Mcluhan loves Spinoza, https://youtu.be/wgj-s46Mpyc?t=3844 thought Heidegger was a bloviator, https://youtube.com/shorts/BdWMtZQy1VE?feature=share

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Interesting critique. What a valuable and under appreciated perspective. I am struck by the number of times I am told a person must have faith in the psych intervention or they are to be blamed for it not "working". Any practitioner who develops doubts about the profession along any similar lines is in a position not unlike that of a priest having to go to the Bishop and saying - " look, behind the scenes and just between us... Even if God is real, all this ceremony and praying and stuff... That's not really something we know works is it? " In my experience, that's a really awkward conversation to have and the "Bishop" is pretty likely to just re assert the dogma.

I think the author would have had a more interesting discussion/discourse if the inclusion of sociology were to have happened. Sociology is a field of study that fundamentally points out flaws and curiosities in our society, which very often find the Emperor being naked. Thus the right wing propaganda machines vehemently demonize the field from gender study "nonsense" to "useless hippy courses" at universities, even though the one and only sin of theirs is to point out the holes in ideologies that seek to normalize our state of inequality.

Two fields dominate finding and pointing out general truths : philosophy and science but their methods are different. So it is not smart to mix Social Science and philosophy unless you are dealing with Marxism which is more than just a philosophy. He did mention Marxism but it wasn't his focus.

Also, there are plenty of sociological works critical of Psychiatry already and I would recommend "Psychiatric Hegemony : A Marxist Theory of Mental of Mental Illness" by Bruce M.Z. Cohen.

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Psychiatry is a fundamentally political project masquerading as a medical specialty and as scientific. It's impossible for Psychiatry to be scientific because it can only make historically and culturally bound propositions about it's patients or subjects. History is chronotopic which is the opposite of science and philosophy etc...

"What one thinks psychiatrists are up to depends crucially on what one thinks their patients are up to; and the latter question cannot be answered without taking an essentially political stand on what constitutes a “reasonable” response to a social situation."

Ingelby, D. (1980) ‘Understanding “Mental Illness”’, in Ingelby, D. (Ed.), Critical Psychiatry: The Politics of Mental Health (pp. 23–71). New York: Pantheon Books.

"Psychiatric diagnosis can be understood as functioning as a political device, in the sense that it legitimates a particular social response to aberrant behaviour of various sorts, but protects that response from any democratic challenge.”

Moncrieff, J. (2010) ‘Psychiatric Diagnosis as a Political Device’, Social Theory & Health, 8(4): 370–382.

So what is the real purpose of psychiatry in the Capitalist system ?

The capitalist class seeks to avoid responsibility for the many problems it causes, so it frames pain and suffering as somehow natural and inevitable. Psychiatry supports capitalism by ‘diagnosing’ socially-created problems as individual cognitive or biological defects, providing pseudoscientific ‘evidence’ for blaming the victims of the system. To use Erving Goffman’s metaphor, if capitalism is a con game, then the role of psychiatry is to ‘cool the losers’ of the system so they don’t squawk, expose the con, and take their revenge.

The medications 'work' by sedating or 'cooling off' the losers of the Capitalist system.

Is it accurate to speak with such certainty about the causal factors in mental illness being solely socioeconomic in nature ? Most schizophrenics report disruption of thought and/or auditory hallucinations. These tend to go along with social withdrawal from friends and family. There seems no question that they suffer immensely. I have worked with such people for 40 years. Can you really take their self- reports, and the accumulated observations of those that work in mental health, and say these problems are best explained by the evils of the capitalist system ? And the mental health professionals are all collectively being used by the power elite to maintain inequality ? Such a narrative, while satisfying to those seeking change to our flawed system, does not fit the observed data. What about cross-cultural rates of psychosis that includes non-captitalist cultures ? Why do some tribal people in Africa, or Innuit of the Arctic also display symptoms of schizophrenia? By your reasoning, such groups should be free of such problems because they only emerge from a dysfunctional capitalist socioeconomic setting. My sense is your argument is faulty.

Schizophrenia obviously is a nonsensical category so is not valid. It was obvious to psychologist Don Bannister, back in 1968, that DSM criteria makes schizophrenia “a concept so diffuse as to be unusable in a scientific context.” Specifically, it is possible for one individual to be diagnosed with schizophrenia based on two symptoms that are completely different than the two symptoms of another individual similarly diagnosed.

It is also cannot be reliably assessed by clinicians with a kappa score of .46 and not .70 or above.

Much of what is considered a delusion is culturally and politically based and there are many high functioning people considered sane , by society, who 'hear voices'.

