If it weren't for psychiatry I would be dead. Dissuading people from getting help when they need it is not a good thing.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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I'm glad it helped you but I never dissuaded anyone from getting help. I just emphasized the need for a Marxist perspective to be integrated in practice
Yes, but you are acting as this applies to all psychiatry and therapy.
No amount of material analysis can cure or treat PTSD, ADHD, Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder, or a multitude of other illnesses and disabilities that can only be fixed with medicine and assisting the person in walking through their thoughts and lives.
I feel like what you said was mostly targeted forwards anxiety and depression, but that is not all that therapy and psychiatry are.
I understand, what I mean isn't supposed to apply for all of therapy or psychiatry, or even to all depressed and anxious patients. I just wanted to point out the systemic issue that psychologists need to understand and apply to so that it can be easily accessible to all. This is not limited to treatment of certain mental disorders, but also to the way mental health treatment is itself accessible to those who can't afford it. I see how what I said may seem like a generalization, and I apologize for that.
No problem! Thank you for clearing up what you meant!
Systems ensure this will never happen at a systemic level, but it does happen at an individual level. My therapist is a Marxist, and no other therapist was ever able to help me, long long before I know about Marx.
Veteran lemmygradians will remember the anti-psychiatry story arc of our website
Its a worthy topic to bring up again, there are obviously people that took it too far and into the realm of ideology but I felt like a lot of people were also too dismissive.
It is. I just brought that up for amusement.
Oh totally, it was pretty entertaining
"oh boy, amicese 2!"
That was messy, it did open my eyes to how much capitalism permeates our society though.
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A lot of the early history of psychiatry was explicitly about controlling "deviants" rather than actually helping them integrate. Turns out bipolar people don't need any more of those dubious meds than they actually need the financial security that Kanye West has to not go homeless due to having a crisis. I wince whenever I hear any lib propping up pop positive psychology nonsense such as "gratitude journals" for people who have way more reasons to be angry than to be grateful. But I've ran into some pretty "woke" professionals who actually fully endorsed tackling social issues and focused mostly on dealing with (self-)harmful personal behaviours. Stuff like blaming oneself for external issues or how to deal with irrational stuff like paranoid thoughts. They usually were from the CBT branch, though I've also met some trashy CBT professionals so YMMV. I guess it helps in my country that psychology is usually taught more alongside history and philosophy rather than medicine.
I also have serious issues with anything related to capitalist medicine because no one in their right mind would think that the best solution for vulnerable/disabled/sick/injured people should be to profit from them. Not only it is immoral but professionals then have to fight against their own class interests of income if they want those people to be able to leave the care eventually. Not to mention that so long as private healthcare exists, it will try its darnest to privatise or discredit public healthcare, and there should be no competition on the business of saving lives. This is why the pearl clutching over some imaginary plan from Sanders to abolish insurance in the USA actually made his campaign look even better than it was.
Edit: It's possible you have like-minded comrades even in your classes. Organisation is always the first step!
Ohh! I posted this because one of my batchmates quoted a meme post of a client complaining he doesn't want to work and to die (with the therapist asking them to accept it), by saying the OP of the post is bigoted??? and talks about how the biopsychosocial model is the most effective right now, etc. Like, it doesn't matter if IT IS BEING REGARDED AS THE MOST EFFECTIVE right now, because it still doesn't mean its doing the job. As someone else above pointed out, humanistic Rogerian psychotherapy, postive psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, existential, CBT, no other school as it is right now will be able to effectively claim to FIX a person's material reality while actively NOT accepting the exploitation of the people
Like, it doesn’t matter if IT IS BEING REGARDED AS THE MOST EFFECTIVE right now, because it still doesn’t mean its doing the job.
Killing all humans will reduce mental illness to zero, checkmate communists.
I agree that "fixing" people needs the social aspect and CBT by itself hasn't helped me much, but my current therapist is both CBT and a Marxist so it helps. I hope some Marxist therapy branch catches on eventually. As for psychiatry, at the very least the entire process should be free. No person should have to choose between food and meds that may mess with your appetite.
I remember someone once posted a list of all the human rights abuses the APA (American Psychological Association) has engaged in? I remember it definitely included claiming both homosexuality and gender dysphoria as mental diseases requiring involuntary "treatment," but I think there were several other ones too.
