"Good psychiatry" is oxymoronic, "bad psychiatry" is redundant

The etymology or roots of the word psychiatry (psyche + iatry) suggest that this subclass of physicians can, or intends, to doctor the soul. However, they also deny that such a thing as the soul exists; they say the only thing that is real is the brain. 

I am quite sure more psychiatrists would claim to be brain doctors than would claim to be soul doctors. Years ago I attended a speech by the President of the American Psychiatric Association who predicted psychiatrists would be at the forefront of emerging brain science, and derive power and wealth from that close proximity. But I've never heard a psychiatrist in any similar position predict that the profession would benefit from its proximity to the emerging science of the soul.

Ironically, now the psychedelic drug cult tries to admonish all of us that we have some moral duty to turn on, tune in and drop out. It's the latest version of the "mental health awareness" imperative, and perhaps akin to the vaccine imperative. The next thing we know, we'll be getting cancelled for not agreeing that LSD should be widely available to everyone for the salvation of the world!

I recently read The Beginner's Guide to Ketamine Therapy for mental health, by Leah Benson, LMHC, Ed.M. (Leah Benson, LMHC, Ed.M.: Tampa, FL, 2023). This book has the character of holy scripture for psychedelic religion. It has a post-dedication page with a quote from Aldous Huxley's Collected Essays. But a Forward by Kazi "Zayn" Hassan, M.D. states that Ketamine is "...the biggest breakthrough in psychiatry in the last 50 years," and positions the psychedelic renaissance, IV ketamine clinics, non-profits like Rick Doblin's MAPS, and institutions like Johns Hopkins together along with Yale Department of Psychiatry.

Hassan cites a need "...to soften and reorganize the mind through psychedelic transformation." Some of us might recall the MKUltra work of such luminaries as Richard Helms, Sid Gottlieb, Ewen Cameron, Harry Baily, and Joly West from the 1950's and 60's. Those guys were all about softening and reorganizing minds, too--but their agenda was dark!

Leah Benson's book is distributed free by a recently established LLC called Brain Health Restoration of Illinois (BHR), located near Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. I got a tour of their clinic recently, and spoke for about an hour with two staff, Michael McCully and Alexis Magat, who were very gracious hosts. Michael mainly runs the delivery of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treatment at BHR. He didn't seem to be 100% enthusiastic about Ketamine assisted therapy, but he had impressive anecdotes for the value of TMS. 

I told these guys I had seen an article entitled "The Truth About Ketamine" in Sheridan Road magazine, written by one of the founders of their clinic. I had emailed Dustin O'Regan, the Managing Editor of the magazine, to complain that the article tried to say I-V Ketamine is approved by the FDA for treatment resistant depression, which is not true. Michael McCully quickly agreed with me when I read the offending paragraph aloud to him. He lamented that the statement had somehow gotten past his proofreading, and said he would recommend that the company should publish a correction, because BHR absolutely does not want to disseminate false information about their treatments.

A day  or two later, I had a very pleasant phone conversation with Terry Yormak and Karen Todd, who are both known as founders of BHR. Terry is also the author of the article which appeared in Sheridan Road. They agreed that there should be some sort of published retraction. I will have to leave that to them and J.W. Conatser, the magazine publisher. 

It's interesting that the entrepreneurs and enthusiasts in the so-called "psychedelic reanaissance" are generally in agreement that psychiatry, or at least the established, orthodox, APA-types in the profession, are mostly bad psychiatry. They prescribe drugs that are bad for their patints, and they almost universally fail to help people because they are only trying to control behaviors that people are afraid of or don't like. They largely depend on coercion for their customers. They're not really even trying to free people or heal them. The people pushing psychedelics on the other hand, are into expanding consciousness, evolutionary spiritual leaps, saving the world, etc. They are supposedly the latest and greatest chance for a good psychiatry.

