This third article in the Psychiatric Fraud series takes a brief look at bogus mental illnesses. Here we see a hoax founded upon psychiatry’s so-called diagnostic manual, a work of fiction based on junk or non-existent science.
by Kieron McFadden
We have looked at several aspects of the great health fraud operated by the psycho-pharmacy: the writing of bogus prescriptions, the billing of the tax payer for bogus treatments and, perhaps the most vicious aspect of this basic scam, the highly profitable psychiatric drugging of children.
These frauds are well documented by watchdog groups such as the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) or PsychRights to whom we all owe some heartfelt thanks for their persistence and diligence in bringing such crimes into public view.
However, there is yet another aspect of this fraud: in order to have an excuse to drug somebody, one first has to diagnose him or her as suffering from an illness. Either that or one must, though campaigns in the media, convince a person that he has or is susceptible to an illness so that he will DEMAND that you drug him.
This the psycho-pharmacy has achieved through the marketing of a vast list of "mental disorders" with such names as "Depression," "Bipolar Disorder," Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," and so on.
These are listed in Psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, the DSM. It is a very long list and it grows by the day as new illnesses (and thus opportunities to diagnose someone as mentally ill and in need of a drug) are added by the day.
You probably do not need me to spell out the fraudulent nature of the DSM. This has already been accomplished admirably by CCHR and many other groups and writers, so much so there is probably hardly anyone who is not now aware of its fraudulent and unscientific nature. However, I will summarise its glaring shortcomings briefly here.
The DSM’s vast and ever growing list of mental illnesses covers almost every nuance of human behaviour. Using the list it is possible to diagnose anyone as suffering from one or more "mental illnesses."
The treatment of virtually ANY of the "illnesses" listed and so diagnosed is virtually ALWAYS one or more drugs.
The drugs do NOT cure anything. They drug. At best they render a person more docile. They also produce side effects both physical and mental. The mental side effects (depression, rage, suicidal thoughts etc) produce symptoms that can themselves be found in the manual and used as "evidence" of further mental illness, the treatment for which is....another drug.
There is NO science behind the "illnesses" listed, no test results, no verifiable or duplicable experimental data and NO evidence that such illness actually exist. They are voted into the manual by a show of hands at psychiatric conference. That is the level of "science" involved. Observe some aspect of human behavior: take Road Rage as a recent example; people occasionally lose their temper while driving. Decide to call it a mental illness, get it voted into the DSM by a show of hands and there you have it: Road Rage is now a mental illness. It must be, it’s listed in the DSM isn’t it?
As the Washington Times of Dec 31st 2009 pointed out:
"There are many such diagnoses of easily applicable disorders, including "antisocial personality disorder" (DSM-IV Code 301.7), "avoidant personality disorder" (DSM-IV Code 301.82), and others vague enough to be applied to almost anyone. This is one of the reasons that the American Psychiatric Association claims that in a lifetime far more than a majority of citizens will suffer from a mental disorder, and the estimates are increasing."
Now, apparently, anyone who occasionally gets irritated or annoyed by other drivers or who blows his top doesn’t just need to learn some manners or park up and take walk until he calms down: he has a Mental Illness and a Diseased Brain and can be diagnosed as such simply by looking him up in the manual.
As his problem appears in the manual and he is clearly bonkers then he can be drugged. And once the drugging starts, more often than not he is now embarked upon a swiftly downward rollercoaster ride into increasing complications and ill health produced by the drugs. However, his deterioration will most likely be neatly explained away by, "Oh dear, his illness is worse than we thought! If only we could have drugged him sooner, we might have saved him!"
ADHD is a classic example. Take a kid and dose him up on sugar (as just ONE way of doing it) and you will produce behavioural symptoms that your friendly psychiatrist will look up in the DSM and for which he will prescribe Ritalin or some other drug. No examination of his diet, you understand, no look at his nutrition, no medical exam for any underlying illness or allergies, no recommendation that you quit dosing him up on sugar, just straight into the drugging, BANG. So now he has the drugs AND the sugar wrecking his body.
And there you have, from the age of 8 or whatever, another human being who will more likely than not be a repeat customer for the psycho-pharmacy for life.
I do not need to belabour this point. It is one that you can easily verify for yourself. The basic on it is that the DSM is fraudulent, bogus science. It enables millions of people to be labelled as having illnesses that don’t exist and "treated" with drugs that then really do make them ill, while at the same time they are denied proper, safe and often simple care that would have made them feel a whole lot better.
Sometimes we just get tired, often we eat or drink things we should not, or read too many newspapers; on occasion we feel down or get mad or scared. It’s called living and it’s normal. None of it means we have a defective or diseased brain and the last thing we need is psychiatry pretending that we do.
This invention of made up diseases of the brain also enables psychiatry to label anyone mentally ill and thus convince us that mental illness is spreading like an epidemic and that, of course, more drugging is required.