Anyone know what I'm talking about and have a link?
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
Sigh, here we go again...
There is certain truth that psychiatric treatment by itself in many occasions will not be as powerful to change a patient's life for the better as it would be if this one was accompanied by a change of their life conditions: poor people suffer from more mental health issues than the rich, after all.
But what psychiatry does is more than just treat depression, or to be more specific, depression precipitated by poverty and capitalist exploitation. OCD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders... The list goes on, and the role that psychiatry plays nowadays in their treatment is not one of enforcer and normalizer of capitalism, as some (banned) people here in lemmygrad are known for believing.
As a certified Bipolar, I still think this is a worthwhile conversation to have.
There can be aspects of a field of study that are worth preserving while others exist that are worth less than nothing.
My medication journey began with my involuntary instutionalization as a child because I told my mom I was so depressed I wanted to drop out of school. I was sent to a juvenile detention center (selling itself as a "behavioral health facility"). It was hell. I was a suicidal, depressed teenager now surrounded by other kids ranging from runaways to pyromaniacs to sex offenders to those with violent tendencies.
It took 7 years to get my meds where they needed to be for me to function, and another 2 to find a med combination I can be content with. For those 7 years, I took prozac. I do not speak lightly when I say those years fried the hell out of my brain, and it's taken long, tumultuous years of work to try to unfry it.
I am glad for my meds. I attend pay-what-you-can therapy. The end goal of all of it, though, despite my intentions, despite my healthcare providers' intentions -- at a systemic level -- is to transform me and other useless eaters into productive members of society, not fully actualized people.
Oh, and to sell meds at 2000x the price it costs to manufacture them, of course.
Tangential addendum: the DSM sucks and has a foundation rooted in oppression and repression of LGBT people and political dissidents. and the overly prescriptive nature of western psychiatry (as opposed to a more holistic view of mental health) is maintained by the effort of pharmaceutical and healthcare profiteers through captured agencies like the American Psychiatric Association.
I highly recommend the website https://www.madinamerica.com/ for an alternative view - what they call critical psychiatry.
Oh, and to sell meds at 2000x the price it costs to manufacture them, of course.
I was horribly misdiagnosed as bipolar a while back and while the meds had barely any effect on me (positive or negative) their huge costs coupled with no help at all made my mental health worse than it was beforehand. I suspect that the diagnosis was so random for my conditions because it was the most medicable condition the "professional" could find to keep me coming back for more.
I have no issue with psychiatry as a field in the abstract though, just the health profiteering that passes as psychiatry in capitalism. That link there is interesting, thanks!
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If you want an explicit example of psychotherapy being used to breed conservatism, you should look at Therapeutic Fascism: re-educating Communists in Nazi-occupied Serbia, 1942–44. The author released a lengthier edition titled Therapeutic Fascism: Experiencing the Violence of the Nazi New Order in Yugoslavia, and the similar Psychoanalysis and Politics: Histories of Psychoanalysis Under Conditions of Restricted Political Freedom looks quite promising, but I have not yet read either.
My penultimate therapist (and probably my ultimate one as well) was a social democrat whom I distinctly remember admitting to me that he couldn’t offer me a miracle, but I always left his sessions feeling better and we agreed far more than we disagreed. He was the best therapist that I had, but after a year or so he had to retire and I switched to another therapist, who wasn’t as memorable but she still helped me most of the time. Then she had to quit, too, only in her case it was because the institution wasn’t paying her enough. I could have continued seeing therapists, but I decided not to.
My last two therapists were my best, and they certainly helped me, but even so I have to be honest and say that, much like my medication, what they provided was only some temporary relief; something to dull the severity of my symptoms, not address the causes. I still have to deal with traumatic memories and other intrusive thoughts, sometimes to the point where it almost feels like there is a war going on in my head, and no matter how peaceful I seem on the outside, I am hurting on the inside nearly every day.
One of the reasons that I want us to abolish capitalism is that I want somebody to publish a cure for depression, something unlikely to reach the market since that would result in fewer returning customers for the pharmaceutical industry. I have been suffering for nearly a couple dozen years now and I can only think of one way to finally stop it. You can imagine what that way is.