In all likelihood, psychedelics will ruin psychiatry as any kind of scientific medical specialty. Even such a fossilized extremist as Jeffrey Lieberman knows that. The "renaissance" will bring back such horrors as Manson family murders and Jonestown, but many times more, because the cultural setting today is far darker than it was in the 1960's. People like Jeffrey Lieberman and (I'm sorry to say) Dustin O'Regan, Michael McCully, Terry Yormak and Karen Todd will end up all in the same, blamed boat. Right now they think they are so different from, or even the antithesis of, MKUltra and the Nazi doctors and Manhattan Project scientists, from whom Tim Leary, Ken Kesey and Augustus Owsley Stanley III actually inherited their evil.

But we cannot doctor the soul. We can only communicate as souls, with souls. This means that the study of the mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in non-religious fields. 

And just incidentally, we cannot eliminate the soul. It is the only thing we cannot eliminate. (Brains on the other hand, are no problem.)

There is no good psychiatry, and we need not say psychiatry is bad.

Existential Confusion: America on psychedelics

"Existential confusion" is frequently said to be a possible negative side effect of psychedelic drugs. I think the phrase mostly means you are suddenly uncertain about who you are, where you are, what's real, what you're doing in the world and why.

Psychiatrists intentionally confuse their patients about who they are, where they are, what's real, what they're doing in the world and why. It's seen as a fundamental method to control people (e.g., gaslighting), and psychiatric patients are believed to be in great need of control, because they threaten and offend others. Hence, psychedelic drugs would seem to be a natural "treatment" in psychiatry.

The irony is that psychedelic drugs will ruin psychiatry utterly. Confusion is the antithesis of control, because it doesn't merely cause a person whose actions others don't like to become less active and therefore less trouble. The anatomy of control is start, change, and stop. (If you can start, change and stop something at will, you control that thing.) Psychedelics render a person unable to start, change, or stop anything, especially his/her own mind. I have written that the essence of these drugs is best expressed in two words: NO CONTROL!

One of the three biggest problems the FDA recently had with the research behind Lycos' MDMA application was "placebo unblinding," which meant there was NO CONTROL (group).

The facilitators in some instances crossed boundaries and abused patients during trials. There was evidently NO CONTROL of sexuality. (Perfect for the psychiatric slave plantations in Illinois, by the way!)

I have heard a former President of the American Psychiatric Association predict that the moment a psychedelic drug is approved to treat mental disorder, there will be NO CONTROL of the quality or supply of the drug; rapidly exploding demand will (as with the ongoing example of Ketamine) assure that regulators will have NO CONTROL over street (non-clinical) use.

Now that Rick Doblin's bucket-list life ambition, of FDA approval for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD is thoroughly shot down, the next plan will be psilocybin for depression. Two bio-tech companies, Compass Pathways and Usona Institute are already in Phase 3 trials. Right behind them, Mindmed is in a Phase 2b trial of LSD for anxiety(!) and atai Life Sciences is working on DMT for depression. Approval of any psychedelic drug to treat mental disorder will replay the Ketamine disaster. Hundreds of "clinics" will spring up overnight, the drug will be everywhere. But collateral damage from psilocybin alone will be many times what Ketamine is causing, and LSD will dwarf all previous negative impacts put together. 

Anyone who wants a taste of what "America on psychedelics" may look like should watch a YouTube video of an interview of two supposed proponents of medical psychedelic drugs. They both seem so existentially and ardently confused that neither even knows the other may be an ally, and apparently presumes anyone encountered must be an enemy. They don't know what their own positions even are, or why they should argue with anyone. It's worse than the current national political scene, and it's the last thing this society needs right now!

We all need to walk around, get our bearings, look at real walls and touch them, not hallucinate that the walls are breathing, not conjure the interdimensional demons. Psychotomimetics are not vitamins.

Willie Nelson sings, "The world's gone crazy and it seems to get worse every day, so come on back Jesus, and pick up John Wayne on the way."

Plasticine porters with looking glass ties, the girl with kaleidoscope eyes, invite insanity.

Ribbon cutting ceremony today!

 

 

"Psychiatry,: An Industry of Death" museum exhibit on State Street

 ALL ARE INVITED!!!

