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durham
Well LRH was attacking practices in psychiatry since the 50s-that's where most of the attacks against Scientology stem from.
I think any organised group attacking psychiatry is going to get attacked right back ([b:a4b7e581eb]the powerful people behind psychiatry[/b:a4b7e581eb] may not be positive but they're not stupid). And without organisation I don't think you're going to achieve much against psychiatry given how big and powerful it is.

The part I bolded displays tremendous paranoia. Unlike Scientologists, psychiatrists are not unified in their thinking, with an agenda to gain power, membership, and money.

Who is behind Anthropology or Physics? Ridiculousness.

Scientologists typically say it's the "drug companies" behind the psychiatrists working in a conspiracy.

A standard gambit of locating a [b:17461deb2a] bone of contention [/b:17461deb2a] in the public spotlight then positioning the Org as [b:17461deb2a] The Knight In Shining Armor [/b:17461deb2a] who will rescue the Damsel In Distress... see melodromatic variants on this story... like to old hero-villian westerns where Snidley Whipsnade ties the pretty young thing to the railroad tracks and the Lone LRH Ranger or whoever comes to her rescue... believe it or not, even Adolph Hitler loved these pulp novels, written, incredibly by a German author named Karl May... May wrote germanic westerns for the german reading public, a bizarro mixture of Wagnerian opera and Olde West... before there were speghetti westerns there were bratwurst westerns... methinks that Hubbard and his brainchild Igor von Scientologismus ( [b:17461deb2a] my creation, IT LIVES !!! [/b:17461deb2a] ) swallowed this overcooked sausage sandwich of the adolescent imagination in a single gulp and come back for seconds....

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poorch

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durham
Well LRH was attacking practices in psychiatry since the 50s-that's where most of the attacks against Scientology stem from.
I think any organised group attacking psychiatry is going to get attacked right back ([b:751c67f982]the powerful people behind psychiatry[/b:751c67f982] may not be positive but they're not stupid). And without organisation I don't think you're going to achieve much against psychiatry given how big and powerful it is.

The part I bolded displays tremendous paranoia. Unlike Scientologists, psychiatrists are not unified in their thinking, with an agenda to gain power, membership, and money.

Who is behind Anthropology or Physics? Ridiculousness.

psychiatry has a sacred text known as the DSM or [i:751c67f982]Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders[/i:751c67f982]. the DSM decides what "disorders" do and do not exist and how to identify them. the book comes out in a new edition every couple of years and tells you how to revise your thinking accordingly. this book to a large degree defines reality.

the definitions in the DSM come from a body politicking and based on what previous editions of the DSM have said, deciding what will go in the next one. physics doesn't work that way. it couldn't. religion, largely does work that way, with, for example, Vatican councils. to give a real example, which sticks in my mind, psychiatrists in 1970's and decided to make homosexuality no longer a "disorder".

if you don't think psychiatry does not have tremendous power around you, pay attention to your environment.

the chinese government uses psychiatric diagnoses to justify locking up dissidents, as does the cuban government.

the DSM does not contradict this. (the DSM, however, does not acknowledge how working a tense sixty hour work might cause what they call "clincal" depression. what they call a disorder I call lack of sleep and the effect of stress.)

the American Psychiatric Association does not make out concerted attacks like durham seemed to believe. even if it does, I think that Church of Scientology has enough dirt on it without anyone having to make any up.

if you think that psychiatry just muddles along wtihout any organizing principles then check out the DSM. if you think of psychiatry as a science, also, check out the DSM.

I reccomend a book called [i:751c67f982]Making Us Crazy[/i:751c67f982] by Herb Kutchins and Stuart A. Kirk., [i:751c67f982]They Say We're Crazy[/i:751c67f982] by Paula J. Kaplan and (from within psychiatry itself) [i:751c67f982]Rethinking the DSM: A Psychological Perspective[/i:751c67f982] edited by Larry E. Beutler, PhD and Mary L. Malik, PhD.

