As someone who worked the trenches of the system, I appreciate this piece by Bruce Levine:
7 Reasons America’s Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity
The majority of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals “go along to get along” and maintain a status quo that includes drug company corruption, pseudoscientific research and a “standard of care” that is routinely damaging and occasionally kills young children. If that sounds hyperbolic, then you probably have not heard of Rebecca Riley, and how the highest levels of psychiatry described her treatment as “appropriate and within responsible professional standards.” read the rest
In a nutshell the seven reasons:
1. Corruption by Big Pharma
2. Invalid Illnesses and Disorders
3. Scientifically Unreliable Diagnoses
4. Biochemical Imbalance Mumbo Jumbo
5. Pseudoscientific Drug Effectiveness Research
7. Diversion from Societal, Cultural and Political Sources of Misery
Bruce E. Levine, a practicing clinical psychologist, writes and speaks about how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect. His latest book is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite (Chelsea Green, 2011). Visit his Website is here.
More by Bruce Levine on Beyond Meds:
● How the Occupy Movement Helped Americans Move Beyond Denial and Depression to Action
● Scientology vs. Critical Psychiatry
● Liberation Psychology for the U.S. – are we too demoralized to protest?
● Eli Lilly and the Case for a Corporate Death Penalty
● Revolutionary Road, A Beautiful Mind and Truthfulness
● Comment by Bruce Levine in response to Depression’s Evolutionary Roots
● Suicide in the military, increasing antidepressant use and can we trust NIMH Studies?
● Postpartum Depression: Cultural Disorder?
● Psychologists Profit on Unending U.S. Wars by Teaching Positive Thinking to Soldiers
● Activism necessary if we want the truth about psychiatric medications be heard
Books by Bruce Levine:
- *Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite
- *Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy
- *Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy
- *Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite
