Talk:Psychiatry/Archive 1

message: Seen where? I have worked in psychiatry (in Finland) almost a decade an have not encountered this kind of movement.
jps 21:24, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)jps
:See Anti-psychiatry.  It would be great if you could add more to this article (Psychiatry not Anti... because as it stands the Anti has the longer article.  I feel this one is rather short at the moment.  --bodnotbod 00:38, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
::Somehow "politicized" movement opposes vague "practices" of psychiatry. It's vague POV. “Some”, overrepresented in the article, state that “selective financing by large multinational drug companies” and UFO riding space aliens (possibly the implied comparison in the article) “of high ranking professional psychiatrists, research and educational material has led psychiatry to be subversively, and in some cases inhumanely”, and supposedly, “misled”.
::Look, anti-psychiatry is not politicized in the sense that it has a hidden political agenda. It is itself the politics. The article exaggerates a focus on (probably true) paranoid conspiracy theories. This, on the other hand, might be POV, but is at least neutral enough to be true to subject as much as any POV can be:
::"Modern antipsychiatric views point to the:
::1) inherent vague, untestable and thus pseudoscientific nature of psychiatry and psychology, including the definitions of key mental illnesses.
::2) severity of involuntary commitment, especially considering the minor illnesses for which society is eager to involuntarily commit its members.
::3) explicit inclusion in the diagnostic criteria, for involuntarily committable illnesses, a mere difference from what the psychiatrist subjectively believes is normal or appropriate on some inherently subjective topic like culture, philosophy, religion, or politics. (See Delusion, Psychopath, and Schizophrenia.)
::4) subjectivity of the diagnosis of Schizophrenia.
::5) involuntary commitment of those who have not been charged with any crime, those whom the court has vindicated as not guilty by reason of the insanity defense, and those who allegedly belong in a regular - and allegedly thus more humane – ‘prison’.
::6) unconstitutionality of involuntary commitment.
::7) far higher diagnosis of Schizophrenia for those in the USA and ‘second generation African Caribbeans living in the United Kingdom’ despite the commonly equivalent rate of Schizophrenia in a variety of cultures.
::8) disproportionate prescription of high doses of "anti-psychotic" medication to young black males in the United States, and the disproportionate involuntary commitment of blacks.
::In response, many diagnosed with a mental illness or illnesses, and their family members and close friends claim that antipsychiatric views are somehow contrary to their own experience with mental illness. They believe that mental illness produces real and terrible suffering which psychiatry and social treatment programs have been effective in relieving.
::Their experience does not adress what modern antipsychiatric views point to, however." FET 10:52, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, rather, "Their experience is an acceptable argument, just not a counter argument." And please keep the link to Anti-psychiatry. FET 10:03, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-Psychiatry

message: User:Irmgard removed the bolded text from the following paragraph:
* A few prominent critics of psychology and mental illness in general include Thomas Szasz, the author of "The Myth of Mental Illness", who founded One organization in 1969 together with the Church of Scientology the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), and Peter Breggin, the author of Prozac Backlash, as well as other books criticizing the use of psychiatric drugs.
As Irmgard left no explanation, this information will be restored.--AI 18:44, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-psychiatry 

message: ...which is one of the things about Psyciatry I find particularly notable.  As soon as a medically proven and remediable condition is found for an erstwhile "psychiatric" condition, the condition immediately becomes medical and no longer psychiatric - which leaves psychiatry with only those conditions which cannot be predicted, proved or cured.  Hmmm...
:Add "defined" to that list. For example, see Talk:Antisocial personality disorder, Delusion#Diagnostic_issues, and Schizophrenia#Diagnostic issues and controversies. A book on which the marginalization, imprisonment and mistreatment of so many people is based cannot accidentally have such logical errors.
:-Anonymonster
"...becomes medical and no longer psychiatric...":  So far as I am aware, psychiatric conditions – when treated by psychiatrists – are medical conditions being treated by specialized medical doctors.
"defined":  It seems to me that psychiatric diagnosis is as much an art as a science, but, in experienced hands, I see this as a strength to be built on.
David Kernow 13:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Domain 

message: Let's see, the article on psychiatry has almost no coverage of modern psychiatry from the point of view of or as applied by the mainstream medical community, features a five paragraph long section on "anti-psychiatry" ahead of the three-line long section on "the practice of psychiatry", this isn't unbalanced or pov or anything... -- Ithacagorges, knowing response from Scientologists and "anti-psychiatrists"
:With regard to your proposal to rebalance the psychiatry article, please be careful not to go overboard.  Given the vast wealth, and the immense and dubious influence, of the drug industry over the prevailing paradigm in the field, it is essential to allow a robust examination of 'anti-psychiatry' in the main article.  Scant attention is generally given to the hyperfocused, relatively discriminatory cognitive faculties of the medical establishment's leaders, a matter which may be indicative of their own mental health issues.  There are plenty of reasons to believe that, as a group, practitioners of the art of psychiatry have fallen prey to groupthink, expert worship, and mindbending by the drug industry, especially during psychiatric training and internships; as a result, most Western practitioners tend to resort to a questionable reliance upon chemical interventions, rather than sound medical reasoning.  While there are likely greater disparities in wealth, power, and cultural influences that may contribute to higher rates of mental illness (and greater stresses creating relatively severe cognitive dissonances) in certain Western cultures, data produced by the World Health Organization clearly indicate remission rates are much better in countries that do not routinely rely upon chemical interventions (with all their attendant side effects), than in countries over-run by Machiavellian drug companies plying their trade. Ombudsman 4 July 2005 14:44 (UTC)
::I didn't say I was going to rebalance the article (and if I did, given most editors of this article, it would likely be reverted anyway so I won't waste my time), I was just making a comment.  However, I would suggest as an exercise to examine an article on psychiatry from a traditional encyclopedia like Encyclopædia Britannica and compare that to this article.  While one could possibly argue that major encyclopedias would be "biased" towards "mainstream" psychiatry, I believe the Wikipedia article goes way beyond call in tilting the other direction. -- Ithacagorges 4 July 2005 16:10 (UTC)
Ombudsman, that was a strawman. Psychiatry is not just a field controlled by the drug industry. Your response reveals some biases that have been part of the psychiatry skepticism for decades, but are largely unfounded.
Psychiatrists are professionals and they have a systematic approach to mental illness, which should be covered. DSM IVR distinguishes between axis I and axis II disorders, someting that definitely needs mention. Multidisciplinary working between psychiatrists, occupational therapists, social workers, community support nurses etc certainly needs mention. In contrast, "mind versus brain" is not a day-to-day consideration. I think Ithacagorges is quite right in his criticism, and I think someone (preferably a psychiatrist) should come to tell us more about how psychiatrists work.
Ranting at the drug industry is not helpful. Without drugs, the mentally ill would still be chained to their beds in filthy madhouses. JFW | T@lk 4 July 2005 16:52 (UTC)
*I will also point out that editors of articles related to "alternative psychiatry" or "anti-psychiatry" often delete or drastically reduce criticisms or discussions of mainstream medical or scientific opinion, arguing the article should be primarily descriptive and giving supportive arguments, that the "alternative" perspective needs to be defended and presented, and that criticism should be limited.  By analogous reasoning, what should the emphasis of this article be on? -- Ithacagorges 4 July 2005 17:41 (UTC)
JFW, you wrote "Psychiatry is not just a field controlled by the drug industry."  Where are you from?  Over 50% of the FDA's funding comes directly from pharmaceutical manufacturers.  Outfits such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill are similarly funded by the drug companies.  Drug companies purposely publish misleading propaganda and the public is encouraged to believe it.  Drug trials are corrupted by financial interests.  "Ranting" at the drug industry is indeed helpful.  As a result of such "ranting," some policies have changed, for instance, drug reps are no longer allowed to sit in on doctor/patient appointments -- a small step, but an important one.  Some people do indeed feel that they've been helped by psychiatric drugs and nobody should be allowed to prevent them access to them.  However, for many others, their lives have been destroyed by psychotropic medication and, in many cases, these drugs were administered without patient consent.  The drug companies' involvement in the practice of psychiatry has led to the pathologization (and resulting medication) for psychiatric "disorders" that have very questionable status.  Think about social anxiety disorder or oppositional disorder or ADHD or any other bogus contrivance that psychiatry comes up with.  There are 5,000 infants -- infants -- on powerful and dangerous antipsychotic medication in the USA.  You bet we're going to be watching the drug companies carefully.  Somebody has to. JFW also wrote "Psychiatrists are professionals and they have a systematic approach to mental illness."  Well, psychiatry does call itself a profession and certainly the educational requirements would suggest that.  However, to jump from there to calling psychiatric diagnosis a "systematic approach" just doesn't follow.  The only thing "systematic" about psychiatry is that it absurdly clings to the DSM IV as the bible of all undesirable human behaviours.  There is simply nothing about psychiatric diagnosis that is objective or in the least scientific.  And Ithacagorges, you're the last person in the world who should be complaining about unwarranted editing.  You sneer at what you don't understand.Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 21:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is anyone supposed to respond to this? Or was it just a manifesto? You seem to be mistaking the American situation for that in the whole Western world. Psychiatrists do not "absurdly cling to DSM". Who says so? JFW | T@lk 22:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, ICD-10 and DSM are accepted diagnostic guidelines, but all the psychiatrists I've worked with have strayed from DSM rigidity for the sake of diagnostic conviction. What is the support for your assertion that adherence to DSM is excessive? JFW | T@lk 01:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. We should be avoid weasel terms, especially if there is no WP:CITE. JFW | T@lk 00:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to do some of this during my last edit. We need citations though. Semiconscious • talk 00:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Balance and Point of View 

