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Debunking Psychiatry: Antis Calling for an End to Psychiatry

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, a museum located in Hollywood, is dedicated to

debunking psychiatry. Right after I stepped in the museum, on my left a picture illustrated,

“Known as the Father of American Psychiatry, Benjamin Rush suggested that ‘the cause of

madness is seated primarily in the blood vessels of the brain’ and that mental derangement

occurs as the brain is ‘overcharged’ with blood. So, he advocated bleeding as much as ‘forth

fifths of the blood’ to relieve the ‘excessive action’ in the patients’ brain”. Trying to figure out

the seemingly vague relationship between too much blood and mental illness, I kept pacing until

the words of a Swiss psychiatrist, Ernst Rüdin stopped me – “The significance of racial hygiene

did not become evident to all aware Germans until the political activity of Adolf Hitler and only

through his work has our 30 year long dream of translating racial hygiene into action finally

become a reality.” How barbarous and autocratic it is to classify racial issues into the category of

hygiene. Unluckily, such a senseless thought is just one tiny part that shapes the horror of

psychiatry. So, what is actually going on in the world of psychiatry? How do psychiatric beliefs

ruin countless innocent lives? How is psychiatry a profit-driven industry? The eminent

psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas Szasz, one of the leaders of the anti-psychiatric movement, provided the

best answer. As he explained, the term “psychiatry” has its ostensible and genuine definitions.

Ostensibly, curing and healing souls; genuinely, coercing and controlling persons (Szasz,

“Debunking” 1). Medical science was originally invented and developed to benefit the general

public, to uplift the quality of people’s lives, and to promote everyone’s health. Psychiatry is,

however, “full of jargon” (Burston 3). It twisted the gorgeous and heroic principle of medicine

and thus should be abolished immediately.

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Instead of “curing and healing,” the prime role of psychiatric institutions is to regulate

social orders using people’s weaknesses. Dr. Szasz recalled his education in medical school and

psychiatric and psychoanalytic internship training and concluded that “mental illness is a fiction;

that psychiatry, resting on force and fraud is social control” (qtd. in Roberts 1). It is now the 21st

century, the era of democracy, when everyone is given the right to express, to vote, and even to

oppose. The modern world is where individuals are supposed to be equal to each other.

Nevertheless, psychiatry breeds incomplete democracy. As Ron Roberts noted in his periodical

titled “Madness, Myth and Medicine”, psychiatrists find inconsistency of thoughts unacceptable

(2). They believe that with people holding contrasting opinions, the society will turn into a mess.

Eventually, they treat patients to addictive drugs to manipulate their minds. Although this

contradicts the principle of democracy, the psychiatric industry still evolves so rapidly with the

applause of the public, simply because people have drawbacks. It is our nature that we are afraid

of dealing with people with mental disorders (e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia,

and anorexia nervosa). It is understandable to find psychotics repulsive, as we generally do not

know much about mental issues. It is forgivable we regard them as dangerous, feeling it essential

to protect ourselves from these “dangers” (Szasz, “Psychiatry” 1). However, when it comes to

psychiatrists who make use of this nature of human beings, and propose the need of eliminating

divergence to create social stability, it is blamable and intolerable.

Who gives power to the industry of Psychiatry? Obviously, the government does.

Psychiatrists themselves do not care about social orders. It is the government that needs security.

The US Supreme Court in 1997 in Kansas v Leroy Hendricks approved the States of imprisoning

sex offenders who completed their prison terms although they might not exhibit certain mental

illness symptoms (Szasz, “Psychiatry” 6). Frankly speaking, this is neither promoting nor

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safeguarding health. It is all about corruption. “There is a hidden influence in our courts, one

which, while loudly asserting its expertise and desire to help, has instead betrayed our most

deeply held values and brought us a burgeoning prison population at soaring public costs. That

influence is psychiatry and psychology” (Par. 1), Jan Eastgate sighed in her “Eroding Justice:

Psychiatry’s Corruption of Law”. The government and the psychiatry industry cooperate with

each other to achieve a win-win situation – the government can manipulate the people while the

psychiatrists can maximize profits. With psychiatric drugs, dictators are greatly strengthened in

their wars against liberty (Huxley 303). With the assistance of the government, psychiatrists

infiltrated the law and have convinced the public they are authorities. This is how the fraud our

government and the psychiatric industry upheld works. It is dishonesty, not a medication.

