Ms. Allen, a retired nurse, was known for speaking her mind about mental health issues and National Guard activity in the region of the state where she lives. In an attempt to acquire her property, which includes two lucrative oil wells, her brother obtained a court order that she undergo "psychiatric evaluation", and the cops served the order with a side of teargas. The media portrayed Ms. Allen as a "mentally unstable" recluse, largely because she's got a gun and ain't afraid to use it.

Things haven't changed much since the 1800s, when composer Hersilie ("Memoirs of a Madwoman") Rouy was institutionalized by her brother so he could get his hands on the fortune her stepdad had left her. One of the directors at Hersilie Ruoy's institution, Ulysse Trelat, came up with the label ''folie lucide''. If you had a diagnosis of insanity, behaving in a perfectly lucid, coherent manner was in itself considered proof of insanity! If you wrote anything (letters, a diary) about your condition or the way you were being treated at a mental institution, that was also proof of insanity. Writing was very, very bad, especially if it was complaints about the mental health system. And especially if women were doing it.

You can read about Hersilie in Scenes of Seduction: Prostitution, Hysteria, and Reading Difference in Nineteenth Century France. Much of the chapter about her is online here at Google preview.

Nelly Bly: Ten Days in a Mad House Written in 1887 by one of the first woman newspaper reporters. Nelly pretended to be psychotic and had herself committed to a supposedly humane facility. This is her inside story.
Ten Days in a Mad House Audiobook at Gutenberg.

Judi Chamberlain: Confessions of a Noncompliant Patient "I was presumed not to be able to take care of myself, not to be able to make decisions in my own best interest, and to need mental health professionals to run my life for me. For this total disregard of my wishes and feelings, I was expected to be appreciative and grateful. In fact, anything less was tacked as a further symptom of my illness..."

Camille Claudel.

Pat Crossman, LCSW: The Etiology of a Social Epidemic Explores the origins of so-called "attachment disorder" and the brutal, sometimes fatal "therapies" designed to cure it. (You may also want to read Kids Come First, exposing abusive "coercive holding therapy".) But Crossman goes further, exploring the origins of psychoanalysis and the place of psychiatry as a tool of social control.

For example, she reveals this interesting fact: Did you know that many of the women exhibited to medical students in Victorian times by psychiatric superstar J.M. Charcot, the father of "hysteria", were professional dancers and actresses who knew exactly what they were doing and were faking it for money? One of these grande hysterie clients, Marie (Blanche) Wittman (the lady in the famous painting!), revealed it all, but it's been hushed up.

"What the picture doesn’t show is that, on the opposite wall, the one the patient could see? Was a representation, carefully charted, of the stages of a hysterical fit. In other words, a roadmap of exactly what she should do. And do it she must, because the only way to make all the studies stop was to play along. It was a stage show, with the women as the entertainment, and the one person who doesn’t seem to have figured that out was Dr. Charcot." From an essay about Augustine and Charcot by the author of The Mothers' Handbook.

There was a lot more to the goings-on at the Salpetriere than the psych-boys' club would have you believe.

Even legitimate clients at the institute were encouraged -- or coerced -- to put on a show for the camera. Many of them were not mentally ill, others were -- but all found they got better treatment if they played up for the doctors.

The pictures of 'Augustine' are typical of what the doctors wanted to see. Note that these were taken in the 1870s, when it took about fifteen minutes to take a picture. Augustine is not having a fit here. She is posing like an artist's model. The ultimate in "patient compliance"!

L.J. Davis: An Encyclopedia of Insanity Brilliant article on the idiocies perpetuated by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Did you know you can be sent up for shyness, bad handwriting or drinking too much coffee? Also see Criticism of America's Diagnostic Bible by Michael J. Conner -- this gives you more info as to how the DSM is used and misused. This is why so many doctors are abandoning the damn thing.

Schizophrenia: Take These Broken Wings

Joanne Greenberg (author of I Never Promised You A Rose Garden) and Catherine Penney (author of Dante's Cure: A Journey Out of Madness ) speak out about their schizophrenia and recovery in this controversial independent film by Daniel Mackler. It is about recovering from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses without medication. Today, this is supposed to be impossible, but Greenberg's real-life doctor, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, believed that schizophrenics often simply needed someone to listen to them. A handful of doctors today still believe this.

Buy the film here

Other film clips by Daniel Mackler:
Take These Broken Wings Trailer
What Causes Schizophrenia?
Therapy Promoting Full Recovery
Hearing Voices Interview with Dr. Lloyd Ross

Dr. Seth Farber Author of Madness, Heresy & the Rumor of Angels, he believes modern psychiatry is itself a delusional belief system and looks toward a future of human understanding and mutual harmony.

P. Guillaume: The Double Bind This is, at gut level, about crazymaking behavior. Addresses exactly what happens in emotional abuse, and suggests that not all schizophrenia is biochemical but can be caused by the crazymaking behavior of others. One of the hard lessons we personally have learned in life is that other people can make you feel crazy. See also Al Siebert's article below.

Jayme's is now a blog with many videos. Scroll down, she has a lot of links to other very useful blogs and sites.

Linda Logan: The Problem With How We Treat Bipolar Disorder When people really do have mental illness, they can feel their true self has disappeared. Medications and hospitalizations can make this feeling worse. Why doesn't modern psychiatry take this into account? This is from a woman who was rich and lucky enough to actually get good treatment in a hospital, but says: "the self is rarely mentioned in treating patients who suffer from mental illnesses that damage their sense of who they are. If anything, it seems that psychiatry is moving away from a model in which the self could be discussed." Read the comments, especially those from Clare and "VSR".

Marian: Different Thoughts Blog about society and why normal human behaviors are termed psychiatric disorders. Explores alternative help for people in real pain or trouble.

Mad in America Founded by Robert Whitaker and colleagues. A webzine about science, psychiatry and (actual) social justice. "Mad in America’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care in the United States (and abroad). We believe that the current drug-based paradigm of care has failed our society, and that scientific research, as well as the lived experience of those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, calls for profound change."

Mindfreedom Used to be Dendron. Internet human rights mailing list: Free, one-way, low-volume. Mostly, Mindfreedom helps people who have been condemned to electroshock therapy against their consent, but it is not just for that. To subscribe, go here.

Russell Crowe's film A Beautiful Mind: here's a summary of why the film is a pack of lies bordering on slander. Click here for a true-life film narrated by the real John Nash describing his real experience of schizophrenia. You should also read the original book, A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar.

Julia Rawe: When Colleges Go On Suicide Watch Time Magazine. Universities are forcing students to "get help" or leave school, whether they actually have a mental disease or not. Some who are really having difficulty say they're helped by this, but others say it's all about the lawsuits.

Audrey Shomo: Manifesto of a Noncompliant Mental Patient Why do people automatically assume that all mentally ill people need medication? Because that's what they've been told to expect.

Al Siebert: Psychiatry's Lack of Insight: Four Double-Binds That Place Patients in a Living Nightmare Like P. Guillaume's article above, this is a list with examples of common practices that make clients feel crazy, whether or not they really are. How would you feel if somebody did this to you? See also The Double Bind, from the ToxicDrums website.

Thomas Szasz Is the mental health industry merely another tool of social control? Is all this psychiatric malarkey just an excuse to marginalize people who are different, exiling them from mainstream society? How much of what we call "treatment" is helpful to genuinely troubled people, and how much is hate crimes?

You can read The Szasz Blog for up-to-date information.

John H. Richardson: What if all drugs were legalized? That's all drugs? Just decriminalize and regulate them instead? Did you know this has recently been done in Mexico? Did you know that a plan to legalize marijuana was actually suggested by a top aide to President Bush?

Sent to the Asylum: The Victorian Women locked up for stress, post natal depression and anxiety They used to diagnose you from a photograph. And this is when epilepsy was a mental disease. At least they've made some progress.

What Doctors Don't Tell You: Why I Am No Longer A Psychiatrist. By an anonymous contributor. "I am no longer a psychiatrist. I renounce it because I believe cruelty is at the core of the profession."

DSM-5 Reform

Some Psychiatrists Distancing Themselves from Profession as Drug Company Dominance Makes Some Shrinks Very Rich, and Many Patients Over Drugged Robert Whitaker, investigative reporter and author of Anatomy of an Epidemic, observed, "This is like the King of Psychiatry saying that the discipline has no clothes."

NIMH: "Clients deserve better" National Institutes of Mental Health announce reform plans and abandonment of the DSM. They ask for mental disorders to be diagnosed more objectively using genetics, brain scans that show abnormal patterns of activity, and cognitive testing. Let's hope they bring back talk therapy along with these.

Psychiatry Divided as NIMH denounces DSM

From Salon: Psychiatry's Last Stand Details about the Joseph Biederman scandal which made a new DSM edition necessary.

From Atlantic Monthly: The Real Problems with Psychiatry Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg contends that the DSM is not scientific but a product of unscrupulous politics and bureaucracy.

From Psychology Today: Many psychiatrists are raising red flags about the DSM-5. "Given the power and influence of the DSM, will DSM-V include alerts to therapists about the many kinds of harm that can result solely from receiving just about any psychiatric diagnosis, and will it include concrete suggestions for ways that therapists can help minimize the harm that can result?" (Part 2 here.) -- Also from Psych Today, DSM-5 - Living Document or Dead on Arrival?

Open Letter from the DSM-5 Reform Coalition

From England, The British Psychological Society Criticises DSM-5 Will Meek, Ph.D. summarises a new paper which says: "The Society is concerned that clients and the general public are negatively affected by the continued and continuous medicalisation of their natural and normal responses to their experiences; responses which undoubtedly have distressing consequences which demand helping responses, but which do not reflect illnesses so much as normal individual variation." Entire text on line here.

Rob Waters: Therapists Revolt Against Psychiatry's Bible “This has become a grassroots movement among mental health professionals, who are saying we already have a national problem with overmedication of children and the elderly, and we don’t want to exacerbate that." (See his article on "Medicating Aliah", below.)

Alix Spiegel, The Dictionary of Disorder Story of Robert Spitzer and how he revamped the DSM, turning it into the gigantic tool of social control it is today.

Meanwhile, yet another bogus diagnosis, "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder", has been approved for the DSM-5. Another excuse to put nonconforming kids on antipsychotics.

Medication as Legalized Child Abuse

Always ask yourself as you read these stories:
who benefits?

In Defense of the Wild Child: The "Self-Regulation" movement and how American schools fail nonconformist kids. "'We’re saying to the kid, "You're broken. You’re defective," says Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill and Anatomy of an Epidemic . 'In some ways, these things become self-fulfilling prophesies.'"

The truth about ADHD "What the team found was that high rates of ADHD diagnoses correlated closely with state laws that penalize schools when students fail. Nationally, this approach to education was enacted into law in 2001 with No Child Left Behind, which makes funding contingent on the number of students who pass standardized tests."

