Cruelty in the name of psychiatry

Dr Breggin, an international authority in psychiatric medicine, has stated in his book 'Brain disabling treatments in psychiatry’(page 12) that,

'Psychiatric drugs achieve their primary or essential effect by causing brain dysfunction and they tend to do far more harm than good.

'Psychiatric drugs are not specific treatment for any particular mental disorder. Instead of correcting biochemical imbalances, psychiatric drugs cause them damage sometimes permanently. Brain damage and dysfunction from any cause, including accidents and illness, frequently produce helplessness and denial but only in psychiatry is damage and dysfunction used as treatment to produce these disabling effects.'

The insights that Dr Breggin has conveyed through these lines are shocking to the general public. Psychiatric diseases are not medical diseases and hence there is no illness to be cured. Psychiatrists exploit the ignorance of people and spread an epidemic of white lies like the genetic causation of mental illness or the biochemical causation of mental disorders.

In the past years, hypothetical constructs of biochemical imbalance  has been presented to the public as established medical truth and there occurred an undue inflation of the drug market and an unfortunate downplaying of the drug-free therapies for many patients. Drugs have only very limited role to play in the mental health field and are indiscriminately given to all the people. Clinical psychologists are highly qualified specialists in psychological treatment but their service is not properly utilised as there is no psychology OP independently in the hospitals.

All psychiatric drugs are basically neurotoxic and for this reason cause symptoms and problems such as dry mouth, blurred vision,lethargy, dizziness,thinking difficulty, menstrual irregularities, urinary retention, heart palpitation, cognitive deficits and other adverse consequence of neurological dysfunctions. Placebo drugs or sugar pills can never cause these symptoms.

The most widely used psychiatric drugs are the ones called the minor tranquilisers including vanium, librium, xanox and halciol. Psychiatrists who prescribe these drugs claim that they have calming anti-anxiety effects. In his book 'Toxic Psychiatry’ 1991-chapter 11, psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin alleged that the opposite is closer to the truth like all or almost all psychiatric drugs. The so-called minor tranquilisers don’t cure anything but are merely brain disabling drugs. While speaking of minor tranquilisers,  Breggin says 'As with almost all psychiatric drugs, the use of medication eventually causes an increase of  the very symptoms the drug is supposed to ameliorate(page 246).

Neurological disorders including disfiguring facial and whole body indicating potential brain damage are an increasing concern with the patients on drugs. A research team of the Wayne’s state university school of medicine studied children with obsessive compulsive disorder before and after they consume Paxil.

The SSRI anti-depressant causes shrinkage of brain tissues in the area of thalamus. In a study by Yale university published in December 2000, researchers found that prozac given to rats for 2 to 4 weeks stimulated an abnormal proliferation or increase in the number of neurons in a portion of the temporal lobe.

There is also evidence to conclude that anti-depressants cause depression, violence, paranoia and even suicide. The paradoxical fact is that the anti-depressants do not have any antidepressant effect and that they are 'no more good than placebo drugs or sugar pills.’

In his book ‘Psychiatric Drugs Hazards To The Brain’ published in 1983, psychiatrist Peter Breggin says ‘The most fundamental point we made about the most frequently used major anti-depressants are that they have no specific anti-depressant effect. Like the major tranquilisers to which they are closely related they are highly neurotoxic and brain disabling and achieve their impact through the disruption of normal brain functioning. In the light of the above facts it should be kept in mind that people with emotional problems should not be poisoned with neurotoxic substances to suppress their distress signals. Drug-free psychological treatment of the clinical psychologists is the treatment of choice for the majority of mental disorders.  Neurotoxic drugs should only be given to violent and excited patients who are not  amenable to therapy of the clinical psychologists.  Today unfortunately the greatest mental health crisis is that all people irrespective of their diagnosis or their problems are drugged and damaged to make behaviour control. This is a great human rights violation and cruelty done to mankind by psychiatry.

The pertinent question is do we offer brain damage to people with emotional problems and suppress their symbols of communication or are we emotionally stable enough to psychologically redress their grievances?

(The writer is consultant clinical psychologist, Medical College Hospital, Kottayam)