Talk:Anti-psychiatry/Archive 6
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Cleanup needs
Anti-psychiatry - big, sprawling, completely unsourced, reads like personal essay rather than encyclopedia article. --Dcfleck 14:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- Note Dc's comments were from over a month ago, the article has undergone substantial reworking since then and the general consensus is that it no longer needs to be cleaned up. If there are no objections, i'll remove the tag in a day or two. Rockpocket 05:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think the current article is looking pretty good. Ande B 05:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Deleted reference
Unlike the other references, I deleted the following one since it has no connection with the text:
- Caplan, Paula J., They say you're crazy: how the world's most powerful psychiatrists decide who's normal, Addison-Wesley, 1995. An inside look at the politics of the DSM from a former consultant.
Should the MLK Jr. quote be deleted?
I mean no offense to whoever may have included it, but I do not see how this necessarily endorses what could be considered an "anti-psychiatry" viewpoint. If proof can be provided that this was Dr. King's intent when saying this, then by all means it should stay. Otherwise, I feel it should be removed. FVZA_Colonel 13:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. I have no idea why that is in there, or whether there is any psychiatric context to the quote. Rockpocket (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Failure of Anti-Depressants
We could add a section on the failure of modern anti-depressants. Prozac, manufactured by Eli-Lilly, has been shown to increase the suicide rate in adolescents. More recently Paxil has been shown to increase the suicide rate in adults. This has now been acknowledged by the manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. Here is a link to the acknowledgement http://www.gsk.com/media/paroxetine/adult_hcp_letter.pdf . Here's a link to a news article on the subject http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200877.html .
I'm not sure what section this belongs in. Despite the increase in suicide rate, both manufactures maintain that the drugs help reduce depression. In my opinion, these two facts directly conflict with one another, so perhaps this belong in the Pseudo-Science section.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Exit 0 (talk • contribs).
- Actually, the claim that antidepressants increases suicide is wrong. Antidepressants result in reduced suicide; suicidality may be increased. If I get a chance, I will post a link to the latest data on this. The fact that the above poster(s) fail(s) to understand this simple but significant difference is exemplary of much of the specious reasoning in this badly written entry.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.182.163.102 (talk • contribs).
- That's a ridiculous assertion. It's like saying a defibrillator doesn't help save lives because it has the potential to hurt someone. You're thinking "one specified negative effect" negates "one specified positive effect" without any effort at weighing the effects. --Davidstrauss 16:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
- This subject has been extensively discussed here [1] and belongs more to the articles about Prozac and antidepressants. One of the things I don’t like with this kind of pronouncements, very common in Citizens Commission on Human Rights, is that they are a jump. The right way to formulate these claims is something like this: “It has been proven that a significant number of people on antidepressant drugs and specifically neuroleptics suffer from akathisia as a result of such sometimes iatrogenic drugs, a state of extreme inner anxiety. Some of these people with a mental history commit suicide in order to escape the inner torment”. See also what I say about how neuroleptics were used to torture political dissidents in communist Russia in User talk:Cesar Tort/discussion. But I repeat: this discussion belongs to other articles. —Cesar Tort 16:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
- Cesar Tort may be right about the proper location of this, however, I don't think the assertion is ridiculous. Don't the studies that show SSRIs to be effective rely on subjective, and possibly flawed, measurements of depression? Suicide rates, in contrast, are not subjective. I would also suggest that they are a sure and reliable indicator of the rate of depression within a given population --Exit 0 21:47 GMT, 28 May 2006 updated 22:47 GMT, 28 May 2006
- Exit 0 fails to understand the data and methodology. First the studies on SSRIs and other anti-depressants use all sorts of methodologies. Subjective rating scales are one type but not the only type. Others include looking at objective factors such as employment and other measures of achievement. As to suicide rates, the studies generally show that antidepressant use lowers rates of completed suicides. Some studies show that attempts may go up but lethality of attempts and death by suicide goes down. One of the largest studies done out of Finland published, makes a strong argument that antidepressant greatly reduce over all mortality, not just from suicide, but from other causes:
- In this study, 15,390 patients without psychosis who were hospitalized for a suicide attempt between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2003, were followed up through a nationwide computerized database, with a mean follow-up of 3.4 years. The primary endpoints were the propensity score–adjusted relative risks (ARRs) during monotherapy with the most frequently used antidepressants vs no antidepressant treatment.
- For subjects who had ever used any antidepressant, current medication use was associated with a markedly increased risk for attempted suicide (39%; P < .001), but also with a markedly decreased risk for completed suicide (-32%; P = .002) and mortality (-49%; P < .001) when compared with no current medication use. For subjects aged 10 to 19 years, the findings were essentially the same as those in the total population, except for an increased risk for death with paroxetine hydrochloride use (ARR, 5.44; 95% CI, 2.15 - 13.70; P < .001).
- "Among suicidal subjects who had ever used antidepressants, the current use of any antidepressant was associated with a markedly increased risk of attempted suicide and, at the same time, with a markedly decreased risk of completed suicide and death," the authors write. "Lower mortality was attributable to a decrease in cardiovascular- and cerebrovascular-related deaths during selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor use."
- Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:1358-1367
- So this study suggests that antidepressants decrease the rate of completed suicide and also result in longer lfe due to the decrease in completed suicide and decreased rates of stroke and heart attack. This study and many other rebuts the claims of Exit 0 and his misreading of the studies.76.179.18.95 06:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Hi, Ho!
András / Andrew Feldmár
I'd like to read about him, whether in this article on in his own. I only know his books in Hungarian but he's been living and working in Vancouver, Canada, for several decades and I suppose he should have a wider bibliography in English. See also his page at the website of the R. D. Laing Society: [2] (cache). Adam78 20:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Two distinct articles
Once reworked, the Antipsychiatry article will deal with politics in the mental health movement. On the other hand, Biopsychiatry controversy will explain the scientific side. As Bookish has explained in my talk page:
- "As this is a major controversy in psychiatry I think it's very important to restrict supporting references and citations to bona fide medical journals and high-profile campaigners who are medically qualified. Because of the slurs that have been directed against survivor groups I don't think it's particularly helpful to link to articles on the websites of marginalized campaigning organizations. Likewise media reports. Mainstream medical literature will provide more than enough".
For the moment the distinction is blurred. Once both articles are thoroughly reworked the reason for two articles will become clear. Momentarily Biopsychiatry controversy includes part of a paragraph which was copied and pasted from the old article:
- Some also believe that the media has distorted information promoting the idea that autism is a physical disorder. Leo Kanner views autism as a psychological disorder resulting from bad parenting (despite occurences of one twin being autistic while the other is not). Psychiatrists who do not accept the medical model of mental disorders, such as Peter Breggin, maintain that the labeling of children inflicts additional humiliation and injury to the self-esteem of an already traumatized child. Since 1971 Breggin is director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. Originally the center was founded to oppose the revival of lobotomy, and today it opposes the inclination to diagnose and medicate children and adolescents. Since 1999 the center publishes a journal critical of biopsychiatry theories [8].
Since it deals about psychiatric politics, this paragraph belongs to the Antipsychiatry article. However, to avoid confusion I’ll leave it there and only will move it when the Biopsychiatry controversy article is basically completed. —Cesar Tort 23:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Removing section
I have started to rework the article by removing duplicate section (“Scientific...”) that now can be read in Biopsychiatry controversy. —Cesar Tort 01:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Footnotes and references
This article might be easier to reference (and read) if one of us can bit the bullet and convert existing references it to the <ref> method of citation. See the Wiki articles Wiki Footnotes and Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations. For instance: I would like to add a link to David Healy (who was invited to give evidence at the United Kingdom cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in 2005 about ghost writing etc.) but at the moment it would look inelegant and messy if I just used a <ref> tags and left the rest alone (am pressed for time right now). I can get round it but it not going get the article improved over all.--Aspro 15:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- I'd hold off for the moment, as Cesar splitting some of this article into biopsychiatry controversy. Hopefully, when finished, he (or someone else) will use inline referencing as per WP:FN. Rockpocket 16:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- Good idea to convert the existing references, Aspro. The Healey/Prozac affair and the influence of Big Pharma may be more suitable to discuss in the Anti-psychiatry article than in Biopsychiatry controversy and I’ll leave that section here.