What is spreading is unhappiness and this gargantuan fraud with its false labelling and scare mongering, its debilitation of our fellow human beings and its creation thereby of an increasingly violent, unstable and dangerous environment isn’t helping.
These frauds are well documented by watchdog groups such as the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) or PsychRights to whom we all owe some heartfelt thanks for their persistence and diligence in bringing such crimes into public view.
However, there is yet another aspect of this fraud: in order to have an excuse to drug somebody, one first has to diagnose him or her as suffering from an illness. Either that or one must, though campaigns in the media, convince a person that he has or is susceptible to an illness so that he will DEMAND that you drug him.
This the psycho-pharmacy has achieved through the marketing of a vast list of "mental disorders" with such names as "Depression," "Bipolar Disorder," Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," and so on.
These are listed in Psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, the DSM. It is a very long list and it grows by the day as new illnesses (and thus opportunities to diagnose someone as mentally ill and in need of a drug) are added by the day.
You probably do not need me to spell out the fraudulent nature of the DSM. This has already been accomplished admirably by CCHR and many other groups and writers, so much so there is probably hardly anyone who is not now aware of its fraudulent and unscientific nature. However, I will summarise its glaring shortcomings briefly here.
The DSM’s vast and ever growing list of mental illnesses covers almost every nuance of human behaviour. Using the list it is possible to diagnose anyone as suffering from one or more "mental illnesses."
The treatment of virtually ANY of the "illnesses" listed and so diagnosed is virtually ALWAYS one or more drugs.
The drugs do NOT cure anything. They drug. At best they render a person more docile. They also produce side effects both physical and mental. The mental side effects (depression, rage, suicidal thoughts etc) produce symptoms that can themselves be found in the manual and used as "evidence" of further mental illness, the treatment for which is....another drug.
There is NO science behind the "illnesses" listed, no test results, no verifiable or duplicable experimental data and NO evidence that such illness actually exist. They are voted into the manual by a show of hands at psychiatric conference. That is the level of "science" involved. Observe some aspect of human behavior: take Road Rage as a recent example; people occasionally lose their temper while driving. Decide to call it a mental illness, get it voted into the DSM by a show of hands and there you have it: Road Rage is now a mental illness. It must be, it’s listed in the DSM isn’t it?
As the Washington Times of Dec 31st 2009 pointed out:
"There are many such diagnoses of easily applicable disorders, including "antisocial personality disorder" (DSM-IV Code 301.7), "avoidant personality disorder" (DSM-IV Code 301.82), and others vague enough to be applied to almost anyone. This is one of the reasons that the American Psychiatric Association claims that in a lifetime far more than a majority of citizens will suffer from a mental disorder, and the estimates are increasing."
Now, apparently, anyone who occasionally gets irritated or annoyed by other drivers or who blows his top doesn’t just need to learn some manners or park up and take walk until he calms down: he has a Mental Illness and a Diseased Brain and can be diagnosed as such simply by looking him up in the manual.
As his problem appears in the manual and he is clearly bonkers then he can be drugged. And once the drugging starts, more often than not he is now embarked upon a swiftly downward rollercoaster ride into increasing complications and ill health produced by the drugs. However, his deterioration will most likely be neatly explained away by, "Oh dear, his illness is worse than we thought! If only we could have drugged him sooner, we might have saved him!"
ADHD is a classic example. Take a kid and dose him up on sugar (as just ONE way of doing it) and you will produce behavioural symptoms that your friendly psychiatrist will look up in the DSM and for which he will prescribe Ritalin or some other drug. No examination of his diet, you understand, no look at his nutrition, no medical exam for any underlying illness or allergies, no recommendation that you quit dosing him up on sugar, just straight into the drugging, BANG. So now he has the drugs AND the sugar wrecking his body.
And there you have, from the age of 8 or whatever, another human being who will more likely than not be a repeat customer for the psycho-pharmacy for life.
I do not need to belabour this point. It is one that you can easily verify for yourself. The basic on it is that the DSM is fraudulent, bogus science. It enables millions of people to be labelled as having illnesses that don’t exist and "treated" with drugs that then really do make them ill, while at the same time they are denied proper, safe and often simple care that would have made them feel a whole lot better.
Sometimes we just get tired, often we eat or drink things we should not, or read too many newspapers; on occasion we feel down or get mad or scared. It’s called living and it’s normal. None of it means we have a defective or diseased brain and the last thing we need is psychiatry pretending that we do.
This invention of made up diseases of the brain also enables psychiatry to label anyone mentally ill and thus convince us that mental illness is spreading like an epidemic and that, of course, more drugging is required.
What is spreading is unhappiness and this gargantuan fraud with its false labelling and scare mongering, its debilitation of our fellow human beings and its creation thereby of an increasingly violent, unstable and dangerous environment isn’t helping.
