Why would anyone prescribe to the philosophy of biological psychiatry?!


Question: Why would anyone prescribe to the philosophy of biological psychiatry?
People that are against biological psychiatry do not deny that people suffer or that they can hallucinate or have delusions. What they deny is that these things are the result of genetic and biological defects.

Why?

Peter Breggin, Psychiatry and the Holocaust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQZdUmxG1Es

Harding:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb00/schizophrenia.aspx

Ilardi and his research of the Kaluli tribe:
http://www.amazon.com/Depression-Cure-6-Step-Program-without/dp/0738213136

Exporting DSM to "developing" countries:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9WMhHJhkM

Whitaker, author of Mad in America:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Dx_uuyXYk&feature=related

Katie Couric interview with Prof. of Psychiatric Department of Harvard (second video down):
http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/120

And,

- There is no evidence that antidepressants reduce the risk of suicide or suicide attempts in comparison with a placebo in clinical trials (Kahn et al. 2000).
- In fact, rates have actually increased in some age groups and in some countries despite increased antidepressant prescribing (Moncrieff & Kirsch 2006), and when antidepressant trials have been re-analyzed to compensate for erroneous methodologies, the SSRIs have consistently revealed a risk of suicide (completed or attempted) of between two to four times higher than placebo (Jackson 2005).
- Sharply rising levels of antidepressant prescribing since the 1990s have been accompanied by increased prevalence of depressive episodes (Patten 2004) and by rising levels of sickness absence for depression (Moncrieff & Pomerleau 2000).
- Longitudinal follow-up studies (which study the effects of antidepresants over the long term – not just the 6-8 week periods the clinical trials look at) show very poor outcomes for people treated for depression both in the hospital and in the community, and the overall prevalence of depression is rising despite increased use of antidepressants (Moncrieff & Kirsch, 2006).
- Over the long-term, people prescribed antidepressants have a worse outcome than those not prescribed them, even after baseline severity had been taken into account (Brugha TS et al, 1992; Ronalds C et al., 1997). No comparable studies exist that show a better outcome in people prescribed antidepressants.

Studies are also showing that the disease model actually increases instead of decreases stigma of mental illnesses.

If you think this is all scare tactics think again. In Switzerland, it is now legal for someone to assist the suicide of someone with a "chronic" mental illness. Who gets to decide they are a candidate for the "Dignitas" euthenasia clinic? A psychiatrist. How? Through unscientific judgment. Through talking. Legal euthenasia of suicidal people as long as they have supposed "defects" says something about a society. It send the message that people who want to die are right and that people with the same things who choose life are "just too stupid to know their lives are worthless.".

I have a question. If you work in the mental health industry and promote this philosophy...how do you look in the mirror?

It would be nice if people actually argued with the facts I have presented. I've noticed that assuming things about my history, wishing mental illness on my loved ones, or calling me a Scientologist (which I am not) is usually all anyone can muster after being presented with these arguments. Kind of bizarre.

Answers:

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

People proscribe to biological psychiatry because it is on TV, taught in books at colleges and universities. The average person believes that a psychiatrist is an expert in mental health and knows how to help them. The fact that psychiatry does not know what it is doing is not as widely known as it should be. You, my friend, doing the research to put yourself in the know makes you the exception, not the rule. It is a sad commentary on modern society that we are apt to take heresay as gospel or take the "pop a pill/easy as turning on a lightswitch" approach rather than educating ourselves and finding out the facts. Or worse, bash people who actually understand what is really going on.

www.cchr.org




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