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The Birth of modern Psychiatry - tv-udsendelser på engelsk i 4 afsnit

Om den skotske psykiater R. D. Laing (1927-89)*, om antipsykiatri, om forsøg med raske mennesker indlagt, om medicinalindustrien,

 osv. osv.

1.) This Clip shows the how R.D. Laing and the Anti Psychiatry movement attacked the Psychiatric and Medical establishment in the United States. Laing argued that Madness and Sanity were only convenient labels used by society to exercise control over people. It also shows how his ideas then influenced another psychologist David Rosenhan to conduct an experiment that would later seriously undermine psychiatric practice at the time.

2.) This clip shows how the Rosenhan experiment undermined American Psychiatry and how the Psychiatric establishment tried to find an objective way to measure mental illness, by using objective methods like computers and checklists. These new diagnostic techniques intentionally measured only surface symptoms and asked nothing about the patients life or environment. From these techniques came mental diseases that we all know today like Attention deficit disorder (ADD) and Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

3.) This clip shows how these checklists were then tested on ordinary people out in society. This was the first time that ordinary people were checked for mental illness. The resault showed staggering numbers. According to the checklist, more than 50% of Americans suffered from some type of mental disorder and 70% of Americans had a depressive episode at some point. The Psychiatrists, instead of perhaps admitting that the people that were inside the mental hospitals were maybe not so different from normal people after all or perhaps admitting that the checklist was flawed to some extent agreed that there was an epidemic of mental illness sweeping the Nation. These are the techniques that justify the high number of drugging that we see in todays society.

4.) This clip shows how the pharmaceutical companies used these statistics to market the SSRI's to the general public. People would in response go and see a psychiatrist and demand to be made normal. It also shows how Dr. Robert Spitzer, the creator of this new diagnostic method admits that the list, by asking only for surface symptoms, to some extent medicalizes completely normal thoughts and emotions. Another psychiatrist comments that by doing this, the list has created an illusion of a mental health epidemic that bears little relation to reality.

In general:

Ps. These clips are taken from a British documentary series called The Trap:What happened to our dreams of Freedom. The series are created by Adam Curtis a British documentary film maker. I can strongly recommend just about every movie he has ever made. For Freudian psychology and its influence on consumer culture see The century of the self and for contemporary politics and the War on Terror see The power of nightmares. Both are brilliant, History of ideas at it's finest.

*Den skotske psykiater R. D. Laing  (1927-89), så psykosen,
som et skrøbeligt, hårdt presset menneskes
sidste selvforsvar imod et endnu større vanvid:
selvmordet - og som en reaktion på vanviddet udefra:
- "Så længe vi giver de generaler, som har fingeren på
atombomberne medailjer og de politikere, som beordrer
dem produceret, vores stemmer - nægter jeg at kalde
det menneske sindsygt, som angstfuldt siger:
"Jeg har en atombombe i maven."

Som Laing sagde:
".. kun i et menneskekærligt
sundt samfund af frie individder kan
vi - måske ? - afgøre, hvem der er afvigere
og hvem der blot følger Den kollektive Psykose.
Indtil da, prøver jeg blot at forstå den enkeltes
indre oplevelsesverden - som altid har værdi
og en mening! - lytter og undgå at forvolde
mere skade, end der allerede er sket."