Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CITIZENS COMMISSION
ON HUMAN RIGHTS
The Citizens Commission on Human
Rights (CCHR) was established in 1969 by
the Church of Scientology to investigate
and expose psychiatric violations of human
rights, and to clean up the field of mental
healing. Its co-founder is Dr. Thomas
Szasz, professor of psychiatry emeritus and
an internationally renowned author. Today,
CCHR has more than 130 chapters in over
30 countries. Its board of advisors, called
Commissioners, includes doctors, lawyers,
educators, artists, business professionals,
and civil and human rights representatives.
CCHR has inspired and caused many
hundreds of reforms by testifying before
legislative hearings and conducting public
hearings into psychiatric abuse, as well as
working with media, law enforcement and
public officials the world over.
PSEUDOSCIENCE
Los Angeles, CA, USA 90028
Telephone: (323) 467-4242
(800) 869-2247 • Fax: (323) 467-3720
www.cchr.org
PSYCHIATRY’S FALSE DIAGNOSES
e-mail: humanrights@cchr.org
RECOMMENDATIONS
1
Government, criminal, educational, judicial and
other social agencies should not rely on the DSM
and no legislation should use this as a basis for
determining the mental state, competency, educa-
tional standard or rights of any individual.
2
Establish rights for patients and their insurance
companies to receive refunds for psychiatric
treatment which did not achieve the promised
result or improvement, or which resulted in
harm to the individual.
3
If you or a relative or friend have been falsely
imprisoned in a psychiatric facility, assaulted,
abused or damaged by a mental health
practitioner, seek attorney advice about filing a
civil suit against any offending psychiatrist and
his or her hospital, associations and teaching
institutions.
“Making lists of behaviors,
Caution: No one should stop taking any psychiatric drug without the advice
applying medical-sounding labels to and assistance of a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor.
people who engage in them, then using This publication was made possible by a grant from the United States
International Association of Scientologists Members’ Trust.
the presence of those behaviors to prove 1 Dr. Tana Dineen, Ph.D., Manufacturing Distraction,” The Independent (United
they have the illness in question is Victims, Third Edition, (Robert Davies
Multimedia Publishing, Montreal, 2001), p. 86.
Kingdom), 19 Mar. 2001.
8 Bruce D. Levine, Ph.D., Commonsense
2 Paula J. Caplan, They Say You’re Crazy Rebellion: Debunking Psychiatry, Confronting
scientifically meaningless. It tells us (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, New York, 1995) p. 91.
Society (Continuum, New York, 2001), p. 277.
9 Lisa M. Krieger, “Some Question Value of
3 Margaret Hagen, Ph.D., Whores of the Court, Brain Scan; Untested Tool Belongs in Lab Only,
nothing about causes or solutions. The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape Experts Say,” The Mercury News, 4 May 2004.
of American Justice (Harper Collins Publishers, 10 Kelly Patricia O’Meara, “New Research
It does, however, create the Inc., New York, 1997), p. 77.
4 John Read, “Feeling Sad? It Doesn’t Mean
Indicts Ritalin,” Insight Magazine, 7 Sept. 2001.
11 Paul Campos, “Beware Timeless Malady;
You’re Sick,” New Zealand Herald, 23 June 2004. Witch Hunt,” Deseret News, (Utah), 6 July 2003.
reassuring feeling that something 5 Lawrence Stevens, J.D., “Does Mental Illness 12 Op. cit, Tana Dineen, pp. 155–156.
Exist?” undated article, http://www.mental- 13 Sydney Walker III, M.D., A Dose of Sanity
medical is going on.” healthfacts.com/antipsychiatry/exist.htm.
6 Lars Boegeskov, “Mentally Ill Have to Have
(John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1996), p.14.
14 Lorrin M. Koran, Medical Evaluation Field
Help—Not to be Cured,” Politiken 19 Sept. Manual, Department of Psychiatry and
1994. Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University
— John Read, senior lecturer in psychology, 7 “Ten Things That Drive Psychiatrists to Medical Center, California, 1991, p. 4.
