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LETTERS FROM READERS
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CONTENTS
What Is It Like To Be Committed To the Psychiatric Ward of a Hospital? - a doctoral student in psychology speaks out - modified January 15, 2002
Jenelle's Story - modified January 22, 2001
Concerned Mothers Speak Out Against Psychiatry - updated June 21, 1999
A Concerned Friend Speaks Out Against Psychiatry - last modified May 12, 1999
Harm from Psychiatric Drugs - last modified January 22, 2001
Psychiatric Stigma - last modified October 5, 1999
Psychiatrists-in-Training Debate Web-Master of this Web Site - modified December 15, 2001  
Compliments - modified August 17, 2003  
Awards Won by this Website - modified May 3, 2001
Criticisms - modified May 1, 2002
Physical Restraints - modified October 12, 2000
Volunteers - modified August 4, 2000
Miscellaneous - modified January 29, 2000
Cartas en español - modificado la última vez el 12 de Julio del 2000

What Is It Like To Be Committed the Psychiatric Ward of a Hospital?

Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 02:30:20 EST
Subject: No Subject
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net

I am a doctoral student in psychology.  Several months ago I was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward in a general hospital.  I was depressed and, seeking support, had called my parents and told them that I was suicidal.  They promptly called the police, who arrived at my apartment, handcuffed me, and transported me to the local psychiatric center.  There I was placed in a lobby with several psychotic patients.  I remained there for 5 hours before I was evaluated by a psychiatrist.  She spoke to me for approximately 10 minutes before she decided that it was in my "best interest" for me to be committed to a psychiatric ward.  I protested, of course, believing that wrenching me away from life would cause far more harm than good.  She expressed no empathy, however, and sent me back to the lobby.  I remained there for 12 more hours, during which time she passed by me numerous times without bothering to make eye contact.
      After being transferred to the hospital ward, I was placed in a room with an actively psychotic woman.  I remained there for the weekend, during which time not a single hospital employee asked me why I was depressed.  I was offered Celexa and took it only when a nurse suggested that my refusal to take medication might be perceived as "resistant" and thus delay my discharge.  The Celexa made me so ill that I could hardly get out of bed; although the ward psychiatrist was aware of my reaction to the medication, he did not consider changing the drug or the dosage.  On Monday morning, I met with the ward psychiatrist, who told me that I would have to remain in the hospital.  I asked him how he had come to that conclusion, given that he hadn't spoken to me once since my arrival at the hospital.  He replied, "I have experience."  He went on to tell me that I had a "control problem" and that I refused to relinquish control to the hospital staff.  I was stunned.  I had never before thought that a goal of psychiatric care was to rob the patient of control.  Apparently patients who ask questions are considered insolent.  I was finally released from the hospital five days after my arrival.
      I can certainly say that I received no benefit from my stay in the psychiatric ward.  I am more depressed than I was before, having been traumatized by my experience with the mental health care system.  I have been alarmed by the utter arrogance of the psychiatrists I have encountered within the last several months.  After leaving the hospital, I visited a psychiatrist in private practice who informed me that I would not get better unless I took medication.  During her initial interview with me, she failed to even ask what life events had brought on my depression.  She did, however, tell me that I had a chemical imbalance.  Although I was distrustful of psychiatrists by this point, I spent over a month trying out Effexor, then Prozac, then Wellbutrin.  I was unable to tolerate the side effects of any of them.  Only when I went off medication altogether did I begin to feel "normal" and more like myself.  When I informed my psychiatrist that I was unwilling to try more medication, she told me that I was being irrational and risking my life.  Well, I guess I will just take that risk.  I am frankly sick of being patronized by psychiatrists who uncritically subscribe to biological theories of depression and who ignore obvious psychosocial factors that contribute to depression.  The belief that the treatment of depression requires medication has been reified by the psychiatric community.  I don't believe that all psychiatrists are as incompetent as the ones who I have encountered.  I do, however, believe that psychiatrists should question the "bible" of their profession, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).  Just because a certain cluster of symptoms is defined as a disorder does not mean that these symptoms are indicative of an underlying chemical imbalance that requires treatment with psychotropic drugs.
"A"

Jenelle's Story

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 99 12:29PM MST
From: Jenelle Dorner
To: Douglas Smith
Subject: Re: My story
Dear Douglas Smith,
      Thank you for writing this article.  I do think it would be beneficial for others to read.  Feel free to link to my page and use our pictures.  The one of Greg and I with Kramer that is on my page is one that was taken during our engagement.
      A little about us...Greg and I had been good friends quite a few years before I aquired TD [tardive dyskinesia].  He was one of few friends who stuck by my side during my illness and continued our friendship after I returned to school.  I lost many people that I once thought were my friends after this happened to me.  Greg is what a best friend really should be. He cares about me and who I am.  He sees beyond my disability and always looks at me as a true partner and I look at him the same way.  Greg would never stoop to pity me.  He knows that I feel pity is degrading and stands up for me when I refuse to tolerate it from others.  We married each other because we had an amazing friendship and we fell in love. I believe people with disabilities of any sort are no different from anyone else in their emotional needs and first of those human needs I believe is love.
      I just wanted you to know my feelings about our relationship.  When I read the article I kind of felt like people may still think..."Oh what a great wonderful guy for marrying this gimpy woman whose been through so much..."  I think the article is wonderful, but you might put in more about our marriage being a mutual partnership.  Greg didn't just fall in love with me...we fell in love with each other and we were best friends for a long time before we married.  I just don't ever want anyone to think we have a pity relationship because it has never been that way.
      I hope you don't mind me critiquing a little.  I think it is so great that you are helping me educate others.
      Everything is quite accurate.  If you need any help with the website or my article please feel free to e-mail me anytime.  Did you get a copy of my article from the Dystonia Foundation's newsletter??  I was just wondering.  It tells a lot of the story and more about Kramer and how he helps me.
      Thank you so much and please keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Jenelle Dorner

Dec. 6, 1999
Dear Jenelle,
I've been thinking of writing to legislators suggesting state laws more stringent than FDA rules pertaining to neuroleptic drugs and calling the law "Jenelle's Law."  We have Megan's Law and Kendra's Law.  (Better still, unlike Megan and Kendra (Webdale), you're still alive!)  Do you like the idea of a law being named after you?
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 99 14:20PM MST
From: Jenelle Dorner
To: Douglas Smith
Subject: Re: Neuroleptics & Law
December 7, 1999
Dear Douglas Smith,
Thank you.  Tears came to my eyes as I read your proposal to use my name.  What an honor.  I would be delighted to have my name on something like this that is so desperately needed.  There are so many people like me who have been damaged by drugs and so many people ignoring what is happening.  Please let me know about your law proposals and let me know if you ever would like my input.  Thank you so much for all you are doing to help fight this.
Sincerely,
Jenelle Dorner

Date: Tue, 18 Jan 00 18:41PM MST
From: Jenelle Dorner - mailto:%20jlyndor@yahoo.com
To: Douglas Smith - antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Neuroleptics & Law
Dear Doug Smith,
      Thank you for proposing [Jenelle's Law].  I think it sounds wonderful & effective.  If you would like me to help in any way (with writing etc. or anything) please let me know.  I would be glad to help out if you need it.
      I do hope someone is able to get something like this passed into law.  There are so many people being harmed by these drugs every day and so many people refusing to help us fight against it.  Thank you for all the efforts you are giving the movement.  There are many people benefitting from your advocacy.  All my best to you.
Sincerely,
Jenelle Dorner

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 00 19:24PM MST
From: Celia Johnson
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Jenelle's Law
Dear Mr. Smith,
     My daughter, Jenelle Dorner forwarded the information about your proposal for Jenelle's Law and it brought tears to my eyes.  I just want to thank you for caring and for the effort that you are taking.  During these last four years I have often asked myself why I haven't done more to advocate, but I think I am just now getting to the point that I am perhaps starting to move beyond the heartbreak.  I hope this doesn't sound selfish, but sometimes it still seems like a nightmare and it is hard to believe that it really happened.  I know that my husband is still in denial.
      Anyway, to address Jenelle's Law, if there is something that I can do to support this effort, I would really like to see this happen.  Thank you for all you do.
Sincerely,
Celia Johnson

To see proposal for Jenelle's Law, click on this link.

Date: Thu, 14 Dec 00 15:51PM EST
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Jenelle's Law
Searching for information on acute reactions to the drug Reglan, I came across your web-site today.  I want to thank you for your efforts.  My husband is suffering from the effects of Reglan taken 5 weeks ago.  He only took the drug for @24 hrs.  He was hospitalized for 3 days and although his symptoms have improved, he seems to have reached a plateau in improvement.  In other words, his improvement does not seem to be progressing at this time.  However, we are very thankful that he is not left with severe symptoms such as Jenelle's.  His initial reaction/symptoms were much like the effects that Jenelle's story indicates that she still has to this day, but he did improve considerably from the time his symptoms were at their worst.
      I have a couple of questions for you, if and when you have time: 1. Have you had any success in promoting legislation for Jenelle's Law?  I would be interested in helping to get drugs such as Reglan off the market.  2. Do you classify psychologists in the same negative light that you cast psychiatrists? Our son is a senior in college, planning to be a psychologist (after several more years of school.) I have not had time to read enough of your writings to know whether you would, as I do, be more inclined to believe that counseling would be beneficial as treatment for "mental illness", depression, etc.
      I would also like to make the comment that while I do agree with much of what you have written (the few articles that I have read), I do know from personal family experience that there are some mental conditions that truly are caused from chemical imbalances; such as the disruption of Dopamine levels caused by such drugs as Reglan.  However, from additional research, I have learned that further treatment with other drugs usually does not restore the chemicals to normal and does not usually correct the problems.  While I am not sure that I agree with you that psychiatric drugs should never be used, I do concur that not all "mental illnesses" are caused by chemical imbalances and that they should probably not be treated with drugs as a standard first course of treatment.
Thank you,
Jennifer D.

