Humour on Freedom Plaza
by Kieron McFadden
In the wake of claims of a psychiatrist on trial in the United States that he suffered from "serious, but undiagnosed" bipolar disorder that led him to fabricate data and otherwise falsify his research, another case goes through the courts in which psychiatrists claim they were raving mad when they invented mental illness.
Defense lawyers representing 10,000 psychiatrists standing trial for the largest mental health fraud in history now claim their clients were suffering from a hitherto undiagnosed mental illness (Psychobabblorexia) when they accidentally fabricated 300 fake mental illnesses and made everyone think they were proper doctors.
Graduating from numerous psychiatric schools such as the Otto Von Bismarck Institute of Brain Hygiene and the Drug-U-Like Emporium, the accused soon established themselves as experts on writing prescriptions, killing celebrities, the eradication of parenting and education and convincing people they are mentally ill.
By 2010 they had succeeded in publishing 5 million newspaper stories convincing the entire population they could not eat, breathe, pee or think without the aid of drugs. They brought about a major change in the treatment of human beings, particularly the view that all human behavior except torture, genocide and terrorism and invading small nations armed with spoons results from a chemical imbalance in the brain. Indeed, the brain was blamed for everything and was considered to be something of a disappointment so that nobody minded very much when they proceeded to chop up and otherwise abuse the offending organ.
But last year a routine tour of the Brain-U-Like Institute by a group of ten year old schoolchildren brought to light certain discrepancies in the research the psychiatrists had used to establish the aforementioned legion of mental disorders – the main discrepancy in the research being that there had not actually been any beyond watching people in the street during coffee-and-Prozac breaks from the Institute’s cafeteria.
Entries in Psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that were based on the imaginary research have now been withdrawn, reducing the hitherto 500 page manual to an A4 pamphlet bearing the legend "Psychiatry Rools Ok." on the front and "Whoops, sorry" on its inner pages. Many have hailed this new, streamlined version of the DSM as a breakthrough and psychiatry’s most scientific publication to date.
The psychiatrists meanwhile have changed their plea from "We are above the law" to one of "guilty" on 1,333,789,567 counts of fraud, embezzlement, and obtaining money with menaces, 1,678,009 counts of false imprisonment, 345,678,954 counts of drug pushing and 27,000,000 of inventing patients. They have also agreed to repay $3,000,000,000 of dishonestly obtained funding from governments.
Seeking a light sentence for their clients, defense attorneys have pleaded that undiagnosed mental illnesses caused their clients to fabricate mental illnesses that did not exist and take lots of money from governments and medical insurance funds. They allege that they were completely out of their minds when they committed acts of vandalism against millions of human brains, accidentally instigated the Nazi Holocaust and the Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans and inadvertently brought Western civilization to its knees.
Yet psychiatry’s colleagues in government and the pharmaceutical industry question this story.
"To my knowledge" said a spokesman "Nobody in government was aware that psychiatry has anything wrong with it. We put the soaring crime, drug and illiteracy stats down to the sheer cussedness of the average citizen."
"With the trial entering its 334th day, the judge asked why nobody had mentioned "this mental illness thing" before.
Counsel for the defense argued that psychiatry had only discovered the existence of the new mental illness, psychobabblorexia, yesterday lunchtime.
"It’s a good thing they did," he said "Because it appears we have something of an epidemic on our hands."
Graduating from numerous psychiatric schools such as the Otto Von Bismarck Institute of Brain Hygiene and the Drug-U-Like Emporium, the accused soon established themselves as experts on writing prescriptions, killing celebrities, the eradication of parenting and education and convincing people they are mentally ill.
By 2010 they had succeeded in publishing 5 million newspaper stories convincing the entire population they could not eat, breathe, pee or think without the aid of drugs. They brought about a major change in the treatment of human beings, particularly the view that all human behavior except torture, genocide and terrorism and invading small nations armed with spoons results from a chemical imbalance in the brain. Indeed, the brain was blamed for everything and was considered to be something of a disappointment so that nobody minded very much when they proceeded to chop up and otherwise abuse the offending organ.
But last year a routine tour of the Brain-U-Like Institute by a group of ten year old schoolchildren brought to light certain discrepancies in the research the psychiatrists had used to establish the aforementioned legion of mental disorders – the main discrepancy in the research being that there had not actually been any beyond watching people in the street during coffee-and-Prozac breaks from the Institute’s cafeteria.
Entries in Psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that were based on the imaginary research have now been withdrawn, reducing the hitherto 500 page manual to an A4 pamphlet bearing the legend "Psychiatry Rools Ok." on the front and "Whoops, sorry" on its inner pages. Many have hailed this new, streamlined version of the DSM as a breakthrough and psychiatry’s most scientific publication to date.
The psychiatrists meanwhile have changed their plea from "We are above the law" to one of "guilty" on 1,333,789,567 counts of fraud, embezzlement, and obtaining money with menaces, 1,678,009 counts of false imprisonment, 345,678,954 counts of drug pushing and 27,000,000 of inventing patients. They have also agreed to repay $3,000,000,000 of dishonestly obtained funding from governments.
Seeking a light sentence for their clients, defense attorneys have pleaded that undiagnosed mental illnesses caused their clients to fabricate mental illnesses that did not exist and take lots of money from governments and medical insurance funds. They allege that they were completely out of their minds when they committed acts of vandalism against millions of human brains, accidentally instigated the Nazi Holocaust and the Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans and inadvertently brought Western civilization to its knees.
Yet psychiatry’s colleagues in government and the pharmaceutical industry question this story.
"To my knowledge" said a spokesman "Nobody in government was aware that psychiatry has anything wrong with it. We put the soaring crime, drug and illiteracy stats down to the sheer cussedness of the average citizen."
"With the trial entering its 334th day, the judge asked why nobody had mentioned "this mental illness thing" before.
Counsel for the defense argued that psychiatry had only discovered the existence of the new mental illness, psychobabblorexia, yesterday lunchtime.
"It’s a good thing they did," he said "Because it appears we have something of an epidemic on our hands."