Schizophrenia does not exist it is just a wastebasket for disturbing behavior.

Also, people diagnosed with 'mental illness' have better recovery rates in 'third world' countries. My guess is because they are not exposed to the toxic Western psychiatric establishment.

Schizophrenia obviously does not exist. The unlearned masses may be dazzled by scientific sounding Greek and Latin terms but men of high capacity are not fooled. Many people mistake knowing the name of something for understanding something :

"Psychiatric insiders have openly admitted the lack of science to their area of operations. Allen Frances (cited in Whitaker and Cosgrove 2015: 61), for example, has recently stated that the mental disorders given in the DSM are “better understood as no more than currently convenient constructs or heuristics that allow [psychiatrists] to communicate with one another.” This has included the classic constructs of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (formerly manic-depression), of which the mental health researcher Joel Paris at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, has admitted “[i]n reality, we do not know whether [such] conditions … are true diseases” (cited in Whitaker and Cosgrove 2015: 61). Even National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) director and strong advocate of biomedical psychiatry, Thomas Insel (cited in Masson 2015: xii), announced on the release of the DSM-5 in 2013 that the categories of mental disorder lacked validity and NIMH would no longer be using such diagnoses for research purposes.Despite the claims to “progress” made by official historians of psychiatry such as Lieberman and Shorter, there is no evidence for the supposed “science” of psychiatry. There is no test for any mental illness, no proof of causation, no evidence of successful “treatment” that relates specifically to an individual disorder, and no accurate prediction of future cases. Thus, the claim that psychiatric constructs are real disease has not been proven. Consequently, it is necessary to utilise the existing evidence to more accurately theorise the real vocation of the psy-professions in capitalist society."

Cohen, B.: "Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness" Palgrave- MacMillan

Bruce studied sociology in the north of England in the 1990s, and worked as a post-doctorate researcher at both the Humboldt University in Berlin and the University of South Australia in Adelaide in the early 2000s, before becoming a full-time academic in Sociology at the University of Auckland in 2008. With thirty years social research experience, he has undertaken empirical work on topics such as mental health user meanings of illness, community-based youth music projects, police perceptions of drug users, alternatives to psychiatric hospitalisation, migrant labour markets, female perceptions of crime and safety, and the criminalisation of ‘legal highs’. He has published over 40 academic books, articles, and chapters to date.

I wonder if you are creating a more black and white version of the position given making it easier to dismiss - the suggestion isn't that all mental illness is only a tool for capitalist exploitation but that the system of responding to mental distress is vulnerable to being used that way with numerous features, like the DSM and professional activities /treatments, having been so influenced that they become blunted, useless or - often - worse by only emphasising the individual. Asking whether a particular condition (like schizophrenia or depression) exists as defined is different than saying the symptomology doesn't exist. The implication is that we should do a far better job of "carving nature at the joints" in our categorisation and redefine the meaning of symptomologies and recognise social causes of distress, working on those, rather than blaming individuals for not being able to respond well to the craziness of their situation. Working to improve society and our group-think doesn't require that we locate all distress in social ills but that we should not deepen their harm by pretending the solution lies with adjusting individuals to better tolerate misery in miserable conditions. A therapy that supports the client would be working to change those conditions as well as empowering the client to do so themselves.

Ty. What other reading critical of psych (inc the wider mental health professions) would you recommend?

Troubled Persons Industries : The Expansion of Psychiatric Categories beyond Psychiatry by Martin Harbusch

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker

Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs By Stuart A. Kirk, Tomi Gomory and David Cohen

OP, are you in fact the author of this piece?

Not a criticism - just curious. I couldn't help noticing some of your responses in the thread share certain references, terminology and prose characteristics with the article.

Nope, the author of the piece is a clinical psychologist so is considered by society to be more 'authoritative' on the issue. I attended a college in the State University of New York system for computer science. However, I know more about science and philosophy than the average person. In relation to this subreddit I am mostly familiar with Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Marx but read just one of Nietzsche's books.

I am not that impressed by the article too much. The Enlightenment, that Spinoza was a part of, was a movement of a growing and confident middle class or petite bourgeoisie. It seems out of place in late Capitalist society.

I prefer the Marxist analyses of Mental Illness.

In prison, psychiatrists are straight up legalized drug peddlers.

