World of Psychology

Mental Health Consumerism = Antipsychiatry?

By John M Grohol PsyD
July 29, 2006

As I’m going through the past few months of accumulated email (yes, it’s been that kind of summer!), I ran across a submission about a month ago pointing me to a blog entry over at The Trouble with Spikol (also mentioned in a recent blog entry by one of my co-bloggers).

It’s a great entry that rips into a Psychiatric Services article, published by the American Psychiatry Association. You’d think that the peer review process might have found some of the same flaws (some of which are blindingly obvious to anyone who has spent any amount of time actually with consumer groups) that Spikol calls out, but it once again shows the weakness and inadequacy of this process.

The humiliating logical fallacies the authors of the Psychiatric Services article, David J. Rissmiller and Joshua H. Rissmiller, engage in are shameful. The first and most serious fallacy is called poisoning the well, and it’s a popular fallacy to employ in argument when your argument is weak from the start. By using the loaded, emotional word “antipsychiatry” to describe a supposed historical perspective of “mental health consumerism,” they’ve set the stage. Are people who search for and want to educate others about alternative, less invasive “treatments” than electroshock therapy (ECT) really “antipsychiatry”?

Being “anti-” anything is seen as a negative. That is why the pro-life side of the abortion debate in America redefined the original terms — “pro-life” sounds a lot better than “anti-abortion.” And the media bought it. You very rarely hear a news article or announcer discuss an “anti-abortion” advocate or rally.

By poisoning the well up-front, they’ve already set the stage for the argument that this is their field under attack by forces lined up against them.

Another fallacy employed by the article’s authors is guilt by association. By lumping together peaceful, educational groups and extremists who would like to see the end of psychiatry as we know it, the authors place the strong suggestion that these groups all stand for the same thing. They do not. If this were a serious article that examined the detailed and nuanced evolution of mental health consumerism, the authors would not only recognize this distinction, they would call it out and discuss it.

Spikol hit it right on the money and it is sloppy academic articles of this nature that provide future evidence of belief for the psychiatric profession. It’s a shame, because the mental health consumer movement deserves better treatment and attention.


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3 Comments to
“Mental Health Consumerism = Antipsychiatry?”

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On Sept 8,2005 RN:Mark Samuel was sentenced to five years in Jail with all but two years suspended,having been convicted in January 2004 of unlawful sexual contact with a 6 year-old girl . Mark Samuel counseled the girls mother. when the counseling ended , the three became friends attending family fuctions together. The violations occurred during sleepovers at the Nurses residence during the summer of 2003. Mark Samuel has been released from prison and is now at risk to the community of North Bay Ontario Mark Samuel emyployed 2007 for Assertive community treatment Team North Bay, ON
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It’s a great entry that rips into a Psychiatric Services article, published by the American Psychiatry Association.

The humiliating logical fallacies the authors of the Psychiatric Services article, David J. Rissmiller and Joshua H. Rissmiller, engage in are shameful. The first and most serious fallacy is called poisoning the well, By using the loaded, emotional word “antipsychiatry” to describe a supposed historical perspective of “mental health consumerism,” they’ve set the stage. Are people who search for and want to educate others about alternative, less invasive “treatments” than electroshock therapy (ECT) really “antipsychiatry”?

Being “anti-” anything is seen as a negative. That is why…the abortion debate in America redefined the…terms — “pro-life” sounds a lot better than “anti-abortion.” And the media bought it. You very rarely hear a news article or announcer discuss an “anti-abortion” advocate or rally.

By poisoning the well up-front, they’ve already set the stage for the argument that this is their field under attack by forces lined up against them.

Another fallacy employed by the article’s authors is guilt by association. By lumping together peaceful, educational groups and extremists who would like to see the end of psychiatry as we know it, the authors place the strong suggestion that these groups all stand for the same thing. They do not.

Spikol hit it right on the money and it is sloppy academic articles of this nature that provide future evidence of belief for the psychiatric profession. It’s a shame, because the mental health consumer movement deserves better treatment and attention.

I disagree with some of this, the way you frame something is important, political historical data about something is also important, and the movement, well that is not antipsychiatry in most forms it takes, it is give it to us, but do it to us our way, that can’t ever be as long as it is seen the way it is as something that is a medical scientific thing when there is no valid or conclusive or reliable evidence for that being the case, no matter who says what! And it isn’t feasible to call the ones that are antipsychiatry less peaceful then those that are for psychiatry and do it your way tactics, that is one of the problems with your theory here. How does it make it better for anyone?

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 29 Jul 2006

 


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