SUPPORT FOR PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVORS

In 1973, Rosenhan had conducted a study having individuals function as pseudo-patients. He concluded:
“Powerlessness was evident everywhere…He is shorn of credibility by virtue of his psychiatric label. His freedom of movement is restricted. He cannot initiate contact with staff, but may only respond to overtures as they make. Personal privacy is minimal…”
Bioethicist Carl Elliott of the University of Minnesota (2001) stated that 'the best way to sell drugs is to sell psychiatric illness."
The late neurologist Sydney Walker III stated, "... a child who sees a DSM-oriented doctor is almost assured of a psychiatric label and a prescription, even if the child is perfectly fine. ... This willy-nilly labeling of virtually everyone as mentally ill is a serious danger to healthy children, because virtually all children have enough symptoms to get a DSM label and a drug."

Psychiatrist David Kaiser states, "...years of medication ... have done nothing except reify in them an identity as a chronic patient with a bad brain. This identification as a biologically-impaired patient is one of the most destructive effects of biologic psychiatry. At the level of the individual patients this means a growing number of over-diagnosed, overmedicated and disarticulated people less able to define and control their own identities and lives."

The introduction to DSM III stated- ""For most of the DSM-III disorders ... the etiology [cause] is unknown. A variety of theories have been advanced, buttressed by evidence not always convincing to explain how these disorders come about."

Former Chief of the National Institutes of Mental Health Center for Schizophrenia Research Dr. Loren Mosher, M.D. stated, "Finally, why must the APA pretend to know more than it does? DSM IV [the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Edition 4] is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document. ... It is the way to get paid."

In 1994, Dr. Thomas Szasz, M.D. stated, "The young and the old are defenseless against relatives who want to get rid of them by casting them into the role of mental patient, and against psychiatrists whose livelihood depends on defining them as mentally ill." In 1997, Szasz concluded, "The child psychiatrist's authority is altogether beyond the reach of his denominated patients. This elementary fact makes the child psychiatrist one of the most dangerous enemies not only of children, but also of adults who care for the two precious and most vulnerable things in life - children and liberty. Child psychology and child psychiatry cannot be reformed. They must be abolished."

Things have not changed immensely, it is possible to say they have become worse.
I have had the honor to meet many psychiatric survivors presently. Among them are victims of improper restraint, individuals with tardive dyksinesia brought on by psychiatric drugs, individuals who sought help but were harmed by those claiming to in the helping profession. I treat these individuals with dignity as persons, respect their experience, and call many of them friends. This has earned me insulting labels and epithets by so-called colleagues whose interest is not ultimately the well being and freedom of individuals but how much money they can milk from the individual. I now wear these labels with a sense of pride, for in it is draws me more into the experience and understanding of individuals undergoing distress who themselves are labeled and who are so often shunned and misunderstood.
It strengthens my resolve to fight as a person of principle and ethics for a mental health system that no longer looks upon people's experiences as the result of faulty wiring and damaged brains but as people with a story to tell, people who need to be and must be heard. Some colleagues may seek to deprive me of opportunity because of my stand, but many of the psychiatric survivors have endured far worse- being robbed of their dignity completely. I can certainly withstand certain losses and even the occassional insult.
I was trained as a pastoral counselor, here may be one problem- Bio-Psychiatry sees man as solely a a conglommerate of chemical processes. "Mental illness" is when things go haywire chemically. It does not see life beyond this, as something more precious, more meaningful. Emotional distress is a struggle of the human spirit. We are all interconnected, we need love, relationships, community. To see it this way runs completely opposed to the bio-psychiatric position. There is and can be no 'soul' if we ascribe to bio-psychiatry. How ironic that the term 'psychotherapy' literally means "healing of the soul", but nowhere is that to be found in the current mental health system.
The problem is enormous, but though being one person, if I take a stand for ethics and justice, I know I have made a difference.
Christ stated, "Be not afraid for I have overcome the world." So, I continue forward in a struggle, unafraid.

- Rev. Dr. Dan L. Edmunds, Ed.D.