Posts Tagged ‘psychiatrist’

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Criminal Psychiatric Diagnosing: A Side Effect of Soderbergh’s Latest Film (SPOILER ALERT)

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
March 6, 2013

Steven Soderbergh’s “psychological thriller,” Side Effects, very clearly demonstrates two things: the fraud and criminality of psychiatric diagnosing.

The “cat’s out of the bag” about the numerous convoluted twists and turns that make up what Rex Reed called “a tank of twaddle called Side Effects.” And, rather than guess, much to his credit, Reed was honest enough to admit, “I have seen it twice, and I still don’t know what it’s about.” Fair enough. It’s easy to see how anyone could be confused about the underlying story line.

Aside from the razzle-dazzle of yammering on about every antidepressant known to man (including a new and fictitious antidepressant called Ablixa), some very brief blather about the adverse side effects of the new psychiatric drug, psychiatrist/patient sexual abuse and, oh yeah, a bloody murder scene, there really isn’t anything new to get excited about.

That is until one considers that psychiatric diagnosing is behind every element of the story. And it is with this element that issues need to be considered if one is to truly appreciate the gift that Soderbergh has given his audience.

Interestingly enough, the day the filmed opened, Time.com published an interview with Dr. Sasha Bardey, a forensic psychiatrist who also happened to be a co-producer of the film. Bardey had worked in the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York City and it was there that he met Scott Burns, the writer of Side Effects.

Bardey was asked in his interview with Time.com if the events in the movie were based on real cases. “Yes,” says Bardey, “they were either based on – or inspired by – actual cases. But most of the action you see in the movie is derived from real incidents that occurred.” Wow, this is some admission. The action you see in the movie is based on real incidents?

Let’s review just two of the “real incidents.” First, Mara Rooney’s character, a frail and pale Emily, goes to a psychiatrist (Jude Law) telling him “every afternoon at three, there’s this poisonous fog bank, rolling in on my mind.”

Naturally, the psychiatrist (Law), by simply listening to pathetic Emily, determines she is suffering from depression and decides to “treat” her with antidepressants.

Okay, this is reality. Soderbergh, with the help of his real-life forensic psychiatrist, Bardey, has made it abundantly clear that a psychiatric diagnosis is nothing more than an opinion formed by the doctor listening to a patient.

What apparently was lost on the reviewers of this film and probably the viewing audience, is that every single psychiatric diagnosis is determined in the same manner. There is no science…no blood tests, no X-rays, no CAT scans or MRI’s to determine whether there’s an actual abnormality in the brain.

In other words, whether someone is diagnosed with depression, bipolar, ADHD, schizophrenia or any of the other 400 alleged mental illnesses, the psychiatrist merely has to briefly listen to the patient’s life complaints and, voila, the psychiatrist is able to determine the exact alleged mental disorder.

On the surface it is ridiculous and Soderbergh/Bardey have provided a very good example of the fraud that is psychiatric diagnosing, and the psychiatric fraud gets worse as the movie progresses.

Emily is prescribed several antidepressants. Her psychiatrist (Law) tells her that the drugs that regulate Serotonin “stop the brain from telling you to feel sad.” Really? Sounds like typical psychobabble on par with the never-proven “chemical imbalance,” theory and certainly there is no science to support such a claim.

For example, Eli Lilly, the maker of the first Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, Prozac, wrote:  “Depression is not fully understood, but a growing amount of evidence supports the view that people with depression may have an imbalance of the brain’s neurotransmitters, the chemicals that allow nerve cells in the brain to communicate with each other. Many scientists believe that an imbalance in serotonin, one of these neurotransmitters, may be an important factor in the development and severity of depression. Prozac may help correct this imbalance by increasing the brain’s own supply of serotonin.”

Sounds scientific, right? But no part of Lilly’s explanation provides a definitive explanation of depression or how Prozac effects depression. It does say that the pharmaceutical giant doesn’t understand depression, people may have a chemical imbalance, scientists believe and Prozac may help. In other words, there is no science to support the drug’s marketing claims.

Lilly wrote this nonsense thirty years ago. Since then scientists have not come any closer to figuring out what effect an increase in the brain’s serotonin levels has on depression or any other alleged mental illness.

In fact, it is becoming more clear, based on recent studies of clinical trial data for all of the antidepressants on the market, that the drugs are only marginally better than a placebo (sugar pill).

By all accounts, no scientist has yet to prove that there is any chemical imbalance in the brain of any person, least of all depressed people. Worse, yet, there isn’t even a test available to determine chemical levels in the brain, making it impossible for anyone to know if there is an imbalance.

Anyway, back to Emily. The first antidepressants she is prescribed don’t “work” and her psychiatrist (Law) takes advice from Emily’s previous psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who also happens to be Emily’s lesbian lover, and decides to prescribe the newest antidepressant, Ablixa.

Ablixa apparently has “side effects” which can cause people to sleepwalk and, in this drug induced state, become unaware of their behavior and actions. Depressed and drugged Emily kills her husband, claiming she has no memory of the event and she is the victim of the drug.

The audience then is fast-forwarded to the courtroom where Emily’s psychiatrist (Law) is Emily’s psychiatric expert who argues the drug made his client kill. Ultimately, Law convinces Emily to take an insanity plea, do a brief stint in a mental ward and, as he will determine when she is “better,” he will have her out in no time.

Again, it is the psychiatrist who not only diagnosed Emily as depressed and prescribed the mind-altering drugs, but it’s the same psychiatrist who now rescues her from criminal charges that surely would have her spending life in prison. The psychiatrist’s “expertise” will convince the court that Emily is innocent of murder.

But like the original depression diagnosis, the psychiatrist has no scientific tools, nothing other than his opinion, to come to his new conclusions of the patient’s behavior. And, based on an opinion, a psychiatrist could just as easily convince a court that the patient is not insane.

