Is Psych Forums Unfairly biased?

I want to invite anyone on here to come join a new egroup if you want to learn more about the dangers of drugs and psychiatry.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chaada/

Fussbucket, you are truly amazing. This is one of the few major sites willing to provide the Antipsychiatry Movement with a place to air their feelings and you decide we're worthy of an attack because we need to pay the bills. I get hate mail from both sides of this particular fence, yet I stand by my decision to host this forum.

Personally I am sick of the whining among those in this movement. It seems that no matter how often I state the beliefs of me and my organization someone comes along and decides they know what I believe. I have explained MANY times that the ads that are on here are necessary to pay so that I can be insulted by people like you.

The simple fact is that I believe people should use whatever means they feel comfortable with that work for them. If that is medication, psychotherapy, naturopathic remedies, or prayer I don't really care... as long as it helps them, it is a wonderful thing.

Unlike those in the Antipsych Movement, I believe that people are smart enough to make their own decisions about what is best for them. I find it amusing that the you have chosen the same tactics that your movement claims the medical community has to promote their views... bullying and insults.

That said, I believe that the medical establishment overmedicates nearly ALL illnesses, including mental illness. I believe that much of the problems we deal with are caused by our over processing of foods and our "fast food mentality" which leaves little time to relax and enjoy life.

I am honestly glad that sites such as yours exist, and I am glad that the Antipsych Movement exists because it provides a voice of consciousness at times for the medical establishment. I suggest that you try and keep an open mind as well.

As for my history, I am alive today because I took Zoloft and Klonopin to help me through a crisis that I would otherwise not have survived. When I made it through that crisis, I took myself off the medication and began looking for alternatives to help me through. I practice meditation and yoga (though not often enough) I try and eat well, and I try and exercise... I do these things because I know that they improve my mental and my physical health. I also try and keep an open mind even when someone is trying to insult or attack me.

With all that said, if anyone doesn't like how I try and remain open-minded, then they don't have to visit my websites and "subject themselves and provide fuel" for my website.

With more than 350,000 page views a month and nearly 3,000 members the site will do just fine without them.

Good luck with your yahoo group.

Fussbucket,

The owner of this board only cares about suffering, he is not pro nor anti psych. He wants to help and cater for everyone, he cannot be more reasonable than that.

I am strongly antipsych and the owner has provided a safe place for people with my views to give each other support. I thank him for that.

Anonymous wrote:Fussbucket,

The owner of this board only cares about suffering, he is not pro nor anti psych. He wants to help and cater for everyone, he cannot be more reasonable than that.

I am strongly antipsych and the owner has provided a safe place for people with my views to give each other support. I thank him for that.

As we all do. !!!!!

And feel he should suffer no slack for it.

When we didn't want this, Sean stood behind giving you a place to come and vent. He is a fair and just man, with only the best of others in mind. Godbless you sean.

thanks guys

ddeehopes,

Everyone here wants peoples suffering to stop, it is safe to say we all have that in common.

I am anti-biopsychiatry. I want to stop people being treated under the unproved theory that suffering is a disease of the brain.

I know you care very much about stopping suffering, and so do I. We just don't agree on the treatment methods.

Our common enemy is suffering, I believe we are all united in this fight, even though sometimes that's is hard to see as the waters get muddied through the debate about treatment methods.

Sean,

I have some antipsych mates that need $$ to get to a conference overseas. The raised the money through an Eli Lilly funding scheme.
I'm not going to turn aroung and yell "drug pushers" because they got it from a drug company. They went and gave a great representation for anti- biopsych views. With the little $$$ we all have, you take the money where ever you can get it. It's how you use it that counts. I bet Eli Lilly would be pissed if they new how their $$$ was spent. LOL

This is a great forum.

I have nothing against this board or anyone on it. I am new here. I plan to return and get to know you all. I assumed that the psych forums were pro-biopsychiatry, not necessarily the antipsych board. A friend referred me to this board and said that it was a pro-psychiatry board with an anti-psych forum that is balanced with both sides of the debate. It occurred to me that it might be worthy of mentioning that all these debates are directly being read by psychiatrists or other reps that may use some of the information to create their next advertising targets. I didn't say what I said out of a spiteful heart or intention towards you, I know nothing really about this board other than what I read in the first part of this thread and what my friend told me.

I never meant to personally attack you or anyone else here. I do know that it is nice to have a place to go to talk to others about your issues without having to listen to people arguing with you from the other side, just a place to find information and learn and concentrate for a while without having to defend your position. So if anyone on this board wants to come join my board, it is meant to be a nonjudgemental place to come and get information.

It sounds like some of the posters have been making other victims on this board feel uncomfortable, I don't really know for sure but judging from the very first message which prompted the poll and the topic of this thread it seems that some folks are starting to leave. I don't see how that would be related in any way to my "whining" as you put it, especially since I am new here.

