On Psychiatry

I'm glad someone posted something like this, i suspect a lot of activists, and anarchists dont fully understand or care about this sort of thing. They should, it would be almost hypocritical of someone not to oppose forced imprisonment, torture, explicitly and implicitly state sanctioned abuses and limitations to ones rights as a citizen in so many ways and yet profess and advocate opposition to all hierarchical power structures at the same time.

I myself have been the victim of this and its not even over for me, its a struggle to get out of the system entirely and be "free" as some people call it

I recognize, the work or starve condition imposed on the us by the state is not very nice, and is not full freedom, and i don't fully know what its like to live that way, because i have been either psychotic of in hospital my whole life pretty much, however i imagine wage slavery is better then psychiatric slavery!

Also the incidence of these "side effects" do add up. i have experienced many of these and i have come to the conclusion, through personal experience, what some critics have discovered through analysis of the data, that it is a drug lobotomy.

The drug essentially just damages the brain (and body). As I later learned "anti-psychotics", or "neroleptics" as they were originally called were discovered by anesthetists, who were looking for an aid to their noble efforts (if i remember what i have read correctly), and that, these drugs were of no real medical use, as they simply dulled the patient in manner similar to a lobotomy. it was sent to a psychiatrist who drugged up all their patients and hence the chemical lobotomy was created! Read "Robert Whitaker"'s book "an anatomy of an epidemic" for the proper story.

Essentially the drug was not discovered to as a cure to some kind of fully understood biological problem, it was discovered as a means to subdue people, and make them more easily controllable, and later marketed as a treatment by the firms that produced it.

They simply asserted, once the drug "mechanism of action" was discovered, that the opposite of that drug was the cause of psychosis! They claim, often to this day (some influential psychiatrists say the theory is not any longer believed or practiced, or never was, although i have been told this first hand and many others also) that too much dopamine caused psychosis!

the problem with this is that that would actually show up in certain blood tests. There have been studies on this and it has been shown to be absolutely untrue. There is no lab or clinical blood test to show that this is a biological marker of psychosis.

I have a lot more to say on this issue, including personally experiences that i may one day share with you lot. but i would like to hear more from other anarchists on libcom about this.

Another issue is that there are people who have mental illenss diagnosis, who are frieghtened by anti psychiatry because they confide in this world view and feel they have no recognition of their suffering without it.

Mental illness is real, but it is not an illness. To call it an illness is a societal judgment, not science or medicine. And i believe the the diagnosis IS discrimination, and so fighting stigma becomes fighting psychiatry and the beliefs it propagates.

It was a fantastic relief to me to realize that psychiatry is a pseudo science, but at the same time is was so frightened that i would not be able to explain myself without it, and that i might loose social protections, sympathy ect, if i expressed my opinion. Authority is a comfort blanket sometimes, but i feel i'm better off without it, and the various testimonials i have heard from people who have left survived and escaped psychiatry tell me there is light and the end of the tunnel, and that freedom from psychiatry and it abuses is defiantly worth it!

I've been arrested twice because of psychosis, once taken to the hospital, the other time to jail because I broke something, both times revealed the inadequacy of our infrastructure in dealing with extreme mental states, and a surprising amount of condescension/patronizing/misunderstanding among some social/health workers. Although to be fair when I got hauled off to the hospital one of the cops got on his knees to listen to me tell him about how society didn't really exist and there are only individuals.

Perhaps i should of named myself "mental-patient-insurgent" to make things clearer. I will get this right in the end!

Bruce Levine

Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.

https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/

There have been quite a few threads here on anti-psychiatry on here before which you may or may not find interesting.
Personally I find it to be an extreme and incorrect reaction. We are not in the situation where young women can be lobotomised for having boyfriends any more except in very rare cases of abuses.
There are definitely mental illnesses and while some of them are triggered and worsened, maybe even caused by society that doesn't mean that we don't treat them.

"mental illness" is a metaphor, not referring to literal neurological diseases, but rather, to what society or authorities judge to be wrong thoughts or wrong feeling. people's self-identified goals, in relieving trauma, grief, hallucinations, etc, may often have little or nothing in common with how professionals see fit to change those people. and it is still quite common for mental health professionals - psychiatrists and talk therapists alike - to use diagnoses, coerced drugging, and threats of imprisonment to punish people for being "treatment non-compliant."

in fact, right now, the u.s. congress is considering the murphy bill (H.R. 2646) which would expand forced outpatient treatment in all 50 states: http://realmhchange.org/2016/03/09/109-groups-urge-congress-to-oppose-the-murphy-bill/

psychiatry is not "the use of drugs to feel/think better." psychiatry is, rather, a set of power relations and ideologies about human emotion. medications and other aides to relieve stress and survive society are available without these ideologies and power arrangements. hell, i self-medicate not rarely. and i'm not afraid to name how much psychiatric authority props up all other aspects of capitalism, policing affect, etc, and center my politics around defending people from it.

Neither state capitalism nor psychiatry has fundamentally changes as a power structure or ideology since its past abuses. It remains an oppressive system of coercion and control.

Although there were waves of de-institutionalization in Europe, this was driven by popular pressure, not by benevolence.

The last lobotomy in the uk was in 1989, and black and Asian people are many times more likely to be diagnosed with its harshest, discriminatory labels.

The penultimate point you made you made, jef, was that "there are definitely mental illness". That there are real phenomena being called illnesses is not in doubt, we (survivors) simply do not like to refer to them as illnesses because there is no underlying pathology; its a social judgment.

[quote ]There are definitely mental illnesses and while some of them are triggered and worsened, maybe even caused by society that doesn't mean that we don't treat them. [/quote]

This last bit of your sentence is a refutation of the prevailing view of psychiatry not an endorsement of it. Psychiatry does not view mental illnesses as coming from outside of the body, they believe them to be an inherited brain abnormality. Psychology views it in your way, not psychiatry.

Edit: not all surviors/ex service user share that view, although many do.

we (survivors) simply do not like to refer to them as illnesses because there is no underlying pathology; its a social judgment.

Try not to speak for others. I have a mental illness, several comorbid ones actually. I know it's an illness, I own that, I manage them and I get really pissed off with people denying that I have mental illness, from whatever perspective.

Psychiatry does not view mental illnesses as coming from outside of the body, they believe them to be an inherited brain abnormality.

This is not true. Mental illnesses are recognized by psychiatry as being both genetically inherited and being as the result of experiences and trauma. Some mental illnesses can be identified by imaging, such as MRIs.

Anti-psychiatry swerves a little too close to the pill-shaming, treatment-shaming guff that stigmatizes mental illnesses and deters people from seeking help when they need it. I'm talking from my own personal experience here. I take my meds because I function so much better with them and maybe we could get into one of those navel-gazing conversations where we pontificate about how mental illnesses will be treated in a communist society or how some may not actually manifest at all, but right here and now in the real world I'm fucking grateful for psychiatrists and the medications which make my life livable.

Deal with your mental health issues in whatever way you feel works for you but if you preach the psychiatry is evil line then you're just shitting on people who have found it beneficial. If you go off meds, then don't forget to tell your loved ones what you are doing because there's also a high chance that you are about to put them through hell, also something that I've seen happen.

Psychiatry and psychotherapy are from a communist perspective definitely engaged in reproducing peoples mental states so that they can function as capitalist citizens. But if everyone took a communist perspective we'd either be in communism or nihilists, or dead.

Fleur

Anti-psychiatry swerves a little too close to the pill-shaming, treatment-shaming guff that stigmatizes mental illnesses and deters people from seeking help when they need it.

Deal with your mental health issues in whatever way you feel works for you but if you preach the psychiatry is evil line then you're just shitting on people who have found it beneficial.

The Pigeon

Psychiatry and psychotherapy are from a communist perspective definitely engaged in reproducing peoples mental states so that they can function as capitalist citizens. But if everyone took a communist perspective we'd either be in communism or nihilists, or dead.

So wrong. Capitlaism doesn't want or need mental illness, although certain factions may profit from it. It will however offer enough treatment to keep you functional, ie profitable. This is meaningless as a criticism of psychiatry, though. Capitlaism will offer us as little as it can to keep us functioning and if it underestimates our needs then tough shit for us.

there were waves of de-institutionalization in Europe

Just on this, the significant de-institutionalization that took place in America in the 1980s was a direct result of Reagan's massive cuts to state-funded hospitals of all types. People were literally kicked out of long-term care institutions with nowhere to go. Some ended up on the street, a lot ended up in prison, and some died. Hardly a working-class victory over psychiatry.

More broadly, of course psychiatry and psychology reinforce capitalist norms and reproduce capitalist society in a myriad of ways. All jobs do. As Jef hints at above, it's on us (patients specifically and the working class more broadly by ensuring access to medical care) to assert our needs against the capitalist features of medicine.

For some people that may mean they want alternatives to medicine. But there can be little doubt that for a lot of people, meds are extremely beneficial. I also don't think individual psychiatrists and psychologists - no more than say teachers - get into the field because they want to be agents of social control. Clearly, there's a space at the patient-doctor level to challenge the undeniably oppressive aspects of mental health treatment that do exist.

Fleur, i apologize if it sounded like I was speaking for you, we must both recognize the controversy of this issue among patients/survivors/service users/ex-service users, and i will try to speak more sensitively (although I'm not very good at that).

I myself am coming from a perspective of multiple/co morbid diagnosis, and have strong feelings rooted in my own experiences too.

This is not true. Mental illnesses are recognized by psychiatry as being both genetically inherited and being as the result of experiences and trauma. Some mental illnesses can be identified by imaging, such as MRIs.

Anti-psychiatry swerves a little too close to the pill-shaming, treatment-shaming guff that stigmatizes mental illnesses and deters people from seeking help when they need it. I'm talking from my own personal experience here. I take my meds because I function so much better with them and maybe we could get into one of those navel-gazing conversations where we pontificate about how mental illnesses will be treated in a communist society or how some may not actually manifest at all, but right here and now in the real world I'm fucking grateful for psychiatrists and the medications which make my life livable.

Deal with your mental health issues in whatever way you feel works for you but if you preach the psychiatry is evil line then you're just shitting on people who have found it beneficial. If you go off meds, then don't forget to tell your loved ones what you are doing because there's also a high chance that you are about to put them through hell, also something that I've seen happen.

No-one is trying to shame you here. I had the same reaction when i was exposed to doubts about my condition, when i was a true believer. What changed my mind was ultimately my hospitalization. Where psychiatry exposed itself to me for what it really is.

I'm also a big fan of science, and a have a strong dislike of anything that is psudo-science. Hearing about criticisms form a pro science perspective helped get the ball rolling too.

Much of what you said in the above paragraph simply is not true. There are no blood tests, brains scans, or any clinical or lab tests that even remotely useful for diagnosing, or predicting mental illness in patient. I would appreciate if you to provide evidence to the contrary.

