We here are all aware that the medical model of “mental illness,” aka biological psychiatry, continues to dominate our system of “treatment” for individuals in emotional distress and for persons whose behavior is perceived to be annoyingly aberrant by others. Despite massive amounts of evidence which, in a fair world, would and should undermine this status quo, the pharmaceutical/psychiatric complex has worked tenaciously to create, maintain, and extend the dominant system — which has led, as a consequence, to support from mainstream media, courts, the entertainment industry, the general public, and, it seems, every elected national official. This is despite the best efforts of many — including dissident mental health practitioners, academics, journalists, and individuals who have been consigned to, and have survived, the prevailing mental health system — to reform or eliminate the present system and replace it with one placing greater emphasis on ethical values, respectful treatment, and practices more likely to help clients have satisfactory lives and flourish. To date little progress has been made toward that end.
It is clear that the failed system of biological psychiatry and the harm it imposes upon its clientele will not be rectified until 1) It is perceived publicly to be of problematic concern upon the national stage, and 2) The factor, or factors, which have most successfully protected it from influential and persuasive assaults on its power and authority can be identified and neutralized.
Based on writings and talks by UCLA professor David Cohen, it appears that the primary factor which protects psychiatry’s unwarranted police power and authority, and trust in its unsupported “scientific” claims, is that it is perceived as performing the function, not so much of assisting emotionally upset and confused individuals, but of shielding society from folks who appear disturbing, irritating and are, especially, believed to be dangerous. In fact, our social culture appears more than willing to ignore the harm perpetrated by the medical model of emotional distress and behavior, and the damage created by its pharmaceutical “cures,” so long as it retains a belief in and continues to value the extra-legal power it grants psychiatry to shock, drug, and incarcerate otherwise innocent individuals as necessary activities to protect society.