Concerned Mothers Speak Out Against Psychiatry

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 99
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Hello everyone!
Just thought I'd express all the anger and madness I feel towards psychiatry, treatment, damage, etc.  For over 5 years now I have been "forced" to deal with the system's forced practices on my only son.  He has been like many others drugged, coerced, restrained, thorazined or should I say blunted with insecticide, etc.  Over and over he would end up at the psych ward.  Over and over we would not sleep, would not be allowed any information, were lied to and coerced, had to replace lots of household items because of the neuroleptic poisonous effect on our son, etc.  It has been a total nightmare.  When I watch the videos of him before and after I throw up thinking that this is happening to millions of other people's loves ones. Because these so-called professionals have so much power, we were looked upon as uncooperative parents that didn't want "the best" for our son.  Well if what we got was the "best" then he would have been better off DEAD.  I had to force myself to sleep for over three years thinking about the movement disorder that they forced him to have...  They didn't even say they were SORRY.  They didn't even acknowledge any of this but they did offer MORE DRUGS.  Yes, more and better DRUGS!
      One video of him I gave to a well known psychiatrist shows him pacing and rocking for hours on end.  Drooling, wetting on himself and twitching his fingers non-stop.  Another part of the 8 hour video shows the hemi-facial movements they gave him, you know the TD [tardive dyskinesia] that doesn't happen right away. Also the arm movements, the eyelids blinking endlessly.
      Then there is the system.  One drug pusher after another trying to pump drugs and give appointments 2 or 3 weeks later to SEE HOW HE WAS DOING?? When we called and said he wasn't doing well we got recording after recording or some staff person taking the message.  Usually no one would return the calls but all of them told us to call 911 if he GOT OUT OF CONTROL!
      Now that I am a member of Support Coalition International and RAPS/Relatives and Allies of Psychiatric Survivors I know how the whole system works.  The drug order, the label order, the court order, the warehousing order and all the other orders that follow.  I made myself learn about DRUGS.  I became very knowledgeable regarding neuroleptics, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants.  I researched and collected thousands of pieces of information I share with hundreds of parents and allies I talk to daily.  We will not let them DAMAGE OUR CHILDREN OR LOVED ONES ANY MORE!
Linda


To: antipsychiatrycoalition@juno.com
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 15:19:11 -0800
My 28 year old daughter developed overt symptoms of schizophrenia over five years ago.  After researching drugs and other treatments, it was clear that drugs do not cure the disease and cause serious long term problems.  ...  She was committed to locked facilities for 72-hours on three different occassions, where she refused drug therapy, even though two of the facilities state that she received drug therapy! However, in Dec 98, I had to take her to our local Emergency Room and asked for an injection of Haldol.  She had previously had one other injection of Haldol 5mg. 15 months earlier (after eating a gluten-free, but high sugar diet) that helped her recover from that episode.  However, she was given, without our knowledge, 25 mg. of the long acting form of Prolixin, called Prolixin Deconeate.  She had terrible side effects, which still persist, 3.5 months later.  She required anti-parkinson drugs to counteract severe and disabling muscle contractions, walked like a zombie for 2+months, drooled, was mentally retarded, said she had an electric shock running through her brain, developed akathesia, the compulsion to walk or move constantly.  Her only relief was to be taken on long car rides, otherwise she paced around the house and became exhausted.  She couldn't sleep and had to take sleeping pills for weeks.  She felt like bugs were crawling on her skin, etc.  She was suicidal and constantly asked us to kill us.  Just shoot me in the head.  She would fall down on the floor and say that she couldn't take it anymore.  I have observed my daughter's disease for 4 years and can state that THE CURE WAS MUCH WORSE THAN HER DISEASE.  THE DRUGS CAUSED MORE PROBLEMS THAN THEY CURED.  [capitalization in original] She said that the voices were less, but so what.  She could deal with that much easier than the horrible side effects from the drugs.  When she first became sick, I read Peter Breggin's book TOXIC PSYCHIATRY and was determined to avoid drugs, even though there is so much pressure to use drugs.  However, my daughter's experience was so much worse than described in the book.  I will never trust another psyciatrist. ...
Concerned Mom

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A Concerned Friend Speaks Out Against Psychiatry

Date: Tue, 04 May 99 13:45PM
To: "'antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net'"
Subject: Advice
Greetings!
      If you could offer your advise or any assistance regarding the following situation, I would be most obliged to you.
      I have a friend suffering from depression who has been repeatedly victimized by her family and the psychiatric system for over seven years.  Certain family members have a lot of clout with local physicians and have managed to keep her drugged up on Haldol in order to keep her at home and dependent on her alcholic, dysfunctional family.  When she leaves town, her family always sabotages her by alerting either the police or those in her new environment to her mental history and medication "requirements".  Because of the stigma of mental illness, she then loses all credibility, is condescended to or even hospitalized all over again.  She is kept economically helpless because of a spotty employment record due to these problems.
      I have known this person for twenty-three years.  She was fine before her family put her in Oakcrest and medicated her.  Haldol is much too strong for ordinary depression.  The side effects of this drug make her rock back and forth and a few years ago, made her exhibit symptoms characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia.  She is not schitzoid; she is depressed.  It is the drugs, Haldol, Zyprexa, and the dangerous drug Resperidol that have made her this way.  Haldol is for out-of-control patients.  Her parents think my friend is out-of-control if she voices her opinions or gets emotional because they are in denial themselves (alcholic syndrome).
      As a teen, my friend lost a father and a significant other within a month of each other.  The following summer, she became a camp counselor.  She had a break down because of the depression and loss and was hospitalized and drugged in Oakcrest.  That is when all of this started.  Every time she leaves home or finds a job, her family undermines her efforts.  Is anything illegal taking place here? Libel, slander - something?
      Next week, my friend will go to court to appeal for release from conservatorship.  To support her, I will write a letter to the judge containing information similar to the above.
      Can you please help me to help my friend? She means a lot to me and it hurts to see her treated this way.
Thank you,
D.E.

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Harm from Psychiatric Drugs

Date: Mon, 11 Dec 00 23:55PM EST
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Pamphlet Distribution help
Dear Sirs,
      I found your web site tonight and feel I have finally found affirmation of my beliefs on this vital issue.  I am not, nor have ever been treated on the record for any mental illness.  I am, however a recovered alcoholic and drug addict 51 years old with 6 years clean after 29 years of abuse.  The only psychotropics I ever took were in the days of my wild youth and these were available on the street.  I suffered from many of the side effects described on your message board as a result of LSD, Peyote, Psillocybin and other psychidelic ingestion.  The symptoms continued for several years after discontinuing the abuse of these psychotropics.
      Today my life is wonderful, have a great job and spend many hours of volunteer time working with young people who have addiction problems.  The greatest difficulty I have in my volunteer work is trying to help addicts in early recovery who have been wrongly diagnosed as mentally ill.  They arrive clean of the street drugs, but newly-addicted to the psychotropics given them at the rehab or detox.  Some realize what has been done to them, and manage to get drug-free within our program, which is basically a spiritual approach combined with intensive daily group and individual cognitive therapy.  It is a rule of our program that we are not allowed to express any medical opinions, and those who feel as I do are bitterly castigated when we suggest that maybe these drugs are causing problems.
      The end result of this situation is that many return to their street drugs and die, or continue on the meds merry-go-round for years in misery.  I have never been able to guide a person in ths program to sucessful recovery and a full happy life as long as any mood- altering drugs were being taken.
      Some of my peers also feel the way I do, but we are all at a loss as to what to do about this situation.  I would like to recieve some of your pamphlets and make copies for distribution in our community.  The work we do saves lives, but we lose so many to prescription meds.  Perhaps these pamphlets will help.
Bob
Rocky Hill, New Jersey

From: "Mark Miller" mmiller1@swbell.net
To: drugawareness@egroups.com
Subject: [drugawareness] Call for Stories and Photos.
Date: Mon, Jul 17, 2000, 8:38 AM
Dear ICFDA eGroups subscribers…
      This is a rather different message, and a difficult one at that.
      As many of you may know, my wife and I lost our 13-year son to an SSRI-induced suicide three years ago next week. (drugawareness.org/matthewmiller.html)
      In a few weeks we will be going to trial here in Kansas City in attempt to prove that Pfizer has long known about the relationship between their drug Zoloft, and violent or suicidal actions. (information posted at http://justiceseekers.com/) [<--Click on "PROZAC/ZOLOFT INFORMATION" link on left edge of page]
      It most likely will be a long, difficult and personally taxing ordeal.
      My wife and I have chosen to pursue this litigation because we believe there need to be changes in the ways these drugs are marketed and labeled, especially by doctors who prescribe off-label to children.
      We know we are not going into this alone. We have outstanding legal representation. We have the prayers of many who have also suffered. We know that all those who have died on these medications, and they are far too numerous to mention, stand with us. (It is no understatement to say that we feel their presence every day. Perhaps even your own loved ones.) And we ultimately know that the good Lord blesses our efforts—this "rising up in righteous anger."
      In the coming weeks, we will have an opportunity to share our story with many people, especially within the news media. In fact, we have an important interview with a national news organization in August.
      And that's why I'm writing.
      One of the things that most convinced us that Matt's medicine was responsible for his actions were the countless letters we have received from our website. They still come in every day. For the most part, they represent a tragic realization that the "cure" was "cause."
      If you have suffered on SSRI medications, specifically Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox, Effexor, Serzone, Celexa (or any other serotonergic medicine), please send me a photo and a short paragraph on a separate piece of 8 1/2" X 11" paper stating what happened. It could be as simple as "My brother took his life on Zoloft after three weeks of use," or "I almost lost my life trying to withdraw from Paxil." Please use names and addresses and phone numbers. I want to build a scrapbook to share with the press.
      Perhaps with your help, we can make a difference. And your help in building this scrapbook will go a long ways to show the human dimension to this national tragedy.
      If you can, please send a photo and short paragraph to me by August 15, 2000 to:

13920 Garnett
Overland Park, KS 66221

Or if you prefer, email me your photo (preferably as JPEG file) and paragraph to me at mmiller1@swbell.net. I will not be able to return originals, but I will let you know I've received them.
      Thank you for your cooperation. Obviously some of you reached by this email will not have had a personally devastating experience with these drugs, and for that I am grateful. But, if you have, please take a moment to help out in this way.
      I know this book will make a powerful statement with whomever we talk to.
      Thank you again…
Mark and Cheryl Miller

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 99 08:42AM MDT
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Effexor damaged my brain
Hi, can you tell me where I can get any help?  I was on Effexor for a year and have been off for nearly three years now. I have lost all libido and ability to feel pleasure from sex, eating, etc.  My memory is severly impaired.  I cannot think abstractly.  I have no emotions.  My body is numb.  Is there any recourse for us who have been damaged?
Thank you,
M.
Dear M:
No, I don't know anybody who is particularly knowledgeable about recovering from the harm you have experienced.  I know what I would do if I were you, however: I'd eat the most natural, wholesome food I could, including at least one leafy green salad a day, would run two miles every other day (or more often if I felt up to it), would take a variety of vitamin/mineral supplements every day (as I do now), and I would never wake up to an alarm clock when I didn't have to for work.  If you are waking up to an alarm, you are not getting enough sleep.  I believe firmly in the healing power of sleep.  Melatonin helps some people sleep better.  I've used it and find it gives me more of the dream-filled sleep that is most important.  Articles cited in Antipsychiatry News Clips say the brain is always regenerating and growing new cells, so there is hope of recovering, partly or entirely.
Good luck.
Douglas A. Smith
webmaster for the Antipsychiatry Coalition

____________________

See also "Concerned Mothers Speak Out Against Psychiatry" (above on this page) for more first-hand accounts of harm from psychiatric drugs.

