Psycho-Mythology: Believed Completely by Psychiatrists
by Gene Zimmer

Psychiatrists and psychiatric organizations will promote ECT as a "safe" and "modern" tool for handling various psychiatric "disorders". They will talk endlessly about "mental illnesses", "disorders" and "chemical imbalances in the brain" as if these things were real and actually had any basis in fact. They will discuss the "scientific" and "clinical application" of drugs to "moderate schizophrenia". These things, ideas, concepts, and terms aren't real and don't have any basis in fact - they comprise a complex ideology. They surely don't refer or correspond to any actual existing observable thing(s). But realize they believe these things, despite the fact that they are 100% wrong. And through extensive promotion by the psychiatric industry and drug companies the majority of the public falsely believes the same thing.

Believing in something has never implied any truth about what someone or some group believes in. Many people are also seduced by the "scientific" explanations for modern psychiatric theories such as "chemical brain imbalances" and "bad genes". Neither of these things have ever been observed and especially not in relation to any "mental illness" or "disorder". These ideas are THEORIES and ONLY theories. They are assumed and inferred. They are somebody's cute idea that the rest of us have accepted as "reality". Please look over and understand this. This isn't my opinion - this is the way it really is and any honest observation of the facts and reality will provide the same view.

Fifty years ago it was common for the entire scientific community and the public to think of an "atom" as a central ball or mass (nucleus) with an orbital mass whirling around it (electron). Today it is known that this idea about an atom was completely false. Yet the entire "educated" population believed (and many still believe) this idea about an "atom". The point of this being that "believing" in something, even when everyone else also seems to believe in it, means absolutely nothing. The belief in the atom was a "myth". It did not relate to any actual existing thing or fact. At least with the atom, there is something, which is similar to the "electron" and the "nucleus", but with psychiatry, there is nothing at all even close to a "brain chemical imbalance" as a source of "mental illness". It is total mythology, like the demons and witches of the 14th century and the Gods and Goddesses of Greek mythology. But just like the people of the past we all have a hard time seeing past our own quite arbitrary and largely incorrect current world view or belief systems.

Ask most people the question, "why do things fall to the ground?", and they respond, "because of gravity". But ask them, "what does gravity mean?", and they tell you, "well, the law that things fall". The word "gravity" means, to most people, that things fall to the ground from a higher position. The label "gravity" is defined as "things fall to the ground". Things fall to the ground because things fall to the ground! That's really the understanding most people have. Gravity has the definition of "things fall to the ground". The "label" gravity imparts a sense of understanding to many people, which is quite non-existent. People can even talk about this, thinking they actually are discussing something. In fact, they are only playing with words and meanings. Do you see? The truth is that we each experience things falling to the ground. That is what we truly KNOW. But any explanation or understanding is largely and primarily only in our minds. It's a concept of something that really explains and perceives little except what we already directly experience - things fall when dropped. Concepts and the actual realities they relate to are rarely equivalent, and more often than not, quite incorrect. For more on this see Reality, Belief and The Mind.

There are many concepts we all hold about all types of things, which actually are only definitions, yet we each believe ourselves to possess "understanding" because we have "named", "labeled" and "defined" something. In the middle of December In New York City someone says "it's cold today", and a friend responds, "of course it is, it's Winter". They each think they "understand" something. Winter is defined as a time when it's cold. Of course it's cold! Billy falls off his bike and hurts his knees. His mother explains, "oh you just had an accident", and both Billy and his mother feel better. But "accident" means having something happen, which you didn't plan that usually has bad results. Again, it's talking and thinking in circles about nothing. And we even get emotional responses from this mental and verbal charade! A man robs the corner store and a group of people discuss how "he is just a criminal". They all "understand". But a "thief" is by definition a criminal. Where's the actual explanation or understanding? I could give hundreds of examples. Life is riddled with this type "thinking". There can be more in depth understanding of causes, but this is rarely the case. It tends to be very superficial, incomplete and largely arbitrary. This is very true with psychiatry where the primary thing they have actually done is name and label numerous "mental disorders" - but naming is much removed from undersanding the actual source of something and being able to adequately deal with something.

As an example, a woman tells her psychiatrist all about how she is tired, feels sad much of the time, can't force herself out of bed in the morning and has considered suicide. The psychiatrist looks at her and exclaims, as if solving some complex and unusual mystery, "you suffer from depression"! They both brighten up, and she feels strangely better. She now "knows" what is wrong with her. This is idiocy. The word "depression" means, by definition, that someone has the "symptoms" or experiences things such as tiredness, unwillingness to get out of bed, sadness, and suicidal ideation. It's more playing with words. The huge problem and flaw is that while the psychiatrists have named and labeled all manner of "conditions", they have inane explanations for these, and destructive "solutions" (i.e. drugs, brain surgery, ECT).