- I’ll do my final edition on this article today and you may convert references after that. —Cesar Tort 17:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- Rearrangement job done. Now you may convert the references, Aspro. —Cesar Tort 19:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
quotation marks
Changed from single quotation marks to double according to WP:MoS advice [3]. —Cesar Tort 18:00, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
More recent research
Just wanted to point out that schizophrenia is diagnosed more commonly in men than in women (see for example, McGrath 2006, Variations in the incidence of schizophrenia: data versus dogma [Schizophrenia Bulletin 32(1): 195-7]). Also, your citations for Electroshock are mostly from the 1970's (with one review from 2003). It would be helpful to see more recent information than this (a quick review of PubMed comes up with multiple very recent scientific articles both for and against electroshock- for example, pro: Dowman and Rajput 2005, Electroconvulsive therapy: attitudes and misconceptions [Journal of ECT 21(2): 84-7], and contra: Burstow 2006, Electroshock as a form of violence against women [Violence Against Women 12(4): 372-92]). Thanks, Christine Wilder
re Geni's revert of Austerlitz's post
Geni reverted an edit by Austerlitz but Rockpocket himslef seems to be willing to the inclusion of that article. See Psychiatry and Jeffrey Masson talk pages. --Cesar Tort 10:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- (sadly) My executive authority here doesn't count for much, though it is true that i suggested the link should be here if anywhere on Wikipedia.
- However, i only went as far to suggest "perhaps it might be appropriate for Anti-psychiatry" followed by "If you are so keen on linking to Cesar's page, why don't you simply link it in the anti-psychiatry article? Strictly speaking, there is a good argument that it isn't even appropriate for that, but at least the content would be relevent."
- Not being an expert in the field, i don't know how notable Cesar's opinion might be - at least in his native Mexico - but it seems to make a decent, sourced argument for anti-psychiatry related issues, so i don't really have a problem with linking it here. Might i suggest that it was the nature of the link style that drew Genie's attention in the first place, perhaps if the external link was formatted correctly it might be acceptable? Rockpocket 18:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'll try to do the format as soon as I get from Amazon Books the Dreamweaver manual that will teach me how to handle my web page. --Cesar Tort 18:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
ECT
I think the term electrochock should be changed to the more neutral ECT or Electroconvulsive Therapy. --Myelina m 13:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I wouldn’t advice it since “electroshock” is the widely-used word in the antipsychiatric movement (psychiatrists on the other hand use the term “ECT”). —Cesar Tort 00:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
- The point isn't to write the Anti-psychiatry article from the antipsychiatric point of view, however. I would advise using "electroconvulsive therapy" because that is the formal name of the treatment, and thus comes with less embedded assumptions than "electroshock". -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
- Differently from what Antaeus Feldspar says,
- the expression "electroconvulsive therapy"
- does not come with less embedded assumptions than "electroshock",
- it only comes with different assumptions.
- Evidently, such assumptions are euphemistic, unrealistic, and,
- more importantly, purposefully misleading.
- signed: KSM-2501ZX, IP address:= 200.143.1.33 03:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- That's OK with me and thanks for converting the footnotes. —Cesar Tort 20:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
- You're welcome; it was my pleasure to do it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Low-importance?
Retrieved from Cswrye and Cesar Tort’s talk pages:
I have noted that in Talk Anti-psychiatry article you inserted the phrase: "This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale." (Doesn’t the fact that 200,000 people are being electro-shocked each year and that millions of healthy children are drugged with psychiatric drugs is remarkable?)
I wonder if this is your opinion or if the rating has been consensual? —Cesar Tort 17:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
- That was just my assessment. You can feel free to change it if you want; it won't bother me. I'm just trying to place assessments on all the psychology articles, and most people either don't pay attention to or don't care how most articles are assessed. I know that some of my assessments will be challenged, and that's fine. Just start a discussion about it on the article's talk page, or if you're feeling bold, just change the assessment and see if anyone else challenges it. I will point out two things. First, this assessment is only for WikiProject Psychology, not for Wikipedia as a whole. It is possible for an article to be rated high importance in one WikiProject and low importance in another. Second, the assessment is relative to other articles in the WikiProject. There are many topics that may be important but are not necessarily crucial to gaining an understanding of the field of psychology. You can see the assessment scale at Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Assessment. —Cswrye 18:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
- You can find a better explanation of importance at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria#Importance of topic. Some WikiProjects use the term "priority" rather than "importance", but in practical terms, they mean the same thing. I do want to make the point that a "Low" assessment doesn't mean that the article isn't important, only that it's not a topic that one would expect to find in a psychology encyclopedia. —Cswrye 21:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
copyrighted material?
http://www.taxglosses.com/Showc-to-Tecno/Anti-psychiatry.html The webpage at first glance appears to be identical to the Wikipedia anti-psychiatry page. Insights anyone? --Scuro 23:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
- Its a mirror of our article. I notice they do not abide by the terms of the GFDL licence nor do they link back to this article, thus they are infringing on the copyright of the major contributors. If you could find an email address from the site owner you could always send them a notice like this, for example. Rockpocket 00:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
The site is registered through Domains By Proxy, [4] whose T&C's prohibit activities that "violate the law or infringe a third party’s trademark or copyright". Thus we could always contact them at:
DOMAINS BY PROXY® Attn: Legal Complaints 15111 N. Hayden Road, Suite 160 PMB 353 Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Or at their email listed here -- Rockpocket 00:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Should Scientology be mentioned in this article? -is the article biased?
Much of what is written in the article is what a Scientologist would also believe in. Are Scientologists not also anti-psychiatry? Did they not also play a major role in this movement and should they not also be included in the history section? Who are we kidding here, if Scientology is excluded. --Scuro 07:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
- In Talk:Biological_psychiatry I already proposed that the Scientology section be moved elsewhere. However, that doesn’t mean that it ought to be replicated or mentioned multiple times in all psychiatry articles.
- The differences between Scientology and anti-psychiatry have been discussed by several editors in Talk:Thomas_Szasz#Scientology ―Cesar Tort 09:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Anti-psychiatry is a broad umbrellla like term, similar to the "conservative movement". Scientology belongs in Anti-psychiatry, they were, and still are major players in this movement. This article appears to biased, in that a major force of this movement has been excluded.
--Scuro 14:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I think this page would benefit from a section clarifying the different kinds of people involved in "anti-psychiatry" and what their involvement and motivation is exactly. I guess that would include anyone who identifies themselves as being fundamentally anti-psychiatry (or at least anti-a-lot-of-psychiatry) and/or who is identified as being under that umbrella by others. EverSince 16:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC) p.s. I don't think Scientology was a significant player originally was it? And is now a largely independent force (i.e. a perspective and activism largely derived and supported from elsewhere, even if tapping some of the same concerns), would that be fair to say?
I don't know a lot about Scientology but I would hazard to guess that they are significant players in the field. There has always been a religious furvor to their message and they seem to expend a great deal of energy in this area. If one uses the internet as a barometer, they have a fair bit of content on the web. I would also hazard to guess that they would have been bigger players in the past when other fringe players in this field didn't even have this issue on their radar screen. L. Ron Hubbard's anti-psychiatry views were already being stated in his early science fiction novels and it was a cornerstone of his newly founded church in the 50's. The church has great financial incentive to discredit psychiatry and genetic model of brian disorders. During a Auditing (Scientology) session much is made of past memories and the use of church procedures to become emotionally well again. If someone's problems can be eliminated with a pill or be better explained by genetics, scientology would become irrelevant. --15:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Scuro (talk • contribs)
- Hi Scuro.
- It’s true that Hubbard was at odds with psychiatry in the early 1950s. But by then CCHR didn’t exist. And even after 1969 it was an almost unheard of organization. In the 1960s dissident psychiatrists like R.D. Laing, Szasz and antipsych philosophers like Foucault were on the spotlight. This continued thru the 1970s and it means that Scientology didn’t cause the secular antipsychiatry movement. For example, here in Mexico there have been two international antipsychiatry conferences, in 1978 and 1981. Not a single scientologist attended them. The Zeitgeist of the international conferences was the political left, so common in those times.
- In the 1980s biopsychiatry won more respectability thanks to the introduction of something new in medicine: a partnership between the pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession. Peter Breggin explains it at the end of Toxic Psychiatry. Even the professionals at the APA accept that it could not survive without that sponsorship. Only by that time CCHR started to increase its activities, which have increased exponentially the latest years.
- I doubt, however, that CCHR is moved by financial interest. I once attended a CCHR conference where a Sea Org member stated that the psychiatrists tried once to commit Hubbard, but that he escaped commitment. My educated guess is that this is related to the church’s antipsychiatric activities.
P.S.
- Since the editors of the ADHD article have asked to end this discussion on that talk page, I’m taking the liberty to move your latest post here since, apparently, you want to use these arguments to modify the Anti-psychiatry article.
- In ADHD talk page Scuro wrote:
was Breggin involved with Scientology? He was certainly involved with scientologist organizations and his wife was a scientologist. Why is that important? Because you can see where some of the influence of his formative ideas may have came from. That is important because when you compare his views and that of Scientology on ADHD, really, there is very little difference in content. He denounces scientology now. but... Back a few years ago when Breggin was leading the class action lawsuit against the makers of Ritalin, he was getting a lot of press. PBS decided to do a major series on ADHD and brought in the big names in for the debate about ADHD. Here was a national platform for Breggin to categorically deny that he was EVER a scientologist or EVER had anything to do with Scientology....and here is what he said: "... I have nothing to do with Scientology. For approximately 25 years, I have conducted reform work with nothing to do with Scientology. There is no issue whatsoever about me and Scientology". --Scuro 04:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- In the Church of Scientology if you have not taken a course, or a series of courses, it’s oficially considered that you have never been a scientologist. Therefore, Breggin never was a scientologist.
- “Because you can see where some of the influence of his formative ideas may have came from.”
- Negative. The reasons that moved Breggin to question his own profession are fully confessed in the very first chapter of Toxic Psychiatry: the violations of human rights in the psychiatric wards where he had to make his Harvard practices. The violations made him to have second thoughts about his chosen profession. Toxic Psychiatry, BTW, is a book where you will find no single mention of Scientology.
- Breggin’s activities with scientologists you mention almost three decades ago had to do with his wife, Ginger, when she still was a scientologist. If I remember correctly there’re links in the WP Breggin article where he explains this subject. ―Cesar Tort 22:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
All the melodrama aside, the point that I am trying to make is that you can't hermetically seal anti-psychiatry from scientology. Nor can you negate the associations that both Breggin and Szasz had with the church and the cross pollination that occurred in the 70's and which still occurs. Our Wiki Antipsychicatry article attempts to distance the whole movement from Scientology since scientology is only mentioned in a passing sentence as a cult. Yet when you go to Scientology webpages the church has been busy in the world and some of the work they have done has been good. [5] Szasz commented on this himself which is quoted on the Scientology website.
Professor Thomas Szasz, author of The Manufacture of Madness, said of CCHR at its 25th anniversary celebrations in February 1994:
“We should all honor CCHR because it is really the organization that for the first time in human history has organized a politically, socially, internationally significant voice to combat psychiatry. This has never been done in human history before.” The CCHR has him on video on their website [6]
Granted, that the anti-psych movement didn't start with Scientology but it looks like they took on a significant enough role to attract Szasz to the point where he became founding member and also that Breggin helped build and support this new organization. And granted both Breggin and Szasz denounced scientology back in the 70's yet Szasz continues to associate with the movement as does Gary Null. [7]
Why is all of this important? It's important to see where ideas are formed and how organizations got started. For instance, Breggin formed the ICSPP a few years after his involvement with CCHR but broke completely from that organization in 1974. Initially, was the ICSPP really meant to be a secular from of the CCHR?
Finally, did the initial authors of this article downplay the role of Scientology because they didn't like the current image that the church has and didn't want the negative association linked to the movement?
--Scuro 05:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I am curious, Scuro, if you are not trying to use the Church of Scientology (CoS) connection between only two American psychiatry dissidents as a straw man argument to modify this article at your pleasure? Anybody who has had a library of “classical” antipsychiatry will find no mention to the CoS. Szasz for one was already famous as a psychiatry critic before L. Ron Hubbard contacted him. In fact, Szasz’s first books against psychiatry, The Myth of Mental Illness and Law, Liberty and Psychiatry, considered his most influential works, were published years before he met CoS members.
- I am copying and pasting a few exchanges from the Szasz WP talk page to clarify my point:
Since Szasz co-founded CCHR, he is still on their Board of Advisors, he still attends their annual awards dinners, and possibly gets very well paid for it, how is a CCHR PR photo of him at one of those dinners arm-in-arm with one of CCHR's celebrity supporters "pointless"? AndroidCat 12:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Because it overfocuses on his membership to the CCHR and on the Scientology aspect, and thus lends a POV style to the article as one user here as well shown. If the reader wants more information on the CCHR, there is plenty available and linked from here to go. Lapaz 23:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. As a facet of his many years as an opponent of psychiatric falsehoods and the use of force, his CCHR association is trivial. The emphasis on CCHR (and no, I'm not a Scientologist) is like a history of Ford Motor Company from the viewpoint that the Mustang is the most important part of it. It is emphasized by those who think his association with CCHR brings him descredit. Nicmart 16:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
- This said, if you want to modify the paragraph about CCHR, be bold and go ahead. I suggest you to cut and paste the paragraph I quoted in Talk:Biological psychiatry here, and don’t forget to delete it in that main Biological psychiatry article. But since there are many Scientology-related articles in WP, and even two whole Scientology articles that specifically deal with psychiatry (Scientology and psychiatry and Psychiatry: An Industry of Death), it makes no sense ―in fact it goes against WP guidelines― to repeat that info in any psychiatry article you encounter (as you started to do in some measure during your first days in WP).
- FYI, if any “cross pollination occurred in the 70's” it was only from the skeptical critics to the scientologists. No CoS doctrine was ever “imported” to the secular critics.
- Initially, was the ICSPP really meant to be a secular from of the CCHR?
- ICSPP was formed to impede the resuscitation of lobotomy in the United States (only later they became champions against the psychiatric drugging of children).
- But all of the above is almost beside the point, Scuro. You are Americanizing the discussion. The CoS is so ubiquitous in North America that it was inevitable that two of the main psychiatrists who criticize their profession, Szasz and Breggin, became peripherally involved with the church. I say “peripherally” since in his vast work of 27 books and hundreds of articles Szasz doesn’t mention the CoS.
- I say you “Americanize the CoS connection” since the big figures in European antipsychiatry, R.D. Laing and Foucault, never had any contact whatsoever with the CoS. In fact, the roots of the antipsychiatry movement traditionally have been considered more related to Europe than to America. (This means that the article should be rewritten somehow in the historical section according to this fact. I believe EverSince could do the job.)
- * Finally, did the initial authors of this article downplay the role of Scientology because they didn't like the current image that the church has and didn't want the negative association linked to the movement?
- I’m afraid I cannot answer this one. I arrived this year to WP and, though I edited it considerably along with other editors, I can say nothing about the intentions of the original editors. The first incarnation of this article is really old to WP standards: it was written early in 2002. ―Cesar Tort 08:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Again, I don't have the background info on Hubbard or Szasz to make any sort of connections beyond the ones I have already made. Your point that the movement came before Scientology sounds logical, and in fact, Hubbard may have read, and been influenced by the early members of the movement. Why did Szasz, Breggin, Null, and Baughman bother with Scientology...perhaps for no other reason then that of the resources of money and the ability of CoS to disseminate information. Scientology probably could do more then any other organization at the time, and probably still can. This may be why some still don't break completely from the organization.
I also "get" the analogy about the Mustang and the Ford motor company, yet even on the Ford Wiki site, the Mustang gets it's due respect and picture also. The current sentence about Scientology on Wiki now reads -> "Additionally, and largely separately, some contemporary cults or new religious movements, most notably Scientology, began challenging aspects of psychiatric theory or practice". The role of Scientology in the movement has been marginalized and the sentence really pussyfoots around the whole issue.
Sure, there is a separate webpage for Scientology and Psychiatry yet that doesn't negate the fact that someone coming to the anti-psychiatry page will miss the importance of Scientology in this movement. We get neither the history nor the weight and importance that Scientology has in this movement. Looking at the Scientology webpage, it seems like they have accomplished a lot of anti-psychiatry goals.
CT, try the edit yourself, you would probably do the better job. It wouldn't take more then a few sentences and a link or two.
--Scuro 15:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
The current sentence about Scientology on Wiki now reads -> "Additionally, and largely separately, some contemporary cults or new religious movements, most notably Scientology, began challenging aspects of psychiatric theory or practice". The role of Scientology in the movement has been marginalized and the sentence really pussyfoots around the whole issue.
- I guess it’s because for the editors who wrote that, long before I came to WP, Anti-psychiatry and CCHR meant different things.
- When I started my anti-psychiatry readings in the 1980s I didn’t learn of the existence of CCHR. And this continued thru the end of the century when I went to the U.K. a whole year to take a full-time, one-year course on mental health in the Open University. Compared to common universities, the course (named “Mental Health Matters”) was pretty critical of psychiatry. In those years in the U.K I even read literature outside the university’s curricula. There was not a single mention, inside or outside the university, of the CoS or CCHR anywhere, not a single one.
- Back in Mexico I started to write a book about psychiatry (in Mexico professionals always imitate the psychiatric fashions of the U.S.). I read even more to complete the book. When I finished it in 2001 I requested some info from a human rights activist who worked in the government. She gave me the phone of her friend Carmen Avila, Mexico’s CCHR director. But even the day before I went to Avila’s home I was unaware that CCHR existed!
- It’s clear from this story that the camps are really separated. This goes far beyond a wish of the WP editors who wrote the article to downplay the role of Scientology to avoid association to the movement. In fact, no Mexican intellectual I know is aware of the existence of CCHR. But the names of Foucault, Szasz and Laing are familiar to them.
Looking at the Scientology webpage, it seems like they have accomplished a lot of anti-psychiatry goals.
- The trouble I see here is that we need corroborative material outside the CoS that supports the claims, for instance, newspapers. A WP:V policy requires published sources on paper (not exactly self-publish materials). In some cases blogs or websites are not enough. ―Cesar Tort 18:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I have added a small section to the article that speaks to what the CCHR has done in this field and I've used the United Nations as a corroborative source. --Scuro 06:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Good. I added some clarifying info to the new section and relocated it to its proper place. ―Cesar Tort 14:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Where is the UN "corroborative source"? All I see is a sentence saying "The United Nations has credited .... ". And the reference is: A UN resolution? A newspaper? A quote of a quote?--Seejyb 20:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with you, Seejyb. I hadn’t looked at the link actually. To comply with the WP policies mentioned above I’ll remove the phrase until another editor finds a United Nations source. ―Cesar Tort 21:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
tag by Psykhosis
Psykhosis placed a Neutrality and fact tag with no reason whatsoever or discussion on talk page!
I am removing it. Tito58 19:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Lots of citation requests
Re the citations requests in the CCHR section, in edit summary Rockpocket wrote:
rv - other WP articles - or directions to refs therein - do not count as reliable sources, If they are there, then copy them to here.
I am overwhelmed with work right now. After a few months I will try to source them —unless someone else does the job! Cesar Tort 21:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
please follow wikipedia policy - do not unilaterally delete material or grossly alter it without also posting in the discussion area
It would be appreciated —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scuro (talk • contribs)
- Your edits reintroduced statements that could never be correctly sourced, such as "Not a single member of the secular psychiatric survivor movement or professional critic holds such views" and pointlessly removed references from the article. Those are far more serious violations of Wikipedia policy than the editing you complain of. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Your latest edits once again wiped out lots of other material. Please be concious of this, I have made this point several times now and will place a POV tag on the article if it is done again, rather then undo the edit. --scuro 04:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Apply the scientific method to the psuedoscience known as psychiatry
I would like people to use the scientific method on the journal of psychiatry. I bet you will see they do not follow science in their help of people. If you ever see a psychiatrist ask for evidence, true tests and scientific evidence. Then ask them if they are able to freely share this evidence with everyone. We will all be able to get better then. So to all psychiatrists I ask that you freely share your information. Go ahead and keep erasing information. Psychiatry is against progress and science and reason. If you support psychiatry as a science then you support every other religion as a science. So go ahead and keep erasing my postings. You love living in the dark ages. In medieval times when we go after witches and the like. When we believe that the earth is flat. Why do science at all. Why not just believe the earth is flat and have the psychiatrists lock anyone who believes that it is round. That is what you all want as scientists don't you.
Drugged Monkey —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drugged monkey (talk • contribs)
- Thanks for your comments. Please note that this page is for discussing how to improve the article, not for discussing psychiatry itself. If you have a reliable source for your content, please provide it and we can use the material in the article. Otherwise it cannot be added. You may wish to read our 5 pillars to get a better understanding of how you can contribute to the project successfully. Rockpocket
- Yes, if you're comments keep being erased, it's because this is not a forum for discussion. Go post in the appropriate place.--Loodog 04:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Then why is it called a discussion page. It is a forum for discussion that is why. Explain what you mean by not a forum. Where else are people supposed to discuss information that they want to put on wikipedia?
Drugged Monkey
- Please read WP:TALK - The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views. If you wish to contribute to the article, bring reliable sources to the table and attribute the information you wish to add. Thanks. Rockpocket 07:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay but how come you allow scientology on your page then? From the psychiatrists POV it doesn't have any proof and can't be proven scientifically. You have long discussions with them. But with someone who is prepared to approach psychiatry from a scientific point of view rather than religious view is ignored. I will abide by these rules though and prepare original research for you to analyse. Just remember that you have a duel system of rules. Thank you Rockpocket for treating me like a person. BTW to other people I have been blocked for expressing views. I have cooperated with the rules. I was told not to change the main page, so I put it on discussion. Then when I respond I get banned without a chance to respond to allegations and claims. I am reasonable and will be happy to present scientific evidence of any ideas I have and accept peer review.
Drugged Monkey
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.130.37.12 (talk • contribs)
- Hi Drugged Monkey. Please take a look at what I have just posted in your user page. —Cesar Tort 16:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- We "allow" scientology because they hold notable, but fringe views of psychiatry. The benchmark for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. If we can verify something through a reliable source, then we add it and attribute the info to the source. You have to understand we Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. If you have ideas you either need to publish them under peer review elsewhere, or you have to be notable enough for us to note your opinion. Only then can we include your research.
- If may well be that psychiatry is a lot of nonsense, but it is a lot of nonsense that the scientific mainstream adhere to. Our aim is to represent all significant views in the proportion in which they are held. This can be a problem for those that hold minority views, because minority views are, by their very nature, given less coverage on a subject than the mainstream view (see Wikipedia:Fringe theories). Note that this does not imply correctness of the popular view, simply that it has acceptance by the mainstream community. So, as I said, if you have previously published criticisms of psychiatry that are notable and not already covered, please provide the sources and we can add them. What we cannot do is accept any original research whatsoever. Rockpocket 19:21, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- By the way, I have unprotected your talk page so you can discuss matters there. If, after reading our policies and agreeing to adhere to them, you may request to be unblocked from editing. See you talkpage for details of how. Rockpocket 19:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi,
Well I have started a place where I can research a scientific alternative to psychiatry it can be found at:
http://sciencepsychalt.blogspot.com/
So I have taken your statements onboard and shall only put information out on wikipedia that has a source. Since scientology is included, when I put research on my new blogging website could that then be referred to and thus listed on the anti-psychiatry page? Drugged monkey 09:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- No. For the love of God, read Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability.--Loodog 13:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay I shall re-read them again. But I cannot love a god that likes to dish out pain and suffering to people. Anyway why didn't you suggest wikinfo as a place where I can publish original research? I shall be doing that when I have a well organised bit of research about psychiatry. Thanks again for your comments. Drugged monkey 22:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Because you can't. That is also original research and so fails to meet reliable source criteria. Regardless of where you put it, if it hasn't gone through publishing and peer review, it is original research.--Loodog 14:18, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Which is good because I thought there might be original research. In terms of science if people don't publish enough papers then I shall have a lot of papers to publish. It may mean more patents as people have not thought some of the ideas that I have. They will work. So I hope that you are correct and there are no papers or original research cited by the wonderful people at wikipedia. It will take a lot of time and effort for original research to be published but it will also mean a good income if I can do such a thing. Thanks
POV ECT, Misleading
Misleading:
"In contrast to other mental health professionals who advocate psychotherapy for emotional distress and mental disorders, psychiatrists may advocate psychiatric drugs or more controversial interventions such as electroshock or psychosurgery."
- This paragraph implies that psychiatrists do not, in general, advocate psychotherapy, for which they are TRAINED. And WHAT is "psychosurgery"?
