IMPORTANT
NOTICE For the Reader
The psychiatric profession purports to be the sole arbiter
on the subject of mental health and �diseases� of the mind. The facts,
however, demonstrate otherwise:
1.
PSYCHIATRIC �DISORDERS� ARE NOT MEDICAL DISEASES.
In medicine, strict criteria exist for calling a condition a disease: a predictable
group of symptoms and the cause of the symptoms or an understanding of their
physiology (function) must be proven and established. Chills and fever are symptoms.
Malaria and typhoid are diseases. Diseases are proven to exist by objective
evidence and physical tests. Yet, no mental �diseases� have ever been proven
to medically exist.
2. PSYCHIATRISTS
DEAL EXCLUSIVELY WITH MENTAL �DISORDERS,� NOT PROVEN DISEASES.
While mainstream physical medicine treats diseases, psychiatry can only deal
with �disorders.� In the absence of a known cause or physiology, a group of
symptoms seen in many different patients is called a disorder or syndrome. Harvard
Medical School�s Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., says that in psychiatry, �all of its
diagnoses are merely syndromes [or disorders], clusters of symptoms presumed
to be related, not diseases.� As Dr. Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry emeritus,
observes, �There is no blood or other biological test to ascertain the presence
or absence of a mental illness, as there is for most bodily diseases.�
3. PSYCHIATRY
HAS NEVER ESTABLISHED THE CAUSE OF ANY �MENTAL DISORDERS.�
Leading psychiatric agencies such as the World Psychiatric Association and
the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health admit that psychiatrists do not
know the causes or cures for any mental disorder or what their �treatments�
specifically do to the patient. They have only theories and conflicting opinions
about their diagnoses and methods, and are lacking any scientific basis for
these. As a past president of the World Psychiatric Association stated, �The
time when psychiatrists considered that they could cure the mentally ill is
gone. In the future, the mentally ill have to learn to live with their illness.�
4. THE
THEORY THAT MENTAL DISORDERS DERIVE FROM A �CHEMICAL IMBALANCE� IN THE
BRAIN IS UNPROVEN OPINION, NOT FACT.
One prevailing psychiatric theory (key to psychotropic drug sales) is that
mental disorders result from a chemical imbalance in the brain. As with its
other theories, there is no biological or other evidence to prove this. Representative
of a large group of medical and biochemistry experts, Elliot Valenstein, Ph.D.,
author of Blaming the Brain says: �[T]here are no tests available for
assessing the chemical status of a living person�s brain.�
5. THE
BRAIN IS NOT THE REAL CAUSE OF LIFE�S PROBLEMS.
People do experience problems and upsets in life that may result in mental
troubles, sometimes very serious. But to represent that these troubles are caused
by incurable �brain diseases� that can only be alleviated with dangerous pills
is dishonest, harmful and often deadly. Such drugs are often more potent than
a narcotic and capable of driving one to violence or suicide. They mask the
real cause of problems in life and debilitate the individual, so denying him
or her the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future.
WARNING: No one should stop taking any psychiatric drug without the
advice and assistance of a competent, non-psychiatric, medical doctor.
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