Power

The issue of mental health (or at least the issue of psychiatry) is not morality, but power.

Practical questions about how and what to think, appropriate emotions, and correct behavior are not asked by individuals in isolation from their neighbors. Rather, they are presented or negotiated socially. 

For whom will you vote and why? What do you think of our political system? Are you influenced by prejudice or loyalty, or swayed by well written campaign ads produced with music and beautiful images of family and country? Are your beliefs the same as the beliefs of people you love? Do you know the law and the proper manners in common contexts? In whose presence do you use profanity? Why do you choose to follow or challenge such conventions? Thought... emotion... behavior...

If you were Elon Musk or the King of the world, you might be free to think, feel and behave almost any way you like. Being a bit less rich or having a bit less authority requires considering other people, or at least those other people who have more wealth or more authority than you.

It seems strange to me that what we call "mental health" (which is more or less ruled by psychiatry) contains almost no acknowledgement of fundamental social reality based in the dynamics of power. The "doctors" pretend that it's all a matter of scientific fact: thoughts are neurological pathways, emotion is a balance of neurotransmitters, behavior is commanded by functioning or malfunctioning brains. Mental patients simply have to be educated into the truth (which psychiatrists know best and will ultimately know perfectly if we just give them enough money) so they'll take the right drugs voluntarily.

Psychiatrists (Jeffrey "Freak of Nature" Lieberman and Richard "Malis-with-malice" come first to mind, although even nice guys like Vik Gill are equally guilty) are mistaken to think the deal is already done. Their mistake makes them arrogant, and in arrogance, they make poor presentations and become poor negotiators. The promised great breakthroughs in brain science never did happen, so now these guys are reduced to pandering to psychedelic gurus like Rick Doblin, hoping against hope that a whole new industry might emerge there, rather than a whole new "recovered memory" disaster.

It won't happen. Ketamine remains too expensive to be scalable, and all psychedelic assisted therapy will be useless or dangerous without skilled counselors and ethical facilitators who will remain few and far between. The whole psychedelic renaissance will likely collapse in the next year or two if the FDA refuses to approve ecstasy and 'shrooms as "medicine" for PTSD or depression, and LSD for alcoholism.

It's over-obviously ironic and clearly outrageous, that supposed medical professionals are now considering prescriptions of highly addictive drugs to cure addiction, drugs that were originally known to cause or mimic psychosis for mental illness, drugs that increase suicide and violence to save the world. But they are in actual fact considering prescriptions of ecstasy, psilocybin, and acid, because all they know how to do is prescribe drugs, and psychedelics momentarily look like the best high-potential power grab. The old drugs, like "antidepressants" and "antipsychotics" (sarcastic quotation marks) are discredited.

But there are even "designer" or niche psychedelic "research" drugs like "Moxy" now, with tactile and empathic effects rendering sexual boundaries in therapy almost impossible. Perfect for certain supposed "clinicians" at EMHC, Chicago Read, Packard, Alton, etc. 

Never mind "First do no harm," or truth.