Agree with most of above comment by SHGO98. My comments have mostly been driven by the tenor of OP's statements such as "Schizophrenia obviously does not exist" and "It is impossible for psychiatry to be scientific". How about " Schizophrenia... is just a wastebasket for disturbing behavior". In working as a therapist on a mental health unit at Rikers Island jail for many years, the whole jail was a house of those with "disturbing behavior". How is it that a small subset of those inmates were deemed patients, and many of these patients had symptoms of psychosis that clearly set them apart. You can take away the label "schizophrenia" and call it what you will. There are some who distinctly suffer from mental illness, not simply "disturbing behavior". There is nothing new in the claim that mental illness is a label thrown on the disenfranchised so the power elite can maintain control. See Thomas Szasz. I don't believe his views are prominent in current mental health thinking.

Certainly the DSM is an attempt to construct a grid of boundaries that is imposed on a continuum of human problems-- problems that don't easily lend themselves to being neatly divided into boxes. It is inherently flawed, but having no classification system for mental problems would probably make it harder to attempt treatment. Understanding the etiology of such problems is equally vexing. It is a young science, but it's theories of neurochemical causation, or even earlier psychogenic explanations of mental illness are no more "theoretical" than the theories underlying how the sun produces energy-- they are all part of the process of hypotheses building and testing that constitutes science.

It might be helpful for those eager to look for broader, societally induced explanations of mental illness to visit an in-patient unit near them. I have worked in such places for 40 years. That person talking to themselves, eyes focused on some unworldly plane, screaming. How did they get that way ? What about all the research looking at genetic predisposition, at neurotransmitter imbalance. Sure, there are some controversial critiques of this, as cited by OP, but the vast majority of experts in the field believe that something is neurochemically askew. Something that may interact with socioeconomic factors, but something in that individual's brain is different from those without such symptoms. The fact that drug companies may oversell partial solutions or MDs prescribe ineffective drugs doesn't mean they are causing the symptoms, nor does it prove that the causal factors are located in a flawed and exploitative social system, although such a system is certainly an ancillary condition that contributes to individual suffering.

Maybe some should take a step back and remind themselves just how stark a difference exists between asking questions about the composition of water, and trying to understand the relationship between brain and mind. The object of study makes a big difference in how far scientific inquiry can progress ! Because the brain/mind is so complex, perhaps unfathomable, does that mean we should give up ? Of course socioeconomic and cultural factors affect this process, and the profit motive of a capitalist culture undoubtedly leads to exploitation of mental health efforts-- and even adds to the suffering of the individual. No science occurs in a political vacuum (just look at climate science), yet OP makes what I consider irresponsible claims about the illegitimacy of psychology/psychiatry.

Any introductory text on psychology or psychiatry contains ample description of the multicausal nature of emotional suffering. No such text would have the locus of explanation solely residing in the individual -- almost all such books would insure that cultural context, socioeconomic strata, and biological factors are all seen as contributing factors to mental illness. That includes viewing the profit driven, competitive nature of latter day culture as contributing to anxiety, depression, and even psychosis.

I don't believe I am selling a black and white version so as to dismiss how society can affect the individual. I am simply responding to a faulty characterization of the mental health professions.

I found the article somewhat simplistic, myself, and its depiction of psychiatry something of a caricature - certainly in relation to how it's practiced where I live (Ireland). It might be more accurate elsewhere, where medicalisation of mental illness seems so rampant that there might be some justification for identifying psychiatry with the "individual defect theory" the author names. In most parts of Europe, though, psychiatrists do still refer patients for therapy - they don't only prescribe medication. Yes, they do have that power, and yes that is open to abuse, but that is some way from identifying the power and the abuse as if they were one.

Why does one need justification for that ?Why not just pure Iogic and reason ? I know Europe largely uses the ICD and America the DSM but AFAIK and both are based around the 'individual defect theory'. It is funny how society tries to jump through hoops, mental hoops, here, to try to defend the status quo --in this case Psychiatry.

By "justification", I mean "rationale" . In other words, I'm saying that rationale does not apply everywhere.

Please don't equate me with "society". This is literally the second message you've ever received from ,e

Most science outside of physics is politically motivated statistical manipulation and physics is not 100% immune either. Physics is the king of the sciences and math is the Queen-- Psychiatry is clown world. Aristotle's natural philosophy turned into physics but Plato's philosophy of the mind is not tangible --the wall of the mind is intangible and metaphysical. Since, physics is the king of the sciences all sciences must obey its laws but to say psychiatric nosology obeys the laws of physics is nonsensical and obviously not true. If a 'disease" in the DSM were found to exist it would move to neurology.

Why Most Published Research Findings are False :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/

"In the paper, Ioannidis argued that a large number, if not the majority, of published medical research papers contain results that cannot be replicated. In simple terms, the essay states that scientists use hypothesis testing to determine whether scientific discoveries are significant. "Significance" is formalized in terms of probability, and one formalized calculation ("P value") is reported in the scientific literature as a screening mechanism. Ioannidis posited assumptions about the way people perform and report these tests; then he constructed a statistical model which indicates that most published findings are false positive results."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Most_Published_Research_Findings_Are_False#:~:text=%22Why%20Most%20Published%20Research%20Findings,to%20the%20field%20of%20metascience.

