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Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening; the taste for the truth is an acquired taste that few people acquire. The unethical and fraudlent self promotion of psychiatrists leads to 'physician-induced need,' or what the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) refers to as an increased 'volume' and 'intensity' of prescribing. And, when that no longer compensates, they take to inventing diseases. Funk & Wagnalls New Comprehensive International Dictionary of the English Language - 1980
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary - 1971
One would assume than that psychiatric is an adjective referring to the practice of psychiatry. Yet SEE how is it used in the following sentence which is derived from the American Psychiatric Association site in on the internet.
Would not ‘psychiatric management’ refer to the management of psychiatrists? And wouldn’t the management referred to be the psychological or clinical management? How about this sentence from the same material.
Does this mean the person’s status in regard to having a doctor? Or perhaps, it means that the psychiatrist is concerned about changes in his/her own status. Will s/he be disbarred from further practice? Or perhaps s/he is expecting a promotion. It should be clear that psychiatrists consistently use the term inappropriately. The question is what is the purpose? Any reasonable reader should be able to sense the self promotion that occurs in writing by psychiatrist. By attaching the psychiatric label to things, they try to indicate ownership, however inappropriately. My favorite is psychiatric rehabilitation. While I certainly agree that most psychiatrists need to be rehabilitated, I don’t think this was the intent. The real intent was to take over responsibility for what used to be known as psychosocial rehabilitation. This was a nonmedical practice working with severe and persistent problems in living, lovingly known in the trade as ‘chronic mental illness’ or ‘chronic schizophrenia’. If we examine these terms closely, we find even more difficulty with ‘psychiatric’ language. ‘Chronic’ is true only because of the inept services offered by psychiatrists. People with schizophrenia get better over time, providing they can avoid the debilitating effects of neuroleptic drugs. And ‘illness’ is a simple metaphor [See the Myth of Mental Illness, by Thomas Szasz] and is not truly applicable to any mental state except dementia. Such self serving survival methods have caused some people to begin to react as the following three quotes would indicate.
"I also faced an investigation into my behavior as chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for Studies of Schizophrenia and was excluded from prestigious academic events. By 1980, I was removed from my post altogether. All of this occurred because of my strong stand against the overuse of medication and disregard for drug-free, psychological interventions to treat psychological disorders. I Want No Part of It Anymore." Loren R. Mosher, M.D. - upon resigning after nearly three decades of membership in the American Psychiatric Association. One wonders why we take psychiatrist so seriously. I visited their site to determine whether there were medical protocols for psychiatry. What I found were Guidelines for Psychiatric Practice in State and Community Psychiatry Systems The introduction to all of the practice guidelines started this way
The underlining is added to indicate the self service of the guidelines that are being developed. The overriding theme is that we should have this power because we have always had this power. We insist that psychological issues are medical in nature because we are medical doctors - and for no other reason. This contention, despite the lack of evidence to the contrary persists that serious mental illness is in the medical domain. Why? Is there a shred of evidence that a medical degree is needed to deal with these issues. The only evidence is the self serving one of the dispensation of toxic drugs. Even in this area, psychiatrist, by and large are less than competent. Most don’t even know that statistically, six or more medications taken at the same time projects a 100% potential for negative reaction. Neuroleptic ‘cocktails’ are the treatment of the day. The only ones who benefit are the psychiatrists and the drug companies. What imperative of clinical expertise exists. Psychologists and social workers are far ahead in providing clinical services; psychiatrist provide only medication. They have little or no expertise in any clinical practice - as is indicated by their own language.
