American Psychiatry: A Far Cry from German National Socialism

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The recent breakdown of a Southern California Christian who attempted to profit from the misery of African children gave some our students food for thought. One imagined him strapped to a gurney ranting against the forces of evil as a kind physician injected him with mind altering substances. Another pictured him in a padded room wearing a straitjacket blabbering on about Satan's plan to cheat him of his pile of gold as he gladly downed brain damaging pharmaceuticals. Although our students were not happy with Jason Russell's business plan, they completely sympathized with his mental distress.

When the topic of medical treatment of mentally deranged patients comes up, some people think of physicians such as Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung. An association with German scientists of the 1930's who treated their victims as laboratory animals comes to mind only to the elite few with the inside skinny on how psychiatry actually operates in the US. Those effete elitists can be easily dismissed as a lunatic fringe who could not find their way around the cranium of a rhesus monkey. They have never severed the corpus callosum of a living victim and probed for differences between hemispheres, so what do they know?

American psychiatrists are not the same as their German counterparts because of at least one essential distinction. Unlike German National Socialist scientists, American psychiatrists obtain the permission of the victim's family before they administer destructive "treatment" in the interest of scientific inquiry. That makes it all okay. A psychiatrist in our network claimed that psychiatrists treat all people equally. One could interpret this as a claim that all psychiatrists conform to egalitarian principles. On the other hand, one could interpret this to imply that psychiatrists treat all of their patients like laboratory animals.

What are your hopes and wishes for Jason Russell? Do you hope that those nice physicians will help him to eliminate enough mental capacity that he can move forward in life as a Christian entrepreneur? Or, do you hope that he survives his hospitalization without an addiction to brain damaging pharmaceuticals?

Comments

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine some serious childhood trauma for sophia because I don't know anyone who goes into medicine hoping to manipulate people or treat them like lab rats. It's by and large a desire to help people with a touch of love for science.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I know a guy who went into medicine to show up his father and prove that he could be more successful at everything. But he was a giant douche from the time he was five on, so I'm thinking he was kind of an outlier.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

You'd think someone like that would go into business. Medicine also draws a lot of success-driven people, since being a doctor is often seen as the pinnacle of a scientific position in our society.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I have heard tales of extraordinary competition in medical school. The outlier notion seems a bit off the mark.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

People often find that they are forced to conform to certain unethical practices only after they have entered a career. Had they known about them before hand, they may have chosen a different path in life.

As for childhood trauma, it is very difficult to go through life in America without some form of trauma. The scenes on TV of the situation in Vietnam were pretty traumatic.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what unethical practices in particular you're thinking of.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Getting someone addicted to drugs under the guise of treating a disorder is one such practice. There are more egregious cases such as defrauding patients and family members of their rights. A good source on issues of rights is this book (http://books.google.com/books?id=eQ5PNV3njc8C&lpg=PP1&dq=thomas%20szasz&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q=thomas%20szasz&f=false).

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

In particular may you be referring to Oxycontin and Vicodin?

Again, while patients may abuse the treatment, your implication is that these doctors are intentionally trying to cause the patient harm.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I agree that there are a number of cases of patient abuse of drugs. Such cases may be just as costly than the cases of psychiatrists who over-prescribe.

I do not know the names of the drugs with the most deleterious effects. I know of one case where Thorazine caused damage. Long term use of any mind-altering substance is probably not conducive to neural integrity.

One of our students pointed out that general practitioners tend to concentrate more on diet and exercise than do psychiatrists. Perhaps the next generation of reforms will require environmental therapy first, reserving drug therapy as a secondary or emergency-only approach.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Of course general practitioners focus on that. Them or ER is the first person a patient sees. Nobody sees a psychiatrist at step one, they get referred to one BY THE GP.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

A GP referral is typically not the case for people who have been placed under arrest for psychiatric observation. In such cases, the GP visit is secondary. People such a Jason Russell may be in greater need for environmental relief than those who follow a GP referral.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

It's great that there are good people like you to open their eyes before it's too late. You must spread the word about the Truth, so more people could avoid getting into those professions. Like me - thanks to you, I've had my eyes opened! I was thinking of becoming a psychiatrist but now that you've taught me, I'm going to be an astronaut.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

You might want to consider being on the stage. I believe on departs in fifteen minutes. ;)

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I love Random Sentence Generator too!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That is not a random sentence (although I mistyped the word "one"). It is a play on the word "stage" which means both a platform for performance art and a carriage for travel in the Old West.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Pst! Explaining the joke kills the joke.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

You often say that, but if the joke is not gotten, it's no good anyway

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Best comic stunt evAH: pretend to not have "gotten" the joke! :)

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

But to admit to it is to blow your own MO.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

While I tend to agree with you that it is good. I personally don't think it works that well written as in RL....YMMV

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing that so many Vietnamese children didn't have televisions. Otherwise, they might have been just as traumatized by the war as their American counterparts.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I am sure that the trauma of the live experience was far worse than that of its remotely viewed images.