Sheesh!!

I’m not sure if you are including me in that bunch..
But If you are, I should hope that you would respect the opinion of someone like myself who was 4 years on Paxil, three years in withdrawal and 6 years researching psychiatry, the pharmaceutical industry and mental health. I say what I say because it is based on research and experience. I don’t claim to know it all, but I do know a hell of a lot about the topics I choose to participate in. And if that sounds too “righteous” to you then that’s just tough..

If standing up for human rights, justice and truth is being “self righteous” in your book, then yes, I am “self righteous” …

Anyhow, if you were not referring to me, then ignore my comments above…

Yes I am critical of psychiatry and yes I am critical of pharmaceutical companies who lie about the side effects and dangers of their medications, but as you said I don’t do this to stir up trouble. I speak out because someone has to.. Psychiatry and pharma have much bigger and louder platforms to air their propaganda anyway so I doubt very much that anything I could say here on Pharmalot would have an impact on their agenda..

Perhaps, I should have said that people in general don’t want to face the fact that bad things like Esmin Green’s death are happening in our country. Incredulously, on an ER Blog, a doctor blasted the kids for suing. How is that for avoiding the issue?

I realize that dicussing that on this thread is getting off the topic so I won’t take it any further. But when I felt Truthman was getting an unfair rap in being critical of psychiatry, that is why I gave the examples that I did. Not that he needs me to defend him as he does a great job of speaking up. But it struck a nerve in me.

I think I all I am asking is that when people seem too negative to you, there is often very good reasons why they feel the way they do. It isn’t just because they want to stir up trouble.

Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected the American society within the last fifty years. ~Thomas S. Szasz

Everybody believes in psychiatry; it’s supposed to be for our own good. Let psychiatry prove that anybody has an illness, and I’d concede, but there is no physical proof.
Kate Millett

Classifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, … Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus

The difference between a neurotic, a psychotic, and a psychiatrist. The neurotic builds castles in the sky, the psychotic lives in them and the psychiatrist collects the rent.
Unknown Source

The way to sell drugs is to sell psychiatric illness.”—-Dr. Carl Elliot, University of Minnesota Bioethicist (The Washington Post, 2001).

We can manufacture enough diagnostic labels of normal variability of mood and thought that we can continually supply medication to you…But when it comes to manufacturing disease, nobody does it like psychiatry.”—Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, psychiatrist, Pennsylvania Medical Society, 2004

We do not have a clear-cut lab test” to diagnose such an imbalance. He later stated, “In order to survive, we (psychiatrists) must go where the money is.”–Steven Sharfstein, Ex-President, American Psychiatric Association

Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.”– Samuel Goldwyn.

“Biological psychology/psychiatry is a total perversion of medicine and science, and a fraud.”— Neurologist Fred Baughman.

“The empire of psychiatric power is more than three hundred years old and grows daily more all-encompassing. But we have not yet begun to acknowledge its existence, much less to understand its role in our society.”– Thomas Szasz.

“Doctors have throughout time made fortunes on killing their patients with their cures. The difference in psychiatry is that it is the death of the soul.” – R.D. Laing, MD.

That is a very good quote Justice, and really it is quite apt ..

If it was applied to the psychiatric ideology a little more then maybe the profession would grow and evolve a bit more instead of it drowning in its own arbitrary dogma and separatist nonsense…

Is that an oxymoron ? or a paradox?
Because to be honest I fail to see the analogy there..

I didn’t accuse anyone’s commentary as being “politically correct” but I am aware that there is a certain code of conduct in regards to what one “can’t say” as opposed to what one “wants to say” ,this happens particularly in the US but not so much in Europe…

To some , the statement “Psychiatry is a criminal organization” might be politically incorrect” to others it might be softer than saying “psychiatry is a sub-fascist ideology” , either one is valid and both could be viewed as “politically incorrect” …

Anyhow, it all boils down to “universal truth” as far as I am concerned..

“We should broaden our notion of health instead of narrowing it; we should regard no single element of weakness as fatal - in short, we should _not be afraid of life_.”
[emphasis in original]

William James (1895)

I have no need to defend “my profession,” since I actually have a few - I’m mainly a teacher/writer/researcher. Within psychology, I am known mostly for my criticism.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written here since I “appeared,” you’ll know I do not back down from calling things as I them.

And the “meanwhile people are” perspective is actually where I come from.