I have written this book to help patients, and when I decided to write it, one of my tentative titles was, “Listening to the voices of patients.” Most people I have talked to about mental health issues, be it my family, friends, colleagues, sports partners, filmmakers, gardeners, cleaners, waiters and hotel receptionists, have had bad experiences with psychiatry or know someone that have.

Coming from a background of being a specialist in internal medicine, which is entirely different, it slowly dawned on me how harmful psychiatry is. It takes years of close study to find out that psychiatry does vastly more harm than good,1 and my own research has contributed to revealing this.

My findings resonate closely with what the general public have concluded based on their own experiences. A survey of 2,031 Australians showed that people thought that depression pills (usually called antidepressants), psychosis pills (usually called antipsychotics), electroshock and admission to a psychiatric ward were more often harmful than beneficial.2 The social psychiatrists who had done the survey were dissatisfied with the answers and argued that people should be trained to arrive at the “right opinion.”

In early 1992, the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists, in association with the Royal College of General Practitioners, launched a five-year “Defeat Depression Campaign.”3 Its aim was to provide public education about depression and its treatment in order to encourage earlier treatment-seeking and reduce stigma. Campaign activities included newspaper and magazine articles, television and radio interviews, press conferences, production of leaflets, factsheets in ethnic minority languages, audio cassettes, a self-help video and two books.4 When 2,003 lay people were surveyed just before the launch of the campaign, 91% thought that people with depression should be offered counselling; only 16% thought they should be offered depression pills; only 46% said they were effective; and 78% regarded them as addictive.3 The psychiatrists’ view on these responses was that, “Doctors have an important role in educating the public about depression and the rationale for antidepressant treatment. In particular, patients should know that dependence is not a problem with antidepressants.”

When challenged about the fact that the colleges had accepted donations from all the major manufacturers of depression pills for the campaign, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Robert Kendall, acknowledged that, “One of their major motives was the hope that an increased recognition of depressive illnesses both by the general public and by general practitioners would result in increased sales for them.”5 He didn’t say what the companies’ other major motives were. I doubt there were any. Money is the only motive drug companies have.

The psychiatrists embarked on their re-education campaign. But people were not easily convinced that they were wrong. A 1998 paper reported that changes were of the order of only 5-10% and that depression pills were still being regarded as addictive and less effective than counselling.4 Interestingly, 81% of the lay people agreed that, “Depression is a medical condition like other illnesses” and 43% ascribed depression to biological changes in the brain, but most people nonetheless ascribed it to social causes like bereavement (83%), unemployment (83%), financial problems (82%), stress (83%), loneliness/ isolation (79%) and divorce/ end of relationship (83%).4 Something didn’t add up.

My interpretation is that despite claims through many years, also long before 1992,1 that psychiatric disorders are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, the public is not so willing to accept this falsehood.

In 2005, Danish psychiatrists reported what 493 patients had told them about their depression pill treatment.6 About half the patients agreed that the treatment could alter their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings. Four-fifths agreed that as long as they took the drugs, they didn’t really know if they were necessary, and 56% agreed to the statement that, “Your body can become addicted to antidepressants.” The psychiatrists refused flatly to believe what the patients had told them, which they considered wrong, and they called them ignorant. They also felt that the patients needed “psychoeducation.” The problem with this was that the relatives shared the patients’ opinion.

“Educating the public” and “psychoeducation” so that they can arrive at the “right opinion” is what we normally call brainwashing. Particularly when what the patients and the public reported are more than just opinions; they drew conclusions based on their own experience and that of others.

It is not only in research that psychiatrists dismiss what their patients tell them, they also do this in clinical practice. Often, they either don’t listen or don’t ask the appropriate questions about their patients’ experience and history and therefore don’t find out that the current symptoms are ve