# Are you anti-psychiatry?



## scarpia (Nov 23, 2009)

Just wondering if there are any others here who consider themselves part of the anti-psychiatry movement. The wiki definition of anti-psychiatry is a good one:


> *Anti-psychiatry* is the view that psychiatric treatments are often more damaging than helpful to patients, and a movement opposing such treatments for almost two centuries. It considers psychiatry a coercive instrument of oppression due to an unequal power relationship between doctor and patient, and a highly subjective diagnostic process.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry

My biggest concern about psychiatry is the use of forced "treatment." If it's forced it's not really treatment, it's State thought control. Actually another concern that is just as big is that they can't really define "mental illness" or tell who is really "mentally ill". A while back I posted about a Nebraska man who was wrongly diagnosed as delusional for 20 years by 20 different psychiatrists.

http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/...cle_81c8e458-0a4c-11e4-a020-001a4bcf6878.html

I was also wrongly accused of being delusional and locked up for 2 years. In those years there were 2 other people who were wrongly accused of being mentally ill. One woman was locked up for 6 months and one man spent the last 4 years of his life locked in the psych hospital. Many many people were held for 24-48 hours for evaluations - without even being accused of a crime.


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

scarpia said:


> Just wondering if there are any others here who consider themselves part of the anti-psychiatry movement. The wiki definition of anti-psychiatry is a good one:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
> 
> ...


Hey,

I am not anti-psychiatry because it would not be relevant to condemn psychiatry as a whole, given the tremendous help it brings to a huge number of people over the world. The thought that modern psychiatry serves as a tool for the state to control citizens, for example, is mere conspiracy theory. Plus psychiatry has evolved a lot since the beginning of the 20th century, a time when you better not end up in a mental institute. I'm not saying it is a good experience today but it's not what use to be.

From what I read, some people get benefits from hospitalization, while others don't and find it horrible. It seems to depend on the person, the hospital and the "disorder". I guess since you had a very bad experience, it makes you kind of biased. On the other hand you have experienced being locked up psychiatric hospitals so you know what it feels like, while I do not. Note that I do not question the fact that you were mistreated: I am not in the position to do that. I just say that maybe you have seen a bad side of modern psychiatry while not seeing "good sides".

However, you raised a very interesting point, that is the difficulty to draw the limits of madness. The way madness is defined has changed over times; the way "mad people" are considered and treated has too. Do you know Foucault ? (I saw that the wiki page you posted mentions his name). He wrote _Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, _a very famous book in which he describes the changes over time and the way mad people where separated completely from the rest of society in the modern era (i.e. before 1960 since the book was published in 1964), which was consistent with a tendency to exclude people who did not fit the norm, the "deviants".

Since the 50's things have changed. I think there is more tolerance and mentally ill people (whatever it may means) are treated better. But defining madness and mental illness/mental disorder remains problematic, which is a big issue since being diagnosed "mad" can cause you to be locked up without you approval. Still, the fact some people can be dangerous for themselves or others must be taken into consideration. A 24-48 hours evaluation does not seem inapropriate to me. I'm sure there can be mistakes, that can have dramatic consequences. And I'm sure there are still places that do not provide good care to patients (where the staff forget that it is in charge of patients and not of prisoners).

But again, I would not condemn the psychiatric system as a whole. Granted, there are a lot of issues, like the fact that big pharmas are too profit-driven and not controlled enough, or our current lack of understanding of the neurobiological basis of mental disorders and of the functioning of some meds that are prescribed. But overall a lot of people get benefits from accurate treatment, which was not the case one hundred years ago.

Why did you get locked up, if you don't mind me asking ? What did you do ?


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## Max Seigel (Jul 7, 2015)

No I am not anti-psychiatry. Being anti-psyciatry is counter prodcutive. I totally agree with the view of Cassoulet94. I think they over prescribe medication many times instead of suggesting natural treatments. Also, some of them are in bed with the drug companies. They pay them for dinner to advertise their drug and convince them to prescribe it to people. But many people get vital assistance and benefit from psychiatry. Additionally, drug research helps to advance the field, and we should be looking for safer, better, and more effective drugs. Some people do need medication to function. But like I said, many don't. 

The problem with medication (as I've learned from taking medicinal chemistry) is that the before putting the drug on the market, the drug company must write like a 700 page report to submit to the FDA summarizing all the research and trials for that medication over the years. At the FDA, they have like 1 person reading that 700 page report. They are bound to miss important things that could compromise the health some people who are taking the drug. Additionally, most of the research is done by the drug companies itself (the drug researchers they hire to be more specific) which means that an inherent bias is present. They may under report side effects of the drug, and other results that make it less likely for their drug to be approved. This explains the massive amount of lawsuits filed against many drug companies. To give you a sense of how bad it is, one drug (I forget which one) had to be discontinued because it was associated with an increased risk of heart attacks! How did they not catch this before it was approved? Could have been the drug company not reporting it, or many times, side effects are only found after the fact.
Drugs also have long term affects that can't be tested for. Recently, researchers found a link between benzodiazipines and Alzheimer's. Those who take these drugs have a significant chance of developing Altzheimers (although other research has not found a link). Either way, a lot of long term effects from the usage of these drugs have drastic consequences on your health, or they are still not known.

