The National Institute of Mental Health is the government agency ostensibly tasked with helping to promote the “mental health” of Americans. This governmental naming is silly, and many current mainstream approaches in psychiatry are silly. Psychiatric approaches are actually sometimes worse than silly; psychiatric is sometimes (not infrequently) harmful, abusive, and malicious (psychiatric coercion).
The most highly valued “mental health professionals” (at least financially valued) are psychiatrists. Psychiatrists will almost always earn more money than social workers, counselors, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and so forth. What is the main paradigm of psychiatrists? Psychiatry drugs and not infrequently coercion are the primary paradigm of mainstream psychiatry. There are 15 minutes medication management visits; these psychiatric drug appointments may last under 10 minutes, sometimes under 5 minutes. Some psychiatrists intentionally engage in what can be called “deprescribing”; this is likely a tiny minority of psychiatrists that intentionally deprescribe as much as possible. Deprescribing is perhaps the most ethical way for psychiatric prescribers to practice. Although most all psychiatrists are probably morally deficient.
There is evidence that psychiatric drugs do more harm than good. Read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by medical journalist Robert Whitaker. Additionally, there is likely a lot of bad research in psychiatry; there is likely also a lot of statistical creativity that is used to portray what is likely an inaccurately positive picture of psychiatrist drugs. There is evidence that psychiatric drugs worsen the chronicity of “mental disorders”; the book Anatomy of an Epidemic describes this likely phenomenon. The FDA usually approves psychiatric drugs based on relatively short trials. The FDA does not rely primarily on long term data to determine if psychiatric drugs will be approved as effective. Yet, many psychiatrists put clients on psychiatric drugs long term. Additionally many psychiatric drug trails may (intentionally or unintentionally) confuse statistical significance with clinical significance.
Psychiatric drugs may be harmful to both children and adults. Psychologist Bonnie Burstow has written at least one article laying forth the case as to why child psychiatry is abusive, for those that cannot intuitively understand this. Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz describes child psychiatry as a form of poisoning. What objective bodily pathology are psychiatric drugs curing? Look up the potential side effects of psychiatric drugs. Some psychiatric drug side effects can result in death (especially for neuroleptics/major tranquilizers). There is no proof that any psychiatric drug is actually curing an objective demonstrably proven bodily pathology.
Only voluntary consensual psychiatry should remain legal. Psychiatric coercion and nonconsensual psychiatry should be outlawed. Civil commitment and the insanity defense should be outlawed. Hopefully more individuals will encourage politicians to outlaw psychiatric coercion. Hopefully more individuals will help to hasten the abolition of psychiatric coercion (nonconsensual psychiatry).
As aforementioned, there is a United States federal government organization named the National Institute of Mental Health (NiMH). Mental health is a metaphor, since our minds themselves are intangible and cannot be literally sick nor ill. So there is a government agency devoted to a metaphor. Does “mental health” equal happiness? There is a term commonly used currently which is “behavioral health”. Behaviors cannot be healthy nor unhealthy in a literal sense. A behavior cannot be a disease. Humans are moral agents with intentions and freewill. Psychiatry is dehumanizing. Although they are both somewhat Orwellian terms, behavioral health is an even more Orwellian term than mental health.
Is the National Institute of Mental Health responsible for promoting “mental health” among Americans? Is someone who is “mentally healthy” happy and content with life? Can someone be miserable and have “mental health”? The terminology of “mental health” is a form of medicalization. According to psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, psychiatry medicalizes various problems in living. Psychiatry medicalizes economic problems, social problems, relationship problems, political problems, spiritual problems and so forth. As aforementioned, the primary paradigm of the highest paid “mental health professionals” (psychiatrists) is drugs and not infrequently coercion. There is a government agency that promotes medicalization of political, social, spiritual, economic problems, and so forth. The NiMH promotes psychiatry and is effectively a ministry of psychiatric propaganda. The NiMH should remove “mental health” from its organizational name so as to be less Orwellian.
If it is the responsibility of the United States Federal government to promote the happiness and emotional well-being of Americans, then perhaps the National Institute of Mental Health should be renamed The National Institute of Emotional Well-Being (NiEW). Mental health is a misused and abused metaphor. The idea of “mental health” is utilized to justify various psychiatric human rights abuses. Thinking in terms of “mental health” and “mental illness” has unintended consequences; medicalizing problems in living and using medicalized language in relation to human emotional distress can actually serve to obfuscate potentially solvable problems in living so as to increase the difficulty of and delay solving them. In his voluminous writings, psychiatrist Thomas Szasz compares the idea of mental illness (and implicitly mental health) to phlogiston theory. Szasz compares the theory of mental illness to phlogiston theory in the sense that both ideas seek to explain a phenomenon, and they both sort of do in a way that seems to make sense, yet both theories are ultimately wrong and hinder our understanding of truly understanding what the ideas are trying to explain.
Voters expect politicians to support “mental health” services. Americans think and speak in the medicalized language of “mental illness” and “mental health”. The terms “mental illness” and “mental health” are utilized to describe the state of an intangible entity, the mind, and are therefore both metaphors. Literalness and metaphors are two distinct and separate ideas. Brains can literally be sick/diseased/ill, because the brain is a physical tangible non-abstract object. Mind, like spirit, is an intangible non-physical entity/idea. Except for a small number of exceptions (like some neurological diseases treated by neurologists), there are no objective tests for any of the “mental disorders” listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The DSM is also sometimes known as the psychiatric Bible; this is fitting since psychiatrists have faith in the subjective ideas presented in this stigmatizing and mendacious book.
Humans should think more clearly about psychiatry. According to psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, psychiatry is scientistic rather than scientific. Voluntary consensual psychiatry should remain legal. Psychiatric coercion and nonconsensual psychiatry should be outlawed. The National Institute of Mental Health should be given a less Orwellian name if we want to have a government organization in charge of attempting to help maximize the emotional well-being of American citizens. It will be good once more Americans and humans on Earth can properly identify and debunk psychiatric lies and psychiatric propaganda.
