Dear the mental health establishment:

[substitute]

We are not fooled at all. You may drop the pretense that mental health care is scientific.

We understand that most of you are in good faith trying to be helpful. But we’re still in the medieval stage with this stuff and it’s time to admit it.

The drugs you prescribe are sometimes helpful but have outrageous side effects, and often cause the opposite primary effect from the intended one. While we applaud your research efforts, the current products are often ineffective or dangerous. And let’s not even get into the surgical ideas here.

Psychotherapy in its myriad forms is mainly religious and not practical. Great theories of the human mind and soul are invented out of thin air and applied to patients with an assumption of authority that is entirely undeserved. We know what’s going on. You’re kicking the TV and congratulating yourselves when the picture looks better. The sheer number of psychotherapeutic methods and their incredible variation suggests that any egotist with a Ph.D. and a charismatic argumentative style can invent a new school of therapy and get away with it. There are no standards.

This isn’t science. It isn’t medicine. In fact, the intellectual standards of this field would not be accepted at a good hair salon.

Please, please get real with us and just admit you’re making shit up out of desperation. It’s not like we can’t tell already.

Hugs,

The “patients”

Comments

[fimmtiu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the effect that most drugs have upon the brain's neurotransmitter balance is pretty well understood. But how that translates into changes in mood or patterns of thought is still dark. All we can say is pretty much "This increases activity in this part of the brain, and we think that part of the brain is responsible for A and B, and maybe associated with C and D. It seems to make some people with Disorder X feel better." The brain's a very mysterious thing still.