Screw psychiatry

"I have come to think that patients and society at large would be much better off if the lion's share of our resources for mental health were shifted from psychiatry/psychology to nuerology."

 I would agree with this if it were true that experiences of pschoemotional distess were reducible to observable, measurable,demonstratable  neurological etiology. This has been the project of biopsychiatry for the past two hundred years and it has failed. If something is genuinely a neurological disorder than certainly neurology should deal with it but there is no evidence that what is called "mental illness" is a neurological disorder beyond the fact that all human experience is to some extent neurological.

I have no desire to turn this into another science wars thread but psychoemotional distress is not well served by mechanistic and reductionist models. Although I have plenty of problems and disagreements with psychology I would still say that in some ways it can be viewed as a science, however attempting to apply the epistemology of the physical sciences to psychology does not make sense.

Users of psychiatryic services would be better served if resources were spent in ways that could demonstratably improve their lives including affordable housing, income, employment and non-psychiatric crisis services. 

CAMH is presently in the process of  spending $400 million to "revitalize" it's Queen st. site, that money would go a long way if spent otherwise. 

I just mean to say that we should first figure out how the brain actually works before we pump it full of drugs based on trial and regrettable errors.

I wouldn't suggest that nuerology has the potential to provide all the answers. I just think we have the cart before the horse.

Tommy, I look at it like lobotomies of yore (which still go on by the way). Doctors, aka butchers, hack away at the brain. The maladaptive (gotta love that language) behaviour stops. Success!

So much about psychiatry is about controlling behaviour. The notion that it's for the "best" for the patient is hooey.

And, what NRK said. 

NRK, what was that conference we attended last year at Hart House?  I'm trying to dig up some of the material, but can't find where I squirrelled it away.

The people in distress should be the ones to decide whether they want or don't want this or that intervention or remedy, even if some will rail and rant at us not "knowing" sufficiently enough "how the brain works" before admitting such intervention into their armchair view of the rest of the world. Pontificating and lobbing rhetoric on-line seems to me a little callous (pun half-intended).

"The people in distress should be the ones to decide whether they want or don't want this or that intervention or remedy, even if some will rail and rant at us not "knowing" sufficiently enough "how the brain works" before admitting such intervention into their armchair view of the rest of the world. Pontificating and lobbing rhetoric on-line seems to me a little callous (pun half-intended)."

I believe in informed consent but that is not what someone will receive in the context of psychiatry. 

Those who come in contact with psychiatry are given a rehearsed response that is almost comical in the consistency of its delivery. We are told that "You have a disease like diabetes, it is due to a chemical imbalance in your brain. We do not have a cure for this disease the best we can do is manage the symptoms by taking this medication. You will need to be on this medication for the rest of your life in order to manage this illness" This narritive is delivered with unquestionable authority and expertise.

The problem is this it is all a lie. There is no demonstratable biological process as there is in diabetes. THere is no evidence of chemical imbalance in the brain. Even if these two were true there is no evidence that these drugs are actually helpful beyond providing strong sedative effects. It is also rare that psychiatrist will give an honest asssessment of the risks and side effects of medications. Do you believe it is possible to have informed consent if  one begins the conversation with calculated misinformation?

If you were actually aware of the practice and history of psychiatry you might also be aware that it has little interest in the opinion voice or experience of its patients. The reality of psychiatric history is the erasure of patient experience. You can see the work of Geoffrey Reume for more on this  http://www.google.com/books?id=Df4nGwAACAAJ&dq=Geoffrey+Reaume&source=an "Until Reaume came along, historians had documented life in asylums in Canada based solely on doctors’ points of view. Doctors’ accounts of patients "were grossly stereotypical," says Reaume, who also took offence at fellow historians who dismissed patients’ accounts of their asylum experience as rambling and semi-literate, who ignored their humanity. "It was insulting to call them that when they were just trying to express themselves," says the Faculty of Health professor. "That’s why I felt it was important to tell their stories.""

Psychiatry has from Freud onwards has been at the forefront of the denial of the experience of childhood trauma and violence. Freud with his betrayal of his female patients through his "seducation theory." Biological psychiatry by its silencing of trauma narratives and experiences. Biological psychiatry doesn't demonstrate either an interest or an ability to acknowledge people's experiences of trauma. As I already stated the majority of those with diagnosis of "severe mental illness" are survivors of significant trauma. Survivors of trauma are frequently retraumatized by the coercive interventions of psychiatry, involuntary, restraints, seclusion, electroshock and forced drugging. Are you suggesting that the denial of abuse or abusive practices are "chosen". 

Psychiatry is also inherently coercive and patriarchal. It operates from the assumption of the Psychiatrist as expert that has an understanding of the patients experience of distress beyond the patience own understanding of experience. The psychiatris uses their power to silence the patients narrative. Doctor knows best.

I am surprised that some progressive people lack a critical analysis of psychiatry. Biological psychiatric ideology is always powerful in conservative and oppressive political climates, it is not a coincidence that Biological psychiatry had power and prestige in both Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. ( An interesting aside that I learned just today. Adolf Hitler grew up in a household with an Aunt who was diagnosed as schizophrenia, as we know the psychiatric labelled were the first to be exterminated) 

By locating psychoemotional distress within a context of dysfunctional neurology and genes, Psychiatry successfully ingnores the the social political and economic factors that result in severe distress. Not only childhood trauma but the insidious traumas of racism, sexism homophobia, the social determinants that are inseparable from poverty, poor housing, nutrition, lack of opportunity and resources. Psychiatry also ignores the intentional distruction of community and basic human connectivity that is part and parcel of advanced capitalism. Despair, alienation and anxiety are the product of a broken brain rather than a broken system. The primary function psychiatry in one of social control keeping the marginalized marginal and keeping others in a state of acquiessence and conformity.

As for my "armchair view of the world" I already stated I am a psychiatric survivor I have experienced the system involuntarily so my view is from the psych ward,  seclusion rooms, four point restraints and the ECT table. As a community mental health worker I have also heard the narratives of  many others, even those who continue to use psychiatric services are never short on experience of abuse,  neglect  and disregard in their contact with the system.

In my own work I do not impose my views. I do not dissuade people from using psychiatric services if they choose.  I do not operate from an expert like psychiatry or social work, I am directed by my clients needs and narratives. I do offer a critique of the dominant psychiatric model and misinformation  and provide alternate narratives surrounding understanding and dealing with  psychoemotional distress and crisis. These alternate narratives are actually client generated and for the most part simply involve listening to and acknowledging the impact of traumatic events in the past and existing barriers in the present.

Excellent expository NRKissed

"Has anyone read Pat Capponi, "Beyond the Crazy House"?  I've borrowed it from a friend and was just wondering of any critiques I should be aware of before I read it."

Overall I think it is quite a moving book although I do have somewhat of a problem in the usage of other people's stories.

I recently finished a book called "Voluntary Madness" in which the author Norah Vincent had herself admitted to various psychiatic facilities, I found the book rather deeply offensive exploitive and ultimately shallow in terms of analysis. The use of others experience in this book lacked empathy and was self absorbed. I would not say the same for Pat Caponi's book.

I would recommend looking up Dr. Patricia Deegan who was diagnosed as schizophrenic and then went on to get a Phd in Psychology. She hasn't written a book but you should be able to access some articles online.

Most of the close experiences I have had with people who have been seriously involved with the psychiatric industry have resulted, not in allieviation of symptoms, but death of the person. I can't precisely fix the cause of these deaths to the psychiatric industry, since to makes such an assessment would be to dabble in the same methodologies they do, but I can say that they certainly did not prevent it. I also think their hamfisted experimental approaches, penalization, stygmatization, and degradation to a persons self-esteem combined with a tendency to overmedicate and so on may have been contributing factor.

I am increasingly wary of the so called "soft" antidepressant drugs such as SSRI's (Effexor, Prozac etc.) and their casual use. Notably, while I think I have observed that they may have a useful purpose in crisis management, I have also noticed that psychiatrists tend to be of the belief that if they are temporarily efficacious, that there is no reason to wean people off them, based on the assumption that the condition experienced by the person is not a "temporary crisis" but an ongoing disorder, which is solved by the administration of drugs.

I have know a few people who have become habituated, not because they are seriously in crisis, but because they believe that the drug is preventing a pending crisis, and the drugs become the means through which they manage quite normal stress and psychological preassures, which otherwise they were perfectly cabable of dealing with using normal coping methods.

I have noticed a marked improvement in people who wean themselves off SSRI's to the point where they realize they can actually cope, though normal human coping methods, including some social support.

On the other hand from all the reports I have heard, Psychiatrists, as a group, don't seem at all concerned with weaning people from these SSRI's as part of the standard practice of use, and instead are perfectly happy to keep people on them, as long as they are clearly not "not working".

Any fool who knows anything about drugs should know that any drugs that takes weeks for the body to adjust to before "side effects" subside and likewise takes weeks for the body to adjust to, after medication is ended, should know that they are dealing with a very powerful psychoactive substance, which should not be casually adminstered. By the same token it is obvious that the a primary aim of any treatment using those drugs should be to make the person independent of their use.

martin dufresne wrote:

And yet... as someone whose friends have found essential help in experiences akin to those mentioned by Oldgoat, remind and Caissa, I can't subscribe to blanket indictments of mental health professionals and methods... Although I have organized against electroshock therapy decades ago, I have since seen close ones pulled out of ingrained depression by this procedure. So... I tend to suspend judgment now.

Also, if emotions were to put me in such distress that I wanted temporary medical help, as that unfortunate widower apparently did, I would not appreciate being forcibly kept from it, be it for the most principled of reasons. 'Chuck Your Chin Up and Bear It' morality doesn't cut it for me.

So some people love and believe they benefit from Capitalism, Does that mean that we should not critique or deconstruct it or seek to change it.

As I already mentioned people are welcome to use psychiatric drugs if they choose, I don't think they need to be lied to or forced in order for them to take them.

If psychiatry was actually honest about what it was doing I'm sure we could better drugs that could actually relieve symptoms without the horrendous side effects. I think I would prefer to be taking opium than Halidol but that's just me. I am actually able to honour the coping mechanisms that people choose in terms of harm reduction I think it only fair that people be aware of the risks.

You can continue to distort what I am saying but at no point have I suggested anyone be forced to do anything. It is equally dishonest to say that the only relief from psychological pain is pharmaceutical.

It terms of electroshock because people you know believe they were helped that excuses the countless number of people that have been harmed by it.

No worries.  I don't know the specifics of how drs are taught pharmacology, just that it isn't enough.  

Basically, benzos are are not addictive if used intermittently, but yes, some people with anxiety disorders or bipolar seem to be on them for years, and they believe they need them.  And if you're going to use something for years, benzos are a lot less damaging to the central nervous system than alcohol.

That said, if I were a doctor, I'd do what my doctor did, and hang up a shingle saying, "I don't prescribe benzodiazepines or narcotics.  No exceptions."  Maybe there'd be some people I couldn't help, but at least I'd know I'd not be facilitating the long-term harm that addiction always is.

"You can continue to distort what I am saying but... "

What makes you think my statements are some kind of distortion of yours? ETA: Indeed, this is what I see you doing, e.g. your suggestion that anyone has said that "the only relief from psychological pain is pharmaceutical". 

(Has this been going on for a long time?)

Sineed wrote:

I don't know the specifics of how drs are taught pharmacology

In the movie Big Bucks Big Pharma they talked about how education about particular drugs (not drugs in general) were "taugtht" by the drug companies themselves. And other scary things. I should note that this movie was about the general MD field not just the MD field related to psychiatry.

Having weighed in on this and commenting earlier I feel it's needed for me to say my opinion. I think that sometimes drugs are a necessary, needed part of the therapeutic process. A friend of mine had her husband die when they were both quite young. She didn't want to leave the house, understandably, but it also meant that she was not showing up to the appointments she had with a counsellor so she could talk with someone (no one in her life knew what to do or say to her and were going through the greiving process themselves). The doctor gave her a temporary prescrption (not sure of what) and she was able to pull it together enough to go to the sessions, but not much else. After a few months she started re-entering life and also stopped the medication. The medication was not the healing process. It was still a long process after the medication stopped but the medication did provide a way for her to start that process of healing.

Another friend of mine has Obsessive compulsive Disorder. She is on long term medication for that. Before the medication it would take her two hours to leave the house with her compulsive checking habits and once out of the house she would usually start panicing and have to return to the house to check everything again. This effectively made her a shut in, and even at home she had a poor quality of life. After starting medication she only needs to do one 5 minute check before she leaves and now can go for trips of a week or more. She is doing some general counselling about anxiety issues at this point. The times when she hasn't taken her medication (it has happened a few times when she had the flu and it wouldn't stay down) she has gone right back into the overwhelming checking routines and she feels like she can't control herself or her life.

That being said, as mentioned above, on the whole I don't like the psychiatrist industry. I have two stories of where medication has helped but so many more over medication, making up illnesses, not getting proper therapy to help people cope in addition to the drug therapy, or help instead if drugs. I won't repeat them as there are so many personal experiences already about this on this thread.

They should have a purpose but the problem is they have gotten to big and people rely on them to much for a quick fix instead of doing the hard work of healing and instead of a therapeutic alternative that isn't needed unless it is proven to be needed (guily until proven innocent).

ETA:I should also note that my first friend was not diagmosed with anything, and rightly so, my second friend found it a relief to have a name for what she had, she said it felt like she had some control when she could research it and look into it. One of my friends with schizophrenia actallu wears his label with pride at this point (it was a long process to get there).

That being said I don't like the over diagnosis of disorders, which is rampant, the making up of diagnosis (which berevement syndrome would be) and the disclosure to anyone outside the treatment circle that doesn't need to know, and that would include schools in most cases.

Diagnosis is only helpful in giving the person a sense of control (as noted above) or in finding the best treatment and in all other cases should be thrown out. If the person feels as if they are in control or that they don't want treatment there should be no diagmosis.

Refuge wrote:

Sineed wrote:

I don't know the specifics of how drs are taught pharmacology

In the movie Big Bucks Big Pharma they talked about how education about particular drugs (not drugs in general) were "taugtht" by the drug companies themselves. And other scary things. I should note that this movie was about the general MD field not just the MD field related to psychiatry. Having weighed in on this and commenting earlier I feel it's needed for me to say my opinion. I think that sometimes drugs are a necessary, needed part of the therapeutic process. A friend of mine had her husband die when they were both quite young. She didn't want to leave the house, understandably, but it also meant that she was not showing up to the appointments she had with a counsellor so she could talk with someone (no one in her life knew what to do or say to her and were going through the greiving process themselves). The doctor gave her a temporary prescrption (not sure of what) and she was able to pull it together enough to go to the sessions, but not much else. After a few months she started re-entering life and also stopped the medication. The medication was not the healing process. It was still a long process after the medication stopped but the medication did provide a way for her to start that process of healing. Another friend of mine has Obsessive compulsive Disorder. She is on long term medication for that. Before the medication it would take her two hours to leave the house with her compulsive checking habits and once out of the house she would usually start panicing and have to return to the house to check everything again. This effectively made her a shut in, and even at home she had a poor quality of life. After starting medication she only needs to do one 5 minute check before she leaves and now can go for trips of a week or more. She is doing some general counselling about anxiety issues at this point. The times when she hasn't taken her medication (it has happened a few times when she had the flu and it wouldn't stay down) she has gone right back into the overwhelming checking routines and she feels like she can't control herself or her life. That being said, as mentioned above, on the whole I don't like the psychiatrist industry. I have two stories of where medication has helped but so many more over medication, making up illnesses, not getting proper therapy to help people cope in addition to the drug therapy, or help instead if drugs. I won't repeat them as there are so many personal experiences already about this on this thread. They should have a purpose but the problem is they have gotten to big and people rely on them to much for a quick fix instead of doing the hard work of healing and instead of a therapeutic alternative that isn't needed unless it is proven to be needed (guily until proven innocent). ETA:I should also note that my first friend was not diagmosed with anything, and rightly so, my second friend found it a relief to have a name for what she had, she said it felt like she had some control when she could research it and look into it. One of my friends with schizophrenia actallu wears his label with pride at this point (it was a long process to get there). That being said I don't like the over diagnosis of disorders, which is rampant, the making up of diagnosis (which berevement syndrome would be) and the disclosure to anyone outside the treatment circle that doesn't need to know, and that would include schools in most cases. Diagnosis is only helpful in giving the person a sense of control (as noted above) or in finding the best treatment and in all other cases should be thrown out. If the person feels as if they are in control or that they don't want treatment there should be no diagmosis.

You still haven't explained why the assistance isn't already built into the natural functioning of the system, and instead requires a special diagnosis.

Please explain to me what the system would look like if the if assitance is built in versus the way it is done now. I don't have enough understanding yet of what your question is actually asking.

Cueball wrote:

Well, for one thing schools would be more that well equiped to deal with mild "learning disabilities", or slow students, or those with mild socialization problems. They are not.
As I explained earlier, the present system, actually accelerates problems of socialization, and compound the difficulties that students who are not in the norm of 90%, or even 80%. Programs, which are existing to deal with these issues, are likewise not equipped, even when the diagnosis is affirmed.
What do you think? Do you think that less than prefect students are better off being "identified" as abberant, and then shunted off into underfunded and understaffed special programs, or do you think they would be better socialized were they to be dealt with in the general population of students, and accepted within the "norm", as opposed to being stygmatized, as negatively exceptional?
It is all the rage now to identify students who are even mildly "strange" as "autistic", for example. You think this is a good thing?

Alright, I understand your question.

My experiences that I have been talking about have all been outside of the school system. Either children to young to be in school or people who are finished with school.

Perhaps you should direct that question to someone who is defending diagnosis within the school system or defending the school system in general, which I have not.

Well, I guess then reframe your question so that it deals with the diagnostic process in contemporary society and how you think it should help people who are not involved with the school system get treatment or be able to feel a sense of control.

As I mentioned, I don't defend the way the school system carries out it's "duties".  The time before and after school is the only period that I am talking about.  I am not talking about diagnosis instigated by teachers.  I don't wish to defend the school system in any manner because I think it sucks.  I have however made my opinion very clear about how diagnosis effects people outside of school.  You have any questions about that, please be my guest.

None of the examples did I give from my life do the people make more than 30,000 dollars a year, and some live at the poverty line.  In my experience in early diagnosis it is typically refered by a medical doctor to a provincially funded program where the child is assessed by speech pathologists, occupational therapists and psychologists.  In Durham Region in Ontario and friend of mine went through Grandview at no cost to her when her child was 3. 

http://www.grandviewcc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=36

This special or general treatment of students with learning difficulties is a huge ball of wax, not amenable to browbeating chip-on-the-shoulder rhetoric, IMHO.

What's not "chip-on-the-shoulder" about that comment.

 Full disclosure: I have never been a victim of the psychiatric industry, nor was ever diagnosed. Nor am I a victim of the schools system. I in fact got out of there as soon as I could.

Now we are talking turkey. We can start remodelling our approach to "abberant" behaviour in total, and stop creating institutional dead ends for persons outside the norm. We can also stop psychiatrists from conducting mass social control experiments upon people who have been wounded by the institutions we errect to monitor and control their behaviour.

What, by the way, was wrong with the original thread title ("Fuck psychiatry")? 

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