Mental Illness is just like any other disease!
"once objective biological signs are found, disorders stop being mental illnesses and become medical illnesses. Epilepsy, general paresis, and various medically caused cognitive disorders stand out as examples of the conversion of mental into physical illness. Reflecting the essentialist viewpoint, some have argued that the term mental illness should be eliminated because so-called mental illnesses are all brain disorders." (Guy A. Boysen, Ph. D. Psychologist, An Evaluation of the DSM Concept of Mental Disorder)
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There is no difference between physical and mental illnesses… and other Psychiatric Unicorns! |
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Introduction:
- The reason the chemical psychiatry industry believes mental illness are all biological in nature is the result of their atheistic/evolutionary ideology, not scientific evidence.
- Given that psychiatrists reject the existence of the Spirit of God, they obviously view the idea that man has a spirit made in the image of God, distinct from the physical body as a myth. This should trouble Christians and clue them in on the battle that psychiatry has been raging against Christianity for over 100 years.
- The idea that there is no difference between physical and
mental illnesses has a long history in medicine. It dates back to the time
of Hippocrates and Galen:
"People abhor being baffled by the dangers that face them, which is why they prefer false explanations to none and why we may fairly assert that people have always "known" what causes diseases: demons, witches, the breaking of taboo, the evil eye, wells poisoned by Jews, and, most enduringly, humoral imbalances, as taught by Hippocrates and Galen. Bizarre, unpredictable behaviors also baffle people and make them feel endangered. Attributing such conduct to mental illnesses comforts them. It is for this reason that people now "know" what causes mental diseases-bad brains, bad genes, bad chemicals, bad societies, bad parents. The idea that there are no mental diseases discomforts people and is therefore rejected." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 38) - Sigmund Freud was powerful advocate that all mental
illnesses had a biological cause:
"In short, Charcot was not an innocent victim of scheming hysterics; he was a knowing conspirator in one of the greatest medical hoaxes of the modern age. ... Unquestionably, Charcot was one of the giants of late nineteenth century French medicine and neurology. This status may be why psychiatrists and psychiatric historians have failed to see that he was also a quack, albeit a new kind of quack. The old quacks-such as Franz Mesmer and Mary Baker Eddy-duped people into believing that fake cures were real cures. The new quacks-such as Charcot and Freud-duped people into believing that fake diseases were real diseases." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 42)
A. The myth that mental illness is a "just like any other disease":
1. "The radiologist does not need to gain the confidence of the patient to diagnose a skull fracture, and the pathologist does not need to gain the confidence of the corpse to make a postmortem diagnosis of death owing to drowning. In contrast, the psychoanalyst needs to gain the confidence of the patient to learn what ails him." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 64)
- "In the history of medicine certain kinds of illness ... have been peculiarly baffling. I mean the sort of symptoms which are often popularly spoken of as "hysterical" or "neurotic" or "mental." When there is something organically wrong with the body, when it has been injured or infected, medicine is at home. But in this other kind of illness, the doctor cannot find anything physical to account for the disturbance. In modern medicine the term psychogenic is used to cover this whole class of abnormalities whose origin appears to be mental, as contrasted with the more familiar organic illnesses in which the cause is physical." (Karin Stephen, 1889-1953, The Wish to Fall Ill: A Study of Psychoanalysis and Medicine, p 1)
- "Psychiatry-a term I use here to include psychoanalysis, psychology, and all the so-called mental health professions- is one the most important institutions of modern societies. The institution rests squarely on the postulate proposition that "mental illness is an illness like any other illness." That proposition is a lie. This lie is what makes malingering-the faking of disease-the great secret of psychiatry: a popular understanding that faking illness is a form of deception (and often self-deception) would destroy psychiatry. In this book I try to advance such understanding, and the constructive destruction it entails, by expanding on my thesis, first propounded more than a half century ago: the idea of mental illness and the apparatus of modern psychiatry as a medical specialty rest on the successful medicalization of malingering-that is, on the popular perception of behaviors called "mental illnesses" as bona fide medical diseases." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p x)
- "Counterfeit art is forgery. Counterfeit testimony is perjury. But counterfeit illness is illness, "mental illness," an illness officially decreed "an illness like any other." The consequences of this policy-economic, legal, medical, moral, philosophical, political, and social-are momentous: counterfeit disability, counterfeit disease, counterfeit doctoring, and the bureaucracies and industries administering, adjudicating, and providing for them make up a substantial part of the national economies of modern Western societies." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 2)
5. "The core concept of psychiatry, mental illness qua medical disease, and the profession of psychiatry as a medical specialty based on it, rest on the medicalization of malingering. (Thomas Szasz, "Malingering: 'Diagnosis' or Social Condemnation?")"