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The Upstream podcast touches on this with this week’s episode about Health Communism. I’m still being astonished by how much Capitalism influences every aspect of our lives. It’s like, I think I know, then something shows me I don’t.
This is why sociology is so important and needs to be recognized as an integral part of education and how we understand the world. It goes without saying that we live in an excessively individualistic culture, and that causes us to be in denial about how much these larger social factors affect us. We are all trained to see ourselves as singular instead of part of communities, populations, groups, and to see institutions as singular entities instead of parts of larger structures that make up a greater, overarching system that's connected to and that perpetuates the issues we face as individuals.
Unfortunately sociology is pretty much the definition of what conservatives are fighting against in education and the "culture wars": Understanding the experiences of oppressed groups and finding solutions to probems on a social level. So of course it's not well respected or well known. I have to explain my major every time I bring it up and someone assumes I'm a social worker. The more we understand how our society works, the better equipped we will be to change it.
Have you met any conservative sociologists? I can’t imagine studying sociology and coming out the other side with a hierarchical mindset.
Richard Wolff's partner, Harriet Fraad is a psychiatrist and has similar ideas and made a podcast with a therapist, Max Golding, called It's Not Just in Your Head. Libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz wrote extensively on the limitations of his field.
Historically psychiatry has been used to control runaway slaves, suffering drapetomia. Complaining women had hysteria. You are gay? That was diagnosable.
Racial bias in psych treatment is well documented, with people of color more likely to be perceived as aggressive and a threat to others than white presenting people with similar behaviour.
Psychiatry is most often practiced on an individual and fails to take into account the societal problems around an individual. If you're boss abuses you or the system as a whole alienates you there is little a psych can do.
I used to consider myself antipsychiatry, I have personally had negative experiences with involuntary psychiatric "treatment"
While going through an anarchist phase there was seemingly little contradiction between my antipsych and ideological beliefs - it's just another unjust hierarchy. You can only be diagnosed if your function within this capitalist system is impaired.
As I embraced Marxist-Leninist ideas, contradictions became evident. Liberalism is an infantile disorder, the psychopathic accumulation of wealth by the richest endangers our survival as a species, the insecurities of those who hold on to the patriarchy and supremacist ideas should be remedied, one way or another.
I defended the right of self identifying neurodiverse people to reclaim labels such as autism while maintaining their criticism of psychiatry as it was inflicted upon themselves - within antipsychiatry communities such sentiment was not welcome. I was subjected to antisemitic attacks for refusing to endorse the labelling of psychiatry as a "holocaust"
I have much sympathy for the people who call themselves antipsychiatry, most of them have suffered immensely and they have legitimate criticisms of the field. But I can't call them comrades, for most - their understanding of the systems of oppression is too narrow - their hatred of psychiatry is bordering on reactionary. Seeing well meaning people with legitimate criticism of psychiatry, who were rejected by such communities for daring to identify as autistic or ND was quite disappointing. Seeing entirely antimedical communities come into being from antipsychiatry ones, even worse.
I still have serious doubts about the long term efficacy of psychiatric treatment but I'm willing to accept that there maybe some situations where it is appropriate. I am an administrator on a discord server that describes itself as psych abolitionist and is mostly populated by anarchists that I helped start while I still considered myself antipsych that at least doesn't allow for bigotry or hate speech, though I am not very comfortable with my role there and would prefer to just be a visitor - I don't enforce my ideology there and try not to be heavy handed with the rules, I've asked to have my admin/mod powers removed but my anarchist friend, who created the server, lives in a different timezone, isn't very active online and seems to have faith in my ability to be fair.
This feels a bit sweeping and grandiose. I feel like this is targeted more towards psychiatry and therapy for depression or anxiety, as on the other hand I utilize psychiatry for another mental illness, and psychiatry and modern medicine has directly saved my life and allowed me to live life as a normal person. This applies to tens of millions worldwide who share my condition. Psychiatry has given us a second lease on life, something that would have been impossible nearly 70 years ago.
This is not shocking considering that both professions are easily 20 years behind the rest of the other medicine fields.
EDIT: In Nazi Germany, some 250,000 people were murdered on the basis of eugenic psychiatry that became popular in America and resulted in the sterilization of about 60,000 people. Eugenics in Nazi Germany was heavily influenced by the movement in America and many psychiatrists who continue to have major influence over the field were supporters, like Adolf Meyer.