This exhibit will be at 114 South State Street in downtown Chicago from August 13 until August 22.. It got rave reviews in NY City during the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in May. Don't miss it.

Anyone from EMHC who intends to go, let me know when and I'll show up and buy you some Starbucks or something. I'd love to know your impressions of this exhibit.

RK

Spensuril Halftail's First Amendment rights

 A recent article by Jonathon Turley seems compelling to me, on the subject of freedom of speech. This is Turley's whole raison d' être, and his entire reference point for any and all political analysis.

In my family, and in my community, there is a clear majority of serious Democrats, who have basically bought the campaign line (or legitimate fear) holding that Donald Trump poses a mortal threat to our democracy. I am more afraid of the scenario Turley writes about, but I certainly am not a Trumper. In exercising my right to vote (which I consider a very important responsibility), I have frequently gone for one or another third-party candidate. 

But while out to dinner with friends the other evening, I was so injudicious as to pose a pure hypothetical, which got me into a truly shocking amount of social difficulty. I said that I was so against the Harris-Walz ticket that I would be tempted, if I lived in Michigan or Pennsylvania, to do such a horrible deed as vote for Trump. My point, which I incorrectly believed would be obvious to these people, was not that I am favorable to Trump, but only that I am very unfavorable to the Democratic ticket. In Illinois it hardly matters who you vote for because the Democrat will certainly win. I told my friends I was really glad I live in Illinois, so I can't be tempted to do such a horrible deed as vote for Trump. In Michigan or Pennsylvania, critical electoral votes are realistically up for grabs, so one would have to be more responsible, and even consider the lesser-of-two-evils evaluation.

Somehow, the only thing these people heard me say was that I might vote for Trump. Horror of horrors! I was suddenly a Trumper, a fascist/racist/misogynist/transphobic/homophobic neanderthal, completely unfit for mixed company! People who are family, or as close as family to me, argued they didn't even know who I was, and this single comment had more or less completely changed our relationship. There was a  clearly implied demand that I retract what I had said, or what they said I had said, which was not what I had intended to say at all.

I reacted pretty badly in my turn. Maybe that's kind of predictable for any political conversation these days. This dinner table slapdown became a kind of denial of my free speech, or at least I felt that way at the time. When I read that Turley article this morning, it inspired me to go back to the text of the First Amendment, because I recalled that it guarantees four separate freedoms, of which freedom of speech and the press is only one (not even the first-mentioned, which would be freedom of religion).

The truth is, the United States of America was a breakthrough idea, with the Bill of Rights becoming the seed for all our subsequent prosperity, all our spiritual motivation, all our personality as a nation.

Now many people say times have changed: the existential questions are about climate, equity, artificial intelligence, social media, mental health, science... not freedom of speech. Those who say that are wrong. It was the American ideals of freedom and human dignity that enabled the highly improbable abolition of slavery in the 19th Century despite the overwhelming practical fact, that King Cotton financed a system of corruption and greed to continuously deliver riches and unassailable political power to slaveholders. 

Abraham Lincoln didn't free the slaves by abolishing Habeas Corpus, instituting a military draft, prosecuting dissenters, and letting Billy-the-Torch Sherman march from Atlanta to the sea (although he is properly remembered by history for all of those questionable acts): Lincoln freed the slaves by hearkening back to Americans' revolutionary sense of fundamental rights which made everyone free in a new way. He called for a new birth of freedom at Gettysburg, but he was still prepared, nearly a year and a half after that elegant sermon, with cannon balls still flying and brothers still killing brothers, to sink all the wealth piled by two hundred and fifty years of toil and repay every drop of blood drawn with the lash by another drawn with the sword.

Times have not changed for freedom of speech. The American people ultimately gave up their peculiar institution of chattel slavery as an arbitrary act of their own will (however fraught), despite its empirical utility and the obvious material value built on the backs of unrequited bondsmen. We made that change because we were firm in the right as God gave us to see the right. Can we remain so firm now? Can we still believe that all men have the inalienable right to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others?