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Psychiatric Stigma

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 99 18:57PM
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
      I'd just like to say what a wonderful site this is.  One of the nice things about it is that it is succinct and cleanly set out.  I haven't read all the articles but the one about stigma by Lawrence Stevens was very nicely expressed.  I am a doctor and I've always lied about my two week hospital admission as a student.  I lied about it on my pilot's license medical form.  I've lied about it on my job health questionnaires.  I didn't tell my last girlfriend and am procrastinating on buying a house because I know that I'll need life insurance and have to lie again.  ...
      Psychiatric stigma is surely one of the biggest factors that makes psychiatric diagnosis such a self fulfilling prophecy, along with the rebound effect that all the antidepressants/antipsychotics have by downregulating and upregulating the receptors they work on.
      I want very much to help this crusade against psychiatry but there again I run a risk of being scrutinized as to my motivating reasons.  ...
      I feel most medical students enter med school neutral but if they accept the teachings of psychiatry and pursue that line then they are then committed to that line of thinking.  None of us are immune to self denial and using the bits of information that justify the argument we want to believe and if your livelihood and professional image relies on it then I'm sure that denial is pretty strong. ...
    I know a lot of my fellow students felt uneasy about the premises of some of psychiatry, but when it's just another load of facts to learn along with the rest of medicine your not going to take up the banner in lectures on your own.
      Thanks again for the site.  It's nice to read what you feel written by an intelligent professional when you've felt it on your own for a long time.  Please forward my regards to Lawrence Stevens.
Yours sincerely,
[name withheld], MBBS

Note: MBBS means "bachelor of medicine - bachelor of surgery."  It is the foreign equivalent of the M.D. degree.

Date: Tue, 06 Apr 99 10:33AM
To:antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
PLEASE KEEP THIS ANONYMOUS
I'm so frustrated.  I'm a 26 year old third year law student.  I want to take the bar exam.  But I'm afraid to apply because of the general waiver I have to sign.  They will have access to all my medical records, including my experiences with several incompetent psychiatrists.  I have never had a good experience with a psychiatrist, and everytime I experienced a "major depressive episode" I was told that there is no shame in asking for help.  No shame except maybe they won't let me take the bar exam.  Psychiatrists have routinely violated confidentiality (speaking to my parents about my condition when I was 23 years old without my permission) and told me that I need to worry more about "getting better" than my "rights."  I am stable now and I see a plain old everyday M.D.(general practitioner) who gives me the Zoloft I need and doesn't make me go to some silly talk therapy.  I have worked so hard for 3 years to get this law degree and because I have been hospitalized for "Depression" several times my hard work may not even pay off.  I am also just embarrassed about my illness and angry because of all the people who told me that it was okay to get help and that there isn't any shame.  They lied to me.
"S"
Comment by Antipsychiatry Coalition web-master Douglas A. Smith:
This law student's letter illustrates the fact that promises of "confidentiality" when seeing so-called mental health professionals are always misleading, whether or not they are deliberately dishonest, because any time you apply for a professional or occupational license or a job with a lot of responsibility you are likely to be required to sign a general waiver in which you "voluntarily" surrender your right to confidentiality.  The penalty for not "voluntarily" surrendering your right to confidentiality is not getting the professional license or job you are applying for.  In many cases, your application won't even be accepted for consideration unless and until you sign the waver.  Typically, you will also be required to submit a list of the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all physicians and other health care professionals (such as psychologists and substance abuse specialists) you have received care from during the last three, five, or ten years, sometimes with criminal penalties for not providing a complete list.  Your confidentiality would be have been better protected if you had instead confided in a friend rather than a so-called "professional" person like a psychiatrist or psychologist, because no professional licensure applications and no job applications will require you to submit a complete list of all the friends you have had during the last five or ten (or however many) years.
      Confiding in a friend won't stigmatize you and thereby create risk of you being excluded from important opportunities in life such as being admitted to the bar exam and being licensed as a lawyer or being admitted to medical school or even less remunerative opportunities in life such as getting a taxi driver license.  According to ACLU lawyer Bruce Ennis in his book Prisoners of Psychiatry, people have been denied taxi driver licenses because they received so-called psychiatric treatment, even though they were not "hospitalized."  Becoming the "patient" of a psychiatrist or psychologist may cost you dearly in terms of such lost opportunities in life or at the least cause you to be confronted with dilemmas such as this law student is facing.
      This law student's letter also illustrates the routine failure of psychiatrists and psychologists to live up to their promises of confidentiality, in this case providing information to the law student's parents in violation of promised confidentiality.  This law student experienced it in the mid-1990s.  I experienced it many years before.  It seems some things never change.  You cannot trust mental health professionals to abide by their promises of confidentiality.
      A sad aspect of this law student's letter is her calling her sorrow "my illness" and her belief that Zoloft somehow alleviates her despondency (or "depression").  These statements imply she thinks her sad feelings are somehow biologically caused.  As psychology professor Elliot S. Valenstein so carefully documented in his book Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health, published in 1998, there are no demonstratably valid biological theories of "depression" or other so-called mental illnesses, and there is no (valid) physiological or biological explanation for why any of the so-called antidepressant drugs should work.  Consider this: Zoloft, Paxil, and Prozac are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).  According to Dr. Valenstein (page 108 of his book), there is a new supposedly antidepressant drug recently approved in England called Edromax that is exactly the opposite, that is, it does not act on serotonin at all!  Drug manufacturers experiment with drugs that cause one or another change in brain chemistry in hopes of finding one that will work, but they have failed, and yet they promote and sell the drugs anyway because of the large profits to be made from convincing people like this law student and her doctors that the drugs somehow rearrange brain chemistry for the better.  A placebo effect, or improved mood that takes place over time that would have happened whether or not they took the drug, convinces some drug users they are receiving a benefit.  It's too bad the FDA isn't doing its job and instead lets these drugs on the market with an official stamp of government approval, a stamp of approval that helps fool people into thinking the drugs actually have value (other than for making money for manufacturers of psychiatric drugs and for the physicians who prescribe them).


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Psychiatrists-in-Training Debate Web-Master of this Web Site

To: antipsychiatrycoalition@juno.com
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999
Subject: Do you all believe that the earth is flat as well?
          Hello!  My name is being withheld for privacy reasons but I am a fourth year psychiatry resident in the Southeastern U.S., completing a fellowship in Behavioral Neurology and soon to be completing another fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry.  I'd like to make a few comments regarding your site and the practice of psychiatry as I have known it since I began training 3.5 years ago.
        1) I have been an active participant in Fast MRI research and have seen first hand how brain perfusion is markedly reduced in the left frontal hemisphere of severely depressed patients.  I have also seen how the blood flow to these areas returns to normal about 4 to 6 weeks after initiating antidepressant therapy (and over the long term with psychotherapy).  I have also participated in further imaging research which CLEARLY shows reduced brain volumes in Schizophrenic patients as compared to normals.
        2) I have personally treated HUNDREDS of patients including the following examples: Manics(ie. in the manic phase of Bipolar Disorder)who are threatening to kill the President and themselves; Borderlines with so many scars on their forearms that they have great difficulty wearing a short sleeved shirt in public; Schizophrenics eating their own feces or so catatonic that they cannot eat at all; Children with ADHD so severe that they literally do not know whether to laugh or cry; and the Demented, with diseases such as Alzheimers or Picks Disease who would not know how to evacuate their own home if it caught on fire.  All these cases are complex and initially seem hopeless, however I have been able to successfully treat all these and many more.  No, I cannot yet cure them (as NO physician can cure Diabetes or Hypertension) but I can treat their symptoms effectively (with psychotropic medications) and compassionately (with psychotherapy).  And these, (TREATMENT & COMPASSION) are probably why I have received nothing but thanks and good wishes form these patients and their families after they have been stabilized.
        3) 1 and 2 are all the evidence I need to prove that psychiatry works.  It is one of the noblest and IS THE OLDEST SPECIALTY in medicine.  Psychiatry has had its problems in the past but that was due to the lack of scientific knowledge regarding the brain that prevailed in the mid 20th century and before.  Neurosurgery, Cardiology & Endocrinology were no better off prior to 40 years ago as well.  The Brain is complex; it has the consistency of toothpaste and yet each square centimeter of this "paste" holds enough neural and neuroendocrine circuitry to rival the largest computers.  However, with new tools such as fast MRI, PET/SPECT Imaging, and detailed genetic analysis, we are finally beginning to be able understand how thoughts, emotions, and memories are produced, and the factors (genetic and environmental) that account for pathology within these systems.  Don't belive me?  Stick around for the next 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 years.
        4) I am in a psychiatry residency (I also have a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a Masters degree in Biology).  That means that I have completed medical school (with my grades and Board Scores being in the top 5% of all physicians in the U.S.) and have an M.D. degree.  There are a total of about 50 psychiatry residents (men and women)in my program and every one of them loves their choice of medical specialty.  I have not heard of one case of a psych resident switching from psychiatry to another medical specialty at my institution since I joined the program.  In fact we have had about 10 residents from other specialties transfer to ours in the same time period (1 radiology, 2 anesthesiology, 5 family practice, 1 pathology, 1 surgery).  And this year, the number of medical students applying for a psychiatry residency position at our institution has gone through the roof!(140 applicants for 10 Intern positions) Our morale is high and one of the main reasons for this (besides the fascinating and gratifying aspects of our work)is that we are in such high demand.  My senior classmates and I are inundated weekly by job offers from all over the U.S., all with STARTING salaries ranging from $120,000.00 to $150,000.00 a year!  That is $10,000.00 to $40,000.00 more a year than Family Practice, Internal Medicine or Pediatrics.  As a practicing Forensic Psychiatrist, I will soon be making $300,000.00 to $400,000.00 a year!  That is well in the Surgery range but without all of the hassles they have to endure and a much better lifestyle (ever talked to a Surgeon?  Here's a joke for you:  Why don't Surgeons get hemorrhoids?  Because they're perfect a__ holes!).  [explicative partly deleted] My point is not to piss anyone off or incite jealousy, but a dying, non lucrative specialty this is not - Sorry.
        5) OK, I take it that y'all don't like Psychiatrists and Psychiatry.  That's fine by me because visiting your site and others like it provides me a fascinating glimpse into the workings of the human mind, just as I find fascinating those people who have told me honestly and sincerely that they have had microchips inserted into their skulls.  If you all run into any mental health problems in the future, and God, Dianetics, curses, herbs, cocaine, and alcohol don't provide comfort, just remember this: You may have given up on Psychiatry, but Psychiatry has not given up on YOU!
"Dr. Anonymous"

Dear Dr. Anonymous:
          I'm never surprised when a current or former psychiatric "patient" writes to us anonymously, but it does surprise me to get a letter from a physician doing a psychiatric residency who insists on anonymity.  We who you stigmatize with your life-ruining psychiatric "diagnoses" have legitimate reason to insist on anonymity, mostly because of our all-too-justified fear of job discrimination because of our "history mental illness": Psychiatric stigma makes it difficult for many of us to earn a living.  What, I wonder, could you, a psychiatrist-in-training, be hiding?
        Feedback from mental health professionals is always welcome, however, even if it's critical, since it lets us know our message is being read by some of the people most directly responsible for the health care quackery and the human rights abuses we seek to end.  A few rare persons in psychiatry will read books by Thomas Szasz or Peter Breggin or articles like those appearing on our web site and will change the way they do business or practice their profession, such as avoiding use of psychiatry's harmful "treatments" and refusing to go along with requests to use psychiatric "diagnosis" to justify subverting America's and other democracies' traditional guarantees of individual liberty.  Most however will not.  Most will instead put their own personal and professional interests first even though that necessitates harming their so-called patients.  As now retired psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz once said, it usually requires more than facts and logic to overcome what he called religious and professional myths, because the people who believe in them have an emotional need to believe in them.  You, "Dr. Anonymous," are probably a typical example: If I anticipated earning $300,000 to $400,000 a year as a forensic psychiatrist as you say you do, I too might find it difficult or impossible to admit that virtually everything my profession and my earning ability are based on is nonsense.
        Most of the assertions you make in your letter were adequately refuted in articles appearing on this web-site since it first went on-line on October 2, 1997, before you wrote your letter.  I have to wonder if you didn't take the time to read all of them before writing:
          You seem to be saying you believe "brain perfusion [being] markedly reduced in the left frontal hemisphere of severely depressed patients" proves that depression is biologically caused.  In my response to attorney "R.J." in a previous letter (which appears below in the "Criticisms" section) I said: "As Lawrence Stevens pointed out in his article, 'The Myth of Biological Depression,' (appearing on this web site): 'At least one brain-scan study (using positron emission tomography or PET scans) found that simply asking normal people to imagine or recall a situation that would make them feel very sad resulted in significant changes in blood flow in the brain (Jose V. Pardo, M.D., Ph.D., et al., 'Neural Correlates of Self-Induced Dysphoria', American Journal of Psychiatry, May 1993, p. 713).'  Since it has been established that emotions cause biological changes in the brain, it makes no sense to point to these changes can say they caused the emotions."  The principle is the same whether the perfusion of the brain is measured with Positron Emission Tomography scans or other methods such as Fast MRI.  As time goes on and the person's mood improves (probably due to the person's expectations changing over time in recognition of present circumstances), the improved mood results in the brain perfusion changes you see with various brain imaging methods.  But it is probably the changed mood that causes the biological changes you see rather than the reverse.  I haven't seen convincing evidence that antidepressant drugs make this happen faster than so-called psychotherapy or no therapy.  In fact, most evidence suggests the opposite.  Your letter says perfusion of the brain with blood changes back to normal "about 4 to 6 weeks" after starting allegedly antidepressant drugs and "over the long term with psychotherapy." Your letter doesn't say how long is "long term" nor anything about a control group of people who receive no "therapy."
        You suggest the reduced brain volumes in so-called schizophrenics compared to normal persons proves so-called schizophrenia is biologically caused.  A more convincing explanation is what attorney Lawrence Stevens said in his pamphlet "Schizophrenia: A Nonexistent Disease" (which has appeared on this web site since it first went on-line): "Other efforts to prove a biological basis for so-called schizophrenia have involved brain-scans of pairs of identical twins when only one is a supposed schizophrenic.  They do indeed show the so-called schizophrenic has brain damage his identical twin lacks.  The flaw in these studies is the so- called schizophrenic has inevitably been given brain-damaging drugs called neuroleptics as a so-called treatment for his so-called schizophrenia.  It is these brain-damaging drugs, not so-called schizophrenia, that have caused the brain damage.  Anyone "treated" with these drugs will have such brain damage.  Damaging the brains of people eccentric, obnoxious, imaginative, or mentally disabled enough to be called schizophrenic with drugs (erroneously) believed to have antischizophrenic properties is one of the saddest and most indefensible consequences of today's widespread belief in the myth of schizophrenia."  The decreased brain volumes you allude to are one measure of this brain damage.
          Your suggestion that the reduced brain volumes of so-called schizophrenic people observed with brain imaging proves a biological cause or a biological basis for "schizophrenia" is also contradicted by Michael J. Murphy, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Ronald L. Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D., Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, in their textbook Blueprints in Psychiatry (Blackwell Science, Inc., Malden, Massachusetts, 1998, page 1) wherein they state: "The etiology of schizophrenia is unknown. ... recent studies have focused on structural and functional abnormalities through brain imaging of schizophrenics and control populations.  [But] No one finding or theory to date is adequate in explaining the etiology and pathogenesis of this complex disease" (underline added).
          I'm glad you admit you can't cure any of the so-called disorders you treat.  The reason you can "treat" them, that is, can reduce unwanted behavior with your "treatment," is the psychiatric drugs you use disable the brain sufficiently to make the unwanted behavior impossible.  You are not only "treating" (reducing) the unwanted behavior.  You are to the same extent "treating" (reducing) the desirable aspects of your patient's mentality (intelligence & personality).  Here's an idea for you, "Dr. Anonymous": Give a group of your fellow physicians in training to be psychiatrists IQ tests.  Then require these same physicians to take the same neuroleptic drugs in the same doses you administer to your so-called patients.  Then again give IQ tests to these physicians while they are under the influence of neuroleptic drugs.  You'll find the drugs "treat" (reduce) intelligence as effectively as they "treat" (reduce) so-called schizophrenia.  As someone (probably Lawrence Stevens) once argued, this is disabling people, not therapy.
          The reason you get "thanks" from your patients was described perceptively in "Mental Patients' Liberation: Why? How?" (which has appeared on this web-site since it first went on-line): "... the hospital doors are still locked and you are still inside.  In our consciousness-raising sessions, we have discussed how we got in, and how we got out, and we have discovered that all of us got out by learning to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear.  We call it "learning to shuffle."  We discovered, in sharing our experiences, that when we loudly proclaimed (in the hospital) that we were not sick and that the doctors should leave us alone, we were rewarded with forced hypodermic injections of Thorazine and trips to the seclusion room, but when we learned to say humbly "I was sick, but with my doctor's help I'm getting well," our imprisonment neared its end.  You will have the satisfaction of knowing which is truth and which is falsehood, and of knowing that although they have imprisoned your body, they do not have your mind."
          Another reason you will sometimes get thanks from patients is what has been called the "Stockholm Syndrome."  You'll find the term in any dictionary of psychology.  The term comes from a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in which the bank robbers took people as hostages.  After a long enough time in captivity, the hostages took the side of their captors.  A teacher in a class I took told us one of the female hostages even became engaged to marry one of the bank robbers.  As one of the hostages in the Iran hostage crisis said after returning to the U.S. in 1981: If someone brings you food every day, you learn to like him.  Psychiatrists have power over their prisoners (inpatients) similar to that of the Stockholm bank robbers over their hostages and usually for longer periods of time.
          Why do you get thanks from the so-called patient's relatives?  The answer is: People are labeled mentally ill because they behave in ways that displease other people (or sometimes themselves), and people who must deal with an eccentric, obnoxious, or difficult member of their family are often pleased with the brain-disabling effects of the drugs you administer.  The drugs wipe out most of the "patient's" ability to act in ways that displease his or her family.  Of course, as I've already said, you at the same time reduce or eliminate good aspects of your "patient's" mentality and personality.  Most psychiatric drugs also make your "patient" feel miserable.  But parents and other family members usually care more about suppressing their child's or other relative's unwanted behavior.  They usually are so focused on suppressing their child's or other relative's unwanted behavior that they don't care very much about the permanent brain-damage caused by the drugs even when this problem is called to their attention.  I say: With parents or other family members like this, who needs enemies?!  The widespread belief that force or harmful "treatment" used against a person must be in his or her best interest or must be truly needed if his or her family approved of it is an absolute myth.  I once saw a case in which two adult children were justifiably enraged when their father, a belligerent old man in a nursing home, was given Haldol to make him easier to manage; but in my observations, this is not common.  He was very lucky and very rare to have children who put his welfare first.  People usually care more about forcing others in their family to behave than protecting them from harm - such as from psychiatry's misery-inducing and permanently brain-damaging drugs. 
          You are welcome to whatever insights into the human mind you get from our web-site.  Your letter also gives us insight into yours, particularly your financial motivation.  Thank you for your candor.  I suspect as you gain experience in your profession you'll decide it's in your best interest to downplay your financial motivation for entering psychiatry.  I'm convinced money is the most important motivation for physicians in every specialty, as well as people in almost every other business, and I wish everyone realized this.
          Some readers of this web site might wonder what you mean when you say you are in training to become a "forensic psychiatrist" - the field in which you expect to soon be earning $300,000.00 to $400,000.00 a year.  For the benefit of readers who may not know: A forensic psychiatrist is a psychiatrist who specializes in giving testimony as an expert witness in court.  In 1997 a book about forensic psychiatry and forensic psychology was published that from what I've read so-far appears to say exactly what needs to be said: It is titled Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape of American Justice.  The author is Margaret A. Hagen, Ph.D.  The biographical note says Dr. Hagen has a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Minnesota and teaches at Boston University.  In this book she alleges there is no scientific basis for the belief psychiatrists and psychologists have expertise greater than that possessed by untrained persons and that the entire field is a fraud.  For example (quoting from the book's dust cover), she says "Child psychology professionals are worse than chance at determining when kids are lying" and "In almost two out of three cases psychological professionals incorrectly predict which violent criminals will repeat their offenses" (italics in original).  I read elsewhere that the frequency and extent to which supposed experts in psychology and psychiatry disagree with each other when they appear as expert witnesses has spawned a joke among lawyers: "For every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D."  You may fool most people, "Dr. Anonymous," but you can't fool us: We know the people in your profession are not experts in human psychology or human behavior.
          Because of the despotic power psychiatry wielded over me when I was a prisoner ("patient") in a psychiatric "hospital" and still wields over so many people in America and the rest of the world, your closing remark makes me shudder as I might if you'd said: You may have given up on Naziism, but we Nazis haven't given up on you!  Even now, many years later, I still sometimes feel uneasy when I'm in a state where the state legislature has not created a right to trial by jury in civil psychiatric commitment.  If there had been no right to trial by jury in the state where I was a prisoner of psychiatry, I likely would have lived a very different life.
          I do appreciate your taking the time to engage us in this dialogue, however.  I hope familiarity with the facts and opinion stated by writers whose articles and letters appear on this web-site will persuade you to avoid misusing the power our lawmakers have so unwisely given you.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith
web-master, www.antipsychiatry.org


February 17, 1999
Dear "Doctor Anonymous":
      Your letter and my reply were included in "The Antipsychiatry Forum" of The Antipsychiatry Coalition web site (www.antipsychiatry.org) about a week and a half ago.  You are welcome to write again and continue the debate if you wish.  Your letter is very interesting, and I'd like to thank you for your contribution to our web site.
      Meanwhile, I'd like to suggest a book I think will undermine almost everything you think you know about psychiatry: Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs & Mental Health, by Elliott Valenstein, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Michigan.  I think it's a fantastic book and is without doubt one that should be required reading for every psychiatric resident.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith



To: antipsychiatrycoalition@juno.com
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 09:11:10 PST
Subject: Re: Thank you for your reply !
Dear Douglas,
I will look up the book you mention by Dr. Valenstein Ph.D.  However, as an M.D. and biological scientist, I have been required to read and integrate hundreds of textbooks and thousands of academic journals about the neurological sciences so that at a minimum, I can safely treat my patients.  I have not yet read Dr. Valenstein's book but based on your comment that he can undermine all that I know, I would like to make several comments.
          Several (<10,<20?) books, scattered papers (from lawyers no less?), and a few virulent testimonials (please look up "borderline personality disorder") against Psychiatry cannot begin to refute the overwhelming scientific evidence (based on hundreds of years of empirical and experimental observation) of the validity of the neurological sciences especially Psychiatry.
          A Ph.D. degree is in no way the equivalent of medical education or the rigorous training of a residency (and this is why Psychologists, much to their chagrin, are not considered medical professionals and therefor cannot prescribe medications or perform medical procedures) and so, before Dr. Valenstein can be considered a true authority on the subject of the neurosciences and mental health in general, he should go to medical school (or at least add a Ph.D. in neuroanatomy/neurophysiology to his armamentarium).  When he has completed his tuition (and spent every fourth night for four years awake in the emergency room seeing the acutely mentally ill), his opinions may carry more weight (and ONLY if he has the rigorous scientific evidence to back up his opinions...  as my profession does).
          Thanks for getting back to me Douglas.  I appreciate good intellectual discourse.  Again my apologies for my anonymity but in todays crazy (no pun intended) world it is only prudent.  Perhaps you can add this letter to your comments section as a follow up to your reply.  And if you could, would you please forward my comments to the lawyer (Lawrence Stevens?) you have on your site so that he might respond to them.  Anyway I have got to go now.  I have a pile of patients waiting to see me.
Sincerely,
I. Anon M.D.


To: antipsychiatrycoalition@juno.com
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 18:26:20 PST
Subject: Re: Your reply to my letter on your site
      Whoa! Douglas! Just read your reply to my letter on your site!  My last email (just this AM) had not yet taken that into account.  Please give me some time to rebut your assertions.
      In the mean time it would help me to better understand your point of view regarding Psychiatry, if you could describe the circumstances of your involuntary commitment (I am assuming that this occurred based on your reply), the diagnoses that you were given (which I understand you strongly disagree with), and the medications and/or other treatments you received (so that I can begin to understand the side effects you experienced).  I am not asking for specific names and places but just a general thumbnail sketch of what happened to you.  Also, your educational background would be of help too.
      And finally, please encourage Mr. Lawrence to publish more material regarding his opinions (a web site would be great!).  They are fascinating.
      Take it easy!
Sincerely,
I.A.Mannonymous M.D., M.Sc.


February 24, 1999
Dear "I.A.Mannonymous":
      I discussed my own commitment and diagnosis and the reasons for it on the Antipsychiatry News Clips page, www.antipsychiatry.org/newsclip.htm in the article about a USA Today editorial advocating oppression so-called schizophrenics like myself.  Since my experience as a prisoner of psychiatry, I've finished college and done some graduate work.  However, that was many years ago.
      I don't think you will be able to disparage Dr. Valenstein's facts or reasoning in his book Blaming the Brain.  Your letter suggests you think anything said by non-physicians is invalid, and if that's true, it's short-sighted thinking.
      Let's continue the debate.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith



To: antipsychiatrycoalition@juno.com
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 22:14:58 PST
Dear Douglas,
      I am still working on a reply to you for your site as I have been very busy of late so it may take a little while.  I have been a little facetious with my rebuttals to your group but it is because it was very surprising to me (if not shocking) to find out that some people view my branch of medicine in this way.  For me it is like visiting a Scientific Creationist web site were they belive that the Earth is only 10,000 years old and the dinosaurs lived with man before the Flood etc.
      Dr. Valenstein CAN convince me of anything and he may even be infinitely more intelligent and knowledgable than me.  But to convince me, he is going to have to show me a ton of significant scientific data (imaging, pharmacological, and clinical) that supports his (and your) arguments.  For instance, I believed in the "Face on Mars" once upon a time.  Science had discovered it when the Viking spacecraft "imaged" it as Mars was being mapped, looking for a place for the Viking lander to put down.  A guy name Hoagland made a lot of money saying that it was a face.  I wanted it to be a face because I am interested in extraterrestrial life.  I also bought his book.  NASA said that it was probably just a plateau (common things being common) but would not rule out it being a face.  Hoagland and his followers got really upset that NASA would not agree that it was a face.  They claimed there was a conspiracy and cover up.  I thought there had to be one too because that thing looked like a darned face! But in the back of my "common sense" mind I figured that it probably was just a plateau seen through low resolution "eyes".  I think that it was the Mars Explorer just last year which finally took high resolution pictures of the face and - it wasn't a face at all.  It was just a plateau.
      Dr. Valenstein and Mr. Lawrence are going to have do the equivalent of going to Mars with high resolution cameras and film themselves sticking a flag into a giant nostril to change my (and the rest of the world's) thinking about Psychiatry.  When they do, I (and the rest of medicine) will gladly join your coalition because I believe in science.  And in science, a theory moves to the top when it has reproducability and predictive power behind it.  But so far in this debate, only I and Psychiatry have those on our side.
      By the way, I do not think that you have Schizophrenia.  If you do have a mental illness, that is not it.  Schizophrenia is a true cognitive disorder, just like mental retardation or Alzheimers disease.  Your writing abilities show no indication of a thought disorder, and the fact that you finished college weighs heavily against that diagnosis.  I don't know how old you are but I get the impression that your commitment was many years ago.  Unfortunately, back then many Bipolar patients who were psychotic at the time, were diagnosed with Schizophrenia.  Also I can appreciate the humiliation and anger one must feel when they are committed, especially when one is given the wrong diagnosis.  But remember, surgeons sometimes cut off the wrong foot too, and the way Psychiatry is practiced today is light years away from how it was practiced even 10-20 years ago.
      One last thing.  A thought experiment regarding fast MRI and depressive thoughts (as you mentioned).  Pretend that I am a police officer.  I see a guy pulled over in a car and see and hear that the engine of the car is revving.  I assume the driver (the cognitive/executive center of the car) is revving the engine.  I walk up to the car and see that the drivers foot is not on the gas pedal at all.  But the car is still revving.  We both know Douglas that the driver, by thinking and acting on it, can rev the engine.  But if he is not actively doing so then there must be a malfunction with the engine.  Same with the brain Douglas.  Thinking "down" can reduce (only slightly) the metabolism of certain parts of the left hemisphere of the brain.  That probably is the physiologic mechanism behind the feeling of being depressed.  But you guys need to come up with a good scientific explanation of why there can't be instances of the brain having a malfunction (like all the other organs in the human body that can and do) that inadvertently causes a lowered metabolism in the left cerebral hemisphere resulting in depression (and I've seen hundreds of left sided strokes causing depressive symptoms that way - before stroke, no depression, even if they had severe medical problems before the stroke - after stroke: depression).  Please Explain Carefully!
      Bye for now!
Sincerely,
Dr. Anonymous


