http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Breggin
A large portion of Breggin's work concentrates on the iatrogenic effects (negative side effects) of psychiatric medications, arguing that the harmful side effects typically outweigh any benefit. Breggin also argues that psychosocial interventions are almost always superior in treating mental illness. He has argued against psychoactive drugs, electroshock (ECT), psychosurgery, coercive involuntary treatment, and biological theories of psychiatry.
According to Breggin, the pharmaceutical industry propagates disinformation which is accepted by unsuspecting doctors, saying "the psychiatrist accepts the bad science that establishes the existence of all these mental diseases in the first place. From there it’s just a walk down the street to all the drugs as remedies". He points out problems with conflicts-of-interest (such as the financial relationships between drug companies, researchers, and the American Psychiatric Association). Breggin states psychiatric drugs, "...are all, every class of them, highly dangerous". He asserts: "If neuroleptics were used to treat anyone other than mental patients, they would have been banned a long time ago. If their use wasn't supported by powerful interest groups, such as the pharmaceutical industry and organized psychiatry, they would be rarely used at all. Meanwhile, the neuroleptics have produced the worst epidemic of neurological disease in history. At the least, their use should be severely curtailed."[26]
In his book, Reclaiming Our Children, he calls for the ethical treatment of children. Breggin argues that the mistreatment of children is a national (U.S.) tragedy, including psychiatric diagnoses and prescription of drugs for children whose needs were not otherwise met. He especially objects to prescribing psychiatric medications to children, arguing that it distracts from their real needs in the family and schools, and is potentially harmful to their developing brains and nervous systems.[27]
[edit]Criticism of ADHD and Ritalin
The New York Times has labeled Breggin as the nation's best-known Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) critic. As early as 1991 he sardonically coined the acronym DADD, stating, "...most so-called ADHD children are not receiving sufficient attention from their fathers who are separated from the family, too preoccupied with work and other things, or otherwise impaired in their ability to parent. In many cases the appropriate diagnosis is Dad Attention Deficit Disorder (DADD)". Breggin has written two books specifically on the topic entitled, Talking Back to Ritalin and The Ritalin Factbook. In these books he has made controversial claims, such as "Ritalin 'works' by producing malfunctions in the brain rather than by improving brain function. This is the only way it works".[28]
Together with Fred Baughman, Breggin testified about ADHD to the United States Congress. In Congress Breggin claimed "that there were no scientific studies validating ADHD", that children diagnosed with ADHD needed "discipline and better instruction" rather than psychiatric drugs, and that therapeutic stimulants "are the most addictive drugs known in medicine today."[29] Baughman and Breggin were also the major critics in a PBS Frontline TV series about ADHD entitled 'Medicating Kids'.[30] In an interview during this time period he referred to ADHD as a fiction. This increased critical attention to Ritalin resulted in the Ritalin class action lawsuits against Novartis, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and CHADD in which the plaintiffs sued for fraud. Specifically, they charged that the defendants had conspired to invent and promote the disorder ADHD to create a highly profitable market for the drug Ritalin. All five lawsuits were dismissed or withdrawn before they went to trial.
Breggin has been very critical of psychologist Russell Barkley's work on ADHD claiming that he exaggerates the benefits of stimulants and minimizes their hazards.[31]
[edit]Criticism of SSRI antidepressants
In the early 1990s, Breggin suggested there were problems with the methodology in the research of SSRI antidepressants. As early as 1991 in Talking Back to Prozac, he warned that Prozac was causing violence, suicide and mania. Breggin elaborated on this theme in many subsequent books and articles about newer antidepressants. In 2005, the FDA began requiring black box warnings on SSRIs, warning of an association between SSRI use and suicidal behavior in children,[32] and later extended it to young adults. New general warnings were added along with the aforementioned black box warnings.[citation needed] These warnings confirmed many of the adverse effects first emphasized by Breggin in Toxic Psychiatry with specific mentions by the FDA of drug-induced "hostility," "irritability," and "mania".[citation needed][improper synthesis?] In 2006, the FDA expanded the warnings to include adults taking Paxil, which is associated with a higher risk of suicidal behavior as compared to a placebo.[33]
In contrast to Breggin's Talking Back to Prozac, which was largely ignored by the press on its release,[citation needed] Prozac Backlash, a critique of SSRIs by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Glenmullen was widely praised by high-profile media sources.[34] Breggin complained about this in a subsequent book, The Antidepressant Fact Book:
"Glenmullen's (2000) scientific analysis of how SSRIs can cause suicide, violence, and other behavioral aberrations is essentially the same as my earlier detailed analyses... my hundreds of media appearances, and my testimony in court cases that Glenmullen also had available. Glenmullen also interviewed my wife and coauthor Ginger Breggin for his book and was sent research documents from our files that he was otherwise unable to obtain. Disappointingly, in his book, Glenmullen literally expurgates our contribution, never mentioning my origination of the ideas he was espousing and never acknowledging my efforts.... Nonetheless, his book provides a service...."[35]
Glenmullen has never countered Breggin's assertion and they both presented at the annual conference (in Queens, NY in 2004) of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. Breggin continues to voice his respect for Glenmullen's work.[citation needed][relevant? – discuss]
In 1994, Breggin said that Eli Lilly and Company (maker of the antidepressant Prozac) attempted to discredit him and his book Talking Back to Prozac by linking him to the Church of Scientology and labeling his views as "Neo-Scientology."[36] Breggin denied any connection to Scientology.[36] Breggin later clarified that he was still in agreement with some of CCHR's anti-psychiatric views, supporting Tom Cruise's public stance against psychiatry.[37]
[edit]Criticism of ECT
Breggin has written several books and scientific articles critical of electroconvulsive therapy. He claims that "...the damage produces delirium so severe that patients can't fully experience depression or other higher mental functions during the several weeks after electroshock". He was one of nineteen speakers at the 1985 NIH Consensus Development Conference on ECT. The Consensus panel (of which Breggin was not a member) found that ECT could be a useful therapy in some carefully defined cases.[38]
[edit]Expert witness
In South Carolina, Breggin testified on behalf of Peggy S. Salters, a psychiatric nurse who sued her doctors and Palmetto Baptist Hospital after ECT left her incapacitated in 2000. A jury found in favor of her and awarded her $635,177 in actual damages.[39]
Breggin testified as an expert witness in the Wesbecker case (Fentress et al., 1994), a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, makers of Prozac. Ultimately, the jury found for Eli Lilly. Breggin later claimed that this was because the plaintiffs and defendants had secretly settled behind closed doors.[40]
Breggin alleges that pharmaceutical manufacturers, particularly Eli Lilly, have committed ad hominem attacks upon him in the form of linking him to Scientology campaigns against psychiatric drugs. Breggin acknowledges that he did work with Scientology starting in 1972, but states that by 1974 he "found [himself] opposed to Scientology's values, agenda, and tactics", and in consequence "stopped all cooperative efforts in 1974 and publicly declared [his] criticism of the group in a letter published in Reason."[41] Breggin has also stated that he has a personal reason to dislike Scientology: His wife, Ginger, was once a Scientologist,[41][42] and when they first met she was urged by other Scientologists to have no association with him because he was not also.
In 2002, Breggin was hired as an expert witness by a survivor of the Columbine High School massacre in a case against the makers of an anti-depressant drug. In his report, Breggin failed to mention the Columbine incident or one of the killers, instead focusing on the medication taken by the other, "...Eric Harris was suffering from a substance induced (Luvox-induced) mood disorder with depressive and manic features that had reached a psychotic level of violence and suicide. Absent persistent exposure to Luvox, Eric Harris probably would not have committed violence and suicide."[47] However, according to The Denver Post, the judge of the case "...was visibly angry that the experts failed to view evidence prior to their depositions" even though they had months to do so. The evidence would have included hundreds of documents including a significant amount of video and audio tape that the killers had recorded. The judge stated, "...lawyers will be free to attack them on the basis of the evidence they haven't seen and haven't factored into their opinions."[48] The lawsuit was eventually dropped with the stipulation that the makers of Luvox donate $10,000 to the American Cancer Society.[47]
In 2005, the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas disqualified the testimony of Breggin because it did not meet the scientific rigor established by the Frye standard. The judge stated "...Breggin spends 14 pages critiquing the treatment provided not because it ran counter to the acceptable standards of care, but because it ran counter to Breggin's personal ideas and ideologies of what the standards ought to be.”[49]
[edit]Criticism of Breggin
Due to his outspoken criticisms of many aspects of psychiatry, Breggin has become a controversial figure who is regularly at odds with the mental health establishment.[50] He uses terms like "fraud" to describe the biological and genetic theories of mental disorders. He is critical of the medications used to treat these disorders, and the political process that determines the labels used for diagnosing mental disorders. He has also consistently warned about conflict of interest problems.[42] These claims often challenge accepted standards of care within the mental health field and have led to highly critical rebuttals.[51] In 1994, the president of the American Psychiatric Association called Breggin a "flat-earther" (suggesting he embraced outdated theories); the head of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) called Breggin "ignorant"; and the former head of the National Institute of Mental Health called him an "outlaw."[5]
Breggin points out that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and NAMI first began criticizing him after he conducted a successful campaign to stop the return of lobotomy and psychosurgery in the early 1970s. Among other actions, Breggin wrote scientific critiques of psychosurgery, participated in court cases against psychosurgery, and worked with the U.S. Congress to form the psychosurgery commission that declared the treatment experimental and unfit for routine clinical use. Both the APA and NAMI supported lobotomy as a legitimate medical treatment. Their criticism of Breggin escalated after he disclosed in Toxic Psychiatry that both organizations had substantial financial support from the pharmaceutical industry. Before he called Breggin an "outlaw", Fredrick Goodwin lost his job as a result of a national campaign conducted by Breggin and his wife Ginger against Goodwin's "violence initiative," a large federal program aimed at unearthing genetic and biological defects in "inner city" children that supposedly made them violent. In their book, The War Against Children of Color, the Breggins called Goodwin's programs "racist" and their campaign caused Goodwin to leave the federal government. Funding for the "violence initiative" was stopped.[52]
NOTE: If you have never read the history of psychiatry, especially lobotomies, you need to read this. What was done in the name of "mental health," was nothing more than barbaric torture. Rose Marie "Rosemary" Kennedy (September 13, 1918 – January 7, 2005) was the third child and first daughter of Rose Elizabeth Kennedy née Fitzgerald and Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr., born little more than a year after her brother, future U.S. President John F. Kennedy. She underwent a prefrontal lobotomy at age 23, which left her permanently incapacitated. Why was this done to her? Because in her teenage years she became rebellious.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Why Psychiatry Should be Abolished as a Medical Speciality
http://www.antipsychiatry.org/abolish.htm
The disadvantage to the whole of the medical profession of recognizing psychiatry as a legitimate medical specialty occurred to me when I consulted a dermatologist for diagnosis of a mole I thought looked suspiciously like a malignant melanoma. The dermatologist told me my mole did indeed look suspicious and should be removed, and he told me almost no risk was involved.
This occurred during a time I was doing research on electroshock, which I have summarized in a pamphlet titled "Psychiatry's Electroconvulsive Shock Treatment - A Crime Against Humanity".
I found overwhelming evidence that psychiatry's electric shock treatment causes brain damage, memory loss, and diminished intelligence and doesn't reduce unhappiness or so-called depression as is claimed. About the same time I did some reading about psychiatric drugs that reinforced my impression that most if not all are ineffective for their intended purposes, and I learned many of the most widely used psychiatric drugs are neurologically and psychologically harmful, causing permanent brain damage if used at supposedly therapeutic levels long enough, as they often are not only with the approval but the insistence of psychiatrists. I have explained my reasons for these conclusions in another pamphlet titled "Psychiatric Drugs - Cure or Quackery?"
Part of me tended to assume the dermatologist was an expert, be trusting, and let him do the minor skin surgery right then and there as he suggested. But then, an imaginary scene flashed through my mind: A person walks into the office of another type of recognized, board-certified medical specialist: a psychiatrist. The patient tells the psychiatrist he has been feeling depressed.
The psychiatrist, who specializes in giving outpatient electroshock, responds saying: "No problem. We can take care of that. We'll have you out of here within an hour or so feeling much better. Just lie down on this electroshock table while I use this head strap and some electrode jelly to attach these electrodes to your head..." In fact, there is no reason such a scene couldn't actually take place in a psychiatrist's office today. Some psychiatrists do give electroshock in their offices on an outpatient basis. Realizing that physicians in the other, the bona-fide, medical and surgical specialties accept biological psychiatry and all the quackery it represents as legitimate made (and makes) me wonder if physicians in the other specialties are undeserving of trust also.
I left the dermatologist's office without having the mole removed, although I returned and had him remove it later after I'd gotten opinions from other physicians and had done some reading on the subject. Physicians in the other specialties accepting biological psychiatry as legitimate calls into question the reasonableness and rationality not only of psychiatrists but of all physicians.
The disadvantage to the whole of the medical profession of recognizing psychiatry as a legitimate medical specialty occurred to me when I consulted a dermatologist for diagnosis of a mole I thought looked suspiciously like a malignant melanoma. The dermatologist told me my mole did indeed look suspicious and should be removed, and he told me almost no risk was involved.
This occurred during a time I was doing research on electroshock, which I have summarized in a pamphlet titled "Psychiatry's Electroconvulsive Shock Treatment - A Crime Against Humanity".
I found overwhelming evidence that psychiatry's electric shock treatment causes brain damage, memory loss, and diminished intelligence and doesn't reduce unhappiness or so-called depression as is claimed. About the same time I did some reading about psychiatric drugs that reinforced my impression that most if not all are ineffective for their intended purposes, and I learned many of the most widely used psychiatric drugs are neurologically and psychologically harmful, causing permanent brain damage if used at supposedly therapeutic levels long enough, as they often are not only with the approval but the insistence of psychiatrists. I have explained my reasons for these conclusions in another pamphlet titled "Psychiatric Drugs - Cure or Quackery?"
Part of me tended to assume the dermatologist was an expert, be trusting, and let him do the minor skin surgery right then and there as he suggested. But then, an imaginary scene flashed through my mind: A person walks into the office of another type of recognized, board-certified medical specialist: a psychiatrist. The patient tells the psychiatrist he has been feeling depressed.
The psychiatrist, who specializes in giving outpatient electroshock, responds saying: "No problem. We can take care of that. We'll have you out of here within an hour or so feeling much better. Just lie down on this electroshock table while I use this head strap and some electrode jelly to attach these electrodes to your head..." In fact, there is no reason such a scene couldn't actually take place in a psychiatrist's office today. Some psychiatrists do give electroshock in their offices on an outpatient basis. Realizing that physicians in the other, the bona-fide, medical and surgical specialties accept biological psychiatry and all the quackery it represents as legitimate made (and makes) me wonder if physicians in the other specialties are undeserving of trust also.
I left the dermatologist's office without having the mole removed, although I returned and had him remove it later after I'd gotten opinions from other physicians and had done some reading on the subject. Physicians in the other specialties accepting biological psychiatry as legitimate calls into question the reasonableness and rationality not only of psychiatrists but of all physicians.
a Violation of Substantive Due Process?
Is Involuntary Commitment for "Mental Illness"
by Lawrence Stevens, J.D.
According to Lockhart, Kamisar & Choper's textbook Constitutional Law, substantive due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is "a limitation of the substance of legislative action by the state and federal governments" (West Pub. Co., 1970, p. 454, emphasis added). A majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1887 written by Justice Harlan said: "Under our system that power is lodged with the legislative branch of the government. It belongs to that department to exert what are known as the police powers of the state, and to determine, primarily, what measures are appropriate or needful for the protection of the public morals, the public health, or the public safety. ... [But] It does not at all follow that every statute enacted ostensibly for the promotion of these ends is to be accepted as a legitimate exertion of the police powers of the state. There are, of necessity, limits beyond which legislation cannot rightfully go. While every possible presumption is to be indulged in favor of a statute, the courts must obey the constitution rather than the law-making department of government, and must, upon their own responsibility, determine whether, in any particular case, these limits have been passed. ... The courts...are under a solemn duty, to look at the substance of things, whenever they enter upon the inquiry whether the legislature has transcended the limits of its authority. If therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law [the constitution], it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and thereby to give effect to the constitution" (Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 at 661).
In his book The Myth of Mental Illness, psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz, M.D., says "It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illnesses. This is a worthless and misleading definition. Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social, and ethical problems in living" (Dell Pub. Co., 1961, p. 296). According to the cover article in the July 6, 1992 Time magazine, schizophrenia is the "most devilish of mental illnesses" (p. 53). But in his book Against Therapy, published in 1988, Jeffrey Masson, Ph.D., a psychoanalyst, says "There is a heightened awareness of the dangers inherent in labeling somebody with a disease category like schizophrenia, and many people are beginning to realize that there is no such entity" (Atheneum/Macmillan Pub. Co., 1988, p. 2). If there is no such entity as mental illness, can laws which authorize incarcerating people not because they have performed unlawful acts but merely because they have "mental illness" be constitutional?
