Why do you hate psychiatry?

To me, psychiatry is less a humanitarian enterprise (as it is commonly claimed to be) than it is a by-product of the tension between insider and outsider, the powerful and the powerless, which "resolves" the conflict in favor of the former in both cases. Yet you can't argue with some people about psychiatry, because they have an entirely different conception of the function and roots of institutional psychiatry as being all about the attempt to alleviate the suffering of the species through the provision of a network of support (which even if it was true, seems paradoxical in light of the fact that the profession seems only to have augmented the burden of suffering humanity, much like the Inquisition's war on evil only seemed to propagate it). This lie is another thing I hate about it.

Of course, the majority of patients want nothing more than to gain admission into the herd and to share in the perks and privileges accruing to membership in the dominant social group, to reach the sanctuary of popular approval, which can only be done if one accepts the role imposed on one by society, so that many, for this and other reasons, come to embrace the debased identities psychiatry imposes and support the very tyranny they labor under (life is usually much easier for the obedient patient than it is for the heretical patient).

Some might say, in anticipation of possible criticism, that while there might be some truth in what I say, such a theory is too broadly conceived and applied to be valid, that many mental patients really suffer, which I certainly am not denying. Yet suffering is what life is all about, it is one of the immutable facts of the human condition. True, many mental patients and their experiences are situated at the extreme end of a continuum of suffering, because of deeply traumatising experiences (especially in their formative years when personalities are formed), but they are still outsiders, after all, extremity of suffering and personality difference marks one out as an outsider in our society and creates further conflict.

Another reason I hate psychiatry and the Mental Health Movement especially is just the sheer mind-boggling hypocrisy. They are just so insincere, paying verbal homage to feelings and ideas they neither profoundly feel nor conceive of respectively. These affectations of compassion clash with the generally spiteful, malicious attitude they exhibit when confronted with psychiatric heretics. They use your diagnosis against you, without realizing just how much this makes a mockery of their professions of compassion. If these people are so compassionate about the "mentally ill", why do they use diagnoses to insult people?

The very logic of their beliefs dictates that they should feel compassion towards heretics, after all, according to many a Mental Healther, heresy and hatred are mere symptoms of our presumed illness, so we are not to blame, ergo they should sympathize, and would if it wasn't for the fact that all this talk about compassion is mostly just empty rhetoric, the kind common in a society where speaking your mind and being honest about your motives are anathema.

All over the internet you encounter this intolerance of psychiatric heretics, begging the question, is their blessing and compassion bestowed on the condition that one prostrates oneself at the altar of their deities? These people are like Christians who preach forgiveness but don't practice it. The Mental Healther's professions of compassion simply don't stand the test of human conflict, the great corrupter of man, and considering just how much conflict there is between patients and professionals, this should make us skeptical of claims about the supposed preponderance of noble intentions underpinning psychiatric policy, attitude, theory and practice.

For example, I regularly come across psychiatrists and Mental Healthers spitting bile in discussions and articles about the so-called "anti-psychiatry" movement. Yet surely these people must know that the majority of people who would identify themselves as such are patients, so this doesn't comport well with the notion of the unconditional good intentions of psychiatrists. Their good intentions simply don't stand the test of human conflict, which is fair enough, conflict has a tendency to appeal to man's less noble, visceral drives, but at least they should have the decency to concede that maybe their feelings aren't so pure when it comes down to those whom they are in overt conflict with, and I repeat if these are just manifestations of our illness as we are constantly being told, where is the compassion? Why keep making such snide remarks as "keep taking the meds son" or invoking our supposedly obvious illness as a means of discrediting and insulting us, after all, according to these people, we are ill, and they, as they never tire of telling us, are so overwhelmed with compassion for the "mentally ill"?

Con-artists.

Another thing I hate about psychiatry is all the fanfaronade and braggadocio amongst the faithful and their leaders, as typified by the posts of that "anti-anti-psych". It's always the same empty boasting and bragging about how scientific their beliefs are, just how much progress there has supposedly been in the profession, which of course makes them feel justifed in branding all critics as intellectual troglodytes, falt-earthers, and delusional retards. How many times in the history of this profession has it been claimed that they have proven that "schizophrenia" is a brain disease or that they have found a gene for it, only for it to turn out to either be an outright lie (accepted on the basis of the so-called expertise of the person who pronounces it), or a classic example of desire eclipsing judgement?