Pseudoscience of Psychiatry

[LightInTheDarkestNight]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzdu3WQyIZg&feature=related

I actually agree with this guy, there is no test for a chemical imbalance. Not to mention like he says the single thing holding up psychiatry is that a mental disorder is a brain disorder, again there is no proof of that.

If they see someone acting a bit off or strange it's easy to label and judge as oh it's this mental disease here take these pills it will fix you. I see your thinking is wrong but you don't see it. The thing is you can't get into anyone else's body to know how they feel and all the past experiences they've been through and how that has effected them at that point in time.

Label's,judgments and pill pushing is easy. Don't get me wrong there are some things like serotonin which can be tested for in specialized labs. Low serotonin makes it highly likely for you to be depressed however external factors also effect serotonin it's not all brain based. Another example is low testosterone in men can cause depression, fatigue etc. If you supplement the testosterone you feel more happy and energized. Not that testosterone crosses the blood brain barrier because from my understanding it doesn't.

I'm not saying psychiatric medicine has no benefit as I think it has helped out lot's of people but that's not to say it's pseudoscience.

A odd fact I learned a while ago is that the difference between the male and the female brain is that estrogen crosses the blood brain barrier in the male brain but not in females.

I know for a fact I had some medicine which didn't help me at all so I just stopped taking it. It was totally obvious that my problem wasn't being fixed by the medicine, I had legitimate health issues which were the root of my anxiety. As I felt better physically my anxiety and obsessiveness got better, that's merely all I had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPOrD6xfDNo&feature=related

You know yourself better then anyone else it's easy for people to judge and label like their some kind of authority when in reality they have very little to go off. Often times people only see what they want to see.

I'm reading this right now and it's quite interesting.

http://www.blehert.com/essays/pseudo.htm

The definitions of the various conditions often overlap. No objective tests for the presence or absence of these conditions is given. Definitions are loose enough and conditions numerous enough that it is possible to find a description that will fit ANYONE. Thus, by use of DSM IV, any person can be found to suffer from a mental health disorder requiring treatment. Any person can be said to be either too active or too inactive, too anxious or too serene, too religious or too cynical -- whatever you happen to be is (or may easily be made to seem) a disorder (or dysfunction, a sexier term). There are even disorders that apply to a person who disagrees with the validity of such diagnoses. In other words, if you think the DSM is bunk, you are, per the DSM, mentally ill.

Who compiled this manual? A committee of psychiatrists on behalf of the APA. How did they compile it? By proposing new disorders (the manual expanding greatly with each edition) and voting them into the manual. One member of the committee later vented her disagreement with the process publicly, stating that she was astonished at the lack of scientific discussion and scientific evidence. She said it seemed as though they were voting on whether to order Chinese or Italian for lunch, not creating a standard list of mental illnesses

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But the sense of "scientific" we usually mean when we speak of a scientific basis for something is a great deal more than jargon and trimmings. For example, in traditional (that is, non-psychiatric) medicine, a disorder or disease is typically defined as follows: First a set of symptoms is observed repeatedly. Then research is conducted to locate the cause of the symptoms -- for example, a germ, a nutritional deficiency, a toxin. Then a remedy is found. Such a set of symptoms is not labeled a "disease" until the various similar sets of symptoms have been linked to a common cause.

Why not? First, because it is dangerous to equate similar symptoms to a single illness, for example, to assume that because two people suffer from headaches, they must both have the same illness. What if one person's headache derives from a vitamin deficiency, while another's derives from a brain tumor? The second person may die of his tumor while being treated with vitamins to remedy a non-existent deficiency. The first person may die under the knife (for surgery to remove his non-existent tumor) because his immune system is weakened by the unremedied vitamin deficiency. They have similar symptoms, but until these symptoms are found to be from the same cause, it is dangerous, possibly fatal, to assume that they are the same disease.

Any treatment of a condition not thus understood is experimental at best. (By that standard, all psychiatric treatments and medications are experimental at best.)