Gardiner Harris: Psychiatrists, Children, and the Drug Industry's Role From the New York Times. A good introductory article to the issue -- but see the articles below for the real horror story.

David Healy & Joanne LeNeury, Pediatric Bipolar Disorder, an object of study in the creation of an illness (PDF!) See, if the kid throws a fit or has a lot of exuberant behavior, it's not the parents' fault, it just means they're being a kid mentally ill! Put'em on meds!

Teen Screen Exposed Even the Amen Hallelujahs don't like Teen Screen!

The Rebecca Riley Story So, let's see. You have a brutally abusive father who's violating a restraining order placed on him by his wife after he molested his stepdaughter, you have his three under-12 children in daily contact with him, he's beating the crap out of his son in front of witnesses, and the kids are the ones who are diagnosed as mentally ill and put on cocktails of antipsychotics and tranquilizers. While social workers and DCFS look the other way, because the psychiatrist had them convinced the medications and amounts were appropriate. If the youngest girl had not died, we'd never have known about this. Much more at Everyone Failed Rebecca... This was a case of chemical assault that ended in a child’s death. And the doctor was held totally unaccountable.

Here's two more hypermedicated children who are lucky to be alive. For years, millions of people believed what "medical experts" told them about this incredibly photogenic, gifted little girl. With her devastating mental illness documented and "explained" in thousands of hours of video by her parents, the media enshrined the lie and the public swallowed it whole: she was "born schizophrenic", evidenced by her worldbuilding and invented language, imaginary friends and fascination with numbers. She was Jani Schofield - the "Schizophrenic Girl" whose heartbreaking story was covered in the national press and on Dr. Phil and Oprah. Her real story, and her brother's, are being covered at Schofield-Cabana Abuse on Reddit. If you have Facebook, subscribe to The Schofield Lie. Jani is almost a legal adult and perhaps will tell her own story in the future. Meanwhile we're leaving these links up. (much more here) Her father openly admits to beating her, starving her, taking her toys away, saying he "didn't know what else to do with her" -- "We did EVERYTHING we could to try and break her." Her crime against humanity? She was a highly intelligent, possibly autistic and synaesthestic child who was shaken as a baby by both parents. While they were drunk. (If her mother was drinking during her pregnancy, Jani could have fetal alcohol syndrome.) Her father also admits to beating his wife in front of Jani, and trying to push her out of a car. And they wonder why she was violent? She's brain-damaged. Since she was a toddler, she'd been on a cocktail of medications that would gag a maggot. They wanted her to be psychotic. They wanted her to be labeled schizophrenic. Videos of Jani with her parents indicate she was encouraged to exaggerate her actual behavior, including harming herself, so she can be admitted to a psychiatric ward. And having brought Jani "relatively under control", the parents turned their attentions to her younger brother Bodhi. Conveniently, he was supposed to have "severe autism and intermittent explosive disorder". The The Schofields' behavior seemed designed to drive their son insane. By this time, it would be more surprising if Bodhi Schofield didn't have some kind of mental and emotional problem. Meanwhile, the "Jani Foundation", created in 2009, collected millions in donations, which the (unemployed) parents used to pay rent and bills instead of donating to the charities they claimed it was for. They also used it to pay for their LA Talk Radio program "Bipolar Nation", until LA Talk Radio shut it down. 2020: Jani Schofield 2020 - Someone finally blew the whistle on Michael and Susan Schofield. They have been indicted for fraud, although not child abuse. The Schofields have divorced, and both Bodhi and Jani were removed in March 2019 and are detoxing. They are off all medications and show no signs of schizophrenia or psychosis.

Ann Bauer: Psychiatric Meds Drove My Autistic Son Crazy Be very, very careful about any doctor who says your autistic child or young adult needs to be on psychiatric medication. She describes what medication did to him in more detail here. She doesn't mention it in these articles -- we found it in 'The Body Electric' which had been carefully buried and almost unreferenced in Salon -- but the only way her son could get even partial relief is to undergo periodic electroshock treatments. Look up neuroleptic toxicity and neuroleptic malignant syndrome for some hard facts. Although she realizes her son may not have been autistic at all and resists being a typical "autism parent" and has an excellent takedown of the 'autism parent' type here, Bauer or the doctors she was working with might have "overlooked" that the so-called autistic catatonia her son was diagnosed with could have been caused by medications he was already taking. These plus his increasing frustration with a system that doesn't support adult autistics, might also have caused the uncontrollable violent behavior he himself was repelled by, in his late teens and early twenties.

Andrew Bauer died alone in his apartment on November 4, 2016. His death was investigated by police and doctors. No cause was found. He was 28.

More autism links below.

Peter S. Breggin: The New Child Abuse: The Psychiatric Diagnosing and Drugging of Our Children

Thom Hartmann: ADHD: Whose 'Order' Is Being Disordered? A Jewish educator reveals his idea that so-called ADHD is not a disorder but a set of behaviors and temperament more suited to hunting than either farming or just sitting still in class being obedient little robots. He also reveals the presence of old-time eugenic ideas in modern psychology, where respected doctors talk about wiping out those with "undesirable behavior". A complex, thoughtful piece. Don't miss it. See also Hunter vs. farmer hypothesis at Wikipedia.

Dawn McKeen: The outer limits of schizophrenia treatment Treating children for schizophrenia before they show any signs of it? Ain't modern psychiatry great?

Michael Morford: Drug up your kid today! This just in: Prozac is a better treatment than talking to your kid. Isn't life fabulous?!: The medical establishment is obsessed with stuffing kids full of nerve-deadening chemicals as a solution not only to ordinary life problems, but normal child and adolescent behavior.

