Psychiatry: An Industry of Death

The documentary Psychiatry: An Industry of Death shows the horrifying and inhumane truth behind psychiatry. It had the same eerie and disturbing setting as a horror film. It was more disturbing due to the fact that it happens in real life. The documentary was interesting; though, after downloading and watching the whole documentary, I found it somehow one-sided. The documentary was made by the Church of Scientology and Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist and a well-known critic of the moral issues of psychiatry. They co-founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) which aims to clean up the field of human rights abuses. Though they made a clear point on their anti-psychiatry advocacy, they only pointed out the bad side of psychiatry (and also psychology). What about its breakthrough? Almost all anatomical fields of science used both animals and humans as subjects. But without those experiments, we will not have the knowledge we have today. The anti-psychiatry propaganda also had its drawbacks. See, for example, the case of Elli Perkins. Her son, Jeremy, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. But since they were a member of the Church of Scientology, Elli refused psychiatric treatment for Jeremy. She only allowed Jeremy to have vitamin treatment. On March 13, 2003, Elli Perkins was murdered by her son.

After the murder, Jeremy was given psychotropic medications. It did not cure him, but it stabilized his condition. According to Jeremys defense attorney, Jeremy himself told me that he firmly believes that if he had been taking these medications [earlier] that it would not have happened.

The History of Psychiatry and Treatment Procedures

Bethlem Royal Hospital has been recognized as the first and oldest asylum to specialize in the treatment of mentally-ill patients. Patients were caged, chained and flogged. The asylum was also open for public viewing. The asylum also perform trepanning (drilling a hole in the skull), neardrowning devices (caging the patients and dropping the cage in a pool of water), and cold water

treatment (to treat mania). William Battie, who opposed the treatments done by Bethlem Royal Hospital, performed inhumane treatment to his patients without curing them. Benjamin Rush, a physician and one of the founding fathers of the United States, was immortalized as The Father of Modern Psychiatry in 1965 by the American Psychiatric Association. In fact, his image was used as the seal of APA. He suggested that insanity was caused by too much blood in the head, and that blood should be taken out in any means. In the 20th century, American psychiatrist Henry Cotton mutilated his patients because he believed that insanity was caused by untreated infections in the body. Wilhelm Wundt, Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, the pioneers of psychology, also contributed on this gory depiction of psychiatry. Wundt suggested that insanity is caused by chemical imbalance in the brain. Pavlov conducted an experiment to test reflexes, as with the use of dogs and children (with holes in their cheeks) as subjects. Watson said that humans are animals and that humans dont have souls. Skinner suggested that behavior could be manipulated. He made the so-called Skinner box, which he used to experiment on operant conditioning. He used his daughter on some of his experiments. But that was suggested as a circulating rumor. An article by Lauren Slater stated that Skinners child committed suicide (because of Skinners experiments), but it was proven false. Skinners daughter, now Deborah Buzan, is an artist and writer living in London. In Judge Rotenberg Center, a juvenile facility, electric shock was used to correct misbehaviors and sexual deviance. Psychiatry in the Holocaust In 1945, the time of the Holocaust, a pseudoscience called Eugenics suggested racial sterilization. Ernst Rdin called it racial hygiene. Madison Grants book The Passing of the Great Race became Adolf Hitlers personal bible. Hitler advocated in cleaning the world free of Jews, mentally incapacitated persons, the physically handicapped, gypsies, Jehovahs Witnesses and homosexuals. It led to the development of a program called T4, a Eugenics-based euthanasia program with an aim of murdering the mentally incapacitated using gas and lethal injection. In 1946, a Doctors Trial was conducted in the Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, Germany. American psychiatrists blamed German psychiatrists for causing the T4. Psychiatric Racism And there is a thing called psychiatric racism. Benjamin Rush formulated a term called negritude, which he called a disease of blacks that made them inferior. He said that segregation is a medical necessity, because negritude is like a mild form of leprosy, and the only cure is to be white. Samuel Cartwright coined the term drapetomania, and said that blacks have this mental disorder if they have a desire to run away from servitude. Dr. W. M. Bevis of the APA proclaimed that Negroes are descendants of savages and cannibals. Dr. Louis Jolly West recommended a secret aversion therapy experiment called the violence centers. Brains of Blacks and Hispanics were implanted with electrodes to shock them, should they exhibit any violent behavior.

