The Man Versus the Therapeutic State

Read a fine remembrance of Dr. Thomas Szasz, by Senior Editor Jacob Sullum in Reason magazine: “He relentlessly attacked the ‘therapeutic state,’ the unhealthy alliance of medicine and government that blesses all sorts of unjustified limits on liberty. … I will always be grateful for Szasz’s courage and insight, and so should anyone who shares his passion against coercion.”

Dr. Szasz, co-founder of CCHR, passed away in September at the age of 92.

There are others who recognize the dangers, the fraud and abuse, within the psychiatric industry.

Robert Whitaker, in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic, had some interesting things to say. Psychiatrists have known since the beginning of psychopharmacology that their drugs do not cure any disease. In 1955, psychiatrist E. H. Parsons, speaking about chlorpromazine (Thorazine) said, “We have to remember that we are not treating diseases with this drug. We are using a neuropharmacologic agent to produce a specific effect.” And in 1955, Bernard Brodie, an investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health, “planted the intellectual seed that grew into the theory that depression was due to a chemical imbalance in the brain.” In experiments with rabbits he noticed that an herbal drug used in India to quiet psychotic patients lowered brain levels of serotonin and also made them lethargic and apathetic. We’re not saying that psychiatric drugs turn humans into rabbits, but “lethargic and apathetic” may be inferred.

Psychiatry has had to use coercion to survive as an industry because their treatments simply do not cure anything.

In a July 2000 interview with Dr. Szasz, Mr. Sullum said, “I once asked a psychiatrist I knew if he was familiar with Szasz’s work. ‘Oh, he’s crazy!’ he exclaimed, inadvertently illustrating Szasz’s point that such labels are often used to stigmatize people who offend or disturb us.”

Szasz said during the interview, “There are two things that I would have done very differently, and they really have to do with my passion against coercion, especially unnecessary coercion and especially coercion outside of a due-process legal system. The first thing I would have done is to stop all further involuntary psychiatric interventions. This is unthinkable stuff, because this means stopping the fundamental social function of psychiatry, which is partly to relieve society, families, physicians of unwanted people and partly to “prevent suicide.” “Dangerousness to self”: This to me is the keystone in the Roman arch. Until it is knocked out, it’s impossible to destroy the edifice. People should not be protected from themselves by involuntary psychiatric interventions. Psychiatrists should play no more of a role in this than priests do.” Read the full interview to find out the second thing Szasz would have done.

Have you or someone you know experienced the Therapeutic State? Fight back! Show the CCHR documentary DVDs to everyone you know.

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TeenScreen Dies

TeenScreen is dead, according to their website TeenScreen.org

[Thanks to PsychSearch.net for this information.]

Their announcement: “We are sorry to inform you that the TeenScreen National Center will be winding down its program at the end of this year. Accordingly, we will no longer train or register new programs.”

TeenScreen was a very controversial national so-called “diagnostic psychiatric service”, aka “suicide survey,” done on children who were then referred for psychiatric treatment. The evidence suggests that the objective of the psychiatrists who designed TeenScreen was to place children so selected on psychotropic drugs.

You may recall that in October, 2004 the TeenScreen survey was conducted on all ninth grade students at Pattonville High School in St. Louis County. They used a passive consent form, meaning that parents had to sign and return a form saying they did not want their children to be screened, or their children would get the “emotional health” screening automatically.

Although the instructions said that taking the screening was voluntary, a child was marked “Positive: Requires clinical interview” if they refused to answer any question or felt uncomfortable taking the survey. A large part of the 14-question survey asked questions such as, “During the past 3 months, have you thought of killing yourself?”

TeenScreen was developed in 1991 at Columbia University. At the time the survey was conducted at Pattonville in 2004, over 40,000 children in 41 states had been screened.

Click here for more information about mental health screening and its history.

If you would like to see more psychiatric institutions bite the dust, let us know and we’ll tell you how you can help!