In such a way, psychiatrists are empowered to smother innovation. Wong Man-shing was

one of the million Chinese dissidents. As claimed by psychiatrists, he was suffering from

political paranoia and thus was sentenced to psychiatric hospitals for 13 years, only because he

raised a banner in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, openly blaming the government of defying the

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, a government-triggered massacre. Whenever discrepancy

emerges, psychiatry is taken as a political tool to pacify the public. Wong’s example is not

isolated. Jan Eastgate, the president of Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)

International, argued that many outstanding artists, such as Antonin Artaud the writer and Billie

Holiday the jazz singer, were “dreadfully damaged” due to psychiatrists’ actions (Eastgate,

“Harming Artists” par. 4, 7, and 8). It is artists who make lives. It is creativity that creates

civilization. Suffocating creative spirit (Huxley 255) is a pity. In fact, the best way to manage

social discipline is educating the public to respect and accept different voices, not shutting

human brains down.

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Involuntary hospitalization and suicide punishment disrespect human rights while

chemical treatments are operated only for profits. Absurd as it is, psychiatrists ignore healing.

1. Involuntary Hospitalization

Dr. Szasz defined involuntary hospitalization as “mental hospitalization or civil

commitment” (Szasz, “Psychiatry” 2). The idea is that the Court can command an individual

with symptoms of severe mental illnesses to accept treatments in a hospital. Seemingly

unreasonable, it is legal though, and was approved by the Mental Health Act (Szasz, “Psychiatry”

6). Critics, however, see it as a violation of human rights. For instance, Dr. Szasz complained “It

is a fundament principle of English and American law that only persons charged with and

convicted of certain crimes are subject to imprisonment” (Szasz, “Psychiatry” 5). Attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients, for example, just have problems of inattention,

hyperactivity, and impulsiveness (Block, No More ADHD 16). They are of no harm to the

society, but just sick. ADHD patients are just as normal as everyone. Just because they are a bit

“different” does not mean they do not respect others’ lives. So why is incarcerating necessary?

What extremely sad is, they do not even have a choice to evade hospitalization. On the contrary,

it is even illegal for them not to accept “proper” treatments. It is the deprivation of human rights.

On second thought, excluding them signifies separating them from their families, which in Dr.

Szasz’s words, “strikes most people as an unacceptable rejection of family obligation” (Szasz,

“Psychiatry” 2). A home is where we can get connected with each other. It is too brutal and

ruthless to break families into pieces and too inhuman and cruel to lock the innocence up and

ruin their lives.

2. Suicide Punishment

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Not only does mental hospitalization destroy human rights, but also suicide punishment,

which states that people who committed suicide (but failed) deserve punishment since suicide is

still a murder and since the death of the deceased can bring an unaffordable burden to his or her

family (Roberts 2). In view of this unreasonableness, Dr. Szasz had proposed the use of better

alternatives in which people can decide whether or not to accept psychiatric assistance.

Unfortunately, his brilliant advice was turned down by leading psychiatric and medical

professionals in no time (Roberts 1). In fact, as long as people are not a crisis to the general

public, they have the right to decide their own fate. This is not about judging suicide. Yet, not

only do psychotics suicide, but a normal person too. Just because someone committed suicide

does not mean the psychiatrists can torture the rest of the mental patients. Self-killing might not

be the best decision, yet it is at least not the business of the psychiatrists or the government.

3. Chemical Treatments

When one is confirmed to be mentally ill, he or she takes psychiatric drugs. This is

assumed to be a common sense. Yet, we never question the usefulness of these drugs. The truth

is that, no evidence proves the workability of psychiatric drugs. In other words, even the

psychiatrists have no idea what brings about mental illnesses. The CCHR published a report on

medical alternatives to psychiatry in January 2008 that supported my assertion. As it cited, Dr.

