PSYCHIATRY’S LIES

THERE IS NOTHING ‘ANTIPSYCHOTIC’ ABOUT  ‘ANTIPSYCHOTICS’

The psychiatric profession is ignoring evidence that treatment with antipsychotics can be harmful, according to a new book

Adam James

Christian was slouched in a chair in Bradford psychiatric unit. He was, seemingly, only half-conscious, half alive. He could hardly speak, let alone raise his head. Christian had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Two days before, in a haze of paranoia, he had punched a colleague of mine at a day centre. So Christian was sectioned and medicated, heavily, with neuroleptic drugs.

Most people, on seeing Christian, would have described him as being so whacked out he was a dribbling wreck. The drug-advisory body, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) would say the neuroleptic treatment had successfully “calmed” Christian, in preparation for treating the “underlying psychiatric condition”.

Neuroleptics – such as Clozapine, Olanzapine, Risperidone and Seroquel – are the “primary treatment” for psychosis, particularly schizophrenia. Indeed, 98%-100% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia inside our psychiatric units – and 90% living in the community – are on neuroleptics, also called antipsychotics. Nice’s guidelines for the treatment of schizophrenia say: “There is well established evidence for the efficacy of antipsychotic drugs.”

A similar efficacy used to be claimed for Prozac and other SSRIs in the treatment of depression. But a studypublished last Tuesday could well have pulled the plug on Prozac.

And now a London NHS psychiatrist, Joanna Moncrieff, has similarly endeavoured to expose the “myth” of antipsychotics. Whereas Moncrieff has already highlighted antidepressant non-effectiveness, it is her research on antipsychotics that is more shocking. The evidence shows, she says, that antipsychotics not only do not work long-term they also cause brain damage – a fact which is being “fatally” overlooked. Plus, because of a cocktail of vicious side-effects, antipsychotics almost triple a person’s risk of dying prematurely.

Moncrieff particularly strikes out at her own profession, psychiatry, claiming it is ignoring the negative evidence for antipsychotics. In her book, The Myth of The Chemical Cure, Moncrieff argues, effectively, that psychiatry is guilty of gross scientific misconduct.

Having examined decades of clinical trials, Moncrieff’s first point is that once variables such as placebo and drug withdrawal effects are accounted for, there is no concrete evidence for antipsychotic long-term effectiveness. This is a radically different interpretation of the meta-analyses and trials Nice used to arrive at its opposite conclusion. But Moncrieff is confident her scrutiny of the evidence is valid.

At the heart of years of dissent against psychiatry through the ages has been its use of drugs, particularly antipsychotics, to treat distress. Do such drugs actually target any “psychiatric condition”? Or are they chemical control – a socially-useful reduction of the paranoid, deluded, distressed, bizarre and odd into semi-vegetative zombies?

Historically, whatever dissenters thought has been ignored. So, it appears, have new studies which indicate that antipsychotics do not work long-term. For example, a US study last year in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease reported that people diagnosed with schizophrenia and not taking antipsychotics are more likely to recover than those on the drugs. The study was on 145 patients, and researchers reported that, after 15 years, 65% of patients on antipsychotics were psychotic, whereas only 28% of those not on medication were psychotic. A staggering finding, surely? So where were the mainstream media yelps of “breakthrough in schizophrenia treatment”. Not a squeak.

Moncrieff’s second point is that the psychiatric establishment, underpinned by the pharmaceutical industry, has glossed over studies showing that antipsychotics cause extensive damage – the most startling being permanent brain atrophy (brain damage) or tardive dyskinesia. As in Parkinson’s Disease, patients suffer involuntary, repetitive movements, memory loss and behaviour changes. Antipsychotics cause atrophy within a year, Moncrieff says. She accuses her colleagues of risking creating an “epidemic of iatrogenic brain damage”.

Moncrieff is a hard-nosed scientist, so she is respectfully reserved. But gross scientific misconduct is her accusation. “It is as if the psychiatric community can not bear to acknowledge its own published findings,” she writes.