Alan Schwarz: Attention Disorder or Not, Children Prescribed Pills to Help in School Here's a doctor who prescribes Adderall and other "uppers" just to boost kids' performance in school. "He calls the disorder 'made up' and 'an excuse' to prescribe the pills to treat what he considers the children’s true ill — poor academic performance in inadequate schools." A child psychiatrist quoted in this article says we are putting children in "chemical straitjackets".

Also by Alan Schwarz, Drowned in a Stream of Prescriptions One young man's story.

Alan Schwarz: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder "This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels." That's Keith Conners, the doctor who DESCRIBED AND NAMED ADHD and has spent his life fighting to help children who really have it.

“We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.” Dr. Michael Anderson, quoted in Alan Schwarz's this New York Times article in which he also states that ADHD is a "made-up" disease.

Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America , believes that the drugs themselves cause mental illness. Are Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs Causing the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America? April 2010 interview with investigative reporter Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America, about the dramatic increase in mental illness disability and its surprising cause. You may also want to read Psychiatric Drugs - Chemical Warfare on Humans which is another interview with him in Natural News August 27, 2005.

Gary G. Kohls, writing for AlterNet, reviews Whitaker's books in How Psychiatric Drugs Made America Mad.

Duff Wilson: Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young: The Kyle Warren Story. "All I had was a medicated little boy ... I didn’t have my son. It’s like, you’d look into his eyes and you would just see just blankness." Why? His first doctor decided he was manic-depressive, psychotic, and autistic. His current doctor says it was family turmoil and language delays: "He didn't have people to listen to him."

Tony Zizza: NAMI Is Dead Wrong On Mental Health Screening The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill pushes increased mental health screening for children without parental consent, including as a part of routine health exams for pre-schoolers. What they don't tell you is how much in bed NAMI is with the drug industry. (You should stay away from NAMI anyway as it's partly a front for child molesters.)

Be Informed!

Prozac Truth Be fully informed when taking any of the new psychiatric medications, or especially putting a child or loved one on them. Learn how to taper off medications safely.

Psychdata Blog reprints news articles from the U.S., England and Australia concerning the use and misuse of psychiatric drugs.

Psychiatric Drug Facts By Peter R. Breggin, M.D. What your doctor may not know about how psychiatric drugs really work, adverse drug effects on the brain and mind, the role of the FDA, drug company practices, recent medical and legal developments, electroshock and psychosurgery.

Ritalin Death: The Truth Behind ADHD A grieving father now dedicated to informing the public of the dangers of psychiatric meds. Pay particular attention to the page revealing the facts behind what so-called experts tell you about ADHD. Also check out ADHD Fraud, especially if you or your child are labeled.

Along these same lines, please read Christopher Lane's article When Drug Trials Go Terribly Wrong - Lessons from a Bereaved Mother. Lane is a Victorian scholar familiar with the use of psychiatry as social control at that time. He is the author of Shyness, How Normal Behavior Became an Illness (amazon.com link below).

Also from Christopher Lane, Side Effects May Include... His take on the DSM-5 as a marketing tool to sell psychiatric drugs.

Eliezer Sobel: The Placebo Effect Can Kill You - Even your psychiatrist may not know this about your drugs. Published on April 10, 2010 in Psychology Today. Includes a look at The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch.

Click here to find out what YOU can do about these issues, to protect yourself and your family.

"Isn't there some natural way to help people who really are mentally ill?" Yes, there are. Check out the Freedom Center, a detailed resource of natural help for the mentally ill. Here are more Alternatives to the Traditional Mental Health System.

Here's a researcher who believes that vitamins can help some forms of schizophrenia.

Multiple Personality

Of course there really is such a thing. We're multiple, we know plenty of multiples, both trauma-based and naturally occurring groups. That doesn't mean that the psychiatric industry hasn't misused and exploited multiplicity for their own ends. It's no wonder so many people believe there's no such thing as multiple personality and that the doctors made it up!

Even the diagnosis called Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD/DID) is viewed by many trauma survivors who are multiple as a disempowering insult to survivors. If it did come from child abuse, seems like the abusers would be the ones with the disorder, not us.

Why do abused people have to be called disordered? Why can't it just be called "multiple personality"? Others can be called "traumatic stress" or "bipolar" or "schizophrenic" -- why does the "disorder" have to be added on? This feels like an insult to rape victims. They need to be empowered, and understand how their behaviors are a way to survive and heal. Healing can take a long time, but the stages can be temporary. Gay people got power from psychiatric labels of disorder. They aren't called disordered anymore. Rape survivors should get this power too. It's often the abusers that want the disorder label applied, because it discredits their victims. - Irene, commenting on NPR news story, 2007-10-03.

Emily's Story Therapists experiment on known multiples without their permission. Please write to us if anything like Emily's story has happened to you.

Cynthia Hanson: Dangerous Therapy An indepth look at the Bennett Braun scandal, from Chicago Magazine.

Douglas Mesner: Real-Life United States of Tara Doctor, Dr. Colin Ross: Alleged Malpractice If anything, Ross is worse than Braun, and is still treating clients and running his own private institutions.

Mark Pendergrast: Multiple Personalities and Satanic Cults This is from his book Victims of Memory and describes Judith Peterson's brutalizing "therapy".

Read the first chapter of Joan Acocella's Creating Hysteria here. Acocella used Pendergrast's book extensively as a reference source.

Ann Zimmerman: Cult of Madness The Martha Hurt / Stephen Ash story. "...It was clear these doctors did to me exactly what they said my family did. They isolated me, fed me lies, and made me crazy." Some more background on Colin Ross here: he's finally being exposed as the Mr. Tinfoil Hat Guy we always knew he was. Even while still treating clients.

Cult Education: The Rick Ross Archive Ross keeps track of therapy/ counseling organizations, and self-improvement and human potential groups connected with business, not just $cientology and other religious organizations. He has an important section on abusive/controlling relationships, (and yes, some therapists fit this description), including many more books that might help. There is such a thing as a "cult" of one person with no religion involved. Ross worked with Margaret Singer on this.

Click here to read a $cientology watch blog.
Click here for current $cientology articles on the Village Voice.
More $cientology front groups here to watch out for.

Anti-Psychiatry (Non-$cientology) Links

Say No To Psychiatry Why psychiatry in general is detrimental. Gives you some background. A little soapboxy at times but who can blame the guy.

Stop Bad Therapy This site endorses the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which we do NOT. We link to them only because they carry valuable information which might be helpful, including a full account of the Bennet Braun mess and why The Courage to Heal isn't the greatest book in the world.

The Function of Expert Evidence in Differentiating Real from Fabricated Sexual Abuse Claims Some of the most unlikely cases turn out to be real; some of the most likely ones turn out not to be. Read this if you have or believe in recovered memories or if you doubt that recovered memories could ever be real.

Lesbian Feminist Community Therapist Escaped Official Disbarment for Unethical Sex An eye-opening scandal! Has this happened to you?

Roger Brown's Articles This sociologist has written a series of articles exposing organized crime and corruption in private and public child-saving institutions including Child Protective Services.

Cults, Toxic Friendships,
Malignant Narcissism

Again, Rick Ross on abusive relationships is extremely valuable. You are not alone, and you are not stupid or naive.

My Personal Experience With False Memories By Anthony Temple. Speaking of cult awareness, read this one.

If This Has Happened To You Jay Young's expanded blog entry on toxic manipulation and malignant narcissists. Such people exist in many walks of life, not just psychiatry. There is such a thing as a cult of one person.

How To Start A Cult:

(Brought to our attention by Negativland's "Over the Edge" radio program on KPFA, hosted by KRob on 10-10-2016. Thanks!)

Before you decide that we are pro-FMSF, click here.

Autism

. . . ... ...

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network If you are autistic, or a family member or friend who simply wants to learn more about autism and discover how you can be a helpful ally, there are several ways that you can get involved with ASAN’s advocacy activities.

The Autism Acceptance Project (Keep checking back, they're updating it) See also The Joy Of Autism, the blog of the AAP's founder.

Autism Appreciation Frank L. Ludwig's site. "Autism is not only a natural but an indispensable part of human neurological diversity. If it weren't for autistics, human evolution would be unthinkable. Therefore autism should not merely be accepted, it should be appreciated. These are the pieces I have written on this topic." Don't miss The Silenced Voice of Carly Fleischmann.

No Autistics Allowed Explorations in discrimination against autistics. What are non-autistic people deciding for autistic people? Pay particular attention to Bettelheim's Worst Crime: Autism and the Epidemic of Irresponsibility. OF INTEREST TO ABUSE SURVIVORS.

An Open Letter To Parents Considering Intensive Behavioral Therapy For Their Child With Autism Courtesy of Virgynia King. A stinging indictment of behaviorist methods. Applies to all children -- not just autistics. If you feel your child needs therapy, please consider play therapy or some other non-behaviorist method.

Autism, A Way of Life (Archived site) Examines subtle and overt brutality against autistics in everyday life. You may ask, how can a person live that way? Well, tons of people do, every day. You probably have autistic co-workers. Even your boss might be autistic and you just don't know it.

Five Steps Toward Autism Acceptance by Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity.

Autistics Speak:

Ballastexistenz is a good place to start. Thoughtful and passionate blog about autism and disability.

How About Not Curing Us? The New York Times interviewed students at the Aspie School, Boiceville, New York. Support non-ABA schools that help autistic children get an education (not "therapy" or "intervention") without killing what they are.

Celebrating Autism NPR story on how autistics seek acceptance, not cures.

A three-day conference FOR autistic people -- centred around autistic people’s needs, interests and sensitivities. 'It is not a disease, it is a way of life' Autscape, an event run by and for autistic people. It's the latest act of a burgeoning autism rights movement. Emine Saner reports on the campaign to celebrate difference, rather than make vain attempts to cure it.

Books and Films

Title: Creating Hysteria Author: Joan Acocella Publisher: Jossey-Bass 1999 ISBN:: 0787947946 An expanded version of a controversial article originally written for The New Yorker in 1998. It's an excellent book, makes excellent sense, is a powerful expose of the crap that goes on in the mental health industry including the disempowerment of women, and draws entirely the wrong conclusions. We recommend that EVERYONE who is in therapy (multiple or not) read this book. Read it if you've noticed your doctor trying to dredge up questionable traumatic memories. If you feel like you're being pressed to accept a certain view of yourself, your people (if you are multiple), and your childhood that doesn't fit the truth that YOU know, if you feel you're being pushed to think of yourself as multiple when you know you are not, then it's time to look for a different therapist. Many therapists still use the tactics described in this book. Acocella may be completely mistaken in saying multiplicity doesn't exist, but she has her facts straight about what goes on in the mental health industry.

Title: Talking Back To Prozac: What Doctors Won't Tell You Author: Peter and Ginger Breggin Publisher: St. Martin's 1995 ISBN: 0312956061 Amazon.com sez: It's time to take a closer look at this supposedly "safe" drug. Peter Breggin picks through the studies used to justify Prozac's safety, often uncovering flaws and shoddy science. He details the FDA approval process, including who on the panel was paid by whom. The key players and the details will surprise you.

Title: Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and their Families Author: Peter S. Breggin. M.D. Publisher: Springer, 2012 ISBN: 0826108431 This is a comprehensive guide to getting off psychiatric medications. Presents alternatives to today's drug-centered "therapy". Doctors as well as clients should have this as a reference book.

Title: They Say You're Crazy: How the World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's Normal Author: Paula J. Caplan Publisher: Perseus, 1995 ISBN: 0201407582 Amazon.Com Sez: In a disturbing insider's look at how the mental health establishment decides who is normal and who is "sick," [Caplan] charges that the DSM board's decision-making process, dominated by a handful of conservative white male psychiatrists, is arbitrary, condescending, profit-driven and riddled with personal biases and political consideration. Facile labeling of personality problems, she shows, can cause personal suffering as well as material harm because DSM categories figure prominently in who wins child custody, who gets hospitalized against their will and whose psychotherapy is covered by insurance.

Title: Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism Author: Paul Collins Publisher: Bloomsbury USA ISBN: 1582343675 This book by the father of a child who may or may not be on the "spectrum" is unique among parental accounts because of its lack of tragedy. Instead of seeing his son as a victim of a horribly devastating illness, Collins refused to buy into the pronouncements of alleged experts. He saw his son's unique reading and mathematical abilities and his love of computers over people as part of what was right about the kid. His own scholarly gifts and interests in historical trivia lead him to go back in time to find individuals who may or may not have been autistic, some of them now well known like Henry Darger, some all but forgotten. Even after Collins finally lets himself get talked into believing that his son needs some kind of help to improve his ability to communicate his needs if nothing else, he repeats his belief that it's a mistake to try to force we autistics into so called normality. Parents of other autistic kids tell Collins about how their kid went through the pink monkey routine when they were mainstreamed, but did fine in an autistic program or school where they're allowed to communicate in their own way. Simply letting autistic people be autistic is such a revolutionary idea -- and we believe it is a future reality. A review of Not Even Wrong, by Jay Young If you are interested in books by autistic authors, try Amanda Baggs' Autistic Authors Booklist.

Title: The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders Author: Peter Conrad Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN: 080188585X A scholarly examination of how the psychiatric industry, in cooperation with the mass media, furthered the notion of ordinary life problems as mental diseases that require lifelong medication.

Title: The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder Author: Allan V. Horwitz Publisher: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007 ISBN: 0195313046 By accident or design, modern psychiatry doesn't do enough to distinguish between actual depressive disorders and simple feelings of sadness, grieving, or even just the blues. Like shyness, the normal feelings and behaviors associated with sadness are being pathologized. One reviewer says: "When we take a medication to make ordinary sadness go away, are we perhaps postponing our reckoning with experiences of sadness until a later time when such experiences may catch up with us?"

Title: Making Us Crazy: DSM The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders Author: Herb Kutchins Publisher: Free Press, 1997 ISBN: 0684822806 Cogent information on the creation of the DSM as a political tool, mostly for the benefit of insurance companies. See also Encyclopedia of Insanity, by L.J. Davies.

Title: Shyness -- How Normal Behavior Became A Sickness Author: Christopher Lane Publisher: Yale 2007 ISBN: 0300124465 Remember the outcry when the cute little cartoons advertising Zoloft, an antidepressant (which can cause hallucinations and suicidal thoughts), were retooled to promote Zoloft's use as a medicine for social anxiety disorder? Or the Prozac commercial that magically changed the nametags at a cocktail party? First you invent the pill, right, then you invent the illness for which the pill is the cure -- you know that one. Using as his sources letters and memos written by mental health professionals, Lane builds a very convincing case for another instance of mental health industry fraud in which shy persons are told they have a mental disease. He also demonstrates how the public was fooled into thinking that these pills had been sufficiently tested and were relatively harmless.

Title: Against Therapy Author: Jeffrey Masson Publisher: Common Courage '93 ISBN: 1567510221 Please read this before opting for any kind of mainstream psychotherapy. You owe it to yourself and to your household, if any. 4/25/2002 6:58 a.m. I am really sorry about the 'Acrylic Fiber' results on this link! It has been fixed. Also by Jeffrey Masson: Final Analysis Did your shrink have to go through this? You have a right to ask'em.

Title: The Assault on Truth : Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory Author: Jeffrey Masson Publisher: Pocket ISBN: 0671025716 This is the book on the subject. Some of it will look very familiar to you if you've been abused in any way and then attempted to tell someone about it, only to be accused of false memory syndrome.

Title: A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality, and Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century Author: Jeffrey Masson Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux 1988 ISBN: 0374521239 Want to know the atmosphere and belief system in which modern psychiatry began? "Here translated for the first time are a series of shocking texts from the 19th century German psychiatric literature which, while almost completely unknown to modern readers, have had a devastating influence on attitudes toward women and children in the 20th century. The articles on the sexual "lies" and sexual "fantasies" of children were seminal, brutal and still resonate in today's literature, having taken a terrible toll on the intellectual ideas of modern psychiatry."

