Brain Damage: Psychiatry's Legacy  by Gene Zimmer

"The brain-disabling principle applies to all of the most potent psychiatric interventions - neuroleptics, antidepressants, lithium, electroshock, and psychosurgery. . . the major psychiatric treatments exert their primary or intended effect by disabling normal brain function. Neuroleptic lobotomy, for example, is not a side effect, but the sought-after clinical effect. Conversely, none of the major psychiatric interventions correct or improve existing brain dysfunction, such as any presumed biochemical imbalance. If the patient happens to suffer from brain dysfunction, then the psychiatric drug, electroshock, or psychosurgery will worsen or compound it." - Peter Breggin, M.D., psychiatrist 

"All ECT [electric shock] does is produce brain damage. ...If you want brain damage, it's your prerogative... there's no more effective way than ECT. It's more effective than a car wreck, or getting hit with a blunt instrument." - Dr. John Friedberg, Neurologist 

"Through psychosurgery an area essential to the human being - his personality - is forever destroyed." - Sheldon Selesnick, Psychiatrist 

A typical patient of Deep Sleep therapy - "his remarks are entirely uninfluenced by previous recollections - nor are they governed in any way by his forward anticipation... There is complete amnesia for all events in his life." - Ewen Cameron, past President of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) & WPA (World Psychiatric Association) 

"Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient." - Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning author who killed himself after complaining that psychiatric electric shocks had ruined his career by destroying his memory. 

"Frequent Effects: sedation, drowsiness, lethargy, difficult thinking, poor concentration, nightmares, emotional dullness, depression, despair . . ." - Dr. Calagari's Psychiatric Drugs (1987)

The above quotes are a very small sampling of professional and objective statements about the true effects of psychiatry's methods. Psychiatry's history is rooted in barbaric methods and opinionated theories parading as fact and "science". Years of promotion by the psychiatric field have created the illusion that the subject is a valid science based upon modern technology and advances in the understanding of the human mind and condition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Psychiatry is a modern day religion in the sense that it involves a detailed nomenclature, intricate belief system, authority figures and has infiltrated every aspect of modern society. Just as the entire "religion" of medieval Christianity, within the framework of the Spanish Inquisition, was a false belief system mutually endorsed and accepted by the authorities and public, so now is modern day psychiatry.

ECT (electric shock treatment), brain surgery (lobotomy) and psychiatric drugs all produce brain dysfunction and/or damage, and without the brain dysfunction there would be no effects at all.

The psychiatric orthodoxy maintains that its methods "cure" or "handle" "chemical imbalances" in the brain or other existing brain abnormalities. There is no test anywhere within the field for a "chemical imbalance" or brain abnormality (other than existing actual damage - usually caused BY psychiatric treatments) and the idea is simply a pet theory of psychiatrists. This elusive "imbalance" has never been observed or detected despite millions of dollars in research. It is "believed" and promoted widely despite the fact that it as much a figment of the psychiatrist's imagination as demons were to medieval priests. It is part of the modern nomenclature and belief system that the public has bought into following years of dissemination by the psychiatric field and drug companies.

The psychiatric industry justifies their methods because they claim the existence of hundreds of "mental diseases" and "mental disorders". The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) is psychiatry's "bible". It lists numerous "mental illnesses" with complex diagnostic methods. This list of "illnesses" is voted on each year by members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). "Illnesses" come and go depending on society's mood about the subject. For instance, "homosexuality" was once named as a "mental disorder" until it became too unpopular to do so. PMS has been in and out of the book depending on similar public sentiment. Currently, "caffeine withdrawal", "caffeine-related disorders", "age-related cognitive decline", "academic skills disorder", and "disorder of written expression" are all listed as "mental illnesses" in the book. This is plainly absurd.

Caffeine is a drug and has addictive effects. Calling it a "mental disorder" is ludicrous. People get senile when they get old. Their body and mind deteriorates. Giving this a fancy name (age-related cognitive disorder) and calling it a "mental illness" is equally ludicrous. Most students have poor academic skills because modern psychological theories (behavioral psychology, educational psychology) have failed completely to develop simple and workable study techniques. Calling poor academic skills a "disorder" is just nutty. Terming a difficulty with writing clearly a "disorder" falls into the same category of absurdity. Yet they have done this and the entire public has fallen for it. And what is their only solution? Drugs, drugs, and more drugs, or ECT and brain surgery!

What they have done is detailed numerous conditions, which people do experience, and labeled them all "illnesses". The intricate detailing of conditions gives the illusion of understanding, but this is completely false. They observe numerous people who are "tired, unable to move, sad, lethargic and apathetic" and call this "depression". Simply, that's what the word means. But, they pretend (or assume) that this naming process somehow bestows understanding about the underlying true causes and solutions to the problems they catalogue. For more on this see the article entitled Observing a Problem and Fixing It Are Two Different Things.

The joke of it all is that the solution to EVERY condition they enumerate is either drugs, electric shock or brain surgery, all damaging techniques to a human body and mind. There is no actual understanding of causes anywhere in the field other than theories, wishful thinking and guessing. They also admit (from time to time) that they have no understanding of how drugs, ECT or brain surgery produce their effects. They simply don't know. It's more guessing, wishful thinking and theorizing. The use of these methods is STILL 100% experimental! The public are the unknowing guinea pigs. They promote these things as true, but any serious investigator will discover the entire subject to be a sham. Most people find this hard to believe at first, because they have simply taken it for granted that the psychiatric field, with hundreds of colleges and universities, "professional" societies, and extensive visibility in many areas of society, is legitimate. But it's not.

