{"id":19968,"date":"2024-05-13T09:30:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T13:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19968"},"modified":"2024-05-13T13:01:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T17:01:05","slug":"psychiatry-is-vexing-americans-and-subverting-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/13\/psychiatry-is-vexing-americans-and-subverting-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychiatry is Vexing Americans and Subverting Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Psychiatry is Vexing Americans and Subverting Freedom<\/a><\/h1>\n
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Photo by form PxHere<\/p><\/div>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span> | May 13, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Psychiatry is ruining more lives than ever before<\/strong>. The New York Times<\/em> recently showcased psychiatric \u201cprevalence inflation\u201d\u2014a vast increase in reported mental illness among teenagers because they are encouraged to view normal symptoms as grave maladies requiring intervention.<\/p>\n

Oxford University psychologist Lucy Foulkes observed that school programs are \u201ccreating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they\u2019re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional.\u201d In an analysis published last year in the academic journal, New Ideas in Psychology<\/em>, Foulkes explained that \u201cawareness efforts\u201d spur young people \u201cto interpret and report milder forms of distress as mental health problems.\u201d Filing such complaints \u201cleads some individuals to experience a genuine increase in symptoms, because labeling distress as a mental health problem can affect an individual\u2019s self-concept and behavior in a way that is ultimately self-fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Psychiatric diagnoses have become status symbols, propelled by snake oil \u201csocial emotional learning\u201d programs. University of Southern California clinical psychologist Darby Saxbe warns that mental illness labels have \u201cbecome an identity marker that makes people feel special and unique. That\u2019s a big problem because this modern idea that anxiety is an identity gives people a fixed mindset, telling them this is who they are and will be in the future.\u201d Psychiatric labels can disable the people they seek to assist. The New York Times<\/em> found that many young people were left worse off thanks to \u201cmental health interventions.\u201d Endless classroom presentations on mental health spur \u201cco-rumination\u201d\u2014excessively talking about one\u2019s problems\u2014which might remind many people of first dates from hell.<\/p>\n

A deluge of new mental illnesses is helping to hobble an entire young generation.<\/strong> Hungarian-American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz warned in the last century, \u201cPsychiatrists manufacture mental diagnoses the way the Vatican manufactures saints.\u201d But Szasz\u2019s deft ridicule did nothing to prevent a sham stampede.<\/p>\n

The American Psychiatric Association\u2019s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/em> (DSM) now lists more than three-hundred mental illnesses, five times as many as it specified in the 1960s. Dr. Allen Frances, writing in Psychology Today<\/i>, warned that the latest DSM contained \u201cmany changes that seem clearly unsafe and scientifically unsound\u201d and is \u201clikely to lead to massive over-diagnosis and harmful over-medication.\u201d <\/span> After the DSM redefined autism in the 1990s, the autism rate \u201cquickly multiplied almost 100 fold.\u201d Thanks to another DSM redefinition, the \u201cnumber of American children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder increased 40-fold\u201d between 1993 and 2004, The<\/em> New York Times<\/i> reported. Psychiatrist Laurent Mottron complained in 2023 that the latest version of the DSM \u201cis full of vague and trivial definitions and ambiguous language that ensures more people fall into various, abnormal categories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DSM provides a road map for federal discrimination law. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compels schools and universities to provide \u201creasonable accommodation\u201d to students who claim to have a disability, physical or mental. Even before the pandemic, up to 25% of students at top colleges were \u201cclassified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams,\u201d The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported in 2018. Similar string-pulling occurs for the rigorous entrance exams for New York City\u2019s elite high schools, where \u201cwhite students\u2026are 10 times as likely as Asian students to have a [disability] designation that allows extra time,\u201d The<\/em> New York Times<\/i> reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between 2008 and 2019, the number of undergraduate students diagnosed with anxiety increased by 134%, 106% for depression, 57% for bipolar disorder, 72% for ADHD, 67% for schizophrenia, and 100% for anorexia, according to the National College Health Assessment. Students\u2019 struggles skyrocketed after COVID shutdowns. A Boston University analysis of students on almost 400 campuses in 2022 found that \u201c60% of the respondents met the qualifying criteria for \u2018one or more mental health problems, a nearly 50% increase from 2013.\u2019\u201d But awarding endless psychiatric Purple Hearts to college students will do nothing to help graduates adjust to the challenges of daily life beyond the classroom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recognized that the APA had gone nuts after attending their 1986 annual meeting in Washington. Here are some riffs from a Detroit News piece I wrote at that time:<\/p>\n

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The APA served attendees a batch of freshly-ordained mental illnesses, including\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cpremenstrual dysphoric disorder.\u201d The APA says symptoms of this \u201cmental illness\u201d include \u201cirritability,\u201d \u201cmarked fatigue,\u201d and \u201cnegative evaluation of self.\u201d According to the APA\u2019s definition, a third of all women go crazy once a month.<\/p>\n

The second newly ordained mental illness is \u201cself-defeating personality type,\u201d previously known as common or garden-variety masochism. The symptoms for this grade disorder include, \u201ccomplaints, directly or indirectly, about being unappreciated,\u201d \u201crepeatedly turns down opportunities for pleasure,\u201d and \u201cremains in relationships in which others\u2026take advantage of him or her.\u201d Bring on the Valium!<\/p>\n

The third \u201cdiscovery\u201d was guaranteed to raise the APA\u2019s popularity with trial lawyers. The APA tentatively decided that anyone who persistently fantasizes about or actively forces a non-consenting person to have sex suffers from \u201cparaphilic rapism.\u201d In other words, a person would have to be nuts to rape somebody. As one protester at the APA\u2019s meeting declared, \u201cSexual assault is a crime\u2014not a mental disorder.\u201d The Committee of Women of the APA said the new category would \u201cprovide an instant insanity plea for anyone charged with rape.\u201d<\/p>\n

