Psychology vs. the Bible
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This article was started by Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.
A video version of this information, where a granddaughter played a Bible-quoting home schooler and I played a psychiatrist:
Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 2
Psychiatry Meets Match, Part 3
Summary: Psychiatry is a direct enemy of Christianity, yet our government enforces it while it censors its critics. How is psychiatry an enemy of God?
Update: [ PsychologyToday.com] admits that Depression is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why antidepressant drugs "often" work no better than placebos. See excerpts from the Psychology Today article below.
(1) Religion vs. Relativism. Psychiatry will never tell a patient that his religion is what is making him crazy, because psychiatry sees all religions as alike. (Except for Biblical Christianity, which is a source of "guilt".) But God says only one religion is true, and living by it matters more than anything else. John 14:6.
(2) The Past. Psychiatry actually perpetuates guilt by dragging patients into their embarrassing past, for which patients are taught to blame others, rather than to be merciful and forgive. God tells us to stop wallowing in the past so you can concentrate on the present. Phillipians 3:13. Our time on earth is our last opportunity to do the work that lies here for us. Ecclesiastes 9:10.
(3) Guilt. God says our "conscience" protects us from error, so the worst thing we can do is stop listening to it; to "sear" it as "with a hot iron". 1 Timothy 4:2. Psychiatry says our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serve no purpose; there is nothing we need to change, but we just need to feel better about our actions: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty -- to stop listening to our conscience. The purpose of psychiatry is to "cure" our conscience.
(4) Pride. Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride -- "self esteem" -- the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem. What psychiatry calls "mental health", God calls an abomination. Proverbs 6:16. Being loved by God, or by anyone, cannot even be appreciated so long as one thinks "it is only what I deserve."
(5) Love. God defines love as sacrificing yourself for others. John 15:12-14. Psychiatry defines love as neglecting others and taking care of yourself. To psychiatry, "love" is a kind feeling which makes the lover feel good and "at peace" with the problems of others, without the necessity of actually having to try to personally solve them. (However, it is permissible to vote for other taxpayers to throw money at them. It is not important, in that case, whether said money actually solves anything.)
(6) Eternity. Psychiatry operates completely without reference to any existence beyond death. But God says only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth where nothing lasts. Luke 12:16-34. 1 Corinthians 15:12.
(7) Works v. Grace: Earning your own Healing. Psychology is a "religion of works". (In the King James Version, "works" is a term describing working/earning your own way, without God's help, into Heaven.) You can become mentally healthy through your own understanding that your conscience has nothing important to say, and that you can "love" others without "getting involved". You can even pay for your own therapy.
Bonus: Psychiatry does not inspire us to sacrificially love others as Jesus sacrificially loved us.
(From the movie set of "The Passion". Mel Gibson, director, is discussing a scene with the actor playing Jesus.)
Introduction: This article will not persuade everybody who reads it to trust the Bible rather than Psychotherapy. But everyone who reads this will surely have to agree that the Bible, and Psychotherapy, are irreconcilable.
I hope that most, however, will also be persuaded that where the two differ, the Bible makes a LOT more sense.
In drawing these distinctions between Psychology and Scripture, I do not mean to suggest no psychotherapist can treat his patients by Scriptural principles. To the contrary, one of the features of psychotherapy, which argues against its status as a science, is the freedom of psychotherapists, once licensed, to make things up, or advocate personal convictions, and pass them off as representing the Science of Psychology even if it is 180 degrees away from the next psychotherapist down the street.
Rather, the Biblical views below, may well be presented in the course of the practice of certain psychotherapists; but they are not views learned in psychology classes. To the extent they are taught by psychotherapists, they are taught DESPITE their psychiatric training, certainly not because of it. The fact that psychotherapists routinely teach concepts they learned from common sense or from church helps account for what success they have.
Studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, made by psychiatrists themselves, by their own criteria, of whether they help their patients, show that they help some about as much as they harm others. The failure rate is very close to 50%. Actually, most such studies only compare people who receive communication with psychiatrists with those who receive no formal communication with anyone. In those handful of studies with a third control group in which patients communicate with some other group besides psychiatrists, those patients do best.
Psychiatrists know this. It is understandable why they don't care. But why do so many others rebel against these results?
The first reason is that a psychiatrist they have experience with may have dramatically helped them, perhaps because the psychiatrist relies not at all on his formal training, but on his personal wisdom, common sense, and the spirit of God in him.
