{"id":5278,"date":"2013-05-07T16:17:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T20:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=5278"},"modified":"2013-05-07T16:23:41","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T20:23:41","slug":"more-madness-from-psychiatrists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/07\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\/","title":{"rendered":"More Madness from Psychiatrists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/psychiatry-dsm-_square_thumb.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-5281\" alt=\"psychiatry dsm-_square_thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/psychiatry-dsm-_square_thumb.png\" width=\"168\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/psychiatry-dsm-_square_thumb.png 400w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/psychiatry-dsm-_square_thumb-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 168px) 100vw, 168px\" \/><\/a>The director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas R. Insel, tells the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/05\/07\/health\/psychiatrys-new-guide-falls-short-experts-say.html\">New York Times<\/a> that the new Diagnostic Statistical Manual &#8211; the psychiatrists&#8217; bible &#8211; is a crock. But we will still be endlessly taxed to pay for treatments that shrinks gin up as a result of the profusion of new bogus illnesses. And politicians and government officials may increasingly use dubious diagnoses to strip Americans of their freedoms.<\/p>\n<p>I thumped an earlier version of the DSM back in 1986 for the Detroit News. Unfortunately, shrinks haven&#8217;t gotten saner in the meantime. The heroic work of Hungarian psychiatrist <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.szasz.com\/\">Thomas Szasz<\/a> <\/strong>provides an excellent antidote to the manias that had swept his profession for more than half a century. \u00a0There are some individuals going through struggles who can be helped by competent therapists. \u00a0But this profession has cast their drift nets far too wide and end up pulling many people down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE MADNESS FROM PSYCHIATRISTS <\/strong> Detroit News, June 5, 1986.<\/p>\n<p>by James Bovard<\/p>\n<p>The American Psychiatric Association recently met in Washington, D.C., to concoct some new mental illnesses. The meeting was a big success &#8211; there was a booming market for freshly brewed psychoses. But If the APA succeeds in adding millions more to the legions of officially crazy, it could be bad news for all Americans.<\/p>\n<p>The first of 1986&#8217;s new \u201cmental illness\u201d is \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 &#8211; According to the APA\u2019s definition, a third of all women go crazy once a month.<\/p>\n<p>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 repeatedly turns down opportunities for pleasure,\u201d and \u201cremains in relationships in which others&#8230; take advantage of him or her.\u201d Bring on the Valium!<\/p>\n<p>The third \u201cdiscovery\u201d is a humdinger &#8211; guaranteed to raise the APA\u2019s popularity with trial lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>The APA has 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 &#8211; not a mental disorder.\u201d The Committee of Women of the APA said the new category woudl \u201cprovide an instant insanity plea for anyone charged with rape.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8211; with no thought of a nation that was almost robbed of its elected leader.<\/p>\n<p>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<p><strong>Many psychiatrists seem to view the human mind largely as a means to pad their pockets<\/strong>. Though doctors decided more than a hundred years ago that bleeding per se was not good for the human body, psychiatrists still seem to feel that financially bleeding a patient is good for his mind.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If shrinks only cleaned out people\u2019s wallets, then they would be no more harmful than your average politician.<\/strong> 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 &#8211; aside from being a terrifying experience &#8211; sometimes causes permanent memory loss, thus making it harder for a patient to handle reality.<\/p>\n<p>If shrinks can succeed in defining masochism as a mental illness, then it is only a matter of time until they add hay fever, the Monday blahs, and voting Republican to the list. And with the cost of electricity these days, it would be a shame to waste all those electric shocks on people who might not really need them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>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.<\/strong> Shrinks generally have a poor batting average for cuing known mental problems &#8211; but that has not stopped them from creating new \u201cillnesses\u201d that supposedly they alone can treat.<\/p>\n<p>A con artist with an M.D. is still a con artist. The human mind was not created to provide full employment for psychiatrists.<\/p>\n<p>Tagline: James Bovard\u2019s therapist thought writing this column would do him some good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas R. Insel, tells the New York Times that the new Diagnostic Statistical Manual &#8211; the psychiatrists&#8217; bible &#8211; is a crock. But we will still be endlessly taxed to pay for treatments that shrinks gin up as a result of the profusion of new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,219,202,209,45,165,218,206],"class_list":["post-5278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crime","tag-dsm","tag-fraud","tag-fraud-2","tag-freedom","tag-paternalism","tag-psychiatry","tag-sex"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>More Madness from Psychiatrists - James Bovard<\/title>\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\/2013\/05\/07\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More Madness from Psychiatrists - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas R. Insel, tells the New York Times that the new Diagnostic Statistical Manual &#8211; the psychiatrists&#8217; bible &#8211; is a crock. But we will still be endlessly taxed to pay for treatments that shrinks gin up as a result of the profusion of new [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/07\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-07T20:17:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-07T20:23:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/psychiatry-dsm-_square_thumb.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"More Madness from Psychiatrists\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-07T20:17:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-07T20:23:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":846,\"commentCount\":4,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/psychiatry-dsm-_square_thumb.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Crime\",\"dsm\",\"fraud\",\"Fraud\",\"Freedom\",\"paternalism\",\"psychiatry\",\"sex\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2013\\\/05\\\/07\\\/more-madness-from-psychiatrists\\\/\",\"name\":\"More Madness from Psychiatrists - 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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 &amp; 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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Insel, tells the New York Times that the new Diagnostic Statistical Manual &#8211; the psychiatrists&#8217; bible &#8211; is a crock. 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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 &amp; 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. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5278"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5290,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278\/revisions\/5290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}