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Anti-psychiatry



 
 
See also: Biopsychiatry controversy
Biopsychiatry controversy

Psychiatry can be approached from many different view points. The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form the scientific basis of psychiatric theory and practice....


Anti-psychiatry usually refers to a movement that emerged in the 1960s hostile to most of the fundamental assumptions and common practices of psychiatry
Psychiatry

Psychiatry is a Medicine Specialty devoted to the Treatment of mental disorders, Biomedical research and Prevention of mental disorder. The term was first coined by the German physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808....
. The igniting influences for this configuration of groups and theories
Theory

For a more detailed account of theories as expressed in formal language as they are studied in mathematical logic see Theory A theory, in the general sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of observations....
 were Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault was a French philosophy, historian, intellectual, Critical theory and sociologist. He held a chair at the Coll?ge de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley....
, R.D. Laing
Ronald David Laing

Ronald David Laing , was a Scotland psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental disfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the i...
 and Thomas Szasz
Thomas Szasz

Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York, New York....
. The term anti-psychiatry was first used by the South African psychiatrist David Cooper
David Cooper (psychiatrist)

South Africa psychiatrist Dr. David G. Cooper was a noted theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement , along with R. D. Laing, Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault....
 in 1967.

Two central contentions of the anti-psychiatry movement are that:

  1. The specific definitions of, or criteria for, hundreds of current psychiatric diagnoses or disorders are vague and arbitrary, leaving too much room for opinions and interpretations to meet basic scientific standards.
  2. Prevailing psychiatric treatments are ultimately far more damaging than helpful to patients.


Other key criticisms of psychiatric claims to authority include the:
  1. inappropriate and overuse of medical concepts and tools to understand the mind and society;
  2. scientifically and/or clinically ill-founded system of categorical diagnoses
    Diagnosis

    Diagnosis is the identification of the nature of anything, either by process of elimination or other analytical methods. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with slightly different implementations on the application of logic and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships....
     (e.g., Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
    Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

    The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides diagnostic criteria for classification of mental disorders....
     or DSM) which stigmatizes patients;
  3. inappropriate (i.e.






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    Quotations


    At the opposite pole to this nature of shadows, madness fascinates because it is knowledge. It is knowledge, first, because all these absurd figures are in reality elements of a difficult, hermetic, esoteric learning.

    Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault

    Thus the image is burdened with supplementary meanings, and forced to express them. And dreams, madness, the unreasonable can also slip into this excess of meaning.

    Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault





    Encyclopedia


    See also: Biopsychiatry controversy
    Biopsychiatry controversy

    Psychiatry can be approached from many different view points. The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form the scientific basis of psychiatric theory and practice....


    Anti-psychiatry usually refers to a movement that emerged in the 1960s hostile to most of the fundamental assumptions and common practices of psychiatry
    Psychiatry

    Psychiatry is a Medicine Specialty devoted to the Treatment of mental disorders, Biomedical research and Prevention of mental disorder. The term was first coined by the German physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808....
    . The igniting influences for this configuration of groups and theories
    Theory

    For a more detailed account of theories as expressed in formal language as they are studied in mathematical logic see Theory A theory, in the general sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of observations....
     were Michel Foucault
    Michel Foucault

    Michel Foucault was a French philosophy, historian, intellectual, Critical theory and sociologist. He held a chair at the Coll?ge de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley....
    , R.D. Laing
    Ronald David Laing

    Ronald David Laing , was a Scotland psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental disfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the i...
     and Thomas Szasz
    Thomas Szasz

    Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York, New York....
    . The term anti-psychiatry was first used by the South African psychiatrist David Cooper
    David Cooper (psychiatrist)

    South Africa psychiatrist Dr. David G. Cooper was a noted theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement , along with R. D. Laing, Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault....
     in 1967.

    Two central contentions of the anti-psychiatry movement are that:

    1. The specific definitions of, or criteria for, hundreds of current psychiatric diagnoses or disorders are vague and arbitrary, leaving too much room for opinions and interpretations to meet basic scientific standards.
    2. Prevailing psychiatric treatments are ultimately far more damaging than helpful to patients.


    Straitjacket Rear
    Other key criticisms of psychiatric claims to authority include the:
    1. inappropriate and overuse of medical concepts and tools to understand the mind and society;
    2. scientifically and/or clinically ill-founded system of categorical diagnoses
      Diagnosis

      Diagnosis is the identification of the nature of anything, either by process of elimination or other analytical methods. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with slightly different implementations on the application of logic and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships....
       (e.g., Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
      Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

      The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides diagnostic criteria for classification of mental disorders....
       or DSM) which stigmatizes patients;
    3. inappropriate (i.e. unvalidated) exclusion of other approaches to mental distress/disorder;
    4. unexamined abuse or misuse of power over patients who are too often treated against their will;
    5. relation of power between patients and psychiatrists, as well as the institutional environment, is too often experienced by patients as demeaning and controlling; and
    6. compromise to medical and ethical integrity because of their financial and professional links with pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies.


    Individual mental health
    Mental health

    Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognition or emotional Quality of life or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychol...
     professionals as well as academics profess anti-psychiatry views, as have a number of former and current users of psychiatric services. Some critics focus on the now prevalent form of biological psychiatry
    Biological psychiatry

    Biological psychiatry, or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biology function of the nervous system....
    . It is on occasion contended that some species of anti-psychiatry have in reality merely promoted forms of psychiatry that happen to be contrary to dominant theories and methods. Some supposed anti-psychiatrists have, equally, been concerned to dissociate themselves from the term and its sometimes pejorative
    Pejorative

    Words and phrases are pejorative if they imply disapproval or contempt. When used as an adjective, pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, dyslogistic, and contemptuous....
     associations.

