******************************************************* Did You Know That if You Have Ever experienced PTSD or felt Patriotic that You Are Mentally-Ill? |
HAS THE TIME FINALLY COME TO RE-EVALUATE THE USE OF THIS MISLEADING AND PROVOCATIVE LABEL? Were you traumatized by the depraved September 11th, terrorist attack on America? Did you, like many other "normal", "mentally-sound", "sane" folks, seek mental health counseling and/or services to resolve the emotional trauma caused by that depravity? Well, if you did, then you have unknowingly and unwittingly joined the ranks of "the mentally-ill!" Whether or not you know it, the minute you enter the mental health system and receive mental health services you are considered "mentally-ill." It's a gradual process that sneaks up on you and smacks you in the face like a brick wall. This is why so many people refuse such services. And if we accept the DSM definition of PTSD as a "mental illness," rather than an internal reaction to an external horror, then it would appear that we are all "mentally-ill", because even those who applauded this depravity (for some supposed past American injustice) had to have been traumatized to some extent by the severity of death and destruction wrought on thousands of innocent civilians.
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On Becoming Mentally Disordered (mentally-ill) "In an influential statement, Thomas Scheff offers what is essentially a labeling theory of mental disorder. All of us, he says, violate norms of reality on occasion - by talking to ourselves, making irrelevant responses to questions, suffering memory lapses, irrationally fearing persecution, laughing inappropriately, losing our temper, and so on. Under pressure, some people violate these norms too often or too noticeably, and other people, suspecting that the offenders have taken leave of their senses, label them as mentally-ill... but, although the label was first applied because of a temporary inability to cope with reality, it is not as easily cast off as it was taken on." (textbook: Society - A Brief Introduction, by Ian Robertson, Page 135) ***************************************************** September 11th, 2001, cast a whole new light on the use of this misleading label, as an increasing number of American citizens enter the mental health system and join the ranks of "the mentally-ill". This audacious act of terrorism instilled degrees of anxiety and paranoia in the American public that will have dreadful social and economic consequences for decades to come. One case of suicide as a direct result of this horrendous attack has already been documented, and research from prior acts of terrorism - in particular - the Oklahoma City Bombing, make it abundantly clear that there will be a significant increase in so-called "mental illnesses", especially post traumatic stress disorders. Is it therefore justified to refer to someone who should seek mental health services as a result of such trauma (due to external influences beyond their control) as having a "mental illness" and labeling them as mentally-ill? Is this sound and objective reasoning? Is it even ethical? Or is it, in fact, an indication of exceptional sanity to pursue such services in light of such a catastrophic event and not an indication of mental illness? Has the time finally come to re-evaluate the use of these terms - "the mentally-ill" and "mental illness"? Or shall we add fuel to the fire and re-traumatize those who have survived such a catastrophe by labeling them as mentally-ill, and in effect inducing mental illness, rather than treating it? For those of you who have never had to suffer the indignity of being labeled mentally-ill, consider the following: According to many highly respected and high-ranking members of the psychiatric profession, if you have ever felt patriotic, you are mentally-ill. And as you ponder this, please note that just five years ago the Health Department in Albany, New York, strongly suggested that "the mentally-ill" should have risky experiments conducted on them "even if they are incapable of consenting and do not stand to benefit from them." (New York Post 1/17/99)
As early as 1945, eminent Canadian psychiatrist Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, co-founder of the World Federation for Mental Health and later head of the World Health Organization of the United Nations declared: "We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers, our politicians, our priests, our newspapers, and others with a vested interest in controlling us... to impose local and familial and national loyalties. The inevitable results are frustration, inferiority, neurosis..." Dr. Chisholm goes on to say: "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas... the pretense is made that to do away with right and wrong would produce uncivilized people, immorality, lawlessness, and social chaos. The fact is that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respected people have escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely." (Psychiatry: Journal of Biology and Pathology of Interpersonal Relations 9, no. 