A Brief History of Psychiatry:  The Pseudo-Science

     If one examines the history of medicine, it is a thing of wonder.  From ancient times, when illness was thought to be caused by evil spirits and was treated by shamans, it is a science which evolved through the ages until modern times, making great strides as it went.  Cell structure was isolated.  Microorganisms were discovered, thereby effecting cures of diseases caused by them.  Viruses were discovered, leading to the development of cures for them.  Penicillin was discovered as an antibiotic, leading to the hundreds of effective antibiotics we have now.  Today, microbiology and other medical sciences continue to advance, and cures for hitherto incurable diseases continue to pour forth.

     Medicine, like other branches of science such as biology and physics, follows basic scientific principles in its various developments, known generally as scientific method.  This method evolved after 1600 and has been used ever since.  It works this way:

1.  A phenomenon is observed.

2.  A tentative description, called a hypothesis, consistent with the original observation, is made.

3.  The hypothesis is used to make predictions.

4.  The predictions are tested by experiments or further observations, and hypotheses  are modified in light of the results.

5.  Steps 3 and 4 are repeated until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

     In modern times with drugs, clinical trials are also put into place to be able to tell, on a broad basis, if the drug will be effective with a minimum of negative effects.  This is an extension of steps 4 and 5 above.

     But if one examines psychiatry, the science which supposedly set out to cure mental illness, one finds a vastly difference scenario.  There are hypotheses that are, believe it or not, thousands of years old, still being followed as if true, which have never been proven despite over a hundred years of research resulting in gigantic libraries chock full of high-flown erudite-appearing volumes on the subject of mental illness.  There is not one sure-fire cure to be found in the whole lot.  In fact, it has become fashionable in the last twenty years or so to claim that no cure is possible for mental illness.   Yet these hypotheses are still being used, and used liberally. 

     How can one science make such giant strides while another, receiving the same or more financial grants and attention, make no strides at all?

     Let's take a look at psychiatry from a historical perspective and see if we can't come up with some answers.

A Brief Walk Through History

     To start with, let's take a short look at the treatment of mental illness prior to psychiatry.

     The time:  Circa 1000 B.C.  The place:  Ancient Egypt.   A patient diagnosed with a mental illness is decided to be possessed of a demon.  He is treated by exorcism and the use of excrement.   History does not record the effectiveness of this treatment, but we could hazard to guess it isn't the best.

     The time:  Fifth century B.C.  The place:  Ancient Greece.  The philosopher Plato classifies mental illness, using mythology, into four categories:  Prophetic, ritualistic, poetic, or erotic.  History does not record if any therapies were evolved from this classification. 

     The time:  Circa 400 B.C.  The place:  Ancient Greece.  The legendary physician Hippocrates assigns the brain as the organ of thought and sensation.  Mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression are isolated.  It is not known if Hippocrates evolved treatments for any of the illnesses he isolated.

     The time:  Circa 1700 - 1800 A.D.  The place:  France (and imported to the rest of Europe).  A new therapy involving the injection of lamb's blood into mental patients is evolved.  After a patient dies from this practice, it is discontinued.  Elsewhere, mental illnesses are broadly classified by symptom (such as retardation, catatonia, or raving mania) or by demonic possession.  It is not known if workable therapies are evolved from any of these classifications; if so, they are lost to history.

     The time:  Eighteenth-century.  The place:  France.  French doctor Phillipe Pinel pleads for more humane treatment of the insane who, at the time, are being kept chained like beasts.  His pleas and observations eventually lead to a trend for treatment of the insane with gentleness, persuasion, and a cheerful environment -- a trend which obviously disappears after a fashion.  At the same time, another French doctor, Joseph Gall, evolves a "science" that purports to divine the strength of intellectual and emotional functions by studying bumps on the head.  This practice, which comes to be known as "phrenology", is practiced for a hundred years.  Needless to say, no valid data comes of it.

     The time:  Nineteenth Century.  The place:  Europe.  Psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin makes advances in the area of further classifying observed mental illnesses.   Again, no advancement in treatment is made from this.

     All right, there is a very brief history of the treatment of mental illness, prior to modern times.  Some advancements were made, but lost, and for the most part mental illness was "treated" either with superstition or abusive brutality or both.  No advances were ever made to discover the true sources of mental illnesses, and they remained the source of complete speculation.

Into Modern Times -- Or Not

     Now, continuing toward the present:

     The time:  1879.  The place:  Leipzig, Germany.   "The Father of Modern Psychology" Wilhelm Wundt founds the first laboratory for "experimental psychology", officially moving the study of the human mind from the realm of philosophy and religion and the natural sciences, where it had previously resided, to the domain of the medical doctor.  None of Wundt's treatment methods last much into the twentieth century, but his assertion that the mind resides in the brain and must be physically treated becomes the stable reference point for psychology and psychiatry ever after.  Note that Wundt never proves that the mind and the brain are one and the same, but nonetheless his conclusion is accepted as fact from that point forward.  In actual fact, this has never been proven at all, even into the present.

     The time:  1900.  The place:  Vienna, Austria.  Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams, beginning a long series of publications which evolve the practice of psychotherapy.   Psychotherapy deals with issues of the subconscious, of  childhood events, and many other factors.  The practice of psychotherapy, which, like psychiatry, never arrives at precise reasons and cures for mental illnesses, evolves into hundreds of offshoots and experimental practices, an evolution which continues to this day.   Freud, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Wundt, also makes the prediction that someday all the mental processes he was examining would be explained in biochemical terms. 

     The time:  Circa 1930.  The place:  Both the United States and Europe.   Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) begins being practiced on the insane.  This brutal and inhumane treatment is touted as "therapeutic" by psychiatrists, but even the layman could observe a patient having undergone such "treatment" and make the conclusion that ECT is punishment, not treatment, despite the fact it would bring someone to a very controllable, sometimes catatonic state.   Despite the defenders of ECT, it has never been found to cure a single mental illness, and laws have been enacted in many places either outlawing its use altogether or severely restricting it.  And as to how beneficial ECT is, how willing were (and are) the administering psychiatrists to receive this "beneficial" treatment themselves?

     The time:  1940s and 1950s.  The place:  United States, Europe, and Russia.  A practice called "psychosurgery", in which certain nerves are severed in operations causing  patients to simply become half-functioning and disabled, becomes in vogue.  No more effective at actually treating mental illness than ECT, it is finally found to be inhumane and, in most places, abandoned. 

Into the Medication Age

     The time:  1950s.  The place:  United States.  The drug Thorazine is introduced in the treatment of psychotic patients.  A powerful narcotic, Thorazine is found to be effective in bringing under control patients who either cannot be controlled or who can't control themselves.   It is also found to have the following negative effects:

• Prolonged use can lead to Tardive Dyskinesia, an irreversible disease which causes uncontrollable movements of the body. 
• Birth defects
• Lethargy
• Blurred vision
• Tremors and / or involuntary muscle movements
• Dizziness  and Heart palpitations
• Sexual dysfunction
• Low white blood cell count

     Thorazine is eventually replaced by other strong antipsychotics, such as Haldol, but the more modern drugs are no more effective at actually bringing a cure to mental illness, and bring side-effects as numerous and certainly as dangerous.  In fact, the list of side-effects for Haldol, probably the most commonly-used antipsychotic in the last twenty years, reads virtually the same as 50-plus-year-old Thorazine:

• Prolonged use can lead to Tardive Dyskinesia, an irreversible disease which causes uncontrollable movements of the body. 

• Psychotic behavior
• Hallucinations

• Tremors and / or involuntary muscle movements

• Birth defects
• Sensitivity to sunlight and heat
• Unexplained fever or muscle stiffness
• Irregular heartbeat

     But Haldol has been around for nearly thirty years itself.  To be completely fair, let's have a look at the negative effects of a relatively new antipsychotic, Zyprexa (olanzapine):

• Prolonged use can lead to Tardive Dyskinesia, an irreversible disease which causes uncontrollable movements of the body. 

• Seizures
• Somnolence (sleepwalking)
• Dizziness
• Personality Disorder
• Tremors
• Hypertension

     As you can see, advances in the effectiveness of antipsychotics, especially without side effects, has not changed at all in over fifty years.

Interlude:  Scientific Method Revisited

     Again, newly, let's apply scientific principles to the modern "advances" we've examined so far. 

1.  A phenomenon is observed.

     Well, somebody someplace observed what they thought to be the brain performing actual thought.  In modern times, this was put forth, as noted above, by Wilhelm Wundt, and it is quite possible he made this assumption after observing a blacksmith accidentally send a piece of flying metal into his brain, and noting how docile the blacksmith was afterward.  Be that true or not, some observation was probably made somewhere.

     Observations were probably made to lead Freud to his conclusions, as well.

     One wonders what observations brought people to believe that electro-convulsive therapy, psychosurgery, and heavy medication would somehow treat mental illness, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there were some.

2.  A tentative description, called a hypothesis, consistent with the original observation, is made.

     Hypotheses were obviously made in all the cases above.

3.  The hypothesis is used to make predictions.

     Not to make something so simple out of the vast complexity that is psychiatric research, but this step of the Scientific Method is exactly how far psychiatry has come.  For all the titanic, rambling texts of psychiatry are vast expansions on the authors' hypotheses, and in most cases those hypotheses, such as, "thought originates in the brain" are put forth, with great authority, as facts.  If you really want to take the mind-numbing plunge into some of these texts to find this out for yourself, go right ahead.  Make sure you look for the proof behind the assertions.  If you find it, examine it very closely.  As shown in the next section, it can be quite altered to fit the researcher's needs.  And if these hypotheses had been truly borne out, you'd now be seeing it in the results:  You'd actually see people recovering from mental illness. 

     Needless to say, for the major areas of psychiatry we've examined so far, the remaining two steps of the Scientific Method have yet to be fully and honestly done:

4.  The predictions are tested by experiments or further observations, and hypotheses are modified in light of the results.

