"Anti-Psych" Forum

So I can't edit out the part where I told a senior he lacked the energy to argue his points. Uh, oh.

Anyway, I was referring mostly how to stating citations and anecdotes is not really giving a full picture. It would actually take a massive philosophical debate that neither of us have the energy to have to actually decide whether or not psychiatry should exist.

To bring it back to my main suggestion, what makes the most sense is not 100% anti-psychiatry, but reform. To use the car metaphor again, cars need to be reformed for sure! Whether or not they need to be totally eliminated is definitely debatable.

njw36 wrote: It looks like you lack that same energy to argue your points as well.

Psychiatry the way they are doing it is more harm than good.


And it seems to me the burden lies on biological psychiatry is to prove that mental problems are medical problems using medical science first before anyone would need to prove they are not medical in nature.

burden of proof
You said that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.

The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not render that claim valid, nor give it any credence whatsoever. However it is important to note that we can never be certain of anything, and so we must assign value to any claim based on the available evidence, and to dismiss something on the basis that it hasn't been proven beyond all doubt is also fallacious reasoning.

Wow look at all this I just found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Again, it looks like you are trying to entirely refute my point that was really just a matter of opinion, and not a philosophical assertion. This is a forum, so hopefully you are here to listen as well as speak. Hopefully you have seen and trust that I am aware enough in my six years of heavy psychiatric treatment, of all the damages it can do.

Now if you would really listen, you could go back and look at the idea of psychiatry simply as having a doctor for your mind, the treatment and study of the mind. I am asking you what is wrong with the treatment and study of the mind. If that is not what this subforum is about, then it is seriously misnamed and should be something like, "Anti-Psychotropic Medication Forum", although I believe that would only exist in an equally radical fantasy world.

Speaking of radical fantasy worlds, I wanted to come back to the analogy of a world where the personal automobile didn't exist. Everyone might actually be happier and healthier. There is no way to argue or disprove that fact, and there is good reason to believe that the world paved over and people pouring up gasoline at every corner just to put food on the table is not the optimal existence.

However, think about what a world where we suddenly eliminated cars would look like. It would probably be similar to some type of oil crisis where nobody would be able to reach the jobs or stores they had to.

Now think about doing the same thing with...not just psychotropic medication, but psychiatry. That is like saying, "I want the entire world to resemble Skid Row." A more reasonable thing to say would be, "I want medication to be used more sparingly, and I want psychotherapy methods to be investigated and not overshadowed by greedy and dishonest pharmaceutical corporations."

I'm just wondering if this sub-forum is about rational, reality-based discussion, or if it is only in a sense for complaining about trauma from doctors misusing (in your opinion) the medication and a fantasy world where psychiatry disappeared and everyone was somehow not negatively impacted.

In response to what you pasted, it looks like we have both come back with more energy to argue. Now, I'm hoping that you would simply state your own points clearly, and that you would stop to listen to what I am saying. Pointing out the fact that I am not presenting my opinion in a flawless fashion, and then pretending we are in a philosophy class and I have failed, is just a way to try and block out my opinion in defense of your ego. So far you have managed to not actually respond to the points I am making and avoided answering my questions.

njw36 wrote:I am asking you what is wrong with the treatment and study of the mind. If that is not what this subforum is about, then it is seriously misnamed and should be something like, "Anti-Psychotropic Medication Forum"

Maybe they should rename this the human rights forum or the informed consent forum ?

Or here is a case for naming it the anti corruption, greed forum and anti sociopathic behavior forum, Over the course of 20 years, Johnson & Johnson created a powerful drug, promoted it illegally to children and the elderly, covered up the side effects and made billions of dollars. This is the inside story. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/miracleindustry/americas-most-admired-lawbreaker/


And the reason that there is not an anti-cardiology movement, or an anti-dermatology movement, or an anti-orthopedics movement, is because these, and other legitimate medical specialties, are not guilty of the spurious, destructive, and deceptive practices outlined here http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/03/anti-psychiatry-movement/

From the link above "It's not us, Dr. Lieberman. It's you and your psychiatric colleagues who have created something so rotten and flawed that anti is the only appropriate stance consistent with human decency."

So it's the "Anti-Current-State-of-Psychiatry Forum"? They just shortened it?

Yeah, I could totally get behind that. I am for psychiatry 100%, but the current system is so corrupt, inefficient and flawed. I also think that the existence of all these medications, even the really poisonous ones, is not wrong in and of itself. The over-prescription and, like you said, lack of properly informed consent is the real issue. These things are possible to fix.

There should also be a subforum about the state's treatment of the mentally ill. They make the psychiatrists look like saints by comparison. That's not personal though. Funding for welfare and supportive housing seems to be given out pretty begrudgingly for all citizens.