You need to think about this from a chemical perspective. Most of us just think of drugs as a harmless little pill. No no no. A drug is synthetic chemical substance that gets dispersed in your bloodstream and targets and reacts with certain receptors in your body, which then causes a bunch of downstream processes to elicit a biological effect. However, many times, the drug is not just reacting with the desired receptors to elicit a desired effect. The drug can travel to other places in the body and react with other things. This can cause a lot of unwanted side effects, as well as permanent changes to your body, most notably tolerance. Tolerance occurs when the receptors become less sensitive to the drug, or when your body makes more and more receptors as a response to taking the drug. But it's not just tolerance, but long term effects that can be caused by putting something unnatural in your body for a long period of time. You need to be extra careful when considering starting a new drug. Have a an attitude of skepticism. Don't just listen to your doctor (again many of them are in bed with the drug companies). Do your own research.

So I'm not against psychiatry. There are many benefits to it. I'm more against the over prescription of medications, because they can cause many negative health effects, and most people taking them are unaware of the real effects they can cause. So instead of getting rid of it all together, lets work to fix and improve it so that people can get more benefits while reducing the risks negative outcomes.


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## Max Seigel (Jul 7, 2015)

By the way, they have a site required by law where you can lookup your doctor and see all the payments made to your doctor by drug companies. Here is the link: https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/


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## scarpia (Nov 23, 2009)

Cassoulet94 said:


> The thought that modern psychiatry serves as a tool for the state to control citizens, for example, is mere conspiracy theory.


The diagnosis of mental disease allows the state to hold persons against their will and insist upon 'therapy' - really mind numbing drugs - in their interest and in the broader interests of society. One of my shrinks admitted that to me. She said she knows what they are doing must seem like a massive violation of my privacy but she had a duty to the state to protect the public. She wasn't working for me she was working for the state. They all are. You find that out when you end up locked in the hospital after your shrink goes to a judge and tells him all the 'private' things he has on you. I punched a child molester and was accused of simple assault. The guy told me there was nothing wrong with f--ing high school students to help them get in touch with their sexuality. I told the shrinks that, but when they asked him he denied saying it. So I was delusional.


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## Mat999 (Nov 20, 2016)

I would rather visit a psychotherapist than a psychiatrist because of what one psychiatrist said about chemical imbalances in the brain and how he never ever prescribes medication.


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## 629753 (Apr 7, 2015)

Im just using pills for a temporary amount of time


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## minimized (Nov 17, 2007)

That little blurb is a little too extreme for me so far, but yeah, I'm kind of there now. I find it abusive in the same vein as politics, economics, and religion. Ironically, it studies human nature, but it is very much cursed with that same human nature.

The potential for abuse is infinite to the point it makes current abuse look like nothing.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

I used to be all for psychiatric medication when I was under their influence, I was just sharing what was helping me, I didn't feel like I was insulting people. Now that I am not under the influence anymore, I feel like I would be insulted if someone told me to take something. I just don't understand why it had to happen to me, if there is a movement, why were my doctors out of it. All I can say is that the life on medication showed me a different part of me, and I am thankful, it was almost like a damn butterfly metamorphosis. Made it through just fine, in the end. But I don't want it, anymore. It's just sad, when you go from Listening to Prozac to Talking Back to Prozac, that medication took my soul and turned it into a ****ing strange opposite of me. I don't want that, I want to be ****ing me, I want the chance to ****ing cry and ****ing feel. But bro, I had to feel the opposite of me to really get where I am today, I am thankful no really, I mean it, I am so thankful for having my brain damaged by prozac, cuz that's all you need sometimes.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

WTF did I just read? :lol


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## acidicwithpanic (May 14, 2014)

Even though I'm aware of the certain abuses some mental health patients go through and that there is more corruption within the system compared to other scientific fields, I do have some faith in psychiatry and believe it will change for the better in the next couple of decades and beyond especially with the aid of other fields like neuroscience. I think some people forget to keep in mind that psychiatry and psychology are still relatively young fields, and in order to get it to where it will be a more recognized field, you absolutely HAVE to be experimental with it and not be afraid of taking risks. However, I've had some psychiatrists that took part in what looked like some outdated approaches in treating their patients, and I personally find these types of doctors to be giving the practice a bad name. They usually treat their clients like cookie-cutter people with the same needs.


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