More misconceptions, some thoughts about delusions, suicide, and about true suicide prevention

The following are two, slightly edited, replies to a discussion at Beyond Meds. - You have to be a member to view the discussion, so, join! - Gianna suggested, I should post here too, and I decided to post both replies.

1. There's this (mis-)conception, that, whenever it just gets "weird" enough, i.e. no longer easy to get, there must be something really really wrong with a person's head, in a biological way. That idea serves as some kind of "explanation" whenever someone's behavior no longer can be understood and explained without effort in relation to the at any time adopted idea of "normal" human behavior as such. It's not an explanation, though. It's explaining away. What we don't understand, we fear. "Beware of the unknown" is a natural reaction/defence and survival mechanism. Especially of prey animals. And humans are both, predators and prey animals. So, we prefer to explain the unknown away, in order to keep it at a safe distance. One of several reasons why the biological model is so attractive to the majority.

The suffering that people in distress experience is caused by a lack of understanding, a lack of self-/consciousness. Partly the suffering is caused by a lack of understanding of themselves, or of what is happening to them, and partly by a lack of understanding from their surroundings. The fact, that people who receive understanding, empathetic, support, that focusses on helping them to understand their experiences while going through a crisis, usually don't suffer to the same extent as those who don't, who only receive drugs to get numbed out on, and maybe even traumatizing, coercive, "treatment" into the bargain, and that the former fare remarkably better in the long run than the latter, proves this.

Somehow, this is where I see a connection to what you say in your post here. Explaining away seems the safest and easiest way out. But it leads inevitably to more and more suffering. In a qualitative as well as in a quantitative sense. We want perfection. We want to be able to (and we are expected to) perfectly fit the mould. And whenever we don't, we panic. And/or those around us do. Something must be profoundly wrong with us. Let's get it fixed, so we can, perfectly, fit the mould again. What we miss in our tireless struggle to be "perfect" - perfect according to the cultural norms and values of our time (!), that is - is that our imperfection is just perfect. In its imperfection. We are not meant to fit a certain mould. We are meant to just be. Real perfection isn't something that can be defined in terms of "different from". Real perfection is the unity of all dualities. Thus, our culture, while desperately chasing what it supposes to be "perfection", actually loses the real perfection more and more out of sight.
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2. Whenever you want to die, if it's that you think the thought, or if it expresses itself as a voice, telling you to kill yourself (hearing voices is nothing but thinking aloud), you don't want to end being as such. You want to end what is, and make something else be. Death is a symbol for transformation. And the language of the unconscious is pure symbol language.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the Delphic Oracle from the Greek mythology for instance never answered any question other than in a more or less symbolic way. You got an answer to whatever your question, but you had to figure out the meaning of the answer yourself. Or: you actually gave the answer to your question yourself. Your unconscious, your intuition, did. The Delphic Oracle is the unconscious projected into the world.

Today, we live in a culture that isn't especially conscious of the unconscious. We are not conscious of symbolism in the same way other cultures are/were. What counts is the literal, the hard facts, science, "rational" thought (with "rational thought" being the kind of thought that is easy to get for everyone else, because everyone else thinks in the same, normative, way). Well, and things like traffic signs. But if I were an adviser, let's say of the Danish Prime Minister, he came to ask me my opinion about his campaign for the next election, and I'd say: "Make your own nature, not the advice of others, your guide in life," I'd probably lose my job, and be regarded, at least, a weirdo.

So, the question always is whom or what you really want to die when you contemplate suicide. One thing is for sure: it is not yourself. Your self (it's not a typo) is who/what you really are, and that is being, life. Life can't die. Death is a part of life, not the opposite. And life is transformation: something ends, "dies", something else begins. Every moment. Life is constant arrival and departure. Nothing actually is stable. There can be balance, but not stability. Total stability (like in "mood-stabilizer"), total unchangeableness and predictability, is a myth. And our culture confuses it with "perfection" - and chases it.

Some people want their outer form, i.e. their body, to die. People who suffer from a terminal illness, for instance. What most people in an existential crisis want to die though, is not the outer form either. It's their ego, i.e. who they think they are, and who they think, others think they are. Nevertheless, the ego partly manifests itself in the outer form of someone. That is, the body becomes a symbol for the ego. There you are: instead of letting go of your ego, and become who/what you really are, you interpret a symbol literally and consequently "let go" of your body, and,voilà: suicide. Literally. And since our culture is as unaware of symbolism as it is, chances are, that you won't find much help among this culture's members (in the mh system) to figure it out. Because everybody probably will interpret in the same literal way as your own thoughts do.

I eventually figured it out, because of the "delusion" that the real me wasn't a human being, but, well, something along the lines of a dryade, i.e. a spirit, nameless, ageless, without a history (all that ever had happened in my life, hadn't happened to me but to the body, the true me was caught in), immaterial, although caught in a - material - body. And what the real me wanted, wasn't to die, but to become free - of this body that represented an ego, a self-image, I've never felt less connected to than during crises.

Another aspect of this are "out-of-body-experiences", that usually also just are explained away as meaningless symptom of a brain disease.

Now, it's characteristic for our culture that people identify with their body, their thoughts, their mind, their life-story, their ego. Our culture teaches us to do so. In eastern philosophy though, there's another dimension beyond this formal, material one: the space wherein the formal, material expresses itself. Who/what you really are, your "true self" with Laing, is this space. So, the "delusion" actually wasn't a delusion, but the very truth.

Eventually, I figured, that letting go of the identification with my body, my ego, my thoughts, etc., meant the freedom, I'd thought, I only could gain through letting go of my body itself. A symbolic suicide, not a literal one. Or: an "egocide", not a suicide. That is the end of suffering. - That is not to say, that I don't suffer anymore. Nothing is forever. "Enlightenment" neither. It is extremely tempting to identify with the ego. Especially in a culture that worships the ego as our culture does. I yield to this temptation, time and again, and then I suffer. But existential suffering is human. It's not an illness. On the contrary, the way to "redemption" often goes through an awful lot of suffering. Without suffering, there would be no need to change anything, no need to develop and grow. Thus, existential suffering actually is more like a blessing than the curse, our culture wants to make it be.

As mentioned, usually people don't get any real help. (Since the "helpers" don't have a clue themselves, how could they help anyone to understand, what they haven't even understood themselves?*) The idea, that existential crises would be brain diseases prevents understanding just as the drugs do, whose prescription and administration only and solely is justifiable when what really is a wake-up call is defined a biological illness of the brain.

