1. Because psychiatry is more harmful than helpful, more disempowering than empowering, because psychiatry is not a medical science - it's social control.
2. Because psychiatry is more quackery than science, a pseudoscience which lacks independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for "schizophrenia" and all other types of alleged "mental illness" or "mental disorder".
3. Because psychiatry can not accurately and reliably predict dangerous, violence or any other type of human behavior.
4. Because psychiatry routinely damages, disables, destroys and sometimes kills people with cruel and unusual punishments or tortures it fraudulently calls "treatment".
5. Because psychiatry manufactures numerous victims and "mental disorders" which, in fact, are common life crises or dissident ways of coping with, perceiving or interpreting the world - such as "schizophrenia", "bipolar mood disorder", "clinical depression", and "personality disorder".
6. Because psychiatry fraudulently labels serious life crises "mental disorders" or "diseases of the brain", it compounds this fraud by falsely claiming they are caused by a "biochemical imbalance" in the brain or genetic factors, not one has been scientifically proved.
7. Because psychiatrists frequently misinform or lie to their patients, families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling procedures such as the neurotoxins (e.g. "antipsychotic medication" and "antidepressants"), electroconvulsive brainwashing ("electroconvulsive therapy") psychosurgery and other behavior modification-mind control procedures are "safe", effective and lifesaving". The exact opposite is tragically true.
8. Because psychiatrists routinely violate the medical-ethical principle of "informed consent" by deceiving, misinforming or lying to their patients, prisoners, their families, and the public about their treatment' many toxic, disabling, and frequently permanent effects: memory loss, tardive dysknesia, tardive psychosis, parkinsonism, and dementia - all signs of brain damage - and death; by intimidating or coercing many inmates and prisoners into consenting to hi-risk, health-threatening "treatment" such as the neuropletics, electroconvulsive brainwashing, and psychosurgery; and by failing to fully inform psychiatric inmates, prisoners, their families and the public about existing safe and humane, non-medical alternatives in the community such as survivor-controlled crisis centers, drop-ins, self-help or advocacy groups, holistic methods, affordable supportive housing and jobs.
9. Because psychiatry is a paralegal police force and moral enforcer of the ruling corporate class and state which systematically exploit, marginalize, discriminate against, scapegoat and oppress the most vulnerable people in our society: poor and unemployed people, homeless people, women and children and sole-support parents, gays and lesbians, elderly people, people with disabilities, First Nations people, people of colour, prisoners, and eccentric or dissident people falsely labeled "mentally ill".
10. Because psychiatry, particularly biological psychiatry, is sexist, heterosexist, homophobic, ageist, ableist, racist, classist, and fascist - a serious threat to democracy and human rights.
Note: Don Weitz is a psychiatric survivor, antipsychiatry activist, and free lance writer who has been involved in the survivor liberation movement for over 20 years. He is also a co-editor with Dr. Bonnie Burstow of "Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada (1988), and host-producer of "Shrink-wrap" on CKLN (88.l FM) in Toronto.
Don Weitz can be reached at his e-mail address: dweitz@interlog.com
