Why an 'anti psych' forum?

People who are anti-psychiatry, as far as I know, don't advocate the cessation of the study of the human mind. My understanding is that people who are anti-psychiatry are against the way psychiatry is practiced and the methods currently employed to "cure" people with mental problems, which are questionable, because sometimes, but certainly not always, cause more harm than good to the patient. For example, instead of helping people come to terms with the reality of their lives, often times psychiatrists throw medications at them and trust that the medications will solve the problem. In some cases, medications work; in some cases, they don't. Regardless of whether medications work or don't work, sometimes they have serious negative side effects.

Why cant I say this on other sites ?

PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS - CHEMICAL LOBOTOMIES
The labels “antipsychotics” and “antidepressants” are seriously misleading. The “antipsychotics” do not combat or cure “psychosis” or “mental illness”, and “antidepressants” do not combat or cure depression or the fraudulent diagnosis “bipolar mood disorder”. Psychiatric drugs (“medication”) chemically control and disable people -- sometimes permanently.

In a psychoprison or psychiatric ward, virtually everyone gets drugged - “put on meds”. and then threatened -- “take your meds, or else”.

??? Is that realy "anti-psych"

What is pro psych ?

@OP

When this site started, there was some people that were posting against psychiatry, while the site was supposed to be a support forum.

So in order to keep everybody happy, this forum was created.

Pretty simple, really.

PS: I just saw the post date of the original post, so never mind.
It can still be useful for those who want to know.

People are made "anti-psych"
Inside closed doors of mental hospitals
description:
"I've been hospitalized into a psychiatric ward several times in my teen years. I still can't get some of the memories of what happened to me in there out of my head. This video was made for awareness purposes. Ignorance isn't always bliss.' see video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5C_J0-hRDY

others like www.zyprexa-victims.com people sickened for profit.

Hope this clears things up.

sonovlaurin wrote:Seems kinda silly to have an 'anti psych' forum. That's like, an:

- anti philosophy forum

I think we should do it!!! We'll put forward arguments about why philosophy is bad and we'll use evidence, logic and reason to support our claims. Wait... F*ck! THAT IS PHILOSOPHY!

With that said, anti-psychiatry is a misnomer that almost anyone critical of psychiatry has made clear. It was a term popularized by social and intellectual groups who were against in psychiatry in the 1950's and 1960's. This was a time when hospitals were horrible cruel, evidence based medications were non-existent (with the exception of thorazine), and psychiatrist openly claimed that homosexuality was a disease.

Just a review of the "anti-psychiatrists".

Michel Foucault



The first historian to map and describe the medicalization of criminality, sexuality, deviance and problems in living (mental/emotional suffering and problematic behaviour). His historical work shows without a doubt that the definition and conception of mental illness changes in accordance with sociological factors.

Foucault explcitily states in the interview "Structuralism and Poststructuralism" that he is not an anti-psychiatrist. He preferred throughout his career to be know as a reader

Franco Basaglia



First psychiatrist to argue for de-institutionalization and community mental health care. He also worked hard to for mental health rights laws and for general practitioners of medicine to be educated about psychiatry.

Far from being anti-psychiatry, Basaglia was a reformer of mental health and psychiatry. Almost every developed country followed suit after "Basaglia's law" was past.

Thomas Szasz



The first person to put forward a refutation of the medical paradigm in psychology by arguing that mental illness was conceptually incoherent. Continued to argue that any law or area of study that used the concept mental illness was unjust or nonsensical. "The Myth of Mental Illness" remains one of the most canonical works in psychology with it's emphasis on conceptual clarity and linguistically accurate descriptions of human beings.

Absouletly not an anti-psychiatrist. Szasz is a member of the APA and is in the process of writing a book about how anti-psychiatry is a misnomer used against critics of psychiatry (He's 84 so hopefully he finishes it).

Needless to say a more linguistically accurate for the anti-psychiatry movement would be a "mental health consumer advocacy movement" or a movement for "alternative paradigms in psychiatry".

I still want to know what 'pro-psych' is, then I could understand.

Copy_Cat wrote:I still want to know what 'pro-psych' is, then I could understand.

I don't think there is "pro-psych". It's unnecessary and redundant to add "pro" to either psychology or psychiatry. It's only "anti-" that has a meaningful denotation.

Every time I see you guys, it is the same old thing.

Stop killing psyche. Give me real answers. So how does the population that has problems solve it? No one seems to say that.

I hate psych. I just hate it. See all things that go wrong with psych. Let's go back 60 years and see how terrible it was even though I have seen different. Psyche now looks for answers. Of the times I was hospitalized, I found people caring and trying to help.

You. You just gripe about it.

What is the answer? What is the cure for all of us with psyche problems? All I here is, this is not right! But no answers. Proof. Lot's of proof that can sway psyche pro-minds!!

If you have an anti-psyche claim, back it up now!!

Tell everyone how they get better... not how psyche is wrong... but real hard evidence on how people are cured from psyche.

You see, you have your own little niche... right here... yet everything I see, especially when I want to be real educate3d on how I am wrong... it's just nothing!

Let's create good debate that can show pro-psych and anti-psych. Cool debates that have merit on each line of thought. Don't hide. Show us this stuff.

First of all. Even though I am definitely pro-psych, I actually would like to know some great stuff... countered against my beliefs. I think that type of education... contriversal, yes... can be a grerat asset. As long as we present. Don't give me that... he is just trying to knock us. It's time that one topic showed some merit. I am tired of hearing the gripe... lets hear some stuff I don't know... like compelling evidence. Let's make your tpic mean something...