How worrying it is, then that the Healthcare Commission should report last year that almost 40% of people with psychosis are on levels of antipsychotics exceeding recommended limits. Such levels cause heart attacks. Indeed, the National Patient Safety Agency claims heart failure from antipsychotics is a likely cause for some of the 40 average annual “unexplained” deaths of patients on British mental health wards. Other effects of antipsychotics include massive weight gain (metabolic impairment) and increased risk of diabetes.

Two years ago, The British Journal of Psychiatry – Britain’s most respected psychiatry journal – published a study reporting that people on antipsychotics were 2.5 times more likely to die prematurely. The researchers warned there was an “urgent need” to investigate whether this was due to antipsychotics. But so ingrained is the medication culture in mental health that many psychiatrists feel that not medicating early with antipsychotics amounts to negligence, Moncrieff notes.

Moncrieff does acknowledge there is evidence for the short-term effectiveness of antipsychotics. But again Moncrieff asks psychiatry to be honest. Moncrieff points out that when antipsychotics, such as chlorpromazine, were first used in the 1950s they were “major tranquillisers”. Why? Because that’s an accurate description of their effect, particularly short term. They sedate, or tranquillise, the emotions, so reducing the anxiety of paranoia and delusions. Any person on antipsychotics is likely to verify this (go to askapatient.com). Now, however, these drugs are referred to as “antipsychotics”. For Moncrieff, this is a wheeze because there’s no evidence that antipsychotics act directly on the “symptoms” – paranoia, delusions, hallucinations – of those diagnosed with psychosis. There’s nothing antipsychotic about antipsychotics.

So what are the alternatives? Moncrieff – like her fellow psychiatrists in a group called the Critical Psychiatry Network – asks services to look seriously at non-drug approaches, such as the Soteria Network in America. She believes psychiatrists such as herself should no longer have unparalleled powers to forcibly detain and treat patients. Instead, they should be “pharmaceutical advisers” engaging in “democratic drug treatment” with patients.

Psychiatrists should be involved in “shared decision-making” with patients, and would have to go to civil courts to argue their case for compulsory treatment. “Psychiatry would be a more modest enterprise,” writes Moncrieff, “no longer claiming to be able to alter the underlying course of psychological disturbance, but thereby avoiding some of the damage associated with the untrammelled use of imaginary chemical cures.”

The mental health establishment should learn from the Prozac story and pay attention. It’s about time.  The reason so many young people today are not getting help during the ‘mental health crisis’ is that the more mentally health trained a person is, the less able they are to help anyone.  They are trained to watch rather than listen.  They are so busy trying to analyze people that they have zero chance of understanding, that they fail to hear, and hence never understand.  They are trained to force ‘help’ on people who don’t want it and assume that people who ask for help don’t need it.  Well we don’t need them.  Non mentally health trained people, care workers, charity workers, counsellors do far more effective work because they listen.  And that is all distressed people need. Someone to listen, hear and hence validate them.  Not a load of idiots who think drugs and restraints, and pathetic attempts at watching and analysing behaviour and treating human beings as rats in the answer.  All they do is distress people more.  They are obsessed with boxing and diagnosing when they cannot possibly do this with any accuracy.  The mental health system needs to be abolished altogether and in it’s place a network of counsellors.  If someone is violent they should be dealt with by the courts, unless they absolutely do not have the capacity to distinguish right from wrong.  Most so called psychotic people do have capacity.  They understand that violence is against the law but they know they can get away with it.  The few that don’t have capacity should be the only ones that go to hospitals.  I have been on the receiving end of violence many times in hospital by people who absolutely do know that what they are doing is wrong but can get away with it because they have a diagnosis of psychosis.  A psychotic person has choice just like any other person.  Just because you are having delusions and hallucinations, it does not mean you can do what you want.  But idiot psychiatrists are allowing this to happen because they are obsessed by some kind of romantic notion of psychosis.  Get real shrinks.  And stop excusing people with an illness that doesn’t exist (schizophrenia) for their bad behaviour.

LEAVE OUT THE LABEL

Behaviorism and Mental Health

An alternative perspective on psychiatry’s so-called mental disorders | PHILIP HICKEY, PH.D

Stigmatization of Psychiatry and Psychiatrists

September 7, 2015 By Phil Hickey | 16 Comments

On February 27, 2015, European Psychiatry published a paper titled EPA guidance on how to improve the image of psychiatry and of the psychiatrist.  The paper was authored by D. Bhugra et al.  EPA is the European Psychiatric Association.  Dr. Bhugra is a psychiatrist who works at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s College, London, and is also President of the World Psychiatric Association.  There are thirteen co-authors, most of whom are also psychiatrists.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The paper opens with the statement:

“Psychiatry, psychiatric patients and psychiatrists have always been stigmatised against. Reasons for the stigmatisation are many. Fear, prejudices and discrimination are a result of the lack of knowledge.”

This is the abiding theme of the article:  people don’t like us because they don’t know us.  If people knew what we are really like, our image would improve.  Here are some quotes:

“The image of psychiatry and psychiatrists may be affected by aspects not strictly related to stigma: the past of psychiatry includes dark centuries in which asylums and prepharmacological interventions (physical restraints, coercion, etc.) have been adopted and may still influence the image of the discipline and psychiatrists.”

Translation:  People don’t like us because we used to be scoundrels – that was in the bad old days.  We’re not like that any more.  Back then psychiatrists used physical restraints and coercion.

I thought they still use physical restraints and coercion.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“In the majority of worldwide healthcare system, mental health care is separated from physical health care, and inevitably very few medical colleagues understand the role of psychiatry, particularly so if liaison psychiatry departments are weak or non-existent, and if they have not had adequate exposure to psychiatry during their undergraduate or post-graduate training. The fact that physicians did not work routinely in contact with psychiatrists and that the only way of being in contact with psychiatry is during liaison activities or in emergency settings could contribute to the negative image of psychiatry.” [Emphasis added]

Translation:  Other physicians don’t like us because, due to lack of contact, they don’t understand our role.  If they understood our role, they would like us more.

This strikes me as extremely condescending towards other physicians.  They don’t understand the role of psychiatry!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Under the heading “General Public”:

“Psychotropic medication and ECT are seen as more negative interventions in comparison with psychotherapies and counselling.  The lack of knowledge may be responsible for negative attitudes.”

Translation:  The poor ignorant man (or woman) in the street simply doesn’t realize how helpful psychotropic drugs and high voltage electric shocks to the brain really are.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“The media and its portrayal of mental illness and how it is treated play a major role in affecting attitudes towards mental illness. The way in which stories related to mental health are covered and the emphasis placed on making fun of patients with mental illness does lead to negative attitudes. Negative images often get translated into generalised negative attitudes.”

Translation:  People don’t like us because the media make fun of psychiatry’s clients when they write their stories!  And because of this, people don’t like us.

I can’t recall ever reading a story where a journalist made fun of psychiatric clients.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Filmmakers’ attitudes reporting large negative portrayal of psychiatry play a major role in informing and forming negative attitudes.”

Translation:  People don’t like us because movies portray us in a bad light.

Here again, this has not been my experience.  Most of the movies I’ve seen which feature psychiatrists portray them as concerned, empathetic listeners, working diligently to help clients disentangle or resolve some life crisis:  a portrayal, incidentally, which is in marked contrast to the reality of the 15-minute, drug-pushing med-check.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And then there’s this truly extraordinary quote:

“The negative portrayals of psychiatry pandering to stereotypes of the specialty even in novels written by psychiatrists continue to perpetuate the myth of psychiatry as ineffective and psychiatrists themselves as suffering from psychiatric disorders, not taking reality into account.”

It’s a complicated sentence, but let’s see if we can disentangle it:

– psychiatry is negatively portrayed in novels;
– even novels written by psychiatrists;
– these portrayals contribute to the myth of psychiatry as ineffective;
– and to the myth that psychiatrists themselves might have “psychiatric disorders”.

