Talk:Psychiatry

Alienism

Hi. The disambiguation page Alienism states that alienism is an obsolete term for psychiatry, which is supported by sources such as this one. The Psychiatry article, however, doesn't mention this term, and neither does History of psychiatry. It would be helpful if they did. I don't feel confident adding it in myself, though, as I don't know exactly how and where to add it, but I hope that someone reading this is willing to do so. Lennart97 (talk) 15:08, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Psychiatry as a religion

I think in this article psychiatry is coming off far too much like a religion. The way it is presented almost makes it sound as medicine has taken advantage of modern dismissiveness towards religion to institute its own religion clothed as science. It also makes it sound as though medicine has been introducing a new, self-serving morality (don't be selfish, don't be suspicious, don't be a contrarian, etc.) and using thought-policing and its exclusive control over the drug supply to grow increasingly more powerful and wealthy.

I would like to echo some of the earlier comments on this article, namely:

(1) people should not be provided accurate information merely because it may prevent them from being exploited when it comes to medicine,

(2) information alone can be dangerous, because people may accept information uncritically which is a bad thing unless the information is coming from government-sanctioned sources,

(3) what information people receive should be decided upon by government-sanctioned individuals, who should have the right to decide what harm is and is not likely to occur in the future.

To illustrate the point, the article talks about mental diseases that across Wikipedia are described as typically having no objective criteria. Meanwhile, psychiatric therapies are known to have very real, objective negative consequences. This would seem to insinuate that the only actual reliable/objective finding of most psychiatric experiments is how much damage the therapeutic is causing, and whether it is quick and painful or slow and painful. In turn, this suggests that doctors practicing involuntary psychiatry are simply modern-day torture-masters who have grown increasingly adept at using expensive procedures to subdue and exploit vulnerable individuals for their personal and collective gain.

However, I'm sure that most psychiatrists would agree that the fact that most of psychiatry's modern and historic treatments resemble torture is purely coincidental (the fact that the UN has labelled them as such obviously notwithstanding). To suggest that surgically removing or using medications that shrink a person's brain matter, restraining a person's movement, isolating them from friends and family and restricting their access to nature, exercise, sunlight, healthy produce and sex is as bad for a person's health who has been involuntarily diagnosed with a mental disease as it would be for someone who hasn't is pure fancy.

I do like the fact that this article doesn't make mention of the sexual assault that has been documented to run rampant throughout psychiatric medicine, particularly by the psychiatrists themselves, as that may dissuade people from relying on them. Similarly, it's also probably best that there continues to be no reference of the recent and publicly published studies of patients that had metal electroshock wires inserted into their brains, some of whom were sexually stimulated in this fashion, while being studied, as many of these subjects are involuntary (under the doctrine of third-party consent as opposed to consent in the older sense).

However, besides that, it seems like the article could do with a lot of work. I'm not quite sure how to start fixing it but maybe it could be opened it by emphasizing that involuntary medicine is real and that a medical education gives a psychiatrist the power to see into people's minds with sufficient accuracy to diagnose the person with a permanent illness. I've personally benefited greatly from the powers of psychiatry but perhaps some more of the psychiatric fraternity could chime in as I'm sure they will give us their even-handed, professional opinion. 91.129.101.175 (talk) 15:42, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Recent edits: Involuntary treatment

We seem to be having quite a few reverts going on. So to avoid too much edit warring I thought I'd open this section. I do think it's relevant that involuntary treatment goes on in psychiatry, but a lot of psychiatric interventions are voluntary, so we should probably address involuntary treatment in a separate paragraph. Maybe something like:

"In some situations situations psychiatric treatment may be involuntary, sometimes on the basis of lack of capacity. Examples of disorders that are treated involuntary include psychotic disorders such as Schizophrenia or Bipolar disorder; Eating disorders such as Anorexia nervosa; or certain forms of suicidal ideation. Involuntary treatment is governed by Mental health law and in some countries requires a courts approval"

with appropriate cites added.

Talpedia (talk) 18:09, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

It appears the reversions that Markworthen, Megaman en m and then MrOllie have made follow the same argument as Cell.83 for excluding what is presumably going to be the most interesting thing to the general reader about psychiatry after its definition has been provided, namely the likelihood and frequency of people being subjected to psychiatric treatment without consent. I support this argument and suggest that any information whatsoever about involuntary psychiatry should be removed on the article because it is unnecessary and dangerous for people to have information about psychiatry and, as a rule of thumb, psychiatrists should always receive special treatment.

Before the changes are re-implemented, at the very least the three users should be given the opportunity to explain their reasoning if they have any better ones. 176.46.113.248 (talk) 21:24, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

If you follow the argument on Controversies about psychiatry you'll actually find that Markworthen was in favor of keeping and improving the article, if memory serves correctly. I think it's more that they didn't like some of your earlier edits and feel like they have other stuff that they would prefer to do than review your edits right now. Mr Ollie could also point at WP:3RR. I suspect there might also be a little bit of waiting for you to do something to block you as well! (WP:GAV) In fact, I'm suspicious that their opinion of what I'm doing right now would be "why are you bothering trying to help someone who just wants to have an argument and create more work for everyone" to which my argument would probably be "curiosity", "social interaction", "empathy" (or more specifically, I feel like I've played your side this interaction, so I want to see what the other side is like) and "benefit of the doubt".

There might be a suspicion that you aren't willing to do the work to produce something suitably cited for Wikipedia. Opinions can be easy, but balanced cited content takes a little more work. People often have a "ratio of arguing to interesting work" and disengage if there is too much arguing... they won't actively block you, just not help. My experience is that it only takes a small amount of work to show people that you are willing to do the necessary work.

Walking into WP:FORUM territory or a while, I'm quite sure the biases you identify exist and are common (though they are perhaps less common amongst people who edit encyclopedia's - if you want people who value the accurate promulgation of truth over other values like safety, or social standing, I might suggest an anonymous collection of encyclopedia editors is a good place to find it). However, they are not the *only* determinants of people's opinions, and frequently in a specific situation other concerns can trump bias - and indeed through forcing the reconciliation of different values replace bias. This isn't to say "play nice" just more "play" and "don't assume that you will always lose".

I think paragraph enough is a good starting point to be added (I wrote it after all) but needs to be "cited up" with appropriate sources (and preferably the best ones, with additional nuanced added). I'm not keen to do this work right now, and don't really want to wade into right now. If you are keen to do something now, you could find the relevant sources following WP:MEDRS paying attention to WP:Verifiability and WP:Due we could then ask for feedback here. Talpedia (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of unsourced agenda-driven edits lately on articles such as these, so I am wary of these types of edits by default. I'm just asking to see some high-quality sources, especially with edits such as these. Care must also be taken to maintain a neutral tone and to avoid editorializing. Phrasing such as (I quote): "Psychiatric treatment is either voluntary or involuntary..." implies that consent is irrelevant and misrepresents the reality. The paragraph that Talpedia gave at the start is much better, although it might be undue to dedicate a whole paragraph to it in the lead in such a long article.--Megaman en m (talk) 22:41, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

What everyone is actually wondering, Talpedia, is why you used an anonymous address to make yesterday's spate of repugnant edits to this article, and indeed the thought crosses one's own mind. It is highly disconcerting that you and now Megaman en m seem to be advocating improving this article's neutrality by shifting its perspective in the direction of the general civilian populace.

To quote Megaman en m, it is misrepresenting reality to propose such a thing as psychiatric treatment being either voluntary or involuntary (while I don't have a source for it, to my own knowledge psychiatry is all either voluntary or about-to-be). Also, exactly like a recently-archived comment (18 December 2020 under "Criticism") said, why would a person procure a position of privilege for themselves and then use this position to exploit other people? It simply beggars belief.

So while it's perfectly fine if the right decisions have now been arrived at through overly-cautiousness or laziness (as long as they don't get changed once more attention is paid), the tone of these edits seems to be lambasting the reader for his or her cowardice in letting psychiatry continue to develop the way that it has been - and this kind of open criticism of psychiatry simply does not belong on Wikipedia or anywhere. 176.46.113.248 (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2021 (UTC)