Darshak Sanghavi, a clinical expert confessed that “Despite pseudoscientific term like ‘chemical

imbalance,’ nobody really knows what causes mental illness. There’s neither blood test nor brain

scan for depression. No geneticist can diagnose schizophrenia” (qtd. in 2). Under heavy media

pressure, Dr. Steven Sharfstein, the president of American Psychiatric Association (APA), also

admitted in 2005 that there is “no clean cut lab test” to decide whether a person is mental ill or

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not (qtd. in 2). A science writer, Robert Whitaker, author of the acclaimed book, Mad in America,

revealed that psychiatrists persuade schizophrenics that it was dopamine and serotonin activities

making them suffer, and that to “put these brain chemicals back into ‘balance’”, taking drugs are

compulsory. The “whole spiel is a form of medical fraud,” complained Whitaker (qtd. in 18).

Meanwhile, advocates of psychiatry retort that the business of mental health cannot grow

such rapidly if it is such a bad science. They disclaim that they never heal a psychotic, who, as a

result, becomes their most powerful weapon. It is because the patients do feel better after

receiving mental treatments. Yet, it is no more than an illusion. Psychiatrists just suppress

patients’ physical feelings associated with mental diseases rather than alleviating the condition or

targeting what is causing it. For instance, mood stabilizers are just to stabilize one’s emotion but

not to help figuring out what leads to madness. Just because mental patients do feel better after

psychiatric therapies does not mean they are fully recovered.

Indeed, psychiatrists do not heal mental maladies – they just inhibit human emotions, and

this leads to multitudes of side effects. The following procedure explains more. “Like a car run

on rocket fuel, you may be able to get it to run a thousand miles an hour, but the tires, the engine,

the internal parts, were never meant for this”. A tranquilizer induces changes in body systems, i.e.

forces nerves to do things they never did. To stop the changes, the immune system fights back.

Consequently, the drugs are so strong that body systems lose the battle and also lose their

functions (CCHR, “Mental Health” 9). The market demand of psychiatric drugs is still soaring

just because the drugs do have positive effects to patients, which however, do not sustain

permanently. King County, Washington Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency

Services Division evaluated psychiatric treatments and the result was terrifying. Among the

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about 9, 300 interviewed adults aged 21-59 years who received psychiatric therapies, less than

1% recovered fully (CCHR, “Mental Health” 5). Instead of recovery, the treatments bread side

effects furiously. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that there is approximately 63,

000 suicides by those who took Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), a psychiatric

drug. In addition, the FDA also discovered in 2004 that, at least 11 school shoots were regular

psychiatric drug users. More side effects include insomnia, panic attacks, hostility, anxiety,

agitation, panic attacks, nightmares, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness), hypomania, and

mania (CCHR, “Mental Health” 4). Just because psychiatrists “hide” symptoms of mental

maladies and prohibit them from the light does not mean they successfully cure the patient. They

do not relieve mental health problems that bother human beings; they just seal them in a box.

The entire idea of psychiatrists addressing not causes but symptoms is a mistake. After all, the

objective of psychiatrists is clear – “a total control of human emotional status, mental

functioning, and will to act” (Eastgate, “Harming Youth” par. 3) – to achieve what discussed

earlier, maintain social stability.

This assists psychiatrists in earning money and is why psychiatric drugs are currently still

used to “cure” mental illnesses. Took advantages of psychiatric drugs, psychiatrists earn more

than $27 billion per year in the United States and $80 billion worldwide. Dr. Mark Graff, Chair

of Public Affairs of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) admitted that the whole idea is

“drug industry derived” (CCHR, “Mental Health” 2). According to a 2006 study published in

Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 100% of psychiatrists who developed the mood and

psychotic disorders sections of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders

(DSM-IV) had at the same time secret and close financial relationship with drug companies (qtd.

in CCHR, “Mental Health” 3). These statistics confirmed the high profit-making incentives of

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psychiatrists. Moreover, in her book Just because You’re Depressed Doesn’t Mean You Have

Depression, Dr. Mary Ann Block disclosed the outrage of psychiatrists by a real example.

Carolyn (name changed to protect the patient’s privacy), a mother of two sons, found taking care

of the infants stressful and distressed. She finally decided to inform her internist of her feelings.

He, however, without a deep understanding of Carolyn, immediately recommended her to go on

Prozac (an antidepressant) and told her she had “post-partum depression”. Carolyn felt better at

first but she never got enough relief from the drug (3). The example was to certify that “financial

incentives exist to keep its use the status quo and to insure a market for its continued use” (14).

Rather than placing the vocation of healing at the first place, the industry of psychiatry is totally

and blindly driven by profit.

