antipsychiatry

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http://www.antipsychiatry.org/

thoughts anyone?

Not really,

All I know is that the DSM-V looks centuries better than the IVth version

Interesting. Of course, it's quite a stretch to say that since mental issues like schizophrenia aren't clearly defined, they don't exist. Clearly some people lose touch with reality and become dangers to themselves based on strongly held unshakeable delusions absent of logic. To deny this is a delusion in itself. What such things imply, I.e. whether it's truly a malfunction or just a super-advanced abstraction of thought that defies any accepted method of coping, is a different question entirely.

Does mental illness exist? Surely. But only to the extent that an individual brain is NOT wired to perform that way, yet does due to infection by some outside agent. The flu is a body illness, spongiform encephalitis is a mental illness, depression is a mental state. Bipolar is a neurochemical form.

Using depression as an example, I think it's fairly counterproductive to claim it to be a disease. Bulls**t. When I was consistently depressed for like five years, I did NOT have a disease. I had an emotion. By calling it a disease, ANY state of being that is any departure whatsoever from baseline is a disease. Extended happiness is a disease. Optimism is a disease. Confidence is a disease. Well I say to hell with all that. You can't just throw pills at an emotion and act like it'll make it all better.

Psychiatrists are quite often idiots, and occasionally malicious.

Scientologists are quite often idiots, and almost always malicious.

It is impossible to separate the modern antipsychiatry movement from Scientology.

Therefore, until Scientology is defeated as an organized movement, if my only two options are psychiatrists or the anti-psychiatrist movement, I'll go with the psychiatrist. At least they have a theoretical oversight committee.

On the other hand, it's pretty clear that psychiatry is pretty much utter bunk. "Disorders" are obviously more about power politics and social class enforcement than they are about actual biological malfunctions, and even when there are obvious biological malfunctions that occur "beyond acceptable levels of deviancy", look at the socioeconomic classes of the people that we inflict treatment on, vs. the ones we give a free pass to.

The problem is one of context. In a sufficiently religious area, not hearing the voice of Jesus can lead to "abnormal behavior". At a certain point, we have to accept that a majority of people are capable of pretending that they act and think in similar ways to each other, and are capable of convincing each other to harrass and shun anyone who isn't as good at playing their mind-games (or who want to play different mind-games). Luckily, modern culture usually prefers to drug up the people who can't or won't play their game, rather than simply killing or mutilating or enslaving them. It's quite a step up, really.

Actually depression can be a very serious mental illness.....its more than just an emotion, sure everyone feels down sometimes that is not depression.....Depression is when that feeling is very severe to the extent it interferes with your basic functioning. Also depression can even cause physical pain and long term untreated depression can even cause damage to neurons in the brain which can add to things like memory loss.

feeling depressed because you had a bad day is normal.......feeling depressed for months or years regardless of any positive changes in your life for instance is a little more serious.

The problem with psychiatric drugs and this is from my own personal experience is that they don't actually fully understand say the 5-HT Receptor does and how this coincides with how boosting serotonin among the thousands of other chemicals , will actually help us. It seems as if our understanding of actions of the drug is based more on statistical mechanisms and probability.
Only a couple of decades ago where we studing the currently , most complex status symbol of our century.
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To treat one with drugs and especially a complex , degenerative existentialist condition that is depression is ludacris , we don't understand microscopically too well , why would one want to treat a illness that is clearly a result of societal ideologies like meritocracy or egalitarianism for example. I am not stating , that depression should be treated lightly as it is a passion for death.
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The roots of psychotherapy are being slowly abandoned with medicalization , surely it's good to follow commonly accepted theories or the most cited researchers for the end of the spectrum but for the foregoing parts of it such as the lighter ailments , these are just thoughts that build up as the intellect tries to make sense of the world through our development.
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However I still agree with the point that Psychotherapy is placebo treatment but even if it was , when we look at Tai-Chi do we still feel calmer even after performing it?
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I certainly agree that Psychiatrists know more about the inner workings or that is the ecto-mechanical aspects of the brain than per say psychologists whom in contrasts take a macroscopic approach.
But neither a Psychiatrist nor a Psychologist know more about what your condition is then your self and that's probably the point of why they stated that they don't know the inner workings of your particular mind , they just don't have enough information to an adequete response that a college professor with the equivalent amount of intelligence could provide with a 3rd party quote about the person's situation.
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I absolutely agree that Psychotherapy consists of reeducation , it's socialization of how one should function in our society , if one doesn't function well say because of higher intelligence.
It's as if we are dehumanized from who we are in Psychotherapy , we are stripped naked as if we were in a prison and we are taught not to swim againest the current and we are stigmatized as a result of our labels , that do not fully understand the complexity of our social relationships with the outside world. As of a result we go againest Mental Health , when really they are to help us.
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It's acceptable to think he/she is addressing one side of the issue , but it's abhorrent to think of neglecting the latter.
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Ill Mental health is about asking questions about why humanity is such , Ill Mental Health is common for people of higher intelligence , thier offspring will then be neurologically normal - reducing the correlation between one's visit to psychosocial services. You can disprove this hypothesis.
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Overall the ideas of Schizophrenia being an nonexistent disease or why psychiatry should be abolished rather than improved upon ;
This article sounds more like as if it is trying to discredit Psychiatry on hostile grounds towards the use of intellect and the derision of scholarly pursuits as impractible and contemptible. It raises issues about the practice of Psychiatry and issues of allusionary misinterpretation of it's own.