So, here we have a team of European psychiatrists producing a guidance document on how to counter the stigma and negative attitudes that are often directed towards psychiatry and its clients.  And one of the specific points that they make is that portraying psychiatrists as having psychiatric problems is, in itself, a stigmatizing myth!  In other words, the drafters of the guidance document on overcoming stigma are themselves stigmatizing their own clients!  Psychiatrists tell us that psychiatric disorders are illnesses, “just like diabetes”; that they can afflict anybody; that at any given time about a fifth of the population “has” one of these disorders; and that the life-time prevalence is around 50%.  Why should it be stigmatizing for novelists to portray psychiatrists as any less vulnerable to these “disabling illnesses” as anybody else?  There are approximately 46,000 psychiatrists in the US.  According to psychiatry’s own numbers, about 9,200 of these individuals should have a mental illness at any given time, and about 23,000 should have a mental illness at some time in their lives.  In depicting this “reality”, if indeed they do, aren’t novelists merely reflecting psychiatry’s own assertions?  Why is it stigmatizing to portray psychiatrists as having these illnesses?  Unless, of course, Dr. Bhugra and the EPA don’t really believe their own rhetoric.

THE GUIDANCE COMMITTEE’S SUGGESTIONS

Dr. Bhugra et al offer fourteen suggestions for improving psychiatry’s image.  Most are vague or platitudinous.  Here are the main points:

1. “psychiatrists as professionals must take the lead in taking pride in clinical practice, looking after the most challenging and underserved patients.”

I have long believed that in their hearts, all, or almost all, psychiatrists know that their concepts are spurious, and that their “treatments” are destructive and disempowering.  Dr. Bhugra et al’s admonition to their colleagues to “take pride in clinical practice” strikes me as self-deception.  I can’t imagine a leading surgeon or cardiologist or nephrologist broadcasting such advice to their colleagues.  Real doctors already take pride in their work.  They have no need for cheerleading or pep talks.

2. “evidence based research should be circulated widely.”

Indeed it should:  Particularly the negative results that pharma-psychiatry routinely suppressed for decades.

3. “… networks of policy development, clinical intervention and research must be established”

I’m not sure what this means.  Expand the empire?

4. “… physical and mental health services integration…”

This has been a common theme here in the US for years – a mental health worker in every GP’s office.  The eminent psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, past president of the APA, pushed this notion relentlessly.  And, of course, it’s also being pushed in Europe.  So a person gets sick, goes to see his GP.  He is despondent because he’s sick.  Consequently his depression “screening” is positive, and he comes out with a prescription for an SSRI and a handful of free samples.  Tried and true marketing.

5. “… exposure to enthusiastic and charismatic teachers in undergraduate settings should be encouraged…”

Enthusiastic and charismatic!  I’m picturing scenarios in which psychiatry lecturers are refused tenure because they are too dull, or that they lack sparkle.  Lecturers should, of course, be able to engage their students, but charisma strikes me as a consideration more pertinent to high school pep rallies than university lectures.

6. “clinical exposure to right patients and the right number of patients must be delivered.”

I can’t even begin to imagine what Dr. Bhugra and his colleagues mean by the “right patients”.  But whoever these “right” individuals are, trainee psychiatrists need to be exposed to them – clinically.

7. “Especially tailored placements [for psychiatry students] should be made available across different national and international settings”

So that they can learn what established psychiatrists do in faraway places.  My guess is that it’s assigning “diagnoses” and pushing drugs.

8. “engagement in short research projects [for psychiatry students]”

So that they can learn how to manipulate the results to show psychiatry in a good light.

9. “regular audit of clinical services will enable clinicians to understand what changes are needed and how to deliver services. Audits about patient satisfaction and complaints will encourage staff to provide better services”

These kinds of quality assurance audits have been an integral part of general medicine for decades.  But for audits to have any value, they must be accompanied by a generous measure of critical self-appraisal:  a willingness to subject one’s own performance and concepts to critical scrutiny.  This is not a quality for which psychiatry is noted.  Indeed, within psychiatric circles, negative outcomes are routinely blamed on the client, and complaints or protests from clients are routinely adduced as evidence of pathology.  The kind of audits I’ve come across in psychiatry are mostly empty paper exercises.