message: After all the bickering above I finally wrote a small outline of the work of psychiatrists. Having worked for 6 weeks in an acute secure unit I cannot claim any familiarity with psychiatry, but I do know a little bit which I have reflected over here. I have attempted to leave out controversy: this is how psychiatry is overwhelmingly practiced in the Western world.
Hopefully this balances out the long section on "anti-psychiatry", which is really fringe compared to mainstream psychiatry. Psychiatrists tend to be modernisers in medical care, and (in many areas in the world) have introduced changes long before colleages in other fields did the same.
Please expand at will. JFW | T@lk 23:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just remove whatever you see fit, and state clearly that there is a seperate article on anti-psychiatry. JFW | T@lk 06:55, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

text: DJ, there are two solutions: making the Scientology section shorter or making the "substantial" section longer. As a resident you are eminently qualified to talk about the field, practice models, care schemes and everything else. I've been very cautious in my wording to avoid chaos when I wrote that section. I wasn't aware that there was mental illness in Canada :-) JFW | T@lk 17:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I will add a short section discussing the different treatment modalites in psychiatry (medication, psychotherapy, other) and I will also trim the anti-psychiatry section... those long quotes seem somewhat unneccesary but I'll have to read them carefully to ensure that the message is not lost as a result P.S. HOw did you know I was from Canada? djheart 04:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Something substantial

message: The whole section "psychiatric crime" should be removed. Does anyone object? It sounds like LRH-inspired malicious fiction. JFW | T@lk 16:39, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: K, I've looked at it enough to really annoy me now, I'm deleting it. TastyCakes 20:03, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You were right to do so.  It was libelous nonsense, most likely coming from or inspired by the scientologists. As for the article on psychitric crime (and anti-psychiatry for tht matter)... well, I won't go there.--Ithacagorges 21:07, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Here's the link for the above: "Tom Cruise is dangerous and irresponsible". J Clin Invest 2005 115: 1964-1965. JFW | T@lk 16:24, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool.  I added the link on Tom Cruise's article.  TastyCakes 02:23, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

text: It was not. It was about some fairly thin assertions that psychiatrists are more likely to be convicted felons. JFW | T@lk 22:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychiatric Crime

message: I want to explain why I removed the AIDS refence.  If nobody has a problem with it, this subject may be removed.
I removed the reference to AIDS possibly being discovered while treating a patient.  Hormonal diagnoses as discovered due to looking into psychological issues makes sense; finding AIDS due to such issues doesn't.  The only way I'm aware of AIDS affecting a person psychologically is because a person knows they have it.
-- nklatt
:I don't understand your concern. If a patient has a history of many unsafe contacts, intravenous drug use, a suspicion of AIDS-related dementia or simply unfounded anxiety about carrying AIDS, it would be professionally negligent of the psychiatrist not to offer an AIDS test. I do agree the example is more far-fetched than thyroid disorders and diabetes, but I'm sure if I agree with the arguments for your removal. JFW | T@lk 19:51, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  AIDS 

message: What's up with teh HUMANGEOUS nurse practioner section, wow is that overblown, there's around 10 lines of their different titles... I'm going to have to to a mega-edit
djheart 03:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted again, as the field of psychiatry remains a medical field, with APNs taking over some medical roles in some countries. This is no reason to fill the article with equalized language to reflect that APNs are actually doctors (quod non). JFW | T@lk 03:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychiatry nurse practioner 

message: Since there is so much attention paid to anti-psychiatry within this article, I thought I'd propose an anti-neurology section.
Possible topics for exploration could include the influence of large corporations like General Electric on the use of questionable data from MRI scans produced by multi-million dollar devices that are forced on clinics and research centers by political lobbyists.
Attention could also be drawn to the health risks of intense magnetic fields as these instruments are used more an more in "diagnosis" of mental illness.
Another issue for exploration is ethics of using those with brain injuries to draw conclusions about locations of functional behavior in the brain.
:I've never heard of an anti-neurology movement.  It personally doesn't concern me because neurologists don't inflict their services on unwilling patients. Psychiatry is the only branch of medicine that authorizes practitioners to treat people against their will and that's ironic considering it's the least medical field of all of medicine.  Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 22:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good grief!  Psychiatry is as relevant to somatic medicine as astrology is.  The "majority of conditions"???  How about you show me ONE psychiatric disorder that can be diagnosed via scan or blood test?  And, in somatic medicine, I don't believe you'll find provision for incarceration and forced drugging.  Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 17:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many diseases and syndroms can be easily identified by scans: Korsakoff's syndrome, Epilepsy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Minamata disease, etc. can all be diagnosed through scanning (EEG, MRI) or testing for chemical agents in the body. It's undeniable that the introduction of certain detectabel chemicals can induce psychotic symptoms into people: psylocibin, phencyclidine, dextromethorphan, etc. Semiconscious • talk 08:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  anyone interested in an anti-neurology page?