Title: For Your Own Good: Hidden Brutality in Child-Rearing, and the Roots of Violence Author: Dr. Alice Miller Publisher: Noonday ISBN: 0374522693 If you think you were never abused, read this book. Most people do suffer some form of physical, emotional or intellectual brutality in childhood. People who are acknowledged by society to have been abused tell horrific battle stories. Those of us who were "merely" slapped, spanked, and bullied as children are thus inclined to overlook our experiences as trivial. Most child abuse goes under the sobriquet of parental discipline. It affects our thoughts and feelings in later life, often in subtle ways we don't even notice. "It made me stronger" often simply means "it made me numb". This is not a whiny book, nor is it a Bradshaw feel-good hugfest. Child abuse exists and chances are you've been through it. Don't revisit it on your kids. And the next time someone says "You think you had it tough" and starts talking about some publicized extreme case, show them this book. This book is now available in its entirety on line. Click here to read For Your Own Good in free e-text. What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker Modern psychiatry is finally starting to get some sense about this.

Title: A Brilliant Madness (American Experience) Produced by: James E. Dunford Directed by: Mark Samels Publisher: PBS Home Video 2002 ASIN: B000067S10 Watch this instead of A Beautiful Mind. This is a much better documentary of what really happened, partly narrated by Nash himself.

Title: Bedlam: Greed, Profiteering, and Fraud in a Mental Health System Gone Crazy Author: Joe Sharkey Publisher: St. Martin's 1994 ISBN: 0312104219 Based on the award-winning "Profitable Addictions" series of investigative reports by the Houston Chronicle, this book explains the classic psychiatric insurance scam by focusing on one institution, Fair Oaks Hospital in Summit, New Jersey. Amazon says: "Many in the psychiatric profession have abandoned the severely mentally ill while private, investor-owned hospitals offer bounties of up to $1500 to clergy, teachers, police and "crisis counselors" for recruiting -- one Texas legislator uses the term "body-snatching" -- troubled adults, adolescents and children covered by insurance policies that pay up to $30,000 for inpatient care. In 1993, the fraud practiced by Medicare- and Medicaid-subsidized hospital chains such as National Medical Enterprises, with 86 psychiatric hospitals and revenues of $1.74 billion in 1991, was revealed by the FBI. The psychiatric industry, Sharkey warns in this chilling, well-documented account, is lobbying for a large slice of the health reform pie and continues to "create mental illness with advertising."

Title: The Myth of Mental Illness (Revised Edition, 1984) Author: Thomas Szasz Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0060911514 This book is forty years old (updated in '84) and is as relevant today as the day it came out. Szasz uses clear, simple language to expose the facts behind the stigmatization of those who are different. He insists that most of the things we call mental illnesses are merely variances in normal human behaviour, or normal emotional states like loneliness or insecurity that could be helped in ordinary ways. You may not agree with everything he says, but that's not why this book is listed here.

Title: Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences Author: Thomas Szasz Publisher: Harper Collins ISBN: 0815604602 Szasz restates his claims, presents his findings and explains his theories in plain language. He even gives you a bit on why he uses plain language. This book may be a better introduction than "The Myth of Mental Illness" if you've never read Szasz before. His theme is always the same: what we term mental illness is, by and large, behaviour which is explicable and reasonable given the society in which we live. Society's vigorous repression (through drugs, electroshock, etc.) of those who are different has become a form of institutionalised hate crime. We have come to regard the mental health industry as a kind of religion, as the standard against which normalcy is measured.

Title: The Medicalization of Everyday Life Author: Thomas Szasz Publisher: Syracuse Univ. Press ISBN: 0815608675 Once more, Szasz takes a look at our lives and times and how the pharmaceutical industry, in cooperation with the mainstream media and the legal system, have formed a government of social control. Medical and health decisions are made for us, "for our own good", every day. Find out what the system is doing to you and your kids -- how much of your life can you take back? Want more on Thomas Szasz? Visit http://www.szasz.com/.

Title: Coercion as Cure, A Critical History of Psychotherapy Author: Thomas Szasz Publisher: Transaction 2007 ISBN: 0765803798 Like Masson, Szasz pulls no punches. This is what happens when we presume that a certain select group of people know more about ourselves than we do. This is not about the misuse of psychiatry; this is about the idea that psychiatry itself is a misuse of social and political power. Want more on Thomas Szasz? Visit http://www.szasz.com/. You might also be interested in The Etiology of a Social Epidemic. Written by a social worker, it begins as an indictment of so-called "attachment disorder" and the brutal, sometimes fatal "therapies" designed to cure it. But she goes further, exploring the origins of psychoanalysis and the place of psychiatry as a tool of social control. More on toxic psychiatry here.

Title: Wounded Innocents Author: Richard Wexler Publisher: Prometheus, 1995 ISBN: 0-87975-936-4 "The war against child abuse has become a war against children. In the name of "child protection" innocent families are disrupted nearly two million times every year and thousands of children are needlessly torn from their parents and thrown into foster care--even as children in real danger are ignored. While the problem of child abuse is serious and real, journalist Richard Wexler charges that our solutions to the problem have actually made it worse--in fact, hurting the very children that they were intended to help." From the Lifting the Veil review. Read about the New York City Admin. for Children's Services and what they do to families in the name of "protecting the children".

Title: Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill Author: Robert Whitaker Publisher: Basic Books, 2001 ISBN: 0738203858 Medical journalist Robert Whitaker presents the history and hard facts about the mistreatment of the mentally ill, particularly schizophrenics. Terrible things have been done and are still being done and most people assume that "it's humane now". It isn't. Get this book and read it if you have a strong stomach.

You can do something!

