So you take personal anecdotes as the fact that everyone is harmed by psychiatry, that’s bullsh!t and you know it( or should ). Your argument is about as biased as you can get. You’ve looked up no fact or empirical data, no studies or statistics just some YouTube videos, youtubes about as reliable as a sex addict telling you he doesn’t have STDs .

Here’s some personal anecdotes for you : I have been diagnosed with everything you could think of, if it has an A and a D in it I’ve probably been diagnosed with it.
I was diagnosed with Aspergers when I was 6, medicated and nothing changed, then I was diagnosed with: add,ADHD, antisocial disorder and a bunch of others, also medicated nothing changed. Then my mother got more into CAM ( I was about twelve ) and stopped my medication and switched to alt med stuff (homeopathy,naturopath stuff,acupuncture,pyrroluria,herbs that actually had negative effects ) and some of my symptoms abated a bit ( so she fell in deeper) but then Instead of being a drugged up zombie some of my symptoms were completely untreated (alot if the following also had to do with my home enviroment)and I got angry and depressed I was getting into fights I wanted to die I wanted everyone else to die I had anxiety attacks, I had violent episodes and all sorts of destructive behaviour then I went to a doctor who had a view more in line with dr.novellas , he sent me to a couple of psychologists till I found one I liked(my parents sending me to more pseudo sciency ones)
hung back on medicating me heavily, and when things got bad advised my parents to send me to treatment( a therapeutic boarding school ) and for my parents to go to therapy because something was obviously not working in the family dynamic we had then, the boarding school sucked, it was a badly designed system ( my parents having chosen it because it was in Utah And my mothers Mormon ) but I still learned a lot and continued my psychiatric help, then I became heavily depressed and if I hadn’t gotten medication then I would have killed myself, with the help if those meds I pulled myself out of that heavy depression, still live in America (before I got sent to Utah I lived in Australia) am off meds and the only thing i have now us mild depression all because I found a good psychiatrist who helped my get through adolescence , with out him I would certainly be dead or in jail

So to cannotstay 2013
I’m sorry you think you were hurt by psychiatry but you were probably mis-diagnosed or had a bad doctor (possibly a alt med or just some weirdo who had weird medical beliefs)

I wish I had doctors like you, I have had many doctors( psychologists and psychiatrists as well as regular m.d’s ) label me into “mental disorders” wich then would influence other doctors and psychiatrists to treat symptoms I didn’t have because they were on the list of symptoms for my ” mental illness.(though these doctors were chosen by my mother, a overly trusting gullible person who fell into cam so the doctors I met may not be representative of doctors at large)
I agree with with you on almost all your points( the ones I don’t agree with is just me being pendantic (: ) and hope that more doctors take this viewpoint.
I also think that “mental illness” should be described as a mental problem or personality trait that is causing(larger? More than the general populations? Amounts of) harm to that persons life, mental health And ability to live in society

Anecdotal evidence that person X was helped by psychiatry cannot be used as a rationale to justify psychiatry’s undue power and abuses. Using your logic, we should give astrology the same legal power that psychiatry has. I can assure you that you can find many people who were, using your terminology, “restored back to normality” after a few sessions with an astrologer. Not very convincing. Yet, this type of shaky, non scientific, anecdotal reasoning is what psychiatry uses to justify itself. As I said earlier, the explanation politics/economics is the only one that can help make sense of the situation.

Apparently you have not had the experience of someone you know suffer an acute psychiatric illness and seen how psychiatry has helped restore that person back to normality.

You are spot on. The reality is that the pseudoscientific foundation of psychiatry is no better than that of astrology. I mentioned above the Shawn Carlson’s study that was published in Nature in 1985. Except for the fact that Kirsch’s work was a meta analysis, and thus had to rely on data collected over the years heterogeneously -and that fact does not affect the study’s conclusion-, the methodology and design of both studies was very similar, so was their conclusion. Just as astrology is no better than randomness in predicting people’s personalities, so are antidepressants no better than placebos in the treatment of so called “depression”. Although the Carlson’s study has been hailed by skeptics as a major debunk-er of astrology, to this day and age astrologers continue to spin the matter along the same lines as the supporters of anti depressants http://www.theoryofastrology.com/carlson/carlson.htm . You see defenders of antidepressants engaging in similar spinning exercises to support astrology.

Now, while we, and I strongly support this because people should be free to buy whatever service they want, don’t ban astrology per se, we don’t give astrology the power of influencing legal decisions such as person X should be locked in preemptively because his natal chart shows that tomorrow he/she is likely to kill his/her neighbor. Or that person Y shouldn’t be convicted of a crime because his natal chart made him do it. And yet, despite similarly shaky foundations and predictive power, we give psychiatry the power to make similar legally binding decisions. Why this is the case, boggles my mind. And why so many “medical doctors”, such as Mr Novella, are willing to buy the psychiatric nonsense when they wouldn’t give a second of their time to analyze the claims of those who defend astrology with similar reasoning is also beyond my understanding. The only plausible reason I can think of is that these doctors have a hard time admitting that their colleagues who have a similar medical degree (MD) engage regularly in scientific misconduct. Rather than admitting that misconduct -and banning psychiatry as an AMA sanctioned specialty-, they close the ranks to protect their own. Again, no conspiracy implied here, just a basic human instinct: self-preservation.

