psychiatry, let’s see quickly what about humanism.
Instead of a long essay here, please remember One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest which was not Ken Kesey’s artistic exaggeration or imagination of what was going on in psychiatry institutes – and sadly what is still the case today.
But by now, psychiatry emphasizes the use of a “more human” method: giving drugs to the patients is much milder.
Is it really? Taking a look at these short videos on real stories of children who got psychiatric drugs will tell more than would a thousand words.
I hope that for the occasion of their great gathering, this writing helps you to classify modern psychiatry as it is: a harmful pseudo-science.
– Andrea Gerak
References:
Definition of Psychiatry. By Thomas Szasz
The Lying Truths of Psychiatry. By Thomas Szasz
Is Psychiatry For Sale? An Examination of the Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry on Academic and Practical Psychiatry. By Joanna Moncrieff
Psychiatric Drugs: Chemical Warfare on Humans – interview with Robert Whitaker
Modern Psychiatry: Brought To You By Selfless Pharmaceutical Companies
Publications by Citizens Commission on Human Rights