    Origins of anti-psychiatry


    The word psychiatry was invented by Johann Christian Reil
    Johann Christian Reil

    Johann Christian Reil was a Germans physician, physiologist, anatomist and psychiatrist. He coined the term the term psychiatry or, in German, psychiatrie in 1808....
     in 1808. What much later became known as the anti-psychiatry movement had its origin in concern over alleged misuse of psychiatric procedures for purposes of social control. Daniel Defoe
    Daniel Defoe

    Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an United Kingdom writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe....
    , best known as the author of Robinson Crusoe
    Robinson Crusoe

    Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe. It was first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, encountering Indigenous peoples of the Americas, captives, and mu...
    , reported as far back as the eighteenth century that some husbands were using madhouses to incarcerate their disobedient though sane wives.

    Psychiatry became more professionally established in the nineteenth century. As more invasive forms of treatment evolved, so too did opposition to the profession. Some disputes concerned custodial rights over those seen as mad, particularly if unfortunate enough to end up in one of the multiplying lunatic asylums.

    In the 1800s the American physician Samuel A. Cartwright
    Samuel A. Cartwright

    Samuel Adolphus Cartwright was a physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States. During the American Civil War he joined the Confederate States of America and was assigned the responsibility of improving sanitary conditions in the camps about Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Port Hudson, Louisiana....
     had stumbled upon drapetomania
    Drapetomania

    Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by United States physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused Slavery in the United States to flee captivity....
    , the explanation for why slaves would on occasion display an alarming tendency to run away from their masters. A further disorder afflicting slaves and, by extension, their owners was dysaethesia aethiopica
    Dysaethesia Aethiopica

    In psychiatry, dysaethesia aethiopica was an alleged mental illness described by United States physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851, which proposed a theory for the cause of laziness among slaves....
    , a disease "affecting both mind and body." This explained the apparent lack of a proper work ethic among slaves. Found exclusively among blacks
    African American

    African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the Black people populations of Africa....
    , dysaethesia aethiopica — "called by overseers 'rascality'" — was characterized by partial insensitivity of the skin and "so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep."

    In the latter part of the nineteenth century Emil Kraepelin
    Emil Kraepelin

    Emil Kraepelin was a Germany psychiatrist. The Encyclopedia of Psychology by H. J. Eysenck identifies him as the founder of contemporary scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics....
     became an eminent deviser of novel categories of mental illness, which duly entered psychiatric usage despite their origin in extrapolation from observed behavior, rather than in clinical pathology
    Pathology

    Pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease through examination of Organ , tissue , bodily fluids and whole bodies . The term also encompasses the related science study of disease processes, called General pathology....
     or etiology
    Etiology

    Etiology is the study of Causality. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" .The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in philosophy, physics, psy...
     in any strict sense. The Soviet state in the twentieth century devised suitable psychiatric diagnoses for any who opposed its will with sufficiently persistent vigor but who, whether by dint of ingenuity or mere social eminence, proved difficult to criminalize. They were duly hospitalized instead.

    In the 1920s extreme hostility to psychiatrists and psychiatry was expressed by the French playwright
    Playwright

    A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works may be written specifically to be performed by actors or they may be closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance....
     and theatre director Antonin Artaud
    Antonin Artaud

    Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was a France playwright, poet, actor and theatre director. Antonin is a diminutive form of Antoine , and was among a long list of names which Artaud used throughout his life....
    , in particular, in his book on van Gogh. To Artaud, who was himself to spend a fair amount of time in a straitjacket
    Straitjacket

    A straitjacket is a garment shaped like a jacket with overlong sleeves. The ends of these can be tied to the back of the wearer, so that the arms are kept close to the chest with possibility of only little movement....
    , imagination was reality. Much influenced by the Dada
    Dada

    Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Z?rich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature?poetry, art manifestoes, aesthetics?theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art...
     and surrealist
    Surrealism

    Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
     enthusiams of the day, he considered dream
    Dream

    Dreams are sequence s, sounds and feelings experienced while sleeping, strongly associated with rapid eye movement sleep. The contents and biological purposes of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history....
    s, thoughts and delusions no less real than the "outside" world. To Artaud, reality appeared little more than a convenient consensus, the same kind of consensus an audience accepts when they enter a theatre
    Theatre

    Theatre is the branch of the performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one or more actor, isolated in time and/or Theater , present themselves to Audience." By this broad definition, theatre has existed since the dawn of man, as a result of human tendency for story telling....
     and, for a time, are happy to pretend what they're seeing is real.

    Such convictions and repeated bouts of what appeared to non-surrealists as mental illness caused Artaud to be subjected to practical experience of medical innovation.

    In the 1930s several controversial medical practices were introduced, including inducing seizures (by electroshock, insulin
    Insulin

    Insulin is a hormone with extensive effects on both metabolism and several other body systems . Insulin causes most of the body's cells to take up glucose from the blood , storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle, and stops use of fat as an energy source....
     or other drugs) or cutting parts of the brain apart (leucotomy or lobotomy
    Lobotomy

    A lobotomy is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex....
    ). Both came into widespread use by psychiatry, but there were grave concerns and much opposition on grounds of morality, harmful effects, or misuse. In the 1950s new psychiatric drugs, notably the antipsychotic chlorpromazine
    Chlorpromazine

    Chlorpromazine is a phenothiazine antipsychotic, and the oldest in the antipsychotic family of drugs. It is a typical antipsychotic. It is principally used in the treatment of schizophrenia, though it has also been used to treat severe manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder....
    , were designed in laboratories and slowly came into preferred use.

    Although often accepted as an advance in some ways, there was some opposition, partly due to serious adverse effects such as tardive dyskinesia
    Tardive dyskinesia

    Tardive dyskinesia is a variety of Dyskinesia manifesting as a side effect of long-term or high-dose use of dopamine antagonists, usually antipsychotics....
    . Patients often opposed psychiatry and refused or stopped taking the drugs when not subject to psychiatric control. There was also increasing opposition to the large-scale use of psychiatric hospitals and institutions, and attempts were made to base services in the community
    Recovery model

    The Recovery Model is an approach to mental disorder or substance dependence that emphasizes and supports each individual's potential for recovery....
    .

    Coming to the fore in the 1960s, anti-psychiatry (a term first used by David Cooper
    David Cooper (psychiatrist)

    South Africa psychiatrist Dr. David G. Cooper was a noted theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement , along with R. D. Laing, Thomas Szasz and Michel Foucault....
     in 1967) defined a movement that vocally challenged the fundamental claims and practices of mainstream psychiatry.

    Both Cooper and his better-known colleague R.D. Laing were much influenced by Madness and Civilization by the French philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault
    Michel Foucault

    Michel Foucault was a French philosophy, historian, intellectual, Critical theory and sociologist. He held a chair at the Coll?ge de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley....
    , first published in 1961. The English edition was an abridged version of Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique. (A full translation titled The History of Madness has since been published by Routledge
    Routledge

    Routledge is a publisher of non-fiction academic books and journals. It was acquired in 1997 by, and is thus now an imprint of, the Taylor & Francis Group, which is a sub-division of Informa PLC, a company based in the United Kingdom with offices worldwide....
    ) The work examines ideas, practices, institutions, art and literature relating to madness
    Insanity

    Traditionally, insanity or madness is the behavior whereby a person flouts societal norms and may become a danger to themselves and others....
     in Western history.

    Foucault begins his history in the Middle Ages
    Middle Ages

    File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
    , noting the social and physical exclusion of lepers
    Leprosy

    Leprosy , or Hansen's disease , is a Chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the Peripheral nervous system and Mucous membrane of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions are the primary external symptom....
    . He argues that with the gradual disappearance of leprosy, madness came to occupy this excluded position. The ship of fools
    Ship of Fools

    The ship of fools is an allegory that has long been a fixture and reminder in Western literature and Western art history. The allegory depicts a vessel populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious, passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction....
     in the 15th century is a literary version of one such exclusionary practice, namely that of sending mad people away in ships. In 17th century Europe, in a movement which Foucault famously describes as the Great Confinement, "unreasonable" members of the population were locked away and institutionalised. In the eighteenth century, madness came to be seen as the reverse of Reason, and, finally, in the nineteenth century as mental illness
    Mental illness

    A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture....
    .

    Foucault also argues that madness was silenced by Reason, losing its power to signify the limits of social order and to point to the truth. He examines the rise of scientific and "humanitarian" treatments of the insane, notably at the hands of Philippe Pinel
    Philippe Pinel

    Philippe Pinel was a French physician who was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of psychiatric hospital, referred to today as moral treatment....
     and Samuel Tuke
    Samuel Tuke

    Samuel Tuke was born in York, England.He greatly advanced the cause of the amelioration of the condition of the insane, and devoted himself largely to the The Retreat....
    . He claims that these new treatments were in fact no less controlling than previous method. Pinel's treatment of the mad amounted to an extended aversion therapy
    Aversion therapy

    Aversion therapy is a form of psychiatry, mental health or psychology treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulation while simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort....
    , including such treatments as freezing showers and use of a straitjacket. In Foucault's view, this treatment amounted to repeated brutality until the pattern of judgment and punishment was internalized
    Internalization

    Internalization has different definitions depending on the field that the term is used in. Internalization is the opposite of externalization....
     by the patient.
    Ronald D
    Laing, Cooper, Theodore Lidz
    Theodore Lidz

    Theodore Lidz was an American psychiatrist best known for his articles and books on the causes of schizophrenia and on psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients....
    , Silvano Arieti
    Silvano Arieti

    Silvano Arieti was a psychiatrist regarded in his time as one of the world?s foremost authorities on schizophrenia. He received his M.D. from the University of Pisa but left Italy soon after because of Mussolini's increasingly fascist racial policies....
     and others went on to argue that schizophrenia could be understood as an injury to the inner self inflicted by psychologically invasive "schizophrenogenic" parents, or as a healthy attempt to cope with a sick society. Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz
    Thomas Szasz

    Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York, New York....
     argues that "mental illness
    Mental illness

    A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture....
    " is an inherently incoherent combination of a medical and a psychological concept, but popular because it legitimizes the use of psychiatric force to control and limit deviance from societal norms.

    Adherents of this view referred to "the myth of mental illness" after Szasz's controversial book of that name. (Even though the movement originally described as anti-psychiatry became associated with the general counter-culture movement of the 1960s, Szasz, Lidz and Arieti never became involved in that movement.) Michel Foucault
    Michel Foucault

    Michel Foucault was a French philosophy, historian, intellectual, Critical theory and sociologist. He held a chair at the Coll?ge de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley....
    , Erving Goffman
    Erving Goffman

    'Erving Goffman' , was a Canada and American sociology and writer. The List of American Sociological Association presidents of American Sociological Association, Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical perspective that began with his 1956 book The Presentation of Self...
    , Deleuze and Guatarri, and others criticized the power and role of psychiatry in society, including the use of "total institution
    Total institution

    A total institution, also referred to as a voracious institution, as defined by Erving Goffman, is an institution where all parts of life of individuals under the institution are subordinated to and dependent upon the authorities of the organization....
    s," "labeling
    Labeling

    The different meanings of labeling or labelling:* Automatic label placement* Labeling , as in cartography and maps* Labelling, describing a person...
    " and stigmatizing
    Social stigma

    Social stigma is severe social disapproval of personal characteristics or beliefs that are against Norm . Social stigma often leads to marginalization....
    .

    Foucault argued that the concepts of sanity
    Sanity

    Sanity considered as a legal term denotes that an individual is of sound mind and therefore can bear legal Moral responsibility for his or her actions....
     and insanity
    Insanity

    Traditionally, insanity or madness is the behavior whereby a person flouts societal norms and may become a danger to themselves and others....
     were social constructs that did not reflect quantifiable patterns of human behavior, and which, rather, were indicative only of the power of the "sane" over the "insane". The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey. It is set in an Oregon Mental institution, and serves as a study of the institutional process and the human mind....
     became a bestseller, resonating with public concern about involuntary medication
    Involuntary treatment

    Involuntary treatment refers to medical treatment undertaken without a person's consent. In almost all circumstances, involuntary treatment refers to Psychiatry treatment administered despite an individual's objections....
    , lobotomy and electroshock procedures used to control patients.