H
Manual (1991), “Mental health professionals working ave you ever heard of the following mental
within a mental health system have a professional and disorders: reading disorder, disruptive
a legal obligation to recognize the presence of physical behavior disorder, disorder of written
disease in their patients ... physical diseases may cause expression, mathematics disorder, caffeine
a patient’s mental disorder [or] may worsen a mental intoxication, nicotine withdrawal disorder, non-
disorder.” compliance with treatment disorder, or “physical
Dr. Julian Whitaker, author of the respected Health abuse of a child problem” and “sexual abuse of a
& Healing newsletter, says: “When psychiatrists label a child problem?”
child or [adult], they’re These are a few of the 374 mental disorders
labeling people because of that are listed in the American Psychiatric
symptoms. They do not Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical
have any pathological diag- Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) or in the
nosis; they do not have any mental disorders section of the World Health
laboratory diagnosis; they Organization’s International Classification of
cannot show any differenti- Diseases (ICD).
ation that would back up Depicted as diagnostic tools, the DSM and
the diagnosis of these psy- ICD are not only used to diagnose mental and
chiatric ‘diseases.’ Whereas emotional disturbances and prescribe “treatment,”
if you have a heart attack, but also to resolve child custody battles, discrimi-
“When a child’s behavior you can find the lesion; if nation cases based on alleged psychiatric disabili-
is labeled as a disease they you have diabetes, your ty, augment court testimony, modify education
believe they have something blood sugar is very high; if and much more. In fact, whenever a psychiatric
wrong with their brains that you have arthritis it will opinion is sought or offered, the DSM or the ICD
makes it impossible for them show on the X-ray. In psy- are presented and increasingly accepted, as the
to control themselves chiatry, it’s just crystal- final word on sanity, insanity and so-called
without using a pill.” balling, fortune-telling; it’s mental illness.
totally unscientific.” Canadian psychologist Tana Dineen reports,
— Dr. Fred A. Baughman Jr., Psychiatry would pre- “Unlike medical diagnoses that convey a probable
a pediatric neurologist and fer to say or imply that cause, appropriate treatment and likely prognosis,
Fellow of the American only brain-based, mental the disorders listed in DSM-IV [and ICD-10] are
Academy of Neurology “illnesses” can affect irra- terms arrived at through peer consensus”1—liter-
tional behavior or thinking, that they need long- ally, a vote by APA committee members—
term, if not life-long care, and that they are incurable. designed largely for billing purposes.
These falsehoods have been so successfully dissemi- Lynne Rosewater, a psychologist who attend-
nated throughout the mental health system and ed a DSM hearing presided over by one of the
amongst the public, that countless numbers have manual’s leading architects, psychiatrist Robert
become trapped as lifelong patients of psychiatric Spitzer, reported, “[T]hey were having a discus-
and psychological services. sion for a criterion about Masochistic Personality
These falsehoods must be exposed. Disorder and Bob Spitzer’s wife, [a social worker
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T
question is scientifically meaningless. It tells us rusted with the care for our mentally disturbed,
nothing about causes or solutions. It does, how- psychiatry has failed utterly to provide any
ever, create the reassuring feeling that something humane solutions to their plight. In fact,
medical is going on.”4 medical—not psychiatric—doctors can treat such
DSM has become so widely relied upon disturbance far more effectively. Charles B. Inlander,
within society that it has taken on the aura of sci- president of The People’s Medical Society, wrote in
entific fact. Millions now use and believe in its Medicine on Trial, “People with real or alleged
diagnostic abilities, never once suspecting that psychiatric or behavioral disorders are being
the whole premise and the system itself are misdiagnosed—and harmed—to an astonishing
fraudulent. These people are at risk of making degree. … Many of them do not have psychiatric
seriously wrong, even fatal, turns in either their problems but exhibit physical symptoms that may
own lives, or the lives of others. mimic mental conditions, and so they are
This publication fills in the very large and misdiagnosed, put on drugs, put in institutions, and
deliberate gaps left by psychiatric propaganda sent into a limbo from which they may never return.”13
about its key claim to “scientific” fame, the DSM. In a book reflecting clinical research into nutritional
influences on mental illness, Melvyn R. Werbach, M.D.,
Jan Eastgate assistant clinical professor at the University of
President, California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, recom-
Citizens Commission mends that in diagnosing patients, physicians should
on Human Rights International check “dietary history and current eating patterns,”
“examine the patient for signs of nutritional deficien-
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I
filled, serious sounding deceptions that fully deserve n a significant departure from medical diag-
the contemptuous label used by trial lawyers them- nosis, psychiatric diagnoses are devoted to
selves: junk science.”12 categorization of symptoms only, not the
When a psychiatrist testifies that a criminal is observation of actual physical disease. None of
insane based on “junk science” and should be acquitted the diagnoses are supported by scientific evi-
or treated instead of imprisoned, justice is subverted dence of biological disease or mental illness of
into serving the any kind.
individual instead Imagine a medical doctor treating high blood
of the group. In pressure or diabetes, who cannot even define what
this way, psychia- it is. Now consider that not one psychiatrist can sci-
trists have succeed- entifically define what he is supposedly “treating.”
ed in weakening, On schizophrenia, the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders admits,
Testifying for the defense, “Even if it had tried, the Committee could not
psychologists claimed that establish agreement about what this disorder is;
the Menendez brothers it could only agree on what to call it.”
(later convicted) suffered Psychiatric diagnoses are a combination of
from “learned helpless- social engineering and “what’s good for busi-
ness” when they opened ness.” In 1973, APA committee members voted—
fire on and murdered
their parents with shotguns.
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CHAPTER TWO
JUNK SCIENCE
The mental disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM) have been included with no scientific basis or proof.
M
ore and more frequently, psychiatrists and ❚ Determine if a person is fit to plead “guilty”
psychologists tell parents that their child in a criminal trial.
suffers from a disorder affecting his or her ❚ Incarcerate a defendant indefinitely in psy-
ability to learn—called a Learning Disorder (LD), chiatric care rather than find him guilty of a
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), or most crime and sentence him to a finite sentence.
commonly today, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity ❚ Prevent a person from being released from
Disorder (ADHD). jail or paroled.
DSM-IV lists the ADHD symptoms as: fails to ❚ Invalidate a person’s will.
give close attention to details or may make careless ❚ Break legal contracts and override a person’s
mistakes in schoolwork or other tasks; has difficulty wishes regarding business or property.
sustaining attention in tasks or play activities; fails to ❚ Involuntarily incarcerate a person in a
complete schoolwork, chores, or other duties; often psychiatric institution where electroshock
fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat; often treatment and drugs can be forcibly
runs about or climbs excessively. administered.
Virtually all children have enough symptoms to ❚ Force a person to continue taking powerful,
get a DSM label. As a result, 17 million children nerve- and brain-damaging drugs while
worldwide are now prescribed some form of danger- living in the community.
ous psychotropic drug. ❚ Defraud a person’s health insurance.
Dr. Mary Ann Block, author of No More ADHD, ❚ Bill insurance companies for psychiatrists
points out that “The psychiatrist does not do any test- sexually assaulting their patients, while call-
ing. The psychiatrist listens to the history and then ing it “therapy.”
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THE ‘CHEMICAL IMBALANCE’ FRAUD 2004 article in The Mercury News, says that many
The cornerstone of psychiatry’s disease doctors warn that the use of such scans is
model today is the theory that a brain-based, “unethical” and “dangerous,” quite apart from
chemical imbalance causes mental illness. not being scientifically validated. “The $2,500
Popularized by marketing, the notion is no more (€2,040) evaluation offers no useful or accurate
than psychiatric wishful thinking. As with all of information.”9
psychiatry’s mental “disease” models, it has Despite the abundance of alleged biochemi-
been thoroughly discredited by researchers, cal explanations for supposed psychiatric condi-
medical doctors, and even psychiatrists and tions, Joseph Glenmullen of Harvard Medical
psychologists. School is emphatic: “…not one has been proven.
In 2002, Dr. Thomas Szasz, professor of psy- Quite the contrary. In every instance where such
chiatry emeritus, stated: “There is no blood or an imbalance was thought to have been found, it
other biological test to ascertain the presence or was later proven false.”
absence of a mental illness, as there is for most
bodily diseases. If such a test were developed
(for what, theretofore, had been considered a PSYCHIATRY’S FUNDING TACTIC
psychiatric illness), then the condition would INVENT MORE “MENTAL ILLNESSES”
cease to be a mental illness and would be classi-
fied, instead, as a symptom of a bodily disease.” 1952— Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders first
Bruce Levine, Ph.D., psychologist and author 800
published—DSM-I lists 112 Mental
of Commonsense Rebellion concurs: “Remember Disorders.
that no biochemical, neurological, or genetic
markers have been found for attention deficit dis- 1980 — DSM-III lists
224 Mental Disorders.
NIMH Funding in Millions of U.S. Dollars
1952
1963
1968
1980
1987
1990
1994
2004
Elliot Valenstein Ph.D.,
(right) explains,
“There are no tests
available for assess-
ing the chemical The tactics of psychiatrists inventing more and more mental disorders for
inclusion in DSM has garnered the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health
status of a living (NIMH) more than a billion in government appropriations—with no
person’s brain.” commensurate benefit to society.
8 9