I'd say you're an idiot. Not everyone can become a psychiatrist, probably not you anyway, and it takes many years of difficult training and registration to become a psychiatrist. Have some respect.

Game, set and match!

I find it interesting how there are two extreme's within an extreme... the extreme of being opposed to psychiatry in the two extremes of intellect, the most appropriate extreme being Samarda, who holds some valid and logically confident idea's, and the extreme of that, is ialdabaoth, who holds zero credibility for bellowing biased emotional rhetoric. (Samarda is logically and slightly skeptical of another philosopher, which is a philosophers first job :p - Samarda has a very awesome post, FTR)

If that doesn't make sense, I don't mind, it makes more sense than ialdabaoth...

If we're on the notion of 'not trusting' psychiatry, then why not cut physics at the knee's and be skeptical of the scientific method and why not trigonometry while we're at it.

History is a very important perception and logic. - would you have thought the world was flat? before proven.

*I'm discouraged in psychology only because I know of what's too come, and how great it's going to be.
kinda like apple... when the first iphone came out... meh tomato's, I thought I'd go on some pointless rant that made zero sense, it seems most anti-psychiatry people do it, I thought I'd try it out.

Depression, a serious episode especially, is absolutely not an emotion. I've experienced sadness and grief, and depression wipes the floor with both of them. It is the deepest, cruelest, most disgustingly bad feeling ever, yes, but it's also pain and insomnia and not eating or working. It's feeling like you're paralyzed. It's being so tired and unmotivated that suicide is too much to do. Grieving my grandfather's passing was a RELIEF from my depression. Depression is not a state, and it most certainly is not normal or natural. It is an evil, terrible disease-and what's more, it can kill!



No. Depression is one of the few mental illnesses that have been documented across the globe and throughout history. The Romans and Greeks wrote of depression. Here's an interesting link on a survey that shows just how egalitarian depression is: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5111202/ns/ ... idespread/

A good place to go for the history of depression is The Noonday Demon, by Andrew Solomon. The chapter on history is very thorough in explaining just how long humans have tried to treat depression. Please consider revising your opinions.

Dude, that was totally uncalled for.

No.

What's uncalled for are trolls.

Why be patient with the illogical?

Do you actually think some one who is beyond oblivious to the scientific method and ignorant enough to hold irrational beliefs such as this thread displays, would actually take the time to read and understand a sincere eye opening and multi-vairable explanation?

Naughty troll, tricks are for kids! - stay tuned in to your single variable thinking, just means there is less of us who get to flourish in the age of enlightenment and the realms of multi-variable processing.

I suggest "problems of philosophy" by bertrand Russell.

EXCELLENT BOOK.

I find a site like that interesting and while I do not agree with everything on it I agree with some.

My experiences in the past with psychiatry have been very negative. I was institutionalized against my will for a 30 day evaluation when I was 14. I was never even diagnosed with anything. I was just put there for skipping a lot of school and probably also because I was quiet and kind of weird. After getting out I had to go to school there for their day treatment program. They then put me back in for two weeks for skipping school/being too skinny (they got mad if I was under 110 pounds) so I then started skipping again when I got out. Oddly when I had to go back to family court they wouldn't take me back which I liked because it made me not crazy. The whole time I was there I was treated like I was anorexic and bulimic, like not letting me go in the bathroom by myself which was very distressing as I've never been either of those things. I never made myself throw up in my life and my not eating much when I first got there was because I was very upset about being put in there and it was my first time away from home. I never even slept over a friend's house when I was a kid.

I guess I could have had it worse. At least I wasn't medicated and I'm too quiet and passive for them to have an excuse to slam me on the ground and restrain me. I saw kids getting restrained a lot in there and they once broke my roommate's finger.

I later learned from the book "The Looney Bin Trip" by Kate Millett that in my state they can't legally lock you up against your will unless you are a danger to yourself or others but I guess that didn't matter because I was a minor.

I am now scared to talk to any psychologist because I might get locked up or be put on medication with unwanted side effects.

It's not even close to being anything like that in Canada..

Sorry

There's a psych ward here too,

Imagine you take two objects of varying weight; say a tennis ball and a bowling ball. You drop them from a height at the same time. They hit the ground at the same time. It's really really easy for this experiment to be duplicated over and over anywhere in the world and to take out variables created by other factors (such as the shape of the objects or outside forces). This is a scientific experiment.

