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?