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Boycott the DSM

DSM = Diagnosis as a Source of Money

[Otherwise known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM is the engine used by the psychiatric industry to drive a $330 billion psychiatric industry, and is an elaborate pseudoscientific sham.]

  • Quoting from the “Boycott the DSM” petition on Change.org; sign this petition to pledge not to purchase any edition of the DSM:
“It is increasingly clear that the editors of the major psychiatric manual, which reaps huge profits for the American Psychiatric Association that publishes it, are ignoring the massive evidence of harm done by the labels of previous editions of the manual and of likely harm from what they plan to put in the edition they are now preparing.”
  • Quoting from the “Everyone who cares about the harm done by psychiatric diagnosis” petition on Change.org; sign this petition to endorse the call for Congressional hearings about psychiatric diagnosis:
“Few laypeople or even therapists realize that psychiatric diagnosis is not a scientific endeavor, although some of the most powerful people and organizations in the mental health field assert that it is. As a result, millions of people who seek help because they are suffering have no idea that they are not being diagnosed in scientific ways and thus that their treatment largely lacks a scientific basis; nor do they know that in important ways their treatment may be experimental because they are given labels that may not stand for anything that has been proven to exist.”
  • You might be interested in this recent Psychology Today article, “Science Isn’t Golden — Will the APA Listen to the Voices of Those Harmed? Complaints about psychiatric diagnosis and the APA’s response so far”, Published on October 1, 2012 by Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D.
  • Watch the CCHR documentary DVD, “DSM – Psychiatry’s Deadliest Scam” described below. The fifth edition of the DSM is scheduled for release in May 2013, including symptoms of “mental disorders” such as excessive time and energy devoted to health concerns, decreased need for sleep, more talkative than usual, increase in goal-directed activity, restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge, avoidance of activities with possible negative outcomes, procrastination due to worries, and distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings. Send your comments and concerns about psychiatry’s deadliest scam to apa@psych.org.
  • Finally, this quote from Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University and chairman of the DSM-IV task force: “It is fair to say that DSM 5 has become an object of general public and professional scorn.”

In a nutshell, there is a lack of science and results within the mental health industry. Despite its lack of scientific validity, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is used heavily as a diagnostic tool, not only for individual treatment but also for child custody battles, court testimony, education, and more. While medicine’s scientific procedures are verifiable, psychiatry’s lack of any systematic approach to mental health and its continued lack of measurable results has contributed greatly to its declining reputation. Show the CCHR documentary DVDs to everyone you know.

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The Age of Fear: Psychiatry’s Reign of Terror

A new documentary just released by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), The Age of Fear: Psychiatry’s Reign of Terror, reveals shocking new facts surrounding the hidden psychiatric influence behind the horrors Hitler and his henchmen unleashed on those they deemed “unworthy of life” during the Third Reich in Nazi Germany.

The documentary is a lesson from history: the untold story of the mass murder programs before the Holocaust, and the psychiatrists who conceived, organized and ran them — down to passing judgment on who would live and who would die. Some 300,000 mentally and physically disabled people were murdered, another 6,000 died from enforced sterilization operations. And most alarmingly, these psychiatric atrocities did not stop with the end of World War II.

In fact, many of psychiatry’s same oppressive actions of the Nazi era—kidnapping, involuntary incarceration, enforced treatment and the forcible taking of children—are still occurring today and are frighteningly rampant, CCHR says, in every civilized country, including the United States.

The film includes disturbing footage of the president of the German Association of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN), Dr. Frank Schneider, recently confessing to his colleagues that “under National Socialism [Nazism], psychiatrists showed contempt for their fellow man. They lied to and deceived the patients in their care and their families. They forced them to be sterilized, arranged their deaths and even performed killings themselves. They were also murdering physically and mentally disabled children in over 30 psychiatric and pediatric hospitals as part of what is usually called ‘child euthanasia.'”

