Posted by med_empowered on January 19, 2007, at 17:17:15 [reposted on January 25, 2007, at 0:52:21 | original URL]
In reply to re: while you are in a stone casting frame of mind » ronaldo, posted by xbunny on January 19, 2007, at 15:38:04
I think we need to be careful about criticizing religions. Would you criticize the CCHR if it were...a Jewish-funded group? A Christian-funded group? An atheist-funded group? And yes, there is bias, but there is bias in mainstream psychiatry, too. I think the CCHR does some important work in protecting human rights that no one else wants to touch--the ACLU has slacked off on psychiatric patient rights since the 70s or so, so somebody's gotta do it, and if they happen to be scientologists...fine.
Also, the fact that this one shrink misbehaved doesn't disprove his point. There is still no proven "chemical imbalance" or structural anomaly that leads to "mental illness". And there are still lots of problems, like over-prescribing antipsychotics to minorities, over-representation of women among psychiatric patients, that sort of thing. What's different now than in the 60s-70s is that, b/c of scientology's anti-psychiatry stance, anyone who criticizes psychiatry is accused of being a scientologist or compared to, say, Tom Cruise. It reminds me of the Inquisition--anyone who doesn't tow the line is a "heretic," and is either punished, ridiculed, or both.
There are plenty of people who are "anti-psychiatry" (or have serious issues w/ psychiatry) who aren't scientologists. Thomas Szasz, Erving Goffman, Foucault, Kate Millet...so on and so forth. Even a lot of "real" (non-psychiatric) docs have issues w/ shrinks..they use up valuable health care $$$ and expose patients to very real risks (TD, addiction, etc.). Lots of patients are over-medicated. "Relapse" and "treatment resistance" are both common. Growing numbers of people are "disabled" b/c of a mental health issue. Clearly, there are problems here that need to be addressed, and someone has to address them--if scientologists are the only people willing to do it, then let them do it.
poster:med_empowered
thread:726227
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070122/msgs/726232.html