May 1, 1999
Dear Dr. Anonymous:
      On what do you base your assertion that psychiatry has "reproducability and predictive power behind it"?!  A central assertion made and documented by psychologist Margaret A. Hagen, Ph.D., in her book Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape of American Justice (1997) is that psychiatry and psychology do not have reproducability and predictive power to support the assertion that they are legitimate science.  She documents the fact that the "predictive power" of psychiatrists and psychologists is worse than chance!  She says: "Our legal system has been told that clinical psychology is a scientific discipline, that its theories and methodology are those of a mature science, and our legal system has believed it.  Given the deplorable state of the 'science' of clinical psychology, that is truly unbelievable" (page 18).  She also says: "Experimental psychologists know that the education commonly possessed by licensed mental health care providers, whatever their background and training, is woefully inadequate to the job demands.  They know too that with the present state of psychological knowledge, there are severe limitations on what any education could provide the most diligent student.  No education on earth today can be held to give an adequate account of how the mind works, how personality and character are formed, or what can be changed and how" (pages 12-13).  She accordingly laments "the willingness of judges and juries to believe psychobabble with scientific foundations equal to horoscope charts" (page 4).
      Your unjustified confidence in the validity of psychiatry as science, and your amazement that there are web sites such this (and books and articles by psychiatrists and psychologists) questioning the assumptions that underlie modern psychiatry, bring to my mind the words of psychiatrist David Kaiser, M.D., in his essay, "Commentary: Against Biologic Psychiatry" (appearing on this web site): "Even a cursory glance at any major psychiatric journal is enough to convince me that the field [psychiatry] has gone far down the road into a kind of delusion, whose main tenets consist of a particularly pernicious biologic determinism and a pseudo-scientific understanding of human nature and mental illness.  ... modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness.  However, this does not stop psychiatry from making essentially unproven claims that depression, bipolar illness, anxiety disorders, alcoholism and a host of other disorders are in fact primarily biologic and probably genetic in origin, and that it is only a matter of time until all this is proven.  This kind of faith in science and progress is staggering, not to mention naive and perhaps delusional."
      Dr. Anonymous, your belief in psychiatry-as-science is wrong, but you believe it so intensely that at times you seem arrogant!  I hope your unjustified confidence in your expertise does not cause you to be overbearing or dictatorial with your (so-called) patients.  Considering the lack of scientific justification for the existence of psychiatry as a medical specialty, psychiatrists should be humble when they talk about psychiatry rather than confident as you seem to be.
      I disagree with your assertion that psychiatry today is light years away from the way it was practiced 10 or 20 years ago.  All or almost all psychiatric drugs in use 10 or 20 years ago are still used.  New psychiatric drugs have been developed and marketed in the last 10 to 20 years, but these new drugs, including widely selling Prozac, are no better than those prescribed 20 years ago.  ECT is still done the way it was done 20 years ago (bilateral with anesthesia, oxygen, and a short-acting muscle paralyzing drug).  Psychotherapy (conversation therapy) has not changed in any meaningful way for decades.
      No, it is not up to us critics of psychiatry to "come up with a good scientific explanation of why there can't be instances of the brain having a malfunction (like all the other organs in the human body that can and do) that inadvertently causes a lowered metabolism in the left cerebral hemisphere resulting in depression."  It is up to you who say biologically caused depression exists to prove your case.  (Similarly, if you were to assert there is life on Mars, it would be up to you to prove this.  It would not make sense to assume there is life on Mars until someone proves there is not.  And it would not be up to me as a nonbeliever to prove there is no life on Mars.)
      It's not really hard to understand why there is lowered activity in the left front hemisphere of the brain in people who are extremely unhappy (or "depressed") or why stroke victims become emotionally depressed.
      Regarding the former: People become emotionally depressed only when they have one or more important but insoluble problems.  Evidence suggests that in most people, particularly right-handed people, the left cerebral hemisphere is the logical, problem-solving part of the brain.  Brain scanning techniques such as PET and MRI show greater activity in this region of the brain when people are busy using their brains to solve problems in a logical way.  But when a person is confronted with an important but insoluble problem, there is nothing for this logical, problem-solving part of the brain to do, so it shows little activity.  If you could show severely unhappy people a logical way to change the life experiences that have caused and are causing their sadness, you would see a lot of activity in this part of their brains rather than the inactivity you think suggests a biological cause for severe unhappiness or "depression."
      Stroke victims, particularly those who experience stroke damage in the left front part of their brains, become depressed because they have lost an important part of themselves only somewhat different from losing an arm or a leg: Rather than (or in addition to) losing physical ability they once had, stroke victims lose intellectual ability they once had.  If brain damage from stroke reduces or eliminates a person's ability to carry on a lively conversation or balance his checkbook, sadness, perhaps severe and long lasting, is a predictable outcome.  If there is no damage in the right front part of the brain (that in most but not all people is the emotional part of the brain), the brain and hence the person retains the ability to experience emotions such as sorrow.  The fact that stroke victims may have had other sorts of health problems before their stroke without becoming emotionally depressed doesn't change anything: Most of us think of our minds as a more essential part of our true selves than physical ability or other aspects of our health, so loss of intellectual ability may be considerably more upsetting than other sorts of health problems.  Despondency or "depression" in people who have experienced left front stroke damage is not evidence of biologically caused depression except in the sense that the biologically caused mental disability is an experience in life that makes a person sad.
      Neuropsychologists and others who study the human brain have determined that in most (particularly right-handed) people the left frontal hemisphere of the brain is where the computer-like, intellectual functions are located.  The right frontal hemisphere is believed to be the emotional part of the brain.  Your assertion that "lowered metabolism in the left cerebral hemisphere," that is, in the computer-like, intellectual portion of the brain, can bring about biologically caused depression is inconsistent with what's known about localization of brain function. 
      Some who read this may wonder what happens when this emotional part of the brain, in most people the right cerebral hemisphere, is damaged by stroke.  Does that cause severe unhappiness or "depression"?  The answer is no.  What it usually causes is loss of ability to experience either happiness or sadness, a state in which a person loses the ability to react emotionally to either his problems or his blessings.  This nonemotional state is called "anosagnosia."  For anyone interested in learning more about this I recommend three books: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by neurology professor Oliver Sacks, The Right Brain and the Unconscious by neuropsychologist R. Joseph, and The Brain Book by psychologist Peter Russell.
      Dr. Anonymous, you still haven't sent me a rebuttal of most of what I said in my first letter.  I'm wondering what sort of response you might have.
      Perhaps before this debate is over you'll begin to realize modern psychiatry is not scientifically valid.  You are still an enthusiastic defender of psychiatry, but because you are willing to engage us in this discussion and are willing to try to defend psychiatry logically (which in my opinion you have not been able to, so-far), I have some hope that one day you'll join us in our efforts to stop the harm being done by your profession.  You can do humankind a lot of good by joining us rather than by continuing to defend psychiatry.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith


Date: Thu, 13 May 1999
May 13,1999
Dear Dr. Anonymous:
You last letter and my reply have been posted on the web site.  I'm hoping you'll continue the debate.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith



Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 10:23:34 PDT
Hello Douglas. I have been very busy but I will get back to you shortly. Did not see more than one protestor in Washington [at the American Psychiatric Association convention in May] unless you count the few hundred Scientologists led by Kirsty Alley (JEESH!). Talk to you soon.
Dr. A.


  "Dr. Anonymous" never did write again after the above correspondence, but two years later another physician undergoing psychiatric training, Dr. Scott Weigold of the University of New Mexico Mental Health Center, wrote the following letter after reading the exchange of letters (appearing immediately above) between "Dr. Anonymous" and Antipsychiatry Coalition webmaster Douglas A. Smith:

Date: Mon, 03 Dec 01 16:18PM EST
From: "Scott Weigold" - [withheld]@[withheld].edu
To: antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Dr Anonymous

Douglas,
As usual, your comments and responses to Dr Anonymous were uniquely misinformed or just plain wrong (often both).  Throughout your debate with Dr Anonymous, you make it clear that you do not read anything except from authors who already agree with you, and then you often misuse the information out of context.  I can only hope you will not say the same about me, since I am reading your website.
      1) There are studies in progress and/or completed that compare the scans of brains of people with schizophrenia (at least they have all the symptoms and other causes have been ruled out - if you want to quibble about whether this MEANS they have the illness, then I don't know how you have faith that the floor will withstand your weight each morning) with those of people without schizophrenia - and before either has ever had any psychiatric medication.  Wanna' guess the results?
      2) There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of well-run studies showing much greater response of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (let's stick to the DSM-IV definitions so we both know what we are talking about) to both medications and therapy than to the "placebo" given to control groups.  There are several ways of giving "placebo" therapy - but learning about those would require learning something about psychiatry and how research in psychiatry is done.
      3) Many people with MDD do get depressed without some "insoluble problem" (your words) cropping up in their life.  In fact, that is pretty much the requirement of the "recurrent" form of the illness.  In fact, those who have one Major Depressive Episode (again, DSM-IV definitions) and stop therapy (of whatever type) have a ~50% chance of another episode in their lifetime (that is MUCH higher than those who have not had one episode) and those who have had 2 episodes have ~75% chance of another, and those who have had 3+ episodes run >90% chance of another episode.  This, and tons of other data, speak volumes about the difference between getting "depressed" because of a life problem and the illness of Major Depressive Disorder.
      4) Most definitions of "treatment response" in studies using volunteers (i.e. not trapped, coerced, or otherwise required to give the "right" answers) have to do with removal or reduction of suffereing that the patients bring to the doctors.  Why in the world would all these thousands of volunteers tell the researchers that their symptoms went away if they did not?  These people are given whatever compensation is part of the study whether they report symptom reduction or not (that is a requirement of human studies).  They do not know, as the researchers recording their responses do not know, if they are taking medication or placebo.  They simply have no reason to lie about this.
      5) Clinical (real world, non-research) definitions of "response to treatment" include both symptom reduction AND increase in functional capacity.  That is, they must be able to do more of the things that THEY want to do in their lives than before they started treatment.  Psychiatric treatment is designed specifically to "improve daily functioning."  In fact, psychiatry is the only medical specialty that attempts to address the "global" functioning of a patient in the very structure of the diagnostic criteria and diagnosis reporting.  Therefore, a treatment that "reduced unwanted behavior" but left the patient "disabled" would be considered a largely useless treatment.  Doctors would not use it and patients would not continue it.  Has this goal ever been abandoned in favor of pure symptom reduction, well certainly.  But it is the standard and goal of every treatment decision.
      6) You often argue about the issue of cause and effect.  I have to say, I don't much care whether the emotions caused the biologic changes or the reverse - at least not right now.  I hope that with further research we will be able to affect biology in order to prevent emotional changes, but that is not currently within our grasp.  However, one of the ways to do that may well end up being to use non-pharmacologic methods (talking) to bolster those parts of the biology that allow some people to weather an emotional storm while others find themselves hopelessly caught in an endless tide of sadness and depression.  Right now, I don't care whether the chicken or egg came first, I want to help the condition to go away so that the patient can get back to doing with his/her life what he/she chooses.  The fact is (and I determine a fact to be something demonstrated countless times in many different contexts) that MDD does respond to therapy.  Whether one chooses psychotherapy (talking with a professional) or psychopharmacology (psychiatric medicines) or both, the information is clear that MDD responds faster and better and more reliably to therapy than to no therapy, than to "placebo" therapy, than to talking to a friend or family member.  While there is also evidence that the combination of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology work better than either alone, and that having several sources of "social support" (i.e. friends and loved-ones) also make any therapy work better - the evidence is clear (if you choose to read it and not simply take the word of someone who wouldn't believe no matter what the evidence) that therapy does work for most people, most of the time.  Incidentally, there is also plenty of evidence that it works whether it is completely voluntary or not (though maybe it doesn't work quite as well).  That is not meant as condoning rampant and unjustified commitment - just a fact.
      7) While Dr Anonymous may soon be making lots of money, most of the rest of psychitrists will not - at least not compared to other medical specialties.  A psychiatrist friend of mine told me this story just a few years ago:

My 8 year-old son once looked at me and asked, "Grandpa's a psychiatrist, right?"  I told him that was true.  "And you're a psychiatrist, right?"  "Yes," again.  "So how come Grandpa's rich and you're not?"  "Well," I told him, "the field of psychiatry has changed a lot since your Grandpa began."  "Oh," he said and looked rather sullen, "so do I have to be a psychiatrist?"