Until ‘all the data are in’ is code for the fact that psychiatry is essentially a technology without any scientific basis. In fact, all of the data collected so far is contrary to the way psychiatrists practice: drugs are toxic [look up malignant neuroleptic syndrome] and not helpful [with the possible exception of bipolar]; there is no support for psychoanalysis that it is any more effective than time; electroconvulsive shock therapy is hardly acceptable. Is there any question as to why psychiatry is the only helping profession picketed by those is says it wants to help! Here we are, after decades of psychiatric practice, and the American Psychiatric Association is just struggling to develop guidelines for practice and is unsure that they know what the hell they are doing! Gives you confidence, doesn’t it. And they want positions of authority over all clinical services. Well lets not give it to them. Psychiatrists are fighting for their lives; they are desperate. The original purpose of medical expertise was to rule out a medical cause for the psychological state. Despite the failure of psychoanalysis, it was an attempt to provide clinical input. Every science has to pass through this ordeal by quackery, and at the present time psychology, on its way toward becoming a proper science, has to slough off the quackery of Freudianism. Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience just as alchemy and astrology were pseudosciences [Popper, 1959], and while its influence prevails, it will prevent psychology from emerging from its chrysalis [Eysenck]. But psychiatry has not moved away from psychoanalysis, see above concerning ‘psychiatric management’ and "supportive psychotherapy" and/or "insight-oriented psychotherapy". One of the more common illusions of Freudian orthodoxy is that the durability of results corresponds to the length of therapy [Gutheil]. This, of course, helped to bring home the bacon for quite a while. By the way, does drug therapy ever end? Gee, this is kind of like residuals - once I prescribe, I continue to make money for a long time. But the fact is that psychiatrist don’t even practice psychodynamic interventions any more, they simply tell other people to do it; and it doesn’t work. And we have known it doesn’t work from 1959 as stated above. In fact the only way of continuing this atrocious behavior in this time of scientific inquiry is to group this [psychodynamic] and that [cognitive/behavior interventions] and claim that it is the same thing. By grouping cognitive and behavioral interventions as psychotherapies, psychotherapies show some success. Of course, cognitive and behavioral interventions are of an entirely different order than psychodynamic therapies and are based on social learning theory. In fact the interventions are not appropriately called treatment or therapies at all. The more appropriate terms would be teaching or training. Thus the helper or changeworker trains the individual in skills which enables them to take responsibilities for their own lives. Since psychiatrist generally believe that there is a pathology that is causing the behavior and that until a cure is effected nothing will change, the inclusion of cognitive and behavioral interventions directly opposes their belief systems. Yet, cognitive behavioral ‘therapy’ is an accepted part of a process which is presumably improved by drug taking. Need I point out that taking drugs sends a message which is exactly opposite to the social learning expectation? Which leads us, perhaps to the whole question of seeking and using help. First, another part of the psychiatric practice guidelines.
It is unfortunate, for me, that this particular guideline is about bipolar. I probably should have sought out another section, I am sure compliance is an issue all over the place. Resistance means that I don’t want your help, thank you. I resist when I think what your are asking is unhelpful. I am after all the sum total of what I think, and if I think this is unhelpful or harmful, I may not want to do it. And who are you to decide that it is for my own good? The reason it is unfortunate for me, is that in my experience, the one place that people tell me that the medication is helpful, is in bipolar. And since I believe that people are autonomous agents, my only concern is that they have made an informed choice. And by the way, for bipolar, with all the facts, most people choose to take the drugs. And that is their right. However, the same is not true, in my experience, for any other mental status. Therefore, when I discuss this resistance or noncompliance, I am generally taking this from another perspective. Denial is an interesting term. I deny schizophrenia exists. And I defy any psychiatrist to demonstrate that it does [see paragraph by Seibert above]. Why should anyone who comes to the ‘doctor’ for help, continue to comply with a plan of care which makes them much worse, but which pleases the people around them. Medication side effects are more than burdensome, according to psychiatrist Peter Breggin. Chapter 5: Neurotoxity of the Major Tranquilizers, from Peter Breggin’s book.
And by the way he didn’t even mention tardive dyskinesia, which took clients twenty years of court battles for the psychiatric community to even admit. This is an irreversible reaction which causes tics, quacks, and other body movement, which many people think is the ‘mental illness’. This is the palliative that psychiatry has to offer to its most profoundly affected clients. But of course the medication isn’t curative. This is just a ‘quick fix’ to hold you until we find a cure - and that will occur right after we find the pathology. Finally, we are finding more and more children in need of psychotropic medication. We are creating a generation of ‘junkies’ and we are paying the drug dealers an enormous amount of money in the process. Notice what Baughman has to say:
With this note, I will leave off my diatribe against psychiatrist and provide you with one final quote which I found in I And You: A Prologue by Walter Kaufman
These respected men [and women], these psychiatrists, have betrayed
our trust. How long will we wink at dishonesty? |
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