The second reason, for some people, is that psychology is quite frankly their religion, and they will proclaim its virtues by faith, disregarding all contrary evidence, just as the buyers of "snake oil" home health products will share their vast claims with one another with no interest in scrutiny of their claims by any scientific process.
Here are a few fundamentals of psychiatry, compared with fundamentals of the Bible:
Contents
- 1 1. Relativism
- 2 2. The Past: Doorway to Healing
- 3 3. Guilt has no objective basis
- 4 4. Self esteem!
- 5 5. Self Love
- 6 6. Eternity is Irrelevant
- 7 7. Earning Healing
- 8 Psychiatry's Harms in the News
- 8.1 PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work
- 8.2 ADHD is NOT biological & solvable with chemicals
- 8.3 The Decades of Evidence That SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings
- 8.4 The Mental Health Industry Is Incentivized to Keep Patients Medicated: Cooper Davis
- 9 The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science
1. Relativism
What religion is "wrong enough" for a patient who practices it to be warned by a psychotherapist to leave it? Islam? Hardly. Cannibalism? We wish. If anything, Christian Fundamentalism acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God is an obstacle for psychotherapy. But ordinarily psychotherapy regards no religion, or doctrine, as the superior or inferior of any other.
(Except for Biblical Christianity, which is the cause of so much "guilt".)
Ditto for other standards of "right" and "wrong". Admittedly a staple of psychotherapy is its authority to label some people as "sick" and in need of treatment. This implies some standard at least of what is "mentally healthy". But where is there any standard even of what behavior constitutes "mental health", other than some mushy consensus voted upon by the American Psychiatric Association? The APA voted in the early '70's to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. 58% voted to remove it. What changed the APA thinking? Could it have been the semi-violent disruptions of the APA convention, two conventions in a row, by the sodomites, just before their vote? But it isn't just the APA that votes on who is mentally ill: the U.S. Supreme Court does too! In Powell v. Texas, the Court voted 5-4 to classify alcoholism as a "disease". In 1962 it had classified drug addiction as a "disease". Is there any standard of "right and wrong" or "mental illness and mental health" more objective, within psychotherapy, than a vote which might change next year? No.
By contrast, God insists that only His religion will lead us to sanity:
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
The Bible is God's Word and we may trust every word of it:
2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
No one is excused for responsibility for evil because of "mental illness":
Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: ...
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
What we today recognize as real mental illness (justifying being locked up) fits the Biblical descriptions of demon possession, for which one cure alone exists: the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one Treatment generally denied those who most desperately need it.
Act 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: 12 ...and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the LORD Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.... 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.
2. The Past: Doorway to Healing
Guilt is actually perpetuated by psychiatrists as they drag patients through their embarrassing pasts, for which they are taught to blame others. Psychotherapists deal much more with the past than other people. The Past, that is, not as in the History of America, or preserving historical homes, but as in one's individual past problems, worst nightmares, childhood embarrassments, etc.
Admittedly, the ostensible purpose is to pull up these old memories so they can be patched up and put back so they can be forgotten, like pulling out an oil burning motor and giving it a valve job so it can be put back to do its jb without commanding our attention any more.
But more than in any other human activity, psychotherapists work at remembering old pains that otherwise would not even have been remembered, for the sake of then "healing" them.
By contrast, God wants us to "let sleeping dogs lie" (for those in need of an illustration of this analogy, once I was delivering literature door to door. I stepped up on a very cluttered porch and was just about to reach for the door, when I recognized, almost camouflaged among the clutter, an enormous, sleeping dog. I thought, "he's asleep. I think it is safe to reach just one more foot and I can leave my literature before he wakes, and then run." Well, about 6" later, he woke up, and he didn't like being wakened. He really didn't like seeing me there at all. I decided to run now, and think about the literature later.)
Philemon 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
3. Guilt has no objective basis
God says the worst thing we can do is deaden our conscience, because its purpose is to save us from terrible error. But psychiatry says the worst thing we can do is feel guilty. Our feelings of guilt (the voice of conscience) serves no purpose, since there is nothing we need to change: we just need to feel better about what we do: so the best thing we can do is just stop feeling guilty. The goal of psychiatry is to "cure" conscience.
To a psychotherapist, guilt serves no useful purpose. His job is to remove it. It is not useful for identifying some failure, or evil, for which there is a penalty that must be paid. It is not necessary, in removing the guilt, to repent of anything, or to seek forgiveness; the only necessity is to stop FEELING guilty. The only necessity is to recognize, as the truth, that there is no good reason to feel guilty. Guilt is "poor mental health" which results less from what you might have done, than from what others may have done to intimidate you such as Bible-believing Christians who warned you to leave a life of Sin.
What you have done to hurt somebody else is a problem to be treated only insofar as religious myths have acted upon your cruelty to fill you with depression and guilt. Then only the depression and guilt must be treated so you no longer feel bad about having hurt others. If you have vanquished guilt by developing a heart of steel, incapable of love, then you have healed yourself. As long as you have no guilt or depression, you are "mentally healthy".
By contrast, the Bible teaches that we have a Conscience which we must heed; that all are guilty and that spiritual healing depends upon our acknowledging that reality; that we must repent of that which justifiably provokes our guilt; and that the cure for guilt is to realize guilt is our constant companion, but that God loves us despite our sins, and promises to help us grow above them, in the same sense that "mistakes" will always be with a musician, and ought always be acknowledged for the sake of avoiding them, but through continual practice we will grow so that despite them, we may produce Music.
The following passages show the nature of our "conscience": it is a way God (sometimes through angels?) speaks to us, and we must obey. There are limits to its usefulness in judging others. Our immature doctrines can cause us to misinterpret another saint's actions as endorsing what we think is wrong. The more we sin, the less clear conscience becomes.
John 8:9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
1 Timothy 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
1 Corinthians 8:7 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.... 10 For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; ....12 But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:29 Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God... 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
4. Self esteem!
Just as psychiatry considers guilt a measure of mental illness, it considers pride ("self esteem"), the flip side of guilt, a measure of mental health. Guilt is pronounced "cured" when it is replaced by self esteem! God says it is just the opposite: "pride" is possibly the greatest of sins, something which must be overcome and replaced with a consciousness of one's Love-refreshed guilt!
No wonder psychotherapy sees Bible-believing Christianity, with its proclamation of Sin and the Need for Repentance, as an obstacle to its healing methods, which must be neutralized.
(In fact, "love" cannot even be appreciated without consciousness of guilt. What makes "love" love is when it loves, not the deserving, but the undeserving anyway, DESPITE not being deserved. Thus one cannot appreciate being loved, as long as one thinks it is nothing special because "it is only what I deserve". Only with awareness of one's reason for guilt can one's own heart be moved by being loved despite one's faults.)
Proverbs 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.
Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look,...
Psalms 12:3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
5. Self Love
"Love" is honored within the field of psychology, all right, but not Biblical love. Self-service is the goal of all therapy, through redefinition of "Love". "Love" is defined as a kind feeling, which is beneficial to feel because it makes one's self feel good. The warm, comfortable feeling makes one "at peace" with others' problems, without the necessity of actually having to personally get involved.
The Biblical definition of Love as self-sacrifice, for the benefit of another, is not positively attacked by psychology, but it is not in any sense positively affirmed, and "altruism" is cynically analyzed as having for its motivation the good feeling it gives the giver. Would "excessive altruism" be seen by psychologists as something to be treated? I don't know, but it is certainly called "fanaticism".
John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
6. Eternity is Irrelevant
In the world of Psychology, one's morals, one's relationships with others, one's goals and sources of pleasure and fulfillment, may all be legitimately evaluated without reference to any existence beyond death. In fact, no licensed Psychiatrist, except to the extent he goes beyond the principles represented by his license, will even DISCUSS the need to plan for eternity.
Christianity holds the opposite! Only a "fool" lays up his "treasures" on earth, wherein nothing lasts!
Luke 12:16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
7. Earning Healing
In the world of Psychology, there is no "penalty" that must be "paid" by others before you can be healed; there is no "penalty" so great that you cannot afford to pay it yourself. You can earn your own way in to health. The road to mental health is paved by understanding, by greater knowledge. You can even pay for the cost of your own therapy.
Psychology is the exception to the rule, "You get what you pay for."
Have you murdered someone? Raped someone? Psychology will not judge you a criminal, or even as having done "wrong", much less "wickedly", but, at worst, as "sick", merely in need of treatment. A psychiatrist may even be willing to testify that you should not be jailed as a criminal, but treated as a patient. Certainly there is nothing about things like committing abortion, divorce, sodomy, or viewing pornography, that would concern a psychotherapist, unless some other element were involved such as you feeling uncomfortable or guilty about it. And then the therapy would focus on removing the guilt, not on correcting the behavior. At best, you may be judged "mentally healthy" though you have ruined many lives. You do not need to "ask forgiveness" of anybody or of God to remain perfectly "healthy".
By contrast, Christianity teaches that, just as a baby cannot "earn" his food, clothing, and shelter but must rely for his very existence on the love of his parents, we cannot "earn" God's help or love (without which we cannot exist) because there is nothing we can do that will even slightly personally benefit God,
Psalm 50:7 ...am God, even thy God. ... 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Even if there were any currency in which we might repay God, the cost would be staggering, because our hatred is so deep that loveing us has cost God dearly! Men hated God so deeply that they killed Him on the Cross; and our hatred is like theirs.
John 15:If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
"Grace" is one of Christianity's wonderful words. It means "gift". It means "charisma", that quality in someone that just draws others to him like flies to honey. It means "joy". Our salvation our deliverance from emptiness, depression, meaninglessness, lack of purpose, Hell cannot be accomplished by our own efforts alone; but by working with God. This point has confused people, so let me state it more carefully: our work, or our "works" as the KJV puts it, cannot "earn" us one drop of blood that Jesus shed for our salvation.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
However, we must "work", as an aspect of our "Faith" our trust in God, Heaven's "therapist", to give us "counsel" for our own benefit, obedience to which will bless us..
James 2:What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
We must "work", not to "repay" or benefit God, but to benefit ourselves; this is God's requirement, not because God wants us to reward Him, but because God loves us and wants us to grow into Sons of God who will one day sit WITH HIM IN HIS THRONE! Try earning THAT!
Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Psychiatry's Harms in the News
PsychologyToday.com excerpts - Depression NOT caused by "chemical imbalance in the brain" - antidepressants do NOT work
What is more astounding than the research reported in the July 24, 2022 issue of Psychology Today is that Psychology Today admits it! And closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! Here are some unbelievable excerpts:
"First, you should realize that while antidepressants may work for you, they do not work for everybody, and we do not know how they work. Anyone who tells you differently is lying—to you or to themselves (or both).
"Second, if you hear a medical professional using the term “chemical imbalance” to explain depression, you are hearing a fictional narrative (or a sales pitch), not scientific fact. Look for better-quality care...."
"Many people take antidepressants believing their depression has a biochemical cause. Research does not support this belief....
"The causes of depression have been long debated, yet a common explanation holds that the culprit is “chemical imbalance” in the brain. This notion emerged, not coincidentally, in the late '80s with the introduction of Prozac—a drug that appeared to be helpful in treating depression by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin.
"Pushed heavily by the pharmaceutical industry, as well as reputable professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, this storyline has since become the dominant narrative with regard to depression, accepted by the majority of people in the U.S., and leading more and more people to think of their psychological difficulties in terms of chemical brain processes. Depression treatment, in turn, has leaned ever more heavily on antidepressant medications, widely touted as the first, and best, intervention approach.
"(The myth) provided clear answers for both physicians and their suffering patients—an elegant explanation of the symptoms and a readily available remedy in pill form; pharma companies made money." But it was soon discovered that the pills are "less effective than once hoped and advertised. About half of patients get no relief from these medications", and there are "distressing side effects".
"[Research] has shown that drug effects are often no better than those achieved via placebo....
"A 2010 review of the literature summarized: 'Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy'..."
They knew 12 years ago! Where have you heard this admitted?
Psychology Today continues, with the study that triggered this article: "A recent (2022) exhaustive 'umbrella review' (a review of meta-analyses and other reviews) of this diverse literature by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London and colleagues examined the accumulated evidence in all the above lines of inquiry. The conclusions are clear: 'The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.'”
Not that anyone is ready to stop worshipping at the First Church of Psychiatry. "Lead author Joanna Moncrieff said....'One interesting aspect in the studies we examined was how strong an effect adverse life events played in depression, suggesting low mood is a response to people's lives and cannot be boiled down to a simple chemical equation.'"
The Bible offers a solid understanding of "adverse life events" and how "all things work together for good for everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose." Romans 8:28, KJV, CEV translations
CONCLUDING COMMENTS: What is more astounding than the research is that Psychology Today admits it and closes its admission by calling psychiatrists liars who are still recommending these drugs! For decades the ability of psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs to treat depresion has been one of the strongest arguments in defense of psychiatry! This gives me hope that one day hospitals and doctors will finally admit that covid vaccines and masks don't work. This admission has seemed for years as likely as "when Hell freezes over". As hard to comprehend as the Bible verses saying even the Devil will one day bow his knee to Jesus!
Romans 14:11 It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…
Isaiah 45:22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance.
Zephaniah 2:10 This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the LORD of Hosts. 11 The LORD will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.
ADHD is NOT biological & solvable with chemicals
Excerpts from [After long suggesting ADHD has biological basis, scientists now make stunning admission] by Joseph Mackinnon, April 14, 2025
There was a damning admission in New York Times Magazine over the weekend that may inspire new doubts about the credibility of the so-called experts advising the masses on matters of health, namely that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may not have a basis in biology after all.
That admission was not volunteered from some activist or critic but rather by the Dutch neuroscientist who apparently misled the world into thinking "A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain."
In a piece titled "Have we been thinking about A.D.H.D. all wrong?" Paul Tough discussed the correlated explosion of ADHD diagnoses and Ritalin prescriptions in the 1990s — a trend, he noted, that was accompanied by criticism from parents and others concerned about the apparent campaign to load kids with methylphenidate and amphetamines.
"You didn't have to be a Scientologist to acknowledge that there were some legitimate questions about A.D.H.D.," wrote Tough. "Despite Ritalin's rapid growth, no one knew exactly how the medication worked or whether it really was the best way to treat children's attention issues."
Parents were right to be concerned.
Ritalin, Adderall, and the other highly addictive stimulants foisted upon hard-to-control American youths have a variety of undesirable side effects, both immediate and long-term.
In the short term, they can cause side effects such as bladder pain, bloody urine, an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, diarrhea, headaches, joint pain, trouble sleeping, confusion, agitation, seizures, and vomiting. In the long term, these drugs can apparently impact growth, dopamine regulation, and memory formation and retention and cause elevated blood pressure, psychosis, and mood disorders.
Tough noted that the medical establishment, already bullish on the ADHD craze, seized upon the initial results of the [Multimodal Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Study]. The study, published in 1999, suggested that Ritalin was effective.
While the children in their MTA study reported improvements after 14 months of choking down stimulants, after 36 months, their advantage had effectively disappeared such that they were expressing the same supposed symptoms as the comparison group. Years later, the same test subjects turned out to be an inch shorter than their peers.
The [well-documented] overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adults is troubling on its face but far worse when considered in light of Sonuga-Barke's understanding that ADHD diagnoses are purely subjective and effectively unfalsifiable; Swanson's admission that ADHD treatment doesn't help in the long-run; and Hoogman's admission that there is not a biological signature for the supposed disorder.
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh [noted] in response to the New York Times Magazine article, "ADHD is one of the greatest scams in modern history. Millions of kids have been given mind-altering drugs on the basis of a lie. Now after decades — and after shouting down and defaming those of us who knew better — they're finally starting to admit it. It's infuriating."
The Decades of Evidence That SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings
[A Midwestern Doctor] who remains anonymous in order to keep his license but whose CDC-challenging medical news has a robust following, asks, of Ritalin and its cousins, "How Dangerous Must a Drug Be Before it is Pulled from the Market?"
A Midwestern Doctor Nov 04, 2023 Story at a Glance:
•SSRI antidepressants have a variety of horrendous side effects. These include sometimes causing the individual to become agitated, feeling they can’t be in their skin, turning psychotic, and occasionally becoming violently psychotic.
•During these psychoses, individuals can have out of body experiences where they commit lethal violence either to themselves or others.
•As lawsuits later showed, this violent behavior (and the frequent suicides that followed it) were observed throughout the SSRI clinical trials, but were covered up by the SSRI manufacturers and then the drug regulators (e.g., the FDA).
•Once the SSRIs entered the market, there has been a wave of SSRI suicides and unspeakable acts of violence.
•Sadly, the idea that SSRIs could cause any of this has always been viewed as a “conspiracy theory” or “mistaking correlation with causation” because very few are aware of the extensive evidence linking SSRIs to violent and psychotic behavior—despite it now being on the warning label of those drugs.
Most holistic doctors consider Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) anti-depressants to be one of most harmful mass-prescribed drugs on the market (it typically makes their top 5). However unlike the other drugs, which are just unsafe and ineffective, SSRIs also have a fairly unique problem—they can kill people who are not even taking the drugs.
The Mental Health Industry Is Incentivized to Keep Patients Medicated: Cooper Davis
[EpochTV] January 28, 2025 EXCERPTS
At a young age, Cooper Davis was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a low dose of Ritalin, which helped his ability to focus but caused unwanted side effects. To counteract them, he was prescribed other medications. By age 30, Davis was dependent on six different psychiatric drugs at any given time, what’s commonly known in the mental health community as a “prescription cascade.”
But the trend line [for solving every problem with a pill] has only gone up, despite there’s been many, many years of admonitions and people from inside the industry, from inside regulatory agencies, coming out and saying, this ship is going in a direction that nobody, nobody imagines is a good place.
Over-medication is a term that I cringe a little bit at just because it implies that there’s a right amount of medication. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily even the case. Psychiatric iatrogenesis is a pretty clinical term. There are people who identify as being part of something called the prescribed harm community. Statistically, in terms of causes of preventable death, it’s quite high and that can be alarming.
The CDC’s numbers say one out of four adults, or maybe just under, is currently taking at least one psychiatric drug, and around 6 million kids. The only commonly prescribed psychiatric medication that I personally would consider to be simple would be a stimulant, like what’s prescribed for ADHD. So your Adderall and your Ritalin. But when it comes to antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, sleep drugs, and that, you know, there’s increasingly a lot of off-label use as well.
I was somebody who was diagnosed at one point with treatment-resistant attention deficit disorder. And essentially what that means is that no drug treatment is sufficient. The severity of my disease is so great that I resist treatments that otherwise work for other people. And it’s a very unique consumer product, right, where if it doesn’t work as promised, you blame the consumer.
[When I was 17.] Started on Ritalin, five milligrams in the morning before school, and then a booster dose, although after lunchtime. And did it help? I went from being a C student to an A student overnight.
[Before I had to force] myself to write an email that feels so tedious, and thenI realize I’m not breathing. It is that painful for me to be bored. What the drug did is it took that away and it made basically anything I chose to focus on equally engaging. Everything felt like it was interesting to me. And so once I was able to direct that, I took great pleasure in directing it at the things that were supposed to do and that were necessary in order to achieve academically.
The drug is really active for the first two, three hours after you take it. You have that morning dose and you have like a lunchtime dose. But by three, four o‘clock, five o’clock in high school and in college, you’re done with class. You’re done with school for the day. Now you’re going to go socialize with your friends. At that time of day, the drug is now wearing off and I’m experiencing what is widely known as a crash. There’s a stimulant crash once it wears off. There’s no reason the doctor would even talk about that at all. There are not a lot of quantifiables in there to build studies around to capture evidence or define this as a risk of any kind. Some of those undesired effects, you don’t even know what they are until you are quite a few years down the road. What happens is over time, the therapeutic effect that you’re looking for generally diminishes. And sometimes the non-therapeutic or undesired effects do not diminish.
Year after year, taking this every single day, my brain is quite used to having these chemicals present. It’s accommodating for their presence. And I start to become more and more anxious. My sleep is more and more disrupted. I’m already seeing a psychiatrist every month because I have to get my refills.
The psychiatrist says, how’s everything going? After a few appointments I responded to that question with, I’m still having trouble sleeping, I get really worked up and stressed out about A, B, and C. Then he says, it’s starting to affect your relationships, and it’s starting to affect your schoolwork. Why don’t we just try something you can take?
For me, that was a benzodiazepine called Ativan. And so that was my second drug. So I’m taking a stimulant and then to counteract and also kind of help with that come down as well, where you tend to get extra jittery. I’m taking a benzodiazepine. Valium is one, and Xanax is another benzodiazepine. For me, I started with Ativan.
So now, I’ve got something that kind of speeds me up and something that slows me down. I was prescribed benzodiazepine as needed, not to exceed two-a-day. I can take it when I feel I need it. So now I’m like, okay, well, I have this going on later. I know in an hour I have to be there, but I have this school work due at such and such a time.
Then from there it is called the prescription cascade. This is very common with antidepressants. You’re jumping around with different dosages, different stimulants, different benzodiazepines. Some doctors didn’t want me on benzodiazepines. They put me on gabapentinoids, which are similar but less addictive. You’re starting to have more trouble sleeping. Why don’t we add a sleep drug to the mix? Might as well. I’m already at the doctor’s office. I’m already at the pharmacy. Insurance makes this all sort of a negligible cost.
By the age of 30, at any given time, I’m on five or six different psychiatric drugs. I am also inconstant, unreliable, and I feel completely dependent on being able to use these drugs in order to fulfill the responsibilities and the roles of the life I created for myself. So this thing that the drugs enabled me to build, Whether it’s true or not, I now truly felt that the drugs also enabled me to keep it. Therefore, without them, I would not be able to kind of fulfill the promises that I had been able to make while taking these drugs.
It was clear to me and everyone around me, it was not helping me. I was not well. But at the same time, I felt like if I didn’t do it, I would not have everything that I had built and my identity as an adult person in the world. Age 17 to age 30 is when you figure out, hopefully, how you fit into society. For me, it was 100% predicated on access to all of these levers that I could push and pull. So I ended up coming off of all of them.
There were many crises. I had lost jobs. I had lost relationships. I had made bad decisions about where I would live or what, you know, make plans that I could not follow through on. I was disorganized. There were many crises along the road. When I would go to a prescriber and say, I think I want to find out who I would be off of all of these things. There was trepidation. They were not eager to scaffold that experience, to guide me through it, to get specific about how that might be done.
[It helped me get off all the drugs that] the stuff that I thought I needed to stay on the drugs in order to keep, it was already gone.
[My] Inner Compass Initiative was founded in 2017. Fundamentally, its mission statement is helping people make more informed choices about...coming off of these drugs. By the way, none of which are explicitly approved for long-term use. When the FDA is approving these drugs so that doctors can prescribe them, generally it’s on the basis of studies that run from six to eight weeks.
It is not hard to qualify for, you know, the DSM criteria for something if you walk into a psychiatrist’s office. [Then after years of addiction] People just cold turkey these drugs or their doctor takes them off over a month or two months, even though they’ve been taking it for a decade and a half. And then their life flies out of control and they think, geez, I’m a truly crazy person. Well, no, you’re drug injured.
If you are a 16-year-old girl, your boyfriend just broke up with you, you are so distraught, you can’t imagine living. You say, I want to die. The idea that the best expert in that scenario is a 65-year-old psychiatrist who went to Tufts University and can look at that girl and properly assess what she needs at that moment is kind of silly. Yet, in the narratives that we’re exposed to, there’s a sense of risk if you turn to any other expertise other than a clinical medical expert. These are very complicated problems and calling them medical problems does not make any sense. But this has become normal.
As soon as you say, I want to die, I want to kill myself, you’ve now not just triggered a set of policies depending on who hears it, if they’re a mandated reporter or whatever, policies that could trigger a response that can be really traumatic, more traumatic than the breakup, because now you’re a threat to yourself or others potentially, just like a category of person whose rights are not present anymore. The idea that this is a medical situation that requires medical expertise, and that is what is going to lead you out of this and lead you towards a sustainable, resilient persona that can handle these types of things. In a lot of ways, that is laughable. But if you can take the results of that teenage girl’s breakup and basically convert it into something that you can bill insurance for, then of course it’s going to be medicalized, right? And that common sense and that compassion and that care and that human to human connection, this is something that mental health care has a very hard time providing. Everything is transactional, everything is predicated on some kind of system.
[At our nonprofit] we’ve come up with a very straightforward form that people can fill out. It’s meant to capture what was going on in your life before you encountered the mental health industry. And this library will be just a searchable database like any other. We just want to become a conduit for layperson wisdom, layperson expertise, and the compassion we have for one another.
The Supreme Court Precedent calling psychotherapy Fake Science
The Supreme Court cited a book by Karl Popper to explain its shift in its definition of an "expert witness". The book gives psychotherapy as an example of a pseudo-science, as it explains the difference between it and real science. This link is to my article summarizing the concepts of the book.
Excerpts from Karl Popper's book. The Court quoted this article by Karl Popper which explains why Psychotherapy is no more "scientific" than astrology, the race-hating theories of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, or pagan myths.
[https://www.biri.org/pdf/articles/Psychiatry-False.pdf? Statements of top psychiatrists admitting that the various categories of "mental illness", each of which has drug companies scrambling to market to each category, have no objective tests to distinguish them from each other, or even to distinguish them from "normal". This article is by Jon Rappoport, whose website is NoMoreFakeNews.com.