"Despite potential adverse effects, mainly memory loss, the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is administered worldwide for a wide range of mental illnesses.[24] Precise numbers of how many persons per year have ECT only in the United States are very elusive. Researchers estimates generally range from 100,000 to 200,000 persons per year.[25]"
--Loodog 19:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)*Despite adverse effects, viagra continues to be prescribed, as does celebrex, and lithium depakote. This is why every advertisment for a drug has a PAGE of fine print.
"..., Sidney Samant, M.D., stated: "Electroconvulsive therapy in effect may be defined as a controlled type of brain damage produced by electrical means". However, a 2003 systematic review concluded that, despite these risks, ECT "is an effective short-term treatment for depression".[28]"
- The brain damage quote isn't sufficiently refuted by surrounding text.
--Loodog 04:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
- "This paragraph implies that psychiatrists do not, in general, advocate psychotherapy, for which they are TRAINED. And WHAT is 'psychosurgery'?"
- Can you find a RS which demonstrates that most psychiatrists are really trained for psychotherapy? (keyword: really — I'm talking about the psychiatrists who are not psychoanalysts). They basically prescribe drugs. And psychosurgery means psychosurgery. —Cesar Tort 06:01, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Hate to cite wikipedia, but if we accept their article as reasonable:
- "In the United States, Psychiatrists are doctors of medicine (MD) or osteopathy (DO) and are certified in treating mental illness using the biomedical approach to mental disorders, including the use of medications. Psychiatrists may also go through significant training to conduct psychotherapy (such as psychoanalysis or cognitive behavioral therapy), but it is their medical training that differentiates them from other mental health professionals."
- Indeed, I'm sure there are many psychiatrists who mainly send people to drugs and invasive procedures, but there are also many psychiatrists, especially in private practice, the majority of whose work comprises therapy sessions and psychoanalysis. The field of psychiatry is the judicious utilization of all possible tools one has at his/her disposal.--Loodog 06:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
As you have asked me cite your references that psychiatrists receive appropriate training in psychology. Psychiatrist are trained as doctors no psychologists and do not have sufficient knowledge of this area or the time to implement psychological help to their patients. So your aspect of significant training in psychotherapy is incorrect. Psychiatrists rarely discuss cognitive therapy and its relative effectiveness they only talk about drugs. Try reading some of their research and cite articles that relate to cognitive behaviour therapy. From as far as I can find there is little or no information about psychiatrists implementing psychotherapy, this is done by psychologists. Drugged monkey 05:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- Sources?--Loodog 13:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- "The brain damage quote isn't sufficiently refuted by surrounding text."
- You will find this rather incredible but some orthodox psychiatrists have accepted that ECT causes brain damage (I can source it). They recommend it nevertheless because a hammer blow on the patient’s head erases her depression (at least momentarily). An electric blow could make us forget any serious problem, say the kidnapping of a loved one. ok: these is OR reasoning but I can find something similar in the published literature. Why don’t you balance the remaining sentence yourself? —Cesar Tort 07:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Am I reading this? Are those the actual arguments? Because it's the logical equivalent of swiss cheese:
- H (Hammer) causes B (Brain Damage) which causes S ("erasure of symptoms")
- E (ECT) causes S ("erasure of symptoms")
- Therefore E (ECT) must cause B (Brain Damage)
- I could use the same argument to prove that caring for troubled kids, chocolate, or sex causes brain damage.--Loodog 19:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Am I reading this? Are those the actual arguments? Because it's the logical equivalent of swiss cheese:
ECT has been well noted to cause brain damage that is why there must be supervision. It basically creates an epileptic fit in the patient and epilepsy is noted to cause some brain damage. The neurons themselves can handle 1-2ma of current running through them. ECT applies 1-2 amps of current, this current is insulated partially by the brain but placing it directly on the brain will cause brain damage. It is noted that memory loss occurs directly after ECT and the debate is how long this memory loss occurs for and not whether or not it does in fact cause brain damage. Memory loss is brain damage there are no two ways around this unless you are a politician of course! Drugged monkey 05:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- Sources?--Loodog 13:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- The combination of the terms "some" and "brain damage" with reference to ECT and individual Psychiatrists in particular, is neither majority or even minority viewpoint. Any individual Psychiatrist can have any viewpoint but that doesn't make it noteworthy. You would need to quantify "some" and then source it...or you would need to show that these "some" Psychiatrists are leaders in their field and carry weight within that community.--scuro 11:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- In Divergent views in psychiatry (Harper & Row), Maurice Dongier and Eric Wittkower (eds.) responded to their colleagues’ statements that ECT causes brain damage. Curiously, in their book they don’t contest the fact. They merely assert over and over that ECT is useful to treat depression and suicidal ideation. And the same can be said for other texts on “divergent views in psychiatry”. Therefore, I don’t see how Loodog’s "The brain damage quote isn't sufficiently refuted by surrounding text" can be sourced properly. Can you find a source? If not the section pov tag should be removed. —Cesar Tort 16:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Instead of gathering ideas from books entitled, "Divergent viewpoints...." or pulling up quotes from the 70's and early 80's for support (30 years in the field of mental health is the equivalent of an eon in other fields).... here is a current primary source-> http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/ect/index.htm
- Even in such cases, the memory impairment does not interfere with mental functioning or cause persistent deficits in the formation of new memories or disrupt with basic cognitive functions, such as intelligence (Sackeim et al., 1992, 1993, 2000). There is a clear absence of any evidence that ECT causes damage to neurons or other brain cells (Devanand et al., 1994).
- It took me three minutes to find the citation above on the internet. Clearly the whole subsection appears grossly biased and needs a rewrite. I'll do that shortly unless there are reasoned objections. --scuro 18:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Once again my time to discuss it is limited. Not all psychiatrists, and even less neurologists, agree with the statement "There is clear absence of any evidence that ECT causes damage to neurons or other brain cells." Why just don’t copy and paste a sentence or two of what we can already read in Electroconvulsive therapy#Controversy?—Cesar Tort 18:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- Tort, I understand that you are a busy guy but that is no reason to leave POV stuff in Wiki. My primary citation offered a scientific review of the literature. Here is a passage directly quoted from that paper, " The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether ECT causes structural brain damage. METHOD: The literature review covered the following areas: cognitive side effects, structural brain imaging, autopsies of patients who had received ECT, post-mortem studies of epileptic subjects, animal studies of electroconvulsive shock (ECS) and epilepsy, and the neuropathological effects of the passage of electricity, heat generation, and blood-brain barrier disruption. RESULTS: ECT-induced cognitive deficits are transient".
- The ETC controversy subsection uses opinion to make it's point and case histories from the early 80's all the way back the 40's and 50's... simply a remarkable example of bias...the procedure has changed significantly since then. We are comparing apples and oranges here. If someone wants to write an article on the history of ETC, be my guest. This article is written in the present tense and it needs to be edited to eliminate obvious bias. --scuro 21:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I didn’t write the paragraphs which are contested now. And yes: I have no time to investigate it. If you want to remove them go ahead. I won’t revert since I cannot waste my time in Wikiland.
I see that you (and Loodog) have just pov tagged the Controversy section in the main ECT article. I suggest to wait and see what other editors say of your objections in that talk page. Once that dispute is settled, you can come back and copy and paste here a few sentences from that article.
TTFN. —Cesar Tort 23:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
- I can wait a day or two. --scuro 01:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- Citation #30 is blank.--scuro 03:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
- unreliable sources used in the etc section. Vernon Coleman is not notable and believes in such things as the AIDS hoax. The other citation goes to the Center for Advocacy in Mental Health who state about ETC, "There is no contemporary evidence base for the use of the procedure".
- Vernon Coleman is among a number of critics who believe ECT to be a "disgrace to psychiatry and to the medical profession as a whole".[30] Max Fink, a psychiatrist, stated in the 1978 January/February issue of Comprehensive Psychiatry that "the principal complications of ECT are death, brain damage, memory impairment and spontaneous seizures" though he also believes that it "has saved many lives".[31] In Clinical Psychiatric News, March 1983, Sidney Samant, M.D., stated: "Electroconvulsive therapy in effect may be defined as a controlled type of brain damage produced by electrical means".[32]
- The section above is a disgrace to neutrality. Quotations from 1978 and the early 1980's are bogus because the procedure was vastly different then. Coleman is not noteworthy. --scuro 11:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
- I removed Coleman; the 1983 reference and placed instead John Breeding's. I also removed the tag: it looks pretty neutral now. —Cesar Tort 07:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- I have to say, as it stands at the moment, I don't see too much problem with it. Do you still dispute the neutrality, Scuro? If so, why exactly? Rockpocket 20:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree with two sentences.
- "Precise numbers of how many persons per year have ECT only in the United States are very elusive". Is plain bogus. The citation and the sentence simply desires to create the illusion of controversy. The citation also doesn't meet Wiki standards as a source of information.
- "Psychologist John Breeding believes that "Electroshock always causes brain damage".John Breeding of "Wild Colts" and co-author of a book with ADHDFRAUD author Fred Baughman, has an obvious bias. The, "always causes brain damage", statement is totally bogus, he has learned from Fred Baughman well. One could argue that since this is an antipsych article his opinion should stand even if it is totally bogus. The issue I have is that the brain damage quote comes directly after a statistic. furthermore his occupation is mentioned which gives the statement further credibility. We know that this segment is all about propaganda but most unsuspecting WIki reader won't. Many will not be able to read between the lines. Perhaps if it said something like the highly controversial author John Breeding...I could swallow that garbage. --scuro 00:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
- So I take it the number of people undergoing ECT are known then? If so, we provide the numbers and cite that. If we don't know this, then we simply say "Precise numbers of how many persons per year have ECT are unknown".
- We do say "he believes...", so it guess its an accurate representation of his opinion. However, to give it any value, we need to represent significant views fairly and without bias. One could argue his views are not significant, but I would think they probably are in the anti-psychiatry field. Is his view represented without bias? Probably not, because we do not preface it with any indication of his position on the fringe of the specturm of opinion. So, we should probably have the sentence along the lines of "John Breeding, a vocal critics of psychiatric practices, believes that "Electroshock always causes brain damage". I think, followed by the meta analysis, this accurately represents what the anti-psychiatry fringe believe without miseading the reader into thinking it is an commonly head belief. Rockpocket 00:58, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Rates of us in US...2.4% of psychiatric admissions in 1980 approximately 31,000. Approximately 36,558 US inpatients in 1986...and approximately 58,667 in 1975. Uk approximately 150 per 100,000. In the end I have added to the article so that it would be more coherent and flow better. I hope it is acceptable to all. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/151/11/1657--scuro 17:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
If ECT is so harmless how come people with alzheimers disease are not recommended to have ECT because it could further excacerbate the problems with their disease? Even when they are depressed they are not recommended to have this treatment. I know, I need evidence so tomorrow I shall adapt this statement with evidence. But for a simple case look at treatments for alzheimers disease on alzheimers websites. If you can point me to research that states the opposite then I am happy to change my views and opinions. But these statements must be based on evidence that was collected without bias. Drugged monkey 22:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Who says it is harmless? Chemotherapy is far from "harmless", yet it is still a (crudely) effective treatment from cancer. Having your body sliced open a body with a scalpel isn't "harmless" - yet surgery is used globally without protest. Every single drug or medical treatment has adverse effects, why wouldn't ECT? Rockpocket 06:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes but studying medical imaging I understand that when chemotherapy is done it is very specifically targetted and vitamins and other medications are given to help the immune system and affected cells recover. Where are the studies that show the specific areas of the brain targetted by ECT? It is way too general to be a proper treatment. If I was to compare chemotherapy to ECT it would be like performing chemotherapy on the entire leg and without proper calculated restraints in the machine in question. By calculated restraints the machine is specifically programmed to give a certain dose to a very specific area, that is how it is designed. ECT doesn't do this. It just introduces seizures and hopes that will fix the problem. If I was to compare that with how a computer problem is fixed, it would be the equivalent to turning the computer off, overloading it with a high voltage power supply. Continuously turning it on and off and hoping it fixes the corrupt hard drive. Drugged monkey 09:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, chemotherapeutics are simply cytotoxic compounds. They are not "specifically targetted" and they are toxic to all dividing cells (which is why they make you so sick). The hope with chemo is that it kills the cancer cells quicker than it kills you, which is about as crude as it gets. I think you are confusing it with radiotherapy, which is anatomically targeted.
- As far as I can tell, they same principle applies for ECT. Its crude and has potentially dangerous side effects, but it seems to result in a net benefit for a significant proportion of people.
- However, this is all somewhat beside the point since this page isn't to promote the use of ECT. Rockpocket 18:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes I meant studying medical imaging and radiation treatment. Where the radiation can be applied for a specific period to a particular area of the body destroying the bad cells. Similar systems are available for treatment of brain conditions, there are machines that apply a dose of electricity that is around 1-2ma already available as well as Transcranial magnetic stimulation which applies a small magnetic field adjusting the brain's neurons. We can target areas of the brain that cause problems but have no real data of where to target. Psychiatrists just blunder around and not to be mean but I hope they continue to blunder so I can form an alternative therapy which helps people and earns a handsome income for myself. Decided to look into the business side of these things as that is all these things are really about, how much money will it make. That is why I have decided to look into doing research for the purpose of making money and selling stuff. By being greedy people might be interested. Giving away ideas and research is no way to get people interested.
Drugged monkey 05:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
- You get right on that, buddy. What do thousands of researchers and a half century of effort know anyway?--Loodog 13:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Does using blue-eyed in a different context constitute original research?
Just wondering if I could put on the anti-psychiatry page that psychiatry is discrimination as stated in blue-eyed, a video about discrimination and prejudice, and that the insanity defense is thus degrading to people and not an appropriate medical terminology given that there are no tests. Because I am only using original research in a different way, similarly to the way engineers use scientific studies to design and build new things. That is why I put it on the discussion page
If the above constitutes original research could I put the research by blue-eyed about kids with ADHD and ADD and how they progress given different treatment, either discriminated against or not. Just for your information Blue-eyed was given an award by the National Alliance of Mental Illness(NAMI). So I am putting this all on the discussion first before making changes to the main page so everyone can agree with the research first. I don't want to go on sprouting stuff without research to back up my claims, nor be in hysterics. So please if there are disagreements I do want to hear them. I'll give a few days and if there is no response then put my evidence on the anti-psychiatry main page. Drugged monkey 09:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Defoe "revelation" needs citation
The following seems random to me and needs citing, especially since the implication is that no one before Defoe in the history of the world had ever even dreamed that husbands might appeal to medical-profession representatives to condone & support locking up disorderly wives.
Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, revealed, in the 18th century, that husbands used asylum hospitals to incarcerate their disobedient, but sane wives.
While I'd much rather see this sourced, because it's interesting and would enrich the article, I'm enclined to delete it if no one can cite its origin.
Sugarbat 21:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I added citation. —Cesar Tort 04:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
- I second the above. Also, the first section of the 'origins' section seems tacked on, starting with the Defoe. While I agree that this sentence - "In the 1800s abolitionists first encountered Drapetomania, the psychiatric rationale for why slaves ran away from their masters." provides evidence for the corrupting influence of politics and culture on the field of psychiatry, I'm not sure how it provides evidence for the origins of the anti-psychiatry movement.
this maybe should be the start of the section, if some references are included? "In the 1920s surrealist opposition to psychiatry was expressed in a number of surrealist publications."--Murmur74 02:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Dshsfca's contribution to Psychiatry
Dshsfca recently added this to the psychiatry page. Since anti-psychiatry is the "subarticle" of Psychiatry's "Controversy" section, it would be better integrated here. If this content is considered NPOV, it would also need inline cites. Chupper 01:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Numerous criticisms of those in the “psyche” industry have appeared over the decades from biologists, social scientists, philosophers of mind and science, state and local governments, and literary figures across the board. These criticisms can be identified as
The Metaphysics of Mind The Cult of the Therapeutic The Excluded Middle
Taking these criticisms in order, the Metaphysics of Mind identifies a central problem with the “behavioral scientists,” the question of (i) theories, (ii) evidence, (iii) foundations, and (iv) the core problems of claims. First, Karl Popper and others have insisted that none of the “psyche” claims have an empirical basis, save the empiricism of B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism, and his legatees “cognitive scientists.” Even with empirical behaviorism, the variables are exceedingly immense, to make any objective evaluation impossible. Social constructionism would validate the problem from linguistic, cultural, sociological, ontological, epistemic, and causal variables so immense that no “observer” or “observed” could infer any valid conclusion from any of the highly-variable premises, which premises to include or exclude in the inferential (e.g., “diagnostic” process, and a descriptive metaphysics scheme, known as the Diagnostics Standards Manual (DSM - I-IV) with variable multiple choice descriptions, exclusionary rules, and subjective “global assessments” by individuals already immersed in a “conceptual pluralism” of “models” that beg belief.