The trouble is, that the more your true self has been oppressed, the more you've been asked to identify with and as a false self (who/what others want you to be, but who/what you are not), the deeper the split between who/what you really are and this false ego-identification obviously becomes. The deeper the split becomes, the more you will suffer, and the more you suffer, the louder the wake-up calls will be. Whether you get a label of "OCD", "depression", or "schizophrenia" is not a question of suffering from distinctly different conditions. It's a question of the extent to which someone suffers, and the volume of the wake-up calls, they consequently receive. So-called "psychosis" being the loudest possible wake-up call. And they won't cease coming in, the wake-up calls, before you actually listen to them, and do wake up. This is why the drugs have a chronifying effect on crisis. It will inevitably happen again and again, until the day, you understand. And there is no drug strong enough to silence the unconscious. Drugs can't even target the unconscious. All they do is reducing consciousness. The unconscious is almighty and unassailable. You can't fight it and win. All you can do is turning it from being your master into being a tool of yours, by becoming conscious of it.

* It's actually quite funny, that a lack of ability to interpret things in a symbolic way is listed as a "symptom" of "schizophrenia", while the "experts' " ability to recognize a symbol as a symbol when it's staring them right in the face, equals to zero...

Normal Life Sucks!

Why We're Bipolar: Normal Life Sucks!
by bipolarorwakingup/Sean Blackwell

Mind-altering drugs, brain damage, meditation and therapy

I came across the video I posted on Tuesday while I actually planned to post the one below. The short excerpt from a talk by Eckhart Tolle (the full talk is here - or well, it was; unfortunately it isn't anymore) seems to me both a good introduction to clarify some unfortunately very common misunderstandings in regard to psychiatric drugs and meditation and its potential to lead to enlightenment - as well as in regard to therapy and its potential to lead to full recovery - and at the same time it sums up the answer to the question whether or not it is possible to recover from emotional distress using drugs, psychiatric prescription drugs, or any other mind-altering drugs.

The concise answer, given in the Eckhart Tolle talk, is no, it is not possible to recover from emotional distress while under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Simply because these drugs prevent the individual, who is under their influence, from getting in touch with his/her true self, from becoming aware and conscious. All mind-altering drugs "work" by enhancing unconsciousness. They stand like an impenetrable wall between the individual and his/her true self.

Although any spiritual teacher knows this just as well as Loren Mosher, for instance, knew it, most mental health professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists or other, seem never to have heard about it. How else would it be possible, that, no matter what kind of emotional distress, the combination of psychotropic drugs and therapy, the combination of two treatment measures, whose aims are diametrically opposed to each other, is promoted as the best treatment option by the system? But, well, in contrast to spiritual teachings, that not only acknowledge the possibility of full recovery, or enlightenment, with a spiritual term, but aim at exactly this full recovery or enlightenment with everything they teach, the mental health system often still denies full recovery to be possible at all.

The consequence of this denial of the possibility to achieve a higher level of awareness, consciousness, which in its turn is a consequence of psychiatry's concept of chronic, biological brain diseases, is that the mental health system aims at the very opposite of what a spiritual teacher would aim at, thus trying to reduce the individual in crisis' increased and increasing (or awakening) awareness, consciousness by all means. Not only "back to normal", but, even more sadly, most often to a level far below "normal", and just as often permanently, through "maintenance medication" with highly toxic chemicals, that not only reduce the brain's capacity while the individual is taking the drugs, but that also cause brain damage, thus reducing the brain's capacity permanently and to an increasing extent the longer the drugs are taken.

So, if you are awakening, if you are going through a crisis that is, beware of mind-altering substances, especially of dirty drugs such as all psychiatric drugs, whose brain damaging potential is somewhat greater than that of pure, natural substances (such as the "leaf").

Here is the video by Jane, who gives an answer more detailed and outspokenly related to emotional distress (so-called "mental illness") than Eckhart Tolle does:

"Meditation, spirituality and drug effects"



Related posts at Jane's blog:

"Drugs and meditation"

"Meditation videos, you asked, I delivered"

"Geodon lies"

Related video by Jane:

"Antipsychotics cause brain damage"

"There is another way of becoming free"

Unfortunately, the video, I'd posted here, is no longer available at YouTube. It was a short excerpt from a workshop with Eckhart Tolle, where he talks about the potential of psychoactive substances, like alcohol, to "calm down the noise machine in the head" for some time, and thereby to provide some temporary relief from the suffering it is to be an ego-identified individual in our modern, western society. "But there is a price", som han siger, "The price is, you're moving towards unconsciousness. But on your way towards unconsciousness, you feel a little better. So, drugs, whatever they may be, smokes... - Take a smoke! - Of course, pot isn't a drug. It's a leaf. So, the leaf can give you some relief. But the price you pay is that you move towards unconsciousness. There is another way of becoming free..." (my italics)

The other side of mental health science

And here it is, now also on this blog: the article "The other side of mental health science" by Steven Morgan, that I mentioned in a previous post, and that puts a number of common misunderstandings about "mental illness" right. For everyone who, for whatever reason, hasn't been to Gianna's blog yet to read it there.


The other side of mental health science

BY STEVEN MORGAN stevenmorganjr(at)gmail(dot)com

Scientific studies about mental health are widely considered to be the ultimate source for objective information about psychiatric disorders. However, most people do not or cannot access these studies themselves. They instead rely on information from doctors, organizations, peers, the media, and so on. Unfortunately, this second-hand information is often oversimplified (i.e. “Mental illness is a chemical imbalance in the brain”), spoken with too much certainty (i.e. “Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disease that is lifelong and incurable”), or skewed and manipulated to justify an opinion (i.e. “People with Bipolar Disorder must take medication to live well”). As a result, popular myths now overshadow much of the data available from science.

The following list is a collection of facts from peer-reviewed scientific journals and several research-based books. Each source is hyperlinked in References, meaning the reader can literally click on the name of the study to access it from the Internet. Given the heated atmosphere of opinions about psychiatric disorders, the hyperlinks were included to make this document user-friendly so that readers can research the facts themselves.

FACTS ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

I. A chemical imbalance for mental illness has never been found in anyone’s brain.1 There is no way to measure the level of neurotransmitters in synapses between brain cells, so there is no measurement of a healthy chemical balance that would allow for comparisons of “too many chemicals” or “too few chemicals” to be made.2,3 That is why our brains are not scanned for chemical imbalances when we are diagnosed. Even if chemical imbalances are one day found, it does not mean that they cause psychiatric disorders. Indeed, since the brain changes in response to both internal stimuli (thoughts, imagination, feelings, etc.) and external stimuli (sunlight, trauma, playing the piano, etc.),4,5 a chemical imbalance could just as likely be a biological reflection of environmental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual stress as a primary cause of it. Finally, the idea that specific genes cause mental illness is inaccurate, leading one prominent genetic researcher to state in the American Journal of Psychiatry: “The impact of individual genes on risk for psychiatric illness is small, often nonspecific, and embedded in complex causal pathways… Although we may wish it to be true, we do not have and are not likely to ever discover `genes for’ psychiatric illness.”6

II. Long-term studies from around the world demonstrate that the majority of people diagnosed with major mental illness – including schizophrenia – significantly improve or completely recover over time.7,8,9,10,11,12

III. Adverse childhood events can lead to mental health problems in adulthood – including psychosis, bipolar affective symptoms, depression, borderline traits, and so on – and the vast majority of people diagnosed with major psychiatric disorders have histories of trauma, neglect, or abuse.13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23 Thus, in many cases, the cause of psychiatric symptoms is childhood trauma. In this context, saying “mental illness is just like diabetes” or “mental illness is a physical brain disease that is no one’s fault” is inaccurate. Consider this parallel: if I am stabbed by a knife, is my bleeding caused by weak skin, or is it caused by the knife, the stabber, and the surrounding circumstances? Linking the cause of psychiatric symptoms to the appropriate source – i.e. a traumatizing environment instead of one’s brain or genes – is crucial in determining an effective treatment path to recovery and in actually changing larger social, cultural, and familial problems that contribute to mental breakdown.24

IV. A large subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia fare better with little or no medication usage.25,26,27 Several alternative treatment models that use little or no medications for people experiencing psychosis have outcomes equal to or better than treatment-as-usual.28,29 Also, antipsychotics are far less curative than generally acknowledged: in the most recent and largest ever study of antipsychotic efficacy for people diagnosed with schizophrenia, 74% of participants (1061 of 1432 people) quit taking their initially-assigned antipsychotic within 18 months, mainly due to ineffectiveness or intolerable side effects.30 Of these unsatisfied participants, about half (509 people) dropped out of the study altogether, while the other half entered a second phase in which they tried a different antipsychotic. During the second phase, 44% of participants assigned to clozapine (20 of 45 people) and 75% of participants assigned to another antipsychotic (282 of 378 people) again discontinued it within 18 months.31,32

V. The brain can heal, and the biological abnormalities linked to psychiatric symptoms are often reversible or can be compensated for by other areas of the brain.33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40 In other words, psychiatric recovery can happen on a biological level, both with and without medication usage.

VI. According to repeated studies by the World Health Organization, people diagnosed with schizophrenia living in developing countries have significantly better outcomes than those living in developed countries.41 The WHO suggests the better outcome “…was unrelated to drug treatment since many in the developing world did not receive continuous treatment. Psychosocial factors, such as better family support, community tolerance, extended networks and more favorable job opportunities, have been postulated as the reasons for this observation.”42

VII. Antidepressant medications are no more effective than a sugar pill for people with mild to moderate depression, and only slightly more effective than a sugar pill for people with severe depression.43

VIII. Efforts to increase a person’s awareness of their diagnosed mental illness – known as “illness insight” – may lead to self-stigmatization that decreases self-esteem and hope.44,45,46,47 Research shows that the “mental illness is like any other physical disorder” message behind many anti-stigma campaigns actually increases the public’s fear, prejudice, and desire for distance from people who are diagnosed.48

IX. Psychiatric diagnoses are not based on medical testing, but instead on self-report and professional interpretation according to culturally-defined notions of disease. They are therefore arbitrary and often unreliable, especially over time, being prone to racism, sexism, classism, and Eurocentric bias. Many people receive different diagnoses from different doctors, which muddles treatment options and can lead to unnecessary or mismatched medication usage.49

REFERENCES

For links that direct you to these sources see Steven’s hyperlinked version of this paper for further study:
1 Lacasse JR, Leo J. The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression. Society 45(1):35-45, Feb 2008.

2 Lacasse JR, Leo J. Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature. PLoS Medicine 2(12), e392 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392, Nov 2005.

3 Breggin PR, Cohen D. Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2007.

4 Doidge, N. The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York, NY: Viking Adult, 2007.

5 Begley, S. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves. Ballantine Books, 2007.

6 Kendler KS. “A gene for…”: The nature of gene action in psychiatric disorders. Am J Psychiatry 162:1243-1252, 2005.

7 Davidson L, Harding C, Spaniol L, (Eds.). Recovery from severe mental illness: Research evidence and implications for practice. Boston, MA: Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation͵ Boston University, 2005.

8 Harding CM, Brooks GW, Ashikaga T, et al. The Vermont longitudinal study of persons with severe mental illness I: methodology study, sample and overall status 32 years later. Am J Psychiatry 144:718-726, 1987b.

9 DeSisto MJ, Harding CM, Ashikaga T, et al. The Maine and Vermont three-decade studies of serious mental illness, I: matched comparison of cross-sectional outcome. Br J Psychiatry 167:331-338, 1995a.

10 Huber G, Gross G, Schuttler R. A long-term follow-up study of schizophrenia: psychiatric course of illness and prognosis. Acta Psychiatr Scand 52:49-57, 1975.

11 Ogawa K, Miya M, Watarai A, et al. A long-term follow-up study of schizophrenia in Japan–with special reference to the course of social adjustment. Br J Psychiatry 151:758-765, 1987.

12 Ciompi, L. Psyche and Schizophrenia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 1988.

13 Read J, van Os J, Morrison AP, Ross CA. Childhood trauma, psychosis and schizophrenia: a literature review with theoretical and clinical implications. Acta Psychiatr Scand 112(5):330-50, Nov 2005.

14 Rosenberg SD, Lu W, Mueser KT, Jankowski MK, Cournos F. Correlates of adverse childhood events among adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Psychiatric Services 58(2):245-53, Feb 2007.

15 Hammersley P, Dias A, Todd G, Bowen-Jones K, Reilly B, Bentall RP. Childhood trauma and hallucinations in bipolar affective disorder: preliminary investigation. Br J Psychiatry 182:543-7, Jun 2003.

16 Garno JL, Goldberg JF, Ramirez PM, Ritzler BA. Impact of childhood abuse on the clinical course of bipolar disorder. Br J Psychiatry 186:121-5, Feb 2005.

17 Morgan C, Fisher H. Environment and schizophrenia: environmental factors in schizophrenia: childhood trauma–a critical review. Schizophrenia Bulletin 33(1):3-10, Jan 2007. Epub Nov 14 2006.

18 Janssen I, Krabbendam L, Bak M, Hanssen M, Vollebergh W, de Graaf R, van Os J. Childhood abuse as a risk factor for psychotic experiences. Acta Psychiatr Scand 109(1):38-45, Jan 2004.

19 Chapman DP, Whitfield CL, Felitti VJ, Dube SR, Edwards VJ, Anda RF. Adverse childhood experiences and the risk of depressive disorders in adulthood. J Affect Disord 82(2):217-25, Oct 2004.

20 Herman JL, Perry JC, van der Kolk BA. Childhood trauma in borderline personality disorder. Am J Psychiatry 146(4):490-5, Apr 1989.

21 Harkness KL, Monroe SM. Childhood adversity and the endogenous versus nonendogenous distinction in women with major depression. Am J Psychiatry 159(3):387-93, Mar 2002.

22 Vythilingam M, Heim C, Newport J, Miller AH, Anderson E, Bronen R, Brummer M, Staib L, Vermetten E, Charney DS, Nemeroff CB, Bremner JD. Childhood trauma associated with smaller hippocampal volume in women with major depression. Am J Psychiatry 159(12):2072-80, Dec 2002.

23 Edwards VJ, Holden GW, Felitti VJ, Anda RF. Relationship between multiple forms of childhood maltreatment and adult mental health in community respondents: results from the adverse childhood experiences study. Am J Psychiatry 160(8):1453-60, Aug 2003.

24 Read J, Ross CA. Psychological trauma and psychosis: another reason why people diagnosed schizophrenic must be offered psychological therapies. J Am Acad Psychoanal Dyn Psychiatry 31(1):247-68, Spring 2003.

25 Harrow M, Jobe T. Factors involved in outcome and recovery in schizophrenia patients not on antipsychotic medications: a 15-year multifollow-up study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 195(5):406-414, 2007.

26 Whitaker R. The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm than good. Med Hypotheses 62(1):5-13, 2004.

27 Bola JR, Mosher LR. At issue: predicting drug-free treatment response in acute psychosis from the Soteria project. Schizophr Bulletin 28(4):559-75, 2002.

28 Calton T, Ferriter M, Huband N, Spandler H. A systematic review of the Soteria paradigm for the treatment of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophr Bulletin 34(1):181-92, Jan 2008. Epub Jun 14 2007.

29 Mosher LR, Hendrix V, Fort DC. Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. Xlibris Corporation, 2004.

30 Lieberman JA, Stroup TS, McEvoy JP, Swartz MS, Rosenheck RA, Perkins DO, Keefe RS, Davis SM, Davis CE, Lebowitz BD, Severe J, Hsiao JK; CATIE Investigators. Effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs in patients with chronic schizophrenia. N Engl J Med 353(12):1209-23, Sep 2005. Epub Sep 19 2005.

31 McEvoy JP, Lieberman JA, Stroup TS, Davis SM, Meltzer HY, Rosenheck RA, Swartz MS, Perkins DO, Keefe RS, Davis CE, Severe J, Hsiao JK; CATIE Investigators. Effectiveness of clozapine versus olanzapine, quetiapine, and risperidone in patients with chronic schizophrenia who did not respond to prior atypical antipsychotic treatment. Am J Psychiatry 163(4):600-10, Apr 2006.

32 Stroup TS, Lieberman JA, McEvoy JP, Swartz MS, Davis SM, Rosenheck RA, Perkins DO, Keefe RS, Davis CE, Severe J, Hsiao JK; CATIE Investigators. Effectiveness of olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone in patients with chronic schizophrenia following discontinuation of a previous atypical antipsychotic. Am J Psychiatry 163(4):611-22, Apr 2006.

33 Morgan, S. Rethinking the Potential of the Brain in Major Psychiatric Disorders. Retrieved July 6, 2008, from http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/diagnostics/rethinking-the-brain

34 Bernier PJ, Bedard A, Vinet J, Levesque M, Parent A. Newly generated neurons in the amygdala and adjoining cortex of adult primates. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99(17):11464-9, Epub 2002 Aug

35 Draganski B, Gaser C, Busch V, Schuierer G, Bogdahn U, May A. Neuroplasticity: changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature 427(6972):311-312, Jan 2004.

36 Merzenich, M. Brain plasticity-based “cognitive training” elevates BDNF. Message posted to http://merzenich.positscience.com/?p=35, Apr 2007.

37 Bremner JD, Elzinga B, Schmahl C, Vermetten E. Structural and functional plasticity of the human brain in posttraumatic stress disorder. Prog Brain Res 167:171-86, 2008.

38 Gould E, Graziano MSA, Gross C, Reeves AJ. Neurogenesis in the Neocortex of Adult Primates. Science 286:548–552, 1999.

39 Bieling P, Goldapple K, Garson C, Kennedy S, Lau M, Mayberg H, Segal Z. Modulation of Cortical-Limbic Pathways in Major Depression: Treatment-Specific Effects of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Arch Gen Psychiatry 61:34-41, Jan 2004.

40 Schwartz, JM, Begley, S. The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2003.

41 Jablensky A, Sartorius N, Ernberg G, Anker M, Korten A, Cooper JE, Day R, and Bertelsen A. Schizophrenia: Manifestations, Incidence and Course in Different Cultures. A World Health Organization Ten-Country Study. Psychological Medicine Monograph Supplement 20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

42 World Health Organization. Schizophrenia: Youth’s Greatest Disabler. Retrieved July 6, 2008, from http://searo.who.int/en/Section1174/Section1199/Section1567/Section1827_8055.htm

43 Kirsch I, Deacon BJ, Huedo-Medina TB, Scoboria A, Moore TJ, Johnson BT. Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: a meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Medicine 5(2):e45, Feb 2008.

44 Lysaker PH, Roe D, Yanos PT. Toward understanding the insight paradox: internalized stigma moderates the association between insight and social functioning, hope, and self-esteem among people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Schizophr Bulletin 33(1):192-9, Jan 2007. Epub Aug 7 2006.

45 Watson AC, Corrigan P, Larson JE, Sells M. Self-stigma in people with mental illness. Schizophr Bulletin 33(6):1312-8, Nov 2007. Epub Jan 25 2007.

46 Link BG, Cullen FT, Struening E, Shrout PE, Dohrenwend BP. A Modified Labeling Theory Approach to Mental Disorders: An Empirical Assessment. American Sociological Review 54(3): 400-423, Jun 1989.

47 Link BG, Struening EL, Neese-Todd S, Asmussen S, Phelan JC. Stigma as a barrier to recovery: The consequences of stigma for the self-esteem of people with mental illnesses. Psychiatric Services 52(12):1621-6, Dec 2001.

48 Read J, Haslam N, Sayce L, Davies E. Prejudice and schizophrenia: a review of the ‘mental illness is an illness like any other’ approach. Acta Psychiatr Scand 114(5):303-18, Nov 2006.

49 For a research-based and in-depth overview of the problems with subjective diagnosing, see Chapters 3 & 4 of:
Bentall, RP. Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature. London, England: Allen Lane, 2003.

Luise's story

A friend of mine, Pia, sent me a link to a feature article, published in the Danish newspaper Politiken on April 5th, 2002. The article thus isn't exactly written yesterday, and a lot has happened, also in regard to the article's subject, since it could be read in the newspaper. Nonetheless, I don't think it has lost any of its actuality, and I agree with Pia, that the subject ought to be discussed more in length.

"Historien om Lone" (Lone's Story) is the feature article's headline, while it actually is the story of Luise Hjermig Christensen, who died in 2005, a good three years after this article had been published. Back in 2005, the professionals, successfully, tried to explain away and cover up Luise's death as a result of an epileptic fit. While Luise never had a diagnosis of epilepsy, and most probably died from neuroleptic intoxication.

WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

Luise, a "cautious and poetic girl", as her mother describes her in her article, came into contact with psychiatry in 1992 when she was 19 years old. Luise had had "support universes" for a long time, and they'd never caused her problems. Which made her and her mother contact psychiatry was that she'd also started to hear voices, once in a while.

Luise was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Rigshopitalet/Copenhagen, for a "shorter evaluation", "most likely without any medical treatment to be applied", as she and her mother Dorrit Cato Christensen were told at the admission. since Luise wasn't plagued.

When Dorrit Cato Christensen came to see her daughter the following day, she found Luise lying on the floor, medicated to an extent that she was unable to rise. No one at the ward was willing to help, Luise's mother was told that Luise had collapsed on the floor many times throughout the past 24 hours, and that she probably fell deliberately in order to attract attention. Dorrit Cato Christensen was not able to get in touch with any doctor at the ward, and, as she puts it, she almost felt chased away by the staff.

Five days later Luise was transferred to Sct.Hans hospital, a psychiatric institution at Roskilde. (Those of you who maybe have read the Norwegian author Amalie Skram's autobiographical novel "Under Observation": this is it. And no, nothing much has really changed - not to speak about improved - since those days.)

Dorrit Cato Christensen there mentioned her concern about Luise being medicated with high dosages of neuroleptics, especially since Luise previously had had severe adverse reactions to anti-convulsants. The psychiatrist told her that "Luise was being medicated correctly".

Despite of "correct" medication, Luise's condition worsened rapidly, and four days after her transferral to St.Hans, after only twelve days under psychiatric "care", she suffered from Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome.

Subsequently, and as a result of this, Luise's behavior changed to the worse. Luise had never been aggressive. She became now. Her pleasant-to-be-in support universe "Øerne" (the islands) became supplemented by the extremely unpleasant "Tunnellerne" (the tunnels), something her mother right on interprets as a reaction to the traumatization the "treatment" by psychiatry had caused her daughter. While the system chose to react with even more aggressive medication, further traumatization.

Which, in the end, made the ruination of Luise's life inevitable, was that she came to set her room at the locked ward, where she was held back, on fire. Probably because she, heavily medicated as she was, fell asleep while smoking. Nevertheless, the staff claimed the arson had been intentional, and in court Luise pleaded guilty, as she at that time did concerning anything, including having killed her 150 children in the U.S. ... Which brought her in an indeterminate treatment sentence.

The long and the short of it is that Luise had an adverse reaction to an injection with Risperdal - she'd continuously refused to take medications, saying they were killing her, so she was forcibly injected, although her journal clearly stated that she couldn't tolerate Risperdal - and died 17 hours later in 2005 at Amager hospital. She was on nine different medications at that time, among those four different neuroleptics and two sedatives. The responsible psychiatrist stated she'd been undermedicated at St.Hans. During all in all three years of hospitalization until 2002, Luise had been forcibly medicated about 200 times, sometimes up to 20 days on end, her mother tells in the article.

At the time of Luise's death, the responsible psychiatrist was about to be employed in a leading position at the Patients' Complaint Board, where his/her task was to assess the validity of claims similar to the one Dorrit Cato Christensen filed against him/her. The Patients' Complaint Board did see no reason to defer the employment until the case was settled. The NHS of Denmark later stated, that the psychiatrist had acted correctly, while this settlement partly was based on false information about Luise's death being caused by an epileptic fit, as the hospital-staff claimed to begin with. This was later on invalidated, though without effect on the NHS' settlement of the case... So, it has to be assumed, that the psychiatrist in question still is employed at the Patients' Complaint Board, assessing the validity of claims similar to the one filed against him/her. And if I knew who this person is, the name might stand here, capital letters, as a warning against an incompetent psychiatrist. But I don't know this person's name.

"Might" because Luise's case unfortunately isn't an isolated one, as one immediately might believe. Just as little as the responsible psychiatrist represents an isolated case of incompetence among otherwise more or less competent colleagues.

EXPERTS IN THE HUMAN PSYCHE

To return to the feature article: I widely agree to Dorrit Cato Christensen's evaluation of the mental health system. Though not to all of her views. Thus she states that "[p]sychiatrists are experts when it comes to the human psyche."

That psychiatrists would be experts in the human psyche, on an existential level, can a single glance at the history of psychiatry expose to be a misconception. Psychiatrists are medical doctors, their interest thus is of a purely biological, physiological - mechanical - kind. The human nature, on an existential, philosophical level, is of no interest to them. Except for people like Loren Mosher, R.D.Laing or Grace Jackson. And in regard to these people, one has to conclude that their interest for the human nature is of a philosophical kind, not of a psychiatric one.

Real experts in the human psyche are rarely found among psychiatrists. If ever they're found among "professionals", they're most likely found among people with a humanistic background, such as psychologists and the like.

"The healers, the morale builders, that I've ever found, were very rarely among mental health professionals. They were outside of that. And the only ones who were, were again people who sort of were rebels and resisters. And a lot of the best healers that I knew when I was going to graduate school, or folks I knew who were psychiatry residents, they quit, because they just did not fit in. They felt incredibly alienated from this kind of mechanical, non-healing model that they were socialized and trained in", Bruce Levine said at a talk on his latest book "Surviving America's Depression Epidemic" at Amherst/Mass., on March 25th, 2008.

Psychiatrists aren't experts in the human psyche, and they're just as little experts in the human brain. Neurologists are the true experts in the human brain. "They [psychiatrists]" do not "know how the different medical drugs impact the various centers of the brain," other than vaguely. Why they feel their way. At the expense of their clientele, who, because of their position as being out of their minds, and not fit to make decisions of their own, far more easily than anyone else can be made guinea pigs, if the occasion should arise, even against their expressed will - the will of an individual who is labelled not accountable for his actions, by definition is without value, and may be ignored without consideration.

By the way, something of a paradox in regard to advance directives, that usually contain a paragraph asking you if you're willing to participate in trials. In addition to the paragraph about treatment, that is. All psychiatric "treatment" is nothing but one great big trial.

More information on psychiatry's "expertise" in regard to its definitions of and "treatment" measures available for "mental illness" can be found here. And no, nothing has come up since 2003 that could satisfy psychiatry's honour.

WORDS - ONCE AGAIN

I neither agree in Dorrit Cato Christensen's wording. Without doubt, her daughter was a very "cautious and poetic girl", a sensitive and vulnerable person. But this didn't make her a "sick" - in her head, or a "schizophrenic" person. Those adjectives are used by society and its executive psychiatry only and solely to justify the mental health system's way of steamrolling very sensitive and vulnerable people. To justify a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They are only and solely used in order to dehumanize, deprive the so-labelled human beings definitely of their humanity.

