Psychiatry Harming Artists
At the end of the 19th century, two developments took place in Europe, which would greatly influence the way many would view themselves and society. In 1879, in Leipzig, German professor of psychology Wilhelm Wundt announced with great authority, albeit with no scientific foundation, that man was no more than a soulless animal, a mere product of his environment. It was a statement that signaled the birth of experimental psychology and a new direction for psychiatry.
In the late 1890s, in Vienna, Austria, Sigmund Freud declared man to be a product of his childhood misfortunes and sexual hang–ups. Along with this equally unproven theory, which has since been largely discredited, came a new subject: psychoanalysis.
Wherever people have applied the fundamental concepts of these practices, society has experienced radical changes. Arts and entertainment are among the fields that have been greatly and adversely affected by them.
For years, psychiatrists and psychologists have labeled the creative mind as a mental “disorder,” mischaracterizing an artist’s “feverish brilliance” as a manic phase of craziness, or melancholic performances as depression. Vision was redefined as hallucination.
Regardless of psychiatry’s total lack of scientific authenticity, the more entrepreneurial and ambitious psychiatrists have discovered a captive market in the entertainment industry. They have courted and seduced creative individuals — and made billions in the process.
Psychiatrists and psychologists should no more be let loose to diagnose the problems faced by those working in the arts, than a butcher should be allowed to operate on people. The consequences are staggering and dangerous.
Some of the artists harmed by psychiatry
- Marilyn Monroe
- Vivien Leigh
- Judy Garland
- Ernest Hemingway
- Frances Farmer
- Billie Holiday
- Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys)
- Kurt Cobain
Normal people have problems that can and must be resolved without recourse to psychiatric drugs. Deceiving and drugging is not the practice of medicine. It is criminal.
Bear in mind that the drug “treatments” being prescribed are for “disorders” that are not physical illnesses—essentially, they are being prescribed for something that does not exist.
A person exhibiting signs of mental stress needs to receive a thorough physical examination by a competent medical—not psychiatric—doctor to first determine what underlying physical condition is causing the manifestation.
Any person falsely diagnosed as mentally disordered which results in treatment that harms them should file a complaint with the police and professional licensing bodies and have this investigated. They should seek legal advice about filing a civil suit against any offending psychiatrist and his or her hospital, associations and teaching institutions seeking compensation.
No one denies that people can have difficult problems in their lives, that at times they can be mentally unstable, subject to unreasonable depression, anxiety or panic. Mental health care is therefore both valid and necessary. However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen individuals and thereby society by restoring people to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well–being. Psychiatric drugs and psychiatric treatments are not workable.
