Anti-psychiatry

ps LEM

I think you meant Tardive Dyskinesia (a neurological syndrome caused by the long-term use of neuroleptic drugs. Neuroleptic drugs are generally prescribed for psychiatric disorders, as well as for some gastrointestinal and neurological disorders. Tardive dyskinesia is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing, and rapid eye blinking. Rapid movements of the arms, legs, and trunk may also occur.) and yes keep on the psyche drugs and you'll have the above to look forward to

Bodach, this is just the sort of stuff that cchr look for i would say the same as REG and go on www.cchr.com and have a look.

REG where do you get all your information from would you care to divulge your sources I would be intrested to get hard copy of those figures.

Maybe REG would care to talk to the families of people who were convinced to stop taking their pychiatric medicines by Scientologists and subsequently committed suicide?

Just a thought

Intresting point madashell but who put these people on psychiatric drugs in the first place? I noticed that CCHR is affiliated with Scientology too infact it's no big secret they say it on their dvd, but I have bought and watched their psychiatry DVD and it was spot on and their facts and figures are sound. Theres alot of interviews with people who have been helped.

It's funny how you overlook the fact that the present system failed these people. They may have had problems but the answer is not to make drug addicts out of them.

Don't worry madashell i've talk to plenty of people on psychiatric drugs and lots of people who have successfully got off them and never have I met one person who has had a better quality of life or been cured using these highly toxic substances, just to let you know ritalin a common drug prescribed to children is in the same class as cocaine.

What sort of life is it to become addicted to pschotropic drugs and be unable to come off of them for fear of suicide?

mind you your the sort of person that supports the drugging of kids arn't you?

This is going nowhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i would welcome any facts and figures not to intrested in peoples opinions unless their backed up by experience or facts

So does the gas company, does that mean people don’t need heat in the winter?

First off. I AM a militant communist. I’ve struggled in social movements for the last 8 years of my life (I’m 23) being beaten, arrested, followed, jailed, bankrupted, purged, and backbreakingly dead tired for this movement. Don’t ever question my commitment. Secondly, I’m not a lifestylist idiot. I can’t opt-out, I’m workingclass and I have a disease. I’m not “helping” anyone make their profits. I’m FORCED to partake in a exploitative process, like all working people, and to consume the end result of it out of NEED. Your comment implies a bourgeois life stylist undercurrent, that, if this weren’t a british board, would cause me to immediately write you off as a useless member of Crimethinc. I have rationally weighed my options, looked at the effects of my disease on my life, and the consequences of my prescribed treatment, and CHOSEN the lesser of two evils in my life, frankly, to great positive effect. I am no one’s rat.

Where’s your tinfoil hat?

Bi-polar is the accurate name of my disease. No one in their right mind would think one term was “cooler” than the other. You clearly have an inaccurate and juvenile understanding of bi-polar disorder. If by “high” you mean pacing your apartment without sleep for three days straight, afraid to leave. If by “low” you mean not getting up off a couch (except to go to the bathroom) for a month, losing your job, your friend, facing eviction, and then trying to kill yourself, When nothing went wrong for you to have those feelings. Then yes, bipolar is about feeling “high” and “low”. But these aren’t emotions; emotions are a response TO something. What do you call a painful, life threatening, disorder, over which you have no conscious control except a disease? I’d like to know. You clearly are a person both ignorant and compassionless, who prioritizes your own irrational and totalized politic over and above individuals personal knowledge. You are a useless idiot.

But what's the alternative? If someone you loved was ill and wanted to kill themselves wouldn't you try to stop them?

REG, you are a fucking idiot.

My ex-girlfriend was diagnosed as schitzophrenic, and whether or not you could define it as a single, identifiable "disease" per se, it caused her a lot of problems. she then went on medication and now seems to be doing a lot better. ditto for pretty much everyone I know who is on anti-depressants. they don't provide a magic cure, but they make life more liveable for a lot of people, and for you to suggest that their problem is not "real" and that they are being "duped" into taking medication is incredibly fucking insensitive, to say the least.

My main issue with a lot of the anti-psychiatry folks is that they blur several quite distinct issues. It is true that the medication industry has an interest in convincing people they are mentally ill, and use incredibly dishonest and damaging means of aiding their business. the psychiatry industry "identifies" a stream of common behaviours as disorders and illnesses and encourages people to get "help" for them accordingly. this in turn makes many people believe themselves to be "crazy" because their personality matches a set of criteria for a given disorder, which is incredibly destructive. there is also a worrying trend towards medication as a first option rather than one among many, again with incredibly destructive results.

however, to tie in the entirely legitimate, real and serious concerns around the psychiatric industry and its relation to its patients, with the idea that any and all psychiatry is coercive and that mental illness simply does not exist, is even more destructive. fuck off.

no, but it doesn't

I learned a new word today, Drapetomania.

