WTF’s up with Psychiatry?

I’m a graphic designer by trade, someone who has more of an opportunity to wonder about aspects of the mind than many other professions may lend. I mean, when you wonder where that blockbuster of an idea came from and why you cannot have access to that process more often or as and when you want it – sets you thinking. You eventually try to find answers through hypothesis and trial and error. Data that you collect, you cross refer with existing publications or findings to see what the others make of it.

That being my general state of mind, more or less all the time you may imagine that I collect huge amounts of data on the subject. Everyone knows a so called ‘mad’ artist or designer. Perhaps it’s because the barriers of social conduct are much lesser in a bohemian art community that you sometimes see ’strange’ behavior from artists. Some of them actually take themselves so seriously that they need to visit a Psychiatrist. This is tremendously interesting to me because I just cannot comprehend it. I understand the role of advice in interpersonal communication, I understand character, personality and behavioral traits which is all common sense so far. But when the Psychiatrist claims to understand the patients mind based on behavior or other signals it confounds me. It’s like reading the state of a Car’s engine from the smoke emissions or sound… you can take an approximate call but you still need to get under the hood.

It is little surprise then that at least 4 different friends have had their lives significantly altered by the very fact that they have visited a Psychiatrist. Not only are they pumped with all kinds of chemicals, they are also brainwashed into thinking that they need constant help and that their ailments are visible, real and can only be altered by long and deliberate care. This fear psychosis maintains the pseudo profession and ensures that a single patient can be milked for as long as he possibly can before being referred to another colleague who does his bit.

When I have an opportunity to speak to these friends I pump them for information on their sessions… and I’m disgusted to learn that a lot of this counseling treatment involves mind alteration through drugs. I visited a friend recently at his home and I saw the result of the Psychiatrists liberal sharing of their son’s Psychological Jotsheet. The whole family now treats the kid like he’s spastic and cromagnon at the same time. They loudly talk about him in a third person’s point of view when he’s 2 feet from them. It’s pathetic. A ‘patient’ will continue to believe more and more in his ailment, find no visible events and create his own.

Here’s some simple logic. You don’t ask a drunkard if he’s drunk, you don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut. It’s commonsense. If you want to treat a person for ‘mental ailments’ then don’t tell him that. The Indian Ayurvedic physician of the earlier days were also Psychiatrists in a sense but that would be like calling them names. They would sometimes identify that a certain ailment could most effectively be cured by psychological means. (Whoops! I can’t seem to stop cursing!) They would then entirely mask their intent by giving the patient a treatment that cured the so-called ailment without the patient even realizing how it actually occurred. A useful tactic to ensure that the person does not attempt to ‘resolve’ how he was cured.

The so called ‘value’ of emotions is perhaps the largest tool in the psychiatrists toolbox and he or she is not afraid to use it to print those bills. And apparently these emotions are a direct reflection of the kind of social being that I am. Apparently. I’m called a smoker because I have a tendency to smoke, not that I am always smoking. Does loser and defeatist also come under the same category? I strongly believe that many so called emotions do in fact have a physiological basis in the body. What I mean is that emotions are side effects of bodily actions, AFTER the bodily actions are carried out and AFTER they are perceived. Which means that often there is just no way to deal with emotions by themselves because they are just the signals or outward manifestations that are not as important as the real cause.

At least Psychology draws the line at research and study, and no matter how flawed a research note can be updated. Psychiatry on the other hand uses little known data to cripple an otherwise healthy mind into thinking it is Dependant on another. If we can mirror people on a neuronal level then we can do amazing things to help people recover. Subtlety, understanding and most importantly never letting them know your true agenda will distract them long enough to recover. Constantly letting them know they are undergoing mental treatment only confirms their second-rate citizenship in society.

And these asswipes do just that!