Unfortunately, the tragedy has not yet come to its end. Jan Eastgate attributed the

inflating crime rate to psychiatric actions. As she quoted, the US teenage crime rate and the

amount of drug abuse violations had increased respectively by 147% and 597% since 1965. The

influence of psychiatry spread all over the world. The violent crime rate rose 545% in the UK,

410% in Spain, 97% in France… The crime rate in Sweden nowadays is even 20% higher than

that in the US. Additionally, a study conducted by seven prisons in Russia discovered that 43%

of the prisoners were once addicted to psychiatric drugs (Eastgate, “Eroding Justice” par. 4, 5).

Psychiatrists are responsible for the growing crime rate after the Federal Court of Appeals in

Washington, DC passed a law in 1954, which states that “a mentally defective person is not

criminally responsible for unlawful acts” (Eastgate, “Eroding Justice” par. 8). This undoubtedly

expanded the loopholes of law. A sinful person can be regarded as guiltless if he or she is

claimed by psychiatrists to suffer from mental disturbance. It is totally unethical and outrageous

when there is a way a criminal can free from conviction through “the use of bizarre and

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incomprehensible defense tactics” (CCHR, “Eroding Justice” par. 8). No wonder why more and

more people are no longer faithful in justice. Yet, it is still the responsibility of psychiatrists

whose eyes are covered by money.

Is racism still alive today? In the world of democracy, we assume that racial

discrimination no longer exists. In the United States, however, it is common to see African-

American and Hispanic children being labeled by psychiatrists as “learning disabled” in areas

mainly occupied by whites (CCHR, “Creating Racism” par. 2). Sadly, it does persist. Why?

Rather than struggle unsuccessfully with the answer to this question, there is a better question to

ask: who? Surely, it is psychiatrists who continue to light the fires of racism. From the

Hollywood museum, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, I got to learn that Benjamin Rush, the

Father of American Psychiatry declared in 1797 that Blacks suffered a disease called Negritude

and “The black Color of the Negroes is derived from the leprosy”; and that Henry Garret, an

American psychiatrist was an admirer of segregation. Apparently, deceptive psychiatrists are not

only liars and entrepreneurs, but also liable to creating racism. That is why in 1983, a World

Health Organization (WHO) report stated that “… in no other medical field in South Africa is the

contempt of the person, cultivated by racism, more concisely portrayed than in psychiatry.” In

Britain, the amount of “black” schizophrenics is higher than white ones by ten times. The blacks

were also required to take mind-altering drugs of higher doses and more likely to receive electric

treatment (CCHR, “Creating Racism” par. 2, 4). All the above simultaneously pointed the fingers

to psychiatrists who foster the climate of racial inequality. Human beings, regardless of their

color, deserve the same treatment. No one is less desirable or more superior. Lives are to be

respected but not discriminated. Therefore, the concept of psychiatry should be abandoned.

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To certify the worthlessness of psychiatric therapies, Dr. Mary Ann Block examined

ADHD in 2001 and wrote another top-selling book No More ADHD, which aimed at advising the

public of 10 steps to improve children’ attention and behavior issues without using drugs.

Among all the insightful steps, this one inspired me the most – fuel the body with adequate

vitamins – ADHD is the long form of A Demand for a Healthy Diet instead of Attention Deficit

Hyperactivity Disorder. She listed a score of favorable vitamins, including vitamin B6 that can

replace methylphenidate (a psychiatric drug) in improving hyperactivity, Niacin (another B

vitamin) that can reverse poor school performance, and zinc that can restore serotonin levels

(abnormal serotonin levels result in ADHD), etc. (86, 87, and 88). More measures include

understanding the medical system, dumping sugar, attacking allergies, and accepting osteopathic

manipulation treatment (OMT). The highlighted advantage of these formulae is the prevention of

side effects. So, as healing can be accomplished by at least 10 remarkable and feasible methods,

drugging and the other mainstream psychiatric practices are definitely not the only ways to go.