What is most troubling, though, is that Emily’s psychiatrist (Law) figures out that Emily faked her depression, never took the prescribed drugs and premeditated her husband’s murder.

To exact revenge for the personal and professional trouble Emily caused to psychiatrist Law, he arranges to have her committed to a mental institution where only he will decide when she is “better.” And, the movie leaves the audience with a view of a pathetic and drugged Emily apparently spending the rest of her life behind the walls of the mental institution.

So here’s the question, if Bardey is being honest when he says the events in this movie are based on real cases, then one has to wonder who is the real-life patient that has been committed to a mental institution because the psychiatrist wanted revenge?

Equally important, who is the real-life psychiatrist who is keeping someone in a mental institution with the full knowledge that the patient does not suffer from any alleged mental illness?

The point, which this movie abundantly demonstrates, is that psychiatric diagnosing is a fraud and, because of that fraud…because there is no science to back up a single mental illness diagnosis, a psychiatrist can literally get away with criminal behavior.

This is not Hollywood. This is real-life as there are nearly 2 million involuntary commitments occurring in the U.S. every year.  Bardey apparently is aware of one such involuntary and seemingly criminal commitment that most would agree is in desperate need of review.

Arguably, there may be others who are wondering how many other commitments Bardey is aware of that are the result of a psychiatrist’s personal agenda?

Kelly Patricia O’Meara is an award winning investigative reporter for the Washington Times, Insight Magazine, penning dozens of articles exposing the fraud of psychiatric diagnosis and the dangers of the psychiatric drugs – including her ground-breaking 1999 cover story, Guns & Doses, exposing the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence.  She is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill.  Prior to working as an investigative journalist, O’Meara spent sixteen years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer to four Members of Congress. She holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Maryland.

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Uncivil Commitment: Psychiatry May Deprive You of Civil Rights

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

PsychCentral.com
By Thea Amidov
March 5, 2013

Americans take considerable pride in our Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties, yet our government and institutions often abridge or ignore those rights when it comes to certain classes of people.

According to a National Council on Disability report, people with psychiatric illnesses are routinely deprived of their civil rights in a way that no other people with disabilities are (2). This is particularly so in the case of people who are involuntarily committed to psychiatric wards.

Under present standards of most states, a person who is judged by a psychiatrist to be in imminent danger to self or others may be involuntarily committed to a locked psychiatric ward and detained there for a period of time (3). Some would argue that involuntary civil commitment is a necessary approach justified by safety and treatment concerns. Others would counter that it is an inhumane and unjustifiable curtailment of civil liberties.

Let’s look at the example of recent suicide survivors in order to examine this debate in more depth.

On one side of this argument are the vast majority of mental health specialists and an uncertain percentage of former patients. They argue that forced confinement is, at times, justified by safety concerns and to ensure that proper treatment is administered. Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, eminent advocate of greater use of coercive psychiatry, criticizes the reforms gained by civil rights advocates (4). He says that these reforms have made involuntary civil commitment and treatment too difficult and thus have increased the numbers of mentally ill people who are homeless, warehoused in jails, and doomed by self-destructive behavior to a tortured life.

D. J. Jaffee claims that the high-functioning “consumertocracy” anti-psychiatry people do not speak for the severely ill and homeless (5). If you are suffering from serious mental illness, “freedom,” Torrey and Jaffee say, is a meaningless term. Many a family member has bemoaned the difficulty in getting a loved one committed and kept safe. Torrey pleads with passion that involuntary commitment should be facilitated and the time of commitment lengthened.

No one can contest the problems that Torrey describes, but a nation dedicated to civil liberties should question the solutions he advocates. Prominent critics of coercive psychiatry include early activist psychiatrist Loren Mosher and psychologist Leighten Whittaker, the consumer organization Mindfreedom.org, consumers (or service users) such as Judi Chamberlain, and civil rights attorneys.

In presenting counter-arguments against the use of involuntary commitment with suicide survivors, I consider here the interlinked issues of safety and science-based medicine, as well as civil liberties and justice. Here are my concerns:

  • There is no reliable methodology behind the decision of whom to commit.

Despite studies and innovative tests, doctors still cannot accurately predict who will make a suicide attempt even in the near future. As Dr. Igor Galynker, associate director of Beth Israel Department of Psychiatry said in 2011, it is amazing “how trivial the triggers may be and how helpless we are in predicting suicide.” (6) In fact, an average of one out of every two private psychiatrists loses a patient to suicide, blindsided by the action. (1)So how do hospital psychiatrists choose which people recovering from a suicide attempt they should commit? There are patient interviews and tests, but commitment is primarily based on the statistics that a serious recent suicide attempt, particularly a violent one, predicts a 20-40 percent risk of another attempt. (7) However, this statistics-based approach is akin to profiling. It means that those 60-80 percent who will not make another attempt will lose their liberty nonetheless. So should we accept locking up individuals when evaluation and prediction of “danger to self” is so uncertain?

  • Confinement does not offer effective treatment.

Erring on the side of caution and confining all people who have made a serious suicide attempt is particularly unjust and harmful because the vast majority of psychiatric wards do not offer effective stabilization and treatment. A report by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (2011) found that there is no evidence whatsoever that psychiatric hospitalization prevents future suicides. (8) In fact, it is widely recognized that the highest risk of a repeat attempt is soon after release from a hospital. This is not surprising, given the limited therapeutic interventions usually available on wards beyond the blanket administration of anti-anxiety and psychotropic medications. What the hospital can do is reduce the risk of suicide for the period of strict confinement. Despite this data, in Kansas v. Henricksthe U.S. Supreme Court found that involuntary commitment is legal even if there is an absence of treatment.

  • Involuntary psychiatric hospitalization is often a damaging experience.

Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Warner writes: “…we take our most frightened, most alienated, and most confused patients and place them in environments that increase fear, alienation, and confusion.” (9) A psychiatrist who wishes to remain anonymous told me that voluntary psychiatric programs often see patients with post-traumatic stress from their stay on a locked inpatient ward. Imagine finding yourself surviving a suicide attempt, glad to be alive, but suddenly locked up like a convicted criminal with no privacy, control over your treatment, or freedom.

  • Involuntary confinement undermines the patient-doctor relationship

The prison-like environment of a locked ward and the power dynamics it entails reinforces a person’s sense of helplessness, increases distrust of the treatment process, reduces medication compliance, and encourages a mutually adversarial patient-doctor relationship. Hospital psychiatrist Paul Linde, in his book, Danger to Self, critically labels one of his chapters, “Jailer.” (10) Yet, like some other hospital psychiatrists, he talks about the pleasure of winning cases ‘against’ his patients who go to mental health courts, seeking their release. The fact that judges almost always side with hospital psychiatrists undermines his victory and patient access to justice. (11)

  • Finally, coercive treatment of people with mental illness is discriminatory.

Doctors do not lock up those who neglect to take their heart medications, who keep smoking even with cancer, or are addicted to alcohol. We might bemoan these situations, but we are not ready to deprive such individuals of their liberty, privacy, and bodily integrity despite their “poor” judgement. People who suffer from mental illness also are due the respect and freedoms enjoyed by other human beings.

Read full article here:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/03/04/uncivil-commitment-mental-illness-may-deprive-you-of-civil-rights/

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Reason Magazine—Thomas Szasz’s courageous defense of freedom and responsibility

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

The Man Versus the Therapeutic State

Reason Magazine, September 19, 2012

by Jacob Sullum, Senior Editor

Thomas Szasz

The New York Times obituary for Thomas Szasz, who died this month at the age of 92, says his critique of psychiatry “had some merit in the 1950s…but not later on, when the field began developing more scientific approaches.” That’s a paraphrase of historian Edward Shorter, whose judgment reflects the conventional wisdom: Szasz called much-needed attention to psychiatric abuses early in his career but went too far by insisting on a fundamental distinction between actual, biological diseases and metaphorical diseases of the mind.

In fact, however, Szasz’s radicalism, which he combined with a sharp wit, a keen eye for obfuscating rhetoric, and an uncompromising dedication to individual freedom and responsibility, was one of his greatest strengths. Beginning with The Myth of Mental Illness in 1961 and continuing through 35 more books and hundreds of articles, the maverick psychiatrist, driven by a “passion against coercion,” zeroed in on the foundational fallacies underlying all manner of medicalized tyranny.

The idea that psychiatry became scientifically rigorous soon after Szasz first likened it to alchemy and astrology is hard to take seriously. After all, it was not until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) stopped calling homosexuality a mental disorder.

More often, psychiatry has expanded its domain. Today it encompasses myriad sins and foibles, including smoking, overeating, gambling, shoplifting, sexual promiscuity, pederasty, rambunctiousness, inattentiveness, social awkwardness, anxiety, sadness, and political extremism. If it can be described, it can be diagnosed, but only if the APA says so. Asperger’s, for instance, will cease to exist when the fifth edition of the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) comes out next year.

As Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, observed last year in The New York Review of Books, “there are no objective signs or tests for mental illness—no lab data or MRI findings—and the boundaries between normal and abnormal are often unclear. That makes it possible to expand diagnostic boundaries or even create new diagnoses in ways that would be impossible, say, in a field like cardiology.” In other words, mental illnesses are whatever psychiatrists say they are.

How “scientific” is that? Not very. In a 2010 Wired interview, Allen Frances, lead editor of the current DSM, despaired that defining mental disorders is “bullshit.” In an online debate last month, he declared that “mental disorders most certainly are not diseases.”

Then what exactly are they? For more than half a century, Szasz stubbornly highlighted the hazards of joining such a fuzzy, subjective concept with the force of law through involuntary treatment, the insanity defense, and other psychiatrically informed policies.

Consider “sexually violent predators,” who are convicted and imprisoned based on the premise that they could have restrained themselves but failed to do so, then committed to mental hospitals after completing their sentences based on the premise that they suffer from irresistible urges and therefore pose an intolerable threat to public safety. From a Szaszian perspective, this incoherent theory is a cover for what is really going on: the retroactive enhancement of duly imposed sentences by politicians who decided certain criminals were getting off too lightly—a policy so plainly contrary to due process and the rule of law that it had to be dressed up in quasi-medical, pseudoscientific justifications.

Szasz specialized in puncturing such pretensions. He relentlessly attacked the “therapeutic state,” the unhealthy alliance of medicine and government that blesses all sorts of unjustified limits on liberty, ranging from the mandatory prescription system to laws against suicide. My own work has been powerfully influenced by Szasz’s arguments against drug prohibition, especially his discussion of its symbolism and its reliance on a mistaken understanding of addiction, and his criticism of paternalistic interventions, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recently approved soda serving ceiling, that conflate private and public health.

I will always be grateful for Szasz’s courage and insight, and so should anyone who shares his passion against coercion.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/09/19/the-man-versus-the-therapeutic-state

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For more information on Thomas Szasz, co-founder of CCHR, visit CCHR’s Thomas Szasz pages here

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Australian Bill Allows Sterilizations, Electroshock & Psychosurgery Of Kids Without Parental Consent

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

 (Note: CCHR has placed ads in Australian newspapers and distributed thousands of fliers to alert the public about this heinous bill.)
NaturalSociety- March 5, 2012
By Anthony Gucciardi

The bill allows for children—at any age, to be sterlized, electroshocked or undergo psychosurgery without parental consent at a psychiatrist's discretion

Australia is now paving the way for children of any age to consent to sterilization — without parental consent. That’s right, if a psychiatrist determines that a child under the age of 18 years is ‘sufficiently mature’, they will be sterilized without any say from the parents. Again, there is no age minimum, as long as they are ‘mature‘ enough.

The legislation, known as the ‘Draft Mental Health Bill 2011′, also allows for 12-year-olds to consent to psychosurgery and electroshock. You can view the bill for yourself on the Australian Mental Health government website. Written by the Western Australia Mental Health Commission (MHC) and overseen by Mental Health Commissioner and clinical psychologist Mr Eddie Bartnik, objections can still be submitted to Australian parliamentary members in each state until March 9th.

Some main points of the bill read:

  • CHILDREN OF ANY AGE TO CONSENT TO STERILISATION: If a psychiatrist decides that a child (under 18 years) has sufficient maturity, he or she will be able to consent to sterilisation. Parental consent will not be needed. Only after the sterilisation procedure has been performed does it have to be reported and then only to the Chief Psychiatrist. [Pages: 135 & 136 of the Draft Mental Health Bill 2011]
  • 12 YEAR OLDS WILL BE ABLE TO CONSENT TO PSYCHOSURGERY:Banned in N.S.W. and the N.T., psychosurgery irreversibly damages the brain by surgery, burning or inserting electrodes. This draft bill proposes to allow a 12 year old child, if considered to be sufficiently mature by a psychiatrist, to be able to consent to psychosurgery. Once the child has consented it goes before the Mental Health Tribunal (MHT) for approval. Parental consent is also not needed for the MHT to approve the psychosurgery. [Pages: 108, 109, 110, 197,198, 199, 213]
  • 12 YEAR OLDS WILL BE ABLE TO CONSENT TO ELECTROSHOCK (ECT): Electroshock is hundreds of volts of electricity to the head. Any child aged 12 and over, whom a child and adolescent psychiatrist decides is “mature” enough, will be able to consent to electroshock. Also, once consent is given, there is no requirement for parents or anyone, including the MHT, to approve the electroshock. Electroshock should be banned. Its use on the elderly, pregnant women and children is especially destructive. [Pages: 100, 101, 103, 104, 194, 105]
Action will need to be taken to make sure the bill does not pass. Objections can be sent to the Mental Health Commission and to Australian state legislators. Feedback options come to a close on the 9th of March at 5pm, so it is important to voice your opposition today. Here are a few ways to contact the Mental Health Commission and state your objection to the bill:
  • Mail: GPO Box X2299 Perth Business Centre, W.A. 6847

Read article here:  http://naturalsociety.com/australian-bill-allows-for-sterilizations-without-parental-consent-at-any-age/#ixzz1oNTpMpQ7

Note: CCHR has taken out ads in Australian newspapers and distributed thousands of fliers to alert the public about this heinous bill.

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Would We Have Drugged Up Einstein? How Anti-Authoritarianism Is Deemed a Mental Health Problem

Friday, February 24th, 2012

“We are increasingly marketing drugs that essentially ‘cure’ anti-authoritarians. In every generation there will be authoritarians and anti-authoritarians. While it is unusual in American history for anti-authoritarians to take the kind of effective action that inspires others to successfully revolt, every once in a while a Tom Paine, Crazy Horse or Malcolm X come along. So authoritarians financially marginalize those who buck the system, they criminalize anti-authoritarianism, they psychopathologize anti-authoritarians, and they market drugs for their ‘cure.”  – Bruce Levine

Alternet – February 20, 2012

by Bruce Levine, Psychologist

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by 1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians; and 2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.

Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.

Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society’s most oppressive authorities.

Why Mental Health Professionals Diagnose Anti-Authoritarians with Mental Illness

Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance with authorities, even those authorities one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one.

I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience. And it also has become clear to me that the anti-authoritarianism of their patients creates enormous anxiety for these professionals, and their anxiety fuels diagnoses and treatments.

In graduate school, I discovered that all it took to be labeled as having “issues with authority” was not kissing up to a director of clinical training whose personality was a combination of Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich and Howard Cosell. When I was told by some faculty that I had “issues with authority,” I had mixed feelings about being so labeled. On the one hand, I found it amusing, because among the working-class kids I had grown up with, I was considered relatively compliant with authorities. After all, I had done my homework, studied and received good grades. However, while my new “issues with authority” label made me grin because I was now being seen as a “bad boy,” I was also concerned about just what kind of profession I had entered. Specifically, if somebody such as myself was labeled as having “issues with authority,” what were they calling the kids I grew up with who paid attention to many things that they cared about but didn’t care enough about school to comply there? Well, the answer soon became clear.

Mental Illness Diagnoses for Anti-Authoritarians

A 2009 Psychiatric Times article titled “ADHD & ODD: Confronting the Challenges of Disruptive Behavior” reports that “disruptive disorders,” which include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and opposition defiant disorder (ODD), are the most common mental health problem of children and teenagers. ADHD is defined by poor attention and distractibility, poor self-control and impulsivity, and hyperactivity. ODD is defined as a “a pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior without the more serious violations of the basic rights of others that are seen in conduct disorder”; and ODD symptoms include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.”

Psychologist Russell Barkley, one of mainstream mental health’s leading authorities on ADHD, says that those afflicted with ADHD have deficits in what he calls “rule-governed behavior,” as they are less responsive to rules of established authorities and less sensitive to positive or negative consequences. ODD young people, according to mainstream mental health authorities, also have these so-called deficits in rule-governed behavior, and so it is extremely common for young people to have a “dual diagnosis” of AHDH and ODD.

Do we really want to diagnose and medicate everyone with “deficits in rule-governed behavior”?

Albert Einstein, as a youth, would have likely received an ADHD diagnosis, and maybe an ODD one as well. Albert didn’t pay attention to his teachers, failed his college entrance examinations twice, and had difficulty holding jobs. However, Einstein biographer Ronald Clark (Einstein: The Life and Times) asserts that Albert’s problems did not stem from attention deficits but rather from his hatred of authoritarian, Prussian discipline in his schools. Einstein said, “The teachers in the elementary school appeared to me like sergeants and in the Gymnasium the teachers were like lieutenants.” At age 13, Einstein read Kant’s difficult Critique of Pure Reason—because he was interested in it. Clark also tells us Einstein refused to prepare himself for his college admissions as a rebellion against his father’s “unbearable” path of a “practical profession.” After he did enter college, one professor told Einstein, “You have one fault; one can’t tell you anything.” The very characteristics of Einstein that upset authorities so much were exactly the ones that allowed him to excel.

By today’s standards, Saul Alinsky, the legendary organizer and author of Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals, would have certainly been diagnosed with one or more disruptive disorders. Recalling his childhood, Alinsky said, “I never thought of walking on the grass until I saw a sign saying ‘Keep off the grass.’ Then I would stomp all over it.” Alinsky also recalls a time when he was 10 or 11 and his rabbi was tutoring him in Hebrew:

One particular day I read three pages in a row without any errors in pronunciation, and suddenly a penny fell onto the Bible….Then the next day the rabbi turned up and he told me to start reading. And I wouldn’t; I just sat there in silence, refusing to read. He asked me why I was so quiet, and I said, “This time it’s a nickel or nothing.” He threw back his arm and slammed me across the room.

Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized, but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.

I have also spent a great deal of time with people who had at one time in their lives had thoughts and behavior that were so bizarre they were extremely frightening for their families and even themselves; they were diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses, but have fully recovered and have been, for many years, leading productive lives. Among this population, I have not met one person whom I would not consider a major anti-authoritarian. Once recovered, they have learned to channel their anti-authoritarianism into more constructive political ends, including reforming mental health treatment.

Many anti-authoritarians who earlier in their lives were diagnosed with mental illness tell me that once they were labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis, they got caught in a dilemma. Authoritarians, by definition, demand unquestioning obedience, and so any resistance to their diagnosis and treatment created enormous anxiety for authoritarian mental health professionals; and professionals, feeling out of control, labeled them “noncompliant with treatment,” increased the severity of their diagnosis, and jacked up their medications. This was enraging for these anti-authoritarians, sometimes so much so that they reacted in ways that made them appear even more frightening to their families.

There are anti-authoritarians who use psychiatric drugs to help them function, but they often reject psychiatric authorities’ explanations for why they have difficulty functioning. So, for example, they may take Adderall (an amphetamine prescribed for ADHD), but they know that their attentional problem is not a result of a biochemical brain imbalance but rather caused by a boring job. And similarly, many anti-authoritarians in highly stressful environments will occasionally take prescribed benzodiazepines such as Xanax even though they believe it would be safer to occasionally use marijuana but can’t because of drug testing on their job.

It has been my experience that many anti-authoritarians labeled with psychiatric diagnoses usually don’t reject all authorities, simply those they’ve assessed to be illegitimate ones, which just happens to be a great deal of society’s authorities.

Maintaining the Societal Status Quo

Americans have been increasingly socialized to equate inattention, anger, anxiety, and immobilizing despair with a medical condition, and to seek medical treatment rather than political remedies. What better way to maintain the status quo than to view inattention, anger, anxiety, and depression as biochemical problems of those who are mentally ill rather than normal reactions to an increasingly authoritarian society?

The reality is that depression is highly associated with societal and financial pains. One is much more likely to be depressed if one is unemployed, underemployed, on public assistance, or in debt (for documentation, see “400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use”). And ADHD-labeled kids do pay attention when they are getting paid, or when an activity is novel, interests them, or is chosen by them (documented in my book Commonsense Rebellion).

In an earlier dark age, authoritarian monarchies partnered with authoritarian religious institutions. When the world exited from this dark age and entered the Enlightenment, there was a burst of energy. Much of this revitalization had to do with risking skepticism about authoritarian and corrupt institutions and regaining confidence in one’s own mind. We are now in another dark age, only the institutions have changed. Americans desperately need anti-authoritarians to question, challenge, and resist new illegitimate authorities and regain confidence in their own common sense.

In every generation there will be authoritarians and anti-authoritarians. While it is unusual in American history for anti-authoritarians to take the kind of effective action that inspires others to successfully revolt, every once in a while a Tom Paine, Crazy Horse or Malcolm X come along. So authoritarians financially marginalize those who buck the system, they criminalize anti-authoritarianism, they psychopathologize anti-authoritarians, and they market drugs for their “cure.”

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Huffington Post – “Foster Teen: I Was Put In A Psych Ward. I Wasn’t Crazy”

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

The Huffington Post
By Anthony Turner
December 3, 2011

This is a teen-written article from Represent Magazine, a platform for and by young people in foster care.

It all started when I said something stupid in school. A girl was ignoring me, and I got mad and said, “F-ck this sh-t. I’m gonna do some Virginia Tech sh-t.” I only said it so the girl would pay attention to me. But I shocked all my classmates and teachers, and the school said I’d made a “terrorist threat.”

I was in the 9th grade, and I had recently moved out of an abusive situation with my mom and into a foster home I knew nothing about. I needed someone to listen so I could get my feelings out. But there was no one I could really trust.

My caseworker came to my foster mom’s house and told me that he would take me to KFC and then to a “nice place to get help.” I thought, “OK, that sounds cool. I get my favorite food and I go to a center to feel better.”

The next stop we made was a psychiatric hospital for kids. We went through door after door, and it dawned on me that every door had a lock. Once the door shut you couldn’t open it. The doors locked you in. They intended to keep me here. That realization gave me a panic attack. I started running and the security tackled me. I was forcibly dragged in.

What Was I Signing?

When I got inside, the kids peeked out of their rooms to see who was coming. I was so scared I thought I would pee on myself. I had never been to a place like this. When I entered a dayroom, a place where the kids hang out, they slowly introduced themselves. I shook my head in fright. I wasn’t like these kids. Some were twitching and others drooled. I kept to myself and didn’t speak a word to anyone.

I felt forced into signing a bunch of papers. I didn’t realize I was signing consent to take medication.

The first things they prescribed were Depakote and Risperdal. I didn’t get a say in what I wanted, and that made me feel powerless.

At the hospital, staff joked about it in a perverse way. “Hey kids, come and get your happy pills!” “Come right up for your Skittles, it makes the world a better place!” I was disgusted that the staff were making light of my situation. I wondered how they’d feel if they were forced to take pills in a lockdown facility.

The meds made me feel bad. Sometimes I over-ate, ate too little, or had trouble sleeping. I hated the fake smile the nurses gave me after I took my medication.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially my therapist, because I believed that my depressing stories about my mom’s abuse might make the doctors prescribe more medication.

I was afraid if I kept taking medication I would be just like every kid in the hospital. I wanted to be the kid who stood out, the kid who didn’t take medication. There were kids already looking up to me but I wanted them to think, “Wow, Anthony doesn’t take medication. I want to follow his lead.”

I tried hiding the pills in my hand. I learned how to put pills deep in my throat and spit them out later. It worked for a while but then one pill got stuck there. The staff helped get it out. After that they checked me carefully.

Another way I avoided pills was simply putting them under my tongue. I would hide them in a soap bar box until my roommate saw it and told the nurse. Then I was forced to take liquid medication, which was disgusting.

A Target

The Depakote was supposed to make me feel “calmer” and “happy.” Instead I gained over 30 pounds, and that brought my self-esteem down. I felt fat and I wasn’t comfortable with myself. Some of the kids and even staff called me names like fat ass or b-tch tits. I went off on one staff once because he said, “I know the perfect birthday present for you—a training bra!”

I really wanted to do well, and I tried to behave and present myself in a mature manner. But it didn’t seem to make a difference. And the uncontrollable and unpredictable behavior around me started to affect me.

The one and only time I truly flipped out, though, was when the whole unit tried to jump me. “Yo, let’s f-ck up this p-ssy n-gga Anthony,” said one kid. Suddenly everyone turned to me grinning sinisterly, like they’d just found their new target.

“Nah, come on guys, let’s play some board games or something,” I suggested.

“You ain’t gonna get out this, b-tch,” said a fat kid with squinty eyes. “You think you Mr. Goody Two Shoes. We gonna straighten you out.”

I ended up getting chased down by 12 guys. One person caught me and then they stomped me out. I thought I would beg for them to leave me alone, but suddenly I felt myself becoming so enraged that I no longer felt the pain. I got up and screamed, “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

I was surprised at my sudden outburst, but most of the guys just laughed. Then everything turned red and my surroundings became a blur. I didn’t gain full consciousness until I was near the dayroom area. I noticed some of the guys holding their lip or arm. “Did I do this?” was the only thought that came to mind.

I was shocked that I’d stood up to them, much less beaten them up. A weird feeling came over me then. I wondered for the first time in the hospital if I was losing my sanity and just becoming one of maybe thousands of nut jobs who end up staying in hospitals.

Suppressing My Feelings

But most of the time I was quick to disengage and try to find ways to occupy myself when I saw these kinds of incidents starting. I tried reading, writing, talking with a staff I could trust, or daydreaming. These were ways to block out any negativity that surrounded me. Although these strategies were very helpful, I was still suppressing my feelings because there were overwhelming situations I wasn’t familiar with and didn’t know how to deal with emotionally.

While I was in the hospital, I saw two people commit suicide, including my roommate. They said I was “further traumatized” by that and put me in a state hospital, which was even more restrictive.

Looking at it now, I can see that the suicides did really impact me. However, I felt outpatient therapy (therapy where you see your therapist but you’re not confined to a psychiatric unit) could’ve been more effective. I didn’t see how living in the state hospital was going to help. I just wanted to be back in the community where I’d be able to interact more freely, go out, and feel more like a normal kid.

I was glad to leave the first hospital, but this was no better. I wanted to get off medication completely. Some doctors finally decided I was stable enough to behave without meds. They started to take me off a little at a time. I was happy to be off the medication, but if I messed up or acted out one bit, like by cursing, I was back on it.

For example, once a staff ticked me off by yelling at me for not doing my laundry. I cursed at him because he kept pressuring me. The doctors and staff said the fact that I cursed meant I was too unstable to stay off medication. But wouldn’t anyone curse if they felt pressured or nervous that a staff he hardly knew started yelling at him?

I had seen some staff do terrible, abusive things to the kids, like getting them to fight each other in exchange for Chinese food (a special treat). Of course I was on edge around some of the staff. The doctors didn’t know that, though.

Can’t We Talk About This?

I felt trapped. Some doctors said, “Well, Anthony, it’s possible to get off medication, but will it benefit you in the long run?” What were they trying to say? That I couldn’t function properly without the use of a drug?

I didn’t question it further because the mental health system had trained my brain to think that meds were my solution to everything. If I felt angry the doctor would say, “Maybe it’s time for Abilify, a drug that stabilizes your mood swings.” If I felt anxious the doctor would try to prescribe Zoloft, a pill that helps with some types of anxiety. I thought, “Have you guys ever heard of talking your feelings out? NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE SOLVED WITH THE USE OF A DRUG!”

I was receiving therapy at the time, and I felt it helped more than the meds. I had a really good therapist, and it was such a physical release to be able to express my feelings. I’m sure the meds did improve my moods somewhat; I was less likely to curse and talk back. But what helped the most was having a direct connection with a trusted adult like I got in therapy.

I sat down one day and wrote how I felt the pills were helping me—pros—and how they weren’t—the cons. I wanted time to reflect on where I was going in life, to feel some control. The cons on my list—the physical side effects, and the depressing feeling I got from taking meds—outnumbered the pros. I wasn’t going to tell the doctor that everything I was taking was all right with me. It wasn’t and I had to put a stop to it.

I was tired of taking meds and then being taken off just to get back on again. No one even gave me a real explanation. Their excuse was usually, “We’re putting you back on because we feel you could be in a more stable condition.” Being on and off meds made me really jumpy. My eyes would twitch sometimes.

I also felt mentally tired because I’d been on drugs for over a year and I wasn’t getting better. I was constantly sleeping and I couldn’t focus. Emotionally, I was tired of the need to even be on meds in the first place.

I believed that in order for me to be better I had to be exposed to the community because then I could feel how a teenage life is supposed to be. To me this meant a cell phone so I could communicate with friends, my own room, decent curfews, a real home, and to be around my family. It wasn’t pills I needed; it was the chance to feel like a normal teenager after years of abuse and being institutionalized.

Love Is the Best Medicine

After eight months at the second hospital, I was sent to a group home at a Residential Treatment Facility (RTF), where I continued to take medication. I began to wonder when I would ever get back in the community. I had just started going on visits with my aunt and I had decided that I would like to go live there. I just wanted to stay somewhere permanently and feel cared for. Thinking about all this moving made me as depressed as when I first came into the hospital.

Finally, they let me go live at my aunt’s house. I think the reason why the RTF agreed to it was because I kept advocating for myself. I felt excited and at peace. I felt that I had achieved the impossible and that I deserved to be with my aunt and my family who would love me for me, instead of living with the institution’s idea of “support.” I had worked two and a half years to get to this point. I would not let it go to waste.

Alone in my room at my aunt’s house, I thought quietly. I looked to the left. There was no nurse ready to give me a cup full of meds. I looked to my right. There was no doctor trying to switch my meds or giving me higher doses. It dawned on me then. There were obviously rules and expectations, but ultimately I could make my own decisions now. I didn’t have to continue the medication. So I made an appointment with the doctor and said, “I no longer feel like I need medication.”

The doctor seemed a little concerned that I was in a rush. She said, “Anthony, you’re a very bright kid, but are you sure that you want to get off? I want you to perform at your highest and do well.” I told her I was sure of my choice and that I wouldn’t regret it. And I don’t.

The Community Transformed Me

Now that I don’t take medication I feel a lot happier, more powerful, and in control. Yeah, I had to get adjusted to living back in Brooklyn, but I adapted quickly. It felt good to see my neighborhood friends and the employees I always talked to at the Burger King across the street. I never ever felt this happy when I was on medication. I always felt drugged or out of it. I’m not always happy, but when I do feel bad I talk my feelings out with people I trust, and I write. Writing allows me to get overwhelming or negative things off my mind onto paper.

Being in the community is what I’ve always wanted. Now I have a sense of freedom. I go to regular school, I have easy access to friends, and I socialize on my time. I’m not on someone else’s schedule and I don’t have to be cooped up inside all day feeling anxious. The community has transformed me.

Read the rest of the article here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/foster-teens-i-needed-emo_n_1126659.html?page=1

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Those in favor of Psychiatry’s Billing Bible? The American Psychiatric Association. Against it? Just About Everyone else

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Click image to watch video (explaining in simple terms, what the “problem” with psychiatry is….)

Psychology Today – November 1, 2011

by Allen Frances, MD (Psychiatrist and former Chairman of the DSM task force)

So far, opposition to DSM 5 has been expressed by the following organizations: British Psychological Society; American Counseling Association; Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA Division 32); Society for Community Research and Action: Division of Community Psychology (APA Division 27); Society for Group Psychology & Psychotherapy (APA Division 49); Developmental Psychology (APA Division 7); UK Council for Psychotherapy; Association for Women in Psychology; Constructivist Psychology Network; Society for Descriptive Psychology; and the Society of Indian Psychologists.

An editorial by the Society Of Biological Psychiatrywondered whether DSM 5 was necessary at all. The community of personality disordersresearchers is virtually unanimous in its opposition to the DSM 5 personality disorders section. There has also been widespread opposition to the sections on somatic, autistic, gender, paraphilic, and psychotic disorders.

Last week, a petition was posted quietly be several divisions of the American Psychological Association. It demands reform of the DSM 5 process and the elimination of a number of its most risky and ill conceived proposals. The petition is gaining increasing support and has already been signed by almost 3000 people. It can be accessed at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dsm5/ )

Strikingly, there seems to be virtually no support for DSM 5 outside the very narrow circle of the several hundred experts who have created it and the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which stands to reap large profits from its publication. There is no group and precious few individuals outside of APA who have anything good to say about DSM 5. And even within the DSM 5 work groups and the APA governance structures, there is widespread discontent with the process and considerable disagreement about the product.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201111/dsm-5-against-everyone-else

 

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Was Sybil a psychiatrist’s creation?

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

New Scientist
By Samantha Murphy
October 20, 2011

It is the tale that launched a thousand alter egos: the famous true story of “Sybil”, who endured years of torture at the hands of her sadistic mother and grew up into the meek, anxiety-ridden adult whose head was said to house 16 personalities.

For many, she provided a startling introduction to a rare and intriguing condition: then known as multiple personality disorder (MPD), a disease of the mind affecting mostly women, in which a person hosts several vastly different personalities representing fractured aspects of a haunted past.

Luckily, with the help of her psychiatrist’s enduring dedication to her treatment – which included many punched-out office windows and late-night house calls – Sybil was finally able to come to terms with the other sides of herself and integrate them, triumphing over her disease. The tale made for a compelling book, Broadway show and an even more engaging movie in 1976 (and a less riveting remake in 2007). The book and film became instant classics, not to mention teaching tools for psychology students.

But according to investigative journalist Debbie Nathan, the story of Sybil has one big problem: it’s mostly bunk.

In Sybil Exposed, Nathan, famous for her exposés on “recovered memory syndrome”, goes through the story, claim by claim, with a fine-toothed comb. It’s a massive undertaking of research that teases apart fact from fiction to reveal an even more interesting and educational account of, not 16, but just three personalities: the author, Flora Schreiber, the psychiatrist, Cornelia Wilbur, and “Sybil”, Shirley Mason.