    In addition, Holocaust documenters argued that the medicalization
    Medicalization

    Medicalization is the process by which health or behavior conditions come to be defined and treated as medical issues. The term refers to the process by which certain events or characteristics of everyday life become medical issues, and thus come within the purview of doctors and other health professionals to engage with, study, and treat....
     of social problems and systematic euthanasia
    Euthanasia

    Euthanasia refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner. Many different forms of euthanasia can be distinguished, including euthanasia and human euthanasia, and within the latter, voluntary and involuntary euthanasia....
     of people in German
    Germany

    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
     mental institutions in the 1930s provided the institutional, procedural, and doctrinal origins of the mass murder
    Mass murder

    Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people, typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. Mass murder may be committed by individuals or organizations....
     of the 1940s. The Nuremberg Trials
    Nuremberg Trials

    The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after its defeat in World War II....
     convicted a number of psychiatrists who held key positions in Nazi regimes.

    Observation of the abuses of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
    Soviet Union

    The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
     in the so-called Psikhushka
    Psikhushka

    In the Soviet Union, psychiatry was used for punitive purposes. Psychiatric hospitals were often used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally; as such they were considered a form of torture....
     hospitals also led to questioning the validity of the practice of psychiatry in the West. In particular, the diagnosis of many political dissidents with schizophrenia led some to question the general diagnosis and punitive usage of the label schizophrenia
    Schizophrenia

    Schizophrenia , from the Ancient Greek Root schizein and phren, phren- is a psychiatry diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality....
    . This raised questions as to whether the schizophrenia label and resulting involuntary psychiatric treatment could not have been similarly used in the West to subdue rebellious young people during family conflicts.

    New professional approaches were developed as an alternative or reformist complement to psychiatry. The Radical Therapist
    The Radical Therapist

    The Radical Therapist was a journal that emerged in the early 1970s in the context of the Counterculture and the radical U.S. Peace movement....
    , a journal begun in 1971 in North Dakota by Michael Glenn, David Bryan, Linda Bryan, Michael Galan and Sara Glenn, challenged the psychotherapy establishment in a number of ways, raising the slogan "Therapy means change, not adjustment." It contained articles that challenged the professional mediator approach, advocating instead revolutionary politics and authentic community making. Social work
    Social work

    Social work is a discipline involving the application of social theory and research methods to study and improve the lives of people, groups, and societies....
    , humanistic or existentialist therapies, family therapy
    Family therapy

    Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy and family systems therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with family and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development....
    , counseling and self-help
    Self-help

    The term self-help refers to self-guided improvement?economically, intellectually, or emotionally?most frequently with a substantial psychology or spirituality basis....
     and clinical psychology
    Clinical psychology

    Clinical psychology includes the scientific study and application of psychology for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or Mental illness and to promote subjective Mental health and personal development....
     developed and sometimes opposed psychiatry.

    Psychoanalysis
    Psychoanalysis

    Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers, which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behaviour....
     was increasingly criticized as unscientific or harmful. Contrary to the popular view, critics and biographers of Freud, such as Alice Miller
    Alice Miller (psychologist)

    Alice Miller is a psychologist and author, noted for her work on child abuse in its many forms, including physical abuse, emotional abuse and child sexual abuse....
    , Jeffrey Masson and Louis Breger, argued that Freud did not grasp the nature of psychological trauma. Non-medical collaborative services were developed, for example therapeutic communities or Soteria
    Soteria

    Soteria is a community service that provides a space for people experiencing mental distress or crisis. Based on a recovery model, common elements of the Soteria approach include primarily non-medical staffing; preserving resident's personal power, social networks, and communal responsibilities; finding meaning in the subjective experience of...
     houses.

    The anti-psychiatry movement was also being driven by individuals with adverse experiences of psychiatric services. This included those who had been harmed by psychiatry or who felt that they could have been helped more by other approaches, including those compulsorily (including via physical force) admitted to psychiatric institutions and subjected to compulsory medication or procedures. During the 1970s, the anti-psychiatry movement was involved in promoting restraint from many practices seen as psychiatric abuses.

    The gay rights movement challenged the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness and, in a climate of controversy and activism, in 1974 the American Psychiatric Association
    American Psychiatric Association

    The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential world-wide....
     membership (following a unanimous vote by the trustees in 1973) voted by a small majority (58%) to remove it as an illness category from the DSM
    DSM

    DSM or dsm can refer to:...
    , replacing it with a category of "sexual orientation disturbance" and then "ego-dystonic homosexuality," which was deleted in 1987, although "gender identity disorder" and a wide variety of "paraphilias" remain. Increased legal and professional protections, and merging with human rights
    Human rights

    Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedom to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of speech, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, i...
     and disability rights movements, added to anti-psychiatry theory and action.

    Anti-psychiatry came to challenge a "biomedical" focus of psychiatry (defined to mean genetics
    Genetics

    Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
    , neurochemical
    Neurochemical

    A neurochemical is an Organic chemistry molecule, such as serotonin, dopamine, or nerve growth factor, that participates in neural activity. The science of neurochemistry studies the functions of neurochemicals....
    s and pharmaceutic
    Pharmacology

    Pharmacology is the study of drug action. More specifically it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and exogenous chemicals that alter normal biochemical function....
     drugs). There was also opposition to the increasing links between psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies, which were becoming more powerful and were increasingly claimed to have excessive, unjustified and underhand influence on psychiatric research and practice. There was also opposition to the codification of, and alleged misuse of, psychiatric diagnoses into manuals, in particular the American Psychiatric Association
    American Psychiatric Association

    The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential world-wide....
    , which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

    Anti-psychiatry increasingly challenged alleged psychiatric pessimism and institutionalized alienation regarding those categorized as mentally ill. An emerging Consumer/Survivor Movement often argues for full recovery
    Recovery model

