25 GOOD REASONS TO ABOLISH PSYCHIATRY
(slightly revised - August 1998)
by Don Weitz
1. Psychiatrists are more harmful than helpful.
2. Psychiatrists are more unethical than ethical .
3. Psychiatrists do not empower - they disempower people.
4. Psychiatry is not a medical science.
5. Psychiatry is quackery, a pseudo-science which lacks independent diagnostic
tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for "mental illness".
6. Psychiatrists can not accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence
or any other type of human behaviour, yet make such claims as "expert
witnesses".
7. Psychiatrists have already caused a worldwide epidemic of brain damage by
prescribing brain-disabling treatments such as the neuroleptics,
antidepressants, electroconvulsive brainwashing (ECB or electroshock), and
psychosurgery ("lobotomy").
8. Psychiatrists manufacture hundreds of "mental disorders" classified
in its bible titled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM).
The DSM is not a scientific work but a catalog of negative moral judgments which
psychiatrists use to medicalize, target and stigmatize dissidents and
alternative ways of perceiving, interpreting or being in the world.
9. Psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose people's life crises as symptoms of
"schizophrenia" or "mental illness".
10. Psychiatrists falsely claim, without scientific proof, that
"schizophrenia" is not only a real disease but caused by a
"biochemical imbalance in the brain", genetic factors or a
"genetic predisposition"--in fact, there are no
scientifically-established biochemical and genetic factors in
"schizophrenia" or any other "mental illness".
11. Psychiatrists routinely misinform psychiatric prisoners ("involuntary
patients"), their families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling
procedures as the neurotoxins (e.g.,"anti-psychotic medication",
"antidepressants"), electroconvulsive brainwashing (ECB),
psychosurgery and other behaviour modification or mind-control procedures
are "safe, effective and lifesaving"--the exact opposite is the case.
12. Psychiatrists routinely deceive or lie to psychiatric prisoners, other
prisoners, their families and the public.
13. "Psychiatrists routinely misinform or not inform psychiatric prisoners
and other prisoners about their treatments' many toxic and permanently disabling
effects such as memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, parkinsonism, dementia (all
signs of brain damage), and death.
14. Psychiatrists routinely threaten, intimidate and coerce psychiatric
prisoners and other prisoners into consenting to health-threatening treatments
such as the antidepressants, neuroleptics, ECB, and hi-risk experiments.
15. Psychiatrists routinely violate the ethical and legal principle of
"informed consent" by failing to inform psychiatric prisoners and
others about non-medical alternatives such as safe survivor-controlled crisis
centres, drop-ins, self-help/advocacy groups, holistic/naturopathic medicine,
and affordable supportive housing.
16. Psychiatrists are sexist in frequently stereotyping women in crisis as
"hysterical" or "overemotional", overdrugging,
electroshocking and blaming women whenever they voice real complaints or openly
express their feelings and emotions such as sadness pathologized as
"depression".
17. Psychiatrists are homophobic; the American Psychiatric Association once
officially labeled homosexuality as "mental illness", later voted not
to classify it as an illness.
18. Psychiatrists are ageist in targeting elderly people, especially women, for
antidepressants and electroshock - a form of elder abuse.
19. Psychiatrists are racist and classist in disproportionately drugging
African-Americans, African-Canadians and poor people, labeling them
"schizophrenic" or "psychotic", and subjecting children of
colour to experimental drugs or hi-risk experiments.
20. Psychiatrists routinely violate people's human rights and constitutional
rights such as incarcerating innocent people without trial or public hearing
("involuntary commitment" or preventive detention), and subjecting
them to cruel, degrading and inhumane punishments or tortures such as forced
drugging, forced electroshock, psychosurgery, solitary confinement and other
"restraints".
21.Psychiatrists masterminded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of
psychiatric prisoners, disabled children and elderly people in hospitals during
The Holocaust in Nazi Germany and "selected" hundreds of thousands of
concentration camp prisoners for death. There is still no mention of this
psychiatrically-administered, mass murder program code-named
"T4/euthanasia" in psychiatric textbooks and histories. In Canada,
very few medical schools provide lectures on "T4".
22. Psychiatrists have participated in mind-control experiments in the United
States, Canada and other countries since the early 1950s.
23. Psychiatry, particularly involuntary-biological psychiatry, is inherently
coercive and based on three Fs: Fear, Force and Fraud.
24. Psychiatry is essentially fascist.
25. Psychiatry is a direct threat to democracy, human rights and life.
Note: This statement was first published in the book "What
Difference Does it Make?" (The Journey of a Soul Survivor), by Wendy Funk
(1998).
Don Weitz is a psychiatric survivor and antipsychiatry/anti-poverty activist
in Toronto. He is do-editor of Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry
in Canada (1988), co-founder of People Against Coercive Treatment (PACT), and
member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).
tel: (416) 760-2795, PACT website: www.tao.ca/~PACT,
e-mail:dweitz@pathcom.com
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