What Nathan found among the archives was “shocking but utterly absorbing”, she says. Mason’s 16 personalities had not appeared spontaneously as they do in the book and movie, but were “provoked over many years of rogue treatment that violated practically every ethical standard of practice for mental health practitioners”, she writes.

This is quite a firebomb to throw into a heated battle that started in the late 1990s and is still being fought today. The lines are drawn between whether MPD, since renamed dissociative identity disorder, exists as an artefact of post-traumatic stress disorder, as its own unique illness, or if it is merely the product of wishful, reinforcing therapy and willing clientele.

While the next edition of psychiatry’s bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is in development, this is no small quibble.

Nathan uses direct quotes from the actual psychoanalysis session transcripts, excerpts from Mason’s diaries, and Schreiber’s author notes to provide fascinating insights into how these three women turned sickness and desire into a business.

When Wilbur, an ambitious female psychiatrist in a field packed with men, found Mason, an attention-starved and admiring patient, it was not long before they were engaged in a twisted parent-child kind of relationship. Nathan shows how Wilbur supplied her patient with attention and affection, and Mason eagerly performed whatever dance seemed to please Wilbur most.

At one point Mason wrote a letter attempting to confess to Wilbur that she had invented these personalities. She also asked that they stop “demonizing” her mother – who Wilbur had cast as a vicious abuser but who Nathan suggests was just religiously strict and emotionally unpredictable. Wilbur dismissed the letter as a defence mechanism, and her patient, desperate not to lose the doctor’s interest, continued the charade. Soon after, the two women met Schreiber, who spun their story into the profitable and sexy legend we know today.

Sybil remains a good book and movie, but perhaps Nathan’s version of the story is the one worth telling in classrooms. Though it is the less sensational tale, it is a cautionary one. It is a solemn reminder of why mistrust plagues the mental health field, and why we must always be careful to pin down the facts, and leave it to fiction to get carried away with the story.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/10/was-sybil-a-psychiatrists-creation.html

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Mental health services have become increasingly dominated by psychiatry’s ”medical model”

Friday, September 16th, 2011

The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia – “With More Talk in Mind” – Sep 15, 2011

by Dr. John Reed, Professor of Clinical Psychology

SERIOUS problems in Victoria’s mental health system have been revealed recently in The Age. The important thing now is to find solutions. In doing so we should remember that although Victoria is in the spotlight, similar ”crises” occur regularly all over the world. Perhaps this is because Victoria is not alone in having a system based on fundamentally flawed principles.

Mental health services have become increasingly dominated by psychiatry’s ”medical model”, which claims that feeling depressed, anxious or paranoid is primarily caused by genetic predispositions and chemical imbalances.

This has led to alarming rises in chemical solutions to distress. In New Zealand, one in nine adults (and one in five women) is prescribed antidepressants every year.

The public, however, in every country studied, including Australia, believes that mental health problems are caused by issues such as stress, poverty and isolation. The public also prefers talking therapies to drugs and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Research suggests the public is right. For example, the single best predictor of just about every mental health problem is poverty, followed by other social factors such as abuse, neglect and early loss of parents in childhood, and – once in adulthood – loneliness and a range of adverse events including losses and defeats of various kinds.

Meanwhile, reviews of studies on anti-depressants (which only recently have been able to include those previously kept secret by drug companies) conclude that they are superior to placebos only for those at the extreme end of the ”most severe” group of depressed people. This represents less than 10 per cent of the people who are receiving these drugs.

A recent Cochrane review (the type most highly regarded in the scientific community) for risperidone, a leading anti-psychotic drug, ”suggests that there is no clear difference between risperidone and [a] placebo”.

A placebo (from the Latin meaning ”I please”) is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed the talking therapies are effective partly because, if done well, they too instil hope and expectations of recovery.

The problem is that psychiatric drugs often have serious adverse effects. Anti-psychotics, for instance, can cause rapid weight gain, loss of sexual function, diabetes, heart disease, neurodegeneration and reduced life span.

As previously reported, my review of ECT studies (with Professor Richard Bentall of Liverpool University) found that this treatment is ineffective for most recipients and frequently causes permanent memory loss. This in itself can be depressing.

ECT also has a slight but significant risk of death, most frequently from cardiovascular failure.

Inpatient units are equally ineffective and can also be damaging. When will we learn that putting large numbers of extremely distressed people in the same building is not a good idea?

What I conclude from all this is that any review of mental health services in Victoria, or anywhere else for that matter, should probably be led by anyone other than a psychiatrist – and certainly not in Victoria’s case the state’s Chief Psychiatrist, whose job, according to Dr Ruth Vine herself, is “to watch over how the system is functioning”.

It is unfair to expect Dr Vine to take an objective view on the failure of the system for which she is responsible. That lack of objectivity is amply demonstrated by her claims that ECT is “safe and effective” and that the problem is the public’s “negative” views.

Perhaps a lawyer from the Mental Health Legal Centre might be a good choice.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/with-more-talk-in-mind-20110914-1k9m2.html#ixzz1Y8tVJQlv

 

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Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

Miami Herald – September 7, 2011

by Jay Weaver

Federal agents have arrested dozens of suspects charged with bilking Medicare of hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus services for mental health therapy and other types of healthcare.


Click to watch video

Agents with Health and Human Services and the FBI have fanned out across three South Florida counties, arresting clinic owners, healthcare employees, patient recruiters and assisted living facility owners who allegedly supplied hundreds of patients to the mental health clinics.

The sweep comes after the indictment of Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp., which was charged along with 24 employees and others over the past year. That case alone involved $200 million in false claims submitted to the federal healthcare program for the elderly and the poor.

American Therapeutic’s top executives and others have been convicted in recent months. The latest sweep entails clinics offering group therapy sessions, home healthcare, HIV services and medical equipment.

The U.S. attorney’s office is expected to have a news conference Wednesday afternoon to provide details of the cases and defendants.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/2394354/dozens-arrested-in-medicare-mental.html#ixzz1XIwqbWgR

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