What i find really painful, as both a libertarian socialist, and an ex patient with anti-psych views, is when people by into this pseudo-liberal propaganda that failing to acknowledge a difference in someone is somehow discriminating against them. That is literally the opposite to how we deal with racism, sexism, homophobia, trans rights, nationalism, and any other issue here. I'm really quite baffled as to why you might so many activists seem to buy into this. It just leaves people like me in a greater sense of distress and helplessness.

Also you might be interested in this, from the British psychological society:

http://www.bps.org.uk/system/files/Public%20files/rep03_understanding_psychosis.pdf

This puts a lot of things clearer and more sensitively than i could. Furthermore, it is written by a combination, of service users, ex service users and experts in the field of psychology.

Just on this, the significant de-institutionalization that took place in America in the 1980s was a direct result of Reagan's massive cuts to state-funded hospitals of all types. People were literally kicked out of long-term care institutions with nowhere to go. Some ended up on the street, a lot ended up in prison, and some died. Hardly a working-class victory over psychiatry.

Chili, my understanding of the de-institutionalization was that it started with a mass movement supported by trade unions, and patient/survivors, in Italy, and then followed by the united kingdom. I am actually writing this from a supported living environment have just been de-institutionalized myself.

But there can be little doubt that for a lot of people, meds are extremely beneficial.

Not according to the evidence.

https://youtu.be/VgS79hz1saI

There is evidence that short term use can be beneficial, but not by acting on some feature of the brain that is "psychotic", but by rather, inducing an altered state of consciousness that makes it easier to manage, like alcohol and anxiety.

please watch as much of this as you can, there is a lot of science in this presentation.

Thanks to Fleur and jef for their posts above.

That is literally the opposite to how we deal with racism, sexism, homophobia, trans rights, nationalism, and any other issue here.

Just on this, I don't think anyone - and I certainly hope I don't come across this way - is trying to dismiss your views as someone who's had first-hand experience. If you don't feel institutionalization or medicine was right for you, no one is, I hope, going to challenge that. By the same token, I don't think anyone denies that some really fucked-up, oppressive stuff has occurred in the name of psychiatry.

But, as you admit, certain mental health drugs do have positive benefits - even if there's some debate how to analyze those benefits. Given that, I think people are right to be a little wary of a throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater approach to psychiatry - especially one that doesn't recognize the voices of those who've had a positive experience with psychiatric medicine, as we've seen on this very thread.

my understanding of the de-institutionalization was that it started with a mass movement supported by trade unions, and patient/survivors, in Italy, and then followed by the united kingdom.

I'd be interested to hear more about this history. Not that I'm doubting you, but it doesn't seem like a typical issue for trade unions to take on and I'd love to know how the patient/service user activist groups hooked up with the unions.

a supported living environment have just been de-institutionalized myself.

If it's not a personal question, I'm curious how you see the differences between institutionalization and a supported living environment. Do you see either existing in a libertarian approach to mental health?

Much of what you said in the above paragraph simply is not true. There are no blood tests, brains scans, or any clinical or lab tests that even remotely useful for diagnosing, or predicting mental illness in patient. I would appreciate if you to provide evidence to the contrary.

That's not what I said. I just said that differences in brains with certain mental illnesses, non-neurotypical structures can be easily discerned in MRI scans. I can't be bothered to do other people's leg work any more but it's not hard to google brain images which show distinct structural and chemical differences. However given that MRIs cost over $2 million dollars each, that they are in very short supply (there are only 2 0f them covering the population of one and a half million people in the city where I live) and the running costs are so high, each scan costing about a $1000, it's not very useful diagnostic tool, when diagnoses can be made by history taking and analysis of symptoms presented, just like a multitude of other illnesses are diagnosed.

People watch way too many medical dramas and imagine that there are a plethora of easily administered tests available for diagnostic purposes, when there really aren't. It's not so easy as Dr House ordering a set of blood tests to diagnose illness. Often blood tests are just part of the diagnostic process and sometimes they rarely on their own of any use diagnostically and need to be part of a package of diagnostic tools. In addition, blood tests usually give clues to what is wrong, not all of them have definite answers. There's no diagnostic tests for Parkinson's, Alzheimers, Motor Neurone Disease. A lot of illnesses need to have diagnoses confirmed by biopsies (muscular dystrophy being one) but no-one is going to be able to biopsy the brain, so looking for definitive test based diagnoses is going to be a dead end.

People hold psychiatry to a much higher standard than other medical specialities. Nobody expects other specialists to cure chronic illnesses and then condemn them when they don't. I've never heard of any anti neurology movement because it can be really hard to manage and treat epilepsy, or be antagonistic to endocrinologists because it's pretty much impossible to have perfect control of diabetes.

All medications have adverse reactions and side effects. Just ask anyone with a chronic pain condition what the long term effects of painkillers are, possible kidney damage being one of them. On the other hand, long term untreated depression or anxiety causes permanent brain damage. It's a shit choice but one you have to weigh up for yourself. It's not surprising that anti-psychotics were first developed for a different purpose, this happens all the time. The human body is a complicated and interconnected thing. We all know about viagra, thalidomide was developed as a sedative and anti-nausea drug ( with tragic results) but is an absolute wonder drug for leprosy and some blood cancers.

And this -

No-one is trying to shame you here.

And you then go on to do just that.

What i find really painful, as both a libertarian socialist, and an ex patient with anti-psych views, is when people by into this pseudo-liberal propaganda that failing to acknowledge a difference in someone is somehow discriminating against them.

I am monumentally fed up when ever I talk about and advocate for myself as a person with a mental illness, which I do a lot, because some annoying person with the evangelical zeal of a recent convert pops up and tells me that I'm a sucker and a dupe for falling for some kind of con. this is usually followed by some kind of big pharma conspiracy. Don't save me, I don't want to be saved. My life was fucked up and extremely self-harming before I got medical help. I'm not stupid, I know how to manage my own life.

my understanding of the de-institutionalization was that it started with a mass movement supported by trade unions, and patient/survivors, in Italy, and then followed by the united kingdom.

I remember the de-institutionalizing process in the UK. It had nothing to do with patient care, it was a massive cost cutting exercise by the Thatcher government called Care in the Community, in which psychiatric facilities were closed down. Some of these hospitals were god awful and needed closing but the net result was that a huge number of patients were dumped into the "community" with little or no support. My sister-in-law was a psychiatric nurse at the time and had to cover a huge list of patients under this program, many of which had no adequate medical follow up, were predated upon by shady landlords and other people, had very few coping skills or support networks. She got so burnt out by her inability to provide care for her patients she quit.

What hasn't been mentioned yet is that there are competing models of medical practice that have a real impact on what help and support people get.

There is the medical model, the psychiatric model that views mental health as a physical problem that can be cured by medication/drugs and incarceration in psychiatric institutions of one kind or another.

Then there is the anti-psychiatry model as practised by Szasz and others who view mental illness or madness as a perfectly rational response to the kind of society we live in, a capitalist and hierachical society where we are expected to compete with and kill each other rather than help and live together.

jef costello

So wrong. Capitlaism doesn't want or need mental illness, although certain factions may profit from it. It will however offer enough treatment to keep you functional, ie profitable. This is meaningless as a criticism of psychiatry, though. Capitlaism will offer us as little as it can to keep us functioning and if it underestimates our needs then tough shit for us.

But my friend the psychiatric sector regards alienation as mental illness, which is a sticky thing. We do not consider alienation a psyche disorder, we consider it a social problem.

And I'm not saying all mental illness is alienation, but most become alienated.

I remember the de-institutionalizing process in the UK. It had nothing to do with patient care, it was a massive cost cutting exercise by the Thatcher government called Care in the Community,

very interesting. need to look this up and read more about it. any links to suggest other than a general google search?

best,
el raval

While there are clearly elements of mental health diagnosis and treatment that's fucked up I don't get why some people need to view the entire system of care in such a conspiratorial manner. Babies and bath water spring to mind.
Anecdotally a case in point is my daughter, who after months in a eating disorder treatment centre made no progress at all with her extreme anorexia finally agreed to Meds and within a month began eating voluntarily. Without those Meds it is hers and my belief that she would now be dead or at best, permanently hospitalised with tubes coming out of her face.
Inappropriate treatment seems to come from a lack of understand of the problem or a one size fits all prescriptive approach than anything more sinister and I say that as a former inmate at what I would say was a fairly typical psych hospital.

elraval2

I don't have any specific links, although there must be reports and critiques from that period because iirc the laws were changed in the early 90s(?) because it was obvious the policy was a disaster.

Clearly the old Victorian asylums had to go and there had to be a better way of caring for and treating people with MH problems. Nods were made to the deinstitutionalization movements and theories by people such as Laing but the actual implementation was done with no actual care and almost no community. There was a lack of co-ordination between various agencies and a severe lack of funds. There was the awful situation of adults with learning disabilities, who shouldn't have been institutionalized in the first place but had been put away since childhood, placed out in the "community" and pretty much expected to fend for themselves.

“There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” “It’s bull—. I mean, you just can’t define it.” — Allen Frances, Psychiatrist and former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman

“While DSM has been described as a ‘Bible’ for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary…. The weakness real-disease-vs-mental-disorderis its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever.” — Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health

“There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” “There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bull—. I mean, you just can’t define it.” — Allen Frances, Psychiatrist and former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman

“no shortage of alleged biochemical explanations for psychiatric conditions…not one has been proven. Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false.” — Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist

“DSM IV is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document. To its credit it says so — although its brief apologia is rarely noted. DSM IV has become a bible and a money making best seller — its major failings notwithstanding. It confines and defines practice, some take it seriously, others more realistically. It is the way to get paid. Diagnostic reliability is easy to attain for research projects. The issue is what do the categories tell us? Do they in fact accurately represent the person with a problem? They don’t, and can’t, because there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses.” Psychiatrist Loren Mosher, former Chief of NIMH’s Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, head of Schizophrenia Research, National Institute of Mental health

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/12/psychiatrists-under-fire-mental-health

Its true, i concede that i am a bit hazy on history, to say the least. However, the story of Basaglia Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basaglia_Law) is real. While i cannot give you comprehensive information about it at the present time, i will, when i can afford to, get some books on the subject and give you a summery.

Also, this nonsense about patients being sent out on the streets ect, is not true, at least not in the uk.

All patients in the UK who have been detained under the mental health act more than 28 day receive section 117 aftercare. This means that a patient cannot be discharged onto the streets, and must have assistance in dealing with housing, support, finding employment etc. It was included as part of the mental health act 1983.

And yes it was a conservative government, not that it matters. Politics is never straight forward. the conservatives and labour both competed to build the most houses in the 1950s and 60s and sure you are aware. That has nothing to do with electoral politics or benevolence, what mattered was class power. There was popular opposition to the interment of the mentally ill in the uk, and that is what ultimate lead to its change. Furthermore, it was more cost effective to provide care in the community but it did not happen, not in the 19th century, not pre world war two, and not untill sustained pressure was put on the on psychiatry and the state of a 20 or so year period.

Care in the community was a good idea, however it was most likely under funded.

