Quote:
Originally Posted by ciderguy
Oh, tomato... (Trying to avoid the auto-censor, I will use the word tomato in place of the most common vulgar slang for sexual intercourse.)
I was able to stomach the first essay – does mental illness exist – but just barely. The author(s) seems to want to present his case in a series of scholarly essays and yet, even only having read the first essay, his arguments fade into a kind of tautological word salad and he resorts to sarcasm as criticism so often that any validity of his argument(s) quickly become a row of fallen straw men ready for the torch.
Even before the first essay, in the author's attempt to establish credibility, he's reaching. He is a lawyer who has attended a series of symposiums and "other programs". He lets us know that he is not just giving his opinion but rather the opinions of the most "credible witnesses against psychiatry" that he could find. He tells us that he has previously published his essays as "pamphlets," telling in itself. The day of the pamphleteer passed decades ago.
Telling, too, is his mode of dissemination. Anyone can purchase web server access, often for less than $5 a month. Websites run the gamut between the credible to the, well, sites maintained by nutcases. (I can use the word because I am one.)
Finally, the author is just a lawyer with an opinion and a website. No reputable publication would print his essays and there's no chance of a peer review because he has no peers. He's a monkey with a manual typewriter on a solitary island. It's easy to feel sorry for the man and perfectly justified to wonder exactly why he started this bizarre crusade.
My opinion.
|
Finally someone addressing the actual essays!
I had wondered an few times about the fact that the author is a lawyer - not so much for the easy ad-hom of the liar lawyer stereotype, but because his profession implies he's trained in presenting cases and making convincing arguments.
The thing I mainly wish someone would do is fact check all these super-recent studies claiming that there's zero evidence for biological causes of mental illness. However, I looked into this more and it seems what modern anti-psych believes is that mental issues are psychological in nature. The result of trauma or other dysfunction in life, rather than neurological anomalies. That's plausible, actually, I think that's really the older view of it.
Ramsay draws mostly from popular antipsychiatry authors of the past, and possibly from experience - I think there was mention that he has represented people suing for abuse by psychiatric professionals. Of course he's seeing the bad. And if his citations about meds being harmful are more accurate, that needs to get out. But it bugs me that there's no mention or even allusion of people who get treated voluntarily. Involuntary treatment seems like a worthy issue to discuss, hopefully without disregarding the actual experiences of people.
I'm not sure if people realized the thread title was meant to be snide, referencing the claims that mental illness doesn't exist. That's the biggest issue I have here, with these essays - the potential contrast with real life experience.