Scientology's basic objection to psychiatry.

FAQ Page 7

The fundamental objection to the field of psychiatry is in the very definition of the term. “Psyche” means soul. Psychiatry has perverted the definition and has taken matters that for thousands of years have been considered part of the soul (and hence, religion) and treats them as physical. Psychiatry undermines and usurps all religions and, quite literally, the spiritual force that is Man. They do so by negating the spirit itself — claiming that all is physical and only so much matter and chemicals.

The Creed of the Church includes the following:

“That the study of the mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in nonreligious fields.”

And:

“We of the Church believe that the spirit can be saved and that the spirit alone may save or heal the body.”

Our objection to psychiatry comes from no desire to treat the insane. Our objections concern their mistreatment, which throughout psychiatric history has been littered with brutality. That is why the Church sponsors the Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights to expose and bring to an end the brutalizing of individuals in the name of “mental health.”

Over the years, the Citizens’ Commission has investigated and exposed many inhumane psychiatric practices and brought them to an end. From black slave labor camps in South Africa where mental hospitals “leased” blacks to white-run mining operations; to exposing “deep sleep” therapy in Australia where patients were drugged into a coma, without their knowledge or consent, and then repeatedly given electro convulsive therapy as a “cure” which resulted in 48 deaths in one hospital alone. Our exposé resulted in a parliamentary inquiry, criminal convictions and the outlawing of this “treatment.” Through decades of work CCHR also helped to legislate against the electric shocking of individuals without consent, and to end the use of forced restraints practiced through the ‘80s and ‘90s resulting in many deaths in psychiatric hospitals.

We do not believe people should be stigmatized with labels and “treated.” with “cures” that have no basis in fact or science and are brutal in the extreme. Through the years, psychiatry has invented various “cures” which after some time became so discredited that they are forced by public outcry to change their practices. In the early days of psychiatry, they literally used torture–like devices — restraint chairs and cages. Then it was ice baths and insulin shock. Then electro–convulsive therapy that caused broken teeth and bones, not to mention loss of memory and regression into a vegetable state. Next it was pre–frontal lobotomies with an ice pick driven through the eye socket. Today it is drugs. The reason is obvious. Drugs are more palatable to the public then 220 volts of electricity or an “apple–cored” brain and a lot more profitable — by billions of dollars a year.

While the psychiatrists at that time extolled the virtues of those earlier barbaric procedures, each time the outcry was too loud — they invented a new and improved cure.

In addition to the barbaric treatment of the insane, the new psychiatric push to label and stigmatize an entire nation and its youth with labels of mental disorders is equally frightening. The American Psychiatric Association’s psychiatric front groups would like to position the opposition to this practice as a “Scientology belief.” This is entirely inaccurate. If Scientologists are the most prominent names being mentioned, it is only because they have attempted to broadcast the repeated warnings of the Food and Drug Administration.

Today, marketing of antidepressants has reached obscene levels. The promotion is simple–take a pill and you will feel okay. When a street drug pusher makes such a claim, you can at least evaluate what he’s selling and know you are taking your chances. When the same offer is made by a psychiatrist–you expect to be receiving authoritative scientific information.

Such is not the case.

A great deal has been said about the debate of “chemical imbalances” in the brain. There is no debate. It’s apparently hard to believe — but there is not one scientific test that has ever documented:

• The correct chemical balance of the brain.
• Chemical imbalance of the brain.

In fact — no device or test even exists to measure it!

Yet today, antidepressants are prescribed like candy — and the worst are given to our children who are increasingly diagnosed with another new disease that has no scientific basis. To reiterate, this is not our “view” or “opinion.” Skip the mumbo–jumbo and there is no test that demonstrates, on a medical basis, such a “disease” exists.

If a medical doctor prescribes an antibiotic for an infection — that antibiotic runs its course and the infection is gone. If antidepressants were a cure, one would take them and the depression would go away. Similarly, a child given a drug for “attention deficit disorder” would no longer have it. Neither are the case. And once one starts, it’s an unending series of pills that one cannot even quit taking because of the withdrawal effects.

The ongoing controversy regarding Scientology and our views about postpartum depression, ADHD and so forth are the result of misrepresentations of what was said. We not only do not wish to stigmatize those suffering, but rather to take away their stigma. Because of our prominence through years of ending barbaric treatments, the Church sponsored Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights is in constant receipt of horror stories by those adversely affected by these drugs and who repeatedly report their inability to get anybody to listen or take notice.