Suppose that instead of believing in mental illness, people today believed in evil spirit possession and explained weird or unacceptable behavior as the product of evil spirits. Suppose some or all of the states then enacted laws authorizing the incarceration of people who are possessed by evil spirits (instead of people who supposedly are possessed by mental illnesses). Would this be a proper and constitutional exercise of legislative power? Evil spirit possession has no objective reality and exists only in the imaginations of people who believe in evil spirits. Mental illness also has no objective reality and exists only in the imaginations of people who believe in mental illness. The behavior that gets people labeled mentally ill (or possessed by evil spirits) isn't imaginary; but mental illness or evil spirit possession as an explanation of why they behave as they do is.
Today in many states of the United States there are laws which permit the involuntary commitment (incarceration) of people for mental illness alone without requiring a showing the person has ever committed an illegal act. If we want to incarcerate people because they seem peculiar to us or because they say things that are not true or that don't make sense, or because we think that despite a past that includes no unlawful activity they might do something bad in the future, then that's what the laws should say - although doing so might raise constitutional questions. Using "mental illness" as the justification for incarceration is as illogical and unjustified as explaining behavior we dislike and don't understand as the product of evil spirit possession and having commitment laws for people who are possessed by evil spirits.
Since laws in some states use "mental illness" as the sole justification for incarcerating people who may have never done anything illegal (or sometimes as one required element coupled with alleged need for hospitalization or predicted future conduct - "dangerousness"), and since there is no such thing as mental illness, are not these statutes violations of substantive due process?
There are a few groups in particular who tend to be the target of America's involuntary psychiatric commitment laws. Included in these are the young, the old, and the homeless. Sometimes old people are placed in mental hospitals just to get them out of the way. In most cases, nursing homes would be more appropriate, but often nursing homes are not preferred by the family because they are more costly and must be paid for by the family. Involuntary psychiatric commitment laws are used to get homeless people off the streets and sidewalks. Adolescents are committed by parents as a way of shifting the balance of power towards parents in intra-family conflicts, parents usually being the ones who have the money to hire psychiatrists to incarcerate their family member adversaries and define their opposing views and disliked behaviors as illnesses.
In many states parents have statutory power to commit their children who are under age 18 without judicial proceedings, in large part because of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979). This Supreme Court decision in 1979 is probably largely responsible for the fact that in the years immediately following it "adolescent admission rates to psychiatric units of private hospitals have jumped dramatically, increasing four-fold between 1980 and 1984" (Lois A. Weithorn, Ph.D., "Mental Hospitalization of Troublesome Youth: An Analysis of Skyrocketing Admission Rates", 40 Stanford Law Review 773). According to another report, "private psychiatric hospital admissions for teenagers are the fastest-growing segment of the hospital industry. ... Between 1980 and 1987 the number of people between 10 and 19 discharged from psychiatric units increased 43 percent, from 126,000 to 180,000. One reason is the aggressive advertising used by for-profit psychiatric facilities" (Christina Kelly, "She's Not Crazy But 14-year-old Sara got committed anyway", Sassy magazine, March 1990, p. 44). According to another report, between 1971 and 1991 "the number of teenagers hospitalized for psychiatric care has increased from 16,000 to 263,000" (Time magazine, August 26, 1991, p. 12). According to University of Michigan Professor Ira Schwartz, "psychiatric hospitals are turning into jails for kids" (Sassy magazine, March 1990, p. 44).
Of course, mental "hospitals" are jails for all persons detained there against their will. Furthermore, they are places where people may be incarcerated with no showing of prior illegal (or otherwise harmful) conduct - only "mental illness".
Yet statutes authorizing commitment for mental illness do not define mental illness but let supposed professionals (psychiatrists) define it any way they see fit. If subjected to proper constitutional scrutiny, such laws would be void for vagueness, as would a statute allowing imprisonment for something called "crime" but which failed to define crime - leaving potential "criminals" in doubt about whether marijuana or alcohol use is legal, whether driving 65 mph on the highway is legal, or whether the age of consent for what in the presence of a statute would be called statutory rape is 16 or 18 or some other age - allowing each prosecuting attorney to determine after the fact whether a particular act is definable as "crime", much as psychiatrists often determine after the fact whether a particular act or expression of ideas constitutes "mental illness".
Have we forgotten that America is supposed to be a nation where all law-abiding persons are guaranteed liberty? How can a person know what behavior is prohibited if the laws are not clearly written? People like myself who believe strongly in individual freedom argue that violation of the rights of others should be the only acts prohibited by law; others will defend victimless crime laws. In either case, violation of law should be the only basis for depriving a person of his or her liberty over his or her protest.
One 14 year old girl who had been involuntarily committed to a private psychiatric hospital after an argument with her parents said "My parents would always threaten me with the hospital" (Sassy magazine, March 1990, p. 82). But it isn't only adolescents and old people who are threatened with psychiatric incarceration in their conflicts with family members. In her autobiography, Will There Really Be a Morning?, actress Frances Farmer tells how even when she was 30 years old her mother in seemingly every dispute would threaten her with commitment to a mental hospital near her home in Seattle, Washington:
"'I'm just about at the end of my rope with you,' she warned. 'I've just about had all I can take. I've put up with you for years and what do I get for it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! But you're my daughter and you're going to do exactly as I say, or back [to the mental hospital] you go. Do You understand me? Back you go! And this time for keeps! ... You're a disgusting brat!' she spat contemptuously.
"'I'm a thirty-year-old woman,' I answered bitterly. 'And I know damn good and well that you'll send me back the first chance you get.' ... I could not cope with another fight. 'I'm going back to bed,' I said flatly. 'This whole thing is absurd.'
"I started up the stairs, but her reply stopped me short. 'I'm sending you back, Frances.' I was chilled by her sudden calm. 'And this time,' she went on, `I'll see you that you stay.' ...
"It was morning, and I heard my mother rise. It startled me when she knocked softly at my door.
"'Frances,' she said calmly. `I'd like you to get dressed and come down stairs. There are some people here who want to meet you.' ...
"My mother was in the living room with two uniformed men...and I knew! ... They straddled me, and I felt the rough canvas of the straitjacket wrap around me and buckle into place" (Dell Publishing Co., 1972, pp. 15-33).
In America and other nations that claim to value freedom and defend human rights, legislators writing "mental health" laws and those making personal or judicial decisions about what to do with a so-called mentally ill person or persons should keep in mind that America's guarantees of personal freedom are the basis for American patriotism.
Listen, for example, to the words of a patriotic song, "God Bless the USA": "If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life, and I had to start again with just my children and my wife, I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today. 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away! And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. And I'll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. 'Cause there is no doubt I love this Land. God bless the USA!" (emphasis added).
Similarly, a Russian immigrant to the United States said this in an article published in Reader's Digest in 1991: "I looked up at the [United States] flag, fluttering in the breeze. ... Suddenly, I understood ... America isn't about school sweaters or Johnny Mathis records or shiny new cars. It's about freedom and opportunity - not just for the privileged or the native-born - but for everyone" (Constantin Galskoy, "How I Became an American", Reader's Digest, August 1991, p. 76). The USA's official national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner" refers to America as "the land of the free". The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America ends with the words "...with liberty and justice for all." One of America's most popular and prominent symbols is the Statue of Liberty. Another statue, this one sitting atop the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., is called the Statue of Freedom.
In 1987 in a law journal article discussing constitutional due process, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., said "every enactment of every state...may be challenged at the Bar of the Court on the ground that such action, such legislation, is a deprivation of liberty without due process of law...those ideals of human dignity - liberty and justice for all individuals - will continue to inspire and guide us because they are entrenched in our Constitution" (Case & Comment, September-October 1987, p. 21). Imagine how empty and meaningless these patriotic words in these articles, patriotic songs, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, the names of these national monuments, and the U.S. Constitution sound to a law-abiding person who has been imprisoned (involuntarily "hospitalized") for so-called mental illness in the USA merely because others dislike his or her thoughts, ideas, emotions, lifestyle, personality, or lawful (even if irritating) behavior, or because he or she gets along poorly with others in his or her family.
A reason involuntary psychiatric commitment of law-abiding people is a violation of constitutionally guaranteed substantive due process is it is contrary to the most important values America and other democracies claim to stand for. This is just as true for those under the arbitrarily defined age of majority as it is for adults. In his inaugural address on January 20, 1989, President George Bush said "Great nations, like great men, must keep their word. When America says something, America means it - whether a treaty, or an agreement, or a vow made on marble steps." One of the consequences of belief in the myth of mental illness is America's failure to live up to one of its most fundamental promises: liberty for all law-abiding Americans.
