The Citizens' Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)
Psychiatry categorizes a set of human experiences and then calls this set of experiences a "disorder" or "disease." News media speak of psychiatrists having "discovered a new disorder." In reality, such psychiatrists have merely "created a new category for human experiences." They haven't discovered anything new.
This difference is more than semantic. If people can be convinced they "have a disorder," they are more likely to accept a medical solution—even an expensive and risky one. If people are empowered to see their experiences as merely different from others', they may see the difference being discussed in light of other differences like family background, culture, education, and social ties.
Our brains are shaped by our unique habits and priorities. These habits and priorities, in turn, have been shaped by the educational techniques, family values, and cultural emphases we've grown up in, as well as the social ties we've committed ourselves to. Different brain structures indicate different life experiences, including such brain damaging experiences as exposure to psychiatric medication.
When psychiatrists discover similarities in brain structures of individuals they've classified with the same label, they're simply noting that these individuals have had sufficiently similar educational, family, cultural, or social backgrounds to have fostered the habits and priorities they have now, which are reflected in the structures of their brains. Similar brain structures suggest similarities in experiences. Different brain structures do not necessarily indicate the presence of a "disorder" or "disease." Different brain structures may simply indicate the absence of healthful, organizing experiences—including, sometimes, the absence of healthful, organizing, educational or religious experiences.
Unfortunately, few religions today recognize that they are in a direct competition with psychiatry for adherents. Psychiatry's "medical model" of solving educational, family, cultural, and social difficulties is diametrically opposed to models from historic, Biblical Christianity; from classical education; and from existential psychology, each which seeks to change education, families, cultures, and social ties directly.
One of the few religions that has recognized the threat psychiatry poses in the "marketplace of ideas," regrettably, is the Church of Scientology.
The Citizens' Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which produced the video on our links page, is devoted to exposing the human-rights abuses of psychiatrists (both historical and present-day) and also the real but under-reported dangers of psychiatric medicines. As a small, marginalized voice against an hegemony of big government, big pharma, and psychiatry, CCHR has sometimes over-stated its case. Nevertheless, since pro-psychiatry resources are numerable, we included a video from CCHR on our links page, if for no other reason than to help balance what you're likely to find elsewhere.
Interestingly, Time Magazine ran a piece on the Church of Scientology in 1991. The article, though excellent in many regards, reflected the media's willful ignorance at the time:
The CCHR is also behind an all-out war against Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, the nation's top-selling antidepression drug. Despite scant evidence, the group's members—who call themselves "psychbusters"—claim that Prozac drives people to murder or suicide.
By November 2005, Time Magazine was forced to update its reporting in an article entitled "Bitter Pills," noting
In the U.S. last year, the Food and Drug Administration told the drug companies to harden their warnings about the potential side effects of SSRIs. The companies' prescriber information must now feature a black-box warning—the strongest available—stating that in trials "antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior" in children and adolescents with depression and other psychiatric disorders…. British health authorities have gone further: in September, the National Health Service told doctors to stop prescribing antidepressants to under-18s in the early stages of treatment because of the link with suicidal thinking.
By June 2008, Time Magazine was admitting, in an article entitled "America's Medicated Army":
Last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged the makers of antidepressants to expand a 2004 "black box" warning that the drugs may increase the risk of suicide in children and adolescents. The agency asked for—and got—an expanded warning that included young adults ages 18 to 24, the age group at the heart of the Army. The question now is whether there is a link between the increased use of the drugs in the Iraqi and Afghan theaters and the rising suicide rate in those places. There have been 164 Army suicides in Afghanistan and Iraq from the wars' start through 2007, and the annual rate there is now double the service's 2001 rate.
At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, including 36 in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army said on May 29. That's the highest toll since it started keeping such records in 1980. Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs—overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft…. But how solid is the chemical-imbalance model of depression? That depends on whom you ask.
The drug companies present it as fact… [but n]ot everyone's convinced. And not everyone will be until there's a biological test for depression instead of the series of questions doctors use now. Don't hold your breath waiting for that, says British academic Moncrieff: "I believe that human emotions will never be located in a simple biochemical formula." The chemical-imbalance theory is nonsense, says Adelaide psychiatrist Jureidini. SSRIs alter a patient's serotonin levels within days, he says, but their antidepressant effect—if there is any—doesn't occur for several weeks. "The idea that there's a serotonin deficiency that explains depression is such a gross oversimplification as to be completely misleading," Jureidini says. "A lot of doctors and others are prone to wishful thinking. It'd be nice if this was all scientific and we could give a drug to correct a chemical imbalance and nobody had to think about how complicated it is to become depressed and what the reasons might be for it… But it doesn't work like that."
… [A]dvocates of the drugs assert that depressed people who aren't treated are at heightened risk of contemplating and attempting suicide[, yet] "The average risk of such events in patients receiving antidepressants was 4%," the U.S. [black box] warning reads, "twice the placebo risk of 2%." In other words, drugs meant to stop depressed people from getting even more depressed or killing themselves may double their chances of doing just that."
The Citizens' Commission on Human Rights has led the way in exposing the dangers of SSRIs and other questionable psychiatric interventions. CCHR encourages people to look outside of psychiatry for solutions: that's great. CCHR also opens the door to Scientology: that's not so great. Scientology's "solutions" aren't any better than those of psychiatry. Both have done egregious harm.
The McNatt Learning Center, Inc., is a Christian business-ministry that is in no way affiliated with the Church of Scientology.