Here is the link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/18deo5/so_astrology_is_bullshit_right/

-Justin

Several issues.

First of all, let me be clear that I do not claim that there is a vast conspiracy. One of the most insidious accusations that I have had to endure when I express my criticism of psychiatry is to be labelled a “conspiracist” or to be put in company of AIDS denialists. There is no need to invent a conspiracy, it’s something as simple as human greed. In fact, it’s not even the deadliest scam that Big Pharma has ever perpetrated, there are much worse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg-52mHIjhs .

Second, since I am sure that you are aware of Irving Kirsch’s work I am not going to bore you with the details. His conclusion, whose substance has not been seriously challenged by anybody, is not that they are effective in extreme cases of depression, rather that in those cases there is something we can call “statistical significance” (although not clinical significance). As Charles Seife explains well in his talk here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiQwZ6inbOM (minute 30 and afterwards), statistical significance in this type of setting is completely meaningless. The bottom line is that antidepressants are no better than placebos or psychotherapy in the overwhelming majority of cases, and in the cases where they are slightly better, a better explanation seems to be the placebo effect amplified by the side effects of antidepressants. They are widely prescribed for one and only one reason: Big Pharma caches in, psychiatrists cash in. It is also a fact that the scandals of recent years in which Big Pharma companies have been forced to pay billions of dollars to settle civil and criminal charges have affected overwhelmingly the promotion of psychiatric drugs off label. It is also a fact that the 2008 investigation by US Senator Chuck Grassley that uncovered conflict of interests, undisclosed payments by Big Pharma to researchers receiving NIH money and ghost writing affected overwhelmingly psychiatrists. Psychiatric doctors have higher prevalence of corruption than other doctors, that’s a fact.

Third, sure I have a proof that psychiatry does more harm than good. I could start with my own case http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/ny-times-invites-readers-to-a-dialogue-on-forced-treatment/#comment-19770 , which is far from unique. Before you throw at me an accusation that I am giving anecdotal evidence, you should consider the fact that there are plenty of associations of survivors of psychiatric abuse, whose members share stories similar to mine (or worse; in fact mine is on the mild side of the spectrum). You don’t see similar associations of survivors to “oncology abuse”. I, and many others, have been unfairly stigmatized for the rest of our lives. Because of what happened (even though it’s distant in the past) I cannot apply for jobs that require extensive background checks nor I can legally own guns according to federal law. I do not own guns and I do not intend to own any in the future but that said, I have been deprived of an American constitutional right without having committed any crime whatsoever. Not to mention that my marriage fell apart and I lost my parents for all practical purposes. I don’t know if they are still alive since I have no contact whatsoever with them.

Fourth, you don’t have to go to 50 years ago or the Soviet Union to claim that psychiatry is used by the powers that be to get rid of the undesirables. Until very recently homosexuals were considered mentally ill (the WHO still considers ego dystonic homosexuality to be a mental illness). In an American context, psychiatric labeling can be used to deprive people from their second amendment rights despite the fact that by psychiatry’s own admission psychiatrists are very bad at predicting who’s likely to become violent. The expansionist nature of DSM-5, which I think was pushed again by Big Pharma’s greed, will make at least 30% of Americans eligible for a psychiatric label. Mr Obama just announced that he intends to make doctors “watchdogs” for people who shouldn’t be allowed to have guns. Which “doctors” do you think he had in mind? Oncologists? So there you go.

Finally, psychiatry, particularly biological psychiatry, is one of the largest scams ever. The APA is on record that psychiatry doesn’t have any biological marker whatsoever (no blood test, no imaging, no anything) that can be used to reliably detect presence or absence of so called “mental illness” as described by the DSM. The reason the scam is allowed to continue, as I said, is because it serves the economic interests of Big Pharma and psychiatrists as well as the interests of the powers that be. Unlike oncology, psychiatry was not born to help anybody. It was born so that the powers that be could have a pseudoscientific tool to get rid of the undesirables. It’s this day and age’s inquisition.

Antidepressants work well for major depression, their effects are uncertain for mild to moderate depression. Don’t confuse the two.

Invoking a grand conspiracy theory does not serve your position well. How, exactly, are the “powers that be” using psychiatry to get rid of undesirables? And please don’t give examples from the Soviet Union or more than 50 years ago.

I agree that corporate greed is something that needs to be kept in check, which is why I favor effective regulation of the pharmaceutical industry (and supplement industry, and any health care). What regulation reforms do you advocate to make it more effective, or do you condemn all pharmaceuticals? (That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.)

I think that we can apply Occam’s razor thinking here. Thomas Szasz used to say that psychiatry is politics and economics, not science. And that explains very well why psychiatry is here. It serves the needs of Big Pharma and greedy psychiatrists (that’s the economics part) and it serves the interest of the powers that be to get rid of the undesirables (that’s the politics part). The symbiosis “greedy psychiatrists”-”Big Pharma”-”Powers that Be” is just too powerful to be broken. Essentially, psychiatry is this day and age’s inquisition. Nothing more, nothing less.