I don't know the full history. The power and influence of the working class seems to have rapidly declined in the 1980s. It could just be that the government had to something at the time, and then just did a bad job, i don't know. there needs to be a proper analysis of it and nobody on here, to my knowledge, has done that, and i cant do it because i lack the knowledge ect.

To be blunt i'm not sure how to fit any of this into a class struggle narrative. I'm not saying it can't be done, i'm saying i'm not sure how to do it.

But what I am clear about, is both my libertarian socialist world view, and that psychiatry also happens to be a pseudo-science. How to reconcile, that i'm not sure. But i am confident that it somehow can be.

I remember Kropotkin writing something about mental hospitals, but i cannot find it :-(

I'm sorry to be all over the place, i do not meant to come across as some arrogant "i know the answers for everything" guy. I just have an issue that i'm affected by and thus have strong feelings about it.

And i will get back to you chilli source about your question about supported living.

“There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.”

You are not really listening to what I am saying. There aren't many objective tests which can definitively diagnose that someone does or does not have lots of kinds of illnesses. Like I said, no tests for Parkinsons, motor-neuron etc. There's no test for ME either, are you suggesting that doesn't exist too? Ehlers-danlos syndrome is diagnosed by symptom too, although there is a genetic test for one kind of EDS but is rarely used because diagnosis by symptom is already effective diagnosis. Unless you have an disease which produces antibodies, blood tests generally provide clues which confirm or deny diagnoses, too much protein, too much creatine, too many white blood cells etc. They're not particularly useful on their own. Given that most brain chemicals cannot pass the brain-blood barrier an blood test isn't going to happen and you cannot biopsy a brain in the same way you can biopsy muscles or other organs. Just because there aren't the tools to assist in the diagnosis of mental health problems, in the same way that there weren't the tools to assist in the diagnosis of many other medical problems until recently, doesn't mean that it's all a made-up conspiracy to oppress the working class. Until recently there was no useful test for ovarian cancer, which is why it is so often fatal as it is not easily detected until it got to a point before it was difficult to treat. There is now but did ovarian cancer not exist before the test did?
What I am saying is that diagnosis by history and symptom is standard throughout all medicine. Illness still existed before tests were developed and it's hardly surprising that there are few diagnostic tools for the brain because it is so intricate, so easily damaged.

Medicine doesn't provide the answers to everything. Science cannot definitively give answers either to a lot of things, it's just as subjective and subject to differences of opinions. Doesn't mean something should be rejected because there is a far from complete picture.

Also, this nonsense about patients being sent out on the streets ect, is not true, at least not in the uk.

Yes it is, you're just probably not old enough to remember it. Obviously people weren't discharged onto the streets but it didn't take long for a lot of vulnerable people to end up there with an absence of care and support. I never said that care in the community isn't a good idea, just that it was very badly implemented.

Honestly, how you decide to manage your mental health is something on my huge pile of stuff which is none of my business. You're a grown up, you can make your own decisions. However, browbreating people with mental health issues who do decide to take medical help, including people who feel that this help has been valuable and beneficial to them is a problem. You are belittling people's experiences and particularly in mental health where people are already subject to stigma, discrimination and abuse. Anyone can cherry pick data and opinion to prove whatever they want and believe in. Don't use that to oppress people who take a medical route to manage their conditions, which is exactly what the anti-meds contingency does. You know we have to put up with this shit all the time, from all sorts of different angles? Formulating a class-struggle anarchist perspective on how we're all weak, stupid and duped because we take our meds, which help us to function in this shitty world isn't any better.

Incidentally, I'm not suggesting that mental health problems are all caused by pathological diseases of the brain. Personally I think like many other things, like MS and diabetes, people may have genetic predispositions which may or may not become triggered by environmental conditions. Other MH problems are caused by trauma, PTSD being the obvious one. That's just my opinion though, that there are many different causes of mental health problems. My point is though that it really doesn't fucking matter. Whatever works for you is what matters. What does matter is that people with MH problems should be treated with respect and able to have access to the care they need, whether that is medical or not. Med shaming us, which happens so, so often, is not treating us with respect, is denying us our autonomy of choice and is incongruous with anarchist analysis. Do whatever you want but don't tell me what to do with my life because you've got another faith, which is what it feels like whenever people adopt hard-line beliefs and principles about lifestyle choices.

OK fluer, i don't want this to get confrontational. I have a habit of getting into situations i cant handle, due to my dire social skills.

I think we are fundamentally more in agreement then you seem to realize. Although i don't agree with you that at least some conditions may have an underlying pathology, the autonomy of the patient and individual choice is of paramount importance to me, and i hope it did not come across otherwise. This is a mainly anarchist forum, not some kind of authoritarian one;.I do respect your personal choice on this matter.

I am not trying to shame you at all. it is not my intention, even if it may be how i come across.

I must ask though, is psychiatry immune form criticism? is there anyway i can approach this, and deal with the issue in an appropriate manner, without being accused of shaming or discrimination or anything such as that?

Are you saying that my views derived from my experiences and knowledge are always invalid, as they may cause offence to people who confide in what i criticize?

I have suffered a lengthy psychotic episode, and my personal view is that the language used to describe this is offensive, dehumanizing, and unnecessary. How do i talk about this?

Of course psychiatry is not immune from criticism, nothing is, but does criticism necessarily = refutation and rejection? Because you don't like aspects of something, it doesn't make the whole of it invalid. I realize you have had bad experiences with psychiatry, to be fair most people with MH problems have, a lot of which can often be structural issues, the way it is administered etc, but your bad experiences do not invalidate other people's beneficial experiences. Taking a dogmatic approach as you do, that it is all fake, a pseudo-science, a cult or whatever, does invalidate other people's experience by implication. It sounds like you have a strong faith in a philosophy of MH issues and that we're just wrong when we have found it a helpful part of our lives. I'm fed up of people spouting of lists of side-effects and contraindications of meds, as reasons why we shouldn't be taking them. You think we don't know that side effects exist already? There's a prevailing smug attitude in the anti-psychiatry movement that they know better and that us poor suckers on the pills are just docile idiots in need of enlightening. I'm not accusing you of this but try going on social media and saying anything positive about using psych meds and a whole bunch of annoying random wankers will pop up and tell you what a stupid fool you are and offer offer all sorts of meaningless, unsolicited advice. It's really not doing anything to alleviate stigma to criticize your fellow mental health sufferers because they chose a different treatment course to you. Especially if it's working.

Obviously mass institutionalization as it used to be was appalling, and much institutionalization would be unnecessary if there was adequate community care and support (which there isn't) but is institutionalization always bad? Certainly I'm glad when my best mate was sectioned after suicide attempts, and more to the point so is he because we're both sure that he would be dead by now. They were't cry for help attempts. Thankfully he was just crap at it. According to the anti-psych guru, Thomas Szasz, his suicide would be a valid choice and nobody should be able to prevent it. He had a point. My friend's life had gone to shit and his untreated bipolar didn't help. His personal autonomy was totally violated, with the full collusion of people who loved him and thank fuck for that because he's still here and healthy and happy (and medicated.)

I have suffered a lengthy psychotic episode, and my personal view is that the language used to describe this is offensive, dehumanizing, and unnecessary. How do i talk about this?

I don't know. The problem is not with your psychosis but with other people's attitude to it. Like with anything else, dehumanizing and offensive language must be challenged, wherever it comes from. But challenging other people's choices to take anti-psychotics isn't very helpful for this. A lot of people find psychotic breaks terrifying, destabilizing, isolating, making life difficult to function, it's not at all surprising that people choose to take them, even if they can have serious side effects.

Of course psychiatry is not immune from criticism, nothing is, but does criticism necessarily = refutation and rejection? Because you don't like aspects of something, it doesn't make the whole of it invalid. I realize you have had bad experiences with psychiatry, to be fair most people with MH problems have, a lot of which can often be structural issues, the way it is administered etc, but your bad experiences do not invalidate other people's beneficial experiences.

Here we are in agreement.

I don't know. The problem is not with your psychosis but with other people's attitude to it. Like with anything else, dehumanizing and offensive language must be challenged, wherever it comes from. But challenging other people's choices to take anti-psychotics isn't very helpful for this. A lot of people find psychotic breaks terrifying, destabilizing, isolating, making life difficult to function, it's not at all surprising that people choose to take them, even if they can have serious side effects.

Here too.

It sounds like you have a strong faith in a philosophy of MH issues and that we're just wrong when we have found it a helpful part of our lives.

No. Even if it were a placebo, and i don't believe it is, but even if it were, one should be free to take it, if they so choose.

Obviously mass institutionalization as it used to be was appalling, and much institutionalization would be unnecessary if there was adequate community care and support (which there isn't) but is institutionalization always bad? Certainly I'm glad when my best mate was sectioned after suicide attempts, and more to the point so is he because we're both sure that he would be dead by now. They were't cry for help attempts. Thankfully he was just crap at it. According to the anti-psych guru, Thomas Szasz, his suicide would be a valid choice and nobody should be able to prevent it. He had a point. My friend's life had gone to shit and his untreated bipolar didn't help. His personal autonomy was totally violated, with the full collusion of people who loved him and thank fuck for that because he's still here and healthy and happy (and medicated.)

I'm sorry to hear this. i do take a believing attitude towards suicide attempts, I believe it is rare for people to make "cries for help", if it even happens at all.

On what you said about mass institutionalization, of course it is appalling, and i suspect the entire program of interning the mentally ill is intrinsically appalling, as it is fundamentally a set of power relationships that must perpetuate themselves first and foremost before anything else can happen. Even establishing them can cause serious harm to the process of healing.

There is a lack of studies on whether or not coerced psychiatric treatments lead to better outcomes. http://jme.bmj.com/content/35/1/69.short

But, there is however, evidence that coercion damages the theroputic relationship between the patient and clinician.

http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/ps.62.5.pss6205_0471

And there is some negative correlation, but no known causal relationship between coercion and outcomes.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178112001977

It is my hypothesis that, these power structure must first and foremost establish themselves to survive, and continue any action,and if these power structures must establish themselves, on an unwilling patient, they must coerce. If they must coerce, they damage the patients outcome. If they damage the patients outcome, they are liable to have continued interventions, which may require coercion, and thus a cycle ensues. If there is a constant implied threat of force, the relationship will never heal.

.

patient Insurgency

No. Even if it were a placebo, and i don't believe it is, but even if it were, one should be free to take it, if they so choose.
.

But people with many illnesses, especially mental health illnesses, don't know what is best for them. If someone was refusing chemotherapy for valid reasons (quality of life, chance of cure) then fair enough, buit if they're doing it because some murderous piece of shit has lied about a raw food diet then they need to be helped. One of the most dangerous symptoms of depression is beleiving that you cannot get better, so how on earth can you make a reasonable decision about treatement. Many mental illnesses cause paranoia and can lead to mistrust of those trying to help.

patient Insurgency

Also, this nonsense about patients being sent out on the streets ect, is not true, at least not in the uk.

