Psychiatry and Religion

Video information

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.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

"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.