Do any of the people that came up with this have any relationship with Scientology? I'm completely serious - Scientologists hate psychiatry and psychiatric drugs.
If there's no connection with those nutters, I'm very sorry for having raised the issue at all. But you gotta know these things before you can trust what you're reading.
Doesn't scientology have some kind of weird self-declared feud with psychiatry? I wonder if they've perhaps been sowing FUD whenever and wherever possible.
Yeah this is Dianetics i.e. Scientology! I'm not supporting them at all, they are a cult, but the the original basis for Scientology was Dianetics and it's related to this.
Big Pharma and its partners in establishment psychiatry have smartly used Scientology to defuse criticism of their medications. I honestly believe that if Scientology weren't around, then our society could have a much more rational discussion about our drug-based paradigm of care.
Scientology is absurd. You'll have to forgive me if someone such as myself, who suffers from depression, don't find that the assertions made by a cult to be something I take very seriously.
By all means, criticize psychiatry. However, I've not seen anything substantive raised in any of the discussions in any of the threads so far.
As someone who had one psychiatrist and two psychologists in his family, and having been myself in (very effective) treatment years ago, every time I read nonsense like that I immediately smell malice, this also because the vast documentation I read about Scientology during the late 90s and early 2K, which for those living under a rock, are among the most prominent enemies of psychology and psychiatry. The above link are eye openers; this at first seems a rather different case from cult scammers, as the guy is rather a far right extremist with the same mindset of antivaxers and Q-anon conspiracy theorists, ie someone who should ask for treatment himself, but at the end of the day it's just another case of someone with mental troubles who hates professionals whose job is to cure those problems.
The critique of modern psychiatry has a long and intellectually serious tradition. Ironically, as your comment shows, the Scientologists have discredited it by association, at least with the ignorant.
Some bits from that site which contain the closest thing to an answer to my questions.
"What I have against the Church of Scientology (CoS) is its deceitfulness, its lack of compassion for its members (especially the hard-working staff), its aggressive hard sell, its arrogance, its attack on free speech, its litigiousness, its harassment of its critics, its lack of concern for families, its gross neglect and abuse of children, etc."
"The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends."
"On the surface the Church of Scientology seems reasonable. The insane content of it is only revealed to a person when the early stuff has done its work and made them more susceptible. After a short while a person "believes" that Scientology is doing them good. They are then persuaded to help their new-found group further by donating money and/or working for the organisation for almost no money. Many people do exactly that."Ethics" is used to good effect to trap a person. A person?s natural tendency to do good is worked upon. Yes - they want to be more ethical, but what is ethical? This is where a clever trick is pulled! "Ethics" is redefined by Scientology in such a way that to be ethical is to be a better Scientologist and obey the "church"."
I don't have concise quotes for the other point so I'll try to explain them. The centre of the beef seems to be about how the church protects itself using litigation, influential contacts to control the information about it available to the public. It is very difficult to "prove" that Scientologists believe in any of that southpark stuff because their documents are copyright protected.
"By using copyright laws the Church of Scientology withholds information about the teachings of its founder from the public. The public sees only a limited amount of information, information the "Church" feels will not harm its reputation to any great degree. Thus people are attracted into it based on this limited information and its seemingly fascinating possibilities. Once in, the existing members of that organisation have the opportunity to possibly erode the critical thinking faculties of the new member over a period of years. After that, the person has either left, been evicted or possibly their critical thinking faculties have been eroded to the degree where the absurd is accepted as spiritual truth."
The Church of Scientology wants to make others look ridiculous? Have they read Dianetics? Or has anyone asked why they believe that the problems of human beings today are a result of traumatic events experienced by them as spiritual beings when they inhabited the bodies of clams during Earth's evolution?
Even if that was true, which is not, what kind of scientology BS is this? There is absolutely no proof that psychiatric meds push teens to commit mass shootings.
Ah you're a scientologist - that explains your aversion to psychologists. Scientology is the worst, most evil organization I've ever had contact with. Just disgusting.
If there's no connection with those nutters, I'm very sorry for having raised the issue at all. But you gotta know these things before you can trust what you're reading.
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