# Anti-psychiatry Blog



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Paranoid
Schizoid
Schizotypal
Antisocial
Borderline
Histrionic
Narcissistic
Avoidant
Dependent
Obsessive-Compulsive

I know someone in a medical-related field, and I have done some reading in these areas, using the latest psychiatric journal/desk references (you know those huge dictionary-like tomes at your local library). Plus, I have had a lifelong interest in psychology, especially the "old school" type, like Freud, Jung, B.F. Skinner, and R.D.Laing.

As an example, the designation "schizotypal" is a vague, undefined term; they don't really know what it is. It's used as a "default" diagnosis, when the professional is unclear diagnosis. The same goes for the remainder of these designations. 

These designations of "personality types" (how dehumanizing) are just "judgement calls" which do not rely (ostensibly) on the professional's concern or empathy with anybody's subjective experience, but are drawn from observations about your behavior and responses, apart from any subjective "human" factors or interactions. Experience, your experience, is unimportant, and in fact is an impediment to their gathering of "objective" data on you.

Psychiatry is not science. If anyone here should ever put themselves in the hands of this profession, you are basically gambling with uncertainty, and the luck of the draw as to what the person is like. 

Psychiatrists no longer talk to patients (cognitive therapy), but simply prescribe medications and do a cursory observation to make sure the patient is behaving "normally."

Psychotherapists will talk with patients (cognitive therapy), but again, you are in a crap-shoot to find a person who is not biased in some way which is detrimental rather than helpful (feminist biases against men, therapists of either sex who are jaded and disgruntled with the industry and hostile to patients, misanthropic). Additionally, psychotherapists are frequently used by businesses and corporations to "flush out" potential troublemakers, suspected substance abusers, and possible social misfits. If any crisis occurs, such as an employee death, there may be a "grief counseling" program set up, which is really set up to serve the company's interests.

The medications prescribed are just as mysterious, and potentially dangerous physically. Given the complexity of the brain, the true nature of many of these medications is not known. The "seritonin-uptake cycle" is not fully understood, hence the many cases of Prozac suicides and the like. Many of these drugs are adopted for use from other areas. For example, the drug Depakote, used for "smoothing-out" the brainwave-peaks of epileptics, is used in manic depression to "smooth-out" mood disorders and prevent manic episodes. I've seen my fellow employees on these drugs (people who are my friends as well, and whom I see and observe daily), and have noticed the "flat affect" it produces, appearing as a kind of heavy-lidded "zombie" state. Prozac, I have noticed, created an agitated, irritable manager whom I had to deal with (I admit this wasn't as bad as the manager of the pizza place I worked at, where he would sneak into the freezer and snort cocaine).
Risperdal, called an "anti-psychotic," is from a family of drugs which are basically "targeted tranquilizers" which shut-down very specific parts of the brain. The unfortunate side-effect of high or long-term usage of these drugs (Haldol, etc.) is a condition of involuntary "tics" called tardive dyskinesia (yes, that's "tardive" as in "retarded"). Your brain normally suppresses these involuntary movements.

I don't have any agenda in saying these things other than to warn others on this thread, who seem to be blithely accepting this seemingly benign "advertisement" for the mental-health industry.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

I work with people affected by these disorders and I have to agree with you, especially about psychiatrists, medication and (grief) counseling. However, I don't think people who do these tests online take themselves very seriously.

There is some truth to the definitions of these disorders (although there is a lot of debate whether personality disorders are actually disorders as in illnesses that people have no control over), but, like you said, it's definitely not a science. You encounter people with some or more of these traits combined in all sorts of ways; everybody is different. And then there are people who are resistant to basically any kind of medication, people who have such ridiculous or dangerous side effects than they need to stop using medication that "worked" towards their illness and so on.

Also, I know that psychotherapists are in danger of constantly being manipulated by patients, because they spend about 2-4 hours a week with them during which time patients can behave wildly different than during the rest of the time.

it's kind of a mess


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Interesting article. Confirms from another perspective what I have already experienced and speculated about, and have had therapists tell me.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2013)

I like Woody Allen's approach to psychotherapy: go into it for years and use it as a badge of pride. Meet all your relationships there and use it as the scapegoat for all your failures. 

But you offer no solution to the problem of escalating mental illness - probably the result of 'pressure cooker' urbanization and the pace of modern life. Sheet the blame home to Freud, Jung and Adler - then listen to the Gershwin Bros' satire of it in "Pardon My English". Funny.


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