Here are some links to give yourself a voice. What YOU can do to protect yourself and your family. If you know of a resource and it's not listed here, please email us!

Martha Ainsworth, How to Find a Good Therapist. how to evaluate the true competence and effectiveness of a therapist or counselor based on very simple evidence you can gather with your own eyes and ears. See also How to Diagnose a Therapist from the Veritas Programming archives.

Heal Online Among many other causes, these people have a huge amount of information on behavior modification centers and disciplinary "boot camps" for children. Scroll down to the pink section in the middle of the page. Pay particular attention to the section on Teens' and Children's Legal Rights.

More on boot camps for kids here - Torturing Teens for Fun and Profit Cruelty, sadism, injury & death in locked residential facilities for troubled youth

Making Advance Directives Work For You By Dr. Daniel Fisher. Describes the purpose of the Advance Directive legal form and how to create one. These are extremely useful for people in crisis to prevent involuntary hospitalization, restraints and drugging. Power2U is a great website if you either are mentally ill, or labeled as mentally ill.

International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. ICSPP is a network of people concerned with how mental health theories affect public policy, and all of us. Membership includes psychiatrists, psychologists, professional clinical counselors, social workers, educators, and lawyers as well as psychiatric survivors, concerned family members, and advocates. All are welcome.

No Force Coalition Canadian group dedicated to eliminating force in psychiatry. (Archived site, still worth reading.)

Anti-Psychiatry Coalition A nonprofit volunteer group consisting of people who feel we have been harmed by psychiatry. Many links, the truth all comes out. It's nothing but stigmatizing children, elderly people and anyone who is different, simply for profit and greed.

More on the anti-psychiatry movement here.

WaynHome UnclWayn / Le'me T'fa Cologne / Psychiatric Survivors Advocacy & Liberation Movement archived site. This only saved a few pages, not the entire site. We're doing what we can to find R. Wayne Smith and establish a more permanent web legacy.

Mindfreedom

The Rorschach Test The facts behind it, how to take it.

Did you know that anyone can take the MMPI and score it themselves? You can use this book: Development and Use of the Mmpi-2 Content Scales (MMPI-2 Monograph Series).

The Rorschach Test and How To Take It

Shoshanna's Psychiatric Survivor's Guide Hasn't been updated for a while -- still contains much valuable information.

Teens' and Children's Legal Rights

Empowering website for recovery from anorexia and eating disorders. We guarantee you it's unlike anything you have ever seen before, and it is very multiple-friendly.

Hearing Voices

Are some things labeled 'crazy' actually normal?

Hearing Voices? Don't Assume That Means Schizophrenia!

Hearing voices is not necessarily a sign of mental illness. People in non-western cultures have always known this, but a controversial British study has just now allowed mental health pros to begin to admit it! (Scroll down to "Finding Meaning in Voices")

Did you know that if you hear voices that bother you, talking back to them can help? Damn clever, these British people!

See also Living With Voices "The problem is not the voices but the relationship to the voices, and the goal is to help voice-hearers live with them as if they were sharing a cramped apartment with crabby roommates..."

Eleanor Longden: Why I Thank The Voices In My Head The author of Learning from the Voices in My Head describes her experience in a TED Talk.

Embracing The Dark Voices Within More on Dr. Rufus May and his unusual sessions with clients who hear voices. None of this will be any surprise to people who remember the psychiatric ideas of Freida Fromm-Reichmann (Dr. Fried of I Never Promised You A Rose Garden). Do you think things might be finally turning around?

The Enemy Within People who hear voices in their heads are being encouraged to talk back. They reject the traditional idea that the voices are a symptom of mental illness. "They recast voices as meaningful, albeit unusual, experiences, and believe that potential problems lie not in the voices themselves but in a person’s relationship with them." By William Lee Adams, in The Independent January 25, 2015.

It's happening in America now too, An Alternative Form of Mental Health Care Gains a Foothold by Benedict Carey, in the New York Times, August 8, 2016. This is all about anti-psychiatric, non-drug, non-diagnosis help for people who hear voices. They don't even use the words "therapy", "patient" or "treatment". If you have been told "you will be on psychiatric medication forever" and "you'll never have a normal life", read this.

Dr. May's website is here. He has the whole 'Doctor Who Hears Voices' video up.

Psychics Who Hear Voices Could Be On to Something The ways some “healthy voice hearers” cope might be able to help people with psychotic disorders. Questions the whole diagnosis dynamic.

Interview with Dr. Lloyd Ross Here is another therapist who believes medication is unnecessary for schizophrenia if the client and doctor are willing to work hard in intensive psychotherapy. The filmmaker believes that full recovery without medication is possible, and research shows that it actually is quite common. He adds, "Dr. Ross is a gifted and courageous psychologist and a leading member of ICSPP.

We've had "musical hallucinations" our entire life and thought nothing of it; it's a jukebox or radio station on near-continuous, with everything from Bob Marley to bagpipe tunes. It's supposedly associated with elderly people and with hearing loss. We are slightly hard of hearing, so maybe this has something to do with it. Neil Young hears and dreams music. He's been waked up by dreams of heavy rock music and the sound of his own guitar and once dreamed an entire set of songs. Read more about 'hearing music' with a lovely Oliver Sacks story.

Click here if you think we are pro-FMSF.
A word about $cientology: We are not $cientologists. The links on this page are to non-$cientologists deeply concerned about these issues. If you have documented proof that any of the authors we are linked to are $cientologists, email us with details and we will remove those links at once.
List of $cientology Front Groups

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