Toxic Psychiatry — Drugs and Electroconvulsive Therapy: The Truth and Better Alternatives
By Peter Breggin
Fontana Paperback, 1993. 578 pp., $19.95
Reviewed by Scott Robinson
Peter Breggin has practised psychiatry since the 1950s, but hesitates before calling himself a psychiatrist. He devotes the bulk of his comprehensive consideration of his profession to counterposing non-coercive drug-free "talking therapy" (psychotherapy) and spiritual growth to the prevalent use of debilitating drugs.
The book opens with a warning: "Do not abruptly stop use of most psychiatric drugs". The reason, as he explains in chapters covering the whole smorgasbord of chemicals prescribed by psychiatrists, is that these drugs are addictive, and there is a significant withdrawal period.
The intention of Breggin's work, however, is to demonstrate the lack of efficacy of psychiatric drugs in contributing to the well-being of the "so-called mentally ill" and to describe the iatrogenic (cure-induced diseases) and brain damage which result from the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and drugs such as Largactyl, Thorazine, the neuroleptics and anti-depressants.
Breggin questions the very existence of diseases such as schizophrenia and depression. He is especially concerned with the dominance of biopsychiatry, which attempts — with virtually no hard scientific evidence — to trace the aetiology of these "diseases" to genetic or biological factors. From pseudo-scientific concepts, terms such as "disease" and "chemical imbalance", which undermine the basic human rights and self-esteem of mental patients, are derived.
The author considers the standard case studies from a sceptical scientific and humanistic perspective and illustrates the intellectual poverty of the finding upheld by the psychiatric profession. He concludes that so-called mental illness, in the vast majority of cases, is a "psychospiritual" question or "crisis", with socially conditioned causation.
He believes that people classified as "mentally ill" are merely exhibiting a part of the immense variety of intellectual, spiritual and behavioural options open to us all, and that it should be at their own behest that they undergo therapy. Any such therapy should be, says Breggin, in the form of voluntary drug-free treatment by people trained in dealing with human beings rather than with biochemical illusions, and should occur in community havens.
Breggin provides some interesting historical facts. ECT was first used in fascist Italy in 1938. It was a by no means insignificant part of the Nazis' final solution: to eradicate so-called schizophrenics from the human gene pool. Much of the biopsychiatric school of thought originated in German research which murdered tens of thousands.
In section one we are provided with a profile of a respected US psychiatrist who performed over 5000 lobotomies and who "used an ice pick inserted through the eye sockets ... he did not use sterile technique and he sometimes showed off by stabbing the patient through both eye sockets at once with an ice pick in both hands." Breggin argues that ECT and drug treatments (both still used in Australian mental institutions) are lobotomy in a different guise.
Essential to Breggin's argument is the absence of consent on the part of patients, and of a caring or counselling attitude on the part of doctors. There is, he argues, inadequate time allowed for patients to express themselves to psychiatrists in a receptive, supportive and essentially communicative situation. Drug companies (which Breggin calls the "psychopharmaceutical complex") are responsible for funding (through scholarships and lavish conferences) an international cartel of registered psychiatrists who routinely oppress some 150 million people through the use of these inhumane treatments.
The case histories detailed by Breggin are often tragic. Suicide, social displacement and physical illness caused by psychiatric drugs are described here, along with rape and other violence in US mental institutions.
Breggin sees the biological justifications for the psychiatric systems as well established and strengthening their grip. The psychiatric growth market, he states, lies with the already powerless in our society — the elderly, women and school children. Breggin suggests there is some hope in the burgeoning "survivor" groups in Britain and the US which represent a determined grassroots opposition to the existing power of psychiatrists and mental health acts.
Thousands of Australians are currently incarcerated in mental institutions, or suffer an unlimited parole on "schedule" which keeps them as outpatients and (usually) unwillingly addicted to prescribed drugs. If you are concerned about social justice, or know a victim of this indefensible system, this is a worthwhile book. Read it — you could well change, or save, a life.