THE AUTHOR, Lawrence Stevens, is a lawyer whose practice has included representing psychiatric "patients". His pamphlets are not copyrighted. You are invited to make copies for distribution to those who you think will benefit.
by Lawrence Stevens, J.D.
According to Lockhart, Kamisar & Choper's textbook Constitutional Law, substantive due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is "a limitation of the substance of legislative action by the state and federal governments" (West Pub. Co., 1970, p. 454, emphasis added). A majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1887 written by Justice Harlan said: "Under our system that power is lodged with the legislative branch of the government. It belongs to that department to exert what are known as the police powers of the state, and to determine, primarily, what measures are appropriate or needful for the protection of the public morals, the public health, or the public safety. ... [But] It does not at all follow that every statute enacted ostensibly for the promotion of these ends is to be accepted as a legitimate exertion of the police powers of the state. There are, of necessity, limits beyond which legislation cannot rightfully go. While every possible presumption is to be indulged in favor of a statute, the courts must obey the constitution rather than the law-making department of government, and must, upon their own responsibility, determine whether, in any particular case, these limits have been passed. ... The courts...are under a solemn duty, to look at the substance of things, whenever they enter upon the inquiry whether the legislature has transcended the limits of its authority. If therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law [the constitution], it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and thereby to give effect to the constitution" (Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 at 661).
In his book The Myth of Mental Illness, psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz, M.D., says "It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illnesses. This is a worthless and misleading definition. Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social, and ethical problems in living" (Dell Pub. Co., 1961, p. 296). According to the cover article in the July 6, 1992 Time magazine, schizophrenia is the "most devilish of mental illnesses" (p. 53). But in his book Against Therapy, published in 1988, Jeffrey Masson, Ph.D., a psychoanalyst, says "There is a heightened awareness of the dangers inherent in labeling somebody with a disease category like schizophrenia, and many people are beginning to realize that there is no such entity" (Atheneum/Macmillan Pub. Co., 1988, p. 2). If there is no such entity as mental illness, can laws which authorize incarcerating people not because they have performed unlawful acts but merely because they have "mental illness" be constitutional?
Suppose that instead of believing in mental illness, people today believed in evil spirit possession and explained weird or unacceptable behavior as the product of evil spirits. Suppose some or all of the states then enacted laws authorizing the incarceration of people who are possessed by evil spirits (instead of people who supposedly are possessed by mental illnesses). Would this be a proper and constitutional exercise of legislative power? Evil spirit possession has no objective reality and exists only in the imaginations of people who believe in evil spirits. Mental illness also has no objective reality and exists only in the imaginations of people who believe in mental illness. The behavior that gets people labeled mentally ill (or possessed by evil spirits) isn't imaginary; but mental illness or evil spirit possession as an explanation of why they behave as they do is.
Today in many states of the United States there are laws which permit the involuntary commitment (incarceration) of people for mental illness alone without requiring a showing the person has ever committed an illegal act. If we want to incarcerate people because they seem peculiar to us or because they say things that are not true or that don't make sense, or because we think that despite a past that includes no unlawful activity they might do something bad in the future, then that's what the laws should say - although doing so might raise constitutional questions. Using "mental illness" as the justification for incarceration is as illogical and unjustified as explaining behavior we dislike and don't understand as the product of evil spirit possession and having commitment laws for people who are possessed by evil spirits.
Since laws in some states use "mental illness" as the sole justification for incarcerating people who may have never done anything illegal (or sometimes as one required element coupled with alleged need for hospitalization or predicted future conduct - "dangerousness"), and since there is no such thing as mental illness, are not these statutes violations of substantive due process?
There are a few groups in particular who tend to be the target of America's involuntary psychiatric commitment laws. Included in these are the young, the old, and the homeless. Sometimes old people are placed in mental hospitals just to get them out of the way. In most cases, nursing homes would be more appropriate, but often nursing homes are not preferred by the family because they are more costly and must be paid for by the family. Involuntary psychiatric commitment laws are used to get homeless people off the streets and sidewalks. Adolescents are committed by parents as a way of shifting the balance of power towards parents in intra-family conflicts, parents usually being the ones who have the money to hire psychiatrists to incarcerate their family member adversaries and define their opposing views and disliked behaviors as illnesses.
In many states parents have statutory power to commit their children who are under age 18 without judicial proceedings, in large part because of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979). This Supreme Court decision in 1979 is probably largely responsible for the fact that in the years immediately following it "adolescent admission rates to psychiatric units of private hospitals have jumped dramatically, increasing four-fold between 1980 and 1984" (Lois A. Weithorn, Ph.D., "Mental Hospitalization of Troublesome Youth: An Analysis of Skyrocketing Admission Rates", 40 Stanford Law Review 773). According to another report, "private psychiatric hospital admissions for teenagers are the fastest-growing segment of the hospital industry. ... Between 1980 and 1987 the number of people between 10 and 19 discharged from psychiatric units increased 43 percent, from 126,000 to 180,000. One reason is the aggressive advertising used by for-profit psychiatric facilities" (Christina Kelly, "She's Not Crazy But 14-year-old Sara got committed anyway", Sassy magazine, March 1990, p. 44). According to another report, between 1971 and 1991 "the number of teenagers hospitalized for psychiatric care has increased from 16,000 to 263,000" (Time magazine, August 26, 1991, p. 12). According to University of Michigan Professor Ira Schwartz, "psychiatric hospitals are turning into jails for kids" (Sassy magazine, March 1990, p. 44).
Of course, mental "hospitals" are jails for all persons detained there against their will. Furthermore, they are places where people may be incarcerated with no showing of prior illegal (or otherwise harmful) conduct - only "mental illness".
Yet statutes authorizing commitment for mental illness do not define mental illness but let supposed professionals (psychiatrists) define it any way they see fit. If subjected to proper constitutional scrutiny, such laws would be void for vagueness, as would a statute allowing imprisonment for something called "crime" but which failed to define crime - leaving potential "criminals" in doubt about whether marijuana or alcohol use is legal, whether driving 65 mph on the highway is legal, or whether the age of consent for what in the presence of a statute would be called statutory rape is 16 or 18 or some other age - allowing each prosecuting attorney to determine after the fact whether a particular act is definable as "crime", much as psychiatrists often determine after the fact whether a particular act or expression of ideas constitutes "mental illness".
Have we forgotten that America is supposed to be a nation where all law-abiding persons are guaranteed liberty? How can a person know what behavior is prohibited if the laws are not clearly written? People like myself who believe strongly in individual freedom argue that violation of the rights of others should be the only acts prohibited by law; others will defend victimless crime laws. In either case, violation of law should be the only basis for depriving a person of his or her liberty over his or her protest.
One 14 year old girl who had been involuntarily committed to a private psychiatric hospital after an argument with her parents said "My parents would always threaten me with the hospital" (Sassy magazine, March 1990, p. 82). But it isn't only adolescents and old people who are threatened with psychiatric incarceration in their conflicts with family members. In her autobiography, Will There Really Be a Morning?, actress Frances Farmer tells how even when she was 30 years old her mother in seemingly every dispute would threaten her with commitment to a mental hospital near her home in Seattle, Washington:
"'I'm just about at the end of my rope with you,' she warned. 'I've just about had all I can take. I've put up with you for years and what do I get for it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! But you're my daughter and you're going to do exactly as I say, or back [to the mental hospital] you go. Do You understand me? Back you go! And this time for keeps! ... You're a disgusting brat!' she spat contemptuously.
"'I'm a thirty-year-old woman,' I answered bitterly. 'And I know damn good and well that you'll send me back the first chance you get.' ... I could not cope with another fight. 'I'm going back to bed,' I said flatly. 'This whole thing is absurd.'
"I started up the stairs, but her reply stopped me short. 'I'm sending you back, Frances.' I was chilled by her sudden calm. 'And this time,' she went on, `I'll see you that you stay.' ...
"It was morning, and I heard my mother rise. It startled me when she knocked softly at my door.
"'Frances,' she said calmly. `I'd like you to get dressed and come down stairs. There are some people here who want to meet you.' ...
"My mother was in the living room with two uniformed men...and I knew! ... They straddled me, and I felt the rough canvas of the straitjacket wrap around me and buckle into place" (Dell Publishing Co., 1972, pp. 15-33).
In America and other nations that claim to value freedom and defend human rights, legislators writing "mental health" laws and those making personal or judicial decisions about what to do with a so-called mentally ill person or persons should keep in mind that America's guarantees of personal freedom are the basis for American patriotism.
Listen, for example, to the words of a patriotic song, "God Bless the USA": "If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life, and I had to start again with just my children and my wife, I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today. 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away! And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. And I'll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. 'Cause there is no doubt I love this Land. God bless the USA!" (emphasis added).
Similarly, a Russian immigrant to the United States said this in an article published in Reader's Digest in 1991: "I looked up at the [United States] flag, fluttering in the breeze. ... Suddenly, I understood ... America isn't about school sweaters or Johnny Mathis records or shiny new cars. It's about freedom and opportunity - not just for the privileged or the native-born - but for everyone" (Constantin Galskoy, "How I Became an American", Reader's Digest, August 1991, p. 76). The USA's official national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner" refers to America as "the land of the free". The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America ends with the words "...with liberty and justice for all." One of America's most popular and prominent symbols is the Statue of Liberty. Another statue, this one sitting atop the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., is called the Statue of Freedom.
In 1987 in a law journal article discussing constitutional due process, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., said "every enactment of every state...may be challenged at the Bar of the Court on the ground that such action, such legislation, is a deprivation of liberty without due process of law...those ideals of human dignity - liberty and justice for all individuals - will continue to inspire and guide us because they are entrenched in our Constitution" (Case & Comment, September-October 1987, p. 21). Imagine how empty and meaningless these patriotic words in these articles, patriotic songs, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, the names of these national monuments, and the U.S. Constitution sound to a law-abiding person who has been imprisoned (involuntarily "hospitalized") for so-called mental illness in the USA merely because others dislike his or her thoughts, ideas, emotions, lifestyle, personality, or lawful (even if irritating) behavior, or because he or she gets along poorly with others in his or her family.
A reason involuntary psychiatric commitment of law-abiding people is a violation of constitutionally guaranteed substantive due process is it is contrary to the most important values America and other democracies claim to stand for. This is just as true for those under the arbitrarily defined age of majority as it is for adults. In his inaugural address on January 20, 1989, President George Bush said "Great nations, like great men, must keep their word. When America says something, America means it - whether a treaty, or an agreement, or a vow made on marble steps." One of the consequences of belief in the myth of mental illness is America's failure to live up to one of its most fundamental promises: liberty for all law-abiding Americans.
THE AUTHOR, Lawrence Stevens, is a lawyer whose practice has included representing psychiatric "patients". His pamphlets are not copyrighted. You are invited to make copies for distribution to those who you think will benefit.
Is Mental Illness Real?
http://www.dovechristiancounseling.com/Does-Mental-Illness-Really-Exist-.html
But when it comes to "mental illness" they have done autopsies on the brains of societies most evil and horrendous killers and found NOTHING in their brains that would look abnormal from your brain. Their brains were NORMAL. So what was it that caused them to act so abnormal and evil? Pure and simple, it was SIN.
Jesus taught that the primary cause of sickness in the world was a force of evil loose in the world which was hostile to God and the divine way. He believed that people sometimes fell into the hands of this power, which then exerted a destructive influence in their lives, morally, psychologically, mentally and physically. You may call this force Satan, the devil, evil spirits, demons, autonomous complexes, or what you will. But it is NOT mental illness. There is no such thing, according to the Bible and to Jesus and to God.
The bottom line is the only protection against the evasion of this evil into the personalities of men and women is to be filled with God's Holy Spirit. Sickness and disease never come from God. They come from the devil. And without God's spirit living inside of you, the human being, on their own is helpless in keeping the devil out of their lives. We need Jesus' and God's help every single day to keep evil from us or from getting into us. The part that is under our control is our decision to ask for God's protection and help, or to choose to do it on our own, which is when we get into trouble.
In the Lord's prayer we say, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil." So evidently we can be tempted and evil is a reality that we need prayer for to be delivered from on a daily basis.
All diagnosis and treatment in psychiatry, especially biological psychiatry, presupposes the existence of something called mental illness, also known as mental disease or mental disorder. What is meant by disease, illness, or disorder? In a semantic sense disease means simply dis-ease, the opposite of ease. But by disease we don't mean anything that causes a lack of ease, since this definition would mean losing one's job or a war or economic recession or an argument with one's spouse qualifies as "disease". In his book Is Alcoholism Hereditary? psychiatrist Donald W. Goodwin, M.D., discusses the definition of disease and concludes "Diseases are something people see doctors for. ... Physicians are consulted about the problem of alcoholism and therefore alcoholism becomes, by this definition, a disease" (Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 61).
Accepting this definition, if for some reason people consulted physicians about how to get the economy out of recession or how to solve a disagreement with one's mate or a bordering nation, these problems would also qualify as disease. But clearly this is not what is meant by "disease". In his discussion of the definition of disease, Dr. Goodwin acknowledges there is "a narrow definition of disease that requires the presence of a biological abnormality" (ibid). In this pamphlet I will show that there are no biological abnormalities responsible for so-called mental illness, mental disease, or mental disorder, and that therefore mental illness has no biological existence. Perhaps more importantly, however, I will show that mental illness also has no non-biological existence - except in the sense that the term is used to indicate disapproval of some aspect of a person's mentality.
The idea of mental illness as a biological entity is easy to refute. In 1988, Seymour S. Kety, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience in Psychiatry, and Steven Matthysse, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychobiology, both of Harvard Medical School, said "an impartial reading of the recent literature does not provide the hoped-for clarification of the catecholamine hypotheses, nor does compelling evidence emerge for other biological differences that may characterize the brains of patients with mental disease" (The New Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, Harvard Univ. Press, p. 148). In 1992 a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment concluded: "Many questions remain about the biology of mental disorders. In fact, research has yet to identify specific biological causes for any of these disorders. ... Mental disorders are classified on the basis of symptoms because there are as yet no biological markers or laboratory tests for them" (The Biology of Mental Disorders, U.S. Gov't Printing Office, 1992, pp. 13-14, 46-47).
In his book The Essential Guide to Psychiatric Drugs, Columbia University psychiatry professor Jack M. Gorman, M.D., said "We really do not know what causes any psychiatric illness" (St. Martin's Press, 1990, p. 316). In his book The New Psychiatry another Columbia University psychiatry professor, Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., said "It is generally unrecognized that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists who treat disorders that, by definition, have no definitively known causes or cures. ... A diagnosis should indicate the cause of a mental disorder, but as discussed later, since the etiologies of most mental disorders are unknown, current diagnostic systems can't reflect them" (Mentor, 1985, pp. 19 & 36 - emphasis in original). In his book Toxic Psychiatry, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., said "there is no evidence that any of the common psychological or psychiatric disorders have a genetic or biological component" (St. Martin's Press, 1991, p. 291).
It is sometimes argued that psychiatric drugs "curing" (stopping) the thinking, emotions, or behavior that is called mental illness proves the existence of biological causes of mental illness. This argument is easily refuted: Suppose someone was playing the piano and you didn't like him doing that. Suppose you forced or persuaded him to take a drug that disabled him so severely that he couldn't play the piano anymore. Would this prove his piano playing was caused by a biological abnormality that was cured by the drug? As senseless as this argument is, it is often made. Most if not all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxic, producing a greater or lesser degree of generalized neurological disability. So they do stop disliked behavior and may mentally disable a person enough he can no longer feel angry or unhappy or "depressed". But calling this a "cure" is absurd. Extrapolating from this that the drug must have cured an underlying biological abnormality that was causing the disliked emotions or behavior is equally absurd.
When confronted with the lack of evidence for their belief in mental illness as a biological entity, some defenders of the concept of mental illness will assert that mental illness can exist and can be defined as a "disease" without there being a biological abnormality causing it. The idea of mental illness as a nonbiological entity requires a more lengthy refutation than the biological argument.
People are thought of as mentally ill only when their thinking, emotions, or behavior is contrary to what is considered acceptable, that is, when others (or the so-called patients themselves) dislike something about them. One way to show the absurdity of calling something an illness not because it is caused by a biological abnormality but only because we dislike it or disapprove of it is to look at how values differ from one culture to another and how values change over time.
In his book The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., a psychologist, wrote: "One of the prime tasks of the science of psychology is to provide definitions of mental health and mental illness. ...But there is no general agreement among psychologists and psychiatrists about the nature of mental health or mental illness - no generally accepted definitions, no basic standard by which to gauge one psychological state or other. Many writers declare that no objective definitions and standards can be established - that a basic, universally applicable concept of mental health is impossible. They assert that, since behavior which is regarded as healthy or normal in one culture may be regarded as neurotic or aberrated in another, all criteria are a matter of 'cultural bias.' The theorists who maintain this position usually insist that the closest one can come to a definition of mental health is: conformity to cultural norms. Thus, they declare that a man is psychologically healthy to the extent that he is 'well-adjusted' to his culture.
The obvious questions that such a definition raises, are: What if the values and norms of a given society are irrational? Can mental health consist of being well-adjusted to the irrational? What about Nazi Germany, for instance? Is a cheerful servant of the Nazi state - who feels serenely and happily at home in his social environment - an exponent of mental health?" (Bantam Books, 1969, pp. 95-96, emphasis in original). Dr. Branden is doing several things here: First, he is confusing morality and rationality, saying that respect for human rights is rational when in fact it is not a question of rationality but rather of morality. So psychologically and emotionally locked into and blinded by his values is he that Dr. Branden is evidently incapable of seeing the difference.
Additionally, Dr. Branden is stating some of his values. Among these values are: Respect for human rights is good; violation of human rights (like Nazism) is bad. And he is saying: Violating these values is "irrationality" or mental illness. Although their practitioners won't admit it and often are not even aware of it, psychiatry and "clinical" psychology in their very essence are about values - values concealed under a veneer of language that makes it sound like they are not furthering values but promoting "health".
The answer to the question Dr. Branden poses is: A person living in Nazi Germany and well-adjusted to it was "mentally healthy" judged by the values of his own society. Judged by the values of a society which respects human rights he was as sick (metaphorically speaking) as the rest of his culture. A person like myself however says that such a person is morally "sick" and recognizes that the word sick has not its literal but a metaphorical meaning. To a person like Dr. Branden who believes in the myth of mental illness, such a person is literally sick and needs a doctor. The difference is that a person like myself is recognizing my values for what they are: morality. Typically, the believer in mental illness, such as Dr. Branden in this quoted passage, has the same values as I do but is confusing them with health.
One of the most telling examples is homosexuality, which was officially defined as a mental disease by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973 but hasn't been since then. Homosexuality was defined as a mental disorder on page 44 of the American Psychiatric Association's standard reference book, DSM-II: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the 2nd Edition), published in 1968. In that book, "Homosexuality" is categorized as one of the "Sexual deviations" on page 44. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from it's official diagnostic categories of mental illness. (See "An Instant Cure", Time magazine, April 1, 1974, p. 45). So when the third edition of this book was published in 1980 it said "homosexuality itself is not considered a mental disorder" (p. 282). The 1987 edition of The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy states: "The American Psychiatric Association no longer considers homosexuality a psychiatric disease" (p. 1495).
If mental illness were really an illness in the same sense that physical illnesses are illnesses, the idea of deleting homosexuality or anything else from the categories of illness by having a vote would be as absurd as a group of physicians voting to delete cancer or measles from the concept of disease. But mental illness isn't "an illness like any other illness." Unlike physical disease where there are physical facts to deal with, mental "illness" is entirely a question of values, of right and wrong, of appropriate versus inappropriate. At one time homosexuality seemed so weird and hard to understand it was necessary to invoke the concept of mental disease or mental illness to explain it. After homosexuals made a big enough spectacle of themselves and showed their "strength in numbers" and successfully demanded at least a small measure of social acceptance, it was no longer necessary and no longer seemed appropriate to explain homosexuality as a disease.
A cross-cultural example is suicide. In many countries, such as the United States and Great Britain, a person who commits suicide or attempts to do so or even thinks about it seriously is considered mentally ill. However, this has not always been true throughout human history, nor is it true today in all cultures around the world. In his book Why Suicide?, psychologist Eustace Chesser points out that "Neither Hinduism nor Buddhism have any intrinsic objections to suicide and in some forms of Buddhism self-incineration is believed to confer special merit." He also points out that "The Celts scorned to wait for old age and enfeeblement. They believed that those who committed suicide before their powers waned went to heaven, and those who died of sickness or became senile went to hell - an interesting reversal of Christian doctrine" (Arrow Books Ltd., London, England, 1968, p. 121-122).
In his book Fighting Depression, psychiatrist Harvey M. Ross, M.D., points out that "Some cultures expect the wife to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre" (Larchmont Books, 1975, p. 20). Probably the best known example of a society where suicide is socially acceptable is Japan. Rather than thinking of suicide or "hara-kiri" as the Japanese call it as almost always caused by a mental disease or illness, the Japanese in some circumstances consider suicide the normal, socially acceptable thing to do, such as when one "loses face" or is humiliated by some sort of failure.
Another example showing suicide is considered normal, not crazy, in Japanese eyes is the kamikaze pilots Japan used against the U.S. Navy in World War II. They were given enough fuel for a one-way trip, a suicide mission, to where the attacking U.S. Navy forces were located and deliberately crashed their airplanes into the enemy ships. There has never been an American kamikaze pilot, at least, none officially sponsored by the United States government. The reason for this is different attitudes about suicide in Japan and America. Could suicide be committed only by people with psychiatric illnesses in America and yet be performed by normal persons in Japan? Or is acceptance of suicide in Japan a failure or refusal to recognize the presence of psychological abnormalities which necessarily must be present for a person to voluntarily end his or her own life? Were the kamikaze pilots mentally ill, or did they and the society they come from simply have different values than we do?
Even in America, aren't virtually suicidal acts done for the sake of one's fellow soldiers or for one's country during wartime thought of not as insanity but as bravery? Why do we think of such persons as heros rather than lunatics? It seems we condemn (or "diagnose") suicidal people as crazy or mentally ill only when they end their own lives for selfish reasons (the "I can't take it any more" kind of reasons) rather than for the benefit of other people. The real issue seems to be selfishness rather than suicide.
What these examples show is that "mental illness" is simply deviance from what people want or expect in any particular society. "Mental illness" is anything in human mentality greatly disliked by the person describing it.
The situation was aptly summed up in an article in the November 1986 Omni magazine: "Disorders come and go. Even Sigmund Freud's concept of neurosis was dropped in the original DSM-III (1980). And in 1973 APA [American Psychiatric Association] trustees voted to wipe out almost all references to homosexuality as a disorder. Before the vote, being gay was considered a psychiatric problem. After the vote the disorder was relegated to psychiatry's attic. 'It's a matter of fashion,' says Dr. John Spiegel of Brandeis University, who was president of the APA in 1973, when the debate over homosexuality flared. 'And fashions keep changing'" (p. 30).
What is wrong with this approach is describing people as having a psychiatric "disease" or "illness" only because he or she doesn't match up with a supposed diagnostician's or with other people's idea of how a person "should" be in standards of dress, behavior, thinking, or opinion. When it involves violating the rights of others, nonconformity with social norms or values must be curbed or stopped with various measures, criminal law being one example. But calling nonconformity or disliked behavior a "disease" or assuming it must be caused by a disease only because it is unacceptable according to currently prevailing values makes no sense. What causes us to do this is not knowing the real reasons for the thinking, emotions, or behavior we dislike. When we don't understand the real reasons, we create myths to provide an explanation. Today most of us instead believe in the myth of mental illness.
Calling disapproved thinking, emotions, or behavior a mental illness might be excusable if mental illness was a useful myth, but it isn't. Rather than helping us deal with troubled or troublesome persons, the myth of mental illness distracts us from the real problems that need to be faced. Rather than being caused by a "chemical imbalance" or other biological problem, the nonconformity, misbehavior, and emotional reactions we call mental illness are the result of difficulties people have getting their needs met and the behavior some people have learned during their lifetimes. The solutions are teaching people how to get their needs met, how to behave, and using whatever powers of enforcement are needed to force people to respect the rights of others.
THE AUTHOR, Lawrence Stevens, is a lawyer whose practice has included representing psychiatric "patients". He has published a series of pamphlets about various aspects of psychiatry, including psychiatric drugs, electroshock, and psychotherapy. His pamphlets are not copyrighted. You are invited to make copies for distribution to those you think will benefit.
1996 UPDATE:
"... modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness." David Kaiser, M.D., Commentary: Against Biologic Psychiatry, December 1996 Psychiatric Times.
...there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder." From a letter dated December 4, 1998 by Loren R. Mosher, M.D., a psychiatrist, resigning from the American Psychiatric Association.
1999 UPDATES:
"... all 5 million to 6 million children on these drugs [for hyperactivity] are normal. The country's been led to believe that all painful emotions are a mental illness and the leadership of the APA [American Psychiatric Association] knows very well that they are representing it as a disease when there is no scientific data to confirm any mental illness." Neurologist Fred Baughman, quoted in Insight magazine, June 28, 1999, p. 13 (underline added).
...there is no evidence that these mental illnesses, such as ADHD, exist." Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, quoted in Insight magazine, June 28, 1999, p. 13. ADHD is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
2000 UPDATES:
"In medicine, strict criteria exist for calling a condition a disease. In addition to a predictable cluster of symptoms, the cause of the symptoms or some understanding of their physiology must be established. ... Psychiatry is unique among medical specialties in that... We do not yet have proof either of the cause or the physiology for any psychiatric diagnosis. ... In recent decades, we have had no shortage of alleged biochemical imbalances for psychiatric conditions. Diligent though these attempts have been, not one has been proven. Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false. ... No claim of a gene for a psychiatric condition has stood the test of time, in spite of popular misinformation." Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in his book Prozac Backlash (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000), pages 192-193, page 196, and page 198.
2001 UPDATE:
"Remember that no biochemical, neurological, or genetic markers have been found for attention deficit disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, compulsive alcohol and drug abuse, overeating, gambling, or any other so-called mental illness, disease, or disorder." Bruce Levine, Ph.D. (psychologist), Commonsense Rebellion: Debunking Psychiatry, Confronting Society (Continuum, New York 2001), p. 277.
But when it comes to "mental illness" they have done autopsies on the brains of societies most evil and horrendous killers and found NOTHING in their brains that would look abnormal from your brain. Their brains were NORMAL. So what was it that caused them to act so abnormal and evil? Pure and simple, it was SIN.
Jesus taught that the primary cause of sickness in the world was a force of evil loose in the world which was hostile to God and the divine way. He believed that people sometimes fell into the hands of this power, which then exerted a destructive influence in their lives, morally, psychologically, mentally and physically. You may call this force Satan, the devil, evil spirits, demons, autonomous complexes, or what you will. But it is NOT mental illness. There is no such thing, according to the Bible and to Jesus and to God.
The bottom line is the only protection against the evasion of this evil into the personalities of men and women is to be filled with God's Holy Spirit. Sickness and disease never come from God. They come from the devil. And without God's spirit living inside of you, the human being, on their own is helpless in keeping the devil out of their lives. We need Jesus' and God's help every single day to keep evil from us or from getting into us. The part that is under our control is our decision to ask for God's protection and help, or to choose to do it on our own, which is when we get into trouble.
In the Lord's prayer we say, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil." So evidently we can be tempted and evil is a reality that we need prayer for to be delivered from on a daily basis.
All diagnosis and treatment in psychiatry, especially biological psychiatry, presupposes the existence of something called mental illness, also known as mental disease or mental disorder. What is meant by disease, illness, or disorder? In a semantic sense disease means simply dis-ease, the opposite of ease. But by disease we don't mean anything that causes a lack of ease, since this definition would mean losing one's job or a war or economic recession or an argument with one's spouse qualifies as "disease". In his book Is Alcoholism Hereditary? psychiatrist Donald W. Goodwin, M.D., discusses the definition of disease and concludes "Diseases are something people see doctors for. ... Physicians are consulted about the problem of alcoholism and therefore alcoholism becomes, by this definition, a disease" (Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 61).
Accepting this definition, if for some reason people consulted physicians about how to get the economy out of recession or how to solve a disagreement with one's mate or a bordering nation, these problems would also qualify as disease. But clearly this is not what is meant by "disease". In his discussion of the definition of disease, Dr. Goodwin acknowledges there is "a narrow definition of disease that requires the presence of a biological abnormality" (ibid). In this pamphlet I will show that there are no biological abnormalities responsible for so-called mental illness, mental disease, or mental disorder, and that therefore mental illness has no biological existence. Perhaps more importantly, however, I will show that mental illness also has no non-biological existence - except in the sense that the term is used to indicate disapproval of some aspect of a person's mentality.
The idea of mental illness as a biological entity is easy to refute. In 1988, Seymour S. Kety, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience in Psychiatry, and Steven Matthysse, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychobiology, both of Harvard Medical School, said "an impartial reading of the recent literature does not provide the hoped-for clarification of the catecholamine hypotheses, nor does compelling evidence emerge for other biological differences that may characterize the brains of patients with mental disease" (The New Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, Harvard Univ. Press, p. 148). In 1992 a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment concluded: "Many questions remain about the biology of mental disorders. In fact, research has yet to identify specific biological causes for any of these disorders. ... Mental disorders are classified on the basis of symptoms because there are as yet no biological markers or laboratory tests for them" (The Biology of Mental Disorders, U.S. Gov't Printing Office, 1992, pp. 13-14, 46-47).
In his book The Essential Guide to Psychiatric Drugs, Columbia University psychiatry professor Jack M. Gorman, M.D., said "We really do not know what causes any psychiatric illness" (St. Martin's Press, 1990, p. 316). In his book The New Psychiatry another Columbia University psychiatry professor, Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., said "It is generally unrecognized that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists who treat disorders that, by definition, have no definitively known causes or cures. ... A diagnosis should indicate the cause of a mental disorder, but as discussed later, since the etiologies of most mental disorders are unknown, current diagnostic systems can't reflect them" (Mentor, 1985, pp. 19 & 36 - emphasis in original). In his book Toxic Psychiatry, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., said "there is no evidence that any of the common psychological or psychiatric disorders have a genetic or biological component" (St. Martin's Press, 1991, p. 291).
It is sometimes argued that psychiatric drugs "curing" (stopping) the thinking, emotions, or behavior that is called mental illness proves the existence of biological causes of mental illness. This argument is easily refuted: Suppose someone was playing the piano and you didn't like him doing that. Suppose you forced or persuaded him to take a drug that disabled him so severely that he couldn't play the piano anymore. Would this prove his piano playing was caused by a biological abnormality that was cured by the drug? As senseless as this argument is, it is often made. Most if not all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxic, producing a greater or lesser degree of generalized neurological disability. So they do stop disliked behavior and may mentally disable a person enough he can no longer feel angry or unhappy or "depressed". But calling this a "cure" is absurd. Extrapolating from this that the drug must have cured an underlying biological abnormality that was causing the disliked emotions or behavior is equally absurd.
When confronted with the lack of evidence for their belief in mental illness as a biological entity, some defenders of the concept of mental illness will assert that mental illness can exist and can be defined as a "disease" without there being a biological abnormality causing it. The idea of mental illness as a nonbiological entity requires a more lengthy refutation than the biological argument.
People are thought of as mentally ill only when their thinking, emotions, or behavior is contrary to what is considered acceptable, that is, when others (or the so-called patients themselves) dislike something about them. One way to show the absurdity of calling something an illness not because it is caused by a biological abnormality but only because we dislike it or disapprove of it is to look at how values differ from one culture to another and how values change over time.
In his book The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., a psychologist, wrote: "One of the prime tasks of the science of psychology is to provide definitions of mental health and mental illness. ...But there is no general agreement among psychologists and psychiatrists about the nature of mental health or mental illness - no generally accepted definitions, no basic standard by which to gauge one psychological state or other. Many writers declare that no objective definitions and standards can be established - that a basic, universally applicable concept of mental health is impossible. They assert that, since behavior which is regarded as healthy or normal in one culture may be regarded as neurotic or aberrated in another, all criteria are a matter of 'cultural bias.' The theorists who maintain this position usually insist that the closest one can come to a definition of mental health is: conformity to cultural norms. Thus, they declare that a man is psychologically healthy to the extent that he is 'well-adjusted' to his culture.
The obvious questions that such a definition raises, are: What if the values and norms of a given society are irrational? Can mental health consist of being well-adjusted to the irrational? What about Nazi Germany, for instance? Is a cheerful servant of the Nazi state - who feels serenely and happily at home in his social environment - an exponent of mental health?" (Bantam Books, 1969, pp. 95-96, emphasis in original). Dr. Branden is doing several things here: First, he is confusing morality and rationality, saying that respect for human rights is rational when in fact it is not a question of rationality but rather of morality. So psychologically and emotionally locked into and blinded by his values is he that Dr. Branden is evidently incapable of seeing the difference.
Additionally, Dr. Branden is stating some of his values. Among these values are: Respect for human rights is good; violation of human rights (like Nazism) is bad. And he is saying: Violating these values is "irrationality" or mental illness. Although their practitioners won't admit it and often are not even aware of it, psychiatry and "clinical" psychology in their very essence are about values - values concealed under a veneer of language that makes it sound like they are not furthering values but promoting "health".