    The Recovery Model is an approach to mental disorder or substance dependence that emphasizes and supports each individual's potential for recovery....
    , empowerment
    Empowerment

    Empowerment refers to increasing the Spirituality, Politics, social or Economics strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities....
    , self-management and even full liberation
    Libération

    Lib?ration is a France daily newspaper founded in Paris in 1973 by Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Victor alias Benny L?vy and Serge July in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968....
    . Schemes were developed to challenge stigma
    Stigma

    Stigma may refer to:In biology:* Stigma , a small spot, mark, scar, or minute hole* In a flower , the stigma is the terminal portion of the gynoecium that has no epidermis and is meant to receive pollen....
     and discrimination, often based on a social model of disability
    Social model of disability

    The social model of disability proposes that systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society are the ultimate factors defining who is disabled and who is not in a particular society....
    ; to assist or encourage people with mental health issues to engage more fully in work and society (for example through social firms), and to involve service users in the delivery and evaluation of mental health services. However, those actively and openly challenging the fundamental ethics and efficacy of mainstream psychiatric practice remained marginalized within psychiatry, and to a lesser extent within the wider mental health community.

    Challenges and alternatives to psychiatric practice


    Civilization as a cause of distress

    George Miller Beard
    George Miller Beard

    George Miller Beard was a U.S. Neurology who coined the term neurasthenia in 1869....
     has pointed to an epidemic of "neurasthenia
    Neurasthenia

    Neurasthenia is a psycho-pathological term first used by George Miller Beard in 1869 to denote a condition with symptoms of Fatigue , anxiety, headache, impotence, neuralgia and depression ....
    " at the start of the twentieth century as indicative of the breakdown of a section of society under the increasing stresses of modern life. R. D. Laing emphasized family nexus
    Family nexus

    The term family nexus was used by the psychiatrist R D Laing to describe a common viewpoint held and reinforced by the majority of family members regarding events in the family and relationships with the world....
     as a mechanism whereby individuals become victimized by those around them.

    In recent years, David Smail
    David Smail (psychologist)

    David Smail is a clinical psychologist who is a proponent of a social materialist explanation of psychological distress. Born in Putney, London, on April 23 1938, he 'grew up' in Epsom and Wimbledon, London....
    , a psychotherapist considered part of the anti-psychiatry movement, has written extensively of the "embodied nature" of the individual in society, and the unwillingness of even therapists to acknowledge the obvious part played by power and interest in modern Western society. He argues that feelings and emotions are not, as is commonly supposed, features of the individual, but rather responses of the individual to his situation in society. Even psychotherapy, he suggests, can only change feelings inasmuch as it helps a person to change the "proximal" and "distal" influences on his life, which range from family and friends, to politics and work.

    Normality and illness judgments

    Critics of psychiatry generally do not dispute the notion that some people have emotional or psychological problems, or that some psychotherapies work for a given problem. They do usually disagree with psychiatry on the source of these problems; the appropriateness of characterizing these problems as illness; and on what the proper management options are.

    One remarkable example of psychiatric diagnosis being used to reinforce cultural bias and oppress dissidence is the diagnosis of drapetomania
    Drapetomania

    Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by United States physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused Slavery in the United States to flee captivity....
    . In the USA prior to the American Civil War psychiatrists such as Samuel A. Cartwright
    Samuel A. Cartwright

    Samuel Adolphus Cartwright was a physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States. During the American Civil War he joined the Confederate States of America and was assigned the responsibility of improving sanitary conditions in the camps about Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Port Hudson, Louisiana....
     diagnosed some slaves with drapetomania, a mental illness in which the slave possessed an irrational desire for freedom and a tendency to try to escape. By classifying such a dissident mental trait as abnormal and a disease, psychiatry promoted cultural bias about normality, abnormality, health, and unhealth. This example indicates the probability for not only cultural bias
    Cultural bias

    Cultural bias is when someone is biased due to his or her culture. The alleged problem of cultural bias is sometimes said to be central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology and sociology....
     but also confirmation bias
    Confirmation bias

    In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and to avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs....
     and bias blind spot
    Bias blind spot

    The bias blind spot is a cognitive bias about not compensating for one's own cognitive biases. The term was created by Emily Pronin, social psychologist from Princeton University's Princeton University Department of Psychology, with colleagues Daniel Lin and Lee Ross....
     in psychiatric diagnosis and psychiatric beliefs.

    In addition, many feel that they are being pathologized for simply being different. Some people diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome or autism
    Autism

    Autism is a Neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior....
     hold this position. While many parents of children diagnosed autistic support the efforts of autistic activists, there are some who say they value the uniqueness of their children and do not desire a "cure" for their autism. The autistic community has coined a number of terms that would appear to form the basis for a new branch of identity politics
    Identity politics

    Identity politics is political action to advance the interests of members of a group whose members perceive themselves to be oppressed by virtue of a shared and marginalized identity ....
    ; terms such as "neurodiversity
    Neurodiversity

    Neurodiversity is an idea which asserts that atypical neurology development is a normal human difference that is to be recognized and respected as any other human variation....
    " and "neurotypical
    Neurotypical

    Neurotypical people have neurological development and state that are consistent with what most people would perceive as normal in their ability to process linguistic information and social cues....
    ". However, an antipsychiatric viewpoint is not found in nearly all of those advocating acceptance for autists or other "outsiders".

    It has been argued by philosophers like Foucault that characterizations of "mental illness" are indeterminate and reflect the hierarchical structures of the societies from which they emerge rather than any precisely-defined qualities which distinguish a "healthy" mind from a "sick" one. Furthermore, if a tendency toward self-harm is taken as an elementary symptom of mental illness, then humans, as a species, are arguably insane in that they have tended throughout recorded history to destroy their own environments, to make war with one another, etc.