The truth is, income for psychiatrists plummeted during the larte 80's and 90's and is now about equivalent to Family Practice and Internal Medicine doctors in most areas - maybe just a little more.  As a result, most of the people who stay in, or enter, psychiatry are there because that is where they want to be.  As someone graduating from psychiatry residency in 18 mo's. I intend to work with the severely and chronically mentally ill in crisis.  That area of psychiatry will never pay anything close to what Dr Anonymous will make in Forensic Psychiatry.  I do not mean this as whining.  I feel very lucky to be doing what I love in a way that I believe helps some of the most vulnerable in our society, those most reviled, those most forgotten, those largely unable to fend for themselves, and for whom there IS help if they can / will avail themselves of it.  And I get to feed my family and live a fairly comfortable life - I make no apologies for that.
      8) Your argument about strokes and depression is simply mis-informed.  The fact is, people who have strokes in certain parts of the brain get MDD more often than those who have had strokes that are just as "disabling" in other areas of the brain.  This has been studied in a number of ways and the overwhelming conclusion is that strokes to certain areas "cause" MDD in a way that other strokes and other very disabling disorders (including losing the same functional capacities through other means) do not.
      This, alone, of course does not prove that brain problems "cause" MDD in all cases.  It is one of thousands of pieces of information that lead to that conclusion.  If you decide to argue the miniscule details and possibilities of every study ever done on the issue, you will spend a lifetime in a pointless pursuit.  If you are willing to look at the mass of evidence, you will have no choice but to accept that "there is biology involved in both the development of and treatment of" MDD, the other mood disorders, the psychotic disorders and the anxiety disorders.
      If, however, you are one of those who are dead set against such an idea and no amount or type of evidence would sway you, then there is simply no point in having a discussion about the evidence.  In that case, you are one who feels, "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts."  Now, don't get me wrong.  That does not make you stupid or foolish or anything of the sort.  Many of the most important decisions in life are made primarily on "feeling" and faith and have nothing to do with evidence.  Religious affiliation, marriage and romantic partners, having children, voting for government officials, sports team affiliations, etc are all decisions that most people make on faith or feeling with little/no evidence.  If that is how you choose to approach the subject of psychiatry, then that is fine by me.  However, if that is what you want to do - then PLEASE don't suggest to me or others that you are acting on the "evidence."
      You remind me of some very intelligent friends who told me they do not believe in evolution because there is no evidence for it.  Unfortunately, they had never heard anything about the evidence except from those whose job it was to pursuade them that evolution does not exist.  Every single one of them who said they would believe in evolution would believe in it if there was evidence has decided that it does exist and operates every day as a biologic process, simply by listening to the "evidence" from someone who knows what the evidence is both for and against.  Those people realized they had been duped by fanatics who misused information and told lies about the the proponents of evolution - until they looked at the information for themselves.  Now, I have other friends who state that they would never believe in evolution, no matter what the evidence, because they know in their hearts that it could not exist and that, as a result, they would never believe "earthly" evidence.  That is a completely understandable point of view and we do not argue about it.  They have "faith" that evolution does not exist and any argument about the evidence would be pointless for both of us.  So please tell me, what kind of evidence of the biology of psychiatry would convince you?
      9) Is psychiatry always right?  Of course not.  Are psychiatrists always right?  Of course not.  Are there unscrupulous psychiatrists?  Of course.  Have atrocities been perpetrated by psychiatrists?  Of course.  Are all psychiatrists power-hungry, money-grubbing, denegrating, "whores of the court?"  Of course not.  Anyone who thinks that "all" people in any category are "bad" is, by definition, a fanatic.  Anyone who thinks that "all" people with a particular view are "evil" and need to be removed from the world is a dangerous fanatic.

Scott Weigold, MD

Webmaster Douglas A. Smith responds:

Dear Dr. Weigold:

I am delighted to know a physician such as yourself who will soon complete psychiatric training has been reading the articles on our web site.  I hope you are one of many and that the articles on this web site will help to bring us more allies among psychiatrists.  Your letter permits the continuation of a debate Dr. Anonymous started but which he apparently decided against continuing.  I can't avoid wondering if his reason was partly embarrassment about his knowledge of neuroscience being wrong and - surprisingly - seemingly even less extensive than mine, even though I can claim to be no more than a well-read lay person.  I have too often been amazed at the inadequacy of the knowledge of professional people.  This includes lawyers, dentists, an optometrist, and physicians in fields other than psychiatry as well as psychiatrists and psychologists.  In psychiatry and other fields, much of what "professionals" think they know is simply false.  Too often, I have needed only a few hours in a law library or a medical library to know more about important aspects of law, dentistry, bona-fide (physical) health, or psychiatry than most of the "professionals" in these fields.  Regarding Dr. Anonymous, I'm happy to be able to report that the people who have read his letters and my replies who wrote to express their opinion found my arguments more persuasive.  I get a lot of e-mail, so maybe I overlooked or forgot some, but I can't remember receiving even one letter other than yours, Dr. Weigold, critical of my replies to Dr. Anonymous.
      In fact I have read many books and articles defending psychiatry with which I disagree, so many I can't remember the authors or titles of most of them.  Among those I remember and consider most significant are the following: I read, in its entirety, The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry by psychiatry professor Nancy Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D.  In this book Dr. Andreasen reviews most of the arguments in favor of biological psychiatry.  I read, in their entirety, Electroconvulsive Therapy: The Myths and the Realities by psychology professor Norman Endler, Ph.D., and psychiatrist Emmanuel Persad, which is a defense of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and Dr. Endler's Holiday of Darkness, the autobiographical story of his (he thinks) biologically caused major depressive disorder.  I read much if not all of The Good News About Depression by Mark Gold, M.D., in which he tries to present evidence for biological causation of what you call major depressive disorder (MDD), which is what I call simply severe, prolonged unhappiness.  I'm not remembering their names now, but I read a book by two physicians titled The Reality of Mental Illness, which is a retort to psychiatry professor Thomas S. Szasz's book The Myth of Mental Illness (which I also read in its entirety).  I read a book by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey and others titled Schizophrenia and Manic Depressive Disorder - The Biological Roots of Mental Illness as Revealed by the Landmark Study of Identical Twins (Basic Books, New York, 1994) in which they attempted (in my opinion unsuccessfully) to prove the reality of schizophrenia and manic- depression as biological entities.  I bought a copy of but can't seem to get around to reading Listening to Prozac by psychiatrist Peter Kramer, which promotes the use of antidepressants such as Prozac, but I did attend a lecture Dr. Kramer gave to a mostly lay audience on the same subject.  I've also attended many hours of continuing education seminars promoting psychiatry, most of which were sponsored by manufacturers of psychiatric drugs, that were in most cases taught by biologically oriented psychiatry professors  I could go on for a few pages reviewing the pro-psychiatry books and articles and other literature I've read and the pro- psychiatry lectures I've attended.
      In contrast, my impression has been and remains that psychiatrists and psychologists who support biological psychiatry have read little or nothing contradicting what they are taught in their misleading "professional" training.  I am not the only person who has made this observation: Colin Ross, M.D., a psychiatrist, says during his psychiatric training, when the "cognitive errors pervading clinical psychiatry [were] unwittingly demonstrated to me by my residency supervisors" he learned that not only medical students but even "psychiatrists rarely do the critical reading" that would make the nonsense they learn in their psychiatric training apparent for what it is (emphasis added)."  (See my book review of Dr. Ross's book, Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, appearing elsewhere on this web site.)  To test the accuracy of my impression, and that of Dr. Ross, please write to me again, Dr. Weigold, and tell me which of the articles on this web site you read prior to writing your letter of December 3, 2001 (above) and which, if any, of the following books you had read:

• Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry, by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.
  
• Psychiatric Drugs - Hazards to the Brain, by Peter Breggin, M.D.
  
• Electroshock - It's Brain- Disabling Effects, by Peter Breggin, M.D.
  
• Toxic Psychiatry, by Peter Breggin, M.D.
  
• Prozac Backlash, by Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.
• Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, by Colin Ross, M.D., & Alvin Pam, Ph.D.
  
• Blaming the Brain - The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health, by Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D.
  
• A Dose of Sanity by Sydney Walker III, M.D.
• Too Much Anger, Too Many Tears: A Personal Triumph Over Psychiatry, by Janet & Paul Gotkin
  
• The Death of Psychiatry, by E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. (This book was written before Dr. Torrey joined the ranks of those promoting psychiatry.  I once asked Drs. Thomas Szasz and Ron Leifer, "What ever happened to Fuller Torrey?"  Each said he thought Dr. Torrey found he could get more "funding" by promoting psychiatry.  The Death of Psychiatry, published in 1974, is one of the best anti-psychiatry books I have read.  In particular, it includes two chapters that together are the most persuasive critique of the concept of mental illness I have read other than Does Mental Illness Exist? by Lawrence Stevens (found on this web site).
  