Right now... no diddy dallying...

What's the answer? If you don't have it? You have no right knocking it until you have an answer to the problem. Once the answer is right here, then it might be valid. Not any knocking. Psyche is bad... and psyche is bad again.

Pscyche is bad because we have found that this works. Not some obscure science paper or other paper that has no baring but solid evidence... not just how it harms people, but how it helps. I want to see anti-psyche stuff that actaully shows improvement on psych stuff. Anti-psych = Anti = psych that helps with these problems

Entangled wrote:Right now... no diddy dallying...

You want some anti-psychiatry arguments?


Well, if you`ve read any of my posts you know that I`m not anti-psychiatry nor do I believe there is such a thing. However, there are ethical, conceptual and epistemological criticisms of contemporary psychiatry.

Ethical arguments

(1) Civil commitment, community treatment orders, and forced treatment are morally impermissible when used against those that are not mentally incompetent or suicidal. This happens very frequently making much of what the mental health care system does morally impermissible.

(a) This could be because the use of force and coercion pushes those who need help further away by repeatedly arresting, detaining and forcibly drugging them. A utilitarian could argue that the net benefit of an open mental health care system which supports people without the use of force and coercion may be more effective.

(b) This could be because the use of force and coercion violates an individuals human rights and that we have a duty to respect those rights. A deontologist could argue that the right to refuse medical treatment is a human right with no other clear conflict. The denial of such a right would then be a human rights violation.

(2) Vulnerable populations including children, adolescence and the elderly are being given psychiatric medications which can have serious side effects for conditions that are either not treated by the medication prescribed (i.e. antipsychotics for dementia) or when there exists a psychosocial treatment that is just as evidence based as the pharmacological treatment (i.e cognitive behavioural therapy for adolescent depression)

(3) Many people are abused and mistreated in psychiatric institutions under the ``disruptive influence rule`` which maintains that anyone labelled as a disruptive influence may be drugged into a passive state, restrained or put in seclusion. The person does not have to be violent or suicidal in anyway. They merely have to upset the order of the psychiatric unit in an undefined way. Furthermore, people are forced and coerced to take medications when they have the legal right to refuse and many people are arrested under dubious circumstances.

Conceptual arguments

(1) The term mental illness is conceptually incoherent because the mind is not an entity and therefore cannot have the term illness meaningfully ascribed to it. Mental illness belongs in the same category as the other metaphors and analogies used in psychology over the past century:

The mind is a machine - John Stuart Mill
The mind is made of mental elements - Edward Titchner and Wilhelm Wundt
The mind is an information processor - Ulric Neisser
The mind is an indivisible whole - Assorted Gestalt Psychologists

(2) Theoretical psychological constructs are not relevantly analogous or equivalent to diseases or illness making the claims of the supporters of the medical paradigm in psychology misleading and erroneous. The reasons they are not the same is because they are not observable or demonstrable.

Epistemological Arguments

(1) Psychiatry`s system of classification sets the defining characteristics of mental disorder as observer relative qualities including deviance and dysfunction. This means that what is included in the category of mental disorder is always dependent upon who the observers are and what they interpret as being deviant and dysfunctional. The following patterns of behaviour and mental processes have or are mental disorders:

Juvenile Delinquency (Conduct Disorder)
Criminal Behaviour (Psychopathy)
Masochism
Narcissism (Personality Disorder)
Passive Aggressive Adolescent Behaviour (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)
Sadism
Pedophilia
Drug and Alcohol addiction (Substance abuse or dependence)

This of course returns to the question of what is meant by mental disorder and why do psychiatrists consider the above part of their system of classification. What logical association does this have with medicine? Are these diseases? Are these people sick?

Conclusion:

(1) Reading threads first is good
(2) Setting up false dichotomies between pro-psyche and anti-psyche is bad
(3) Thinking critically about ethical, conceptual, and epistemological arguments is really good
(4) Thinking neurobiology solves any of the above problems is bad

Play me out Boomtown Rats! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yteMugRAc0

Infinite_Jester?

Thank you. Sometimes you just need it straight, escpecially to a psych crowd. I have always been and probably will be psyche. Just the synopsis at the top of your area to explain it is not enough. Yet, a candid response is forever great because it shows what is important.

Yes, Psych can create something out of nothing. If you go in, you are labeled. I believe that if someone goes to seek psyche help, special care is needed to evaluate someone as someone who needs it.

Psych has a habit of labeling. They do a good job of doing that. Once labeled, it sticks with you. Just becasue its their profession, doesn't mean they should throw around psych stuff to create a false sence of problems. Some people have real problems, though.

My goal in psych is to allow people to understand that people who have pysch disorders are just regular people. They are. Just because they visit psych, doesn't mean they should be labeled. I was labeled and it did disastrous consequences to me. Yet, I knew I needed it. I believe that people who visit psych should be educated along with those who visit those who have psych areas that need to be addressed. The babraric image should be distroyed. It doesn't help.

Yet, false diagnoses, just because you are a healthcare profession and that is your job, I believe they can label people terrribly.

False labeling is a crime.

I just hope that we can educate everyone to understand... real, good psych. and, false labeling. Maybe someday we can come with a common ground Anti-psych and psych, both educated, knowing and understanding the benifits and stop the hinderings...

Thanks. I appreciate what you put down...