Those adjectives are used in order to explain away "maladjusted", inconvenient to society, behaviour, and in order to escape, to disclaim all responsibility for the fact that there are individuals who do not thrive in society and therefor have to withdraw into support universes. Especially if these individuals haven't got any tools to sublimate their discontent, and give it expression in another for them creative, constructive, and for society acceptable way.

Sensitive and vulnerable a person becomes whose feelings have been hurt. The more continuously and violently a person's feelings get hurt, the more sensitive and vulnerable this person becomes. That Dorrit Cato Christensen doesn't brush aside her daughter's support universes as a "symptom" of meaningless madness, as psychiatry as well as most relatives usually do in these situations, deserves credit. Nonetheless, she too navigates elegantly around regarding them as anything else than a reaction to the "treatment", her daughter has been exposed to in the mental health system. Which they undoubtedly also are. Also. The support universes do exist already before Luise's acquaintance with psychiatry, and thus can't have become a necessary refuge only because of this acquaintance. Something in Luise's life story has made support universes a necessity, already before she meets with psychiatry: sensitive and vulnerable individuals are individuals whose feelings have been hurt.

That Luise's flight into the support universes assumed the dimensions it did, and that the support universes increasingly reflected her traumatization induced by psychiatry, is not an isolated phenomenon. According to John M. Friedberg psychiatric "symptoms" imply resistance. "Can resistance be overcome by torture? Obviously", he states. Though, before the resistance is overcome, the individual, its humanity, destroyed, torture increases the resistance, the "symptoms" worsen, qualitatively and quantitatively.

Last but not least I do not at all agree to "that most [people in crisis] need medical treatment". Apart from the in Denmark well-known "Vestlaplandsmodellen", there are internationally several similar projects and studies that show the opposite, that actually prove medical "treatment" to often chronify crisis, and thus prevent full recovery. While individuals who escape medical "treatment" often achieve full recovery.

THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Luise's case is not an isolated case. It's the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg, psychiatry, the mental health system as a whole is. Close contact with psychiatry can be life-threatening. Both ECT and psychotropic drugs are brain damaging. Individuals who are exposed to neuroleptics on a long-term basis do by now have a by 25 years reduced life expectancy compared to people who do not take these drugs. Long-term "treatment" with lithium often damages the person's kidneys. SSRIs make people suicidal, and harm unborn babies, if taken by their mothers under pregnancy. Uncountable individuals have died as a result of restraints. Coercion in general is profoundly traumatizing. And last but not least do most of the individuals who are labelled with "severe mental illness" end up on disability, as revolving door patients, and at drop ins and halfway houses: warehoused in a safe distance from the community, with the help of "treatment", "medicine", effectively prevented from drawing attention to themselves, deprived of their voice, their dignity, their humanity, and of any possibility to ever regain these. The delayed, undramatic and almost invisible killing we never learn about in the media, and which takes place in a safe distance from society. Every day. Uncountable times. Everywhere in this world. Also in Denmark.

Psychiatry as an institution is very well aware of that its task is no other than to relieve society from those individuals who react more sensitively and vulnerably to society than this society's normality is willing to accept, even if it costs the individual's life. Otherwise the Patients' Complaint Board without doubt would have upheld Dorrit Cato Christensen's contention on Luise's "treatment".

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

Luise fought to a finish against the superiority, and for her humanity, her life, herself. But the more she fought the more the system punished her. The punishment covered up as "treatment", "help".

In a psychiatric context an individual's fight for his humanity is an "illness" that needs to be "treated", suppressed, even if it costs the individual's life. Just as it in the U.S. once was considered an "illness" when a slave ran away from slavery. It was the slave who was ill, not a society that made human beings slaves and denied them their dignity as human beings because of the colour of their skin. Also the "ill" slaves were punished severely, in order to "cure" them, and also this often cost the individual's life.

Luise never had a chance, she never arrived at the insight that saved for instance Judi Chamberlin's life: "Well, I've been a good patient, and I've been a bad patient, and believe me, being a good patient helps to get you out of the hospital, but being a bad patient helps to get you back to real life."

When reading "Lone's story", it strikes me again how close I myself have been to losing my life, to being killed. Literally or figuratively. I am rather rebellious by nature, just as Luise was. And crises, well, those have exactly been the periods in my life when the rebellious took over control, over "reason", when the least violation of my humanity, the least assault on myself resulted in violent and spontaneous protest reactions. In a psychiatric context this might very well have cost me my life.

A final note: About 10%, if not more, of the general population do hear voices (have hallucinations) once in a while, and I assume a somewhat just as high percentage does have what you might call "support universes" to withdraw to in extremely stressful situations. If any of this could be diseased at all, which I don't think it can, the completely natural self-preserving mechanism it is, it would be a possible suffering due to the experience of these self-preserving mechanisms. Luise did not suffer. At least not previously to her fatal acquaintance with psychiatry.

Did you know about NIDS?

Curious as I am, after listening to Larry Simon's interviews with Grace Jackson, I of course went on a Google search - and found this transcript of a lecture Dr. Jackson held at Birmingham City University in 2004.

Scary stuff, presented in a very intelligible way, and with just the right amount of - black - humour ("It’s probably such a long word that this is why the doctors don’t often say it!", "But these are what doctors frequently don’t tell their patients about, or perhaps they think it doesn’t happen so often.") to make it a treat to read, in spite of the "message".

Putting together a reply to a mail, I'd just been thinking about "informed consent", and the National Health Service of Denmark's recent statement that full information to patients on side effects wasn't always appropriate and desirable, since it might cause patients to refuse medical treatment, before I came across this transcript. Well, as I wrote in my mail reply, I can vividly imagine which are the medications the least information on side effects will be provided for, or, to put it in another way, who are the people, who will be least informed... Also in future.

Frankly speaking, this is totalitarian to me. Especially since it is a proven fact, that anything else, even no treatment at all, actually has better long-term outcomes than medication when it comes to emotional crises.

So, go and get informed, and think twice before you say "yes" to any psychotropic drug you're offered! If you're given a choice, that is.

(Geez, since we apparently don't have any professionals with the same expertise as Grace Jackson - or should it be that they just don't want us to know??? - I will have to do something about this, at least summing it up somehow in Danish, one of these days.)

Psychiatric drug withdrawal - a warning

I remember my therapist say that, oh no, she hadn't experienced people being really troubled by withdrawal symptoms when tapering off of psychiatric drugs. I'd mentioned how difficult coming off actually can be, especially naming the antidepressant Effexor, that usually causes by far the worst withdrawal symptoms among antidepressant drugs.

Now, unfortunately, it isn't only that coming off can be difficult. It can very well also be dangerous, seriously damaging your physical health, as the example of Gianna Kali shows.

