Re: Why Shrinks Are Part of The Enemy

that the majority of the people seeking mental health assistance do benefit from it.

Umm, no.

Numerous studies have shown that talk therapy is ineffective. While there is certainly a place for counseling, my rule-of-thumb is that if it takes more than three sessions to learn what you need to know, you should just go ahead and enroll in the college course.

That said, there has also been some success on the pharmaceutical side, but this is moderated by the plethora of resounding failures on the pharmaceutical side. The medical understanding of the brain is still in the dark ages. There are signs of future success, and given the incredible acceleration in the pursuit of knowledge it may come sooner rather than later, but there are still good reasons to be skeptical of psychiatric medicine.

And as for government abuse of psychiatry - I recall a few years ago a report that a man had set himself on fire in front of the White House. There were rumors that he was protesting something, but that was all quashed when the news media reported that government agents had determined he was "mentally ill". I still don't know what he was protesting or whether it was justified. However, I do know that when Buddhist monks protested communist regimes in the same manner in the 1960's or 1970's, it was regarded in the West at a severe condemnation of those regimes - regimes which, I am sure, dismissed those monks as being mentally ill.

So, what is the purpose of the mental health system, you may ask? Why, to make money, of course, and they have been doing that very well.