It doesn't matter that they completely believe what they say, or that an individual psychiatrist may be a truly "kind" and "caring" person. It would be nice if all "kind" and "caring" people were correct about what they believe and suggest. They aren't. This doesn't mean to ignore, be critical of, or disconnect from "kind" and "caring" people. But it does means that just because someone appears to be, and may truly be, "kind" and "caring" in no way implies the validity or correctness of what they believe and encourage you to do.

The psychiatrist talks about "mental illness" and "disorders" as if these words corresponded to real existing physical diseases. They don't. They never have, but the entire "educated" public and "professionals" have been misled and believe so.

Originally, at the turn of the century, "illness" meant some physical malfunction or disease. It always referred to some visible evidence of pathology or malfunction. This is what was dealt with within the field of "medicine". The words "sick", "ill", "illness" and "sickness" then began to be used as metaphors - the application of a word or phrase to something that it does not apply to literally, in order to indicate a comparison with the literal usage, such as the evening of one's life, and food for thought. Obviously, the "evening" of one's life communicates the later or end part of one's life just as the later part of a day is the "evening". But there is no actual "evening" of one's life. The word doesn't refer to any actual thing, which can be seen, observed, detected or analyzed. The same is true for "food" for thought.

What does this have to do with "mental illness". Back in Freud's days they dealt with what is called hysteria - people acting contrary to the situation at hand, extremely emotional crying, and generally out of control behavior. There could be thousands of actual reasons for hysteria - bad marriage, bad job, intolerant boss, bossy brother, personal failure, personal loss, etc. Through repeated statements and explanations, Freud and others convinced people to view hysteria as an "illness". It's like saying he has a sick mind; that's a sick joke; my car was ill last week. These are all metaphors, and saying a mind is sick or ill, that there is mental illness, or mental health also is in the strictest sense using metaphors. It's a situation of playing with words, and incorrectly taking a metaphor to refer to an actual thing (which it doesn't).

A person can be nervous, upset, hallucinating, or hundreds of other things, and as a group these have a similarity in that they have something to do with that invisible inner world we each describe as "our mind", but to assume these conditions have anything at all to do with "illness" in any medical sense of the word is ludicrous. As a metaphor, a mind can be "ill" or "sick" meaning that it is being experienced in a way that is "not right", "uncomfortable", "deviating from what is usual", or "in a less than perfect manner", but equating these conditions to "illness" is pure creative redefining of terms and meanings.

It would be all right for people to talk this way if they admitted and knew they were using metaphors. This sloppy word usage caught on, and the field of psychology actually convinced the medical profession (whose power and success it was envious of) that there was such a thing as "mental illness". There never had been any observation of physical pathology or chemical malfunction leading to anything they called a "mental disease", but this was the premise (which was taken as a fact) - "mental illness" exists, just as does any physical illness, based upon the same type pathology, and requires the same interventions (of drugs and surgery). This is completely false - it was, and still has never been observed to be true, although the psychiatric field spends millions of dollars year after year trying to convince themselves and others that there is a biological or biochemical basis to "mental illness". First, you must understand the word usage is completely metaphorical. There is no "mental illness". Second, they continue to attempt to explain causes and cures for a thing that doesn't even exist! How accurate can their explanations of "causes" and supposed "cures" be when the very thing they are claiming to handle doesn't even exist?

Problems with one's mind and emotions, problems with dealing with life, and all it's manifestations - depression, anxiety, fear, nervousness, attentional difficulties, grief, tiredness, anger and so on - were simply redefined as "mental illness" and forced to fit within this new "medical conceptual framework". First, this is incorrect because as discussed earlier, this is largely playing with words, and second, this has caused the entire realm of the mind to go unexamined, uninvestigated and unknown to any valid modern science and methodology. The mind has therefore not been properly or sufficiently investigated, charted, or solved with effective methods delineated to improve and "fix" a mind - at least not within any traditional "professionally accepted" field of study or endeavor. The illusion is that modern psychology and psychiatry present themselves as if this is what they have done, but they haven't at all. They admit themselves they have chosen to ignore and not deal with the "mind" because it is "invisible" and unable to be subjected to "standard scientific techniques".