1, February 1946). It was the eminent Dr. Chisholm who also offered possible corrective measures: "Should attempts be made by the profession to institute compulsory treatment for the neuroses as for other infectious diseases?" Since Dr. Chisholm first offered this suggestion, legal precedents have been established throughout the United States for compulsory hospitalization and forced treatment (such as Kendra's Law). Ironically, during the Cold War era of the 50's and 60's staunch American patriots warned of the perceived threat posed to our national security by godless communists, yet those very same Americans, for those very same reasons, were considered neurotic and deserving of compulsory treatment for believing in God and being staunch patriots. Where was the real threat to our national security coming from? In his controversial 1964 book "None Dare Call it Treason", author John A. Stormer lamented: "Few legislators who passed these mental health laws realized that Chisholm and his associates defined mental illness as a sense of loyalty to a particular nation, a sense of loyalty to a moral code, and strict adherence to concepts of right and wrong. Chisholm has been obsessed for years with the idea that instilling concepts of right and wrong, love of country and morality in children by their parents is the paramount evil." (John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason, Chapter IX, Mental Health). The 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, once warned Americans that: "To educate a child in mind - and not morals - is to educate a menace to society." The direction in which this "progressive" reasoning is headed is revealed in the following 1999 Insight Magazine article, which quotes Richard Garner, a clinical professor of child psychiatry and the "discoverer" of parental alienation syndrome, or PAS (which holds that one spouse, usually the mother, is at fault for accusations of sexual abuse that may arise during a custody battle). Says Mr. Gardner: "Society's excessively moralistic and punitive reactions toward pedophiles go far beyond what I consider to be the gravity of the crime." It was the esteemed Dr. John Rawlings Rees, Deputy Director of the Tavistock Clinic in England and one of the co-founders of the World Federation for Mental Health who boldly announced at the annual general meeting of the National Council for Mental Hygiene on June 18th, 1940 that: "Public life, politics and industry should all be within our sphere of influence... If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people, I think we must imitate the totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity... Let us all, therefore, very secretly be fifth columnists." (Strategic Planning for Mental Health, Dr. John Rawlings Rees, "Mental Health 1", no. 4, October 1940, pages 103-4). Dr. Chisholm's use of psychiatry to promote his own political ideology is not an exception to the rule, but is standard practice within the psychiatric profession as you will see. And what better forum to promote your own political ideology, than under the guise of mental health. In 1948, prominent American psychiatrists, including Dr. George S. Stevenson, medical director of the National Association for Mental Health, Dr. Daniel T. Blain, and Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan served on a preparatory commission at the International Congress on Mental Health in London, England. Their political ideology and agenda (under the guise of mental health) was openly revealed in this declaration, published and distributed in 1948 in the United States by the National Association for Mental Health:
"Principles of mental health cannot be successfully furthered in any society unless there is progressive acceptance of the concept of world citizenship. World citizenship can be widely extended among all peoples through applications of the principles of mental health." It was further pointed out at this International Congress on Mental Health that: "The family is now one of the major obstacles to improved mental health, and hence should be weakened, if possible, so as to free individuals and especially children from the coercion of family life." (Columbia University Press, 1949, Vol. 4, August 16-21). And as late as 1973 a psychiatrist from Harvard University, Dr. C.M. Pierce, said in a speech before teachers: "Every child in America entering school at the age of five is INSANE because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all of these SICK children well, by creating the international child of the future." (U.S. to Use Psychiatric Prisons for Offenders: Let us Make the Sick Children Well). Joe Sharkey, author of the 1994 book "Bedlam" wrote that in the 1970's the family "was undergoing a transition on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution. Adrift in a transient and rootless society, buffeted by divorce, reshaped by the fact that both mother and father were now usually employed outside the home, confused and frightened by incessant alarms about teenagers' rampant drug addiction, alienation, and suicide, the American family of the Reagan era was a prime marketing opportunity, and the rapidly expanding psychiatric-hospital industry, voraciously hungry, saw a big payoff in kids." (Page 103) Sharkey goes to relate that: "Norton A. Roitman, an adolescent psychiatrist, said he was recruited in 1988 to head the adolescent unit of a private psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas. Once on board, he was amazed to find a hospital staff utterly ignorant of psychiatric practices... Roitman was especially troubled by the hospital's insistence that, in their initial phase of hospitalization, teenagers be kept from seeing their parents. This was presented as a way to encourage 'bonding' to the hospital. It was general knowledge, he recalled, that the purpose of it was so that the adolescent patient would not talk the parents out of the forced hospitalization." (page 126)
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"Although Americans are supposedly waging a "War on Drugs," the practice of giving mind-altering drugs to children has skyrocketed in the past ten years. An estimated five to six million children are currently taking Ritalin or other amphetamine-type stimulants. Still more astounding is the threefold increase in prescriptions for two to four year-olds, even though these drugs have never been approved as safe or effective for children under five." (Diagnosis for Dividends "MindFreedom Journal #44, 2001 - www.MindFreedom.org")
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"Clearly this business of treating minds, particularly this big business of treating young minds, has not policed itself, and has no incentive to put a stop to the kinds of fradulent and unethical practices that are going on." (Pat Schroeder, U.S. Representative, 1992)
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"Denying that so-called mental illnesses are diseases, and denying the legitimacy of psychiatry as a branch of medicine, is not to deny the usefulness of psychotropic drugs to certain people, or the value of experts on those drugs to those who might want to take them. This is an extremely important point. A common response to one's rejection of biopsychiatry is to accuse one of being cruel and wanting people to suffer, of wanting to deny helpful drugs to people who wish to take them, of believing that extreme psychic distress does not exist, and so on. This is an awful misinterpretation of what is being said. Nothing of the kind has been said or implied in this essay. The principal reason for rejecting biopsychiatry (aside from the fact that intellectual honesty demands its rejection) is that it locates the cause of psychic suffering in people's "bad brains," and excludes the conditions of modern life, or anything else, from consideration as the cause of such pain. That is, it acts to deflect attention from the fact that modern life has seen the number of people suffering extreme psychic distress skyrocket – we have "epidemics" of "ADHD," and "depression," and "generalized anxiety," as though those things were communicable diseases – and forecloses any discussion of the inhuman conditions under which people live today. If someone finds taking Prozac® helpful, nothing in this essay implies that he or she should not be allowed to take Prozac®. If someone sees such an implication, it is because the division of drugs into "medicines" and "drugs of abuse" leaves no room for any other uses for drugs – if one wishes to procure and consume a psychotropic drug, one must have a disease, have the disease certified by a state-licensed physician, and obtain a permission slip, called a "prescription," before one can legally purchase that drug. But this is purely a cultural artifact... There is no scientific explanation for the fact that morphine is legal while heroin is not. There is no scientific explanation for the fact that Ambien® is legal and methaqualone (Quaalude) is not. There is no scientific reason for forbidding people who benefit from marijuana from having it. Indeed, there is no scientific reason for drug prohibition at all, and it is positively destructive in social terms. The explanation for these things is purely political. The ostensible goal of the War on Drugs – "a drug-free America" – is absurd on the face of it and quite clearly at odds with the endless promotion of psychiatric nostrums in the media, and popular magazine articles expounding on the supposed "scientific discovery" that anxiety, depression, psychological damage from horrible experiences ("Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder"), insomnia, and general discomfort with existence in the modern world are diseases. But the "drug war" will not be abandoned, however hypocritical, illogical, or even evil it may be, because it has become an entire industry: urine testing laboratories, privatization of prisons, profits from unconstitutional "asset forfeiture," the ever-increasing budget for drug law enforcement personnel – none of these things are going to go away of their own accord. There are simply too many people making too much money from them for them to even be called into question." Disease or Profit?