All patients in the UK who have been detained under the mental health act more than 28 day receive section 117 aftercare. This means that a patient cannot be discharged onto the streets, and must have assistance in dealing with housing, support, finding employment etc. It was included as part of the mental health act 1983.

And yes it was a conservative government, not that it matters. Politics is never straight forward. the conservatives and labour both competed to build the most houses in the 1950s and 60s and sure you are aware. That has nothing to do with electoral politics or benevolence, what mattered was class power. There was popular opposition to the interment of the mentally ill in the uk, and that is what ultimate lead to its change. Furthermore, it was more cost effective to provide care in the community but it did not happen, not in the 19th century, not pre world war two, and not untill sustained pressure was put on the on psychiatry and the state of a 20 or so year period.

Care in the community was a good idea, however it was most likely under funded.

I don't know the full history. The power and influence of the working class seems to have rapidly declined in the 1980s. It could just be that the government had to something at the time, and then just did a bad job, i don't know. there needs to be a proper analysis of it and nobody on here, to my knowledge, has done that, and i cant do it because i lack the knowledge ect.

To be blunt i'm not sure how to fit any of this into a class struggle narrative. I'm not saying it can't be done, i'm saying i'm not sure how to do it.

Shitloads of people are discharged without the statutory support care, ask pretty much anyone who works in mental health.
On the one hand you admit the low point of class struggle but then somehow think it was people power that led to care in the community. I was young but I don't remember any kind of widespread movement.
Care in the community was described as an idea that I would support, but it was never intended to actually do that, it was designed to cut costs and push the cost of care onto families etc. Supporting people in the community is much better and I'd completely support it, as would most psychiatrists, but that doesn't mean that care in the community was intended to support people.
Do you believe that the government stuck to its promise about replacing right to buy council houses 1 for 1?
Do you believe that privatising healthcare will improve the service and save money?
Do you believe that student loans have revitalised university education?
I'd trust a doctor over a politician every day.

TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING

Frank discussion about violence and rape ahead.

But people with many illnesses, especially mental health illnesses, don't know what is best for them. If someone was refusing chemotherapy for valid reasons (quality of life, chance of cure) then fair enough, buit if they're doing it because some murderous piece of shit has lied about a raw food diet then they need to be helped. One of the most dangerous symptoms of depression is beleiving that you cannot get better, so how on earth can you make a reasonable decision about treatement. Many mental illnesses cause paranoia and can lead to mistrust of those trying to help.

I understand psychiatry to be what would otherwise be called an "alternative medicine", that has been backed by the state. To me this sounds like saying "we should force homeopathy or crystal healing on someone because they might have been conned into taking chemotherapy".

What i'm saying is that we should not force treatments on people if there is no evidence that they work. If there was evidence that they work it would be a different story, with a different debate.

However I also still feel that forcing anything on anyone is wrong, and that even something that works, say force feeding, is still an incredibly violating coercive dominating procedure.

It is true that it is dangerous to be told you can;t get better. But i was actually told this, Repeatedly, by psychiatrists. Part of their belief system is that you cannot get better from many of the "psychotic illnesses", Yet many people do. take a look at this study.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22340278

http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HarrowJobePsychMedMarch2014.pdf

Many people actually recover better off meds than on meds. Recovery is an option, and for many recovery off of long term med is actually more likely and better.

Another thing, is that people do actually have conscious experiences when psychotic. they are not sleepwalking, or possessed. People do feel suffering. suffering from their condition sometimes but not always, and suffering from brutal forced treatments when they are subjected to it.

The issue here is CONSENT. Consent is the difference between sex and rape, and rape is always an act of violence. There is more to violence then pain, and suffering, There is domination, humiliation, violation and psychological torment. Have you not considered the effects of forcing something on someone. I have already given you peer reviewed evidence that it is harmful, and shown you the lack of any proper investigation into whether forced treatment, results in better long term outcomes then no treatment, or voluntary treatment without the threat of coercion.

I believe the lack of investigation is because they simply do not care. It would be like asking the united states to conduct an investigation into civilian casualties during the iraq war, they don't care. there are some Independence studies, but there are ignored an they simply do not care. They are on that sort of scale of not giving a shit.

I believe that forcing anything into anyone body is rape. That is how a feel. You cannot say that because medical treatment is usually beneficial or pleasant, that it is therefore right to force it on someone. This almost exactly mirrors rape myths.

To be honest, form my perspective, the possibility of getting banned from somewhere for calling out the real experience of forced treatment is actually like a feminist being banned for speaking the truth about the scale and nature of violence against women. I want to reach out to you and ask you to keep to your core principles, of autonomy of the individual and opposition to all forms of oppression.

Capital might not need mental illness, but it certainly does not need the mentally ill. The fash slaughtered the entirety of their in patient population, and lobotomized many thousands of out patients. In capitalism, the only thing that the state has any intrinsic motivation to do with people like me, is control, slaughter or torture. Only remnants of the welfare state, fought for by the working class, supports people like me. And i am aware a lot of people get left out, to say the least.

I am very open to listen to women's and feminists views about sexual violence. it was not my intention to cause offence above, and i would like to hear from anyone who has anything to say about this.

Shitloads of people are discharged without the statutory support care, ask pretty much anyone who works in mental health.
On the one hand you admit the low point of class struggle but then somehow think it was people power that led to care in the community. I was young but I don't remember any kind of widespread movement.
Care in the community was described as an idea that I would support, but it was never intended to actually do that, it was designed to cut costs and push the cost of care onto families etc. Supporting people in the community is much better and I'd completely support it, as would most psychiatrists, but that doesn't mean that care in the community was intended to support people.
Do you believe that the government stuck to its promise about replacing right to buy council houses 1 for 1?
Do you believe that privatising healthcare will improve the service and save money?
Do you believe that student loans have revitalised university education?
I'd trust a doctor over a politician every day.

Of course I don't believe in state propaganda. Reading "manufacturing consent" really was a big turning point for me in my politics. If i had not have come across the propaganda model, i would likely still be some kind of liberal.

Furthermore i do understand that the structures of power cannot be changed except by only the most superficial of ways by electoral politics, and that the executive of a state must act in the interests it's investors. Something I do include in my views of psychiatry as well.

However, i am going to throw in the towel on the care in the community issue. I don't know enough about the history of it, or fully understand on a macro level what kind of impact it has had. If anyone could point me to some reading material on this matter i would be delighted. I have up until this point been relying on my personal experience and anecdotal evidence, which has generally been positive about section 117 aftercare.

For now i will suspend my judgment.

I am a very critical person and my mind is not made up easily as a matter of principle, but i would change my mind on something in a heartbeat if exposed to a good logical argument backed up by sound empirical evidence. (Sometimes that can be a personal testimony, depending on the issue)

I really hope i don't freak anyone out with what i said above. I am not trying to be inflammatory, if i have crossed a line with this post please let me know. I just feel that this is the truth, and i cannot escape it.

Because we cannot see each others faces we may seem more confrontational to each other then we actually are.

I do not intend to be confrontatonal, and if we had the conversation in person then you guys would find I am actually quite reasonable and not at all confrontational. I agree with upwards of 90% of what's said on this forum usually, with only technical differences between us aside from what I say and belive here.

I am an anarchist communist and actually a feminist and other things too. My only other concerns which we may disagree on are on tactics and strategies, and how a fully communist society can a bought about.

That's a weak spot of mine anyway.

So I would like to continue to interact with you and learn on this forum even if we have a strong disagreement over the matters discussed in this thread.

patient Insurgency

I understand psychiatry to be what would otherwise be called an "alternative medicine", that has been backed by the state. To me this sounds like saying "we should force homeopathy or crystal healing on someone because they might have been conned into taking chemotherapy".

I'm sorry but I don't see how you could get there from what I said. Although medical testing is poor (for a surprising number of treatments, not just mental health) there is still quite a lot of data available. Also tests are not guaranteed diagnoses, there is no definitive figure for when an elevated testosterone count means cancer for example. Medical results always require analysis and it is not always 100% objective and studies have shown this, by giving x-rays to different doctors, or sometimes the same one to the same doctor and getting different results.

What i'm saying is that we should not force treatments on people if there is no evidence that they work. If there was evidence that they work it would be a different story, with a different debate.

There is usually evidence. There are a lot of flaws, but it a communist system we would work to eliminate those flaws rather than eliminate treatment. In the same way as I think food would be radically reorganised under communism but I eat as healthily as I can/want under capiitalism. I can't afford (and don't necessarily trust the provenance) organic food but I still do my best within the system I am in.

However I also still feel that forcing anything on anyone is wrong, and that even something that works, say force feeding, is still an incredibly violating coercive dominating procedure.

It certainly is. But Having a serious mental illness is also violating, coercive and dominating. I think we can agree that if someone is starving themselves to death then there is a serious problem. Force feeding, to take your example, is awful but if someone is doing that to themselves because they have lost control then you help them. I have an anorexic friend and quite frankly I have no idea of how to help, but my friend hasn't been able to sort it out alone. I'm not very impressed with the doctors in this case, but that doesn't mean I think we should allow someone to finish starving themselves to death.
In terms of consent, my friend does not want to die. But my friend is compelled to a starvation regime that will be fatal. This person has not consented to die even if death it the result of their actions. I think therapy and other support is what someone in this situation needs, but if force feeding were to buy enough time to keep someone alive long enough for treatment to work then yes, it is not only what I think should be done I think it is a moral obligation.

Forced treatment is not rape. Rape is carried out for the pleasure of the attacker. While there have been a shitload of abuses in the psychiatric system (any system where you have power draws people who want to abuse it) those are people manipulating the human desire to help and heal to gain power. I still believe in Nurses after Beverley Allitt (and I hope she got some treatment) and I still believe in doctors after Alder Hey etc. I believe in teachers even after the scandals and abuses that have been perpetrated, because ultimately even if arrogance and hunger for power can make people pervert these roles it does not mean that these roles are in theseselves harmful.

It is true that it is dangerous to be told you can;t get better. But i was actually told this, Repeatedly, by psychiatrists. Part of their belief system is that you cannot get better from many of the "psychotic illnesses", Yet many people do. take a look at this study.

I don't know the specifics of your case, buit I do know that there is a huge problem with all diseases that people stop taking medication as soon as they start to feel better (along with intensive farming this is why our antibiotics are failing) and with illnesses that require long-term medication this is especially important, such as psychiatric medication, diabetes, retrovirals, immunosuppressor for tranplant patients etc.
There's a difference between getting better and being cured. If, for example, you take your insulin you get better, but you are not cured and you need to keep doing it. So perhaps you doctor expressed it poorly, perhaps you misunderstood, perhaps your doctor was tired of people stopping taking medication and unwisely decided to try scare tactics, who knows? But I know mental helath professionals and I find it hard to believe that they'd tell you you'll never get better, but I do find it credible that they would tell you that the medicine can't cure you.

Another thing, is that people do actually have conscious experiences when psychotic. they are not sleepwalking, or possessed. People do feel suffering. suffering from their condition sometimes but not always, and suffering from brutal forced treatments when they are subjected to it.