Second, inventing names for "syndromes" in the absence of such understanding creates the illusion that something is known about the cause of the supposed condition when nothing is known, only a list of symptoms. This creates a medical elite exalted by medical jargon, their status having no basis in useful expertise. It substitutes a superstition (Scientism?) for science.

The Scientific approach, then, would be (and I know I'm repeating this ad nauseam, but it's a key point, if we're to have scientists, not high priests) to identify a possible illness (set of symptoms), find (by verifiable experiments) a cause, then develop a cure that handles the known cause. A non-scientific approach might be to chant spells over patients, and if one of the patients gets better, use the spell that apparently worked on every patient. Since many conditions are entirely or partly psycho-somatic, this will often work, just as a placebo will often work as well as the "real" medicine. One highly effective treatment is to have Mummy kiss it and make it well. And there are many other non-scientific approaches.

 

[LightInTheDarkestNight]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPgqLWrqeFk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P6_FwpVo_s&feature=related

Here are two more interesting videos.

Again I'm not saying these drugs aren't of any benefit for some people but like he says in the one video being labeled as having a mental illness is very stigmatizing. Just because someone has an attitude or behavior that isn't normal doesn't mean in any way shape or form talking to them for 15 minutes and interposing your theory and throwing some pills at them is the solution.

For example three years ago I had a very strange infection which caused stinging and burning pain, I went to a few doctors who did not know how to treat it. I was even in the hospital for a few days due to being in a car crash and a bunch of other issues piling up. Me being too honest as well and looking for understanding only lead to judgment.

I even went to the emergency and they told me I had an autoimmune problem and to take prednisone. Which only turned my pain into palpitation like sensations, made me unable to sleep and very anxious. Finally I saw one doctor and asked if I was in pain and he gave me very strong antibiotics for 5 weeks and the pain cleared up.

The pain made me wonder what was wrong with me, Cancer, HIV, etc yadda yadda. One might thing oh this guy has a mental disease but the reality was I was in pain and that was my issue.

Doctors have three tricks antidepressants, antibiotics and corticosteroids.

Psychiatrists on the other hand tons of "tricks" up their sleep they talk to you for a few minutes and think they know what's up. When in many cases they have no clue.

Just like the boy who become had some of the most common stimulant side effects from being on Ritalin who's mom said it turned him from a social child into an antisocial child. Instead of recognizing the effects the drug had on her son the school psychologists claimed he had a social anxiety disorder and needed see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist talked to him for 15 minutes and diagnosed him with social anxiety disorder and gave him an antidepressant, short after he was hearing a male voice in his head telling him to do bad things. Then the school called child protective services charging the parents with medical neglect.

Giving children drugs even if their prescription ones are poison not treatment.

Kids brains are developing and they don't need to be on any drugs if it's ritalin, weed, cocaine, or whatever.

 

[LightInTheDarkestNight]

Let me say here, I don't think Psychiatry is a total fraud I am sure there are many people who treatment(drugs) helps. With that said it isn't like the rest of medicine it's experimental or Pseudoscience.

This could partially be why many people need to try so many different drugs and combinations until they find something that works for them.

These drugs in many cases are powerful and can actually cause harm worse then even weed for example.

Psychiatrists merely determine if someone's behavior is out of the norm and then give you pills. They often don't analyze the root causes of why that behavior isn't what they determine to be normal.

Please don't think I'm suggesting you depressed people should stop taking your anti depressants if their working for you or those with other problems.

Someone may often be depressed because of their life circumstances not a chemical imbalance while giving drugs may help someone to get out of their "funk" so to speak that doesn't mean it's the cure or something they should be on for life.

Another example is temporary psychosis.

There could be many causes behind that,underlying physical health issues, such as an auto immune disease, skin issues that get much worse with a strange infection, other weird symptoms like neurological ones, severe fatigue, diarrhea, rash, someone having HIV anxiety, having many traumatizing social experiences. This could lead someone to think someone intentionally gave them HIV factoring in everything. Especially if many of those traumatizing social experiences involved women playing games(revenge) and lacking empathy and were done in a way that there was no "hard proof". A violent assault as well, done in a way where multiple people knew yet had no concern as they felt the victim deserved it. A naive or idealistic(theory of mind only knowing their own mind and the way others have treated them) person may not give the victim the benefit of doubt, due to lack of understanding possibly a confirmation bias and even cognitive dissonance. A form of secondary victimization exacerbating the other traumas.