Gianna, who, because of the damage coming off did to her physical health, has decided to take a break from posting on her blog, has posted a WARNING in regard to coming off as the last post on her blog, at least for a while - I, and I guess everybody else who reads this too, hope, that you'll be back in better health some day, Gianna! - and I strongly recommend it to everybody who considers coming off their drugs. Just as I recommend it to mental health professionals, my therapist very much included!

Some thoughts in context with this: It baffles me, time and again, to see the discrepancy between what professionals are fond of calling "quality of life", and what I witness psychiatric drugs, taking them as well as tapering off of them, are doing to people's actual quality of life. I somehow suspect, that which they're really talking about is not the quality of life of the individual in crisis, but that of everyone around the person concerned.

As I imagine it has been and is the case for many of you, me too, I had to put up with persistent yatter about these drugs being able to enhance my quality of life - the guidance was brilliant, yes, not perfect! Luckily, I was bloody-minded, or resilient (or just "poison-paranoid"??), enough to turn the "offer" down, just as persistently. And luckily, my refusal was respected in the end. One of the things I today am most grateful to my therapist for. Indeed, I think, if I back then had known what I know today about psych drugs, I might very well have left her office at the first mentioning of "something", never going back. My decision then was a purely intuitive one: Always trust your intuition! And, as Gianna calls on in her post, the signals your body sends you.

However, what really both saddens and maddens me is to see all too many (not so bloody-minded, resilient) people get their health, and by this their quality of life, destroyed by the drugs. Sometimes permanently. Sometimes, and all too often, with death as a consequence. Did Mikkel die from drinking, or from diabetes? No, sorry. Mikkel died from taking Zyprexa. Does Sidse have to live with increasing obesity and deteriorating general health, AND the obvious deterioration of her quality of life these cause, because her "mental illnesses" (they can't even agree, so she's labelled both this and that, and the third in addition, and, sure, stuffed with the respective drugs!) is more serious than the loss of quality of life (and, maybe in future, which is worse)? Is it all right, as the NHS of Denmark concluded, that Luise died after she'd been forcibly injected with a drug (one out of nine! psych drugs she was on at the same time) she couldn't tolerate, the staff being pretty much aware of this? Again and again, Luise had stated, that she felt the drugs were killing her. No one listened, other than in order to label her "poison paranoid", too. While the "expert" who actually killed her, in the meantime became employed in a leading position at the Patients' Complaint Board, assessing the validity of complaints very much the same as that, Luise's mother filed against him/her. Can which Gianna is going through be justified in any way?? Sorry, but the answer is NO! No conception of "quality of life" can ever justify any of this.

The people who prescribe these drugs claim to be medical doctors and to practise which they themselves are fond of calling "medical art". I'd say, real medical art is being able to see when people's quality of life is deteriorating or being destroyed because of health issues, and to do everything possible to re-establish the quality of life, the health, respectively to prevent the destruction from taking place. In my opinion, everything else is to be called ignorance, quackery - or cynicism.



"Which gives me a hard time isn't that much what has been anymore. It's what is, what I see is going on in this world, here and now", I stated at my last therapy session in December last year. I was speaking in general. But this statement certainly also, and not least!, applies to what I see is going on inside the mental illness system.

Which in addition gives me a hard time is the persistent reluctancy to really openly deal with these issues in society. While I find it especially frustrating to witness this reluctancy in context with certain "insider"-media. Partly, this is responsible for my anger toward this certain media, that some of you maybe have observed finding expression in some of my recent posts.

Oh and, by the way, Gianna did taper off of her drugs under the surveillance and with the guidance of an "expert", practising "medical art", yah. She did not try to do it on her own, as you immediately might think, regarded the outcome.

Recovery and community mental health care

Morgan W. Brown has recorded two videos about mental health care in Vermont/USA, and posted them on his Beyond Vermont State Hospital (VSH) blog:

"Don't send me to Waterbury" Report, a roundtable including Michael Hartman, Ann Donahue, James Leddy and Albert Galves, discussing recovery-orientated community care vs. hospitalization.

The Future of Mental Health Care in Vermont, a discussion about recovery, psychiatric medication, and alternatives in the community, with the participation of Mary Ellen Gottlieb, Albert Galves, Xenia Williams and Bill Newhall.

I found both videos highly interesting, although I live far from Vermont. The issues are global.

Watch the videos on Morgan's blog, or at Google Video (links at Morgan's blog).

Thanks to Morgan for the notification!

A call for Big Pharma's - and psychiatry's - attention

In the US this "illness" has been known for quite a while. Eventually, it has also entered the Danes' conciousness: "compulsive shopping", or "shopaloholism". We can undoubtedly blame Big Pharma for the fact that this "disorder" not yet has been acknowledged as an actual "illness". What are you waiting for? Get a move on and develop a drug against this horrendous "illness"! So that it will become accepted as a valid diagnosis in the ICD, chapter V. It is simply a scandal, that people who loyally followed the advertising industry's calls for consumption, people who've become so exemplary consumers of all sorts of everyday as well as luxury goods that they themselves don't even think it's fun anymore, are doomed to completely do without the joy of consuming, just because you can't deliver the goods!

Provisionally, I recommend that psychiatry provides a temporarily solution for these poor individuals. Get the diagnosis approved! The poor shopaloholics have the right to be enabled to consume at least a diagnosis. Be sure, the pills will be put on the marked, sooner or later.

Until then, you might consider to learn from the experience with alcoholics and regard shopaloholism as one aspect of another underlying "mental illness" such as "anxiety" or "depression", and, voilà!, you got an approved, legitimate "illness" AND the pills to "treat" it!

Out of the frying pan into the fire - or: Out of one abuse into another

They are in ecstasies on Funen (an island, one of the three major geographic parts of Denmark): 7 out of 10 alcoholics stop drinking when treated by the Alkoholbehandlingscenter Fyn. For, among other things, this advanced treatment center sends alcoholics to a psychiatrist. As we all know, many addicts are "mentally ill", so their addiction can and has to be viewed as self-medication.

So, the alcoholics are sent to a psychiatrist who then, of course, will find one or another diagnosis to label the person with. Preferably "anxiety" or "depression". Well, and after the person is diagnosed, "treatment" in the shape of psych drugs needs to get started. The sooner the better. The consumption of these pills, of course, is not termed "abuse" but "treatment", even if their effect by and large is just the same as the effect of alcohol: They influence an individuals state of mind by creating an imbalance in brain chemistry, and thus they see to that the individual is no longer capable of sensing himself and his emotional reactions as he'd be in an uninfluenced condition.

The pills are called "medicine" even though most psych drugs, especially benzodiazepines, are far more addictive than recreational drugs like cannabis, heroin, cocaine and, well, alcohol, and often cause severe withdrawal symptoms, as soon as you, against psychiatry's urgent request to stay on them for the rest of your life, try to quit them. Heroin, yah. Indeed, it is easier to quit heroin than to quit most psych drugs.