Of course, no one is advocating a chemical cosh for everyone who steps out of line.

I believe the lack of investigation is because they simply do not care. It would be like asking the united states to conduct an investigation into civilian casualties during the iraq war, they don't care. there are some Independence studies, but there are ignored an they simply do not care. They are on that sort of scale of not giving a shit.

Studies are paid for by the government or pharmaceutical companies so yes, it's likely they don't care too much and would prefer a simple 'medical' cure of a pill rather than complicated treatment. Incidentally this is what most patients want. I had an operation and the doctors and nurses talked about the physio constantly because large numbers of people didn't do it and the operation didn't help them as a result. To be honest someone who efused to do the silly physio exercises I had to do should have been forced to do them rather than end up paralysed.

I want to reach out to you and ask you to keep to your core principles, of autonomy of the individual and opposition to all forms of oppression.

Obligation is not oppression. Freedom of speech doesn't mean people have to accept what I say with a smile. An anarchist society is built upon the principle that people will self-regulate for the good of the community (and themselves as a part of it) but that doesn't mean that we'd just sit back and allow people to be arseholes.

It's a silly example, but in the anarchist society we don't just smile and say to ourselves that his autonomy is the most important thing.

I am very open to listen to women's and feminists views about sexual violence. it was not my intention to cause offence above, and i would like to hear from anyone who has anything to say about this.
...
I am a very critical person and my mind is not made up easily as a matter of principle, but i would change my mind on something in a heartbeat if exposed to a good logical argument backed up by sound empirical evidence. (Sometimes that can be a personal testimony, depending on the issue)

Well fleur's posts for a start...

I really hope i don't freak anyone out with what i said above. I am not trying to be inflammatory, if i have crossed a line with this post please let me know. I just feel that this is the truth, and i cannot escape it.

Anti-psychiatry is not something that is generally regarded as helpful on this board, but as you can see there are a variety of posters wiling to discuss it. I've said about as much as I'm qualified to say really, there are posters with more knowledge and experience than me, but I hope you understand that I (and the other posters as far as I can tell) have read what you have to say and if we're trying to help, it seems like you're acting in good faith and while there is not agreement in method I think we can all agree that we want people who are suffering from mental illness not to suffer and think that in a better societ that they wouldn't.

If you were one of those scumbags who sells juice diets to desperate cancer patients or similar you'd have been banned long ago.

Firstly, what Jeff said.

Secondly, probably where we disagree is you are adamant that psychiatry does not work. You are basing this largely upon your experiences. My opinion is that for a lot of people it does work. This is based upon my experiences and also experiences of people I know. (It's amazing how once you start openly discussing your own struggles with MH, how many people open up to you about their own and those of their loved ones.) I've heard a lot of criticism about health services and structural issues - ie not being able to access treatment - but I've not come across anyone who thought it was all crap, alternative medicine, bunk etc. Yours is a minority view.

What I would also suggest is taking a less binary attitude that it's either brilliant or it's rubbish. A lot of people find that the right dosage of the right meds make their lives immeasurably better. Usually that works best while in conjunction with other therapies. It's not just a question of popping a pill. However, there are no cures for some illnesses and in exactly the same way as other life long illnesses respond, some meds no longer work for you or some people do not respond well at all to treatment. This is just as relevant to someone with lupus or MS as someone with schizophrenia.
So if you don't respond to treatment it doesn't mean that it's the same for everyone. That's what I mean by you invalidating other people's experiences. Babies and bathwater, as other people have already said.

As for the efficacy of psych meds, there was this meta study carried out in Germany, which compared the efficacy of psych meds against those of general meds and found that they worked more or less as well as any other medication.
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.47.9.psychnews_47_9_1-b

To say you should never coerce someone to have psychiatric medicine would imply that people who are in real danger of causing themselves self harm or even dying, in the cases of my friend and Jeff's, as we have pointed out, should just be left to die. This was Scasz's opinion. To be fair he had a lot of awful opinions, which did not value the lives of people with mental illnesses at all but it's probably what you would expect from a right wing libertarian anyway. I expect medicine will be different in a communist society (although to be honest I've come to loathe these ATR discussions as they often turn into a way of derailing discussion of how things need to be addressed in the here and now) but I would sincerely hope that people will not be allowed to harm themselves for the sake of a principle of autonomy.

I'm tired, just come home from work and I don't really want to say anything else right now. I wish you all the best and I really hope you find a way of managing your mental health the best way you can but I'm never going to agree that psychiatry is intrinsically harmful.

This might be of interest:
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/188/4/301

I have a few more things to say but that can wait untill morning.

Thank you for your responses.

Jeff, you've obviously said way more than you're qualified to say. Saying people don't know what's best for themselves is nothing but propaganda to validate coercion against them. Saying coercing people is for their own good is the same line backing up the wage relation, the police state, and everything that stems from it.

Forced treatment is not rape, but I have survived both and been infinitely more damaged by the former.

Our system cannot accommodate individuals, this is why we have a uniform method of treating psychological complications. And so this does not mean I should advocate treating extreme cases according to some homogenous social standard. I believe insanity is very specific to the individual experiencing it, and furthermore something which is socially mediated. Some people cannot adapt to the overarching social insanity. There is absolutely no reason to force them to. The sane have very little idea of what it means to be insane so their prescriptions are often quite invalid.

There's nothing wrong with opting to take medicine voluntarily. The pharmaceutical-psychiatric complex society has is certainly capitalistic but there really aren't many choices. But it is our responsibility to attempt to create some. Medicated drugs are the same as other drugs: they soothe the exploited but also make them dependent upon something external. There's nothing inherently wrong with needing something outside yourself. But communism is transforming this dependence on things into an interdependence with other people.

Excellent comment pigeon

jef costello

patient Insurgency

I understand psychiatry to be what would otherwise be called an "alternative medicine", that has been backed by the state. To me this sounds like saying "we should force homeopathy or crystal healing on someone because they might have been conned into taking chemotherapy".

I'm sorry but I don't see how you could get there from what I said. Although medical testing is poor (for a surprising number of treatments, not just mental health) there is still quite a lot of data available. Also tests are not guaranteed diagnoses, there is no definitive figure for when an elevated testosterone count means cancer for example. Medical results always require analysis and it is not always 100% objective and studies have shown this, by giving x-rays to different doctors, or sometimes the same one to the same doctor and getting different results.

What i'm saying is that we should not force treatments on people if there is no evidence that they work. If there was evidence that they work it would be a different story, with a different debate.

There is usually evidence. There are a lot of flaws, but it a communist system we would work to eliminate those flaws rather than eliminate treatment. In the same way as I think food would be radically reorganised under communism but I eat as healthily as I can/want under capiitalism. I can't afford (and don't necessarily trust the provenance) organic food but I still do my best within the system I am in.

However I also still feel that forcing anything on anyone is wrong, and that even something that works, say force feeding, is still an incredibly violating coercive dominating procedure.

It certainly is. But Having a serious mental illness is also violating, coercive and dominating. I think we can agree that if someone is starving themselves to death then there is a serious problem. Force feeding, to take your example, is awful but if someone is doing that to themselves because they have lost control then you help them. I have an anorexic friend and quite frankly I have no idea of how to help, but my friend hasn't been able to sort it out alone. I'm not very impressed with the doctors in this case, but that doesn't mean I think we should allow someone to finish starving themselves to death.
In terms of consent, my friend does not want to die. But my friend is compelled to a starvation regime that will be fatal. This person has not consented to die even if death it the result of their actions. I think therapy and other support is what someone in this situation needs, but if force feeding were to buy enough time to keep someone alive long enough for treatment to work then yes, it is not only what I think should be done I think it is a moral obligation.

Forced treatment is not rape. Rape is carried out for the pleasure of the attacker. While there have been a shitload of abuses in the psychiatric system (any system where you have power draws people who want to abuse it) those are people manipulating the human desire to help and heal to gain power. I still believe in Nurses after Beverley Allitt (and I hope she got some treatment) and I still believe in doctors after Alder Hey etc. I believe in teachers even after the scandals and abuses that have been perpetrated, because ultimately even if arrogance and hunger for power can make people pervert these roles it does not mean that these roles are in theseselves harmful.

It is true that it is dangerous to be told you can;t get better. But i was actually told this, Repeatedly, by psychiatrists. Part of their belief system is that you cannot get better from many of the "psychotic illnesses", Yet many people do. take a look at this study.

I don't know the specifics of your case, buit I do know that there is a huge problem with all diseases that people stop taking medication as soon as they start to feel better (along with intensive farming this is why our antibiotics are failing) and with illnesses that require long-term medication this is especially important, such as psychiatric medication, diabetes, retrovirals, immunosuppressor for tranplant patients etc.
There's a difference between getting better and being cured. If, for example, you take your insulin you get better, but you are not cured and you need to keep doing it. So perhaps you doctor expressed it poorly, perhaps you misunderstood, perhaps your doctor was tired of people stopping taking medication and unwisely decided to try scare tactics, who knows? But I know mental helath professionals and I find it hard to believe that they'd tell you you'll never get better, but I do find it credible that they would tell you that the medicine can't cure you.

Another thing, is that people do actually have conscious experiences when psychotic. they are not sleepwalking, or possessed. People do feel suffering. suffering from their condition sometimes but not always, and suffering from brutal forced treatments when they are subjected to it.

Of course, no one is advocating a chemical cosh for everyone who steps out of line.

I believe the lack of investigation is because they simply do not care. It would be like asking the united states to conduct an investigation into civilian casualties during the iraq war, they don't care. there are some Independence studies, but there are ignored an they simply do not care. They are on that sort of scale of not giving a shit.

Studies are paid for by the government or pharmaceutical companies so yes, it's likely they don't care too much and would prefer a simple 'medical' cure of a pill rather than complicated treatment. Incidentally this is what most patients want. I had an operation and the doctors and nurses talked about the physio constantly because large numbers of people didn't do it and the operation didn't help them as a result. To be honest someone who efused to do the silly physio exercises I had to do should have been forced to do them rather than end up paralysed.

I want to reach out to you and ask you to keep to your core principles, of autonomy of the individual and opposition to all forms of oppression.

Obligation is not oppression. Freedom of speech doesn't mean people have to accept what I say with a smile. An anarchist society is built upon the principle that people will self-regulate for the good of the community (and themselves as a part of it) but that doesn't mean that we'd just sit back and allow people to be arseholes.

It's a silly example, but in the anarchist society we don't just smile and say to ourselves that his autonomy is the most important thing.

I am very open to listen to women's and feminists views about sexual violence. it was not my intention to cause offence above, and i would like to hear from anyone who has anything to say about this.
...
I am a very critical person and my mind is not made up easily as a matter of principle, but i would change my mind on something in a heartbeat if exposed to a good logical argument backed up by sound empirical evidence. (Sometimes that can be a personal testimony, depending on the issue)

Well fleur's posts for a start...