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rrmoderator
Scientologists typically say it's the "drug companies" behind the psychiatrists working in a conspiracy.

which, in all seriousness, they do. George W. Bush endorsed a plan called the New Freedom Initiative. which plans to give every resident of the united states (not all at once but starting with the high school demographic and moving on to seniors) a psychiatric screening. I have heard the opinion expressed that he has gone ahead with this as a favor to his allies in the pharmaceutical companies.

the American Psychiatric Association didn't make any press releases to the public to the effect that maybe we should alert the public to the dangers of Ritalin or SSRI's. they have a mutually helpful symbiotic relationship.

nutrino, I do not consider it a bad myth to help or even save others.

the evil comes in with the buried anger or resentment that comes in there, too.

and the expected response of, "now you have saved me, I will give you over to me now".

say what you want about false heroes. I like to think that true ones do exist.

Reindeer, I share some of your concerns about the field of psychiatry. I don't, however, write it off as a whole.

Psychiatry is not a hard science like physics, but it does contain hard science components, eg biochemistry. It also contains soft science components, such as behavioural psych. Scientology contains neither hard science (reproduceable results) nor soft science (statistical results that are more greatly reinforced the larger the sample is).

Regarding the DSM, the fact that it is regularly revised neatly distinguishes it from a "sacred text". Working definitions are an invaluable tool. Yes, language effects the way we view things. Regardless, you can shop for a psychiatrist that does not "mistake the map for the territory", and you can find one.

Regarding the influence of "big pharma", yes, it's a serious issue across medical fields. IMO, it has caused MDs to focus too greatly on cholesterol levels, and medications that reduce cholesterol, when looking at heart disease. I'm certainly not going to write off all of medicine. Again, you can shop for a psychiatrist that prescribes only as a last resort, and find one.

I appreciate that you keep reiterating that you in no way endorse Scientology. They do not allow for shopping around for [i:6cc5228ffa]anything[/i:6cc5228ffa]. For perspective for any fence-sitters reading this:

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rrmoderator
The important thing to recognize about Scientology is that it is opposed to any treatment by mental health professionals.

This would include any help offered through counseling by licensed marriage and family counselors, psychologists or psychiatrists.

Any psychological counseling or testing if any kind within a school setting, social service agency or community counseling center.

Any treatment whatsoever offered regarding a mental illness at a hospital, residential treatment facility or rehab.

Scientology will at times attempt to find wedge issues such as ADHD, various medications like Ritalin etc. to attack very specifically, but this is only a fraction of its wider agenda.

Scientology is actually against and would like to terminate the whole mental health field, which includes any treatment and/or care of any kind whatsoever provided by mental health professionals and related facilities.

well, the condition of public mental health isn't perfect.... once I was in a bad situation and decided to have a psychiatrist (not psychologist) supervise my situation so I could have an objective "outside position" on what I was passing though. He diligently assigned me his best DSM codes based on what he saw in the time span of 50 minutes... some of his conclusions were fairly off the wall, but those were the pigeonholes that DSM allowed... so, yes, psychology and psychiatry has its share of housecleaning to do...

As for heroes, heroes are great, especially exemplars of moral courage in the face of institutional inertia and public opinion...

I'm not so fond of [b:4afa97b0d0] contrived melodramas [/b:4afa97b0d0] where bad actors play heroes with cheezy [b:4afa97b0d0] "drilling for outrage" [/b:4afa97b0d0] scripts. Big difference IMHO.

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poorch
Reindeer, I share some of your concerns about the field of psychiatry. I don't, however, write it off as a whole.

Psychiatry is not a hard science like physics, but it does contain hard science components, eg biochemistry. It also contains soft science components, such as behavioural psych. Scientology contains neither hard science (reproduceable results) nor soft science (statistical results that are more greatly reinforced the larger the sample is).

according to Wikipedia, the first known madhouse got established in 1247 for much the same reason as today, as a response to the dirty, homeless, if not frightening, people living in cities.

so if the asylum system started in 1247 then pretty clearly the asylum concept precedes psychiatry. Foucault first concieved this notion... I haven't read him... that psychiatry evolved out of the asylum system.

big elapse between 13th and the 19th century when the first "scientific" theories of psychiatry developed. and virtually everything "known" in the 19th century has gotten overturned, especially in terms of attitudes towards women. it all has to do with the social climate. compare that to actual medicine, where discovery build on discovery. I have a 1950's general guide to medicine which I consult from time to time. the 1950's psychiatric equivalent to that would look very dated.

when you say psychiatry you think of a science. when I hear the word I think of a legal and social mechanism designed to "manage" people. if the psychiatrists didn't do it, the cops would. in many cases, the cops do do the job. (when my mother had me put in a mental institution the second time she first phoned the cops, told them I don't know exactly what, and took me to the police station for questioning in the basement. when that failed to get me put away she did the same thing the next day.)

I do not regard neuroscience as a pseudoscience.

but I view the common attitude towards neuroscience, where our minds have no control over a "chemical imbalance", as incomplete. we do have minds as well as brains.

I also have respect for much of psychology. psychiatry has ignored everything that psychology ever taught us (or rather confirmed as true). for instance people tend to reflect their environment. psychiatry puts people in depressing, futile environments, like the typical halfway house or psych ward and ignores the obvious consequences.

historically, however pseudoscience has lived in temporary harmony with hard science. astrology with astronomy, alchemy with chemistry. some would argue, psi research with psychology (though I believe psi research has some value).

your argument that that the DSM has evolved doesn't really move me. the corpus of Scientology's scriptures evolved from the 1950's up until L. Ron Hubbard's death. religious texts evolve. astrologers have taken into account more planets (and asteroids) than they acknowledged originally in making their charts. so? that makes DSM a scientific text?

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Regarding the DSM, the fact that it is regularly revised neatly distinguishes it from a "sacred text". Working definitions are an invaluable tool.

yeah, for the insurance companies.

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Yes, language effects the way we view things. Regardless, you can shop for a psychiatrist that does not "mistake the map for the territory", and you can find one.

assuming you want to shop for a psychiatrist at all.

Cripes... maybe this is a useful way to think about it... medicine, psychiatry included, is evolving along with the rest of civilization in a non-linear, imperfect, and sometimes royally screwed up way... we're presently in a bad phase for medicine because we're trying to "manage" the high cost of providing care through righid bureaucratic mechanisms... often doctors well know better methods when the cannot use them because the health insurance industry ( one which exists to employ an army of bureaucrats who have wide discretioary powers over the quality of human life and little accountability on a personal level ) won't allow the best treatement, requiring instead the lowest cost treatement... your quality of care will vary [b:8792546d91] radically [/b:8792546d91] depending on your economic position and your relationship with this sytem, and how well you know how to use the system to your best advantage. DSM-IV has an almost Talmudic set of distinctions which serve the needs of the insurance industry, as that industy demands precise classifications and precise protocols, ofthen these are far from a perfect match with the patient's reality... however, if you look over larger spans of time, major health problems that have gone through eons of intractability, such as communicable diseases before vaccines were understood, or infections before antibiotics, there are great inflection points where the forces of progress and human ingenuity eventually get it right... Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine for example... we simply cannot say with all the messed up things happening around us when or how dramatic breakthroughs that remedy "impossible" situations may await... and these solutions may come in wholly unexpected forms... perhaps we will find that the human embryo is affected by exposure to some unknown factor that is common in the diet, or there are disease causing agents that are not understood at present, and a generation hence every grade school kid will know these things as "common sense" ... so I would argue that there is some limitation in taking a snapshot of the present and extrapolating out into the future as noting more than a continuation of present conditions... we may even find that Hubbard had gotten some things more right that we generally think today, and that he got other things egregiously wrong, just as psychology is now revisiting Freud after a long hiatus of hard Anti-Freudianism... having said that, my best estimate is that large portions of the Scientology/Dianetics canon are [b:8792546d91] idiotic [/b:8792546d91] and have the distinct feel of being the product of a [b:8792546d91] paranoid schizophrenic disorder [/b:8792546d91] ... what may not be generally appreciated is that the first E-Meters were used by none less than Carl Jung at the Burgholzli clinc is Switzerland, and there was a tremendous interest in E-Meter based analysis, which was lost to history as Freud chose to work with his language based model and Jung immersed himself in Alchemy and Gnosticism... so, no LRH absolutely did not invent the E-Meter as an analytic/therapeutic tool, it was done earlier and better by the Swiss... of course the Scientologists would like to believe that LRH is or was Source and this discoverer of all worth knowing... and that's a very dumb posture.