Usually after one trauma a person can deal with it however after many traumas a person can often get what is known as "victim anger".

Many people are too quick to interpose their own theory on someone. Someone may think oh this guy is totally wacko he thinks someone intentionally gave him HIV and is upset about it. When in reality if you factor in the person's underlying health issues, their strange infection, their many traumatizing and cruel social experiences, and other factors going on in their life you will come to realize that this person is actually a victim, venting victim anger. Not to mention after a trauma many people get OCD. The traumas could have led to obsessive thinking about HIV and with weird symptoms like peripheral neuropathy, diarrhea, skin issues, and everything else it's just a total mess further compounding the problem.

Now this victim could have their own parents turn on him due to their naivety possibly even his own parent feels like a victim and wants to scapegoat him. Denying he has HIV and attacking. Even if only on a subconscious level. Calling the police on him now this victim is labeled as mentally ill which carries a stigma when in reality it was only a temporary state. If only they had been more understanding about the other traumas he had been through.

This person wasn't very smart to go against their gut instinct when they got set up or with some of these dangerous women, yet that doesn't give others the right to victimize them no matter if they think he deserves it or not. Other bullying in and intimidation going on as well. Not very smart not to use a condom either however it broke and some women ask to take it off. Largely though this person went crazy because of what people did to him. They made him crazy.

There can be numerous social causes that can drive some to go "crazy" even legitimate physical health problems that can contribute to someone going "crazy". Such as an autoimmune disease.

Another example if a lady from eastern Europe gets put on the street corner and gets beat up every night she is likely going to go crazy and have issues.

Now to lock that lady up and say she has a chemical imbalance for being crazy and needs to be treated will pills isn't fair at all. It's the circumstances not her mind! People made her crazy.

Another example is this Mob Boss that was blamed for the downfall of the Vegas Mob supposedly he got quite "paranoid" before he was eventually killed. Well if you know people are out to kill you obviously you are going to a bit crazy that doesn't necessarily mean that guy is "mentally ill' It merely is the circumstances, not a "chemical imbalance". Treating this guy with anti-psychotic drugs would likely due nothing or very little at best. The issue isn't based in his mind it stems from a social problem. His mind may be more prone to being paranoid for whatever reason but the root issue isn't a chemical imbalance.

Check out this mental illness of the mid 1800's it's called drapetomania

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

It's basically a mental illness that causes blacks to flee from captivity. Obviously this is 160 years ago but still it just shows how ridiculous some of these mental illnesses can be.

Here's another one called Mathematics disorder

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002501/

A mental illness basically comes down to not behaving in a way others think you should. Being out of what society deems normal.

As a boy I just lied to a psychiatrist and I easily was given dexedrin. Anyone that's cunning and a good enough actor can pretend to have a mental illness in order to get financial assistance from the government. It's all about the behavior regardless if it's legitimate or not a psychiatrist has no way of telling.

Like I said near the start of my post/rant I'm not saying you should go off your medicine if you feel it's working for you. These illnesses are in a sense fabricated and medication is merely prescribed to treat behaviors that deviate from the norm. I don't doubt they can often be effective but they are merely treating symptoms. There is no accurate diagnosis of the root cause of anything. A mental illness is a label with stigmatization of something that is out of the normal behavior.

From wikipedia on the DSM

It is accepted, however, that there is an "enormous" range of reliability findings in studies,[29] and that validity is unclear because, given the lack of diagnostic laboratory or neuroimaging tests, standard clinical interviews are "inherently limited" and only a ("flawed") "best estimate diagnosis" is possible even with full assessment of all data over time.[30]

This says it all a flawed best estimate diagnosis even with a full assessment of all data over time.