I really hope i don't freak anyone out with what i said above. I am not trying to be inflammatory, if i have crossed a line with this post please let me know. I just feel that this is the truth, and i cannot escape it.

Anti-psychiatry is not something that is generally regarded as helpful on this board, but as you can see there are a variety of posters wiling to discuss it. I've said about as much as I'm qualified to say really, there are posters with more knowledge and experience than me, but I hope you understand that I (and the other posters as far as I can tell) have read what you have to say and if we're trying to help, it seems like you're acting in good faith and while there is not agreement in method I think we can all agree that we want people who are suffering from mental illness not to suffer and think that in a better societ that they wouldn't.

If you were one of those scumbags who sells juice diets to desperate cancer patients or similar you'd have been banned long ago.

Firstly what criteria do you suppose that psychiatry would necessarily have to fit in order to be a pseudo science? You can look at examples of subjectivity in real medicine and compare it to psychiatry but where do you draw the line? I don't see what you wrote in the first paragraph are a defense of psychiatry in particular, it almost resembles something that could defend astrology from criticisms that its not physics or psychology.

Nobody is talking about eliminating any kind of help or support for the people that need it. If any thing it should be proliferated. And as you said in you're second paragraph. of course we must, while we're in capitalism, go along with a lot of things we would not normally do, But do you do everything? Some people still find room to be vegetarians or vegans for example. are you basically saying something like "if vegetarians where forced to it meat they would have to go along with it until there is communism, when we will find better, more suitable meat".

In your third paragraph, you admit some of the horror of forced treatment, and then go on to ask if the ends justify the means. ARE YOU SURE? have you not asked people who have been told that they "don't have the capacity to refuse consent", How the feel afterwards? after its all over? Psychotic people do not stop thinking feeling and experiencing the world, they experience it differently, and are conscious of everything, just like you are now. How do you feel about a forced treatment? would you like someone to stick a tube down your throat? Or a needle containing a neuroleptic tranquilizer into your buttock, while pined to the ground? does that sound good to you? feeling the effects for a very extended period of time afterwards?

After this, you give quite an erroneous account of what rape is. Did you not know, for example, most male-male rapes are perpetrated by straight men against other straight men? that has absolutely nothing to do with sex, or sexual pleasure. It does, however, have something to do with power.

Studies show rapists tend to pick on people who are vulnerable, that are known to the victim and there is often a clear hateful motive, such as revenge. If someone understands that an act has an impact on the victim, and then perpetrates the act, then the intent must be malicious.

Even if there were examples of rape where the motivation were pleasure, there still contains a strong malicious component to it.

Saying things like,it was somehow wanted by the victim, that it was helpful to them in some way, that there are not quite human in some way, or displacing blame for the act in some way, or saying its right with the context of the institution or misrepresenting the impact is straight forward moral disengagement. Which is something that has been studied by psychology in relation to violence.

It is in this sense, that i have called forced treatment a rape, but perhaps i could call it violence more generally.

In reference to what you said next, i have been told repeatedly throughout my life that i have one such or another lifelong incurable condition and i just don't believe that shit anymore, I'm sure many other people have also been told this too.

And as to cessation of treatment to medicine in general, i'd bet that there's a damn-sight more people compliant with general medicine then in psychiatry.

Also you seem to struggle with the distinction between not interfering with someone else's liberty, and "obligation". If you seem to as you think, as you do, that freedoms or something forced on people then you may have a lot of contemplation on your hands, because freedom of speech does not oblige you to to anything, it means none should be obliged to shut up or say something else, or be punished for what they say or believe.

This concludes my rant to jef.

Now, onward to fleur!

Firstly, what Jeff said.

REALLY?

Secondly, probably where we disagree is you are adamant that psychiatry does not work. You are basing this largely upon your experiences. My opinion is that for a lot of people it does work. This is based upon my experiences and also experiences of people I know. (It's amazing how once you start openly discussing your own struggles with MH, how many people open up to you about their own and those of their loved ones.) I've heard a lot of criticism about health services and structural issues - ie not being able to access treatment - but I've not come across anyone who thought it was all crap, alternative medicine, bunk etc. Yours is a minority view.

Well i think my anecdotal evidence is better your anecdotal evidence. I must have met a a great many people with mental health problems, and generally speaking, the more exposure, or the more intense the exposure of them to psychiatry, the more the extreme there views will seem to you.

however i think all this is still just anecdotal.

I think we fundamentally agree on the the need for holism as opposed to viewing all paitents in a homogeneous, one size fits all manner. However, i don't think that is psychiatry, at least not as it's practiced today. The drugs aren't tailored to the individual, but the talking therapies are.

the study you showed be was over a 12 month period. The study i showed you was over a 20 year period, and that one showed worse outcomes. however i'm very tired now and will look into your study properly tomorow. It is, notheless, the most complelling thing i have yet seen on this thread. thank you for sharing it.

hopefully I will be able say more on this to tomorrow.

Now, onward to fleur!

Please do not, unless you can stop making fucking rape analogies.

If men can't describe something without comparing it to rape, perhaps they should just shut up until they learn to. I ignored it the first time. Just don't.

dp

okay, but I'm a woman and a psychiatric survivor, and I'm not taking issue with the "abuses and excesses" of psychiatry, I'm saying that fully-legal standard practice in u.s. psychiatric wards is literally sexual assault.

Forced treatment is not rape, but I have survived both and been infinitely more damaged by the former.

Make up your mind. Either way, rape is not a metaphor, don't use it as such.

It's not that complicated. Forced drugging, while not literally rape, still has the capacity to be just as damaging, if not moreso. Also, sexualized assault is still common and legally-sanctioned in american psychiatric institutions.

patient Insurgency

Firstly what criteria do you suppose that psychiatry would necessarily have to fit in order to be a pseudo science? You can look at examples of subjectivity in real medicine and compare it to psychiatry but where do you draw the line? I don't see what you wrote in the first paragraph are a defense of psychiatry in particular, it almost resembles something that could defend astrology from criticisms that its not physics or psychology.

I pointed out that scientific diagnoses are not as clear cut as many think, so while psychiatry is not an exact science, neither is a lot of medicine.

But do you do everything? Some people still find room to be vegetarians or vegans for example. are you basically saying something like "if vegetarians where forced to it meat they would have to go along with it until there is communism, when we will find better, more suitable meat".

Not even close to what I said. I said that we pick from the options available.

In your third paragraph, you admit some of the horror of forced treatment, and then go on to ask if the ends justify the means. ARE YOU SURE? have you not asked people who have been told that they "don't have the capacity to refuse consent", How the feel afterwards? after its all over? Psychotic people do not stop thinking feeling and experiencing the world, they experience it differently, and are conscious of everything, just like you are now. How do you feel about a forced treatment? would you like someone to stick a tube down your throat? Or a needle containing a neuroleptic tranquilizer into your buttock, while pined to the ground? does that sound good to you? feeling the effects for a very extended period of time afterwards?

Recognising that there are abuses does not mean that anti-psychiatry is correct. I do ask if the ends justify the means and I think in some cases they do. So while you can give a lot of emotive examples of forced treatment that doesn't change the actual argument, which was that what an ilness leads people to do is not their free will. The argument you have completely ignored.

After this, you give quite an erroneous account of what rape is. Did you not know, for example, most male-male rapes are perpetrated by straight men against other straight men? that has absolutely nothing to do with sex, or sexual pleasure. It does, however, have something to do with power.

I didn't say sexual pleasure. I should have been more clear. Exerting power is pleasure.

Studies show rapists tend to pick on people who are vulnerable, that are known to the victim and there is often a clear hateful motive, such as revenge. If someone understands that an act has an impact on the victim, and then perpetrates the act, then the intent must be malicious.

A doctor who thinks that they are helping someone is not the same as a rapist. A doctor doesn't target someone due to a perceived weakness, they treat someone based upon the fact that they appear to be ill.

Saying things like,it was somehow wanted by the victim, that it was helpful to them in some way, that there are not quite human in some way, or displacing blame for the act in some way, or saying its right with the context of the institution or misrepresenting the impact is straight forward moral disengagement. Which is something that has been studied by psychology in relation to violence.

Conflating support for treatment with rape apology, that's pretty low. A doctor who thinks that they are helping someone is not the same as a rapist.

It is in this sense, that i have called forced treatment a rape, but perhaps i could call it violence more generally.

Yes, I think you'd still be wrong but it would be preferable.

In reference to what you said next, i have been told repeatedly throughout my life that i have one such or another lifelong incurable condition and i just don't believe that shit anymore, I'm sure many other people have also been told this too.

I did talk about the difference between 'getting better' and 'incurable'.

Also you seem to struggle with the distinction between not interfering with someone else's liberty, and "obligation". If you seem to as you think, as you do, that freedoms or something forced on people then you may have a lot of contemplation on your hands, because freedom of speech does not oblige you to to anything, it means none should be obliged to shut up or say something else, or be punished for what they say or believe.

You've missed my point. Freedom of speech does not allow you to say whatever you want and it doesn't mean that people have to listen to it. I understand you have trouble with analogies that aren't about rape but you'll need to get used to it.
I very clearly did not say freedom was forced upon people (I'm assuming that's what you mean, there's a typo) I said that freedom did not mean that there were no obligations (we can change the word if that's the problem), I may have expressed it poorly, but there are obligations towards society even if we have freedom.

This time I am definitely done with this thread. I've said all I can say and I think I spoke too soon when I said that you were arguing in good faith. I've clarified what I said and I will let any further misinterpretation lie because I've got other things to do.

patient Insurgency

Well i think my anecdotal evidence is better your anecdotal evidence. I must have met a a great many people with mental health problems, and generally speaking, the more exposure, or the more intense the exposure of them to psychiatry, the more the extreme there views will seem to you.

Seriously?

Firstly, what Jef said. Yes again, really.

To go back to a previous post where you said that you are a big fan of science too, well I'm not. There's nothing to be a fan of. It's just a tool, a way of understanding and interpreting the world. It's very subjective, it's subject to change, The same data can be interpreted by different people in different ways. It can be interpreted by the same person in different ways even. To call something a pseudo-science on the basis that it doesn't have the answers for everything, that there are differences of opinion then every scientific discipline is a pseudo-science because nothing has the answers to everything. Take physics - two great pillars of theory, Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Quantum mechanics. There is a conflict and a contradiction between the two, they cannot be reconciled. It doesn't make everything we know about physics wrong, it just means no-one has all the answers. Nobody can, nobody ever will. Even within general medicine there are often conflicts on whether to treat some conditions medically or surgically. There is no great truth. You are dismissing an entire discipline based upon your personal experience (and I'm not denying your experience) and trying to back it up with science. Your personal experience is no more valid than anyone else's.

Which brings me to this

I must have met a a great many people with mental health problems, and generally speaking, the more exposure, or the more intense the exposure of them to psychiatry, the more the extreme their views will seem to you.

