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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-psychiatry | 8/13 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00 | kb-cron |
==== Experiments admitting "healthy" individuals into psychiatric care ==== In 1972, psychologist David Rosenhan published the Rosenhan experiment, a study questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnoses. The study arranged for eight individuals with no history of psychopathology to attempt admission into psychiatric hospitals. The individuals included a graduate student, psychologists, an artist, a housewife, and two physicians, including one psychiatrist. All eight individuals were admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists then attempted to treat the individuals using psychiatric medication. All eight were discharged within 7 to 52 days. In a later part of the study, psychiatric staff were warned that pseudo-patients might be sent to their institutions, but none were actually sent. Nevertheless, a total of 83 patients out of 193 were believed by at least one staff member to be actors. The study concluded that individuals without mental disorders were indistinguishable from those with mental disorders. Critics such as Robert Spitzer cast doubt on the validity and credibility of the study, but did concede that the consistency of psychiatric diagnoses needed improvement. The challenge of the validity versus the reliability of diagnostic categories continues to plague diagnostic systems. Neuroscientist Tadafumi Kato advocates for a new classification of diseases based on the neurobiological features of each mental disorder. while Austrian psychiatrist Heinz Katsching advises psychiatrists to replace the term "mental illness" by "brain illness." There are recognized problems regarding the diagnostic reliability and validity of mainstream psychiatric diagnoses, both in ideal and controlled circumstances and even more so in routine clinical practice (McGorry et al.. 1995). Criteria in the principal diagnostic manuals, the DSM and ICD, are not consistent between the two manuals. Some psychiatrists in critiquing diagnostic criteria point out that comorbidity, when an individual meets criteria for two or more disorders, is the rule rather than the exception, casting doubt on the distinctness of the categories, with overlap and vaguely defined or changeable boundaries between what are asserted to be distinct disorders. Other concerns raised include using standard diagnostic criteria in different countries, cultures, genders or ethnic groups. Critics contend that Westernized, white, male-dominated psychiatric practices and diagnoses disadvantage and misunderstand those from other groups. For example, several studies have shown that African Americans are more often diagnosed with schizophrenia than white people, and men more than women. Some within the anti-psychiatry movement are critical of the use of diagnosis at all as it conforms with the biomedical model, seen as illegitimate.
=== Tool of social control ===
According to Franco Basaglia, Giorgio Antonucci, and Bruce E. Levine, whose approach pointed out the role of psychiatric institutions in the control and medicalization of deviant behaviors and social problems, psychiatry is used as the provider of scientific support for social control to the existing establishment, and the ensuing standards of deviance and normality brought about repressive views of discrete social groups. According to Mike Fitzpatrick, resistance to medicalization was a common theme of the gay liberation, anti-psychiatry, and feminist movements of the 1970s, but now there is actually no resistance to the advance of government intrusion in lifestyle if it is thought to be justified in terms of public health. In the opinion of Mike Fitzpatrick, the pressure for medicalization also comes from society itself. As one example, Fitzpatrick claims that feminists who once opposed state intervention as oppressive and patriarchal, now demand more coercive and intrusive measures to deal with child abuse and domestic violence. According to Richard Gosden, the use of psychiatry as a tool of social control is becoming obvious in preventive medicine programs for various mental diseases. These programs are intended to identify children and young people with divergent behavioral patterns and thinking and send them to treatment before their supposed mental diseases develop. Clinical guidelines for best practice in Australia include the risk factors and signs which can be used to detect young people who are in need of prophylactic drug treatment to prevent the development of schizophrenia and other psychotic conditions.