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Why most people can't think clearly about psychiatry/psychology :
"The actual way of studying disease in any society is by analyzing its historical presence within the political, economic, and ideological power relations in that specific social formation. And by this, I do not mean the analysis of the natural history of disease but rather the political, economic, and ideological determinants of that disease, determinants resulting from the overall power relations of production. These power relations are the ones which determine the nature and definition of disease, medical knowledge and medical practice." [1]
So, the unscientific nature of psychiatry is a fundamental hole in it , but this is ineffective low hanging fruit; We don't live in a society based on science, see the movie Gattica for instance, rather we live in a Capitalist society (no, Capitalism is not scientific compared to Marxism i.e. Scientific Socialism) .
"Capitalism frames the institutional, group, and personal understandings of the world and responses to it. This includes the structure, practices, and priorities of the mental health system itself..." [2]
So ... here is the elephant in the room why only a few people like myself can view psychiatry clearly :
"Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism is recognised by scholars on both the right and the left as highly significant in explaining the formation and continuance of the fundamental economic and social inequalities witnessed within advanced industrial societies. His theory of historical materialism states that the source of human progress and historical change is not to be found in “legal relations” or “political forms,” but rather “in the material conditions of life”. By this Marx means that the economic relations of human beings determine all other relations in that society. Material survival rather than the development of rationality and spiritual thinking forms the fundamental basis of human endeavour in each historical epoch In challenging the individualist, liberal theorising of many of his contemporaries, Marx argued that industrial society had not created a radically new society of rational individuals endowed with free will, but instead introduced a new form of industrial slavery which in many ways replicated the medieval serfdom of feudal society. “Freedom” in industrial society is thus an illusion created by a more complex set of societal relations in which political and legal institutions—designated by Marx as part of the “superstructure” of capitalism—reproduced and reinforced these economic relations as appropriate and just. In explaining this contention,Marx argues,In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into defnite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises as legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life . It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."[3]
So, psychiatry is obviously ,to anyone who is not delusional ,stupid or a liar, a pseudo-science that has committed many crimes against humanity and as a pseudo-science can only make historical and culturally bound statements about its patients. Please note that real science is not chronotopic so it's impossible for psychiatry to be a real science.
However, focusing on the pseudo-scientific nature of psychiatry, while not totally pointless, is myopic and misses the forest from the trees.
People, in society, are socialized and brainwashed by the schools, churches and family etc...and they are also, along with psychiatry, a means of social control. People are socially immersed in Western capitalism that it becomes as natural as breathing to them so they don't think of questioning it. So , that is why most people can't think clearly about psychiatry and because only a minority of scholars have written on it from this point of view in a fully proper non-biased way. Crap like Thomas Szasz is way more ubiquitous .
So, Psychiatry is not scientific and has committed, and continues to commit, crimes against humanity so why does it exist ?
Since, the 1970s, welfare and other social safety nets have been cut back the gap between the rich and poor has grown thanks to the philosophy of neo-liberalism. This creates a bigger underclass that needs to be controlled and oppressed by the neo-liberal capitalist class. The neo-liberal capitalist class seeks to remove itself from the problems it creates in society and replaces the site of change and pathology from the community level to the individual level and here psychiatry plays a key role in labelling and drugging up the people to zombie level (to be more easily controlled). It is true that not only people from the lower classes are forced into psychiatric relations but it is the working class, women and minorities who take the brunt of it.
Psychology/psychiatry has become :
"an increasingly powerful component of ideology, ruling ideas that endorse and sabotage struggles against oppression. This psychology circulates way beyond colleges and clinics, and different versions of psychology as ideology are now to be found nearly everywhere in capitalist society" [4]
Psychiatry is fundamentally a political project and is immune to any democratic challenge therefore only a temporary Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat can stop its Nazi-like crimes against humanity !
In my opinion if you are not countering psychiatry with Marxist politics : You are doing it wrong and wasting your time !
P.S. there is really much more to say and I could have said it in a more elegant way but if I wrote too much no one would read it i.e. the tldr phenomenon.
1.) Navarro, V. (1980) 'Work, Ideology and Science : The Case of Medicine"
2.) and 3.) Cohen, B (2016), 'Psychiatric Hegemony : A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness'
4.) Parker, I. (2007) Revolution in Psychology : Alienation to Emancipation. London : Pluto Press.
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Originally Posted by Dorian
United States
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