10. “regular courses, information leaflets and newer methods such as phone apps and web-based learning may provide relevant information so that patients, families and their carers can work to identify early signs, signs of relapse and management”

And undoubtedly, pharma will continue to provide the funding for these “learning” opportunities.  And note the inclusions of “early signs”.  Bring us your troubled children and we will diagnose them and give them drugs.

11. “working with patient organisations is an important aspect in spreading education as well as engaging policy makers.”

For instance, educating people that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, for which it is necessary to take antidepressants for the rest of one’s life.

12. “collaboration across different sectors–voluntary and statutory, primary care and secondary care and social and health care…”

Let’s get psychiatry’s tentacles into the voluntary organizations, the GP’s offices, the general hospitals, and social services.

13. “training the media on reporting and working with them to convey positive messages will help improve the public image.”

So psychiatrists are going to train journalists on how to report, and get them to say nice things about psychiatry.  More patronizing grandiosity.  I don’t think journalists are that gullible.

14. “Sharing information with policy makers about accurate outcomes and therapeutic interventions…”

Like telling politicians that neuroleptic drugs cause tardive dyskinesia and akathisia?  Or that there is no scientific basis to any of the psychiatric diagnoses, except those “due to a general medical condition”?  Or that research results show that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who come off neuroleptics, have a better long-term outcome than those who stay on the drugs?  Or that neuroleptic drugs are being used for behavior control in foster care, in nursing homes,  and in group homes for people with disabilities?  Or that long-term use of lithium can lead to permanent kidney failure?  Yes!  That’s a great idea!  But somehow I don’t think that’s what the guidance committee had in mind by “accurate outcomes”.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

As is often the case in discussing psychiatry papers, it’s difficult to know where to start.  Perhaps the most obvious feature of the EPA document is the complete and total failure to recognize that the negative appraisals of psychiatry, that are finding voice in the past decade or two, are entirely valid and deserved.  Psychiatry is being perceived negatively, because, as a profession, it is intellectually and morally bankrupt.  Its failings are huge, and its lack of integrity glaring, yet there is no hint of this in the EPA paper.  Instead, the authors cling to the self-serving notion that the stigma attached to psychiatry derives from ignorance of its true nature, and from unwarranted negative media portrayals.

So in the interests of setting the record straight, let me state as clearly and unambiguously as I can why psychiatry is being increasingly criticized and marginalized.

1.  Psychiatry’s definition of a mental disorder/ illness, as set out in DSM III, IV, and 5, embraces virtually every significant problem of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving. Psychiatry uses this definition to fraudulently medicalize problems that are not medical in nature.

2.  Psychiatry routinely presents these so-called illnesses as the causes of the specific problems, when in fact they are merely labels: abbreviated rewordings of the presenting problems with no explanatory function or value.  These labels, which cause enormous damage to the individuals to whom they are assigned, serve only to legitimize the pushing of drugs, and to enable psychiatrists to bill for the services they provide.  Unlike real diagnoses, they provide no insight into the nature or essence of the presenting problems, but are nevertheless defended tenaciously by psychiatrists and their pharma funders.

3.  Psychiatry has routinely deceived, and continues to deceive, their clients, the public, the media, and government agencies, that these vaguely defined problems are in fact illnesses with known neural pathology. The classic example of this is the chemical imbalance theory of depression – a blatant hoax which was pushed so heavily by psychiatry that it has now become “common knowledge”.  And the most noteworthy aspect of this is that although the hoax has been exposed repeatedly – (most recently by Terry Lynch in his book Depression Delusion), psychiatry has taken no concerted steps to correct this misinformation, and indeed in many quarters is still promoting this fiction as established medical fact.

