Toxic Psychiatry

by **terryintacoma** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:25 am

Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin, M.D. 1991 "Many people don't know the difference between psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychology, and psychoanalysis. This book is primarily about psychiatry - a specialty within the field of medicine. Psychiatrists are fully qualified physicians (medical doctors) who specialize in treating people defined as having psychiatric problems.. As physicians, psychiatrists have the right to prescribe drugs or electroshock, to hospitalize patients, and to treat people against their will. They are the only mental health professionals who routinely exercise these powers. Psychiatry sets the tone and direction for the field of mental health and has been rapidly pushing it toward a more biological or medical viewpoint." "Psychotherapists are a very broad group which includes anyone helping people with problems by talking with them. Not all psychiatrists are psychotherapists or "talking doctors." As this book will discuss many psychiatrists have little or no training in how to communicate with people about their problems. Instead they are trained in making "medical" diagnoses and giving drugs and electroshock." "Psychologists are educated in graduate schools of psychology rather than in medical schools, and they receive a Ph.D rather than an M.D. Clinical psychologists are given training that overlaps with psychiatrists, and they often receive much more intensive training in psychotherapy than do psychiatrists. Sometimes they work side-by-side with psychiatrists in mental health facilities, but they usually exercise much less authority." "In addition to psychiatrists and psychologists, many other professionals also offer psychotherapy, including clinical social workers, counselors, family therapists, some nurses, some ministers, and a variety of lay people." "Psychoanalysis is the form of psychotherapy founded and developed by Sigmund Freud and taught in his independently franchised psychoanalytic institutes. In the public's mind, psychoanalysis is correctly associated with the couch, the note pad, and the silent listener. But psychoanalysis is often incorrectly equated with psychiatry. Contrary to popular belief, Freud was not the father of psychiatry. Psychiatry existed long before Freud, and has been largely hostile to his teachings. Freud did not become a psychiatrist, and he warned his colleagues to beware of the medical profession." Later he writes: "If you are educated in the humanities or have read a few good self-help psychology books, and if you like to think about yourself and others, you may have more insight into personal growth than your psychiatrist does; and if you've taken a few college courses or read a little in academic psychology or psychoanalysis, you might know more theory as well. If you've also shared feelings and personal problems with some of your friends, then you may well have more experience and practice in "talking therapy" than your psychiatrist." "On the other hand, your psychiatrist will have more power than you. He or she can prescribe drugs or shock, lock you up against your will, talk behind your back with your husband, wife, or parents and make plans for your future without consulting you. As a medical expert in malpractice and patients' rights suits, I have dealt with numerous cases of individuals who sought psychiatric help for routine problems in living, such as sadness over the loss of a loved one, only to find themselves swept along the path of biopsychiatry, ending up with permanent brain dysfunction and damage from drugs and shock treatment." Skip a bit...and Breggin writes: "In trying to understand psychiatry's refusal to be accountable for the damaging effects of psychiatric brain surgery, I began to realize that lobotomy differs little in principle from the most potent psychiatric drugs and from electroshock. All of the major psychiatric treatments work by producing brain dysfunction, and too often they result in lobotomylike effects and permanent damage. I discovered that biopsychiatry resists criticism of any one of its theories and physical interventions because all of them rest upon the same flawed principles and harmful practices." That last bit there, where he says, "All of the major psychiatric treatments work by producing brain dysfunction..." I wonder what the world would be like if there wasn't this constant war against our brains ability to function. Like the mercury in our fillings and vaccinations (for god sakes). How do we ever bring ourselves to trust doctors?

by **DireStrike** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:32 am

It's very simple - the hippocratic oath. Or should that be hypocritical oath? It's curious to note how many men actually don't trust doctors, as opposed to women. There's probably at least one book to be written on the subject of doctors and trust.

by **bvonahsen** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 12:51 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>I wonder what the world would be like if there wasn't this constant war against our brains ability to function. Like the mercury in our fillings and vaccinations (for god sakes). How do we ever bring ourselves to trust doctors? <hr></blockquote> I wouldn't put my faith in one persons opinion. Everyone has an ax to grind and Peter Breggin is no different. Of course psychiatrists have a great deal of power over their patients lives. No one is more aware of that than they are. A good psychiatrist can turn your life around. And yeah, there are bad ones too, like in any profession. People are human afterall you know. But I wouldn't take Dr. Breggin's word for it. What is his agenda? He wants a piece of you too. He's got his hand in your pocket no less than the charlatans who sold you the lies about mercury amalgam and thimerosol. So I think the real question is why accept without question one group and not the other? Who's purpose does that serve? So how does one decide between competing claims? Well, first you need good information. Then you need to weigh the evidence rationally, dispassionately. That second part is the hard part. It implies that you know your own inner motives and weeknesses. That you have faced your own feelings of being vulnerable and scared, not knowing who to trust, who to believe. That's hard work but what is the alternative? Blindly believing every clown that can write a book? How do you know they aren't just playing on your fears? The answer is you don't.

by **erosoplier** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 2:30 pm

Breggin is one of the ones who is asking questions - one of the few. And unlike Tom Cruise, he's got conventionally accepted qualifications and experience to back him up. The main answer mainstream psychaitry has for him is "Yeah but the drugs we use today aren't near as toxic!" - and we're supposed to trust them, even when they won't for a moment abandon their "behaviour implies biochemical imbalance => find appropriate drug to modify/remove behaviour"? It's a difficult problem, but a lot of the history of psychaitry is simply outrageous, and it should be challenged. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=erosoplier>erosoplier</A> at: 10/14/06 12:32 pm

by **Dreams End** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 4:48 pm

Breggin is one of the few to talk about this stuff that I've found who is NOT backed by Scientology. He worked with them briefly in the 70's but not publicly criticizes them...so he's either "deep cover" or is sincere. It's a mess, though. The big pharmaceutical companies control ALL drugs, not just psychiatric ones. They fix data, cover up bad results, push drugs via fierce advertising, etc. ALL drugs. Yet, I don't reject all drugs. I find antibiotics, when properly used, to be indispensable. I had a boil on my leg once...'nuff said. I also take Concerta, a stimulant for those with ADD. I spent 20+ years wandering around in a fog....barely really functioning when on my own. One dose turned that around. But I am tracking the research on heart problems as side effects, etc. And my wife uses several psychiatric drugs...none very good...all sort of stopgap but her shrink realizes they are stop gap and are just an attempt at stabilization till the tough issues get worked out. I think the primary issue is big Pharma...I think the second most profitable industry in the US or something like that..and the way drugs come to market. Basically, if you have to get sick..be sure to get an illness from which they can profit, because there's no incentive to invest in research for more obscure illnesses.

by **yesferatu** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 3:10 am

<a href="http://www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com/withdraw.htm" target="top">Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs</a> I would refer to R.D. Laing, whom I admire. <<It is notable that Laing never denied the existence of mental illness, but simply viewed it in a radically different light from his contemporaries. For Laing, madness could be a transformative episode whereby the process of undergoing mental distress was compared to a shamanic journey. The traveller could return from the journey with important insights, and may even have become a wiser and more grounded person as a result. Laing never denied the value of treating mental distress, but simply wanted to challenge the core values of contemporary psychiatry which considered (and some would say still considers) mental illness as primarily a biological phenomenon of no intrinsic value.>> <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/ronald-david-laing" target="top">www.answers.com/topic/ronald-david-laing</a> <<While still in Chicago, Laing was invited by some doctors to examine a young girl diagnosed as schizophrenic. The girl was locked into a padded cell in a special hospital, and sat there naked. She usually spent the whole day rocking to and fro. The doctors asked Laing for his opinion. What would he do about her? Unexpectedly, Laing stripped off naked himself and entered her cell. There he sat with her, rocking in time to her rythm. After about twenty minutes she started speaking, something she had not done for several months. The doctors were amazed. 'Did it never occur to you to do that?' Laing commented to them later, with feigned innocence. (pp. 170-171)>> What a great man. <a href="http://www.laingsociety.org/giardino/" target="top">society for laingian studies</a>

