I have finished watching the video by Stefan Molyneux and I find it well researched and well presented to show how there is no such thing as mental illness. Yes, mental illness is a myth because like he said, "psychiatrists have yet to conclusively prove that a single mental illness has a biological or physical cause, or a genetic origin. Psychiatry has yet to develop a single physical test that can determine that an individual actually has a particular mental illness."
As he also pointed out, the so-called diagnosis of mental illness by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of mental disorders lacks scientific reliability and validity by using behavior instead of physical symptoms. It is sad and unfortunate that some people do not accept the fact that mental illness is a myth because like Stefan said, "psychiatric disorders" are not medical diseases as "there are no lab tests, brain scans, X-rays or chemical imbalance tests that can verify that any mental disorder is a physical condition." Ironically, psychiatric drugs are the ones that actually cause problems such as biochemical imbalances, and it is perhaps not surprising that the psychiatric movement's major source of funding is the "highly profitable pharmaceutical industry, which funds drug research, psychiatric journals and the American Psychiatric Association itself". As I learnt from Sydney Walker III, DSM labels not only are useless as medical "diagnoses" but also "have the potential to do great harm - particularly when they are used as a means to deny individual freedom, or as weapons by psychiatrists acting as hired guns for the legal system".
All in all, I find the video to be a good summary about how modern psychiatry is a pseudo science that tends to seek profits over people, and how the myth of mental illness is debunked by science.
Thomas Szasz is a psychiatrist and author well known for his criticism
of the modern psychiatry movement. He has consistently sought to apply
classical liberal principles (such as bodily and mental self ownership)
to social science and also explored the consequences of mandatory
institutionalization of persons the state deemed to be insane. In his
book, The Myth of Mental Illness (1960), Szasz claims that psychiatry
ultimately robs people of the responsibility of being moral agents by
obscuring the difference between socially unacceptable behavior and
disease.
In this lecture, given at the National Libertarian
Party's Nominating Convention in 1983, Szasz compares the influence of
psychiatry on the public with the influence of religion on the public
(usually with the backing of the respective king or government body)
during the Middle Ages. Szasz points out that the state's tendency to
use science as a justification for trampling the rights of individuals
today is much like the state's tendency to use religious justifications
to trample the rights of individuals in days past. Szasz once wrote in
1974:
"Since theocracy is the rule of God or its priests, and
democracy the rule of the people or of the majority, pharmacracy is
therefore the rule of medicine or of doctors."
I have checked out the video in which Thomas Szasz observed how
psychiatry is similar to religion in their use, or rather misuse, of
power and authority, to abuse, control, manipulate and persecute those
who are considered deviant. The addiction to power leads to corruption
among the psychiatric authorities that seek to disempower people through
mind control, ostracization, stigmatization and drug control. Just as those who are considered
deviant by religious authorities are branded as heretics who commit
blasphemy, those who are considered likewise by psychiatric authorities
are labelled as psychotics who deny reality. Modern psychiatry thus has
become a cruel state religion and social control system, as noted in
Wikipedia below.
"Psychiatry's
main methods are those of conversation or rhetoric, repression, and
religion. To the extent that psychiatry presents these problems as
"medical diseases," its methods as "medical treatments," and its clients
– especially involuntary – as medically ill patients, it embodies a lie
and therefore constitutes a fundamental threat to freedom and dignity.
Psychiatry, supported by the State through various Mental Health Acts,
has become a modern secular state religion according
to Szasz. It is a vastly elaborate social control system, using both
brute force and subtle indoctrination, which disguises itself under the
claims of scientificity."
I
also learnt in the website that Szasz "stated that involuntary mental
hospitalization is a crime against humanity. Szasz also believed that,
if unopposed, involuntary hospitalization will expand into
"pharmacratic" dictatorship."
Modern
psychiatry to me is an elaborate drug cartel that colludes with the
governments and Big Pharma, which deserves to be criminalized for their
inhumane and abusive ways against humanity.