The redefinition of rape epitomizes psychiatry\u2019s view of crime: no one is responsible for anything and psychiatrists should have supervision over everything. The big hero at the APA\u2019s convention was Jack Hinckley, father of John Hinckley, who announced he was launching a campaign to increase public support for psychiatry. (His son was seeing a psychiatrist before he shot President Reagan, but APA members would rather not talk about that.) The psychiatrist introducing Hinckley, Sr., spoke movingly about the \u201ctragedy that struck the Hinckley family\u201d\u2014with no thought of a nation that was almost robbed of its elected leader.<\/p>\n

The APA\u2019s new mental illnesses will provide shrinks with lucrative new court \u201cexpert witness\u201d opportunities. One woman already successfully used premenstrual syndrome as an \u201cinsanity\u201d defense for murdering her husband, and PMS is now being used as a defense in child abuse cases. This is progress?<\/p>\n

If shrinks only cleaned out people\u2019s wallets, then they would be no more harmful than your average politician. But psychiatrists nowadays routinely rely on mind-numbering drugs and mind-shattering electric shock treatments. Some mental patients are developing Parkinson\u2019s disease symptoms as a result of years of heavy medication. Electric shock \u201ctherapy\u201d\u2014aside from being a terrifying experience \u2013 sometimes causes permanent memory loss, thus making it harder for a patient to handle reality.<\/p>\n

We have new mental illnesses not because of new breakthroughs in understanding the mind, but because psychiatrists want more money and more power over the rest of us. Shrinks generally have a poor batting average for curing known mental problems\u2014but that has not stopped them from creating new \u201cillnesses\u201d that supposedly they alone can treat.\u00a0 <\/span>But a con artist with an M.D. is still a con artist.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My carping did nothing to slow the hucksters. In 2019, the American Psychological Association officially designated traditional masculinity as a de facto mental ill<\/strong>ness. Their new guidelines specifically state that \u201cstoicism\u201d and other traits are \u201con the whole, harmful.\u201d Did that make Marcus Aurelius spin in his grave? Apparently, instead of toughing out challenges, people are supposed to spend their lives whimpering to shrinks and getting appropriately drugged.<\/p>\n

Psychiatrists have helped some individuals better understand themselves and deal more deftly with everyday reality. But bogus mental illnesses have turned millions of healthy Americans into \u201cmental patients,\u201d according to Dr. Allen Frances. That debacle explains why Thomas Szasz crusaded against the \u201ctherapeutic state\u201d and the \u201cmedicalization of everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this peril also profoundly endangers freedom. <\/strong>The profusion of new diagnostic labels encourages people to view themselves as psychologically fragile.<\/strong> Actually, the Americans with Disabilities Act tacitly rewards people who demand \u201creasonable accommodations\u201d because they are depressed or anxious. Those incentives create a downward politico-psychological spiral. Besides, if you\u2019re reading this website, you\u2019re at risk of being designated\u2014i.e., found guilty\u2014of <\/strong><\/span>DSM category 313.81,<\/span> Oppositional Defiant Disorder. One tell-tale trait of that mental illness: \u201c<\/span>Often argues with authority figures.\u201d Would my sarcastic tweets suffice to convict me on that charge?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Therapists are hollowing out the American character, generation by generation. <\/span><\/strong>What do those wizards offer in lieu of the stoicism they derided<\/strong>? Politicians raced to fill the void with their usual toxic. A century ago, H.L. Mencken observed, \u201cThe whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety\u2014by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.\u201d <\/span> And the more fearful people become, the more gullible they will be. British philosopher John Stuart Mill warned in 1842, \u201cPersons of timid character are the more predisposed to believe any statement, the more it is calculated to alarm them.\u201d In a democracy, as long as enough people can be frightened, almost everyone can be subjugated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Founding Fathers didn\u2019t expect that the American people would ever be labeled into submission, classified into passivity while politicians trampled the law and the Constitution. Citizens cannot cower on cue without forfeiting any possibility of keeping government on a leash. Nothing can safeguard freedom except the bravery of citizens who refuse to be shackled.<\/strong><\/p>\n

+++ originally published by the Libertarian Institute<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychiatry is Vexing Americans and Subverting Freedom by James Bovard | May 13, 2024 Psychiatry is ruining more lives than ever before. The New York Times recently showcased psychiatric \u201cprevalence inflation\u201d\u2014a vast increase in reported mental illness among teenagers because they are encouraged to view normal symptoms as grave maladies requiring intervention. Oxford University psychologist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2780,4167,4163,451,2356,4162,219,2317,778,45,4169,4165,4170,218,4166,4168,4164,114],"class_list":["post-19968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-psychiatric-association","tag-apa","tag-bipolar","tag-constitution","tag-depression","tag-diagnostic-statistial-manual","tag-dsm","tag-fear","tag-fearmongering","tag-freedom","tag-hinckley","tag-lucy-foulkes","tag-oppositional-defiant-disorder","tag-psychiatry","tag-psyhology","tag-purple-heart","tag-saxbe","tag-szasz"],"yoast_head":"\nPsychiatry is Vexing Americans and Subverting Freedom - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Psychiatry is undermining freedom by encouraging people to view themselves as mentally disabled by everyday life\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/13\/psychiatry-is-vexing-americans-and-subverting-freedom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Psychiatry is Vexing Americans and Subverting Freedom - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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