Yes, there is evil in the world. But Christians should be beacons of light to those most oppressed or suffering. Where I live in Melbourne there are few Christian psychiatrists as there are around the world psychologists and counselors. They appear to be firmly committed to biological psychiatry they also charge a heap of money. I was shocked when I attempted to make an hour appointment with a “Christian psychiatrist” $470 being the out of pocket fee with the rest covered by Medicare. I didn’t go ahead with it and couldn’t afford it. So they are not interested in working at the coal face where it is needed.
There is an online blog called “mad in America which consists of mental health professionals and survivors critical of the status quo. I’m not aware of any Christians on this blog. But there are some who hold shamanic beliefs. (The spiritual view).
Here is part of an article by a psychiatrist here in Australia who actually works at the rough end of the scale and fully bulk bills everyone regardless of their socio economic circumstances. He is outspoken and not afraid to tell the truth about the profession.
“Essentially, biological psychiatrists deal with all criticism with a resounding blast of “We’ve got the science. Our view is supported by a wealth of scientific detail. Due to rapid advances in modern technology, we are on the verge of major breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorder. We know what we’re talking about so don’t listen to anybody else, just line up and take your tablets.”
Psychiatric drugs are held to be effective, safe, cost-effective and non-addictive. As a matter of empirical fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
So let’s go back to the claim that modern mainstream psychiatry is a valid scientific field. I deny this. I have argued at great length that orthodox psychiatry breaches all standards of what constitutes a science. In particular, it fails the essential test of not having a model of its field of study. That is correct. In an extensive survey of eleven years of the 13 major English-language psychiatric journals, I looked at something like 18,000 original papers, reviews, editorials and the like, covering some 175,000 pages. Believe me, it wasn’t fun. But it showed that no psychiatrist in the world has ever referred to or provided a justification of the claim that mental disorder is a biological disorder of the brain. Nothing. It doesn’t exist. In this case, absence of proof definitely amounts to proof of absence, because if they had it, they would flaunt it — they would shove it down your throats, maybe even put it on posters in public toilets. Modern psychiatry is not a science of mental disorder, it is an
ideology of mental disorder.
When I see medical students or registrars in training (residents), I ask them the following question. “On your first day in psychiatry, your first lecture, when the professor came in and began his lecture, what was the name of the model of mental disorder he said he would be addressing?” Invariably, the answer is something like “He didn’t. He just came in and started talking about genes and neurotransmitters.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is not an education in mental disorder, it is an indoctrination in an ideology of mental disorder.
The psychiatric publishing industry is a story of its own. One of the most important features of any field claiming to be scientific is that criticism of the status quo, of the mainstream theories and ideas, is mandatory. There is no choice in this — if you don’t criticise your field, you have a political party, or a religion, or a football club, anything but a science. Yet orthodox psychiatry is violently allergic to criticism. Some years ago, I surveyed ten years of the
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. Of 1184 papers, reviews, editorials and commentaries, only seven could be deemed critical. Four of these were trivial. Of the remaining three, two were by overseas authors and only one by a member of the College. That was my paper, which showed that the widely-revered biopsychosocial model didn’t exist. It was never written. So that amounts to somewhat less than one critical word per member per year, which is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the injunction to criticise your professors. That’s lucky for the professors, because they react very, very badly to criticism.
While we’re on the spurious biopsychosocial model, I should point out that mainstream psychiatry has assiduously ignored my paper showing that it is a fantasy. These days, there are about 150 papers published each year on something that doesn’t exist, which must be some sort of record for self-deception. How the editors manage to excuse themselves we don’t know because they are immune to criticism.
The DSM is based on the idea that all mental disorders can be mapped to specific “chemical imbalances in the brain.” You will hear this trope all the time but there is no evidence to support it. The only “chemical imbalance” in the brains of mentally-troubled people are caused by the drugs they take because that’s what psychiatric drugs do, that’s their role, that’s their function. Any chemical that doesn’t affect neurotransmission at some level doesn’t have an effect. However, we don’t know what those changes mean except for one thing: those changes cause the addiction. If there are no brain changes, there’s no addiction.
Finally, psychiatrists are now deskilled. Modern psychiatrists have practically no training or practice in taking proper history or in psychotherapy. This is why they have to resort to drugs for everything, because they don’t know what else to do. Anybody who uses ECT is only saying he has reached the limit of his skill set, mostly because he hasn’t taken a proper history. As a living, breathing, functioning human being, the distressed patient is a closed book.
My conclusion is that the widely-trumpeted claim that orthodox psychiatry is justified by science is false.
If you say to a person, “You have a mental disorder,” without yourself having a model of mental disorder, that is not science.
If you say to a person, “You must take these drugs,” knowing they are dangerous and will shorten his life, that is not science.
If you say, “It is essential you have ECT,” knowing full well that other psychiatrists manage identical patients without using it, that is not science.
If you lock people up on the basis of an alleged “chemical imbalance of the brain,” for which there is zero evidence, and then give them drugs that produce unknown chemical imbalances and addiction, that is not science.
If you don’t criticise what you are doing and you actively suppress criticism, that is not science.
If you indoctrinate your students and trainees, and don’t educate them to criticise the status quo, that is a disgrace.
I will no doubt get lots of criticism from other psychiatrists for daring to air these matters in public. I have been told by a president of the RANZCP that it is inappropriate to discuss them in public, that they should only be seen in the College journals. However, he was on safe ground there as he knew his close friend, the editor, never publishes anything critical. But they’ll have to wear the criticism because modern psychiatry is now beyond the point where normal courtesies apply. In plain language, if you have mental problems these days, you live in dangerous times.
So we can go back to my original question, of how much credibility we should give modern, orthodox psychiatry. The question of whether psychiatry has a rational basis is now settled. It doesn’t. But don’t wait for psychiatrists to suddenly develop a conscience and start a process of critical self-examination. After waiting 43 years for the day, I can tell you it won’t happen.”
Mainstream Western Psychiatry: Science or Non-science? - Mad In America
hourglass. And all that we can perceive sits at the top. Each of us also has a "narrowing" portion that thins down the stream of information to our consciouness. Sometimes this narrowing portion is formed differently, to disastrous and beautiful results.