Now ask yourself, how many experiments are like that in psychology? Can you repeat psychological experiments over and over anywhere in the world and get the same results? Is it easy to remove variables created by other factors? If you understand the scientific method then you should also understand why psychology is referred to as one of the "soft" sciences. I'm not saying that I don't believe psychology has anything to contribute to society, but there's plenty of reason to challenge the assumptions associated with it. Personally I think that a discipline which calls itself a science is possibly not the best way to approach the complexities of the human mind, especially since it's a bit easier to be objective about inanimate objects. So with that in mind I wonder if maybe psychology would do better to stop trying to live up to scientific principles. There's plenty of room for validity outside science: history isn't considered a science, but no one looks down on that discipline.



Fortunately these are not your only two options. But I'm guessing that you're just stating your preference between these two for the sake of argument, not saying that you actually believe they are your only two options, right? Because if that were the case, I'd point out option C: thinking for yourself.



This. Anyone who wants to complain about modern psychiatry should do a little history research, or even just cross-cultural research of our modern world. It could be a lot worse. Although that being said, there's room for improvement. Mind you, in what arena of life is that not true?



In my understanding emotion can cause all the things that you've described. So speaking as someone who has experienced this kind of depression for several years, I still question whether the true clinical depression, as distinct from most people's "depression", is actually a disease. Describing depression as an emotion doesn't have to mean not taking it seriously. (Incidentally, in my experience someone who speaks of being depressed consistently for five years is not one of those people who don't take depression seriously.)

Whether your individual experiences could have had the effect of causing something as big as depression is difficult to prove or disprove, because at the end of the day you don't know what it feels like to be someone else. But speaking of my individual experiences, one of the things I think of as a possible root cause for my depression is the extensive bullying I dealt with throughout my school life. Now it took me until my early twenties to realize this, but while almost everyone will tell you that they've dealt with bullying at some point, I've realized that what most people call bullying and what I went through are about as different as what most people call depression and clinical depression. So with that in mind, ask yourself this: are you sure that your depression has no explanation besides biological factors? Because maybe you've spoken to people about experiences that you thought made you depressed and maybe they've said they dealt with the same stuff, but it didn't make them depressed. But maybe what they went through was actually nowhere near as extensive or difficult as what you went through. The words "depression" and "bullying" are nowhere near the only subjective words in the English language.

On the issue of medication, it's unlikely that this is everyone's experience, but for me anti-depressants did pretty much exactly what some of the articles described: stopped me from feeling depressed by muting all my emotions (this was on Zoloft and later Effexor+Risperdal). This happened subtly enough that I didn't even notice until a year after I stopped taking the medication, at which point the medication wore off. (I guess you could question if it was the medication wearing off at work here given the big time gap and the fact that the pharmaceutical companies claim that the effects should wear off straight away, that seems like the most likely explanation at this point. Certainly it's true that only in hindsight can I see that when I started taking them the anti-depressants muted all my emotions along with the debilitating depression I was experiencing.)

All that being said, I can't say for certain that medication wasn't the right answer at the time, and therefore I can't definitively state that I disagree completely with the concept of medicating depression, regardless of my questions about its causes. I was dealing with more than I could handle on my own back then and regardless of what else it did, the medication did help with my depression. So, lacking the appropriate alternate universe, I can't say for certain that not taking the medication would have worked better for me. (At some point I might start a thread about people's experiences with quitting medication... I kind of doubt that everyone had exactly my experience, but it might be an interesting discussion.)

lol read paul ekman. Read new neuroscience.

The learning gene has been completely isolated and the brain is completely mapped out, as well, not many people have looked into the human genome project....

The human genome project is complete, for those of you who do not know what it is. We all read well, I will let your inner indiana jones adventure through the net finding it. It was fun for me.

People are not like comparing bowling balls and tennis balls, and if you were to drop these things from higher altitudes they would drop slower.

Psychology is theoretically diverse, Biology is science. Neuroscience is expanded scientific research of the two that is calculable, measurable and yield results that are as sketchy as some of Einstein's. and if you look at your history you would notice the first schools of learning were philosophy and math....

I have no idea what your points were. or what your trying to say. I got a notion that you read too many opinion and media based articles that are not hard facts, I'm just talking canada here, but not once was I told anti depressants are some magic pill that everyone who is depressed needs to take now because it works perfectly lol.

My psychology professor, who is not in biology, who is not in neuroscience, but simply the specific discipline of psychology exclaimed! that psychology is theoretically diverse.

Now, neuroscience on the other hand. That is science.

History is not a science because you can not apply it, you can read about history, you can learn from history, and you can connect things with history,

Why can you not apply history in order to predict outcomes? as science does...

why if you start a war do people not react and do the same things over again?

is history not the pursuit of investigative knowledge? It sounds like you need the creative skills to master the art of history. It sounds like history is word with meaning, not a word that is assigned to fictions that the media and web articles created, or a label for a textbook.

History , psychology, science, biology, chemistry.They have meaning, not just the things that come after them.

so, your saying psychology isn't a science because not every person with black hair has the same IQ? wherever you travel on earth? I'm confused by your points. They seem swayed by cultural norms.