McGuire and Troisi, M.D. American and Italian psychiatric researchers, indict their colleagues on a number of fronts. When the psyche-industry separated from its parent of philosophy at the end of the 19th century, skeptics of the new endeavor split into (i) metaphysicians and (ii) empiricists. From the Freudian-James Divide, any number of gurus posited any number of theories, such that “the present century [20th] has witnessed the rise and fall of the psychoanalytic, sociocultural, and behavioral models of disorders; the rise of the biomedical models; and more recently, the rise and question relevance of general systems theory, and chaos theory. . . . Viewed dispassionately, each of psychiatry’s four prevailing models has fallen short of explaining critical details of disordered behavior. . . . It’s unlikely that everyone can be right. More important, today’s psychiatry is not in a position to decide.”
These researchers continue, “conceptual pluralism is plagued by yet other problems. Two of the most important are the accululation of low-utility data and the absence of agreed-upon methods for testing hypothesis. . . Escaping from conceptual pluralism requires at least two conditions: the presence of a theory from which hypotheses can be deduced, and agreed-upon methods for hypothesis disconfirmation (Popper 1969). Put another way, without a theory with deductive and testable properties as well as the use of methodologies that facilitate the testing and rejection of hypotheses, more data will be collected, more causal explanations generated, more methodological debates will occur, and a resolution to psychiatry’s conceptual confusion will remain a distant goal.”
These researchers continue, “For example, psychiatry’s explanatory models are cast within different metaphysical systems, each of which is built on mechanistic assumptions and applies mechanistic logic. The biomedical model is built on the mechanistic assumptions and applies mechanistic [cf., Boolean mathematical] logic. Psychoananlytic models are built on formistic, mechanistic, and organismic assumptions and apply their respective logics. Depending on which system of assumptions and logic one selects, the same datum can be explained differently. Further, different theories of truth are associated with each metaphysical system. This means that there are different rules for deciding if an explanation is valid. When they are applied to prevailing models, it is not difficult to preict the consequence of the preceding points: models will remain separate; causal events may be obscured; and efforts to refute or integrate models will get bogged down in the rhetoric of professional politics, funding opportunities, and the philosophical debates.”
For example, in 1973, the American Psychological Association meeting in Hawaii was confronted with demands by biologists, philosophers, and gays and lesbians for proof that “homosexuality was a pathology and curable.” By popular vote, the convocation determined a different finding, that homosexuality was a standard variant of human sexuality, even though less than a decade earlier, numerous psychologists, including Albert Ellis, Ph.D., had insisted quite the contrary. The mere fact that the convocation determined a change in “pathologies” and “cures” by popular vote of its peers only reinforced the excessive metaphysical assumptions that had been used by the profession to “treat” homosexual males with Pavlovian aversive operant conditioning, in which practioners attached electrodes to gay men’s penises and nipples, and even inserted electrical currents into their anuses, and then upon showing pictures of beautiful naked males “zapped” them with painful electrical currents to their highly-sensitive erogenous zones, a practice so barbaric it is barred under the Geneva Conventions, but continues to be practiced under the “color” of the free-exercise of religion, behavioral “science,” and reparative therapy.
While sociologist Philip Reiff would herald the “Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud,” others were far less sanguine. Ken Kesey’s employment with Menlo Park, California’s Veterans Hospital led to his 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which released as a film in 1975 won all top five Academy Awards. The draconian lobotomies, electro-shock treatment, and reparative therapies for homosexuality led to calls for decertification of the Cult of Therapeutic. Eminent Harvard Sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson in his 1978 Pulitzer Prize On Human Nature was incensed. He writes, “nowhere has the sanctification of premature hypothesis inflicted more pain than in the treatment of homosexuals.” Dr. Wilson likens psychiatrists to the Nazi death camps at Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald, protesting, “in parts of the United States homophiles are still denied some of their civil liberties, while a majority of psychiatrists continue to treat homosexuality as a form of illness and express professional discouragement over its intractability.” Dr. Wilson continues, “there is, I wish to suggest, a strong possibility that homosexuality is normal in a biological sense, that it is a distinctive beneficent behavior that evolved as an important element of early human social organization.” The Cult of Therapeutic withdrew, for the most part under the light of stigma, but numerous members continue to operate reparative clinics, such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuals in Encino, California.
Philosophers of Mind have repeatedly assailed the psyche-industries’ assumptions, methods, and theories. Perhaps none has been more vociferously than University of California at Berkeley’s John Searle, whose 1992 Rediscovery of the Mind indicts every current conception of the psyche-industry’s theories and methodologies for what may broadly be described the “excluded middle.” The double entendre is based on Aristotle’s Categorical Syllogism in which the “middle term” evaporates in the inference (e.g, If A then B. If B then C. If A then C. “B” is the “excluded middle.) Searle’s indictments repeatedly cite the “excluded middle” of consciousness itself by behaviorist, psychoanalyst, biomedical, and sociocultural, and operant conditionalists. Since Aristotle’s days, the “given” is that the mind – by our own minds as a reference – functions on at least five levels: thought, perception, will, imagination, and emotion. The “last” philosopher/psychologist to cite all five functions was Harvard professor William James in his Principles of Psychology. Instead, Freudian, Jungian, Alderian, et alia metaphysics have reigned supreme, with Pavlovian operant conditioning, and periodic behaviorist techniques of dubious/questionable ethics/merit, such as B. F. Skinner’s program of the 1940s and 1950s of “stimulus-response,” “inputs-outputs” with the “middle excluded:” thought, perception, will, imagination, and emotion, namely, the “mind.” After all, psyche in Greek means soul, not mind. Despite the notion of soul being a Greek, Judeo-Christian-Islamic metaphysical concept abandoned by modern science since English scientist Robert Boyle’s A Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Received Notion of Nation, 1686, and reiterated in David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature in 1740.
While Marx considered religion the “opiate of the masses” and Freud wrote of the Future of an Illusion, in which his psychoanalysts would replace rabbis, priests, and ministers, we learn that the Triumph of the Therapeutic is costing lives, fragmenting psyches, and profiting pharmaceutical companies in massive doses (psychotropics are second only to cardiovascular prescriptions), but nothing like the psychiatrists whose “consultation” for the pharmaceutical companies take top honors. We learn from the 27 Jun 07 New York Times, “psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty. The more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical anti-psychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved. Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state’s Medicaid program.” Given that no theory “holds” for the use of psychotropics, their effectiveness never exceeds 65% at best (15% better than coin toss), notwithstanding the ethics and conflict of interest contentions, and given that the government is footing the bill, many individual have come to the conclusion that the use of the Metaphysicans of Mind could be hazardous to your mind and your pocketbook, all to numb and dumb in the therapeutic process. Those costs may be too great for society to bear, and since the psyche-industry cannot determine its truths, At least astrologers can point to the stars and astronomy to explain their predictions; what does the psyche-industry point to?
Primary References:
Charles Darwin, Origin of Species & Descent of Man. 1859. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.1889. Charles Darwin, Metaphysics, Materialism, & the Evolution of Mind: Early Writings of Charles Darwin. Tr. Paul Barrett. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Gardiner Harris, “Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts,” New York Times, 27 June 2007 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature. Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978 (1740). Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. New York: Routledge, 1963. John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. E. O. Wilson, On Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.
