Talk:Anti-psychiatry

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Cswrye rated the Anti-psychiatry article as “Low-importance on the importance scale”.

Only one question: Doesn’t the fact that 200,000 people are being electro-shocked each year and that millions of healthy children are drugged with psychiatric drugs is important? —Cesar Tort 18:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Cleanup needs

Anti-psychiatry - big, sprawling, completely unsourced, reads like personal essay rather than encyclopedia article. --Dcfleck 14:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Note Dc's comments were from over a month ago, the article has undergone substantial reworking since then and the general consensus is that it no longer needs to be cleaned up. If there are no objections, i'll remove the tag in a day or two. Rockpocket 05:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the current article is looking pretty good. Ande B 05:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted reference

Unlike the other references, I deleted the following one since it has no connection with the text:

  • Caplan, Paula J., They say you're crazy: how the world's most powerful psychiatrists decide who's normal, Addison-Wesley, 1995. An inside look at the politics of the DSM from a former consultant.

—Cesar Tort 04:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should the MLK Jr. quote be deleted?

I mean no offense to whoever may have included it, but I do not see how this necessarily endorses what could be considered an "anti-psychiatry" viewpoint. If proof can be provided that this was Dr. King's intent when saying this, then by all means it should stay. Otherwise, I feel it should be removed. FVZA_Colonel 13:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I have no idea why that is in there, or whether there is any psychiatric context to the quote. Rockpocket (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failure of Anti-Depressants

We could add a section on the failure of modern anti-depressants. Prozac, manufactured by Eli-Lilly, has been shown to increase the suicide rate in adolescents. More recently Paxil has been shown to increase the suicide rate in adults. This has now been acknowledged by the manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. Here is a link to the acknowledgement http://www.gsk.com/media/paroxetine/adult_hcp_letter.pdf . Here's a link to a news article on the subject http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200877.html .

I'm not sure what section this belongs in. Despite the increase in suicide rate, both manufactures maintain that the drugs help reduce depression. In my opinion, these two facts directly conflict with one another, so perhaps this belong in the Pseudo-Science section.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Exit 0 (talk • contribs).

Actually, the claim that antidepressants increases suicide is wrong. Antidepressants result in reduced suicid; suicidality may be increased. If I get a chance, I will post a link to the latest data on this. The fact that the above poster(s) fail(s) to understand this simple but significant difference is exemplary of much of the specious reasoning in this badly written entry.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wow (talk • contribs).

That's a ridiculous assertion. It's like saying a defibrillator doesn't help save lives because it has the potential to hurt someone. You're thinking "one specified negative effect" negates "one specified positive effect" without any effort at weighing the effects. --Davidstrauss 16:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
This subject has been extensively discussed here [1] and belongs more to the articles about Prozac and antidepressants. One of the things I don’t like with this kind of pronouncements, very common in Citizens Commission on Human Rights, is that they are a jump. The right way to formulate these claims is something like this: “It has been proven that a significant number of people on antidepressant drugs and specifically neuroleptics suffer from akathisia as a result of such sometimes iatrogenic drugs, a state of extreme inner anxiety. Some of these people with a mental history commit suicide in order to escape the inner torment”. See also what I say about how neuroleptics were used to torture political dissidents in communist Russia in User talk:Cesar Tort/discussion. But I repeat: this discussion belongs to other articles. —Cesar Tort 16:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Cesar Tort may be right about the proper location of this, however, I don't think the assertion is ridiculous. Don't the studies that show SSRIs to be effective rely on subjective, and possibly flawed, measurements of depression? Suicide rates, in contrast, are not subjective. I would also suggest that they are a sure and reliable indicator of the rate of depression within a given population --Exit 0 21:47 GMT, 28 May 2006 updated 22:47 GMT, 28 May 2006
Exit 0 fails to understand the data and methodology. First the studies on SSRIs and other anti-depressants use all sorts of methodologies. Subjective rating scales are one type but not the only type. Others include looking at objective factors such as employment and other measures of achievement. As to suicide rates, the studies generally show that antidepressant use lowers rates of completed suicides. Some studies show that attempts may go up but lethality of attempts and death by suicide goes down. One of the largest studies done out of Finland published, makes a strong argument that antidepressant greatly reduce over all mortality, not just from suicide, but from other causes:
In this study, 15,390 patients without psychosis who were hospitalized for a suicide attempt between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2003, were followed up through a nationwide computerized database, with a mean follow-up of 3.4 years. The primary endpoints were the propensity score–adjusted relative risks (ARRs) during monotherapy with the most frequently used antidepressants vs no antidepressant treatment.
For subjects who had ever used any antidepressant, current medication use was associated with a markedly increased risk for attempted suicide (39%; P < .001), but also with a markedly decreased risk for completed suicide (-32%; P = .002) and mortality (-49%; P < .001) when compared with no current medication use. For subjects aged 10 to 19 years, the findings were essentially the same as those in the total population, except for an increased risk for death with paroxetine hydrochloride use (ARR, 5.44; 95% CI, 2.15 - 13.70; P < .001).
"Among suicidal subjects who had ever used antidepressants, the current use of any antidepressant was associated with a markedly increased risk of attempted suicide and, at the same time, with a markedly decreased risk of completed suicide and death," the authors write. "Lower mortality was attributable to a decrease in cardiovascular- and cerebrovascular-related deaths during selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor use."
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:1358-1367
So this study suggests that antidepressants decrease the rate of completed suicide and also result in longer lfe due to the decrease in completed suicide and decreased rates of stroke and heart attack. This study and many other rebuts the claims of Exit 0 and his misreading of the studies.76.179.18.95 06:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Hi, Ho!

[edit] András / Andrew Feldmár

I'd like to read about him, whether in this article on in his own. I only know his books in Hungarian but he's been living and working in Vancouver, Canada, for several decades and I suppose he should have a wider bibliography in English. See also his page at the website of the R. D. Laing Society: [2] (cache). Adam78 20:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two distinct articles

Once reworked, the Antipsychiatry article will deal with politics in the mental health movement. On the other hand, Biopsychiatry controversy will explain the scientific side. As Bookish has explained in my talk page:

"As this is a major controversy in psychiatry I think it's very important to restrict supporting references and citations to bona fide medical journals and high-profile campaigners who are medically qualified. Because of the slurs that have been directed against survivor groups I don't think it's particularly helpful to link to articles on the websites of marginalized campaigning organizations. Likewise media reports. Mainstream medical literature will provide more than enough".

For the moment the distinction is blurred. Once both articles are thoroughly reworked the reason for two articles will become clear. Momentarily Biopsychiatry controversy includes part of a paragraph which was copied and pasted from the old article:

Some also believe that the media has distorted information promoting the idea that autism is a physical disorder. Leo Kanner views autism as a psychological disorder resulting from bad parenting (despite occurences of one twin being autistic while the other is not). Psychiatrists who do not accept the medical model of mental disorders, such as Peter Breggin, maintain that the labeling of children inflicts additional humiliation and injury to the self-esteem of an already traumatized child. Since 1971 Breggin is director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. Originally the center was founded to oppose the revival of lobotomy, and today it opposes the inclination to diagnose and medicate children and adolescents. Since 1999 the center publishes a journal critical of biopsychiatry theories [8].

Since it deals about psychiatric politics, this paragraph belongs to the Antipsychiatry article. However, to avoid confusion I’ll leave it there and only will move it when the Biopsychiatry controversy article is basically completed. —Cesar Tort 23:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing section

I have started to rework the article by removing duplicate section (“Scientific...”) that now can be read in Biopsychiatry controversy. —Cesar Tort 01:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes and references