I remembered this discussion and thought it might be interesting to others here.

its really weird, after i posted that link, the article disappeared.

anyway, heres another link to an explanation

weird - it appears to be back. fucking wikipedia weirdness.

heres what it says:

^^ that's fascinating stuff....psychiatrists could in some ways be seen as parallel with religious leaders in some contexts, in as much as they seek to identify any behaviour considered socially unacceptable as a problem with a particular basis and a corresponding solution, generally one which reinforces their own power.

again, tho, this is only in some contexts. many psychiatric disorders, regardless of their basis, are genuine and serious problems which psychiatry can help with. the problem is not the practice per se, but its place within a wider social context.

incidentally, I was thinking about things like this:

While the psychiatrist in the article claims that thinking of it as behaviour rather than illness encourages people to ignore it, I would say the reverse is - or can be - true; what would otherwise be a bad habit which the individual is obliged to address becomes an unfortunate illness with which they are afflicted. in short, it becomes an excuse, not an explanation.

hello all hope you had a good new year,

the guy who said i'm an idiot why? i'm not saying your girlfriend doesn't have a problem but she doesn't have a disease and to then start giving her drugs and labelling her with a disease is wrong for these guys to do. No set of behaviours or emotions are a disease next we'll be labeling people who are happy with a disease.

One of my favourite illnesses in the DSM is arithmatic learning disorder, why didn't they discover that illness when i was at school things would have been alot easier!!!!

Revolutionrugger, disease definition; a term of health status; when something is wrong with a bodily function. Did they do any physical tests before they diagnosed your disease. Dam right i'd be angry too, but your attacking me when you should be attacking them!!!!

The Psyche's make you have an understanding of bi-polar disorder that nicely convinces thier patients to get on the drugs.

People in general always like to be right never wrong so once someone is convinced of something then it's very difficult to turn them around. ce la vie

oh my god my dear friend, mental illness doesn't exist there isn't any tests to prove it's existence FACT. The illnesses are decided upon by peoples behaviour and voted as a illness by a panel of psychiatrists, do your homework and you will see I feel sorry for people like you, I truely do.

Again.

The problems she was experiencing, which have been given the category "schitzophrenia", were serious. They were fucking up her life. They were making it impossible for her to function. She was having delusions that the government was watching her, that spirits were haunting her, that the walls were bleeding or that she was drowning. It made it impossible for her to function.

She was put on various medication and is now able to cope with life a lot better. No, it isn't a magic cure, or a fix-all solution, but it has done her a lot of good.

Tell me again why this is "wrong"?

The obsession of whether or not mental illness can be considered an exact analogue - or example of, for that matter - physical illness is IMO an avoidance tactic with little or no real relevance. People suffer and can be helped through various means, one of which is medication. While it should be a last resort, and is often used far too readily, it is sometimes necessary and helpful.

Is psychiatry overly influenced by pharma companies? Yes.
Is medication often used as a substitute, rather than complement, for dealing with the root of peoples' problems? Yes.
Are a number of everyday problems medicalised, leaving people unnecessarily dependant on medication and convinced they are "nuts" with all the emotional stress that goes with that? Yes.
Do some people have problems which can be aided with the use of medication as part of a wider programme of help? YES.

I have "done my homework". For a time, as it happens, I would have put myself in much the same camp as you. A number of things changed that, the biggest being that, to be blunt, I grew up.

Oh, it's nice to know you "feel sorry" for people like me. Condescending prick.

I should probably clarify what I mean.

anecdotes do not make data. however, I've had a few friends who, while they had a few problems, seemed fairly able to deal with them. then they began reading about various personality disorders, recognised certain characteristics from the list, and convinced themselves that they were "mentally ill". the stress brought on by that experience did far more damage to them than the initial problems.

while this is in part a result of the unfair stigma associated with the idea of mental illness, that doesn't alter the damage which can be done by ascribing it to character traits which may not be positive, but are not ultimately destructive either.

I realise the way I come across can seem quite callous and that isn't my intention; for that I apologise.

Incidentally (tho this may need a new thread), what do people think of The Icarus Project? From their mission statement page:

Get past some of the flowery language and you've got (on first glance anyway) a grassroots network of people and groups who are considered mentally ill, coming together to help one another socially and through creativity. The "our principles" section on that page is particularly interesting.

I'm curious about who set it up tho....

The Icarus Project looks interesting, although I'm not sure precisely who is behind it. There are some interesting critiques of big pharma which nonetheless manage to avoid the tedious and atonal elitism of our friend REG.

On the downside, it looks a bit like a slightly more liberal version of Mad Pride. One problem might be that it appears to seek to replace 'negative' stereotypes of mental distress with a 'positive' one: namely, the idea that madness is a form of genius - an equation I don't really buy into.

no.

Why do people become violent? because they're angry and frustrated at their life situation, same as everybody, most mad people only become mad because they have failed to gain/regain control over their own lives due to the actions of others. Involuntary commitment is basic fascism, reducing the insane's ability to gain control of themselves and therefore making their illnesses more protracted. Madness is better than death, or imprisonment, or the social stigma that face the insane in the hands of psychiatry. To be sure people want to get better, but are you likely to react better when your illness is talked through, investigated, dealt with on an interpersonal level, or ignored, sedated, brutalised and left to fester? Madness should be brought out in the open so it can be dealt with honestly, there's always a reason for something, no matter how delusional. Rather than being treated as abnormal, subhuman, irrelevant, irrational and just generally shit.