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ATTACK ON WORLD TRADE CENTER IMAGE USED TO SELL DRUGS
"Drug dealers have hit a new low. In a ghoulish move that shocked even law enforcement officials, dealers are peddling a brand of heroin labeled Bin Laden which features a picture of an airplane flying toward the World Trade Center. "I guess it was inevitable that drug dealers would seek to capitolize on our nation's worst atrocity by marketing their position in this manner... the drug trade is the sub-basement of our society, where anything goes and degradation rules," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said yesterday. (New York Daily News, 2/8/02)
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| Wednesday, December 10th, 2003 |
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ARE THESE OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE SAME COIN? "The similarities between street drug abuse and psychotropic prescription drug use are disturbing. Both types are toxic. Both can cause psychosis, damage the brain and other organs, and even cause death. And neither type of mind-altering drugs, legal or illegal, treats disease. It's important to recognize that the only significant difference between many prescription psychotropic drugs and street drugs such as "speed" and "downers" is that prescription drugs are legal." (A Dose of Sanity neuropsychiatrist Sydney Walker III). Please note that this posting is not meant to be a critique of the proper use of medications, but is meant to be a critique of the abuse and misuse of medications.
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DOES ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR RENDER A PERSON PSYCHOTIC?
In an terrifying incident reminiscent of the "Thought Police" in George Orwell's "1984", a Manhattan periodontist, Ira Warheit, who volunteered his time to assist in the rescue efforts at ground zero was forcibly detained and transported to Bellevue Hospital against his will on the orders of a psychiatrist who was scouring the devastated area. When he arrived at the hospital he was put in restraints and injected with a powerful psychotropic drug called Haldol. Haldol is classified as an anti-psychotic and it's side effects include dizziness, tremors, and muscle spasms. This outrage continued for three days, during which time Mr. Warheit was continually drugged and detained until he was required by law to be taken before a judge to determine whether or not commitment was necessary. The judge found no reason for Mr. Warheit to have been detained and ordered him to be released immediately. Mr. Warheit is now suing the state for unlawful imprisonment. He is a unique victim of 9/11 because his terrorizors were not foreign terrorists operating from abroad, but were American terrorists operating on American soil. Mr. Warheit was only one of numerous ground zero volunteers who were forcibly hospitalized against their will, but for some unknown reason this story has not yet received national media attention. ("The Grief Police" by Kelly Patricia O'Meara, 1/7/02)
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ACCUSED 9/11 TERRORIST ALLEGED TO BE "MENTALLY-ILL"!
On September 12th, a day after our city was sadistically attacked by political extremists, I sent an e-mail message to Mary Zdanowicz, the Executive Director of the Treatment Advocacy Center who espouses the myth that violence can be directly linked to mental illness, asking her why "normal" people do such things? So it came as no surprise to me when I read in the New York Daily News that the only suspect linked to the attack who has been captured, Zacarias Moussaoui, is now alleged by his lawyer to be "mentally-ill" (7/25/02). According to the July 26th issue of Newsday, "mental health experts" were concerned about his competency. Lawyer Frank Dunham was quoted as saying: "It fits right in line with their fear that he's suffering from delusions." This ties in perfectly with the mythology of the Treatment Advocacy Center and it provides the perfect venue for eluding justice. Furthermore, it would not surprise me if Ms. Zdanowicz were to appear in court as an expert witness for the defense. Surely someone who promotes such medieval views about mental illness would compliment the contention of the defense that Moussaoui is "mentally-ill". The possibilty that Moussaoui is a political extremist and/or a religious fanatic is something that does not corroborate the views of these "mental health experts". So once again as they frantically scramble to vindicate their no-fault diagnoses, it was a foregone conclusion that mental health recipients would be lumped in with terrorists, just as we've been lumped in with serial killers and other deviant predators, because the possibility that "normal" people might engage in acts of violence is beyond the realm of reasonable assumption. Has it ever occurred to these so-called experts that maybe such sociopaths suffer not from a "mental illness", but from a lack of moral conscience? Unfortunately, this would probably be a difficult pill for these "experts" to swallow (no pun intended) because of their refusal to acknowledge right and wrong. As world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, co-founder of the World Federation for Mental Health and later head of the World Health Organization of the United Nations boldly stated back in 1945: "...the pretense is made that to do away with right and wrong would produce uncivilized people, immorality, lawlessness, and social chaos. The fact is that most psychiatrists and psychologists and other respected people have escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely." (Psychiatry: Journal of Biology and Pathology of Interpersonal Relations 9, no. 1, February 1946). David @ mentalhealthstigma.com
***************************************************** "Psychiatry is a potent instrument. The danger is that it is sometimes applied to explain brutal and sadistic acts in a way that actually amounts to condoing them. We are apt to use psychiatry the way a drunk uses a lamppost: not for the light but to lean against." (Fredric Wertham, M.D., A Sign for Cain: An Exploration of Human Violence) ***************************************************** PHARMACEUTICALS DISTORTING THE RESULTS OF RESEARCH Thirteen of the world's leading medical journals have mounted an outspoken attack on the rich and powerful drug companies, accusing them of distorting the results of scientific research for the sake of profits. The "Lancet", the "New England Journal of Medicine", the "Journal of the American Medical Association" and other major journals accuse the drug giants of using their money (or the threat of its removal) to tie up academic researchers with legal contracts so that they are unable to report freely and fairly on the results of drug trials. The editors say that a study produced for publication may be skewed in the interests of the pharmaceutical company which hopes to make big profits from any new drug. Academic scientists have little choice but to accept the restrictions imposed on them, the editors say, because they know that the funding they need for research would otherwise go to the increasing number of private contract research organizations. Those organizations last year in the United States received 60% of the research grants handed out by pharmaceutical companies. ("The Guardian", London, September 10th, 2001).
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PRIVATE INTEREST GROUPS BRING US ONE STEP CLOSER TO A "BRAVE NEW WORLD!"
In a stunning move guaranteed to usher in the era of the "Brave New World" prophesied by Aldous Huxley, New Mexico has become the first state to authorize psychologists to prescribe psycho-tropic medications (Senate Bill 281). Ironically, because of the recent revelations that many people with physical illnesses are being misdiagnosed as "mentally-ill," this move by the state of New Mexico will insure that such cases remain undetected and continue to multiply. Allowing a psychologist, who has no medical training whatsoever to prescribe addictive and potentially dangerous medications, is the practical equivalent of allowing a podiatrist to perform heart surgery. Frighteningly, this one swooping decision will almost surely have a domino-effect and set a precedent that is likely to be followed by the rest of the nation. It is undoubtedly a major victory for the pharmaceutical giants. If Aldous Huxley were still alive he would be amazed at how prophetic his predictions about a "Brave New World" actually were (3/6/02). David @ mentalhealthstigma.com
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"In the Brave New World the soma [drug] habit was not a private vice, it was a political institution... The systematic drugging of individuals for the benefit of the state was a main plank in the policy of the World Controllers. The daily soma ration was an insurance against personal maladjustment, social unrest and the spread of subversive ideas. Religion, Karl Marx declared, is the opium of the people. In the Brave New World this situation was reversed. Opium, or rather soma, was the people's religion!" (Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World Revisited", Chapter VIII, Chemical Persuasion).
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Why does the Media consistently perpetuate stigma, Yet Not One Member of the Media Felt That the Following September 11th story was Worthy of Mention?
On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, immediately following the attack on the World Trade Center Towers, while most of the offices around them were shutting down and fleeing the city, the Director of Community Access's Employment and Training Center (a mental health community service agency which is located four blocks away from "ground zero") refused to evacuate and close the center's doors, and instead, the training center became a sanctuary of refuge for hundreds of stunned survivors who were frightened, confused and disoriented. Within minutes, those very people whom the media typically portrays as violent and deranged were on the front lines offering support and providing comfort in this time of dire need. Even the NYPD and Fire Department personnel were directing debris-laden victims to the center. The cruel irony behind this story is that with all of the heroes who were being recognized and honored on a daily basis following this disaster, not one member of the media felt that this was a story worthy of mention. Why has no national media conglomerate come forward to report this story? Is it because then there would be no one left to conveniently scapegoat? Or is it because then the American taxpayers might get wind of the fact that their hard-earned tax dollars are being squandered on forced treatment and incarceration, which only re-traumatizes "the mentally-ill", thereby justifying the need for more of their hard-earned tax dollars for further treatment? (January 1, 2002)
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Additional Links: Battle for the Soul - The Hidden Side - We Are Hostages - Forced Drugging - Blaming the Brain
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