One force says no with huge authority: psychiatry says we can't allow freedom of thought and freedom of speech anymore in the modern world, we cannot and must not resist the machines, the money, the gaslighting, however they undermine, dishonor and degrade our culture. Psychiatry tells us we are brains, nothing more than brains, just mud. Psychiatry's "experts" insist they know more about us than we know about ourselves. They say we must take their drugs and respect their sacred artifacts (which they call diagnoses).

I have a beautiful, big Airedale terrier named Spensuril Halftail. He barks incessantly every morning at early walkers on the beach, and wakes up the neighbors. Sometimes he gets anxious, and he growls menacingly at guests, even kids, who reach for him in ways he doesn't like. Twice, he bit somebody.

I adore Spensur, he's my friend. But he doesn't have First Amendment rights. I stop him from barking sometimes, and suppress his enthusiasms or protests if I consider them too fierce. I don't think twice about that, he's a step down from a human being, he has no human rights as a dog. I love him, but if he upsets people or makes them afraid or hurts them, I will take his freedom away and I might kill him.

Malis, Corcoran, Hussain, Sharpe and their ilk have (at best) the same relationship with their "patients" as I have with my dog. Even Vik Gill, a decent guy, knows that Gus has to be discouraged from complaining too much. There is no freedom of thought or speech for psychiatric slaves: they are subhuman by at least a couple fifths.

The reason for varying views of how to divide life is not so much politics or avarice, let alone biology. It's willingness and ability to communicate. If you can change another's behavior with a loving glance, or a knowing wink or a smile, or kind encouragement, you will naturally prefer that mode to an angry snarl or an assault, or prison bars. Those with whom you can find agreement, and come to like and understand, without violence, will naturally seem entitled to rights like freedom of thought/speech, that you will grant and respect.

The FDA's disapproval of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy last week is a fascinating study. By most accounts, the problem with the proposal from Lycos Therapeutics was the psychotherapy element of the treatment, not the drug. The FDA has never regulated psychotherapy. They don't understand communication by itself, they only specialize in what they imagine are molecules of the mind, and they know those tiny particles of dead matter can't communicate at all.

The FDA made the right decision for the wrong reason. They expect drugs to work and be safe, but they have no interest or jurisdiction with regard to live communication as a method of healing.

Psychiatrists and the FDA should confine themselves to veterinary professions and leave people alone.

But I should communicate better with friends and Spensuril Halftail.

Gill, Xiaomara, Joseph & Gus

 OK, so Xiaomara didn't want Gus on her caseload any more, and Dr. Gill covered for her by telling Gus it was just his own idea for no reason, so Joseph could take over the case. Right? That's my theory.

But there are at least a couple funny things about that....

"For no reason" is nonsense as any explanation for a new social worker. Gill just lied about that because he didn't want to tell Gus the reason. Gus is continuing to ask why he was assigned a different social worker immediately after he made kind of a big deal about Xiaomara papering over the window to her office so no one could see what she was doing in there (which is against policy). I'm pretty sure, and I hope, that Gus will keep on asking anyone and everyone about this, and nagging EMHC staff and administrators, at least as long as the only answers he ever gets are nonsense. Today Tony, the legal advocate, gave Gus the answer that maybe "they" thought he would do better with a male social worker. This was laughable, and it only incited Gus to keep asking.

Well then, who is the "they" who thought that? Was it just Gill? He did say the whole new social worker idea was his own. If so, why does he think Gus will do better with a male social worker? The thing about Joseph Basso is, he's male... but not actually assigned to the clinical unit Gus is on (N Unit). He's assigned to M Unit, which is a sister unit to N, but separate. I recall that some years ago (December 2016 to be exact) a patient was moved to K Unit from L Unit (these are also sister units), probably to enable his assignment to a different social worker, because the one he had on L Unit was having sex with him.

