While it's generally best not to get medical information from either
Hollywood celebrities or the mainstream media, the recent debate between
Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields illuminates two important First Amendment
issues: freedom of religion and freedom of the press. For these two
actors hew to two very different philosophical and religious views of
human nature and the mainstream press has decided to support one view
over the other.
While Mr. Cruise believes problems in living are not caused by
"mental illnesses" cured by psychiatric drugs, Miss Shields
believes the opposite. Unfortunately for Mr. Cruise, Miss Shields' views
have in effect become America's state religion, which is widely
supported by the mainstream media.
On NBC's "Today" show, Mr. Cruise said he had carefully
studied the history of psychiatry, that it is a pseudoscience, that
children are being put on psychiatric drugs against their will, without
their parents knowing the side-effects, that Ritalin is a drug available
on the street, that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, and
that psychiatric drugs do not cure anything but merely mask the real
problems.
All his statements went against the dominant ideology, as espoused
by "Today" host Matt Lauer. To get his points across,
Mr. Cruise had to interrupt Mr. Lauer, who kept framing the questions
within the framework of psychiatry.
After his expression of a heretical view, the mental health
movement's high priests promptly went into action. The
American Psychiatric Association and the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, both heavily funded by
drug companies, assured the public Mr. Cruise was wrong and the
mentally ill need and benefit from their daily psychiatric drugs.
The New York Times, which routinely publishes opinions favorable to
psychiatry, promptly published an op-ed by actress Brooke Shields, who
has just published a book blaming her loathing of motherhood on
"postpartum depression" and crediting antidepressants with
making her a happier mother.
However, neither the APA, nor NAMI, nor Miss Shields offered any
credible scientific evidence to support their claims that depressed
people have a bona fide chemical imbalance that is cured by
antidepressant drugs.
For in fact psychiatrists have yet to conclusively prove any
mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance of any kind. They have
yet to develop a single physical diagnostic test to prove anyone even
has a mental illness. And yet everyday in America people are either
forced, coerced or misled to take psychiatric drugs to solve their
personal problems.
Many psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors,
theologians and philosophers of all stripes have been criticizing the
shaky scientific status of psychiatry for decades — long before
the Scientologists.
Mr. Cruise came under personal attack from critics who refused to
address the issues. Instead of being depressed and taking
psychiatric drugs, Mr. Cruise was madly in love without taking any
drugs. Worse, he repeatedly expressed his love for Katie Holmes
in public. There must be something wrong with him, the media insinuated.
Instead of belonging to a mainstream religion, he belongs to
Scientology, which has studied psychiatry extensively. At a time when
the Catholic Church has been sending sexually abusive priests to
psychiatrists instead of to jail, Scientology may well be the only
religion to routinely criticize the use of force and fraud by
psychiatrists and the drug companies.
Joining with psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, author of
"The Myth of Mental Illness," Scientology founded the
Citizens Commission on Human Rights to help Americans who feel their
civil rights have been violated by the mental health movement.
Like Red-baiting of the 1950s, when people were silenced just by
calling them communists, the mental health movement has gotten good at
Scientology-baiting, and the media have jumped on the bandwagon.
Reporters or editors often ask me if I am a Scientologist when I
express views critical of psychiatry. Other non-Scientology critics
report similar experiences.
While we supposedly live in a country where freedom of religion is
a fundamental principle, this freedom has often not been extended to
minority religions or to nonbelievers.
In a country where mental health has become the exclusive
state religion, backed by mental health laws, police powers,
forced incarceration and drugging, it would be nice if the
free press supported freedom of religion, instead of stifling it.
Keith Hoeller is editor of the
Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry, Seattle, Wash.
Source:
http://www.washingtontimes.com
