Suggesting that the goal of criticizing capitalism is to eliminate all profit is a lot like saying that the goal of criticizing psychiatry is to eliminate all medications, neither of which are true.

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The ten most popular articles of 2023 look like research ones which probably means MH professionals are getting free access to information they could easily pay for compared to people on disability because of the harm caused by the MH system.

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It’s interesting that “capitalism” was brought up as a possible “problem.”

I know a lot of people like to blame human greed, selfishness and evil intentions on “capitalism.” However, there are many health care systems (such as most of Kaiser) that are non-profits, and society could push all health care out of the for-profit model if it wanted to. But I think “capitalism” is an easy scapegoat for the petty foibles of human beings. On the Right, people with perfectly good intentions blame Socialism or Communism for essentially the same problems that Capitalism is blamed for by the Left.

The fact is, that human activity MUST involve profit. If it did not, we could not care for our children, our sick and our old people. Though capitalism normally includes professional “capitalists” who earn all their money by investing relatively large sums that they control into various profit-making ventures, that is not a totally necessary part of capitalism. Many working people who have savings, investments, or IRAs are also being “capitalists.”

I think the much more important measure is how much agency a society leaves in the hands of the individual and smaller communities of people, and whether society incentivizes a local approach to social problem-solving as opposed to a centralized approach.

Beyond that, there is an awakening appreciation for a wider spectrum of healers both in the field of body health and in the field of mental health. These people should be allowed into the system to compete for patients on a more equal basis with medical doctors. This means breaking the choke hold that MDs have on the health care system in America. This is a significant challenge; those guys wield a lot of power, and they are considered, today, the highest-paid profession. I consider the stranglehold of organized Medicine on human life in the West to be one of our major political or social problems.

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During my experience in the psychiatric industry with a “severe” diagnosis (BD-SMI) accompanied by “incapacitating” drug prescribing….”usually” was a common-as-dirt ‘tell’ for a dangerous Bu11shiffer with a prescription pad…..
as in….”‘Usually’ this drug for your “severe and incapacitating mental illness” doesn’t create the problems you’re reporting”…as I point to the “usual, severe and incapacitating” side effects listed on “much” of the prescription hand-out…and the side of “much” of the packaging.

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…to feed their BIG FAT EGOS!!!

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I appreciate your comment Steve, but yeah, people are nasty and will do anything to discredit or intimidate whistleblowers outside of the legal arena.

I mean, there are even self-avowed anarchists who proclaim that those of us who are critical of psychiatry are anti-science extremists, and they won’t be convinced otherwise, perhaps because they are afraid we want to take away their meds.

I’m not a journalist, I am an artist. I lost all my friends and family and support network after psychiatry put me in the poor house. So the last thing I need is to fear speaking the truth and being put in an even worse situation.

So…I need more advice and perhaps a pep-talk if I’m going to go through with this and take one for “the team.” Thanks.

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I LOVE your comment, especially the following:

“…the alternative voices seem to be corrupted by political motivations including the packaged post modern framework of oppressor/oppressed intersectional philosophies which are grounded in ‘narratives’ not open to honest and rigorous scientific scrutiny.”

And this: “What if, we simply refused to be controlled? What if we really embraced each other, the complexity of our circumstances and reactions? The REAL may be experienced in complex and varied ways bur it is necessary and useful to focus there and not on expanding abstractions delivered by those who profit from the same.”

There’s plenty wrong in the world, but that doesn’t mean I like it when BIG HEADS open their BIG MOUTHS with BIG WORDS which usually leads to one thing: THEM asking for more BIG MONEY which usually ends up in their BIG FAT POCKETS.

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Come on. Perps gonna play nasty. I’d recommend anyone in this area be extremely careful. I’ve seen too many campaigners disappear back into the “treatment” system never to be heard from again 🙁

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Stick to the facts and the scientific studies as much as you can. No one can sue you for reporting your own experiences honestly.

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The problem to me is that if they are to be great they have to come clean.

They have to spill the beans about all crimes/torture or cuel, inhuman treatments they inflicted, or participated in, or were just bystanders and/or never, as duty demands, reported it to the authorities. Even if that was not know back then, was not a crime back then.

Those are crimes NOW because they are acknowledged thus and DO cause harm, they always caused harm, no way around that.

As a physician, admiting and repairing the harm one does is an obligation, not a preference, and certainly not a choice.

Come clean to all of them.

Even Dr, Mr, Frankel never was really forthcoming in a real clear way about the lobotomies he did.

He argued, and some papers argued they were on cadavers.

Some other sources argued he performed lobotomies on hebrews, poles, jews, ugh, whatever terminology while they were alive.

Now, if Frankel is to be great, was to be great, regardless of his accomplishments, without demeriting them, he HAD to be clear about what he did.

He had to judged by his peers, not by the Nuremberg Court. He absconded of that, and just for that, he can’t be great, to my mind. He refused to be acknowledge for what he did, not for what he was, we all are great.

And he was great for surviving the camps, but “no decent folk came out of them”…

What he did, if to be judged and acknowledged, requires honesty, full, complete and transparent, when not in a court of law, but in the court of one’s peers. He apparently did not do that, so how can anyone judge if he was great, regardless of his accomplishments?.

Voldemort was great too you know?.

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Many thanks for the work MIA has done. It has really helped keep me going.

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Frankly I enjoyed MIA more when it had less. I am not interested in personal stories, which I often find poorly written. I’m not that interested in global mental health, or stories about social, economic and racial injustices around the world, which I have no doubt help create many mental health issues, but which will never be eliminated. I rarely watch podcasts on MIA or anywhere else.

My interest is focused on research, psychiatric malfeasance, those types of things. I’ve liked articles by Gøtzsche, Moncrieff, Simons, Hickey ( when he used to write for you), and, of course, you.

But, despite my criticisms, there’s still a lot that I like about MIA, and I wish you well.

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Great comment you added. I totally agree that there are “damn fine psychiatrists who left their mark on the planet in a good way.”

To me, the difference between the damn fine ones and the dreadful ones is due to the model that they support.

The psychiatrists you included quotes for don’t buy into the overly-simplified biochemical “disease” model of the brain. They recognize a person is part of a bigger scenario with specific issues.

Which book is your Scott Peck quote from? When I went through a breakdown / breakout / breakthrough in 1998, one theme that pounded in my mind was from one of his books — “When faced with the desert, there is no going back, there is only going through.” (or something to that effect).

The real issue is the model that a mental health provider believes and supports, not whether they are a psychiatrist or not. In my experiences, there were psychologists who bought into (were trained in) the biomedical model of illness and disease as well.

Granted, I would say that a higher percentage of psychiatrists support the biomedical model than the percentage of other types of professionals.

The real problem is the bad model — and the bad metaphor associated with it — the diabetes metaphor. I find that one interesting because that is about the only metaphor used with mental difficulties. Even within the medical field, they don’t treat everything like diabetes.

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I am not sure why you are supporting/advancing narratives of the WHO. This agency is supported/funded by billionaire investors and orgs. that are ALL IN on pharma money and directives. They do not appear to have much vested interest in individual and varied approaches to the monolith of “mental” illness, except in the most cursory way.

As the “mental” health narrative crumbles under the weight of it excess, the alternative voices seem to be corrupted by political motivations including the packaged post modern framework of oppressor/oppressed intersectional philosophies which are grounded in “narratives” not open to honest and rigorous scientific scrutiny. As a person who fits under the label of DSM criteria, I honestly feel ZERO assistance in a narrative that holds me in the victim category of this dialectic.

The “mental illness” we suffer can be understood as fueled through a variety of sources, including the iatrogenic harms of the meds designed to disable our brains and otherwise disrupt normal bodily functions. There are, of course, a series of physical ailments that contribute to mental health effects, and malign social influences so eagerly promoted to hold you in the thrall of some other class of “experts” (read- strangers that have no knowledge of you or your history) that sell facile explanations for complicated phenomena. The expert class has so thoroughly sold the ubiquity of mental illness, that our youth are now considered in the middle of a “mental health crisis”, that experts are ready to swoop into schools more expansively now through “crisis” counselors etc. that are poised to advance further diagnostic labeling and the accompanying drugs to “Cure”. Our kids are guinea pigs and have been for some time (as are we all), but to thrust this approach on developing brains and bodies- seems truly evil.

What if, we simply refused to be controlled? What if we really embraced each other, the complexity of our circumstances and reactions? The REAL may be experienced in complex and varied ways, but it is necessary and useful to focus there and not on expanding abstractions delivered by those who profit from same.

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Humility is a quality I could find nowhere as I scrambled out of the industry. During my dr-guided withdrawal (2+ yrs), I still found myself in the ER w/heart palpitations, dehydration, panic…The cause-ALWAYS preparing or enroute to ANY doctor appt….(go figure).

2 young (rotations) docs stood out…1 contacted me at home with a suggested doctor for (perhaps) better services. (Ironically, it was a years-ago Phantom-Network listed guy, so No)….it was the thoughtful kindness that touched me…he had found me credible!
Another closed the door, pulled up a chair and listened, also finding me credible….allowing ME to instruct HIM to prescribe the smallest mg of Valium, ONE pill-(I knew my brain well @ that point)… & I needed to split THAT….to get me past the waves of periodic, stark fear that rolled thru these 2 years.
So much could derail my exit. There was no peace, no victory, no safety yet.

I’ll never forget their kindness…and the bitterness knowing that after 11 years of entombment, the people that had known me the fewest amount of minutes, at my most ‘symptomatic'(DSM)…showed me the greatest compassion and humility as medical professionals…AND acted on it, attempting to alleviate my suffering.

No small thing.

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As I said in the interview, we will provide free access to anyone who can’t afford to make a small donation. And here’s the challenge, either we find a way to increase our revenues or we dramatically curtail our activities.

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