Meticulously researched and replete with a wealth of archival footage, The Age of Fear provides a comprehensive timeline on just how this shameful era in history came about—and how those psychiatrists most culpable were able to escape justice after the war, blend back into postwar Germany, and turn their racist ideology into the very cornerstone of what has become modern psychiatry today.

The Age of Fear is destined to outrage and appall, but above all, warn viewers that in psychiatry, history always repeats itself. (Watch an excerpt from The Age of Fear: Psychiatry’s Reign of Terror.)

For 44 years, CCHR has independently investigated and exposed psychiatric violations of human rights. It was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and the late Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz and has helped spearhead more than 150 reforms in the mental health field.

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Two Soldiers Prescribed 54 Drugs: Military Mental Health “Treatment” Becomes Frankenpharmacy

CCHR International announces the second in a four-part series by journalist Kelly Patricia O’Meara exploring the epidemic of suicides in the military and the correlation to dramatic increases in psychiatric drug prescriptions to treat the emotional scars of battle.

This second installment covers psycho-pharma’s disastrous chemical experimentation within the military ending in sudden unexplained deaths, including those of Marine corporal Andrew White and Senior Airman Anthony Mena who were prescribed a total of 54 drugs between them. In this article, O’Meara writes:

“The devastating adverse effects mind-altering psychiatric drugs may be having on the nation’s military troops are best summed up by Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, writing ‘nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.’

“Just as the fictional character, Dr. Frankenstein, turned to experiments in the laboratory to create life with fantastically horrific results, the psychiatric community, along with its pharmaceutical sidekicks, has turned to modern day chemical concoctions to alter the human mind. The result is what many believe is a growing number of equally hideous results culminating in senseless deaths, tormented lives and grief-stricken families.”

“If these soldiers are dying from these drugs and the military is refusing to cut back on the drugs, this is scandalous.”
— Fred Baughman, Jr., Neurologist

Click here to read the rest of the article, and thank you for your continued support of CCHR St. Louis!

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Psychiatric Clinic Sued for Negligence

You may recall that in October 2009, Alyssa Bustamante, then 15 years old, strangled and stabbed to death 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten in St. Martins, Missouri.

In February 2012, Bustamante was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder.

Bustamante was a client at Pathways Community Behavioral Healthcare and taking Prozac when she committed the crime. She had previously been hospitalized in 2007 at the Mid-Missouri Mental Health Center in Columbia for attempted suicide.

Olten’s mother, Patricia Preiss, is now suing the clinic for negligent failure to warn Preiss and her family about Bustamante’s violent tendencies. Similar claims are being made against Dr. Niger Sultana, a Pathways psychiatrist, and Ron Wilson, a Pathways counselor.

This lawsuit was filed the same day Preiss won a court judgment against Bustamante’s legal guardian grandparents for wrongful death.

The issue of Prozac causing violent behavior was raised at the sentencing hearing. As is common in such cases, the psychiatrist for the defense argued that Prozac can cause violence; and the psychiatrist for the prosecution argued that Prozac cannot cause violence. Psychiatric “expert” witnesses are widely criticized for providing testimony to suit their clients’ purposes.

Psychiatry’s increasing influence in criminal justice has produced only escalating crime rates internationally. Although incapable of either predicting future dangerousness or of rehabilitating criminals, psychiatrists still testify, in court on behalf of the highest bidder, asserting that offenders are not responsible for what they have done, but are instead “victims” of fictitious mental disorders. The result is rising crime, as lawbreakers are put back on the streets to wreak more havoc, unrepentant and uncorrected.

Yet during trials, in sentencing, in probation hearings, psychiatrists are still called upon for their opinions. And, sadly, these opinions are considered.

In further abuse, psychotropic drugs are then given to incarcerated youths and adults. Instead of rehabilitating the inmate so that he can become a productive member of society, these drugs make it even more difficult for him to escape the dwindling spiral of criminality and can induce continued violent behavior in prison. It is time to hold the psychiatrists and psychologists in our judicial and penal systems responsible.

Psychiatry has had the opportunity to prove itself but has instead proven to be a colossal failure. The cost to society has been catastrophic, not only in terms of money.

Psychiatry was posed as a solution and became a problem. The first step is to remove psychiatric influence from the courts, police departments, prisons and schools. Contact your local, state and federal officials and tell them what you think. Ask them to remove psychiatrists and psychologists as advisors or as counselors from courts, police forces, prisons and criminal rehabilitation and parole services.

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Stop the Stigma: Buy More Psych Drugs?

Little known but Extremely Relevant Fact: The Campaign to “Stop the Stigma” of “Mental Illness” was launched by the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Lately we have been reading a deluge of news articles from all around the country about various campaigns to “stop the stigma of mental illness.” We wondered what all the fuss was about.

With a seemingly altruistic agenda, the fact is the campaign to end the “stigma” of mental illness is one driven and funded by those who benefit from more and more people being labeled mentally ill — pharma, psychiatry and pharmaceutical front groups such as NAMI and CHADD.

For example, take NAMI’s campaign to stop the “stigma” and “end discrimination” against the mentally ill — the “Founding Sponsors” were Abbott Labs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Pfizer, Novartis, SmithKline Beecham and Wyeth-Ayerst Labs. So next time you see an ad promoting “stop the stigma” see it for what it is, a pharmaceutical marketing campaign.

The majority of the public may or may not be familiar with these so-called mental health advocacy organizations, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), or the myriad of bipolar, depression or ADHD “support groups” that are inundating the internet.

But they need to be.

ARE THESE SO-CALLED MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY GROUPS FOR PATIENT’S RIGHTS OR PHARMA’S RIGHTS? YOU DECIDE!

These are groups operating under the guise of advocates for the “mentally ill,” which in reality are heavily funded pharmaceutical front groups — lobbying and working on state and federal laws which effect the entire nation — from our elderly in nursing homes to our military, pregnant women, nursing mothers and school children.

Presenting themselves as patient advocacy groups is highly disingenuous not only to their membership, many of which may have a sincere desire to help a loved one or a family member with mental problems, but to legislators, the press and the American public — for they have consistently lobbied for legislation that benefits the mental health and pharmaceutical industries which fund them, and not patients they claim to represent.

Certainly any organization claiming to be for the rights of patients diagnosed mentally ill would have as their primary goal, full informed consent in the field of mental health — including full and complete disclosure of all drug risks, the right to refuse treatment, the right to know that psychiatric diagnoses are not medical conditions (evident by the fact there is not one confirmatory medical or scientific test). Above all such groups would provide patients with an abundance of information on non-harmful, non- drug, medical solutions and options considering the dangerous and well documented risks of psychiatric drugs by international drug regulatory agencies.

These groups do not.

To put it simply, these groups are not what they appear to be. Yet their influence over legislation, lobbying, drug regulation (or lack thereof), and public relations campaigns is substantial and effects the entire nation. For they claim to be the voice of the “mentally ill.” But are they? Or are they the result of a brilliant marketing/lobbying campaign designed to benefit the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry that funds them?

Go here to read how all this started!

There are groups that are not funded by pharmaceutical companies, that truly do have the best interests of the consumer/patient and parent as their goal. You can find out more about such organizations here.

Do Something About It

Show a CCHR documentary DVD to all your family, friends, neighbors, and associates.

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Psychiatric Drugs and War: A Suicide Mission

CCHR International is pleased to announce the first article in a four-part series by award-winning investigative journalist Kelly Patricia O’Meara, “Psychiatric Drugs and War: A Suicide Mission,” exploring the epidemic of suicides in the military and the correlation to dramatic increases in psychiatric drug prescriptions to treat the emotional scars of battle.

In this first article, O’Meara examines the statistics relating to psychiatric drug use and military suicides, including:

• The 150% increase in military suicides from 2001 to 2009 and the 76 percent increase in psychiatric drug prescriptions over the same time period.

• The Department of Defense admission that nearly one-third of suicides in the military occurred among those who had never seen combat duty.

• The mass prescribing of Seroquel to troops, a powerful antipsychotic drug approved by the FDA for “schizophrenia” and “bipolar disorder,” and how in just the last year, the military wrote more than fifty-four thousand Seroquel prescriptions off-label — for “disorders” not even approved by the FDA.

• The FDA’s Medication Guide for Seroquel which lists “Risk of Suicidal Thoughts or Actions,” as one of Seroquel’s “serious side effects.”

Click HERE to read the article now.

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More About Drugs

Why do we sometimes say “psychiatric drug” and other times we say “psychotropic drug?”

Generally, the terms are used interchangeably, but let’s examine the differences and similarities.

warning FDA

Drug: 1) A substance (other than food) that, when taken into the body, produces a change. 2) Essentially a poison; the amount taken determines the effect. A small amount is a stimulant (speeds you up.) A greater amount acts as a sedative (slows you down.) An even larger amount poisons and can kill. This is true of any drug. [Old French drogue; perhaps from Dutch drog, meaning dry — possibly referring to dried herbs]

Psychiatric: Having to do with the supposed study and treatment of “mental disorders.” [Greek psyche, soul, mind + iatreia, cure]

Psychotropic: Having an effect on psychic function, behavior, or experience; mood-altering. [Greek psyche, soul, mind + trope, a turning]

We specifically say “drug” rather than “medication” or “medicine” in order to emphasize that these substances are not legitimate medical treatments.

We might say “psychiatric drug” in order to emphasize that these are promoted by the psychiatric mental health industry.

We might say “psychotropic drug” in order to emphasize that these have powerful effects on the mind, including side effects such as violence and suicide.

Much of what you hear about drugs actually comes from those selling them. Don’t be fooled; find out about it yourself.

Psychotropic drugs are increasingly being exposed as chemical toxins with the power to kill. Psychiatrists claim their drugs save lives, but according to their own studies, psychotropic drugs can double the risk of suicide. And long-term use has been proven to create a lifetime of damage, a fact ignored by psychiatrists. Psychotropic drugs now kill an estimated 42,000 people every year.

People take drugs because they want to change something about their lives. They think drugs are a solution. But eventually, the drugs become the problem.

worse not better

Drugs block off all sensations, the desirable ones with the unwanted. So, while providing short-term help in the relief of pain, they also wipe out ability and alertness and muddy one’s thinking. Drugs blur memory, causing blank spots. Drugs make a person feel slow or stupid and cause him to have failures in life. And as he has more failures and life gets harder, he wants more drugs to help him deal with the problem. When the drug wears off, the crash is even lower than before. Each time, the emotional plunge is lower and lower.

drughead

Abuse of prescription drugs like psychotropic drugs has become a more serious problem than most street drugs. They may appear “safe” due to being prescribed by doctors, but they can be just as addictive and potent as the heroin or cocaine sold on the street, with painful withdrawal symptoms for those who try to quit.

Depressants such as the psychiatric drugs Xanax, Valium, Halcion, Librium, Ativan, and Klonopin, can cause impairment of memory, judgment and coordination, irritability, paranoia, and suicidal thoughts. Some people experience the opposite of the intended effects, such as agitation or aggression. Tolerance to many depressants can develop rapidly, with larger doses needed to achieve the same effect. This can lead to death by overdose.

Stimulants such as the psychiatric drugs Ritalin and Concerta temporarily increase energy, but lead to exhaustion, apathy and depression — the “down” that follows the “up.” This quickly leads the user to want the drug again. Repeated high doses of some stimulants over a short period can lead to feelings of hostility or paranoia.

Antidepressants such as the psychiatric drugs Prozac, Paxil, Celexa, Zoloft, and Effexor have equally disastrous side effects. One study found that 14% of the young people taking an antidepressant became aggressive and even violent.