5.  Steps 3 and 4 are repeated until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

     One could argue that the treatments of today are at least more humane than those of the nineteenth century, when mental patients were chained in places such as England's Bethlehem Royal Hospital (known notoriously as Bedlam), and that advances had been made in this regard.  But is it any more humane to disable a person with drugs and chain them within their own minds?  And, more importantly, does it lead to any more of an effective cure?   If so, it's the best-kept secret ever.

The Neurotransmitter Revolution

     Beginning in the late seventies, a whole new method of drug treatment has evolved which now encompasses virtually all psychiatric biochemical treatments, both for mental patients and those functioning members of society who have yet been diagnosed with one of a plethora of "disorders". 

     The time:  1973.  The place:  United States.  Two scientists named Candice Pert and S. H. Snyder make a discovery, published in Science magazine, that there are definite, specific nerve receptacles for opiate drugs (opiate drugs, such as opium and marijuana, have a tranquilizing, euphoric effect) .  It is immediately wondered why the body would have such receptacles -- does the body naturally expect opiate drugs?  A few years later, the answer is found:  It is discovered that the body has its own opiate chemicals in certain neurotransmitters.  Neurotransmitters are chemicals contained within the body which are used in sending impulses through the nervous system.  The neurotransmitters isolated as opiates are called norepinephrine, serotonin, acetylchlorine, dopamine, and gamma-aminobutryric acid. 

     The way that a neurotransmitter chemical operates normally is, it is passed along from one nerve to another.  A bit of it is sent out at a time from one nerve to the next.  After a bit is sent out and received by the next nerve, any of the neurotransmitter remaining between the nerves is taken back by the first nerve, a process called reuptake. 

     The question was then posed that, if levels of these "opiate" neurotransmitters were elevated, wouldn't it give the person a sense of well-being?   It was also theorized that depressed people might not have enough of these chemicals operating in their system, hence the depression.   It was also realized that the level of specific neurotransmitters could be raised by inhibiting the reuptake process, causing the neurotransmitter to continue in a steady stream instead of intermittently.  

     Again, scientific method stopped there, right at the hypothesis stage, yet an entire new class of drugs, "reuptake inhibitors" sprang up.  Instead of proceeding with honest science, some money-minded individuals realized what might happen if someone announced a "cure for depression".  They convinced other like-minded individuals.  And there the science stopped, and the profits and lies began. 

     The theory that certain neurotransmitters are responsible for depression remains a theory to this day -- completely unproven.  In fact, if you check the literature for any antidepressant drug, it will say that a)  the true cause of depression is unknown, but is believed to be caused by the lack of certain neurotransmitters, and b) the exact action of their drug is unknown.   You will find this in each and every case, drug for drug. 

     As stated a few paragraphs earlier, it is very clear that the motivation has long-since switched from actually seeking a cure to making money, as anti-depressants have become the best-selling drugs of all time.  Again, if you announce a cure for depression, they will come. 

     Interestingly, but not surprisingly, somebody somewhere took the badly-flawed neurotransmitter theory one ridiculous step further and decided that nearly all observable mental illness, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, and stress disorder, among many others, also stemmed from the same neurotransmitters or the lack of them.  As with depression, there has not been one iota of proof of this hypothesis, yet dozens of drugs are now on the market purporting to be treatments.

Why?

     Looking over the information above (and it can all be well-documented) one has to wonder why it is that, when all other sciences on Earth have made such great advances,  psychiatry has made virtually no headway at all.  Ignoring all the psychiatric rhetoric and outright lies and simply looking at the facts of the matter, psychiatry is at the exact same place it was when Wundt first moved it into the realm of medicine in 1879.  It is still theorized that human beings use their brains for thought, and that theory has not even remotely been proven.  Piled on top of that unproven theory are others such as the one which places neurotransmitters as causal agents of depression and a host of other mental disorders, and thousands of other unproven theories presented as facts.

     Since psychiatry has done so much theorizing, one could pose some theories about psychiatry.  For it is virtually impossible, if one examines the odds, the finances, and the time that has gone into psychiatric research, that causes of and cures for mental disorders have not been found. 

     Perhaps psychiatry was only intended as a tool for controlling individuals and groups, and its development has only been allowed to proceed in that direction.  Psychiatry's highest level of effectiveness was as a mind-control tool, used by the CIA to program and deprogram operatives.  The theory that psychiatry might have been developed for control  makes a great deal of sense when one realizes that electro-convulsive therapy, psychosurgery, and mind-numbing drugs were all aimed at getting control of individuals, not curing them. 

     And today, it is certainly also a matter of money, given the billion-dollar psychiatric drug industry, and the almost yearly invention of new "disorders" which need curing with the latest "miracle drugs".

     In any case, it can certainly be seen that psychiatry has long-since ceased resembling anything like science, and has become something else altogether.  What that is is anybody's guess, but it is most certainly not a scientifically-guided methodology for curing mental illness. 

Article by Bruce Boyers

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