Secondary References:
Aristotle. Complete Works. Two Volumes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. Alfred Jules Ayer, Language, Truth, & Logic. New York: Dover Books, 1952. Kent Bach. Thought and Reference. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby (eds). The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Roy F. Baumeister, Meanings of Life. New York: The Guilford Press, 1991. Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Simon Blackburn, Truth: A Guide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. George Boole, An Intestigation of the Laws of Thought of which are Founded the Mathematic Theories of Logic and Probabilities. New York: Dover, 1958 (1859). L. Jonathan Cohen, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Induction and Probability. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. L. Jonathan Cohen, An Essay on Belief and Acceptance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. William Child, Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994 Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions & Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980 Donald Davidson, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001. Gareth Evans, The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. Revised Edition. New York: Verso, 1988 (1975). Michel Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. New York: The New Press, 1984. Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge & the Discourse of Language. New York: Pantheon Press, 1972. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle. c. 1927 Sigmund Freud. Future of an Illusion. c. 1927. Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Gerd Gigerenzer, Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World. In Evolution and Cognition, Stephen Stich (ed.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. William James, Principles of Psychology. 2 Vols. 1918. Anthony Kenny, The Metaphysics of Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989 Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Second Edition. [Foundations of the Unity of Science, 1962]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962. Michael Lynch. True to Life: Why Truth Matters. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. William Lyons (ed), Modern Philosophy of Mind. London: Everyman, 1995. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Michael McGuire & Alfonso Troisi, Darwinian Psychiatry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Esp. Chap. 1-4. Alfred R. Mele, Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. J. S. Mill, A System of Logic, New York: Modern Library, 1961. Gregory Murphy, The Big Book of Concepts. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. Robert Nozick, The Nature of Rationality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Though: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2001. Henri Poincare, The Value of Science. New York Random House, 2001. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York: Routledge, 1959. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. New York: Routledge, 1963. Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Karl Popper, “The Problem of Induction,” in David Miller (ed), Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Karl Popper, “The Empirical Basis” in David Miller (ed), Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Karl Popper, “Propensities, Probabilities, and Quantum Theory” in David Miller (ed), Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Karl Popper, “The Self” in David Miller (ed), Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Karl Popper, “The Mind-Body Problem.”in David Miller (ed), Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Karl Popper, “The Rationality Principle.” in David Miller (ed), Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. W. V. Quine, Methods of Logic. Fourth Edition.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950. Philip Reiff, Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud. 1966. Gilbert Ryle, Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. John Searle, Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press,1983. John Searle, Rationality in Action. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001. John Searle, Mind, Language, and Society: Philosophy in the Real World. New York: Basic Books, 1998. John Searle, Rediscovery of the Mind, New York: Free Press, 1992. John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Peter Simons, Parts: A Study in Ontology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Robert C. Solomon. The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Garden City: Hackett, 1993 (1976), Robert C. Solomon, Love: Emotion, Myth, & Metaphor. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1990. Robert C. Solomon, Not Passion’s Slave: Emotions and Choice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Thomas Szaz, The Myth of Mental Illness. New York: Harper, 1984. Douglas N. Walton, Informal Logic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. E. O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Vantage, 1998. Timothy Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2004.
RE: Dshsfca's contribution to Psychiatry, above
I find the above narrative almost impossible to read, aside from the fact that, mechanically, it hurts my brain. Who wrote it? Why is it here? Look:
Those costs may be too great for society to bear, and since the psyche-industry cannot determine its truths, At least astrologers can point to the stars and astronomy to explain their predictions; what does the psyche-industry point to?
Just this "sentence" alone reads as though it were concocted by some kind of pseudo-science-tract bot. Also, what's "the psyche-[sic] industry"?? Is it the industry where I used to offer my kid sister some candy and then snatch my hand away before she could take it?
A short (incomplete!) list of some gems that will make copy editors break out in hives and boils (given literally, w/punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar intact, in relative order in which each appears in the text above [bold mine]):
The Metaphysics of Mind The Cult of the Therapeutic The Excluded Middle
B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism, and his legatees “cognitive scientists.”
[gold-medal run-on!!!] Social constructionism would validate the problem from linguistic, cultural, sociological, ontological, epistemic, and causal variables so immense that no “observer” or “observed” could infer any valid conclusion from any of the highly-variable premises, which premises to include or exclude in the inferential (e.g., “diagnostic” process, and a descriptive metaphysics scheme, known as the Diagnostics Standards Manual (DSM - I-IV) with variable multiple choice descriptions, exclusionary rules, and subjective “global assessments” by individuals already immersed in a “conceptual pluralism” of “models” that beg belief.
the psyche-industry
From the Freudian-James Divide, any number of gurus posited any number of theories [How about 8 gurus? 47 gurus? 1,24239,922,00001 gurus?]
These researchers continue, “conceptual pluralism is plagued by yet other problems.
accululation [what? if this is a word, it's my new uber favorite]
Psychoananlytic [come on.]
the same datum can be explained differently [we know you're smart because of "accululation," but here's a great example of when we might want to stick with the plural, "data."]
it is not difficult to preict the consequence [I'm finding it difficult, indeed.]
For example, in 1973, the American Psychological Association meeting in Hawaii [I'm only adding this because it's funny.]
the American Psychological Association meeting in Hawaii was confronted with demands by biologists, philosophers, and gays and lesbians for proof that “homosexuality was a pathology and curable.” [comma circus]
in which practioners attached electrodes
into their anuses [why not "ani"? Ok I'm just kidding. Or ami?]
“zapped” them with painful electrical currents [inappropriate use of "]
a practice so barbaric it is barred under the Geneva Conventions, but continues to be practiced under the “color” of the free-exercise of religion, behavioral “science,” and reparative therapy. [Huh? Is this a Kesey quote? Haha get it? "Color"? "religion"? the "color" of "religion"? ok nevermind. I don't get it either.]
Ken Kesey’s employment with Menlo Park, California’s Veterans Hospital led to his 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which released as a film in 1975 won all top five Academy Awards. [can you find all 4 errors?]
decertification of the Cult of Therapeutic. [I have never heard of this cult! Sounds...not scary.]
Eminent Harvard Sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson [which of these capitals is not like the other?]
He writes, “nowhere
protesting, “in parts of the United States
Dr. Wilson continues, “there
The Cult of Therapeutic withdrew [did they go back to their home planet? to clone more cult members?]
Philosophers of Mind [Is "Mind" a planet, like "Therapeutic"?]
Perhaps none has been more vociferously than University of California at Berkeley’s John Searle,
The double entendre is based on Aristotle’s Categorical Syllogism in which the “middle term” evaporates in the inference (e.g, If A then B. If B then C. If A then C. “B” is the “excluded middle.) [Weird! I thought the double entendre was based on nooky.]
by behaviorist, psychoanalyst, biomedical, and sociocultural, and operant conditionalists [watch those serial commas! not to mention their little brother, And!]
by our own minds as a reference [single/plural]
The “last” philosopher/psychologist
“middle excluded:”
Despite the notion of soul being a Greek, Judeo-Christian-Islamic metaphysical concept abandoned by modern science since English scientist Robert Boyle’s A Free Inquiry into the Vulgar Received Notion of Nation, 1686, and reiterated in David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature in 1740. [perhaps the longest incomplete sentence in Wikipedia]
While Marx considered religion the “opiate of the masses” and Freud wrote of the Future of an Illusion, in which his psychoanalysts would replace rabbis, priests, and ministers, we learn that the Triumph of the Therapeutic is costing lives, fragmenting psyches, and profiting pharmaceutical companies in massive doses (psychotropics are second only to cardiovascular prescriptions), but nothing like the psychiatrists whose “consultation” for the pharmaceutical companies take top honors. [WTF?]
We learn from the 27 Jun 07 New York Times, “psychiatrists
$45,692 each from $20,835
Given that no theory “holds” [bad "]
Metaphysicans of Mind [again with that pesky planet, Mind!]
many individual have come to the conclusion that the use of the Metaphysicans of Mind could be hazardous to your mind and your pocketbook, all to numb and dumb in the therapeutic process. [scientific-sentence bot!]
Those costs may be too great for society to bear, and since the psyche-industry cannot determine its truths, At least astrologers can point to the stars and astronomy to explain their predictions; what does the psyche-industry point to? [and the circle is complete.]
I have not yet gone hunting to see exactly in which article this narrative appears (if it still does), but be sure the chances are very high that, if I find it unedited as above, I will remove it.
Sugarbat 17:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
- I found the edit. It was reverted within an hour. However, I fail to see it's relevance to this talk page. Dshsfca has never edited Anti-psychiatry nor have they ever participated in a discussion on this talk page. Neitherday 17:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
"I find the above narrative almost impossible to read, aside from the fact that, mechanically, it hurts my brain. Who wrote it? Why is it here?"
Absolutely agree. Since it looks like bizarre soapboxing, I may remove it without even bothering to archive the whole bizarre paragraphs. The bold-type hurts my eyes also and I'd recommend removal as well. Any objection? —Cesar Tort 04:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)