I want to be a doctor to help people, I believe human beings like ourselves were made to help other less fortunate people. Oh yea and I think you guys should seriously research on your facts instead of watching Scientology propaganda.
I showed this thread to open-minded people who have a diversity of knowledge in the medical field, here's what one replied after seeing this video *and he's seen it way before I showed it to him too*
"That video is from the CCHR-a front group for the Church of Scientology. I've seen that video, in its entirety. Its a piece of propagandist & unfairly presented data, with every bit of shock value intentionally added to it such as gory music & dark pictures when psychiatrists are interviewed, and then happy music when CCHR members are interviewed.
Several of the doctors in that video are not credible research doctors. Several doctors in there are, but their comments are taken out of context. For example, one of the psychiatirst in the video, I've met personally and he doesn't back CCHR in any way shape or form. He was interviewed for several minutes & they only took a few moments out his interview--the moments that they could splice that they could exploit.
Is it true that there aren't lab tests in psychiatry? Yes and no. We use behaviors we gauge, and obtain history from interviews, but we also rule out medical causes of mental illness such as for example hypothyroidism. We use a urine drug screen for example to rule out drug induced psychosis. There is for example no specific lab test that can prove or disprove if a patient is depressed. However any medstudent knows this is true of several medical disorders, psychiatric or not.
We often base diagnosis on clusters of symptoms which several medical professions do because they too are in a state where labs tests cannot yet diagnose their disorders. E.g. Still's disease-a disease that affects the kidneys? Would CCHR, Szasz or the Church of Scientology then keep consistent with their logic & deny the existence of Still's disease?
Take for example Lupus. It too is diagnosed based on clusters of symptoms.
Diabetes too was once diagnosed based on clusters of symptoms & not lab tests because the science from decades ago was not yet advanced enough to dx it. Doctors often had to resort to tasting urine, & had to have a sensitive palate to be able to detect it. Does that disprove diabetes existed before the advent of modern testing methods?
As for psychiatry--yes we're not at that point yet where we can apply lab tests for much of it. Does that invalidate mental illness? Well look at it this way. 100 years ago when blood sugar tests were not yet available, would that prove that diabetes did not exist?
And as a contradiction to their own argument--they criticize psychiatry for lack of lab tests--but at the same time, for psychiatry to get a proper lab test created--research into psychiatric illness, on the order that CCHR demands would involve invasive lab testing into human subjects' brains. E.g. drilling holes into the brains of people mentally ill to gauge neurotransmitter levels & such. Yet they criticize research that was once done in that area decades ago before proper human rights have been identified to protect subjects & blame psychiatry for engaging in it.
As for Thomas S. Szasz, he's associated himself with CCHR which is a known front group for the Church of Scientology and he basically advocates that there's no such thing as mental illness, but at the same time offers treatment for it.
It is completely true that sometimes patients get involuntarily committed due to errors in the system. Just like cops sometimes detain suspects who turn out to not be guilty, just like people who are suspected of carrying Ebola might get quarantined, even if it turned out they were not carrying it. Is that unfair? Of course it is. However the right way to handle it is to have 3rd party evaluation, anonymous whistle blowing oppurtunities, mental health advocates & under cover investigators frequently double check institutions that engage in involuntary hospitalization to make sure the system is working fairly. That is going on and I fully advocate that such measures be put into place, and that any psychiatrists who are unfairly holding patients without justifiable cause be pointed out & dealt with, just like a crooked cop should be brought out.
If you want to allow the mentally ill to walk free, even those that are dangerous to others--ok fine, then let that guy infected with Ebola walk around, give people the freedom to buy, sell & eat rotten meat without inspection & let murderers go free because they should have the right to kill who they want, we won't need any police officers arresting anyone. "
I have to say, I think his post had pretty valid points, more so than that video. Seriously, didn't anyone else think the former video was either too staged or cheezy anyway? With all those affects and such, that's just another thing to add but I guess that's what propaganda is.