But in this case with Gus, the patient is apparently remaining on the same unit while the social worker (Joseph) comes over to him from the sister unit. It might all just be completely arbitrary, with no relevant policy or protocol other than Dr. Gill's whim. But I find that unlikely. I was just in a Hartman Unit staffing today, where "protocol" (or "policy" or some such inscrutable excuse) was cited for a clearly unreasonable, obnoxiously punitive assignment of one-to-one observation to James Baker, requiring that the door to his room stand wide open all night for a female staff member to directly observe him constantly while he was in bed sleeping because of a surgery he recently had on his right hand at UIC Hospital. That made no sense in terms of any purpose for medical care or security protection that I can imagine. It was just "protocol," that was all anyone in the staffing could think of. Nonsense.

There must be some similar (even if equally ridiculous) "protocol" excuse for Gus getting a new social worker absent any agreement, consultation or explanation. Joseph isn't even assigned to work on N Unit. All the social workers assigned to N are female, although all the patients there are male, so that might relate to Tony's theory. But what do you know, all the M Unit social workers are male and all the patients there are female! Somebody at EMHC or in IDHS has apparently neglected to consider, up until now, the possibility that some patients on M and N Units might do better with same-sex social workers. So what exactly could this "protocol" be?

Maybe only Dr. Gill is smart enough as a psychiatrist to think of the same-sex/opposite-sex point, and maybe Gus is the only patient this contingency has ever applied to. Maybe Gus will suddenly be no problem because he now has a male social worker; maybe there's nothing at all wrong with Xiaomara and she'll never have any boundary problems like that other social worker did, years ago

If that's what proves out going forward, then top EMHC administrators like Michelle Evans and Ryma Jacobson will be off the hook (for not predicting the same-sex/opposite-sex contingency in treatment); maybe they'll be credited with stellar executive insight into the unique dynamics of personnel in state nuthouses (for keeping the great psychiatrist Dr. Gill around)!

But if I had to bet, I'd say Gus won't change much. He'll keep complaining and causing trouble, because he's right and he has a strong sense of duty to truth. Meanwhile, Xiaomara will be trouble in one way or another, and she'll leave this bad job, as will Joe Basso. Dr. Gill will resign (I'm told he's actually said he intends to). EMHC will continue getting worse and worse: more like a psychiatric slave plantation, less like a real hospital. 

The title to this article could be sung to the tune of a 1973 song about the Watergate flap, Haldeman Erlichman, Mitchell and Dean.

These guys have no idea what they're doing. They make it all up.

New, lower-level Social Worker to replace Xiaomara

Gus' psychiatrist, Vik Gill, introduced Gus to his new social worker today. His name is Joseph Basso. SW-II Basso has only worked at EMHC since September, 2022. On LinkedIn, he describes himself as an "Agent of Change who seeks to positively impact the disenfranchised." I can't tell how old he is, but I'd say not very, he looks about 25.

Basso's causes are "civil rights and social action, education, environment, human rights, politics, poverty alleviation, social services." Sounds about right. People always go into mental health with the idea that maybe they can help others. Then they discover, slowly or quickly, that's not what the field is about. The state nuthouses teach a lesson very soon: forensic mental health is a mafia culture of control; the nuthouses are plantations where "patients" are merely used and abused for whatever advantage can be extracted. It's a bad career, Mr. Basso. You'll either become corrupt or too stupid to notice corruption.

Gus asked why he has a new social worker, and Dr. Gill responded that this had been his decision alone, but there was "no reason" for it. I don't think that's true, even though I kind of admire Gill's insouciance in saying it. I think Xiaomara Ramirez refused to work with Gus, and she probably went over Gill's head.

In theory, since Xiaomara is a SW-III, she is more experienced and should be better at dealing with the more complex cases than SW-II Basso is. She's certainly getting paid more. Maybe she made some kind of a deal wherein she agreed to turn over 10% of her $174,000 annual salary to whomever is willing and able to take Gus off her caseload. That would only be fair, right? I think both these social workers are outside agency contracted staff, so they may have more leeway to make deals like that, than the regular union employees would have.

But I'm only speculating.

(As always... if I get any information wrong, about any individual I ever name on this blog, I hope somebody will correct me. Especially if I say something negative which isn't true, I promise to retract it as soon as I am credibly informed. You don't even have to call me yourself; just tell Gus, he'll let me know.)