If you are wondering, yes, I have read each of these ten (10) books in their entirety - and many more like them.
      You say in my replies to Dr. Anonymous I often "misuse" quotations by quoting them "out of context."  I am confident you cannot cite even one example of me using a quotation in an inaccurate or misleading way, and I challenge you to do so.
      You say you know of studies "that compare the scans of brains of people with schizophrenia...with those of people without schizophrenia - and before either has ever had any psychiatric medication," and you ask rhetorically and triumphantly, "Wanna' guess the results?"  You don't answer your own question, but you seem to be saying the studies show brains of mentally ill people are demonstratably different from those of normal people.  If so, I think your psychiatry professors or psychiatric residency instructors have misled you about this and that you don't know what you are talking about here.  After quite a bit of searching I have not been able to find even one study of so- called schizophrenics or of people with other supposed mental illnesses who had never taken a psychiatric drug (most of which cause brain-damage) or ECT who were found to be biologically different from "normal" people and which was not disproved by later attempts at replication and verification.  A group of authors led by E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., in a book titled Schizophrenia and Manic Depressive Disorder - The Biological Roots of Mental Illness as Revealed by the Landmark Study of Identical Twins (Basic Books, New York, 1994) attempted to make the argument you are making by comparing the brain-scans of identical twin pairs in which one was normal and the other (supposedly) "schizophrenic."  I think they failed to prove that point: The differences they found were so minor you could put a hundred brain scans of supposedly schizophrenic people next to a hundred brain scans of normal people and not be able to determine which group was which.  They found the normal twin sometimes had more of the brain abnormalities supposedly indicative of "schizophrenia" than did the twin diagnosed as schizophrenic.  They acknowledge that the "schizophrenics" in their study had taken neuroleptic (antipsychotic/antischizophrenic) drugs, so when they did find the supposedly schizophrenic twin had a noticeably more abnormal brain scan than his or her normal twin (such as larger ventricles, or fluid-filled spaces, in the brain), it is likely the abnormality was caused by the drugs rather than by "schizophrenia" as the authors of the study claimed.  Psychiatrist Peter Breggin has argued that claims of biological differences in the brains of supposedly mentally ill people allegedly shown by brain scans are a "sleight of hand" in which normal variation is misrepresented as abnormality - or in which brain damage caused by psychiatric drugs is misrepresented as having caused (so-called) mental illness.  In a book in which he carefully reviewed claims such as yours, Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, said: "Contrary to what is often claimed, no biochemical, anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental patients" (Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health, Free Press, New York, 1998, page 125).
      So, Dr. Weigold, I challenge you to cite even one study, not contradicted by later studies, that proves the brains of supposedly mentally ill people who have never had a brain- damaging treatment such as taking a psychiatric drug or receiving electroconvulsive "therapy" (ECT) are different from those of normal people.
      Your claims of effectiveness for "treatment" or "therapy" for what you call major depressive disorder or MDD are equally misleading.  While there are studies, usually by people hired and paid by manufacturers of psychiatric drugs, in which the authors of the study claim to have found greater effectiveness for the supposedly antidepressant drug than for no treatment or treatment with a pill with no active ingredients (a placebo), there also are other studies that show no treatment or administration of a placebo is as effective or more effective than supposedly antidepressant drugs - or "psychotherapy."  Some of these studies are referred to in Psychiatric Drugs - Cure or Quackery? and The Case Against Psychotherapy, both of which are found on this web site.  As was stated by psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., and social work professor David Cohen, Ph.D., in their book Your Drug May Be Your Problem: Why and How to Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs: "But isn't psychiatry science?  Isn't faith in psychiatry based on facts?  On research?  Can't we 'trust in research'?  The sad truth is that, in the field of psychiatry, it is impossible to 'trust in research.'  Nearly all of the research in this field is paid for by drug companies and conducted by people who will 'deliver' in the best way possible for those companies.  ... Sadly, even well-informed people too often put their faith in psychiatry and psychiatric research.  It is the same as putting their faith in a drug company" (p. 189-190).  (You probably haven't read Your Drug May Be Your Problem, either, have you Dr. Weigold?  You could begin by reading my book review of the book, which is available on this web site.)
      Yes, there are studies purporting to prove conversation with professional people ("psychotherapy") is more helpful than conversation with people who have no training in so- called psychotherapy, as you claim in your letter.  However, in Lawrence Stevens' The Case Against Psychotherapy (found on this web site) you will find references to other studies showing conversation with psychiatrists or psychologists is no better than conversation with untrained persons - and justification for the view that consultation with or advice from untrained persons is usually better than professional "psychotherapy."
      I'm not persuaded by your claim some people become emotionally depressed without any cause in terms of life experience.  I believe there are no (in your words) "parts of the biology that allow some people to weather an emotional storm while others find themselves hopelessly caught in an endless tide of sadness and depression" unless by that you mean some people are born with genes that make them taller or more attractive or the like and have therefore learned from experience that their disappointments are probably temporary, or that some people simply don't feel any emotions (good or bad) as intensely as other people.  Some people weathering the storms of life better than other people typically is the result of early childhood experience giving them, or not giving them, a good sense of self-esteem.  I think the psychoanalysts have a valid and important point when they say most mental functioning is unconscious, which explains why people can't always explain to you or other therapists what in their experience of life has caused them to feel as bad as they do.  Psychoanalysts also say everything in human mentality is the result of something that preceded it, and they're referring to prior experience or thinking.  (See the first few chapters of An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis by Charles Brenner, M.D., which I read many years ago.)  While sometimes no cause in terms of life experience is apparent, a biological cause of so- called depression has never been found - not even once in even one person!  Of course, that doesn't prevent, for example, the manufacturer of one popular allegedly antidepressant drug (an SSRI) from suggesting a biological cause for "depression" in a television advertisement promoting the drug that I have seen several times, and it doesn't prevent professional people like you from implying or stating outright that such causes exist.
      You say people in studies of drugs for depression "do not know, as the researchers recording their responses do not know, if they are taking medication or placebo."  Sorry, Dr. Weigold, on this point you're wrong again.  As is said in Lawrence Stevens' Psychiatric Drugs - Cure or Quackery? (found on this web site) -

Studies indicating psychiatric drugs are helpful are of dubious credibility because of professional bias.  All or almost all psychiatric drugs are neurotoxic and for this reason cause symptoms and problems such as dry mouth, blurred vision, lightheadedness, dizziness, lethargy, difficulty thinking, menstrual irregularities, urinary retention, heart palpitations, and other consequences of neurological dysfunction.  Psychiatrists deceptively call these "side-effects", even though they are the only real effects of today's psychiatric drugs.  Placebos (or sugar pills) don't cause these problems.  Since these symptoms (or their absence) are obvious to psychiatrists evaluating psychiatric drugs in supposedly double-blind drug trials, the drug trials aren't really double-blind, making it impossible to evaluate psychiatric drugs impartially.  This allows professional bias to skew the results.

I recall this same point being made in an article in Psychology Today magazine.  Side effects such as those mentioned can also tip off the patients in the studies whether they are getting the real drug or the placebo, and this can effect their self-reporting, especially when what they are self-reporting on is changes in emotional well-being rather than physical symptoms.  Because studies of supposedly antidepressant and other psychiatric drugs have never used placebos with side effects, there has never been a truly double- blind study of a supposedly antidepressant drug or any other type of psychiatric drug.
      You say "a treatment that 'reduced unwanted behavior' but left the patient 'disabled' would be considered a largely useless treatment.  Doctors would not use it and patients would not continue it."  Well, Dr. Weigold, on this you're half right: One of the biggest problems in psychiatry is figuring out how to force patients to "take their medication."  Large men are employed in the prisons called psychiatric hospitals - and in prisons for criminals - to forcibly inject psychiatric "medications" into the bodies of psychiatry's unwilling victims.  Whether it is Haldol or Zyprexa or Clozaril or lithium or Prozac, what I hear repeatedly from psychiatric patients is that psychiatric drugs disable them so severely they are constantly trying to figure out how to avoid taking the drugs without being punished by repeated imprisonment in psychiatric "hospitals" as a consequence of their refusal to take the drugs.  One homeless man in Maryland who told me he had been diagnosed as manic-depressive and had been prescribed some kind of psychiatric drug for it at a public clinic said he stopped taking his "medicine" because, in his words, "it takes the lead out of my pencil."  The refusal of psychiatry's victims to take their so-called "medications" (all or nearly all of which are toxic, that is, poisonous - and therefore disabling) is the reason for the enactment in recent years of "outpatient commitment" laws (in the USA) and laws providing for "Community Treatment Orders" or CTOs (in Canada).  If psychiatric patients were usually willing to continue taking psychiatric drugs (as they would be if the drugs were truly helpful), these laws would not have been enacted in an effort to force psychiatric patients to continue taking them.  As for the doctors, they don't seem to know or care about the harm they inflict on their "patients" with psychiatric drugs, which they misleadingly call "medications," and they pass off the disabling, toxic effects of psychiatric drugs as "side-effects" or blame "mental illness" for the harm that was actually caused by psychiatric drugs.  In fact, the toxic and disabling effects of psychiatric drugs are their only real effects.  Even most psychiatrists admit psychiatric drugs "do not cure mental illness" even as they misleadingly claim the drugs "treat symptoms" and ignore the fact that psychiatric drugs impair good aspects of a person's thinking and behavior as much as the bad aspects that get labeled "mental illness."
      I stand by what I said in my reply to Dr. Anonymous about feeling emotionally depressed or not as a result of stroke damage in different parts of the brain.  What surprised me was how uninformed or misinformed Dr. Anonymous, a physician and psychiatric resident, was about this.  I learned about how strokes in different parts of the brain effect mood at a continuing education program about so-called mood disorders and in books like those by psychiatry professor Oliver W. Sacks.  I'd be interested in any evidence you have to support your claims that stroke in particular parts of the brain cause what you call major depressive disorder (MDD) and that "people who have strokes in certain parts of the brain get MDD more often than those who have had strokes that are just as 'disabling' in other areas of the brain ... including losing the same functional capacities through other means."  Give me some citations to the studies you are referring to.
      You ask "what kind of evidence of the biology of psychiatry would convince you?"  Biological abnormality that consistently accompanied what are considered psychiatric symptoms in persons who have never received psychiatric (mis)treatment such as psychiatric drugs or electroshock would probably be convincing, although in the case of the so-called mood disorders there is usually reason to wonder if the biological changes were caused by the emotions rather than the reverse.  (People who have taken a psychiatric drug or had electroshock are likely to have brain damage that might look like a cause of mental illness but which in fact is caused by psychiatric drug(s) or electroshock.)  A biological treatment that was truly, consistently helpful might be convincing.  However, psychiatry is not able to offer convincing evidence of either a biological abnormality causing or even "associated with" a so- called mental illness (other than those caused by psychiatric (mis)treatment) nor any truly helpful psychiatric treatments - not even the conversation called "psychotherapy."
      Dr. Weigold, you seem to think the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM (currently DSM-IV) has scientific validity.  For example, you seem to believe in the existence of schizophrenia.  Have you read Schizophrenia - A Nonexistent Disease or Does Mental Illness Exist? (both of which are found on this web site)?  At least a few critiques of the DSM by psychiatrists and psychologists and neurologists have been published, and I hope you'll read at least one of them.  I have read and can recommend A Dose of Sanity by Syndey Walker III, M.D., as well as his critique of psychiatric diagnosis in another book titled The Hyperactivity Hoax.  Dr. Walker is both a neurologist and a psychiatrist.  Another book criticizing the DSM, which I bought but haven't read yet, is They Say You're Crazy by psychologist Paula Caplan.
      Most of what I said to Dr. Anonymous applies to you, too, Dr. Weigold: If you keep reading articles like those on this web site and books such as those on our Antipsychiatry Reading List and have the courage to see clearly, you'll eventually see we critics of psychiatry are correct.  The granddaddy of the antipsychiatry movement, now 81 year old retired psychiatry professor Thomas S. Szasz, once said clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.  It takes courage to reject the misinformation you are being taught in your psychiatric training, but if you have that courage and have a strong desire to know the truth and truly want to help the people psychiatry claims to help but actually harms, you'll eventually stop parroting the standard-line psychiatric propaganda you wrote in your letter, will join us, and will help us stop the human rights violations and the health-care quackery now perpetrated on people by modern-day psychiatry.  Other psychiatrists have joined us, and I hope one day you and many more will, too.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Smith
webmaster, www.antipsychiatry.org

UPDATE, May 1, 2002: After reading my above letter, Dr. Weigold sent me many citations to and abstracts of articles in psychiatric journals that he thinks prove there are biological differences in the brains of people with "schizophrenia" who have never taken a neuroleptic drug, that prove the validity of DSM-IV diagnosis, and that prove professional psychotherapy is better than no treatment.  I am reviewing this material as I have time and will eventually write a reply.  Stay tuned!

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Compliments

Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003
From: "Dante Mummolo" - Dtorts@msn.com
To: "Douglas Smith" - antipsychiatrycoalition@usa.net
Subject: Re: neurologist/psychiatrist referral

Dear Atty. Stevens:

I am an attorney in Boston who is representing the family of a 54 year old women who was given ECT and immediately started to complain of severe head pain following the first shock treatment.  Nevertheless, the psychiatrist continued with the ECTs, despite her continued co