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​You are being fooled about mental illness
It's not illness
​It's not dysfunction
It's not biological
It's not medical
It's not chemical
...
It. Is. Meaningful.

5/13/2022 0 Comments

A beginning...

Let me begin this new blog by revealing a secret that is hiding in plain sight: The conventional mental health industry isn't about health and illness. Instead, the industry has bastardized the reputation of the medical professions in order to disguise a morality crusade. Its purpose has always been to control unwanted and distressing people. Nowhere in the process do we find actual treatment of an illness. What we find are moral judgments about the appropriateness of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, and methods to stop them using physical, chemical, electrical, or persuasive means. This is not medicine. It is crowd control. For this reason, many professionals within that system have abandoned its medical model and try to help others in a humane and compassionate way. These professionals can be very helpful, but only if they remember the goal is to assist to the extent and in the way that person wants assistance.
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    Chuck Ruby, Ph.D., is a psychologist who is in private practice in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. This blog is an exploration of the ideas in his book, Smoke and Mirrors: How You Are Being Fooled About Mental Illness - An Insider's Warning To Consumers​. The book's message is that the conventional mental health industry is a system of attempted moral control of our thoughts and actions, and that there are many harmful consequences of that system. It is not a legitimate medical system of assessment and care. Science has failed to demonstrate any kind of disease, defect, or dysfunction in people that cause mental illness. The term "mental illness" is merely a metaphor that describes real human problems, but they are not medical or biological problems. They are deeply personalized and meaningful dilemmas. When dysfunction is found to cause mental anguish, that is not mental illness. Instead, it is real illness and we already have medical specialities that handle those mental symptoms. Endocrinology and not psychiatry handles the lethargy from hypothyroidism. Urology and not psychiatry handles the delusions from urinary tract infections. Neurology and not psychiatry handles the odd behaviors from brain damage. Treatment for these dysfunctions is focused on alleviating the underlying dysfunction. Psychiatry has no underlying dysfunction to treat.

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