    Psychiatric labeling

    There are recognized problems regarding the diagnostic reliability and validity of mainstream psychiatric diagnoses, both in ideal and controlled circumstances and even more so in routine clinical practice (McGorry et al.. 1995). Criteria in the principal diagnostic manuals, the DSM and ICD
    ICD

    The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems provides codes to classify diseases and a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings,...
    , are inconsistent. Some psychiatrists who criticize their own profession say that comorbidity
    Comorbidity

    In medicine, comorbidity is either:* The presence of one or more disorders in addition to a primary disease or disorder; or* The effect of such additional disorders or diseases....
    , when an individual meets criteria for two or more disorders, is the rule rather than the exception. There is much overlap and vaguely-defined or changeable boundaries between what psychiatrists claim are distinct illness states.. There are also problems with using standard diagnostic criteria in different countries, cultures, genders or ethnic groups. Critics often allege that Westernized, white, male-dominated psychiatric practices and diagnoses disadvantage and misunderstand those from other groups. For example, several studies have shown that African Americans are more often diagnosed with schizophrenia than Caucasians, and women more than men. Some within the anti-psychiatry movement are critical of the use of diagnosis as it conforms with the biomedical model
    Biomedical model

    The biomedical model of medicine, has been around since the mid-nineteenth century as the predominant model used by physicians in the diagnosis of disease....
    .

    Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

    Stern concerns about how disease is managed in large populations for financial purposes alone appear constantly in the literature critical of the medical profession and the industry.

    Psychiatrists prescribe drugs for adults and children. Administration of the drugs can be undertaken voluntarily or, in certain situations, involuntarily. Psychiatrists claim that a number of medications have a proven efficacy
    Efficacy

    Efficacy is the capacity to produce an effect.It is these conditions that distinguish efficacy from the related concept of effectiveness, which relates to change under real-life conditions....
     for improving or managing a number of mental health disorders. This includes ranges of different drugs referred to as stimulant
    Stimulant

    Stimulant drugs are drugs that temporarily increase alertness and awareness. They usually have increased side-effects with increased effectiveness, and the more powerful variants are therefore often prescription medicines or illegal drugs....
    s, antidepressants, hypnotic minor tranquilizers and neuroleptics (antipsychotics).

    On the other hand, organizations such as MindFreedom International
    MindFreedom International

    MindFreedom International is an international coalition of over one hundred grassroots groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations....
     and World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
    World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

    The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry is an international organisation representing, and led by, consumer/survivor movement of psychiatry....
     maintain that psychiatrists exaggerate the evidence of medication and minimize the evidence of adverse drug reaction
    Adverse drug reaction

    An adverse drug reaction or adverse drug event is an expression that describes the unwanted, negative consequences associated with the use of given medications....
    . They and other activists
    Psychiatric survivors movement

    The Psychiatric survivors movement is a loose coalition of people who, united by the resentment that they have been harmed or betrayed by psychiatry, advocate in favor of mental health treatment alternatives, or just the right to freedom from the system, for those diagnosed with mental illnesses....
     also complain that individuals are not given sufficient balanced information or truly informed consent, that current psychiatric medications do not appear to be specific to particular disorders in the way mainstream psychiatry asserts; and psychiatric drugs not only don't correct measurable chemical imbalances in the brain, but also induce undesirable side effects
    Adverse drug reaction

    An adverse drug reaction or adverse drug event is an expression that describes the unwanted, negative consequences associated with the use of given medications....
    . For example, though children on Ritalin and other psycho-stimulants become more obedient to parents and teachers, critics have noted that they can also develop abnormal movements such as tics, spasms and other involuntary movements This has not been shown to be directly related to the therapeutic use of stimulants, but to neuroleptics. The diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder on the basis of inattention to compulsory schooling also raises critics' concerns regarding the use of psychoactive drugs as a means of unjust social control
    Social control

    Social control includes to social mechanisms that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to Conformism and compliances to the rules of a given society or social group....
     of children.

    The influence of pharmaceutical companies is another major issue for the antipsychiatry movement. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable and powerful in existence, and as Joe Sharkey
    Joe Sharkey

    Joe Sharkey, a columnist for the New York Times, writes extensively on business travel and accommodations, and has written several books on criminality and a novel....
     has argued, there are many financial and professional links between psychiatry, regulators, and pharmaceutical companies. Drug companies routinely fund much of the research conducted by psychiatrists, advertise medication in psychiatric journals and conferences, fund psychiatric and healthcare organizations and health promotion campaigns, and send representatives to lobby general physicians and politicians. Peter Breggin
    Peter Breggin

    Peter Roger Breggin is an United States psychiatrist, and critic of biological psychiatry and psychiatric medication. In his books, he advocates replacing psychiatry's use of drugs and electroconvulsive therapy with humanism and caring psychotherapy, education, and broader human services....
    , Sharkey, and other investigators of the psycho-pharmaceutical industry maintain that many psychiatrists are members, shareholders or special advisors to pharmaceutical or associated regulatory organizations. There is evidence that research findings and the prescribing of drugs are influenced as a result. A United Kingdom cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in 2005 concludes: "The influence of the pharmaceutical industry is such that it dominates clinical practice" and that there are serious regulatory failings resulting in "the unsafe use of drugs; and the increasing medicalization of society". The campaign organization No Free Lunch details the prevalent acceptance by medical professionals of free gifts from pharmaceutical companies and the effect on psychiatric practice. The ghost-writing of articles by pharmaceutical company officials, which are then presented by esteemed psychiatrists, has also been highlighted. Systematic reviews have found that trials of psychiatric drugs that are conducted with pharmaceutical funding are several times more likely to report positive findings than studies without such funding.

    The number of psychiatric drug prescriptions have been increasing at an extremely high rate since the 1950s and show no sign of abating. In the United States antidepressants and tranquilizers are now the top selling class of prescription drugs, and neuroleptics and other psychiatric drugs also rank near the top, all with expanding sales. As a solution of this alleged conflict of interests, critics propose legislation to separate the pharmaceutical industry from the psychiatric profession.

    Electroconvulsive therapy


    Psychiatrists may advocate psychiatric drugs, psychotherapy or more controversial interventions such as electroshock or psychosurgery
    Psychosurgery

    Psychosurgery is a subset of neurosurgery intended to modulate the performance of the brain, and thus effect changes in cognition, with the intent to treat or alleviate severe mental illness....
     to treat mental illness. The use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is administered worldwide typically for severe mental disorders, sometimes involuntarily. Across the globe it has been estimated that approximately 1 million patients receive ECT per year. Exact numbers of how many persons per year have ECT in the United States are unknown due to the variability of settings and treatment. Researchers' estimates generally range from 100,000 to 200,000 persons per year.

    Some persons receiving ECT die from the procedure. Frank cites approximately 400 deaths mentioned in psychiatric journals.

    Psychiatry critics particularly hold this procedure in low repute. John Breeding, a controversial social critic of psychiatric practices, believes that "Electroshock always causes brain damage". On the other hand, a 2003 systematic review concluded that, despite these risks, ECT "is an effective short-term treatment for depression". It is used most often in situations of life-threatening, i.e., suicidal, depression.

    Psychiatry and the law

    The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that it is a violation of civil rights
    Civil rights

    Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on sexism, religious intolerance, Racism, Homophobia, etc; individual freedom of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom...
     to medicate, treat, or hospitalize a person against their will.

    While the insanity defense is the subject of controversy as a viable excuse for wrong-doing, Szasz and other critics contend that being committed in a psychiatric hospital
    Psychiatric hospital

    A psychiatric hospital is a hospital specializing in the treatment of serious mental illness, usually for relatively long-term inpatients.Two rules usually govern whether someone should be placed in a psychiatric hospital: if someone is an immediate threat to harm themselves, or to harm other people....
     can be worse than criminal imprisonment, since it involves the risk of compulsory medication with neuroleptics or the use of electroshock treatment. Moreover, while a criminal imprisonment has a predetermined time of end that could be anticipated, patients are typically committed to psychiatric hospitals for indefinite durations.

    Involuntary hospitalization

    Critics see involuntary committal's use of legally-sanctioned force as counter to one of the pillars of open or free societies: John Stuart Mill
    John Stuart Mill

    John Stuart Mill , United Kingdom philosopher, political economy, civil servant and Parliament of the United Kingdom, was an influential liberalism thinker of the 19th century....
    's principles. Mill argues that society should never use coercion to subdue an individual as long as he or she does not harm others. In contrast to the Hollywood portrait of schizophrenics, disturbed people are usually no more prone to violence than sane individuals. The growing practice, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, of care in the community
    Care in the Community

    Although this policy has been attributed to the Margaret Thatcher government in the 1980s, community care was not a new idea. As a policy it had been around since the early 1950s....
     was instituted partly in response to such concerns. Alternatives to involuntary hospitalization include the development of non-medical crisis care in the community.

    In the case of people suffering from severe psychotic crises, the American Soteria
    Soteria

    Soteria is a community service that provides a space for people experiencing mental distress or crisis. Based on a recovery model, common elements of the Soteria approach include primarily non-medical staffing; preserving resident's personal power, social networks, and communal responsibilities; finding meaning in the subjective experience of...
     project used to provide, critics of psychiatry contend, a more humane and compassionate alternative to coercive psychiatry. The Soteria houses closed in 1983 in the United States due to lack of financial support. However, Soteria-like houses are presently flourishing in Europe, especially in Sweden
    Sweden

    Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
     and other North European countries.

    The "Therapeutic State"

    The "Therapeutic State" is a phrase coined by American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz in 1963.

    Civil libertarians warn that the marriage of the State with psychiatry could have catastrophic consequences for civilization
    Civilization

    A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
    . In the same vein as the separation of church and state
    Separation of church and state

    Separation of church and state is a political and legal doctrine that government and religion institutions are to be kept separate and independent from each other....
    , Szasz believes that a solid wall must exist between psychiatry and the State.

    Psychiatry as a pseudo-science


    Many of the above issues lead to the common claim that psychiatry is a pseudo-science . According to some philosophers of science (especially Karl Popper
    Karl Popper

    Knight Bachelor Karl Raimund Popper Order of the Companions of Honour, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics....
    ), for a theory to qualify as hard science
    Hard science

    Hard science is a term used to describe natural sciences and physical sciences as distinct from social science. The hard sciences are believed to rely on experimental, empirical, quantification data or the scientific method and focus on accuracy and Objectivity ....
     it needs to exhibit the following characteristics:

    • parsimony, as straightforward as the phenomena to be explained allow (see Occam's Razor
      Occam's razor

      Occam's razor, also Ockham's razor, is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham....
      );
    • empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability
      Falsifiability

      Falsifiability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment....
      );
    • changeable, i.e. if necessary, changes may be made to the theory as new data are discovered;
    • progressive, encompasses previous successful descriptions and explains and adds more;
    • provisional, i.e. tentative; the theory does not attempt to assert that it is a final description or explanation.


    Psychiatrist Colin A. Ross
    Colin A. Ross

    image = Replace this image male.svg Only freely-licensed images may be used to depict living people. See...
     and Alvin Pam maintain that biopsychiatry does not qualify as a science on many counts. John Modrow believes that most biological hypotheses in psychiatry are untestable and unfalsifiable.

    Scientology


    Scientology
    Scientology

    Scientology is a Scientology beliefs and practices created by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics....
     has also challenged psychiatric theory or practice. L. Ron Hubbard
    L. Ron Hubbard

    Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was an American science fiction writer who devised a self-help system called Dianetics, first published in 1950, which he developed over the next three decades into a set of doctrines and rituals he called Scientology....
    , the founder of Scientology, became increasingly at odds with psychiatry and in 1969 cofounded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights
    Citizens Commission on Human Rights

    The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an advocacy group established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. The group promotes several video campaigns which support views against psychiatry....
     (CCHR), with Thomas Szasz
    Thomas Szasz

    Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York, New York....
    . CCHR was formed as an advocacy group focused on what it calls psychiatry's "human rights crimes". In the keynote address at the 25th anniversary of CCHR, Szasz stated: "We should all honor CCHR because it is really the organization that for the first time in human history has organized a politically, socially, internationally significant voice to combat psychiatry. This has never been done in human history before." Although Szasz appears in some CCHR's keynote addresses, he has never been a Scientologist, instead self-identifying as a secular humanist.