That's pretty obvious really. If you're talking to people who have had long term exposure to psychiatry who fall into that category of people who do not respond well to current treatments, then I don't suppose they're going to speak very favourably about something which doesn't help them. I don't suppose someone who's had chronic back pain for 20 years and haven't found a medical resolution to it are going to be particularly loved up with orthopaedic specialists either. Just because you fall into the category of people who do not respond well to psychiatric treatment doesn't mean you can invalidate other people's experiences.

I think we fundamentally agree on the the need for holism as opposed to viewing all paitents in a homogeneous, one size fits all manner. However, i don't think that is psychiatry, at least not as it's practiced today. The drugs aren't tailored to the individual, but the talking therapies are.

(My bold.)

No drugs are, not for any condition, be it anti-psychotics, anti-convulsants, anti-inflammatories or antacids. It's a question of trial and error, tinkering with dosages, combinations and all sorts of different factors and sometimes they don't work well in a particular patient or at all. Again with holding psychiatry to a higher standard than other specialities. They also have to work in conjunction with lifestyle. You can take a pill for high cholesterol but it won't do a sod of good if you eat cheeseburgers for every meal. Meds are just part of the solution but they are a part of the solution for lots of people.

I addition, your purist position of personal autonomy trumping all other considerations, you haven't addressed my point about coercing people into treatment saving lives/preventing self-harm. Without being sectioned, my friend would have been dead. No doubt about that at all. Noah's daughter who would have died or would have been permanently hospitalized without medical intervention. Jef's friend, who he is worried about a clear danger of her dying ?(Not to mention the organ damage which comes with anorexia, I would think.) Do you think your principles are more valuable than these people's lives?

There's not a lot of point carrying on with this, we're not going to agree, I don't want to argue and you're not addressing points put to you by myself and Jef. You're probably not going to get a lot of support for anti-psychiatry here. As a movement it's pretty much been consigned to the trashbin of history and a lot of the things it focussed of are of no real concern today. Not to say there wasn't merit in various anti-psych theorists such as Foucault & Laing (neither one of whom were mental illness deniers) and mental healthcare really needed to be changed and improved (still does) but I have no patience for the libertarian crap of Szasz, which so much of anti-psych draws on. Awful man, awful opinions, fucking awful politics. I'm surprised he gets any traction at all with anarchists. There's a huge difference between being critical of psychiatric practices and the whole of psychiatry.

I appreciate this is something which is hugely personal to you and I do not wish to turn it into a conflict. However you have to appreciate that it is also hugely personal to other people, who have benefitted from psychiatry, who have had their lives improved, people who's lives it have saved.

I appreciate this is something which is hugely personal to you and I do not wish to turn it into a conflict. However you have to appreciate that it is also hugely personal to other people, who have benefited from psychiatry, who have had their lives improved, people who's lives it have saved.

OK, i'll leave it at that. I could go on and on, but it would be to no avail, I've learned a lot a few things from this and would like to sum some of it up, and try to leave on a positive note.

I don't believe that the differences between us are fundamental, or ideological. From my perspective it is lack of understand between us.

We both opt for a more psychological approach rather then a purely psychiatric one, as far as i can tell. Although, we differ on what understand psychiatry to be, so you may not agree with me on this.

We all want what is best for the patients, but we differ on whether treatments should be compulsory.

All of us here essentially believes that capitalism is bad for ones mental health, that state capitalism then goes on to fail the mentally ill, and that communism would improve things greatly.

I need to research the points raised, in order to better understand them, including the ones raised by myself.

i was, BTW, joking when i said that "my anecdotal evidence is better then your anecdotal evidence. I was trying to point out the absurdity of the way we were debating.

Other anarchists don't appear to be as fanatical about science as I am, which is another thing.

This issue is very important to all of us, and there needs to be a way of one day discussing it without promoting conflict, for there to be a positive outcome.

I feel like atheist in a theocracy when i have debates like this sometimes.

And my positive note? There is a route to recovery that works in acutely psychotic patients approximately 82% of the time, Which has dramatically reduced forced treatment in the area of Finland where it has been implemented, and also offers us a libertarian hope for the future.

http://www.taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/images/ResourcesManuscripts/seikkula-ComprehensodII_Psychosis.pdf

http://www.taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/Images/ResourcesManuscripts/seikkula-5yryearexperienceoffirst-episodenonaffectivepsych.pdf

I have a question to ask everyone. Do leftists view "false consciousness" as a type of sickness?

This is or can be a hot potatoe of a question. "False consciousness" was Engel's term for those thinkers who have fallen hook, line and sinker for all the claptrap of bourgeois ideology. Like notably that under capitalism we, the exploited, are all free! We may tend to think we are but we aren't, we're wage slaves. That's an example of a "false consciousness" at work. Please note however that Engels was no leftist. (Why is The Pigeon only interested in what leftists think?)

I don't regard myself as a leftist but doubt they would see false consciousness as a sickness because false consciousness actually works in support of capitalism and that's what leftists like - though they are always of course "critical" of it.

But why shouldn't false consciousness and all ideological thought in general be seen as some kind of sickness? Look at the state of the world at the moment, the wars, the misery, the phony bourgeois democratic systems, the way our rulers eternally talk of peace and freedom but eternally pursue their own selfish capitalist yearnings no matter how destructive these may get.

No wonder so many of us are ill-at-ease and sick. We live in a very sick world. But we're not supposed to say so, we're expected to behave as if all the madness of capitalism is actually quite "normal". We're supposed to just sit back and smile while people starve, or are forced to flee their strife-ridden countries for foreign lands where there are limited jobs. We're supposed to acquiesce in the dismantling of Health Services, education systems and employment. And the horror is that we're supposed to accept all this and much more with a happy smile of approval as if we can't think of anything that could be more fun, and we couldn't be more contented.

It's like the 2nd. World War and Vera Lynne's song "Keep smiling through, just like you always do" while the bombs fall, your loved ones are slaughtered, and fear rules everywhere.

To accept all this as normal, and as providing a satisfactory life, is surely a sign of some kind of sickness, or mental disorder that operates on a massive scale?

The Pigeon

I have a question to ask everyone. Do leftists view "false consciousness" as a type of sickness?

So, when you say leftists, is that a question to libcom posters as to their beliefs? Or is it specifically in regards to the Left - Leninists, Trots, etc?

In any case, I can't say I've ever heard anything like that, but I'm sure you could find some Maoist sect that's pumped out something far crazier than anything we could dream up....

I guess I just meant everyone historically associated with the left, even anarchists... anyone who would have some sort of conception of false consciousness. The reason I was asking because the debate whether mental illness can even be classified and objectified in that way, as an illness.
Whereas I think there is a real trend in radical thought that views false consciousness as a mental disorder. I might be wrong.

But when jojo points out the widespread misery of capitalism and says someone must be mentally ill to be able to still believe in this- well first of all i think someone only used to thinking about capitalism and all its interconnections as a worldwide system can be truly affected by this. So the radical who is aiming to cure people's consciousness recognizes a disease and then wonders why people deny that it exists. By viewing false beliefs as a sickness they become things that have to be uprooted.

Of course there are radicals who have no desire to proselytize. It still seems to be a pretty prevalent attitude though.

Whereas I think there is a real trend in radical thought that views false consciousness as a mental disorder. I might be wrong.

I've never heard or read anyone calling false consciousness a mental disorder, though I am sure there are some who may argue this. But if that's the case, they are in a tiny minority. To the contrary, this concept has almost always been used as a (rather poor) explanation of how ideology works as more of an unconscious, unthinking, "common sense" mechanism. Then the problem is not about treating someone sick, but merely one about raising consciousness, making people realize their "true consciousness" and thus consciously fight for your interests rather than those associated with the bourgeoisie.

Edit to add: From what I gather, the term has largely fallen out of popularity these days. Certainly, among my non-academic comrades nobody really uses it, and among my academic friends and comrades it is understood that it gives a poor explanation of ideology (because how can consciousness really be false? The beliefs you hold are per definition true, that is the lure of ideology).

I mean regard it as though it were a sickness, not actually call it that. I think there are similar principles at work between your example and what I am thinking about. Something is not functioning properly, there is an unhealthy worldview, and it needs to be cured by true consciousness. This consciousness can be distributed through literature or protest actions. Either way it sometimes takes the form of something like a pill for people to consume and work against the disease.

One problem is how else do you view someone who is fooled by propaganda? Is it the same as someone who takes pills as soon as their doctor prescribes them to them? In both cases there is a difficulty with life and an institutional treatment of it. But in the case of the mentally ill person there is something inside themselves brought about by alternative therapies which if they discovered how to tap into it could be a better medicine.

Clearly propaganda is a major problem for us. But is the solution anti-propaganda? And note that I'm not trying to equate believing in Trump as the same thing as taking medication.

On the one hand you have shameless vanguardists who would lobotomize the capitalistic working class, while on another you have anarchists who offer LSD to clean the dusty glasses. Then, there is nihilist communism which says let the corpse offer its own medicine.

the false consciousness question is interesting, tho' perhaps it should be made a separate thread? (from post 55)

Is it INDEED sickness? The psyche of a run-of-the-mill Christian, if examined, would possibly reveal that their belief in God, and so their entire Christianity, is formed on their need for a cosmic Comforter in an alienating world. So at the bottom of their belief system is a kernel of contradiction which like a dormant virus threatens to undo their entire mental system. They are sick because this contradiction is left open, the contradiction that their psyche takes refuge in something which is ultimately insubstantial. But because it is mental, and social too, they can function as sick, since in this world to be truly mentally sick reveals that you are actually healthy. But in order to be sick you have to be healthy on some psychological level, and aren't many people sick because they do unconsciously recognize the falsity of this world?

I am sympathetic to the anti-psychiatry stance. I do feel that capitalism, and mental health institutions, can produce or exacerbate mental illness -- at the same time, I do also believe in the science behind many mental illnesses and their roots in neurological conditions. However, I feel that there is an issue of neuro-normativity involved. Could it be the case that many (I'm not so bold as to say to all) people with mental illness are just built differently from the model of what it is to be normal that is imposed on all of us? The model to which we conform in order to function within capitalism?

I often think about autistic people. There is certainly nothing wrong with them (there are obviously degrees of severity, but still nothing "wrong" of course) -- it almost seems like the way they think (their neurological configuration) is just incompatible with the way we are expected to and forced to think in capitalism (or perhaps, any society where they are considered outliers).

Am I off base here? I admit, I'm not so well-versed on issues related to mental health. I have had my own history of mental health issues, my own experience, which was a mixed bag. It saw that I was briefly incarcerated at one point, and in and out of institutions for some years of my life. In the end, I had been able to overcome some of my issues -- but it was treatment along with social support amongst my friends and family. The former without the latter can be very iffy -- I needed people to carry me in a fashion that was not consistent with bourgeois values, without which the treatment would have been pointless. We need spaces of solidarity and support for those with mental health issues, such that they can function without being completely beat into the mold.

Certainly, treatment can be beneficial, but its not enough. We need to consider mental health as a social issue as much as a psychiatric issue. Again, this is from my own anecdotal account, so take it for what it's worth

Just a quick question, will my views on psychiatry be a problem with other anarchists should start getting involved things? I agree with a large percentage anarchist communism, so there's a lot of common ground, But does anyone think I could cause to much controversy if I bring it up?