The pills are called "medicine" even though all psych drugs, just like synthetic processed recreational drugs like Ecstasy, cause brain shrinkage and cell death on a long-term basis, and to, at least, the same if not a greater extent than alcohol e.g. But this is of course the intended effect, as it is with all psychiatric "treatment".

The advantage of psychiatrically prescribed pill-abuse to self-determined, private alcohol-abuse is that the psychiatrically prescribed version of abuse through the public institution psychiatry provides total control of the individual's abuse, and thereby of the individual himself, to society. Something which can't be said of a private alcohol or drug abuse.

The advantage for the abusing individual is that the coveted, self-anaesthetizing effect doesn't cost the individual half of the money an alcohol- or drug-abuse would cost him, if achieved with the help of prescribed pills. Health insurance pays, up to nearly the whole price, depending on the individual's private economy.

Out of private into state sponsored (and controlled) abuse. Truly a great success! As they call it on Funen.

25 GOOD REASONS WHY PSYCHIATRY MUST BE ABOLISHED

Just as my Danish blog, I decided to start this one with Don Weitz' "25 Good Reasons why Psychiatry Must Be Abolished". Some people have a problem with Don Weitz' directness. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with calling a spade for a spade as long as you, convincingly, can argue for it. Which is exactly what Don Weitz is able to do. Unquestionably, Don is one of my greatest heroes.

25 GOOD REASONS WHY PSYCHIATRY MUST BE ABOLISHED
by Don Weitz

1. Because psychiatrists frequently cause harm, permanent disabilities, death - death of the body-mind-spirit.
2. Because psychiatrists frequently violate the Hippocratic Oath which orders all physicians "First Do No Harm."
3. Because psychiatrists patronize and disempower people, especially their patients.
4. Because psychiatry is not a medical science.
5. Because psychiatry is quackery, a pseudo-science which lacks independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for "schizophrenia" and all other types of alleged "mental illness" or "mental disorder".
6. Because psychiatrists can not accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behaviour, yet make such claims as "expert witnesses", and with the media promote the "dangerous mental patient" myth/stereotype.
7. Because psychiatrists have caused a worldwide epidemic of brain damage by promoting and prescribing brain-disabling treatments such as the neuroleptics, antidepressants, electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroshock), and psychosurgery (lobotomy).
8. Because psychiatrists manufacture hundreds of "mental disorders" classified in its bible called "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (a modern witch-hunting manual); such "mental disorders" and "symptoms" are in fact negative, class-and-culturally-biased moral judgments for dissident ways of coping with personal problems and alternative ways of perceiving, interpreting or being in the world.
9. Because psychiatrists, blinded by their medical model bias, fraudulently pathologize and label people's serious life or existential crises as "symptoms" of "mental illness" or "mental disorder" such as "schizophrenia","bipolar affective disorder", and "personality disorder".
10. Because psychiatrists compound this fraud by falsely claiming, without scientific proof, that these "mental disorders" are caused by a "biochemical imbalance" in the brain, genetic factors or "genetic predispositions", despite the fact that there are no genetic factors in "mental illness".
11. Because psychiatrists frequently misinform their patients, families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling procedures such as the neurotoxins (e.g.,"antipsychotic medication" and "antidepressasnts"), electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroconvulsive therapy/"ECT"), psychosurgery (lobotomy) and other behaviour modification-mind control procedures are "safe, effective and lifesaving".  The exact opposite is tragically true.
12. Because psychiatrists routinely deceive or lie to patients, prisoners, their families, and the public.
13. Because psychiatrists routinely and willfully violate the medical-ethical principle of "informed consent" by misinforming or not informing their patients about the numerous toxic, disabling and frequently permanent effects of the neuroleptics such as memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, tardive psychosis, parkinsonism, dementia (all signs of brain damage), and death.
14. Because psychiatrists routinely threaten, intimidate or coerce many patients - particularly women, children, the elderly, and prisoners - into consenting to health-threatening/brain-damaging "treatment" such as the antidepressants, neuroleptics, electroconvulsive brainwashing, and hi-risk experiments.
15. Because psychiatrists frequently fail to fully inform psychiatric inmates and prisoners about existing safe and humane, non-medical alternatives in the community such as survivor-controlled crisis centres, drop-ins, self-help or advocacy groups, diet, massage, wholistic medicine, affordable supportive housing, and jobs.
16. Because psychiatrists are sexist in frequently stereotyping women in crisis as "hysterical" or "over-emotional", blaming women whenever they voice real complaints and assertively express their feelings and emotions, prescribing massive doses of tranquilizers and antidrepressants to disproportionately large numbers of women, and in sexually assaulting women in their offices and institutions.
17. Because psychiatrists, particularly white male psychiatrists, are homophobic - the American Psychiatric Association (APA) once labelled homosexuality as a "mental illness" or "mental disorder" - and have used forced electroshock on lesbians, trying to coerce them into adopting a heterosexual life style.
18. Because psychiatrists are ageist in prescribing tranquilizers, antidepressants ("medication") and electroconvulsive brainwashing for disproportionately large numbers of elderly people - a form of elder abuse.
19. Because psychiatrists are racist in disproportionately incarcerating and drugging people of African descent, aboringal people, other people of colour and labelling them "psychotic" or "schizophrenic".
20. Because psychiatrists routinely violate people's civil rights, human rights and constitutional rights such as imprisoning innocent people without court trial or public hearing ("involuntary commitment"), and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishments or tortures such as forced drugging, electroconvulsive brainwashing, psychosurgery, solitary confinement, "chemical restraints", and 4-point or 5-point restraints.
21. Because psychiatrists masterminded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people including disabled children, the elderly and psychiatric patients during The Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and "selected" hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners for death ("T-4 euthanasia" program) - historical facts still missing in psychiatric textbooks and histories.
22. Because psychiatrists have willingly participated in and administered mind-control experiments in the United States and Canada since the early 1950s - its chief targets have been poor patients, women, dissidents and prisoners.
23. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is based on the 3 Fs: Fear, Fraud,and Force.
24. Because psychiatry is a form of social control or punishment - not treatment.
25. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is fascist - a direct threat to democracy, human rights and life.
A note from the author:This statement is a slightly revised version of the original written in Spring 1998.  Feel free to add and publish your own reasons.  I am a psychiatric survivor and antipsychiatry activist who has been involved in the psychiatric survivor liberation movment for 24 years. I am also co-editor of "Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada" (1988), host-producer of the antipsychiatry program "Shrinkrap" on CKLN radio (88.1 FM) in Toronto, member of People Against Coercive Treatment (P.A.C.T.), and member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).]
PLEASE SNOWBALL, COPY AND PUBLISH THIS STATEMENT INCLUDING THE NOTE. NO COPYRIGHT OR PERMISSION REQUIRED.
The author, Don Weitz can be reached at his e-mail address: dweitz@interlog.com