The answer to the question Dr. Branden poses is: A person living in Nazi Germany and well-adjusted to it was "mentally healthy" judged by the values of his own society. Judged by the values of a society which respects human rights he was as sick (metaphorically speaking) as the rest of his culture. A person like myself however says that such a person is morally "sick" and recognizes that the word sick has not its literal but a metaphorical meaning. To a person like Dr. Branden who believes in the myth of mental illness, such a person is literally sick and needs a doctor. The difference is that a person like myself is recognizing my values for what they are: morality. Typically, the believer in mental illness, such as Dr. Branden in this quoted passage, has the same values as I do but is confusing them with health.
One of the most telling examples is homosexuality, which was officially defined as a mental disease by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973 but hasn't been since then. Homosexuality was defined as a mental disorder on page 44 of the American Psychiatric Association's standard reference book, DSM-II: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the 2nd Edition), published in 1968. In that book, "Homosexuality" is categorized as one of the "Sexual deviations" on page 44. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from it's official diagnostic categories of mental illness. (See "An Instant Cure", Time magazine, April 1, 1974, p. 45). So when the third edition of this book was published in 1980 it said "homosexuality itself is not considered a mental disorder" (p. 282). The 1987 edition of The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy states: "The American Psychiatric Association no longer considers homosexuality a psychiatric disease" (p. 1495).
If mental illness were really an illness in the same sense that physical illnesses are illnesses, the idea of deleting homosexuality or anything else from the categories of illness by having a vote would be as absurd as a group of physicians voting to delete cancer or measles from the concept of disease. But mental illness isn't "an illness like any other illness." Unlike physical disease where there are physical facts to deal with, mental "illness" is entirely a question of values, of right and wrong, of appropriate versus inappropriate. At one time homosexuality seemed so weird and hard to understand it was necessary to invoke the concept of mental disease or mental illness to explain it. After homosexuals made a big enough spectacle of themselves and showed their "strength in numbers" and successfully demanded at least a small measure of social acceptance, it was no longer necessary and no longer seemed appropriate to explain homosexuality as a disease.
A cross-cultural example is suicide. In many countries, such as the United States and Great Britain, a person who commits suicide or attempts to do so or even thinks about it seriously is considered mentally ill. However, this has not always been true throughout human history, nor is it true today in all cultures around the world. In his book Why Suicide?, psychologist Eustace Chesser points out that "Neither Hinduism nor Buddhism have any intrinsic objections to suicide and in some forms of Buddhism self-incineration is believed to confer special merit." He also points out that "The Celts scorned to wait for old age and enfeeblement. They believed that those who committed suicide before their powers waned went to heaven, and those who died of sickness or became senile went to hell - an interesting reversal of Christian doctrine" (Arrow Books Ltd., London, England, 1968, p. 121-122).
In his book Fighting Depression, psychiatrist Harvey M. Ross, M.D., points out that "Some cultures expect the wife to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre" (Larchmont Books, 1975, p. 20). Probably the best known example of a society where suicide is socially acceptable is Japan. Rather than thinking of suicide or "hara-kiri" as the Japanese call it as almost always caused by a mental disease or illness, the Japanese in some circumstances consider suicide the normal, socially acceptable thing to do, such as when one "loses face" or is humiliated by some sort of failure.
Another example showing suicide is considered normal, not crazy, in Japanese eyes is the kamikaze pilots Japan used against the U.S. Navy in World War II. They were given enough fuel for a one-way trip, a suicide mission, to where the attacking U.S. Navy forces were located and deliberately crashed their airplanes into the enemy ships. There has never been an American kamikaze pilot, at least, none officially sponsored by the United States government. The reason for this is different attitudes about suicide in Japan and America. Could suicide be committed only by people with psychiatric illnesses in America and yet be performed by normal persons in Japan? Or is acceptance of suicide in Japan a failure or refusal to recognize the presence of psychological abnormalities which necessarily must be present for a person to voluntarily end his or her own life? Were the kamikaze pilots mentally ill, or did they and the society they come from simply have different values than we do?
Even in America, aren't virtually suicidal acts done for the sake of one's fellow soldiers or for one's country during wartime thought of not as insanity but as bravery? Why do we think of such persons as heros rather than lunatics? It seems we condemn (or "diagnose") suicidal people as crazy or mentally ill only when they end their own lives for selfish reasons (the "I can't take it any more" kind of reasons) rather than for the benefit of other people. The real issue seems to be selfishness rather than suicide.
What these examples show is that "mental illness" is simply deviance from what people want or expect in any particular society. "Mental illness" is anything in human mentality greatly disliked by the person describing it.
The situation was aptly summed up in an article in the November 1986 Omni magazine: "Disorders come and go. Even Sigmund Freud's concept of neurosis was dropped in the original DSM-III (1980). And in 1973 APA [American Psychiatric Association] trustees voted to wipe out almost all references to homosexuality as a disorder. Before the vote, being gay was considered a psychiatric problem. After the vote the disorder was relegated to psychiatry's attic. 'It's a matter of fashion,' says Dr. John Spiegel of Brandeis University, who was president of the APA in 1973, when the debate over homosexuality flared. 'And fashions keep changing'" (p. 30).
What is wrong with this approach is describing people as having a psychiatric "disease" or "illness" only because he or she doesn't match up with a supposed diagnostician's or with other people's idea of how a person "should" be in standards of dress, behavior, thinking, or opinion. When it involves violating the rights of others, nonconformity with social norms or values must be curbed or stopped with various measures, criminal law being one example. But calling nonconformity or disliked behavior a "disease" or assuming it must be caused by a disease only because it is unacceptable according to currently prevailing values makes no sense. What causes us to do this is not knowing the real reasons for the thinking, emotions, or behavior we dislike. When we don't understand the real reasons, we create myths to provide an explanation. Today most of us instead believe in the myth of mental illness.
Calling disapproved thinking, emotions, or behavior a mental illness might be excusable if mental illness was a useful myth, but it isn't. Rather than helping us deal with troubled or troublesome persons, the myth of mental illness distracts us from the real problems that need to be faced. Rather than being caused by a "chemical imbalance" or other biological problem, the nonconformity, misbehavior, and emotional reactions we call mental illness are the result of difficulties people have getting their needs met and the behavior some people have learned during their lifetimes. The solutions are teaching people how to get their needs met, how to behave, and using whatever powers of enforcement are needed to force people to respect the rights of others.
THE AUTHOR, Lawrence Stevens, is a lawyer whose practice has included representing psychiatric "patients". He has published a series of pamphlets about various aspects of psychiatry, including psychiatric drugs, electroshock, and psychotherapy. His pamphlets are not copyrighted. You are invited to make copies for distribution to those you think will benefit.
1996 UPDATE:
"... modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness." David Kaiser, M.D., Commentary: Against Biologic Psychiatry, December 1996 Psychiatric Times.
...there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder." From a letter dated December 4, 1998 by Loren R. Mosher, M.D., a psychiatrist, resigning from the American Psychiatric Association.
1999 UPDATES:
"... all 5 million to 6 million children on these drugs [for hyperactivity] are normal. The country's been led to believe that all painful emotions are a mental illness and the leadership of the APA [American Psychiatric Association] knows very well that they are representing it as a disease when there is no scientific data to confirm any mental illness." Neurologist Fred Baughman, quoted in Insight magazine, June 28, 1999, p. 13 (underline added).
...there is no evidence that these mental illnesses, such as ADHD, exist." Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, quoted in Insight magazine, June 28, 1999, p. 13. ADHD is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
2000 UPDATES:
"In medicine, strict criteria exist for calling a condition a disease. In addition to a predictable cluster of symptoms, the cause of the symptoms or some understanding of their physiology must be established. ... Psychiatry is unique among medical specialties in that... We do not yet have proof either of the cause or the physiology for any psychiatric diagnosis. ... In recent decades, we have had no shortage of alleged biochemical imbalances for psychiatric conditions. Diligent though these attempts have been, not one has been proven. Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false. ... No claim of a gene for a psychiatric condition has stood the test of time, in spite of popular misinformation." Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in his book Prozac Backlash (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000), pages 192-193, page 196, and page 198.
2001 UPDATE:
"Remember that no biochemical, neurological, or genetic markers have been found for attention deficit disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, compulsive alcohol and drug abuse, overeating, gambling, or any other so-called mental illness, disease, or disorder." Bruce Levine, Ph.D. (psychologist), Commonsense Rebellion: Debunking Psychiatry, Confronting Society (Continuum, New York 2001), p. 277.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Inhuman Experimentation
For those who think the government would never experiment on innocent citizens:
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=188
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=188
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)