To be honest, I think the anarchist movement is generally pretty lacking when it comes to dealing with mental health issues full stop. That said, I imagine it would depends on how broad or narrow the focus of a particular group. I mean, I've been in a lot of anarchist groups and I don't think I could tell you what any of my comrades thought about psychiatry. If you're doing workplace stuff or anti-fascism or reproductive rights, I doubt one's views on psychiatry are going to come up or be very relevant. And if they do, agreeing to disagree is not the end of the world either.

we could start with a definition of "mental illness," as the term has been thrown about above. there are mood disorders (like depression, which i have), there are personality disorders (like narcissism), and there are thought disorders (like paranoia, which my mother had). when i hear "mental illness" i think only of the last of those categories.

from my own life: my mother had paranoia. some days it infected every sentence she spoke in an implicit way, but she also had florid episodes, about once a year, of the sort that you'd read about in textbooks. one example: she asserted, with cold certainly, that her caretaker and her daughter had called her up, merged their two voices into one voice, changed the timber from feminine to masculine, and sent her a coded message that she was treating them like dogs. this was not prophetic speech, or inconsistent with capitalism, or an opinion, it was derangement: what she asserted as true bore no correlation to real circumstances or events. it was also not colorful or charming or revolutionary, it created damage for others. in another case she did something that put me in peril of losing my tenancy on my apartment (twice, actually).

i don't know what combination of childhood experience or genetics caused this pattern in her mind. her younger sister was just as bad, but her older sisters showed only slight traces of it. but capitalism didn't cause it. it expressed consistently all the time of my life from my earliest memories until her last year (and i'd imagine before i was around, but i can't say for sure obv.). i can tell you that my childhood was often a nightmare.

in posts above i read lots of "most" or "many" or "could be", but what i think i hear is a straining to say "all" or "always", and a desire to define mental illness out of existence. mental illness, at least in my restricted definition, certainly exists, and it creates victims. so you can remove the label, in case you think there's moral or normative judgement hiding in it, but there's still the responsibility to acknowledge patterns of behavior and protect not only those who display them but also others who may be in the way.

i have nothing to say about the psychiatric establishment or forced treatment, of which i have no experience. the practice of psychiatry has benefited me for my depression, about which i could talk at length too.

I was taking a hard line earlier, but I still believe that mental illness is alienated and exacerbated by capitalist life, where order and conformity are necessities. So whatever is going on with someone's mind, the rigors of capitalism insert an extraneous friction. This is a theory, of course, and anyone can deny it if they don't agree. But I believe the insane become categorized insane because society needs a strict standard of sanity. You are compelled to think, feel, dream, and behave a certain way in order to function. And theories are meant to be generalizations. As someone who has suffered from a variety of mental disorders, I know that my only real cure was something beyond the ordinary reach of this world. I actually don't believe in neurological conceptions of the mind, so I'm definitely not on the same page as some people. I feel though that, again, the mind in capitalism is a very unhealthy thing no matter who you're looking at. Just as many criminals are not ill-willed, so too many mentally ill are not insane. They are rightfully ill-adapted.

I'm trying not to hypocritically come back here after i said i would not. However, this may be of interest.

https://bristolaf.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/capitalism-anarchism-mental-health/

Sometimes Expolodes blog on here explores these sort of issues.
https://libcom.org/blog/eclipse-re-emergence-antipsychiatry-movement-01102013

Fleur #22
‘I remember the de-institutionalizing process in the UK. It had nothing to do with patient care, it was a massive cost cutting exercise by the Thatcher government called Care in the Community, in which psychiatric facilities were closed down.’

Just before the changes were introduced, at a meeting held by the Labour Party (I was a member at the time) a local Labour councillor spoke passionately in favour of the changes. For years he’d been appalled by the institutionalising of inmates and had been advocating care in the community. I asked if he seriously believed Thatcher would provide the support needed. He blandly replied that we must fight for this to happen. I was in a minority at the meeting. So much for the loyal opposition to Thatcher. About year later, an ex-patient, a woman, drowned herself in the river, about a stone’s throw from where the meeting was held. The councillor was a well-meaning fellow who thought the system was capable of reform. Capitalism will never be eased out of existence.

The Pigeon #62
‘But in order to be sick you have to be healthy on some psychological level, and aren't many people sick because they do unconsciously recognize the falsity of this world?’

Sweeping generalisations more in the realm of metaphysical poetry not politics.

Please my friend, I meant to be metaphysical... the unconscious is involved in politics.

Can someone direct me to a comprehensive anarchist/communist critique of psychiatry?

I understand the criticisms made on libcom.org of Thomas Szasz – the fact that he gets matters back to front by concentrating on individual liberties and not the liberty of our class – however he is the only writer I know of to attack the coercive role of psychiatry.

The Pigeon

the unconscious is involved in politics.

Nobody has ever proved the existence or non-existence of The Unconscious.

What on earth are you talking about?

The mind is not a one-dimensional plane where thoughts and feelings are just as they appear. The unconscious means that the mind has a depth... that is, thoughts, feelings, mental conditions that have not been fully expressed or understood, but still form the ground where our conscious experience plays out upon.

Schmoopie

Can someone direct me to a comprehensive anarchist/communist critique of psychiatry?

I understand the criticisms made on libcom.org of Thomas Szasz – the fact that he gets matters back to front by concentrating on individual liberties and not the liberty of our class – however he is the only writer I know of to attack the coercive role of psychiatry.

I cannot direct you to one as such but the Mad Pride movement is a good place to start, while not explicitly anarchist they definitely share an aesthetic (and, I think, more) with anarchism.

The Pigeon

The unconscious means that the mind has a depth...

Now who was it that gave you the impression that someone had somehow discovered the Unconscious in the depths of the Mind?

If I smack you over the back of your head with a crowbar, you may well end up on the ground — unconscious.

But the existence of the Unconscious has never been shown to actually exist.

So what are you talking about?

rat

The Pigeon

The unconscious means that the mind has a depth...

Now who was it that gave you the impression that someone had somehow discovered the Unconscious in the depths of the Mind?

If I smack you over the back of your head with a crowbar, you may well end up on the ground — unconscious.

But the existence of the Unconscious has never been shown to actually exist.

So what are you talking about?

I think people tend to talk about automatic functions nowadays which we are actually unconscious of. These are a lot more sophisticated than just basic functions like breathing, a significant part of cognition is actually unconscious or normally unconscious. This is why supermarkets make a mint messing around with us. But a lot of our motives etc are unconscious.

But yeah, the unconscious in the Freudian sense is very questionable I think.

Cactus 9, thanks for your pointer. It lead me to this page (http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/madpride/madpride-intro) which shows that some encouraging collective resistance to psychiatric oppression does exist in the world although as yet still within liberal boundaries:

"NO FORCED PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT - CHOICES ONLY PLS"

Perhaps the communist critique of psychiatry will never be written but only carried out in practice when the balance of forces tips further in our favour.

rat

If I smack you over the back of your head with a crowbar, you may well end up on the ground — unconscious.

I'm not going to invade your burrow if that's what you're getting at, my friend rat. I already have a home up on a rooftop.

Chilli Sauce

there were waves of de-institutionalization in Europe

Just on this, the significant de-institutionalization that took place in America in the 1980s was a direct result of Reagan's massive cuts to state-funded hospitals of all types. People were literally kicked out of long-term care institutions with nowhere to go. Some ended up on the street, a lot ended up in prison, and some died. Hardly a working-class victory over psychiatry.

More broadly, of course psychiatry and psychology reinforce capitalist norms and reproduce capitalist society in a myriad of ways. All jobs do. As Jef hints at above, it's on us (patients specifically and the working class more broadly by ensuring access to medical care) to assert our needs against the capitalist features of medicine.

For some people that may mean they want alternatives to medicine. But there can be little doubt that for a lot of people, meds are extremely beneficial. I also don't think individual psychiatrists and psychologists - no more than say teachers - get into the field because they want to be agents of social control. Clearly, there's a space at the patient-doctor level to challenge the undeniably oppressive aspects of mental health treatment that do exist.

Missed this post before, there was massive deinstitutionalisation in the UK in the seventies maybe and I think it played out differently to what you have described happening in America.

.

There were 126 deaths related to antipsychotics in 2014 (an 18% increase). This continues the gradually increasing trend that has been seen since around 2000. The number of deaths involving antipsychotics reached an all time high in 2014 and is now more than twice the level recorded in 1994. In 2014, the antipsychotic quetiapine was involved in half these cases (52 deaths). The number of prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs increased in 2014, but not as much as the number of deaths (HSCIC, 2014 and 2015). The reason for this difference is unclear.

Source: http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsrelatedtodrugpoisoninginenglandandwales/2015-09-03#antipsychotics

In my mind this is tantamount to state murder, assuming the drugs were administered involuntarily.

Schmoopie

Cactus 9, thanks for your pointer. It lead me to this page (http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/madpride/madpride-intro) which shows that some encouraging collective resistance to psychiatric oppression does exist in the world although as yet still within liberal boundaries:

"NO FORCED PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT - CHOICES ONLY PLS"

Perhaps the communist critique of psychiatry will never be written but only carried out in practice when the balance of forces tips further in our favour.

I don't think "THE" Communist Critique is something we can arrive at or should even hope for, but... communist and anarchist critiques have been made, and are being made, in dispersed ways... Again, check out sometimes-explode's blog.

But it's difficult, when as you can see, these critiques aren't exactly welcome - ie, I am a woman describing the co-occurance of psychiatric violence and sexual assault, and nobody replies or comments on this directly, but they instead quietly downvote my comments to mark that I am a Bad Survivor Processing Trauma In The Wrong Way.

So, with a reception like this among many radicals, many Madpeople and survivors of medical violence go and seek audience among liberals instead. Unfortunate, but sometimes seems more pragmatic. (To other survivors, not to me.) After all, the U.N. Special Rappoteur has now named forcing psychotropics on people to be torture, and the ACLU has signed on in denouncement of the Murphy Bill.

(And some self-identified commies, then, choose to now position themselves to the right of the aclu and U.N. But I try not to take the disappointment too personally - reminding myself that many Communist groups were pretty late getting on board with LGBT liberation, too. Nothing new under the sun.)

* Also check out David Smail.

* Also what is published on the MindFreedom website, by its (few) editors, is not representative of the opinions and politics of all the individuals and diverse local groups carrying out these campaigns and actions across the country.

David Smail certainly seems to have made some valuable insights into the critique of psychology as a whole. Thanks for bringing his work to our attention.

Personally, my catharsis (if this is the correct term) has come through my long relationship with two old friends from the place I was raised. Through thick and thin we have managed to maintain a permanent association, a community of struggle, against the onslaught of psychiatry and the State in general. I give thanks for that, Ash and Brew, and rememberence of Luca who did not survive the onslaught.