Source?
I conflated some things. In Nazi Germany, some 250,000 people were murdered on the basis of eugenic psychiatry that became popular in America and resulted in the sterilization of about 60,000 people. Eugenics in Nazi Germany was heavily influenced by the movement in America and many psychiatrists who continue to have major influence over the field were supporters, like Adolf Meyer. I could have sworn I read an article more directly drawing comparisons between the eugenic psychology in early 20th century America to the practice today, but I can't find it so I can't claim a super strong connection there.
That is blatantly untrue. Psychiatry was founded in the US before even the Civil War in 1844, when the American Psychiatric Association was set up in Philadelphia where they set up the first American psychiatric hospital and set up some of the world first effective lithium treatments for depression.
Yes psychiatry had horrible fall throughs and it was used for evil, but as a medical practice it was generally an institution for good.
You're right, I got some things conflated. Nazi Germany were actually using eugenic ideas pushed first by psychiatry in the US in the early 20th century to mass murder up to 250,000 people. Many of the most prominent psychiatrists in the early 20th century in the US were eugenicists, some who have major legacies to this day. I remember reading something previously that linked these eugenicist ideas to modern psychiatry but I can't find it. I'll edit my post.
i'm not totally sure about that in every case...as someone who uses antidepressants i don't think i've being "indoctrined" to support status quo, but the medication makes me feel less doomerish
As somebody who didn't do all of the hard work that you did, can you give me a starting place with Marxism and how it applies to psychology? I'm interested but I don't know where to start.
Vygotsky could be helpful: https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/
There's been loads written about him. Just be careful as he's often very liberalised.
Edit: there's also MIM Theory Volume 9. Scroll down, here, for a PDF: https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/
This is made to be hard work because its so internalized in us that its just the way it is, that the system makes it as hard as possible for the people to be class conscious. I appreciate it, but I'm still learning. And so are you. As long as we are actively questioning the reality around us, nobody is more or less equal
I think this should be bookmarked by now, but marxists archive has a section on marxist psychology in general, and there is another section on education, which is also relevant, hope it helps comrade.
What do you know/think about dialectical behavioural therapy? Is there any good in it?
Edit: speak of the devil, there's a new book out on politics and mental health: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745346717/mad-world/
Edit 2: and another one coming out soon, on neurodiversity and capitalism: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745348667/empire-of-normality/
I use it for myself all the time. Its the best medication free approach ive tried persoanally
The talking cure is amazing when you and your therapist work well together, but the root of so much mental illness is capitalism that psych practitioners can only do so much. They basically just medicate/train you to function in this hell. That’s not really mental health
I find this take problematic. Therapy suffers from capitalism obviously, but that doesn't mean it's completely useless or just a tool to subjectivate you. I think what youre saying is true, but incomplete. Therapy absolutely helps me be a better communicator and organizer, and always supported my activism. Granted i was lucky to find a good one. I've learned mental/emotional tools now that help me more than i can say.
I resent this aspect of capitalism as deeply as anyone. My fear about your take is it could dissuade people from getting help who really need some in the meantime, even with things as they are. It's a bit too doomer for my taste, maybe.
Also, DBT is literally dialectics. That's like...our whole thing. As a modality it even de-emphasizes the expert/patient relationship. I see it as a potential line of flight out of commodity therapy, personally.
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Any good resources you could recommend?
Feel absolutely free to say no—I don't know if I should even be asking—but would you run us through how your use it for yourself? (Without any personal details, of course.)
For starters it's an offshoot of cognitive behavior therapy. So it's not like analysis, it's more like working through patterns and defining alternatives. The process of learning it felt like learning a skill, not being analized in that way. It was about gaining tools to do my own work. An example of how i use DBT is like when i feel like an imposter as an organizer i remind myself what i've accomplished already. Then boom, just from talking to myself i feel better, and as a bonus i used it to make myself more ready to revolt.
here's a link explaining it better than i can.
Also, in general i agree with you comrade, just wanted to add that important nuance. Systemically therapy is a shit sandwich. All my therapists have been total libs too, but theyve also been nothing but encouraging and validating for me personally. Caution at the potential for abuse is very wise, indeed.
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