It is impossible for true science to exist under Capitalism.

Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism states that the source of human progress and historical change is not to be found in “legal relations” or “political forms,” but rather “in the material conditions of life”. By this Marx means that the economic relations of human beings determine all other relations in that society. Material survival rather than the development of rationality and spiritual thinking forms the fundamental basis of human endeavour in each historical epoch. Since, the development of rationality is sorely lacking in Capitalist society real science does not exist or is in the minority and contained largely to physics.

Psychiatry is an ISA ( Ideological State Apparatus) in Capitalist society. It masquerades as a branch of medicine and a science so that its propositions seem like neutral and objective discourse that is detached from elite control by that is far from the truth

I disagree with what you posit here. While some disorders are certainly caused by a diseased capialist system that fails to grant agency and achievemt to the vast majority there are several other diseases which arise independent of whichever socioeconomic framework, i.e. those which have a strong connection to genes (such as ADHD), neurological damage (such as certain frontal lobe syndromes), circuitry disfunction (such as OCD) and so on.

On what do you ground such assertions as schizophrenia 'obviously' not existing or a 'non sensical' category? The DSM has changed much in nearly 60 yours from what you quote here. It seems to me you're cherry picking whichever opinions best mirror your own.

Yeah, the DSM got worse to the point that the NIMH and Thomas Insel rejected it as pseudo-scientific. So, the DSM is invalid and the DSM categories can't reliably be diagnosed by clinicians. That is the basis idiot :

Published in the journal Neuron, Raymond Dolan—considered one of the most influential neuroscientists in the world—co-authored “Functional Neuroimaging in Psychiatry and the Case for Failing Better,” concluding, “Despite three decades of intense neuroimaging research, we still lack a neurobiological account for any psychiatric condition.”

Reflecting on the more than 16,000 neuroimaging articles published during the last 30 years, Dolan and his co-authors concluded: “It remains difficult to refute a critique that psychiatry’s most fundamental characteristic is its ignorance. . . . Casting a cold eye on the psychiatric neuroimaging literature invites a conclusion that despite 30 years of intense research and considerable technological advances, this enterprise has not delivered a neurobiological account (i.e., a mechanistic explanation) for any psychiatric disorder, nor has it provided a credible imaging-based biomarker of clinical utility.”

In 2011, establishment psychiatrist Ronald Pies, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Psychiatric Times, stated: “In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend—never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.”

Anyway, the onus of proof is not on 'mental illness' deniers but on the people who proclaim it exists with no scientific proof :

There is no evidence for the supposed “science” of psychiatry. There is no test for any mental illness, no proof of causation, no evidence of successful “treatment” that relates specifically to an individual disorder, and no accurate prediction of future cases. Thus, the claim that psychiatric constructs are real disease has not been proven.

1.)Frontal lobe damage and general brain damage is caused by psychiatric medications e.g. neuroleptics.

2.)There are no tests for 'mental disorders' including no genetic tests.

3.)Brain circuitry dysfunction is the new pseudo-scientific fad of psychiatry. Has it been disproven yet like chemical imbalance theory ?No, but the onus of proof is on Psychiatry not their opposition.

ADHD and OCD are some of the most clear cut cases of disorders serving the neoliberal capitalist class :

The contemporary moment of labelling children with mental disorders is strongly related to the requirements of late capitalism for compliant, disciplined, and higher-skilled workers.

Neo-liberal governance is typified by its emphasis on citizen involvement as individuals take independent action and become enterprises (or entrepreneurs) unto themselves and in a sense police themselves by internalising and enacting prevailing truths about the identification and management of risks … Neo-liberalism depends on self-governance (or in the case of children, governance by parents and similar authorities). For instance, mothers increasingly turn to … individualising children’s (mis)behaviour as disordered through mental illness discourse, of which attention deficit disorder (ADD)/Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent around the globe today.

In case you don't know neoliberalism is the current mode of late Capitalism.

I will just answer to the first assertion since this is clearly not a constructive debate: Frontal lobe damage a d general brain damage CAN be caused by neuroleptics as well as trauma (such as concussion, diffuse axonal damage, etc), metabolic imbalances (hyperammonemia, etc.) Nutritional deficits (chronic vitamin b deficiency), and a very very long list of more causes.

> That is the basis idiot :

So now you've resorted to name calling.