What’s wrong with psychiatry?

1. When you are rich, you get time (and possibly pills), when you’re poor, you get pills only. Either the poor are undertreated by not being listened to, or the rich are fooled with make-believe therapy. No, it’s both. But don’t for a second assume that these psychiatrists are evil. They’re like drug dealers. First, they were made addicted, and then they were put on the street to sell themselves. Many psychiatrists were deeply fooled and trapped by this system long before they were let loose on a patient. They too are victims of this mistreatment.

2. Even if the psychiatrists work with some humanized form of Freudian therapy, it’s still based on Freud and he was a fraud. Granted, he made improvements to the psychological therapy available in his time. Instead of locking people up (and parading them for fun and entertainment), he listened to people. But when the effects and fact of the incest pandemic became clear to him (including from years of dissecting baby corpses with venereal diseases in the time no healing antibiotics were known), he made a system to reason it away and cover it over. Even such an elegant therapy as letting someone tell her dreams, he ruined by ‘interpreting’ dreams, which holds the middle between manipulation and hypnosis. A person who twice burned his personal archives is not suspected of hidden honesty.

3. The DSM, a whole system of ‘psychiatric diagnosis’ does not help to heal. Rather than pinning down the problem, it pins down the client. Their ‘diagnoses’ are so ‘good’ because they are self-fulfilling. They immobilize the patient. It’s like diagnosing that someone has a stiff knee, putting a cast on the knee and checking from time to time if the knee is still stiff. Their system is so good because it makes sure that no healing will take place. It is paraded as a big success. Rather, it’s the best proof of their incompetence.

4. Their silver bullet: the pills. They claim that there now are mild medications to treat ‘psychological disorders.’ Well, either they are so ‘mild’ that they are harmless but then they don’t work and undermine any sense of the patient being OK, or they work and then they harm. All of them, the mild, the middle, and the strong medication, all prevent any psychological improvement. They keep you in a sort of half-drunken state. And as we all know, no use talking to a drunk person–nothing will remain from whatever is said. The whole system of ‘medication’ became big business, a very profitable hoax with a whole pseudo-science underpinning it. From chemical imbalance to declaring something uncaused by trauma.

5. Specialists. They know better. They hold the ultimate knowledge over what goes on in your brain. They learned for it. Your ‘mental sickness’ makes that you can’t see it but no worry, they know. And they will invalidate anything the client says about their own condition and if they feel helped. It is true that an outsider often can help us with problems we are blind to, but they claim client’s blindness whenever s/he objects. Even after years of ‘therapy.’ If you return the toaster to the store where you bought it and say, It doesn’t work, it’s inconceivable if they’d say: In our opinion, it works fine, so you have no valid complaint. But that’s what psychiatry does. Two psychiatrists meet each other in the street. Says one to the other: “You are doing fine! How am I doing?”

6. They have no respect for the person or their brain. Something ‘is off’ and they’re gonna fix it. In truth, every human being often subconsciously, but deliberately, produces ‘symptoms’ to cry out for help about hurts that often happened in their early years. There is nothing wrong with crying out when you need help. When you listen long enough to people with mental problems, you simply hear where it’s all coming from and you see slowly how they overcome, bit-by-bit, what happened to them a lifetime ago. If you had no respect for the human brain or the human, you will get it the longer you listen. But they often don’t listen at all. And even if they listen, they know better. How can someone who doesn’t really listen, really help? They can’t.

7. By and large, psychiatry has been on the wrong side of oppression. Surely, Freud was already of the opinion that gayness is unchangeable, not a dysfunction or disorder, but rather something natural. He rejected homophobia as something done by narrow-minded and ignorant people. But over time, this has not been maintained. Psychiatry created dozens of theories and ‘therapies’ to ‘cure’ non-straights or at least intimidate them (torture into obedience). Not only were Queers overrepresented among psychiatric ‘patients,’ so were Jews. Still, it recognized Transgenders a century ago as impossible to ‘adjust’ and make into Cisgenders but then, they advocated sex change because ‘normal’ is their only way to be OK. Also, classical Freudian thought degraded women as having ‘penis envy’ while male ‘womb envy’ somehow did not exist. Psychiatry has been instrumental in labeling, drugging, and incarcerating political ‘dissidents.’ But worst of all, it created a whole new and wide category of oppressed people by regarding, treating, and patronizing ‘mental patients’ (anyone not ‘normal’ enough) as a lesser species, that can’t be respected or taken seriously. Most Western young adults train themselves to pas as normal.

My proof of the above is simple. I’ve met people on drugs for years and people who went through ‘analysis’ for years and are not on drugs. None of them ever was close to happy. They were anything between zombies and cynical. It’s outright painful to see the results of these pharmaceutical and mind-bending treatments. How stark a contrast with people who found someone with a warm heart who will just listen to them, let them talk, talk, talk, cry, laugh, shiver, sweet, blush, yawn, and stretch, and is just in awe with them. If you can’t afford a professional, you can exchange time with a friend. Taking turns listening to each other, not commenting on what you tell each other. Just be there. As the reverse saying goes: Don’t just do something–sit there. The best things in life are for free.

Full disclosure: ● I was heavily drugged by the medical profession at the time for 6 months before I was born and so I have a hard time to give drugs the benefit of the doubt. ● And I discovered many therapies that really help and that show what deceit psychiatry is. It’s like having been fed white bread all your life and then to discover wholesome breads. ● I wrote the above rant in under an hour. I’m sure it’s not perfectly balanced or nuanced for which I apologize. I hope it’s still by and large true and helpful.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. * His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1