Beliefs in Psychiatry in America are like a Prevalent Cult ?

Post Reply New Topic

Why do these Liberal-Americans insist on Defending & Promoting such Pseudo-Science as-if though they've been Indoctrinated by some kind of Fundamentalist-Religion ?

Psychiatry is not a pseudo-science. It's a real science, with solid research evidence backing it. A lot of human behaviour, thought and emotion is controlled by neurotransmitters, and our society has found a number of chemicals that affect or mimic certain neurotransmitters, and therefore influence human behaviour, thought and emotion. Sometimes in ways that are beneficial to the person.

Although I doubt you'll listen to facts, because it seems like you have some sort of conservative axe to grind.

That is not psychiatry, that is neuro-science, neuro-biology. I have studied a lot of different topics for many years now. Furthermore, thoughts and emotions are NOT purely bio-chemical processes, that is an error of belief on the part of materialist so-called scientists (and materialism is NOT a science either but a philosophy that poses as-if a science).

Yes, I am fully aware that there are such things as "mind-altering" substances, you don't need a lab to see how a drunk person intoxicated with alcohol changes behaviours (alcohol = mind-altering/behaviour-changing substance), and human-behaviours are influenced by a LOT more than just chemicals, but of course, from your response, and knowing the kinds of behaviours of people like you, I bet you're quick to immediately dismiss anything that anybody says which doesn't fit into your paradigm without bothering to do any real research or fact-checking.

There's plenty of well-documented research in existence proving that the chemical-imbalance theory is groundless, yet, somehow people like you like to spout it off as-if though it were some sort of fact, and you apparently seem to think that you know absolutely everything that there is to know about the subject just because you either read a book or were indocrinated with pseudo-intellectual college-courses. Unlike you, I actually bother to question everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, where-as you are the kind of person who will stop at "reputable sources" and automatically assume that said sources are indeed "reputable" without putting that "reputation" into question (nor bothering to trace who "funded" said so-called science).

I could go on and on about the whole state of these pseudo-skeptics all over the planet but the minds of pseudo-skeptics are already so far brain-washed that their automatic-reaction is to "defend" the "status-quo" (i.e.: prevailing religious-beliefs of the day) and they cannot even recognise that they act like a bunch of fundamentalists. Now for a video describing their typical-behaviours just for the hell of it because they all "parrot" the EXACT same information and behave in virtually the EXACT same manner as one another (the next thing you're going to do is pull out your "peer-reviewed" card when the fact of the matter of peer-review is that it's a process that has more to do with perserving "popular-opinion" even though such beliefs may be [and often are] erroneous).



Here are a few more "facts" for everyone to digest regarding the "controversial-nature" of "scientific-history" ...:

* "Rocks don't fall from the sky" (French Academy of Sciences was forced to retract this belief after a meteor hit near their premises)
* "Heavier-than-air machines will never fly" (Opposition against the Wright-Brothers, and even after flight was demonstrated, pseudo-skeptics claimed that the Brothers were using invisible wires in order to fool the public into thinking that flight had really occurred)
* "Tiny organisms that the eye cannot see ? Nonsense ! Our entire nation's top medical-doctors know that sickness & disease are caused by the poisoning of the blood which requires our state-of-the-art medical-practice of blood-letting" (Before the micro-scope proved the existence of viruses, bacteria, and germs being able to influence health)
* "Floating continents ? Preposterous !" (Opposition to the now taken-for-granted plate-tektonics)
* "Pictures that move on their own ? Ridiculous !" (Pseudo-skeptical cynism against motion-pictures that have evolved into television, video-screens, LCD-displays, etc)
* "Instant communication at a distance without a courrier ? Are you insane!?" (Now enter into the world of radio & cellular-communications)
* Most everybody should know about "flat-earth" by now

This doesn't even scratch the surface of both the history & continued state of affairs of so-called science. Don't even get me started on the whole legal-system fraud that has continued to pull the wool over everyone's eyes even unto this very day (but you're probably also one of those "proud tax-payers" who doesn't even know how to trace how those tax-dollars are actually used in reality and you probably also think that "income-tax" is somehow needed & somehow goes towards funding the roads & bridges & buildings & hospitals & aero-ports & schools [when NONE of it goes towards ANY of those purposes]). I bet you "defenders" of the "psychiatry religion" don't even know that its origins were that of Nazi-doctors (many of those Nazi-Germans who were apparently brought over to the U.S. as revealed by de-classified government-documents from the government itself).

Yes I brought up "peer-review" as it's one of the frequent "cards" that are played by pseudo-skeptics (along with defending pseudo-sciences as-if though they were sciences whilst scoffing at genuine sciences as-if they were pseudo-sciences) and there are MANY more "predictable" behaviours (due to the fact that they're all basically the same as-if controlled by some form of mass-hypnosis [i.e.: indoctrination]).

I can see it's pointless talking to you, since instead of responding to what I actually said, you put a pile of words in my mouth. I never said I supported the chemical imbalance theory, for example.

For someone who has the audacity to make such statements as the following...

...that shows that you think you're some sort of smart-ass (and I'm using this in the play-on-words context of yeah I'm one bad-ass). You talk about "facts" regarding neurons, synapses, and neuro-transmitters, but I must question: Exactly HOW were these so-called chemicals/neuro-transmitters even measured ? Can you even describe IN DETAIL, the EXACT "scientific-instruments" or "scientific-instruments" that were used to MEASURE the presence of these neuro-transmitters ?

Can you provide DETAILED IMAGES of what these "chemicals" look like under a micro-scope ? I'm not talking about those CGI-drawings that are used to show nerves and endings, I'm talking about ACTUAL MICROSCOPE images, and if you're so full of "facts" that can answer all of these questions, then go on come at me and let's hear it, mister.

Medicine is not about people these days. It's about power and control.

The unequal distribution of power in contemporary society is reflected and reproduced in medical ideology. The present article analyses some articles from Israeli medical journals in order to show the ways in which biomedicine—the dominant medical ideology—is reinforced through hegemonic discourse. The central ways by which this is achieved are medicalization—which includes the desocialization of disease and the explanation of social phenomena in medical terms—and the affirmation by the Israeli medical literature of national, ethnic, class and gender relationships of domination. Analysis of the Israeli example provides useful insights about biomedicine's desocializing role, as the disregard for the social dimension of disease is particularly telling in a society characterized by several cleavages which determine a clearly unequal distribution of power and resources. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 360400005X


https://books.google.be/books?id=Sva7_L ... ny&f=false

I'm not Ettina but anyone who does a google search can answer that question. The scientific instrument used to measure neurotransmitter levels in the brain is a PETscanner.
http://petcenter.yale.edu/research/imaging.aspx



Microscopic photography of neurotransmitters has become a cottage industry. They are beautiful.
http://www.denniskunkel.com/search/q/0-0-0-0-1-1-0-1-neurotransmitter.html

Thanks for the link to the articles. I wish that the full article could be made freely available (but I also understand that obtaining de-classified documents from governments, considering that governments are also corporations, requires paying a fee). The one for google is entirely in PDF format, and allow me access from pages 1-35 (although Page 1 is the book's very own scanned cover itself), whilst pages 36-433 are not shown in the preview itself, and I wonder if I can find it in my medical-library (I had a dad who was a doctor who left me with a full library of medical & science-books amongst various other books after he passed away from cancer), but if not I'll have to just visit a public-library or a medical-library if the local-hospital has one. I am glad that there are research-authors who cover the subject of medical-anthropology (I have primarily been more familiar with sociological-anthropology up until now).

From what I have read through, yes, the funding powers do in fact, seem to have a monopolised control over what is promoted and what is not, and I am certainly no stranger to witnessing or experiencing corrupt-practices in the sciences, such as falsifying statistical-data, intentional smear-campaigns, false propaganda, etc.


That is good, that is the kind of information I like to hear, and yes, neurology IS an actual science, but in psychiatry, the drug-pushing claims promote propaganda for their mind-altering substances, but real & genuine statistics indicate that their claims as to how neuro-transmitters and emotions are affected is "manipulated" so-called science (i.e.: pseudo-science). What is put into question then is "who is funding" said research ?

The word "reputable" apparently has some kind of double-entendre, for apparently, its definition is some kind of "double-meaning" for: "Did those who benefit most do the funding or not ?" It's like a bunch of lawyers whose Legalese-language is also full of double-meanings that don't mean what the public think the words mean (the idea that "it can be trusted" begging the question: Trusted by WHOM...? Trusted by the public or trusted by a corporate-agenda ?).

Also, getting back to the PET-Scanners, they are a kind of X-Ray machine (I know this because my dad was a radiologist who was the rare type of doctor that reads & interprets X-Rays, and the man also held five university degrees, but I digress), but whilst there have been over 200 identified neuro-transmitters, a lot more also remains unidentified or undetectable, and these machines can only obtain approximations at the current state of human-technology, not exact-measurements, or to use a more specific word from the article: "estimations"

I thank you both for your answers thus far, and if anybody wants to tackle the first-hand experiences of "diagnosed" military veterans versus the "disconnect" between television-advertisements and scientific-literature and military-statistics, and still want to claim that such kinds of practice of psychiatry & drug-promotion isn't pseudo-scientific, then feel free to listen to a former Navy SEAL and read through the excerpt that I link below the video with the former Navy SEAL...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1277931/

P.S./Edit: I still need to put that "stock photography" under critical-scrutiny, because its description are regarding "crystals" which begs another question, are those images of ACTUAL neuro-transmitters or just that of "substances" that are known or believed to simply affect said neuro-transmitter ?

Don't let him bother you. Smile, wave, pass on by. What would a forum be without at least one far-right wing conspiracy fan?

I was not aware all conservative american where opposed to psychiatry and it was specifically 'liberal' Americans who insist on defending and promoting it....this is news to me.

Really though it is just the study of how the brain/mind and mental disorders/conditions work, being up in arms about the existence of it would be like being up in arms about the fact history exists or geography. Can it be misused, indeed....are there problems within the DSM as well as how psychiatric treatment is administered, as well as problems with big pharma and over-prescription of drugs? of course there is but no use throwing the baby out with the bath-water, as psychiatry/psychology do have their use. Aside from wholistic health approaches and new age sort of health approaches that is about all there is to really address the issue of the mind and disorders of it, then there is neurology but that is a true science...not like psychology which is not true science as there is nothing concrete to measure/test and such.

Also I can understand rejecting the idea chemical imbalances alone cause any mental disorder/ailment....It likely is much more complex. But to act as though it is preposterous that a brain chemical imbalance can ever have anything to do with a mental disorder is ridiculous given how much brain/body chemistry influences human emotions and behaviors.

I do hope people understand that there are no objective tests for many medical conditions outside of psychiatry. One example is most migraines, which are diagnosed based on symptoms. Conditions that are diagnosed based on signs and symptoms are called syndromes.

Here is a nice list of diseases that do not (h) or did not (a)-(g) have objective tests:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz#Criticism

Come to think of it, not being American it's the Far From My Bed Show really, wasting my energies on this, should go do something more constructive really...

I swear by TCM 5-element theory and have done for 30 years. You might find this book interesting...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7383 ... Bird_Flies

That looks like a really good book that I would highly recommend reading. Also...

IMPORTANT: ...I need to do a paradigm-update after recently just learning about this TED talk...

Quoting comments made in response to the video of the TED Talk that I feel are of most relevance...

I am going to be posting this to every one of my threads due to its methodologies being able to potentially turn psychiatry from the way it's currently practiced from a pseudo-science into an actual, real, genuine science !

The psychiatrist Peter Breggin has written interesting and extensive pieces on modern psychiatry which dissent from the conservative and entrenched viewpoints:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Breggin