The Myths Behind the Clinical Model of Personal Experiences
The collection of video clips below illustrate the often hidden but immensely powerful social and political interests of elite groups in our society. Some of these groups attempt to use the clinical model in the service of elitism, social control and personal financial advantage. However, this model was designed to classify and treat physical diseases - not personal experiences. Psychiatrists, psychologists and an increasing number of therapists offer therapies built on the clinical model; categorising and treating (often without our knowledge) our personal experiences as 'clinically' abnormal, defective, neurotic, disordered, and other diminishing words applied in the service of an illness perspective in which the patient always remains inferior to the expert clinician. However, this is more than just name-calling, as Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Thomas S. Szasz summarises:
Once we believe that an aspect of our thoughts, feelings or behaviours represents an 'illness' this can then instill in us a great sense of dependence and inferiority to an expert for a 'cure', thus affecting our sense of freedom, hope and vulnerability to suggestion, control and manipulation by persons who often occupy privileged positions in authority.
[Click on the thumbnails for each clip or episode. If some links no longer work simply go to video.google.co.uk or www.youtube.com and type in the name of the film in the search box. High internet traffic can also mean links don't open properly.]
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom?
Written, Produced and Narrated by Adam Curtis
Full episodes:
Professor Thomas S. Szasz, Psychiatrist:
Eminent psychiatrist, Professor Thomas S. Szasz, speaks of the lies behind the use of the clinical model to classify, stigmatise and control personal experiences under the claims of science.
Related Articles:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.):
M.E. is classified by the World Health Organisation as a Neurological [not psychological] Condition. In contrast with the labelling of personal experiences as 'illness', conditions that do have a physical origin - but for which some medical professionals have little understanding or effective treatment - are often dismissed as 'all in the mind' i.e. of psychological origin. M.E. is an example of this form of table-turning. The UK's refusal to recognise W.H.O.'s classification is another means of stigmatising patients, as M.E. has been ridiculed as 'yuppie flu' and 'malingering' by medical professionals who - recognising they have no expertise in this syndrome, attempt to retain their authority by dismissing the patient in one way or another, or recommending clinical model cognitive therapies that have been shown to worsen symptoms.
Rather than 'curing' M.E., Existential Psychotherapy can help you address the factors which, for many M.E. patients, create or worsen M.E. symptoms i.e. lifestyle, anxiety, worry and stress.
Copyright © 2006 Stephen Forrest. All rights reserved.
Page updated May 12, 2007
The collection of video clips below illustrate the often hidden but immensely powerful social and political interests of elite groups in our society. Some of these groups attempt to use the clinical model in the service of elitism, social control and personal financial advantage. However, this model was designed to classify and treat physical diseases - not personal experiences. Psychiatrists, psychologists and an increasing number of therapists offer therapies built on the clinical model; categorising and treating (often without our knowledge) our personal experiences as 'clinically' abnormal, defective, neurotic, disordered, and other diminishing words applied in the service of an illness perspective in which the patient always remains inferior to the expert clinician. However, this is more than just name-calling, as Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Thomas S. Szasz summarises:
Once we believe that an aspect of our thoughts, feelings or behaviours represents an 'illness' this can then instill in us a great sense of dependence and inferiority to an expert for a 'cure', thus affecting our sense of freedom, hope and vulnerability to suggestion, control and manipulation by persons who often occupy privileged positions in authority.
[Click on the thumbnails for each clip or episode. If some links no longer work simply go to video.google.co.uk or www.youtube.com and type in the name of the film in the search box. High internet traffic can also mean links don't open properly.]
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom?
Written, Produced and Narrated by Adam Curtis
Full episodes:
Professor Thomas S. Szasz, Psychiatrist:
Eminent psychiatrist, Professor Thomas S. Szasz, speaks of the lies behind the use of the clinical model to classify, stigmatise and control personal experiences under the claims of science.
Related Articles:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.):
M.E. is classified by the World Health Organisation as a Neurological [not psychological] Condition. In contrast with the labelling of personal experiences as 'illness', conditions that do have a physical origin - but for which some medical professionals have little understanding or effective treatment - are often dismissed as 'all in the mind' i.e. of psychological origin. M.E. is an example of this form of table-turning. The UK's refusal to recognise W.H.O.'s classification is another means of stigmatising patients, as M.E. has been ridiculed as 'yuppie flu' and 'malingering' by medical professionals who - recognising they have no expertise in this syndrome, attempt to retain their authority by dismissing the patient in one way or another, or recommending clinical model cognitive therapies that have been shown to worsen symptoms.
Rather than 'curing' M.E., Existential Psychotherapy can help you address the factors which, for many M.E. patients, create or worsen M.E. symptoms i.e. lifestyle, anxiety, worry and stress.
Copyright © 2006 Stephen Forrest. All rights reserved.
Page updated May 12, 2007
Stephen Forrest
Existential Analysis, Psychotherapy & Personal Development
Existential Analysis, Psychotherapy & Personal Development
The word "disease" denotes a demonstrable biological process that affects the bodies of living organisms (plants, animals, and humans). The term "mental illness" refers to the undesirable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons. Classifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying the whale as a fish. As the whale is not a fish, mental illness is not a disease. […] The classification of (mis)behavior as illness provides an ideological justification for state-sponsored social control as medical [and psychological] treatment.
I want to fit in with the crowd. Medical classifications of human experiences as 'illnesses' and the creation of the idea of 'clinical normality'.
Clinicians can tell the difference. Psychiatrists attempt to spot 'normal' persons amongst newly admitted patients
Madness is a sane response to an insane world. Existential Psychotherapist and Psychiatrist R.D. Laing challenges the idea of emotional distress as mental illness.
Prozac: how to be normal in an abnormal world. The clinicalisation of unpleasant emotions. People learn to view unwanted experiences as defects that can be corrected by psychoactive drugs.
DNA and the machine model of human beings. How DNA scientists attempted to view human beings as soulless machines driven towards primitive goals.
Healthcare, the Self and the birth of robots. Human emotions and caring for others cease to be important as NHS managers switch the focus from care to measurement, evidence and targets.
A documentary in three parts illustrating how politicians' promises of individual freedom from elite bureaucracies via the capitalist free market has actually led to the rise of a new, controlling system of management driven by targets and numbers. Politically, this has also resulted in the return of inequalities and a collapse of social mobility, marked by the return of a rigid class structure and privileges for the few.
Child Psychology and Psychiatry Are An Abuse of Human Rights
Psychiatry is Founded on the Application of Force
The 'Brain Chemical Imbalance' Story is a Lie
The History and Myths Behind the Clinical Model
Anti-depressants, Increased Suicide Risk & Withdrawal Symptoms
The Hazards of the Clinical Model [DVD]
The Dangers of Psychiatric Medications
Classifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as diseases
is a logical and semantic error...
- Professor Emeritus
Thomas S. Szasz
Anti-Depressants: SSRIs