by **bvonahsen** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:30 pm

I recently took myself off of Efexor, I don't know if it is a neuorleptic like the one Peter Lehmann talks about in his book or not, but it is a difficult drug to come off of. The reason I took myself off of it is because I felt it was controling me. I also didn't like feeling vulnerable to the withdrawal symptoms. Those symptoms and not the underlying depression, are what put me into the hospital several times. And yet, when I did have those withdrawal symptoms my therapists would always think it was the depression they were seeing. They would get alarmed but I knew better. So instead of trying to get off of efexor cold turkey, not recomended BTW, I took myself off gradually over a period of about two months. I'm fine and my psychiatrist knows, and my therapist knows. It's my belief that efexor can help with depression but I suspect that after awhile it's effectiveness diminishes. The problem is that once you are on it you are supposedly on it for life. Supposedly I should be on it for the rest of my life too. The theory being that my kind of depression is biological, my brain doesn't make enough serotonin. And yet here I am, off of efexor and experiencing only mild depression. No suicidal ideation, no self harm, none of that. Personally, I think they made efexor this way so that they could lock in it's users as paying customers for life. Think of it, a drug that treats initial depression and when the patient tries to get off of it, induces severe psychological stress. So severe that the patients care providers insist the patient remain on the drug effectively forever. It's a sweet deal for the drug manufacturers, not so sweet for the rest of us. BTW, the above is my current belief, it is not cast in stone and I could be wrong. Very little of what I believe is. I try very hard to maintain a belief system that is always under question. Nothing I believe is ever beyond reason or argument or debate. Everything is up for grabs most (though not quite all) of the time. I am always looking for and open to new information and I am willing to challenge my current beliefs if need be. It is this attitude or "stance" that brings me here. I like having my belief system challenged. It's good for you... I believe. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)">

by **terryintacoma** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:02 pm

Evelyn Pringle writes for OnlineJournal.com and reports on this administrations mental health programs like "Teen Screen" which is a frightening step to "help" those kids who are "falling through the cracks". <a href="http://onlinejounal.com/artman/publish/article_993.shtml">onlinejounal.com/artman/p..._993.shtml</a> I don't have time atm to rant about the evils of the drug companies, which is good because I'm sure I would sound like an idiot. But to make the drugging of preschoolers standard procedure, or to prescribe anti-depressants to teens as a matter of course, makes my blood boil and the doctors who comply...I have no more respect for doctors. My favorite self-help books at this time are "Living in Process" by Anne Wilson Schaef and "Psychosynthesis" by Roberto Assagioli, M.D. When things get really tough mentally/emotionally I find it most helpful to take that energy and go chop some wood. Sometimes it takes alot of woodchopping, but it works for me. Keep the faith.

by **terryintacoma** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:04 pm

hmmm...my link didn't work. Sorry idk how to fix that.

by **erosoplier** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 12:02 pm

This is a difficult topic to say anything about without stepping on somebody's toes, so I'll start by apologising for the inevitable. Sorry if anybody finds anything I say offensive. About medicating kids for ADD? I'm sorry but on the whole, I don't buy it. My sister had a kid a few years ago. She took him to a day-care centre at 12 months with hopes of starting to work again once he became adjusted to it. After 2 days, alarmed at the result she took home each day, she came to the conclusion that she couldn't let other people take care of her kid, not when this involved lumping him together with 5 or 6 other kids for hours on end, week in week out. When I look at my sister interacting with her child, I know in my bones that he'll never score an ADD diagnosis. When I hear the way she reprimands him, or bosses him (don't do that/please do this etc) I nearly always half expect a tantrum to result, and while the mini tantrums do come regularly throughout a day (he's a 2 year old after all), they come rarely given the amount of monitoring and guiding of behaviour that's going on. He may turn out neurotic as all hell, but ADD he wont be! In short, I'd say that "ADD" cases are least 70% enviromentally/behaviourally determined. And I wouldn't call the other 30 or less percent "genetic," for fear of causing a misunderstanding - I'd call them "organic," like they did in the old days before the invention of genes. Other kids can't teach kids how to behave properly, yet this is pretty much what we expect to happen when we lump kids together in child care centres. And I'm not saying "down with child-care centres," I'm saying "up with caring, committed and concerned parenting." The more mature the person interacting with the child is, the better the learning will be. And do you see what psychiatry does here? We base our assessment of normal and abnormal behaviour on knowing how a "healthy" child/person behaves. But what does the psychaitrist do? They take the abnormal child out of his/her environment, sit them down, point accusingly at their head, and say "There is something going wrong in there. Lets fix it with drugs!" I mean, HUH? Questions: Is ADD largely the result of carelessness (poor guidance/bad diet/day-care/TV-care/computer-game-care), and are drugs an unsuitable substitute for care? And depression? I think any intelligent human living in the modern world can be forgiven for being in a battle with depression. Ditto for anxiety. And in the adult world (especially in the post-911 world), having the quote marks around the word "healthy" becomes essential. We know that the world outside is in an unhealthy state, yet masochistically, and inevitably to a certain extent, we seek to change ourselves from within in order to make things right again. If we ever get together and make the world healthy in all its big and small details, then we might be somewhat justified in blaming the brain chemistry or genes of the person who is depressed/anxious for their depression/anxiety - but not until then. But however much the cause of any problem may ultimately be found outside, and not inside a person, it's the individual involved who in most cases does most of the suffering. (That's why I'm uncomfortable at appearing to be standing on the same side of the fence as Tom Cruise, with Brooke Shields on the other. Brooke Shields is a bad example anyway - he picked an inappropriate example - her depression could be directly attributed to "organic" causes). I'm just saying, the deck is loaded - there's more easy money to be made in prescribing drugs than there is nutting out difficult problems (or changing the world). And this fact can be seen reflected in every relevant social institution. Thomas Szasz appears to be the American equivalent of R D Laing (Cue Dreams End - Szasz appears to have a "long history" with Scientology). I don't know much about him, but one thing that caught my eye a while ago was that he appears to bemoan the phasing out of the old-fashioned sedative drugs, and the bringing in of new wizz-bang smart drugs "that don't simply mask the problem, but deal with the actual brain chemistry issue." My father had an "attack of the nerves" when he was younger, and he's spent the last 30 years with the same untouched bottle of valium in the cupboard, knowing that they are there if it ever happens again. I had my own "attack of the nerves" a few years ago - so out of the blue that I thought it was conjestive heart failure or something for a while there (!) - but the doctor didn't end up buying my father's tale. He was happy to send me away with a script for an "anti-anxiety/anti-depressant" (a drug somehow so "brain chemistry specific" that it could actually deal with both these conditions, or one, or the other, depending on your specific symptoms - now that's smart!), but valium was too "risky" given its addictive potential. But doesn't that say more about how doctors have unwisely administered this drug in the past than it does about the drug itself? Choose: give someone access to a powerful drug, but make sure they know that the goal is to get by without the drug; or prescribe a drug that by some measure appears to be effective, and that the patient can take regularly and indefinitely. Which drug and drug regime do you think the pharmaceautical companies like best? One path involves trusting people and making people take extra responsibility for their own health. The other involves treating people like a malfunctioning biochemical machine. I know I haven't said anything about more serious conditions, but part of the anti-psychiatric view involves acknowledging that between "health" and "mental illness" is a continuum, and that mental illness is best understood as badly modified health, rather than as something that has its own independent existence. So exploring the middle ground can be useful.

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