Anti-psychiatry

This is an area to learn more about anti-psychiatry. You will come away with a greater understanding of what anti-psychiatry is.

Research on anti-psychiatry can be coordinated here.

In some countries, the basis of psychiatry is that patients get diagnosed according to their own perceptions about self. They mostly do this by filling forms.

The same industry, also tells you that people in depression have distorted judgment. And that's contradictory.

How can diagnosis be based on the perceptions of individuals who are suffering from distorted judgment ?

For as long as there are no accurate scientific measurement devices that can diagnose individuals for mental illness, any such measurement that puts them in that category is no different from a stars reading.

In some cases, like trauma, an accurate diagnosis can be made. MRIs can show scars in the brain. But in a lot of cases, that 'luxury' is not available to the psychiatrist who relies more on forms and questioning. If questioning gave accurate results, no country would have to retain innocent prisoners for a dozen of years in order to get results.

## Discussion questions

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* Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz rejected being labeled as "antipsychiatry". Do you see psychiatrist Thomas Szasz as holding antipsychiatry views?
* How has the antipsychiatry movement grown and changed over the years?
* How might antipsychiatry evolve and grow in the future?

## Readings

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### Wikipedia

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* Anti-psychiatry
* Political abuse of psychiatry
* Involuntary commitment
* Involuntary treatment
* Liberation by Oppression
* Thomas Szasz
* Bonnie Burstow
* The Myth of Mental Illness

### External

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* The essay The Myth of Mental Illness
* Fostering a Culture of Empowerment in Mental Health Care \- Selections from the MindFreedom International Records (displays historical pictures of records of psychiatric survivors, including one picture that mentions "anti-psychiatry"

## Links to study

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### Anecdotal reports

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* How I recovered from a schizophrenia diagnosis by rejecting the disease model
* Write up

## See Also

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* Szaszian studies
* Critical psychology
* Critical psychiatry
* Should suicide be legal?
* Mad studies
* Autism spectrum/A few impertinent questions

## External links

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* The Bonnie Burstow Scholarship in Antipsychiatry
* The Dr. Bonnie Burstow Scholarship in Antipsychiatry [video]