This article might be easier to reference (and read) if one of us can bit the bullet and convert existing references it to the <ref> method of citation. See the Wiki articles Wiki Footnotes and Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations. For instance: I would like to add a link to David Healy (who was invited to give evidence at the United Kingdom cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in 2005 about ghost writing etc.) but at the moment it would look inelegant and messy if I just used a <ref> tags and left the rest alone (am pressed for time right now). I can get round it but it not going get the article improved over all.--Aspro 15:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd hold off for the moment, as Cesar splitting some of this article into biopsychiatry controversy. Hopefully, when finished, he (or someone else) will use inline referencing as per WP:FN. Rockpocket 16:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Good idea to convert the existing references, Aspro. The Healey/Prozac affair and the influence of Big Pharma may be more suitable to discuss in the Anti-psychiatry article than in Biopsychiatry controversy and I’ll leave that section here.
I’ll do my final edition on this article today and you may convert references after that. —Cesar Tort 17:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Rearrangement job done. Now you may convert the references, Aspro. —Cesar Tort 19:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] quotation marks

Changed from single quotation marks to double according to WP:MoS advice [3]. —Cesar Tort 18:00, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More recent research

Just wanted to point out that schizophrenia is diagnosed more commonly in men than in women (see for example, McGrath 2006, Variations in the incidence of schizophrenia: data versus dogma [Schizophrenia Bulletin 32(1): 195-7]). Also, your citations for Electroshock are mostly from the 1970's (with one review from 2003). It would be helpful to see more recent information than this (a quick review of PubMed comes up with multiple very recent scientific articles both for and against electroshock- for example, pro: Dowman and Rajput 2005, Electroconvulsive therapy: attitudes and misconceptions [Journal of ECT 21(2): 84-7], and contra: Burstow 2006, Electroshock as a form of violence against women [Violence Against Women 12(4): 372-92]). Thanks, Christine Wilder

[edit] re Geni's revert of Austerlitz's post

Geni reverted an edit by Austerlitz but Rockpocket himslef seems to be willing to the inclusion of that article. See Psychiatry and Jeffrey Masson talk pages. --Cesar Tort 10:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

(sadly) My executive authority here doesn't count for much, though it is true that i suggested the link should be here if anywhere on Wikipedia.
However, i only went as far to suggest "perhaps it might be appropriate for Anti-psychiatry" followed by "If you are so keen on linking to Cesar's page, why don't you simply link it in the anti-psychiatry article? Strictly speaking, there is a good argument that it isn't even appropriate for that, but at least the content would be relevent."
Not being an expert in the field, i don't know how notable Cesar's opinion might be - at least in his native Mexico - but it seems to make a decent, sourced argument for anti-psychiatry related issues, so i don't really have a problem with linking it here. Might i suggest that it was the nature of the link style that drew Genie's attention in the first place, perhaps if the external link was formatted correctly it might be acceptable? Rockpocket 18:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to do the format as soon as I get from Amazon Books the Dreamweaver manual that will teach me how to handle my web page. --Cesar Tort 18:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ECT

I think the term electrochock should be changed to the more neutral ECT or Electroconvulsive Therapy. --Myelina m 13:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn’t advice it since “electroshock” is the widely-used word in the antipsychiatric movement (psychiatrists on the other hand use the term “ECT”). —Cesar Tort 00:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
The point isn't to write the Anti-psychiatry article from the antipsychiatric point of view, however. I would advise using "electroconvulsive therapy" because that is the formal name of the treatment, and thus comes with less embedded assumptions than "electroshock". -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
That's OK with me and thanks for converting the footnotes. —Cesar Tort 20:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome; it was my pleasure to do it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Low-importance?

Retrieved from Cswrye and Cesar Tort’s talk pages:

I have noted that in Talk Anti-psychiatry article you inserted the phrase: "This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale." (Doesn’t the fact that 200,000 people are being electro-shocked each year and that millions of healthy children are drugged with psychiatric drugs is remarkable?)

I wonder if this is your opinion or if the rating has been consensual? —Cesar Tort 17:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

That was just my assessment. You can feel free to change it if you want; it won't bother me. I'm just trying to place assessments on all the psychology articles, and most people either don't pay attention to or don't care how most articles are assessed. I know that some of my assessments will be challenged, and that's fine. Just start a discussion about it on the article's talk page, or if you're feeling bold, just change the assessment and see if anyone else challenges it. I will point out two things. First, this assessment is only for WikiProject Psychology, not for Wikipedia as a whole. It is possible for an article to be rated high importance in one WikiProject and low importance in another. Second, the assessment is relative to other articles in the WikiProject. There are many topics that may be important but are not necessarily crucial to gaining an understanding of the field of psychology. You can see the assessment scale at Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Assessment. —Cswrye 18:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
You can find a better explanation of importance at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria#Importance of topic. Some WikiProjects use the term "priority" rather than "importance", but in practical terms, they mean the same thing. I do want to make the point that a "Low" assessment doesn't mean that the article isn't important, only that it's not a topic that one would expect to find in a psychology encyclopedia. —Cswrye 21:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] copyrighted material?

http://www.taxglosses.com/Showc-to-Tecno/Anti-psychiatry.html The webpage at first glance appears to be identical to the Wikipedia anti-psychiatry page. Insights anyone? --Scuro 23:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Its a mirror of our article. I notice they do not abide by the terms of the GFDL licence nor do they link back to this article, thus they are infringing on the copyright of the major contributors. If you could find an email address from the site owner you could always send them a notice like this, for example. Rockpocket 00:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The site is registered through Domains By Proxy, [4] whose T&C's prohibit activities that "violate the law or infringe a third party’s trademark or copyright". Thus we could always contact them at:

DOMAINS BY PROXY® Attn: Legal Complaints 15111 N. Hayden Road, Suite 160 PMB 353 Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Or at their email listed here -- Rockpocket 00:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Should Scientology be mentioned in this article? -is the article biased?

Much of what is written in the article is what a Scientologist would also believe in. Are Scientologists not also anti-psychiatry? Did they not also play a major role in this movement and should they not also be included in the history section? Who are we kidding here, if Scientology is excluded. --Scuro 07:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

In Talk:Biological_psychiatry I already proposed that the Scientology section be moved elsewhere. However, that doesn’t mean that it ought to be replicated or mentioned multiple times in all psychiatry articles.
The differences between Scientology and anti-psychiatry have been discussed by several editors in Talk:Thomas_Szasz#Scientology ―Cesar Tort 09:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Anti-psychiatry is a broad umbrellla like term, similar to the "conservative movement". Scientology belongs in Anti-psychiatry, they were, and still are major players in this movement. This article appears to biased, in that a major force of this movement has been excluded.

--Scuro 14:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this page would benefit from a section clarifying the different kinds of people involved in "anti-psychiatry" and what their involvement and motivation is exactly. I guess that would include anyone who identifies themselves as being fundamentally anti-psychiatry (or at least anti-a-lot-of-psychiatry) and/or who is identified as being under that umbrella by others. EverSince 16:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC) p.s. I don't think Scientology was a significant player originally was it? And is now a largely independent force (i.e. a perspective and activism largely derived and supported from elsewhere, even if tapping some of the same concerns), would that be fair to say?

I don't know a lot about Scientology but I would hazard to guess that they are significant players in the field. There has always been a religious furvor to their message and they seem to expend a great deal of energy in this area. If one uses the internet as a barometer, they have a fair bit of content on the web. I would also hazard to guess that they would have been bigger players in the past when other fringe players in this field didn't even have this issue on their radar screen. L. Ron Hubbard's anti-psychiatry views were already being stated in his early science fiction novels and it was a cornerstone of his newly founded church in the 50's. The church has great financial incentive to discredit psychiatry and genetic model of brian disorders. During a Auditing (Scientology) session much is made of past memories and the use of church procedures to become emotionally well again. If someone's problems can be eliminated with a pill or be better explained by genetics, scientology would become irrelevant. --15:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scuro (talk • contribs).

Hi Scuro.
It’s true that Hubbard was at odds with psychiatry in the early 1950s. But by then CCHR didn’t exist. And even after 1969 it was an almost unheard of organization. In the 1960s dissident psychiatrists like R.D. Laing, Szasz and antipsych philosophers like Foucault were on the spotlight. This continued thru the 1970s and it means that Scientology didn’t cause the secular antipsychiatry movement. For example, here in Mexico there have been two international antipsychiatry conferences, in 1978 and 1981. Not a single scientologist attended them. The Zeitgeist of the international conferences was the political left, so common in those times.
In the 1980s biopsychiatry won more respectability thanks to the introduction of something new in medicine: a partnership between the pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession. Peter Breggin explains it at the end of Toxic Psychiatry. Even the professionals at the APA accept that it could not survive without that sponsorship. Only by that time CCHR started to increase its activities, which have increased exponentially the latest years.
I doubt, however, that CCHR is moved by financial interest. I once attended a CCHR conference where a Sea Org member stated that the psychiatrists tried once to commit Hubbard, but that he escaped commitment. My educated guess is that this is related to the church’s antipsychiatric activities.
―Cesar Tort 19:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  P.S.
Since the editors of the ADHD article have asked to end this discussion on that talk page, I’m taking the liberty to move your latest post here since, apparently, you want to use these arguments to modify the Anti-psychiatry article.
In ADHD talk page Scuro wrote:

was Breggin involved with Scientology? He was certainly involved with scientologist organizations and his wife was a scientologist. Why is that important? Because you can see where some of the influence of his formative ideas may have came from. That is important because when you compare his views and that of Scientology on ADHD, really, there is very little difference in content. He denounces scientology now. but... Back a few years ago when Breggin was leading the class action lawsuit against the makers of Ritalin, he was getting a lot of press. PBS decided to do a major series on ADHD and brought in the big names in for the debate about ADHD. Here was a national platform for Breggin to categorically deny that he was EVER a scientologist or EVER had anything to do with Scientology....and here is what he said: "... I have nothing to do with Scientology. For approximately 25 years, I have conducted reform work with nothing to do with Scientology. There is no issue whatsoever about me and Scientology". --Scuro 04:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

In the Church of Scientology if you have not taken a course, or a series of courses, it’s oficially considered that you have never been a scientologist. Therefore, Breggin never was a scientologist.
  • “Because you can see where some of the influence of his formative ideas may have came from.”
Negative. The reasons that moved Breggin to question his own profession are fully confessed in the very first chapter of Toxic Psychiatry: the violations of human rights in the psychiatric wards where he had to make his Harvard practices. The violations made him to have second thoughts about his chosen profession. Toxic Psychiatry, BTW, is a book where you will find no single mention of Scientology.
Breggin’s activities with scientologists you mention almost three decades ago had to do with his wife, Ginger, when she still was a scientologist. If I remember correctly there’re links in the WP Breggin article where he explains this subject. ―Cesar Tort 22:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


All the melodrama aside, the point that I am trying to make is that you can't hermetically seal anti-psychiatry from scientology. Nor can you negate the associations that both Breggin and Szasz had with the church and the cross pollination that occurred in the 70's and which still occurs. Our Wiki Antipsychicatry article attempts to distance the whole movement from Scientology since scientology is only mentioned in a passing sentence as a cult. Yet when you go to Scientology webpages the church has been busy in the world and some of the work they have done has been good. [5] Szasz commented on this himself which is quoted on the Scientology website.

"Professor Thomas Szasz, author of The Manufacture of Madness, said of CCHR at its 25th anniversary celebrations in February 1994:

“We should all honor CCHR because it is really the organization that for the first time in human history has organized a politically, socially, internationally significant voice to combat psychiatry. This has never been done in human history before.” The CCHR has him on video on their website [6]

Granted, that the anti-psych movement didn't start with Scientology but it looks like they took on a significant enough role to attract Szasz to the point where he became founding member and also that Breggin helped build and support this new organization. And granted both Breggin and Szasz denounced scientology back in the 70's yet Szasz continues to associate with the movement as does Gary Null. [7]

Why is all of this important? It's important to see where ideas are formed and how organizations got started. For instance, Breggin formed the ICSPP a few years after his involvement with CCHR but broke completely from that organization in 1974. Initially, was the ICSPP really meant to be a secular from of the CCHR?

Finally, did the initial authors of this article downplay the role of Scientology because they didn't like the current image that the church has and didn't want the negative association linked to the movement?

--Scuro 05:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


I am curious, Scuro, if you are not trying to use the Church of Scientology (CoS) connection between only two American psychiatry dissidents as a straw man argument to modify this article at your pleasure? Anybody who has had a library of “classical” antipsychiatry will find no mention to the CoS. Szasz for one was already famous as a psychiatry critic before L. Ron Hubbard contacted him. In fact, Szasz’s first books against psychiatry, The Myth of Mental Illness and Law, Liberty and Psychiatry, considered his most influential works, were published years before he met CoS members.
I am copying and pasting a few exchanges from the Szasz WP talk page to clarify my point:

Since Szasz co-founded CCHR, he is still on their Board of Advisors, he still attends their annual awards dinners, and possibly gets very well paid for it, how is a CCHR PR photo of him at one of those dinners arm-in-arm with one of CCHR's celebrity supporters "pointless"? AndroidCat 12:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Because it overfocuses on his membership to the CCHR and on the Scientology aspect, and thus lends a POV style to the article as one user here as well shown. If the reader wants more information on the CCHR, there is plenty available and linked from here to go. Lapaz 23:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. As a facet of his many years as an opponent of psychiatric falsehoods and the use of force, his CCHR association is trivial. The emphasis on CCHR (and no, I'm not a Scientologist) is like a history of Ford Motor Company from the viewpoint that the Mustang is the most important part of it. It is emphasized by those who think his association with CCHR brings him descredit. Nicmart 16:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This said, if you want to modify the paragraph about CCHR, be bold and go ahead. I suggest you to cut and paste the paragraph I quoted in Talk:Biological psychiatry here, and don’t forget to delete it in that main Biological psychiatry article. But since there are many Scientology-related articles in WP, and even two whole Scientology articles that specifically deal with psychiatry (Scientology and psychiatry and Psychiatry: An Industry of Death), it makes no sense ―in fact it goes against WP guidelines― to repeat that info in any psychiatry article you encounter (as you started to do in some measure during your first days in WP).
FYI, if any “cross pollination occurred in the 70's” it was only from the skeptical critics to the scientologists. No CoS doctrine was ever “imported” to the secular critics.
  • Initially, was the ICSPP really meant to be a secular from of the CCHR?
ICSPP was formed to impede the resuscitation of lobotomy in the United States (only later they became champions against the psychiatric drugging of children).
But all of the above is almost beside the point, Scuro. You are Americanizing the discussion. The CoS is so ubiquitous in North America that it was inevitable that two of the main psychiatrists who criticize their profession, Szasz and Breggin, became peripherally involved with the church. I say “peripherally” since in his vast work of 27 books and hundreds of articles Szasz doesn’t mention the CoS.
I say you “Americanize the CoS connection” since the big figures in European antipsychiatry, R.D. Laing and Foucault, never had any contact whatsoever with the CoS. In fact, the roots of the antipsychiatry movement traditionally have been considered more related to Europe than to America. (This means that the article should be rewritten somehow in the historical section according to this fact. I believe EverSince could do the job.)
* Finally, did the initial authors of this article downplay the role of Scientology because they didn't like the current image that the church has and didn't want the negative association linked to the movement?
I’m afraid I cannot answer this one. I arrived this year to WP and, though I edited it considerably along with other editors, I can say nothing about the intentions of the original editors. The first incarnation of this article is really old to WP standards: it was written early in 2002. ―Cesar Tort 08:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


Again, I don't have the background info on Hubbard or Szasz to make any sort of connections beyond the ones I have already made. Your point that the movement came before Scientology sounds logical, and in fact, Hubbard may have read, and been influenced by the early members of the movement. Why did Szasz, Breggin, Null, and Baughman bother with Scientology...perhaps for no other reason then that of the resources of money and the ability of CoS to disseminate information. Scientology probably could do more then any other organization at the time, and probably still can. This may be why some still don't break completely from the organization.

I also "get" the analogy about the Mustang and the Ford motor company, yet even on the Ford Wiki site, the Mustang gets it's due respect and picture also. The current sentence about Scientology on Wiki now reads -> "Additionally, and largely separately, some contemporary cults or new religious movements, most notably Scientology, began challenging aspects of psychiatric theory or practice". The role of Scientology in the movement has been marginalized and the sentence really pussyfoots around the whole issue.

Sure, there is a separate webpage for Scientology and Psychiatry yet that doesn't negate the fact that someone coming to the anti-psychiatry page will miss the importance of Scientology in this movement. We get neither the history nor the weight and importance that Scientology has in this movement. Looking at the Scientology webpage, it seems like they have accomplished a lot of anti-psychiatry goals.

CT, try the edit yourself, you would probably do the better job. It wouldn't take more then a few sentences and a link or two.

--Scuro 15:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The current sentence about Scientology on Wiki now reads -> "Additionally, and largely separately, some contemporary cults or new religious movements, most notably Scientology, began challenging aspects of psychiatric theory or practice". The role of Scientology in the movement has been marginalized and the sentence really pussyfoots around the whole issue.

I guess it’s because for the editors who wrote that, long before I came to WP, Anti-psychiatry and CCHR meant different things.
When I started my anti-psychiatry readings in the 1980s I didn’t learn of the existence of CCHR. And this continued thru the end of the century when I went to the U.K. a whole year to take a full-time, one-year course on mental health in the Open University. Compared to common universities, the course (named “Mental Health Matters”) was pretty critical of psychiatry. In those years in the U.K I even read literature outside the university’s curricula. There was not a single mention, inside or outside the university, of the CoS or CCHR anywhere, not a single one.
Back in Mexico I started to write a book about psychiatry (in Mexico professionals always imitate the psychiatric fashions of the U.S.). I read even more to complete the book. When I finished it in 2001 I requested some info from a human rights activist who worked in the government. She gave me the phone of her friend Carmen Avila, Mexico’s CCHR director. But even the day before I went to Avila’s home I was unaware that CCHR existed!
It’s clear from this story that the camps are really separated. This goes far beyond a wish of the WP editors who wrote the article to downplay the role of Scientology to avoid association to the movement. In fact, no Mexican intellectual I know is aware of the existence of CCHR. But the names of Foucault, Szasz and Laing are familiar to them.

Looking at the Scientology webpage, it seems like they have accomplished a lot of anti-psychiatry goals.

The trouble I see here is that we need corroborative material outside the CoS that supports the claims, for instance, newspapers. A WP:V policy requires published sources on paper (not exactly self-publish materials). In some cases blogs or websites are not enough. ―Cesar Tort 18:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I have added a small section to the article that speaks to what the CCHR has done in this field and I've used the United Nations as a corroborative source. --Scuro 06:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Good. I added some clarifying info to the new section and relocated it to its proper place. ―Cesar Tort 14:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Where is the UN "corroborative source"? All I see is a sentence saying "The United Nations has credited .... ". And the reference is: A UN resolution? A newspaper? A quote of a quote?--Seejyb 20:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you, Seejyb. I hadn’t looked at the link actually. To comply with the WP policies mentioned above I’ll remove the phrase until another editor finds a United Nations source. ―Cesar Tort 21:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tag by Psykhosis

Psykhosis placed a Neutrality and fact tag with no reason whatsoever or discussion on talk page!

I am removing it. Tito58 19:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lots of citation requests

Re the citations requests in the CCHR section, in edit summary Rockpocket wrote:

rv - other WP articles - or directions to refs therein - do not count as reliable sources, If they are there, then copy them to here.

I am overwhelmed with work right now. After a few months I will try to source them —unless someone else does the job! Cesar Tort 21:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] please follow wikipedia policy - do not unilaterally delete material or grossly alter it without also posting in the discussion area

It would be appreciated —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scuro (talk • contribs).

Your edits reintroduced statements that could never be correctly sourced, such as "Not a single member of the secular psychiatric survivor movement or professional critic holds such views" and pointlessly removed references from the article. Those are far more serious violations of Wikipedia policy than the editing you complain of. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Your latest edits once again wiped out lots of other material. Please be concious of this, I have made this point several times now and will place a POV tag on the article if it is done again, rather then undo the edit. --scuro 04:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

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