Soviet Psychiatry In Soviet Russia, political leftists were sent to mental institutions. They were diagnosed with sluggish schizophrenia, a term used to describe inflexibility of conviction. They used powerful drugs to cure patients. From 1967-1987, they have arrested many leftists. Drugs and Various Treatments Jewish-Austrian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist Manfred Sakel developed insulin shock therapy to kill bad brain cells which caused insanity. Ladislaus von Meduna used Metrazol, a braindamaging drug, to be used in convulsive therapy. But it was banned due to its side effect, which gives seizures to the patient. This drug led to the use of electric shock therapy, which was first used in Roman slaughterhouses during the 1930s. Pigs were shocked so they will not fight while they were being slaughtered. Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini, Italian psychiatrists, were the first to call this a therapy. In Vermont, 1848, a steel rod was skewered the head of Phineas Gage. This gave Egas Moniz an idea of intentionally inflicting damage to the brain. This process is called lobotomy, which involves drilling the skull and squirting alcohol into the brain to kill the tissues of the frontal lobe. Walter Freeman also performed a leucotomy or a transorbital lobotomy. This is done by inserting an ice pick under the lids and driving the instrument into the frontal lobe. After performing lobotomy, patients were like zombies. Freeman was stripped off his right to perform lobotomy after his last patient died. Because of Wundts chemical imbalance theory, drugs have emerged. Thorazine, a drug which came from parasite killers, was used. It was dubbed by Winfred Overholser as a chemical lobotomy. It caused crippling neurological condition, similar to Tourettes syndrome, or tics. Heinz Lehmann described it as easier than and just as effective as psychosurgery. Psychiatry and Profit The documentary called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists. Both will formulate a new disorder and recommend a cure for it. In the US, involuntary commitment was being done. It is somehow similar to illegal arrest: patients will be dragged out of their homes and taken into psychiatric hospitals.

Notable Scenes
I cant point out the exact scene which has been notable to me, because the whole documentary intrigued me and struck my interest. I found the first part disturbing. The faade of Bethlem Royal Hospital and the picture of the bloody girl with her arms hanged reminded me of the horror movie Stay Alive which, by the way, gave me three sleepless nights. The pictures depicted the most inhumane part of treating patients with mental disorders.

I got a little teary-eyed when I saw the animals being electric shocked. My anger against racism burned when I saw the injustice because of racial sterilization and its aim to wipe out the inferior race. I felt sad so see injustice in Russia. And its all caused by the wrong use of psychiatry. I was a little happy that psychiatry wasnt as well-known here in the Philippines than that in the US and European countries. Here, we only treat those with serious cases. But complete ignorance on how to prevent psychosis gave way to worse cases, too. I was shocked to discover that the scenes Ive only watched from The Simpsons before really happens in real life. I thought it was just to make the spiel funny and exaggerated. But then, I found the scenes in the documentary. I was appalled, because I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I decided not to continue my dream. It was after I had it downloaded that I wanted to do something for psychiatry. I found out that the documentary was made by the Church of Scientology, to support their anti-psychiatry and anti-psychology propaganda. I did some research and I ruled out that the documentary was onesided. I also had a theory that psychosis cannot be cured completely, but it can be controlled with therapy and drugs. I immediately thought of that scene from The Simpsons where, after causing a scene on the funeral of Homer Simpsons Vegas wife, Bart Simpson was taken to a psychiatrist, where his parents were told to have Bart channel his anger and rage into something constructive, like playing drums. I wanted to apply that to mild conditions like ADHD, wherein children would be surrounded by activities according to their activities with the help of drugs to regulate their conditions, of course. Despite the hint of persuasion given by the documentary, I wanted a reform. Psychosis can be treated in every bit as moral as other fields of sciences. I want to give psychiatry a chance to be known as a real science, not a pseudoscience which is dubbed as an industry of death.

PSYCHIATRY: AN INDUSTRY OF DEATH

Daquilanea, Leslie Ann A. CAS-06-601A MH 09:00 10:30 Prof. Agnes Montalbo