A detailed nomenclature of terms (see the DSM-IV; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) implies no necessary or inherent validity. It only implies a system of logic or thinking that makes sense within it's own system. The entire ideological system of the Spanish Inquisition "made sense" within itself. It was "logically consistent". If there were "demons", "witches", "possession" as they defined them, and so on, well it all makes "sense". The problem is though there weren't and aren't any of these things. Similarly there are no actual "mental illnesses" that are diseases in any medically understood sense of the word. If you believe that, then you are apt to believe the entire charade. If you accept the notions of "biochemical imbalances", "chromosomal mental disease", biopharmocology and so on, you will fall for the entire belief system. And make no mistake about it - it is completely and ONLY a belief system. Psychiatry is largely a modern day religion - an ideology with specific beliefs, dogma, and ritual.

Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist, was threatened with getting thrown off his professorship at a major college because he didn't "believe in mental illness". In his book, The Myth of Mental Illness, he had extensive proof, documentation, and presented a very intelligent and logical argument supporting his position. But it didn't matter. He was an ideological heretic. He didn't follow the party line. He had the audacity to disagree with the tenets, dogma and orthodoxy of modern psychiatry. This is an example of just how much more psychiatry (and psychology) functions and exists as an ideology than as any legitimate science, and as such, how it deals little with valid facts about the nature of Man and his mind and more with opinions, bias and prejudice. The concept of Man having, possessing and utilizing his or her mind is not a part of the "modern scientific" view of Man. It isn't allowed. It is frowned upon, ridiculed, and belittled. It is considered uneducated, archaic and amusing. It is quite heretical to the modern rigid materialistic belief system of the social sciences.

The naming of myriad "mental illnesses" and "disorders" creates the illusion of in-depth investigation and scientific research. But naming and defining conditions as "illnesses" does not make them "diseases" in any standard medically treatable sense. Redefining routine problems of life and the mind as "diseases" was the huge leap taken by psychiatry, which enabled them to gain a place in modern medicine. It gave the field an air of "professionalism" where none should exist. This is the major basic flaw of psychiatry and it's current approach to handling mental and emotional problems.

People do have problems such as anxiety, depression, fear, nervousness, compulsions and deviances. These are problems of the "mind", emotions, and with life. Modern psychological and psychiatric theories have discarded the concept of a mind with thoughts, imagination, ideas, will and intention. They justify their position saying they only apply "treatments" when the condition is unusual to the environmental circumstances (i.e. feeling depression for no apparent reason, being overly nervous most of the time, or having uncontrollable thought). But if this were valid and this defined a "true mental illness", the psychiatrist still often prescribes drugs or ECT anyway.

Additionally, how can anyone seriously believe drugs or electric shock "cure" some imaginary biochemical problem, when the drugs and shock have the same effects on "ill" and well people alike? The effects and side-effects of the treatments are consistent from one person to the next - regardless of supposed "mental illnesses". Generally, the psychiatrists and biopharmacologists themselves admit not having the slightest real clue how drugs or ECT work. They venture guesses and opinions - but that's all they are. If they say otherwise, they are lying.

But, as was discussed at the beginning of this article, they believe in all the words, definitions and concepts, as if they referred to real, existing things. They believe their theories, which are actually based only on sloppy thinking in metaphors. They believe in their imaginary "biochemical imbalances" and "flawed genes". But always keep in mind that none of this relates to any actual observable physical reality. It never has and it never will, no matter how much money they spend on "research" and how many advertising campaigns they conduct to sell their flimsy notions to themselves and the public. It's all delusional. It's all fantasy. It's absurd actually - and they believe it like a pagan believed in the power of the Moon Goddess 3000 years ago, or a tribal shaman believed in the power of a spirit totem of a deceased ancestor. It is exactly on the same level of inane belief. It is completely of the nature of fairy tales and extensive mythology.

Don't let their air of "professionalism", "authoritarian" posturing, "education" or "credentials" deceive you. It's sad, but many "modern" people believe in trash just as they did 500, 1000, or 3000 years ago. The suits, ties, diplomas, fancy offices, contrived empathy, pretentious erudition, and heavy endorsements make it seem to possess much more validity than it really has. It's all slick advertising. Lots of appearance with very little content.

We all need to observe the results of any theory or system, and pay no heed to proclamations, assertions and constant advertizing.

Observe, look and see the truth for yourself. Don't fall for it, and . . .

Say NO To Psychiatry!

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©Gene Zimmer 1999 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED