Road Rage - Why Tom Cruise was Right About Psychiatry

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Health

The controversy over the public remarks of Tom Cruise giving the label of "pseudoscience" to psychiatry in a talk show brings to light a question we do not normally ask: What is the basis of psychiatric diagnosis?

Vince Boehm, a psychiatric survivor, who runs an excellent mailing list for those interested in reforming psychiatry so it may one day become a useful part of medicine, has sent out an article by Tony Zizza, together with his personal comment.

When I went "crazy" (at least "officially"), I began to think of psychiatry as a "soft science" ... until I realized the very term, "soft science", is an oxymoron.

As a "newbie", I had the newbie privilege of asking the "dumb" questions. I was astounded when the answers came back "dumber" than the original questions. Even my right to ask such questions was challenged. I smelled a rat.

Here's the latest from the golden pen of Tony Zizza.  Tony is a freelance writer who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He serves as Vice President for the State of Georgia for the non-profit organization Parents For Label and Drug Free Education. 

That psychiatry is a pseudoscience is beyond dispute. It dwells in the realm of ideology. Every non-religious ideology has it's "bible" (Mein Kampf, Das Capital, etc) and its rituals. And psychiatry is no exception. They call their bible the DSM.

I'm amazed at the highly ritualized, almost liturgical, sequence of events involved in the spawning of DSM-V. It will be released in the year 2011. But, the process in motion as we speak. At this phase of the Dans Macabre, we are hearing about all sorts of "earthshaking" issues promoted for inclusion in this high stakes "bible".

We are witnessing disease mongering in action.

"Intermittent Explosive Disorder" (AKA, "road rage") is an early entry in the DSM derby.

This "disorder" is iatrogenicly-caused in many cases. Attached to today's mailing is Emma Holister's cartoon comment on treatment-caused violence.

Emma is an expatriate Brit artist who lives and works in southern France. You can find more of her work and that of other gang member artists at www.artmargin.com/ 
  Vince

Of course we all tend to think that psychiatry takes care of the crazy ones, that all this is very far from our personal experience. After all, we aren't crazy. Well, you might get a surprise. Look at the page promoting the psychiatric "Bible", the DSM-IV. Scroll down to see the "personality disorders". There is something for every one of us. Whether you're shy or exuberant, pensive or assertive, they've got you marked. You are - actually we all are - grist for the mills of psychiatry - and for the drugs they say everyone should take.

Here is the article by Tony Zizza.

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Tom Cruise Was - Right!

June 21, 2006
by Tony Zizza

About a year ago, actor Tom Cruise shocked the nation when he stated on live television that, "Psychiatry is a pseudoscience." Most folks in the media, and most folks at the water cooler, thought that Tom Cruise, not psychiatry, was nuts. How dare an actor talk seriously about a serious subject? Or was it just another scientologist speaking harshly against psychiatry and its drugs?

It's about a year later, and there is absolutely no question that Tom Cruise was - right! Dead right. Right on the money. Right. Right. Right. The evidence is not just that "psychiatry is a psuedoscience" remains an accurate statement, but that even now, all you have to do is read the news on a daily basis to understand what a sick joke and fraud the entire field of psychiatry has become. And here's the kicker: you don't need to be a practicing scientologist like Tom Cruise to see the truth staring you right in the face. You just need to open your eyes.

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Cartoon courtesy of Emma Holister

Enter a news article by Lindsey Tanner, AP Medical Writer, that was published on June 5th. The title? "Study says millions have 'rage' Disorder." I don't know whether it was a press release or a news article informing us of "intermittent explosive disorder." In an age where there is a mental disorder for every American from cradle to grave, it has really gotten difficult to distinguish between real news and a real press release when the media reports on mental health matters.

The article, and so many others like it that announce an allegedly new mental disorder and study/survey exists, pushes the usual buttons. There are 16 million Americans out there suffering from intermittent explosive disorder, IED. Dr. David Fassler, a psychiatry professor, makes a statement about how the disorder affects both children and adults. What else is new? And it's also revealed that the way to treat the disorder is with therapy and - drugs.

Interestingly, IED, also known as road rage, has been bouncing around for at least fifteen years. I remember watching repeat episodes of Law & Order where defense attorneys would try to use the whole idea of anger as one that is outside a person's control and thus deems them as having a mental defect. And you think Tom Cruise is nuts? When even choosing to be a jerk in your automobile is now viewed as suffering from a mental disorder that requires therapy and drugs, psychiatry is 100 percent - pseudoscience.

While the findings of this IED study/survey (funded by who else but the National Institute of Mental Health), were released in this month's issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, there is much more to consider. Did you know that Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school, and the study/survey co-author, has long championed for drugs to treat this alleged mental disorder? He notes a clinical trial of a whopping 27 people who were treated with Prozac for anger. Nine of the participants left the trial. Back in the 1990's, he was one of the principal investigators for Eli Lilly in their clinical trials of Prozac.

It is alleged that IED can strike people as young as fourteen, and that the average number of IED attacks over a lifetime is 43. How the authors of the study/survey were able to nail down the exact figure of property damage caused by IED sufferers is amazing. How did they come up with a figure of $1,359.00? IED is included in the DSM, the bible psychiatrists use to list their named disorders, but even IED goes by different names. In essence, road rage is IED and vice versa. For you to believe that even your behavior in an automobile is within the realm of a psychiatric disorder, you would also have to believe you can never be a jerk, or mean, or wrong, or stupid - you simply are one of yet another set of 16 million people that have a mental disorder treatable with drugs.

Going back to Dr. Emil Coccaro, he states that IED "involves inadequate production or functioning of serotonin." So, we are supposed to believe that how we choose to react to things while driving an automobile, or being a passenger in an automobile, is brain based. We have a serotonin problem, not a personality problem that we may actually enjoy engaging in. Again, with IED and so many other subjective mental disorders, free will goes out the window. How is this is a good thing? How is this science? How is this medicine?

If you are a parent reading this column and you live in New York, please be aware of Jennifer Hartstein. She is a psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center and she was interviewed for Lindsey Tanner's piece, "Study says millions have 'rage' disorder" because she diagnosed a 16-year-old boy with IED. Just what New York needs, another child diagnosed with a mental disorder. She believes the IED study by Dr. Coccaro and lead author Ronald Kessler "is important because many people are not aware of the disorder."

Bada-bing, Bada-boom. Here is psychiatry stark naked at a Mets game on a Sunday afternoon. Psychiatry takes human behavior and turns all of it into a mental disorder, gives it an alphabet soup name, gets the media to write up news stories that sound like press releases, and invents all kinds of statistical nonsense. All of this sells drugs (Prozac) to treat the disorder and provides job opporunities for those in the "mental health profession." This is all done to spread awareness. It's not only nuts, but it's criminal, fraudulent, sad, and terrible on many different levels.

You know, most normal (whatever that means) people will go home after they have nothing left to do at their job. They'll "call it a day." Perhaps psychiatrists are bored stiff and come up with all these studies and surveys to pass time. Maybe they like to name things. Not that naming things means contributing something positive and true to medicine. To the world. To the human experience.

Quite the opposite in fact. This nonsense about IED proves once again that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. Tom Cruise was - right! He's hardly the first person to state the obvious, and he certainly won't be the last. But he sure deserves credit for putting his career on the line a year ago. A year later, psychiatry still thinks we're all a bunch of idiots.

This all would be incredibly funny, if it all wasn't so incredibly twisted and disgusting.

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