4.  Psychiatry has blatantly promoted drugs as corrective measures for these illnesses, when in fact it is well-known in pharmacological and psychiatric circles that no psychiatric drug corrects any neural pathology. In fact, the opposite is the case.  All psychiatric drugs exert their effect by distorting or suppressing normal brain functioning.  It is also well known that the adverse effects of these products are often devastating and permanent.

5.  Psychiatry has collaborated and conspired with pharma in the development of a vast body of fraudulent research, all designed to “demonstrate” that psycho-pharmaceutical products are safe and effective. The methods by which this fraud has been perpetrated include:  the routine suppression of negative results; the use of ridiculously short follow-up intervals; over-stating of marginal results; etc., etc.

6.  A great many psychiatrists have shamelessly accepted large sums of pharma money for very questionable activities. These activities include the widespread presentation of infomercials in the guise of CEUs; the ghost-writing of books and papers which were actually written by pharma employees; targeting of captive and vulnerable audiences in nursing homes, group homes, and foster-care systems for prescription of psychiatric drugs; etc., etc…   Two glaring examples of this kind of venality are:

• the promise made by psychiatrist Joseph Biederman to Johnson & Johnson that his research would produce a positive finding for their drug Risperdal, provided they ponied up $700,000 for a center on pediatric bipolar disorder at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital.

• the promise, also to Johnson and Johnson, by psychiatrist Allen Frances and two colleagues (psychiatrists John Docherty and David Kahn) that they would produce a document on schizophrenia treatment guidelines that would  help Janssen (Johnson & Johnson subsidiary) succeed in its effort to “increase its market share and visibility” for their drug Risperdal “in the payor, provider, and consumer communities.” (Rothman Report, p 15-16)

In addition, 70% of the DSM-5 task force members had received funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

7.  Psychiatry’s labels are inherently disempowering. To tell a person, who in fact has no biological pathology, that he has an incurable illness, for which he must take psychiatric drugs for life, is an intrinsically disempowering act which robs people of hope, and encourages them to settle for a life of drug-induced dependency and mediocrity.

8.  Psychiatry’s “treatments”, whatever transient feelings of well-being they may induce, are always destructive and damaging in the long-term. Neuroleptic drugs cause tardive dyskinesia.  Extended use of antidepressants produces a state of chronic joylessness.  Benzodiazepines are addictive.  High-voltage electric shocks to the brain erase memories.  Psychiatry’s notion that one can solve people’s problems by tinkering irresponsibly with their brains, betrays a degree of arrogant naivety unequalled in other professional groups.

9.  Psychiatry’s spurious and self-serving medicalization of every significant problem of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving, effectively undermines human resilience, and fosters a culture of powerlessness, uncertainty, and dependence. Powerful, time-honored concepts such as the need for critical self-appraisal, and personal improvement through effort, have been systematically marginalized by psychiatry’s expanding list of “illnesses”, and ever-flowing supply of drugs.  Relabeling as illnesses, problems which previous generations accepted as matters to be addressed and worked on, and harnessing billions of pharma dollars to promote this false message, is morally and professionally repugnant.

10.  Psychiatry’s primary agenda over the past four or five decades has been the expansion of its list of “illnesses”, and the assignment of these illnesses to more and more people. It has now become routine practice to prescribe neuroleptic drugs to elderly nursing home residents who become “unmanageable” and to young children for temper tantrums!

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SOME REMEDIAL SUGGESTIONS FOR PSYCHIATRY

Here are my suggestions for any psychiatrist who is genuinely concerned about the stigmatization of his/her profession:

• repudiate the spurious medicalization of non-medical problems;
• acknowledge the destructive and disempowering nature of the “treatments”;
• apologize to all concerned;
• find honest work.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No amount of mental gymnastics or PR can address psychiatry’s fundamental flaws.

Related Posts:

1. Training Of Psychiatrists: What The Future Holds
2. More Cheerleading from the Royal College of Psychiatrists
3. Training the Psychiatrists of the Future (According to Dr. Lieberman): More Cheerleading
4. New President of Royal College of Psychiatrists: Priorities

Filed Under: A Behavioral Approach to Mental DisordersTagged With: Psychiatric “spin”

About Phil Hickey

I am a licensed psychologist, presently retired. I have worked in clinical and managerial positions in the mental health, corrections, and addictions fields in the United States and England. My wife Nancy and I have been married since 1970 and have four grown children.

MENTAL MYTH

THE DELUSIONS OF PSYCHIATRY

In my travels I have met a fair amount of people.  I can safely say the most deluded people I have ever met are people who think that vivisection makes sense.  Next in line as far as delusions are concerned are shrinks.  All the shrinks I have met have held completely unfounded beliefs.  I have assessed many shrinks during sessions with them and they steadfastly adhere to their warped idea of what ‘reality’ is.  One example of their many unfounded beliefs is that certain so-called mental illnesses, the functional psychoses,  are caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain.  There is no proof of this.  But the drug companies make tons of money by promoting this crap and shrinks live in their pockets.  When someone is actively ‘psychotic’ (if we assume that psychosis is a valid way to describe anybody) , by definition they will not be aware they are ill.  You believe your so-called delusions with accompanying hallucinations are real. Most shrinks do not understand that if, for example, a person believes their friends and family are poisoning them, it may be because metaphorically, that IS THE CASE.  His mother may not be actually adding arsenic to his breakfast but she may well be poisoning his soul. Psychiatrists take the arrogant stance of assuming their version of reality is the only version of reality.  With their delusions they usually have accompanying hallucinations which reinforce their delusions.  They write about clients in notes and often claim that clients have said things or done things which they have not.  Sometimes it is just plain lies or mistakes.  Other times I wonder if they are seeing and hearing things.  If not hallucinations, then at least illusions.

To summarise, shrinks are deluded.  They may also have accompanying visual and auditory illusions or hallucinations.  Those of them who have actual hallucinations combined with their delusions, since they stick to these version of events and are utterly convinced by them, it appears they must be completely ‘psychotic’.  The only get out clause they have is that their ridiculous view of reality tends to concur with the accepted culture of the country they live in.  Therefore they can get away with being sick as fuck without being labelled as ‘psychotic’.

And one more thing.  On the subject of personality disorders, anyone who claims there is something wrong with somebody else’s personality needs to take a look at their own.   A shrink gives a fuck of a lot away about the limitations in his/her own personality when he assumes there is a problem with somebody else’s.  On another day I will take a look at the ridiculous arbitrary definitions of so-called personality disorders.  And how many more we could easily invent if we wanted to continue down this stupid road.  Just to take one example, emotionally unstable p.d.  If this exists then surely there must be another disorder called emotionally STABLE p.d. (i.e. those typically British anal people who never show any emotion.  Concrete upper lip).  But that would be culturally normal here wouldn’t it.  I mean showing emotion is bad isn’t it.  Italians do it.  How fucked up those continentals are.  And paranoid personality disorder.  That’s just anyone who accuses the system of being screwed up.  How about ‘Gullible’ personality disorder.  That’s anyone who believes all the crap fed to them by people in authority.

Shrinks are inventing more and more mental illnesses.  The more illnesses they invent, the more people will be labelled as mentally ill.  It is similar to the process we have with criminal laws.  The more laws we make, the more laws there are to break and consequently the more crimes we have and the more criminals.

Shrinks need to be stripped of their power and the whole mental health system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.  The amount of money they are now throwing at young people’s mental health is too little too late. It is a drop in the ocean and money alone will not solve the problem.  The problem is an institution which tried to build a brick building on shifting sands.  With no foundations.  There is a wise old Indian saying which goes as follows:

‘When you are riding a dead horse the best strategy is to dismount.’

Those currently trying to improve existing services, although well meaning, are simply feeding, grooming and watering a dead horse.    The answer is to bury the horse.  Then stop riding horses and start making friends with skunks.

 

 

Plymouth Literature Festival

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/business/plymouth-writers-causing-huge-stir-644479

for groddle’s sake

The year 2199 and the known laws of physics no longer apply.  Aliens are playing black hole golf with planets and the Earth is in the grip of a perpetual winter causing worldwide seasonal affective disorder.  Due to her ridiculously dysfunctional childhood Madi has no respect for anybody and her complete lack of shame and ability to exploit the hypocrisy of the privileged will have you in fits of laughter.

This book pokes fun at the ludicrous assumptions that often form our view of reality.  Institutions on Earth are still as archaic as ever and the absurdity of the way they operate is hilariously portrayed, as is the transitory way we arrive at moral and philosophical truths.

           Will Madi ever be anything other than a selfish bitch?

            Will the pain of unrequited love be too much to bear for the sad, lonely alien who is stalking her?

Scenarios that would normally leave you in tears will instead have you giggling long after you put the book down.

Living on the fringes

LIVING ON THE FRINGES

I see so many books on the market that cater for the masses and which contain material which agents and publishers believe the public wants. I myself prefer books that depart from the mainstream and take a leap of faith into hitherto unchartered territory. That is what my most recently published book, ‘For Groddle’s Sake’ does.

My next project, the title of which I want to keep to myself at the moment, will be a kind of warts and all confessional.  My aim is to take a very deep look into the human condition, but particularly at obsession.  It will be autobiographical to some extent, since I have a long history of destructive obsessions, but more in terms of a thinking diary rather than an events one.  I will look at the causes of obsession, in what ways it can be useful as well as destructive, and I want to try and explain associated behaviours and the serious consequences that can result from such modes of thinking, particularly in regard to fixation on a person.   I want to explore  the similarities and stark differences between the meaning of the words passion and obsession.  I, for example, see passion as a largely positive thing and obsession as a more negative thing but I know not everyone will agree with me on this.  I want to look at the compulsive behaviour that is often a direct consequence of obsessional thoughts.  Ultimately I want to attempt to describe honestly the ridiculous things that go through my head on a daily basis in the hope that others will relate to some extent, rather than try and paint a picture of myself as someone that I want you to think I am.  All through this book I am going to attempt not to edit to make things sound nicer or more acceptable or less stupid and pathetic than they actually are.  Because believe you me my thinking and behaviour can be unbelievably pathetic and I know that there will be people out there who can relate to me.  The book will also look at the state of the mental health system and the ridiculous scenarios that take place within psychiatric hospitals and for that reason it will also be a tribute to my partner.  She and I never had a chance to ever actually have a proper relationship  in the outside world before she died in one of those places.   Ultimately it will be about extreme loneliness.  I know what it is like to constantly live in your own head year after year without human companionship. It takes its toll in the end and damages you. You cannot repair that damage, you can perhaps glue yourself back together, like you might be able to do with a broken cup, but you will never get rid of the cracks.

OFF THE AVENUE … I was living in a high rise in London once and I used to look out the window and watch people going to work and think they were stupid being part of the rat race. I used to think to myself don’t they know, don’t they realize what they are missing, they could get stoned like me, just take drugs and space out. How pathetic I was. But then again there are very valid reasons why people take drugs. There is apparently now an epidemic in the States of people being dependent on prescription opiate painkillers. Due to the cost of these many people are turning to street heroin instead because it is actually cheaper now due to the influx of cheap supplies from Afghanistan etc. People use heroin because it works. It is the most effective painkiller, both for emotional and physical pain. These days I take psychiatric medication. Anti psychotics, mood stablilisers and anti depressants mostly have side effects, some of which are frankly unbearable. Many people put on ridiculous amounts of weight on these drugs and get illnesses such as diabetes. Opiates cause no such problems and people often self medicate with them as I have done in the past. The trouble with them is that they are highly physically addictive. I believe in the legalisation of street drugs because illegality causes far more problems and does not stop people taking drugs. I would rather take a prescription of diamorphine than the medications I am on and I think it would be extremely effective, though I don’t think it would prevent depression, since personally I have never found any drug which actually effectively cured depression. People are always going to take drugs. They have been taking them since time immemorial. Rather than policing the situation, we need to look at how to improve mental wellbeing so that people will not be so inclined to look for chemicals to make themselves feel better.