Re: terms (Psychiatrists, State,Liberty and Schizophrenia)

pald1208 (pald1208@tao.sosc.osshe.edu)
Mon, 30 Sep 1996 14:34:30 -0700

> It is also - far more seriously - a means of repression - and a
> counter to civil liberty. 'If you cause lots of trouble to the state,
> we can have you declared insane by means of the DSM and the term
> schizophrenia - and put you away - even if you are sane' - the Soviets
> and other countries did so for years...)
>
> Errol(Got my degree in psychology in 1982)

Great reply!! And totally accurate.

Refer them to Paula Caplan's "They Call You Crazy" for that story (DSM)
(also a psychiatrist)
and to Thomas Szasz(ditto)'s "Ideology and Insanity"
"Ceremonial Chemistry"
"The Manufacture of Madness"
"The Myth of Mental Illness" et caetera
Ivan Illich's "Medical Nemesis"
(in which the best citation was from a study wherein
normal people said that they heard voices, to get admitted, and then were
perfectly normal in speech and behavior once admitted. Did them no good;
the LABEL, once applied, becomes the only reality, and all perception is
filtered through it and all action directed toward it, not the person or
the reality of the person's condition, "the personnel were unable to
acknowledge normal".)