There’s a very important article on Mad in America. It’s called Does NIMH Follow the Rules of Science? A Startling Study, by Niall McLaren, MD, dated July 9, 2013.
Dr. McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist who has relentlessly combed the literature for proof of the fundamental psychiatric claim – “…that a full understanding of the brain will give a full understanding of mental disorder, with no questions unanswered.”
He found nothing in the way of proof!
Here are some quotes:
“These papers give the strong impression that they were designed to sway opinion by appeals to authority rather than to convince by weight of evidence from the literature. This, of course, is the exact antithesis of the scientific method.”
“In science, there is no such thing as a final authority.”
“…the claims of biological psychiatrists were of the same order, a self-reinforcing belief that had simply become part of the wallpaper in the world of psychiatry, handed from generation to generation just as we hand on our notion of what is the best football team.”
“Trouble is, I found nothing in this extensive search of the literature that could be taken as a justification of the notion that mental disorder is fundamentally biological in nature. As of 2013, the whole edifice of orthodox or mainstream psychiatry rests on a mantra, something that has the form of a scientific statement but is factually empty, devoid of content.”
“Essentially, biological psychiatry is an urban myth.”
“Throughout the world, hundreds of millions of people are being ‘treated’ according to a model of mental disorder that doesn’t exist. Moreover, the psychiatric establishment that controls the flow of research money has decided to commit it to a direction that lacks anything like a scientific warrant.”
Dr. McLaren’s article is articulate, well-written, cogent, and credible. I strongly encourage readers to take a look at it, and pass it along. And remember, Dr. McLaren is a psychiatrist!
As I’ve said many times, psychiatry is not something good that needs some minor corrections. Rather, it is something rotten and flawed. It is an invention of would-be physicians to justify the selling of drugs to maintain their corrupt symbiotic relationship with the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.
The only essential difference between most psychiatrists and a street corner drug seller is that the guy on the corner doesn’t pretend that he’s treating you for an illness.
I was taken to task recently by a reader for tarring all psychiatrists with the same brush. And of course this is a valid point. There are psychiatrists who have distanced themselves from the inane traditional psychiatric rubbish, and who don’t practice the destructive pill-for-every-problem “treatment.” But they are few and far between.
Most psychiatrists are still lock-step behind their so-called thought leaders, and continue to dole out their toxic products with little regard for the damage they inflict on people who come to them for help.
Despite all the revelations of spuriousness, human damage, and corruption that have emerged over the past four decades, and particularly in the past few years, there has been no corrective action on the part of psychiatry. The stance of psychiatry’s leaders and of its rank and file is: full speed ahead. DSM-5 has even formalized the medicalization of childhood temper tantrums, and the rank and file is routinely using neuroleptics to “treat” this “illness.”
I suggest that practitioners in other disciplines can no longer work alongside psychiatrists and turn a blind eye to what they are doing. Please check out Dr. McLaren’s article. And please, if you’re not doing so, please speak out. Too many people have been destroyed. Let’s stop this thing now.