To simplify the arguments of anti-psychiatric issues, the renowned Dr. Mary Ann Block

wrote another book in 2007, named Just because You’re Depressed Doesn’t Mean You Have

Depression. She discussed how psychiatry magnifies the seriousness of mental health problems

and evaluated the necessity psychiatric drugs. Her stance is clear and strong: just because you are

depressed does not mean you have depression. As she insisted, owing to impropriate medical

evaluations, the gravity of mental disorders are exaggerated to mislead patients (9). She pointed

out that autism is not a psychiatric disorder and put the blame on psychiatrists who take “it’s all

in your head” as their only idiom and excuse. In fact, autism is initiated just because of heavy

metal toxicity, nutritional deficiencies, auditory and visual processing problems, allergies, or

gastrointestinal problems (13). They can be resolved by ensuring sufficient supplies of nutrients

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or adapting a healthier diet, not by drugs. Autism is therefore an illness, but not psychiatrically.

The same rule applies to depression. Nothing is more normal than being delighted, angry, afraid,

or upset. Emotions are just a reflex to daily encounters. Antidepressants certainly do not bring

patients happiness; instead, they murder personal feelings (18). In addition, we call all kinds of

human problems “mental diseases” and convince ourselves that psychiatric drugs solve such

issues. Solutions exist, however, only for mathematical problems and some medical problems.

For human problems, there are no solutions. Conflicts, unhappiness, sorrow, and misfortunes are

challenges we must cope with, not solve. Whenever we feel upset or desperate, we talk to a

friend. We do not take drugs. Depression is not even an illness; at least not psychiatrically.

Therefore, psychiatric drugs are never helpful. The achievement of psychiatry is just the success

of decorating it, i.e. marketing.

The viewpoints of anti-psychiatry – psychiatrists aim not to heal or cure but to earn – are

well reasoned. “When religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine;

now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic” (Szasz,

“Psychiatry” 1). So, only after exploring the hidden facts of psychiatry can we learn to dismiss

psychiatry, the guise of science. Aldous Huxley foresaw the future of human beings in his

booming book Brave New World as “The completely organized society, the scientific caste

system, the abolition of free will by methodical conditioning, the servitude made acceptable by

regular doses of chemically induced happiness…” (237). Huxley’s Brave New World, which is

lack of freedom, full of discrimination, and fills with lies, is becoming a reality under the

influence of psychiatry. Therefore, before the situation is currently still resolvable, the abolition

of psychiatry is a must.

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Works cited

Block, Mary Ann. No More ADHD. Hurst, Texas: Block, 2001. Print.

---. Just Because You’re Dressed Doesn’t Mean You Have Depression. Hurt, Texas: Block, 2007.

Print.

Burston, Daniel. "Szasz, Laing And Antipsychiatry -- Again." Existential Analysis: Journal Of

The Society For Existential Analysis 20.1 (2009): 2-8. Psychology and Behavioral

Sciences Collection. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights International. Mental Health Care: What is the

Alternative to Psychotropic Drugs? U.S.A.: Citizens Commission on Human Rights,

2008. Print.

Eastgate, Jan. "Creating Racism: Psychiatry's Betrayal." Creating Racism: Psychiatry's Betrayal.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2013.

---. "Eroding Justice: Psychiatry’s Corruption of Law." Official Report: Psychiatry's Corruption

of Law-Eroding Justice. Citizens Commission on Human Rights, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2013.

---. "Harming Artists: Psychiatry Ruins Creativity." Harming Artists: Psychiatry Ruins Creativity

an Official Report. Ed. Anne Archer, David Campbell, Raven Kane Campbell, Nancy

Cartwright, Chick Corea, Isaac Hayes, Lewis Lewis, Juliette Lewis, John Novello, David

Pomeranz, and Harriet Schock. Citizens Commission on Human Rights, n.d. Web. 02 Feb.

2013.

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---. "Harming Youth: Screening and Drugs Ruin Young Minds." Official Report on Harming

Youth. Citizens Commission on Human Rights, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2013.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932, 1946, 1958. Ed. Christopher Hitchens. New York:

HarperCollins, 2004. Print.

Roberts, Ron. "Madness, Myth And Medicine." Psychologist 23.8 (2010): 694-695. Psychology

and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.

Szasz, Thomas. "Debunking Antipsychiatry: Laing, Law, And Largactil." Current Psychology

27.2 (2008): 89-101. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.

---. "Psychiatry And The Control Of Dangerousness: On The Apotropaic Function Of The Term

"Mental Illness." Journal Of Social Work Education 39.3 (2003): 375-381. Psychology

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