What a nice welcome.

I understand how you feel about using the meds to get through a crisis. In a sense I did the same exact thing, although if there can be any evidence of help for me from the drug, it was only in the placebo effect, as I was struggling to understand my adverse effects, what the drug might be doing, why I felt so flat and unable to experience emotions, and eventually it all became clear to me what was going on when I got off of it and learned my true personality was lurking under the surface of the me on drugs, and the adverse effects were all from Zoloft. I was also prescribed Klonipin although I never took it. I like what you said about using the coping skills you learn after you get through the crisis to prevent future crises. That is so crucial.

I am sorry I offended you. I have edited my post so nobody else reads it and thinks ill of this board. I apologize. Of course they will read your posts and figure out what I originally said, then they will read this one and figure out I didn't mean it to sound the way it did and took it down in the name of getting along.

I hope in the future when new members come on this board they won't immediately get attacked and alienated like I did. It seems like you are pretty proud of all your members, and you should be. I don't come on here to steal them from you, just to provide a place for links and emails and charity work, to tighten the network on the world wide web, so to speak. It's not a competitive board so much as an online community for support for those suffering or who have suffered in the past.

I want to invite anyone on here to come join a new egroup if you want to learn more about the dangers of drugs and psychiatry, without subjecting yourself to providing fuel and ideas to the pro-psychiatry owners of this board.

If you didn't know anything about this forum, assuming that it was pro-psych was irresponsible and offensive. You accused without informing yourself, so the way in which Sean defended himself seems perfectly reasonable to me.

It sounds like some of you have been making other victims on this board feel uncomfortable, I don't really know for sure but judging from the very first message which prompted the poll and the topic of this thread it seems that some folks are starting to leave.

You must not have read the entire thread. One person claiming to be several different people (in my opinion) complained. His accusations were irrational and inconsistent, so please take them with a grain of salt, as it were.

What a nice welcome.

The welcome you received was consistent with the welcome you gave. Your first post on this board was prejudicial, accusatory and uninformed in nature, so you were treated with the level of kindness you earned.
That said, if you would like to research the posts on this forum, please feel free to do so. You will find many varying degrees in support or disapproval of psych. Being open-minded and fair will help you far more than your current tack. The forum will welcome you with open arms regardless of your beliefs about drugs and psychiatry.
Remember, this forum is populated by regular people. They get offended just like you do.

And for the record, I am just a regular consumer. I am in no way beholden to this or any other site--the opinions are my own.

fussbucket: I am glad you edited your post. It is much more responsibly worded now.

I don't think anyone here is "competing" to keep users. The main objective is to make sure that no one mistreats the members of the site, which includes the moderators and the administrator.

I am sure that Sean will support your suggestion of an additional site for the anti-psych movement. Thus far, he has proven to be very eager to get help to those who need it by whatever means necessary.

Sean, might I suggest locking this poll? It's likely to piss people off, but some people live to be angry. I don't know how to fix the problem that the person who started accusing you created, but it seems a bit out of control. I hate to see any users of this site (mods and you included) bashed for no reason. I just can't come up with a better idea to fix it.

I had no idea that my comments were so controversial. I really do feel like my one short comment was taken as an attack and turned into a huge issue. Can people on this board not accept apologies? I don't know how many times I am required to apologize, reword, and explain it, yet it is still an issue and I feel like some people are just going to be so rude about it to me, no matter what I say.
" providing fuel and ideas to the pro-psychiatry owners of this board. " seems like a fairly benign proposition - If I were a drug company advertising rep, I would relish getting into the minds of the anti-psychiatry advocates. I would spend my time at work seeking to counteract whatever arguments against my product I could find, and if that meant coming on a message board for oodles of messages with debate and arguments against me, I would do that to prepare and research. But that was not a thought process I thought through all the way, perhaps the owner of this website and this board are not truly pro-psychiatry and don't have anything to do with drug companies, or maybe there is nobody in the world, out of the 38,000 members, who comes on here who would ever consider using the arguments of antipsych people as a way to formulate their pro-psychiatry messages and advertising and talking points. Or even if there is, maybe my comment was inappropriate and I should have known better than to suggest that a debate on pros and cons had any drawbacks or that people might want another website to go to occasionally. I don't see anything wrong with surfing the web and meeting more folks who are like-minded, which is all I was doing, inviting. I have nothing to gain by doing this except feeling like I might be helping someone who needs it.
Again, I apologize. If you truly do intend to welcome either a debate or others' views, please "forgive" my comment and know that I did not read the whole thread and I was not trying to sound like the owner or moderator of this particular forum is a bad person. Everyone who has replied to me so far has just been making me feel like I am a target rather than an accepted member of society whose views and experiences are worthy of consideration.
I have already linked to this forum from my egroup, I am not out to get anyone on this board, just to provide more support, like I said before.