Depressants, opioids and antidepressants are responsible for more overdose deaths than cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and amphetamines combined.

Mood stabilizers such as the psychotropic drugs Lithium and Depakote are highly toxic drugs used to treat what psychiatrists call “manic depression,” now referred to as “bipolar disorder.” Many experts agree that because there are no lab tests to confirm the presence or absence of any psychiatric disorder, psychiatric diagnoses such as bipolar are speculative and unscientific. In fact, drugs used to treat bipolar can actually cause the very same symptoms that psychiatrists claim it handles.

experimental drugs

Do not think that these drugs, whether we call them psychiatric drugs or psychotropic drugs, heal anything. They are intended to cover up or “mask” your problems. Meanwhile, they tend to wear out your body.

What about those who say psychotropic drugs really do make them feel better? “What ends up happening,” says Dr. Beth McDougall, a health center medical director, “is that someone feels good for a while and then very often they have to have their dose increased. And then they feel good for a while and then they might have to have it increased again, or maybe they’ll switch agents. So it’s that kind of a story, if you’re not actually getting to the root of what’s going on.”

There is no question that people do experience problems and upsets in life that may result in mental troubles, sometimes very serious. But to say that these are “medical diseases” or caused by a “chemical imbalance” that can only be treated with dangerous drugs is dishonest, harmful and often deadly. What psychiatric drugs do instead is mask the real cause of problems, often denying you the opportunity to search for workable, effective solutions.

According to the California Department of Mental Health Medical Evaluation Field Manual: “Mental health professionals working within a mental health system have a professional and a legal obligation to recognize the presence of physical disease in their patients…physical diseases may cause a patient’s mental disorder [or] may worsen a mental disorder…”

Patients and physicians must urge their government representatives to endorse and fund non-drug workable alternatives to dangerous psychiatric drugs.

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In Memoriam: Dr. Thomas Szasz

Professor Thomas Szasz, iconic champion for liberty, pioneer in the fight against coercive psychiatry and co-founder of Citizens Commission on Human Rights, has passed away at the age of 92.

Considered by many scholars and academics to be psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, Dr. Szasz authored hundreds of articles and more than 35 books on the subject, the first being The Myth of Mental Illness, a book which rocked the very foundations of psychiatry when published more than 50 years ago. Szasz was Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York, Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Fellow of the International Academy of Forensic Psychology, whose life long list of educational accomplishments, credentials, honors, biographical listings and awards speak for themselves.

Szasz had long criticized the use of psychiatry as a means of social and political control stating, “Although we may not know it, we have, in our day, witnessed the birth of the Therapeutic State. This is perhaps the major implication of psychiatry as an institution of social control. When I use the term therapeutic state, I use it ironically, it’s therapeutic for the people who are doing the locking up, who are doing the therapy, it’s not therapeutic for the victims, for the patients.”

Dr. Szasz’s alliance with CCHR was formed out of this fundamental philosophy. He didn’t just write and speak about the use of coercive psychiatry, he personally represented the victims of it. In 1969 as a forming member of CCHR, he spoke on behalf of a Hungarian refugee, Victor Gyory, who had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution, stripped naked, held in isolation against his will, and forced to undergo electroshock. Szasz established that it was solely due to Gyory’s inability to speak English that had resulted in psychiatrists labeling him schizophrenic. Szasz’s testimony led to the hospital director discharging Gyory, a precedent-setting victory against involuntary commitment and coercive psychiatry.

Read the full article by clicking here.

“I am probably the only psychiatrist in the world whose hands are clean,” Szasz told the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper in a 1992 interview. “I have never committed anyone. I have never given electric shock. I have never, ever, given drugs to a mental patient.”

Support CCHR

By becoming an official member of CCHR St. Louis, you help us strengthen the ranks of our membership base, which in turn helps us garner more support from legislators and opinion leaders. Click here for membership information.

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