    However, the delineation between the viewpoints of the critics associated with Scientology, and those within anti-psychiatry is not absolute, especially with regards to mental illness, psychiatry, and psychiatric drugs. For example, the CCHR hosts content about these subjects by noted anti-psychiatry critics like Szasz, Gary Null
    Gary Null

    Gary Michael Null is an United States talk radio host and author on alternative medicine and nutrition. He is also a critic of the medical and psychiatric communities....
     and Fred Baughman
    Fred Baughman

    Fred Baughman is best known as an "outspoken critic...who insists attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is a fraud perpetrated by the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries."....
    .

    Despite sharing notable antipsychiatrists' views on some issues, Scientology doctrine differs in some respects. Scientology has promoted psychiatry-related conspiracy theories, including that psychiatry was responsible for World War I, the rise of Hitler and Stalin, the decline in education standards in the United States, the wars in Bosnia
    Bosnian War

    The War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly known as the Bosnian War, was an international armed conflict that took place between March 1992 and November 1995....
     and Kosovo
    Kosovo War

    Kosovo War occurred after the Rambouillet Agreement failed in February 1999. The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts in Kosovo:...
    , the September 11 attacks. Secular critics of psychiatry do not share these positions.

    Scientology doctrine, further, holds that psychiatrists caused the decline in this universe
    Space opera in Scientology doctrine

    In Scientology, founder L. Ron Hubbard used the science fiction term space opera to describe what he said were actual extraterrestrial life and alien interventions in Reincarnation#Scientology....
     billions of years ago, while Scientologists are committed to never taking psychiatric drugs and reject psychology
    Psychology

    Psychology is an academic and applied science discipline involving the science study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic hermeneutics and critical theory, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology....
     outright.

    The socio-political roots of the movements also differ. Classic anti-psychiatrists such as David Cooper and Ronald Laing had ties with the political left of the 1960s; Szasz, with the civil libertarians of the right. On the other hand, Jon Atack
    Jon Atack

    Jonathan Caven-Atack known as Jon Atack, is a United Kingdom artist, published author and widely recognized as one of the most outspoken critics of the Church of Scientology....
     considered the sources of Scientology to be a mixture of Freud's abreaction
    Abreaction

    Abreaction is a psychoanalytical term for reliving an experience in order to purge it of its emotional excesses; a type of catharsis. Sometimes it is a method of becoming conscious of repressed traumatic events....
     therapy, science fiction, Buddhist ideas, and Aleister Crowley
    Aleister Crowley

    Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley , , was a United Kingdom occultist, writer, mountaineering, poet, and yogi. He was an influential member of several occult organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the A?A?, and Ordo Templi Orientis , and is best known today for his Works of Aleister Crowley, especi...
    's magick.

    See also

    • Bruce Levine
      Bruce Levine

      Bruce E. Levine, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been in practise for more than two decades.Levine's most recent book is Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy , which argues that by not seriously confronting societal source...
    • History of mental disorders
    • Indeterminacy in philosophy
    • Institutionalisation
      Institutionalisation

      The term institutionalization is widely used in social theory to denote the process of making something become embedded within an organization, social system, or society as an established custom or norm within that system....
    • Interpretation of Schizophrenia
    • Laura's Law
      Laura's Law

      Laura's Law, , which became effective on January 1, 2003, is a California state statute that allows for court-ordered outpatient commitment of mental health clients who refuse voluntary treatment with psychotropic medications....
    • Medicalization
      Medicalization

      Medicalization is the process by which health or behavior conditions come to be defined and treated as medical issues. The term refers to the process by which certain events or characteristics of everyday life become medical issues, and thus come within the purview of doctors and other health professionals to engage with, study, and treat....
    • The Gene Illusion
      The Gene Illusion

      The Gene Illusion is a book by clinical psychology Jay Joseph, published in 2003, which challenges the evidence underlying genetics theories in psychiatry and psychology....
    • Rosenhan experiment
      Rosenhan experiment

      The Rosenhan experiment was a List of famous experiments into the validity of psychiatry diagnosis conducted by David Rosenhan in 1972. It was published in the journal Science under the title "On being sane in insane places."...


    External links


    Information



    Articles

    • - The Dark Side of Psychiatry
    • - Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, by John P. A. Ioannidis. Vol. 2, No. 8, DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.Last accessed 16 June 2006
    • - Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies, by Richard Smith, Vol.2, No.5, e138 DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138. Last accessed 16 June 2006
    • - Commercial influence and the content of medical journals, by Joel Lexchin, associate professor, Donald W Light, professor, BMJ 2006;332:1444-1447 (17 June),doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7555.1444; Last accessed 16 June 2006
    • - The Latest Mania: Selling Bipolar Disorder, by David Healy, Vol.3, No.4, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030185; Last accessed 16 June 2006

    Organizations critical of psychiatry

    • - Citizen's Commission on Human Rights
    • - The Society for Laingian Studies, R.D. Laing (1927-1989)
    • - Loren Mosher
      Loren Mosher

      Loren Richard Mosher was a psychiatrist and expert on schizophrenia who founded the first Soteria houses. He was chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from 1968 to 1980, but was dismissed from the National Institute of Mental Health, and later resigned from the American Psychiatric Associati...
      , MD, (1933-2004)
    • - The Thomas S. Szasz, MD, Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility
    • - International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology
    • - Support Coalition International (a coalition of groups supporting "United Action for Human Rights in Mental Health")
    • - Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
    • International Association Against Psychiatric Assault
    • Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto
    • Homepage of Tana Dineen
    • - Anti-Psychiatry Community on Livejournal, Most Updated Resource.