6. I have tried to show that professionals in the mental health field are, impostors, pretending to have expertise they cannot possess. Being an expert about mental illnesses is like being an expert about ghosts or unicorns. Not surprisingly, some or many mental health experts come to feel like impostors, like frauds." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 109)
7. "All mental illness diagnosis' cannot be within the realm of science because they are based 100 % on mere talk and external observation of behavior. Without blood tests, actual DNA tests, or any physical evidence of brain abnormalities, how could psychiatry be anything other than pure quackery!
8. "I have long maintained that the phenomena conventionally called "mental illnesses" are counterfeit illnesses authenticated as genuine diseases by psychiatrists. The phenomenon, as we have seen, is not unique to mental illness. ... Let us now reconsider the most instructive model of mental illness as validated counterfeit illness-the identification-validation of a forged masterpiece as an original masterpiece by art experts. A forged masterpiece, authenticated as an original, is valuable. Exposed as a forgery, it becomes a worthless fake." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 84)
9. "once objective biological signs are found, disorders stop being mental illnesses and become medical illnesses. Epilepsy, general paresis, and various medically caused cognitive disorders stand out as examples of the conversion of mental into physical illness. Reflecting the essentialist viewpoint, some have argued that the term mental illness should be eliminated because so-called mental illnesses are all brain disorders." (Guy A. Boysen, Ph. D. Psychologist, An Evaluation of the DSM Concept of Mental Disorder)
B. The media, politicians and the general public perpetrate the myth:
"Psychiatrists never miss an opportunity to proclaim that "mental illness is like any other illness." This claim is supported by the medical profession, the political class, and the media. Not surprisingly, people regard psychiatrists as the foremost experts on mental illnesses. Psychologists, regularly confused with psychiatrists, often share that dubious distinction." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 97)
- Myth repeated by politicians: "Research in the last decade proves that mental illnesses are diagnosable disorders of the brain." (White House Fact Sheet on Myths and Facts about Mental Illness, 1999)
- Myth repeated by politicians: "Mental illness can be accurately diagnosed, successfully treated, just as physical illness." President William Jefferson Clinton, 1999)
- Myth repeated by politicians: "One of the most widely believed and most damaging myths is that mental illness is not a physical disease. Nothing could be further from the truth." (Tipper Gore, President Clinton's mental health adviser, 1999)
- Myth blurred by Surgeon General: This statement is correct, but the untrained will confuse it as saying that things go wrong with the brain is mental illness, when in fact he is referring to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's: "Just as things go wrong with the heart and kidneys and liver, so things go wrong with the brain." Surgeon General David Satcher, 1999)
Conclusion:
1. Mental illnesses are very different from any other disease.
2. If a biological cause of any mental illness has been discovered, it stops being a "mental illness" and becomes a disease. Once this happens it enters the realm of standard medical science treated by Doctors of Medicine.
3. Mental illnesses, by definition have no biologic cause. But since chemical psychiatrists reject the spirit of man as a myth, they have no choice but to assign a biologic cause to mental illness.
a. They believe that given future advancements in medicine, the biologic causes all mental illnesses will be discovered.
b. This echoes the hollow prediction of Darwin who expected "missing links" between man and ape would be discovered "as science advances" in the future.
c. Both Darwin and Freud were wrong.
d. In the 21st century no biologic cause of any mental illness has been discovered.
4. Biopsychiatry should be extinct by 2050 AD.
By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.
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