It's a shock of some magnitude when one gets that first glimpse of seeing through the charade. The entire subject is built upon false premises (beliefs, assumptions). It wouldn't matter if this were some New Age idea or philosophy, but its methods directly harm human beings and society. Additionally, the impact of psychiatry is expanding into all areas of society - government, legal, criminal justice system, education, and social work. With all the funding of major drug companies and other large financial interests behind the field, simply, nothing could stop their expansion. Psychiatry, as a subject, is NOT the result of Man's natural evolution of knowledge and discovery. It's the result of huge financial interests actively funding and supporting the field for the last 100 years. The motive has been profits, and not "truth".

They energetically add to the list of disorders each year, thereby justifying more application of their destructive methods. The application of their methods harms brains, body functioning and minds.

The most obvious failure of psychiatry is the fact that the subject completely ignores the "mind" in all its approaches to addressing the hundreds of conditions it enumerates. If a person is sad more than their life situations indicate they should be, this is an obvious problem with their "mind". To some degree, emotions and thoughts are out of their personal control, and the person often feels unable to do anything about what is happening to them. It's not that the situation doesn't exist, it does, but the approach of psychiatry is to explain it as a "physiological" problem. Psychiatry has reduced every problem a human being can have to a "biochemical" explanation. Obviously, with this (false) understanding the only solutions ever offered are physiological in nature - drugs, shock or brain surgery.

Things such as anxiety, depression, or sadness are more often than not mental and emotional reactions to life situations. They are common human responses to life. In some cases people experience these when life situations don't seem to warrant them. Nonetheless, these are problems with a person's "mind", with that invisible world we each sense a few inches behind our forehead. The current subject of psychiatry (and modern psychology) has forsaken the human "mind". It has given up completely on ever understanding what a mind is, what its functions are, how to help one and how to improve one. It is a completely missing aspect of the supposed "science" of the mind and Man known as psychiatry. Sadly, psychiatric methods actually harm all functions of any mind, such as attention, will, concentration, reasoning, imagination and personal responsibility. This aspect of the inherent psychiatric harm upon the mind makes it that much harder at a future time to legitimately attempt to correct any problems with "people-oriented" therapies, which then try to address the "mind" directly. Following harmful and disabling psychiatric treatments this often becomes impossible.

Additionally, psychiatry has labeled every type of drug addiction, withdrawal, or negative effect as a "mental disorder". Various drugs are addictive. Various drugs cause hallucinations, euphoria, or mania. Various drugs cause withdrawal symptoms when the taking of them ceases. To call all these things "mental disorders" is insane. The psychiatric profession labeled PMS a "mental disorder". It's a common body and emotional reaction to certain hormonal changes the female body undergoes once a month. Labeling PMS a "mental disease" serves one purpose alone - to give the psychiatrists and drug companies another illness to sell drugs as the solution for. See this for what it is - they have redinfed, by playing with words and meanings, common and routine physical and mental phenomena into "mental disorders". If you have a difficult time agreeing with this, take the time to obtain a copy of the DSM-IV published by the American Psychiatric Association and read some parts of it. It is ludicrous how they catalogue and adjudicate "mental illness". See for yourself.

If the psychiatric field continues unabated, there will come a time when the list of "illnesses" is thousands of items long, and it will most likely include "unusual happiness", "unjustified enthusiasm", "tiredness" and "prolonged TV watching". They will continue to do what they do right now - categorize normal human reactions and conditions labeling them "mental illnesses" and "disorders".

But regardless of the validity of their categorizing or labeling, ALL psychiatric methods:

1) fail to address any actual cause of any mental or biophysiological problem, 
2) cause minor to severe brain dysfunctions (which CAUSE the apparent "cure"), and 
3) cause minor to severe brain damage in over 50% of patients undergoing prolonged use of psychiatric methods.

(Incorrectly) believing many human "mental" and emotional problems to be "biochemical" in nature has opened the door to these insane psychiatric solutions. Billions of dollars have been spent by the psychiatric field and drug companies to "educate" the "professionals" and the public into their nomenclature and orthodoxy. It IS a modern day "religion" based on little fact. It is believed and discussed passionately by "professionals" and lay people alike. But so was medieval Christianity, and look at the results of the Spanish Inquisition - torture, pain, suffering, and death. Psychiatry is no different. It causes the same things, but modern PR techniques and miseducation have created an illusion of something else entirely. People have accepted them as authorities, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. We all experience what we accept to be true. Too many of us have accepted the theories of psychiatry, unknowingly and without careful analysis or judgement, and have permitted them to assume a position of "authority" in our lives and society.

Instead of priests we have psychiatrists. Instead of heretics we have depressives, manics, ADHDs and suicidals. Instead of demons and Satan we have "chemical imbalances" and lists of "mental disorders". Just as the priest labeled the heretic and ordered correction with torture or death, so the psychiatrist labels the "ill" and orders brain surgery, ECT or drugs. If you don't see the legitimacy of the analogy, you simply have been too thoroughly miseducated and are a modern day "true believer". Just as the people of medieval Europe were almost wholly incapable of seeing past the absurd assumptions they held about life and reality, so most people today are incapable of seeing past the absurdity of the psychiatric belief system. And make no mistake about it, psychiatry is solely and completely ONLY a belief system with its own nomenclature, theories and assumptions. These are largely arbitrary, false and quite imaginary to a capable unbiased observer. But, with honest investigation, looking at the FACTS, and not listening to psychiatric PR, one can arrive at the truth and see past the charade.

Brain damage and dysfunction are not nice things. Learn the truth and when you do . . .

Say NO To Psychiatry!

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©Gene Zimmer 1999 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED