Scientologists regularly hold anti-psychiatry demonstrations, which they call "Psychbusts"

Scientology is publicly, and often vehemently, opposed to psychiatry and psychology and offers itself as an alternative to psychiatry, which Scientologists believe to be a barbaric and corrupt profession. [1] . According to the Church of Scientology, this opposition is focused on psychiatry's practices: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1266x693, 178 KB)Church of Scientology anti-psychiatry demonstration in Edinburgh, Scotland, June 2005 By Legolam File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1266x693, 178 KB)Church of Scientology anti-psychiatry demonstration in Edinburgh, Scotland, June 2005 By Legolam File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that diagnoses, treats, and studies mental illness and behavioral conditions. ... Psychology (Classical Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour, mind and thought and the underlying neurological bases of behaviour. ... Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that diagnoses, treats, and studies mental illness and behavioral conditions. ...

What the Church opposes are brutal, inhumane psychiatric treatments. It does so for three principal reasons: 1) procedures such as electro-shock, drugs and lobotomy injure, maim and destroy people in the guise of help; 2) psychiatry is not a science and has no proven methods to justify the billions of dollars of government funds that are poured into it; and 3) psychiatric theories that man is a mere animal have been used to rationalize, for example, the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II. [2]

Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as electroshock or ECT, is a controversial type of psychiatric shock therapy involving the induction of an artificial seizure in a patient by passing electricity through the brain. ... Many drugs are provided in tablet form. ... Psychosurgery is the practice of performing surgery on the brain to treat or alleviate severe mental disease. ... // What is science? There are different theories of what science is. ... World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb. ...

Hubbard and Psychiatry

This theme also appears in some of Hubbard's literary works. In Hubbard's "dekology" Mission Earth, various characters praise and criticize these methods; and the antagonists in his novel Battlefield Earth are called Psychlos, a similar allusion. Cover of Mission Earth volume 1: The Invaders Plan Mission Earth is a ten-volume science fiction novel by L. Ron Hubbard, more famous as the founder of the Church of Scientology. ... Cover of the novel Battlefield Earth intended to promote the movie Battlefield Earth is the name of both a science fiction novel written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard as well as a film adaptation of said novel produced by and starring John Travolta. ...

L. Ron Hubbard was bitterly critical of psychiatry's citation of physical causes for mental disorders, for instance chemical imbalances in the brain. He regarded psychiatrists as denying human spirituality and peddling fake cures. He was also convinced that psychiatrists were themselves deeply unethical individuals, committing "extortion, mayhem and murder. Our files are full of evidence on them." [3] The Church of Scientology claims that psychiatry was responsible for World War I [4], the rise of Hitler and Stalin [5], the decline in education standards in the United States [6], the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo [7], and even the September 11th attacks [8]. The chemical imbalance theory posits a belief there is a simple chemical or physical malfunction of the brain, causing mental disorders, which can be fixed using psychotropic drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, or psychosurgery. ... Bosnia and Herzegovina (officially Bosna i Hercegovina, shortened to BiH, also in English variously written Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Bosnia-Hercegovina) is a mountainous country in the western Balkans. ... The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is often used to describe two sequential and at times parallel armed conflicts (a civil war followed by an international war) in the southern Serbian province called Kosovo (officially Kosovo and Metohia), part of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ... The World Trade Center on fire The September 11, 2001 attacks were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. ...

Scientology's opposition to psychiatry has also undoubtedly been influenced by the fact that a number of psychiatrists have strongly spoken out against the Church of Scientology, resulting in pressure from the media and governments. Additionally, after Hubbard's book on Dianetics was published, the American Psychological Association advised its members against using Hubbard's techniques with their patients. Hubbard came to believe that psychiatrists were behind a worldwide conspiracy to attack Scientology and create a "world government" run by psychiatrists on behalf of Soviet Russia: In Scientology, Dianetics is put forward as a methodology to alleviate unwanted sensations and emotions, irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses. ... The American Psychological Association (APA) is a professional organization representing psychology in the US. It has around 150,000 members and an annual budget of around $70m. ... Soviet redirects here. ...

Our enemies are less than twelve men. They are members of the Bank of England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains and they, oddly enough, run all the mental health groups in the world that had sprung up ...

Their apparent programme was to use mental health, which is to say psychiatric electric shock and pre-frontal lobotomy, to remove from their path any political dissenters ... These fellows have gotten nearly every government in the world to owe them considerable quantities of money through various chicaneries and they control, of course, income tax, government finance — (Harold) Wilson, for instance, the current Premier of England, is totally involved with these fellows and talks about nothing else actually. (Hubbard, Ron's Journal 67 [9])

Hubbard also decided that psychiatrists were an ancient evil that had been a problem for billions of years. He cast them in the role of assisting Xenu's genocide of 75 million years ago. In a 1982 bulletin entitled "Pain and Sex", Hubbard declares that "pain and sex were the INVENTED TOOLS of degradation", having been devised eons ago by psychiatrists "who have been on the [time] track a long time and are the sole cause of decline in this universe." (Hubbard, HCO Bulletin of 26 August 1982) The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom, sometimes known as The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street or The Old Lady. The Bank of England // Functions of the bank It performs all the recognized functions of a central bank -- to maintain price stability, and subject to... This article is about the British politician. ... In Scientology doctrine, Xenu is a galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. ...

The Church of Scientology and Psychiatry

The Church of Scientology rejects the claim that what are commonly called "mental diseases" can have exclusively a biological basis and holds that such conditions have exclusively mental/spiritual causes, which can be corrected by Scientology counseling. On the other hand, the Church of Scientology has policies which forbid the counseling of mentally ill people or those who have received psychiatric treatment. The organization has been known to refuse assistance for persons suffering from notable mental disorders; for some, it has developed special procedures for "handling" these problems, such as the Introspection Rundown. The Scream, the famous painting commonly thought of as depicting the experience of mental illness. ... Main articles: Life All organisms (viruses not included) consist of cells, which in turn, are based on a common carbon-based biochemistry. ... Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that diagnoses, treats, and studies mental illness and behavioral conditions. ... The Introspection Rundown is a Scientology procedure that is intended to handle a psychotic break or mental breakdown. ...

Scientology regards psychiatry not only as largely ineffective at providing true improvements in mental health, disastrously misguided in its emphasis on the mind as a purely biological machine, and contributing to a heavy emphasis on drugs for treating an ever-increasing roster of mental health issues, but as the root of many political and social evils. Scientology's position is similar to that of other critics of modern psychiatry, such as Thomas Szasz (who co-founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights with Scientology; see below). Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that diagnoses, treats, and studies mental illness and behavioral conditions. ... Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called anti-psychiatry claimed that psychiatric patients are not ill but are individuals that do not share the same consensus reality as most people in society. ... Dr. Thomas Stephen Szasz (born April 15, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary) is Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. ...

Psychiatrists and supporters of psychiatry are derogatorily termed "psychs" in Scientology internal literature. Psychs are generally regarded as suppressive persons and have the same non-person status as critics of the Church. [10] In Scientology, a formally a condemned and shunned heretic or wrongdoer is labelled a Suppressive Person, often abbreviated SP. L. Ron Hubbard coined the term to refer to critics of the Church of Scientology, including journalists, disgruntled ex-Scientologists, and members of the psychiatric profession, whom Scientology considers as their...

Scientology criticizes that the goal of psychology and psychiatry must not be to reduce crime, insanity, or war, because otherwise, with all of the billions of dollars funding them, some improvement would have been seen in the 20th century. This of course relies on assumptions that may not be shared by non-Scientologists; sufferers from mania, for instance, would generally consider the discovery of medications in the 20th century that limit their episodes of ill-judged and frequently self-harmful behavior to be "improvement"; a Scientologist, however, considering all psychiatric drugs to be harmful, would assert that the mania sufferer has in fact simply become a drug abuser and that his perception that his quality of life is improved is illusory. Mania is a medical condition characterised by severely elevated mood. ...

The International Association of Scientologists has funded several campaigns against psychiatry. The text below is generated by a template, which has been proposed for deletion. ...

Legal waivers

Following legal actions involving the Church of Scientology's relationship with its members (see Scientology controversy) it has become standard practice within the church for members to sign lengthy legal contracts and waivers before engaging in Scientology services. In 2003, a series of media reports examined the legal contracts required by Scientology, which state that, among other things, Scientology followers deny any and all psychiatric care that their doctors may prescribe to them: This article examines controversial issues involving Scientology and its affiliated organizations. ... 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

"I do not believe in or subscribe to psychiatric labels for individuals. It is my strongly held religious belief that all mental problems are spiritual in nature and that there is no such thing as a mentally incompetent person — only those suffering from spiritual upset of one kind or another dramatized by an individual. I reject all psychiatric labels and intend for this Contract to clearly memorialize my desire to be helped exclusively through religious, spiritual means and not through any form of psychiatric treatment, specifically including involuntary commitment based on so-called lack of competence. Under no circumstances, at any time, do I wish to be denied my right to care from members of my religion to the exclusion of psychiatric care or psychiatric directed care, regardless of what any psychiatrist, medical person, designated member of the state or family member may assert supposedly on my behalf." (Scientology release form for the Introspection Rundown)

Citizens Commission on Human Rights

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an institution set up by Scientology, also claims that the real nature of psychiatry is that of human rights abuse. The international headquarters of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. ... Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that diagnoses, treats, and studies mental illness and behavioral conditions. ... A human rights abuse is abuse of people in a way that violates any fundamental human rights. ...

In 1966, Hubbard declared all-out war on psychiatry, telling Scientologists that "We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one." He committed the Church of Scientology to the goal of eradicating psychiatry in 1969, announcing that "Our war has been forced to become 'To take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms.'" [11] Not coincidentally, the Church of Scientology founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights that same year as its primary vehicle for attacking psychiatry. CCHR still quotes Hubbard's statement that all psychiatrists are criminals: "There is not one institutional psychiatrist alive who, by ordinary criminal law, could not be arraigned and convicted of extortion, mayhem and murder. Our files are full of evidence on them." [12] 1966 was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ... 1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... The international headquarters of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ... Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to his person, reputation, or property. ... Look up Mayhem in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Mayhem has several meanings: Original meaning as a legal term: a crime consisting of the act of maiming; in many jurisdictions this offense has been subsumed by the crime of aggravated assault. ...

CCHR has conducted campaigns against Prozac, against electroconvulsive therapy, against Ritalin and even the existence of ADHD and against various health legislations. Background Fluoxetine hydrochloride (brand names include Prozac®, Symbyax® (compounded with olanzapine), Sarafem®, Fontex® (Sweden), Fluctine (Austria, Germany), Prodep (India), Fludac (India)) is an antidepressant drug used medically in the treatment of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and many other disorders. ... Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as electroshock or ECT, is a very controversial type of psychiatric shock therapy involving the induction of an artificial seizure in a patient by passing electricity through the brain. ... Methylphenidate (C14H19NO2), or MPH, is an amphetamine-like prescription stimulant commonly used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children and adults. ... DISCLAIMER Please remember that Wikipedia is offered for informational use only. ...

Scientologists

Also without signing any waivers, Scientologists believe firmly in Hubbards claims about psychiatrists. Scientologist Lisa McPherson left a psychiatric hospital because of her beliefs in Scientology. Lisa McPherson (born Lisa Skonetski, February 10, 1959–December 5, 1995) was a Scientologist who died controversially while in the care of the Church of Scientology (CoS). ...

Tom Cruise, has been extremely vocal in attacking the use of psychiatric medication (MSNBC June 25, 2005). His position has attracted considerable criticism from psychiatrists, physicians, and individuals with mental illnesses (APA, June 27, 2005, NMHA June 27, 2005, Hausman 2005), and been defended and promoted by other Scientologists. [13] Tom Cruise as seen on a poster for the 2001 film Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American actor and producer who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies. ...

The German Scientologists Thomas Roeder and Volker Kubillus wrote a book on psychiatry and Hitler which has been published by Scientology's Freedom Publications.

Bruce Wiseman from CCHR published the book Psychiatry - The Ultimate Betrayal, also published by Scientology's Freedom Publications. The text below is generated by a template, which has been proposed for deletion. ...

Counterpositions

All counterpositions have in common that they see Scientology's description of psychiatry and psychology as distorted, out of date or inaccurate, if not outright wrong.

Critics of Scientology have pointed out that Hubbard asked in 1947 for psychiatric care, and that the coroner found after his death that Hubbard had been injected with the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril. A sedative is a drug that depresses the central nervous system (CNS), which causes calmness, relaxation, reduction of anxiety, sleepiness, slowed breathing, slurred speech, staggering gait, poor judgment, and slow, uncertain reflexes. ...

Mental health care professionals are not very worried that the public will take the publications by CCHR seriously. They do, however, contend that when these materials are quoted secondhand, without attribution to the Church of Scientology, they have a more harmful impact. (Barlas, 1996)

In adition the published books do not meet much approval or even comment outside of Scientology and CCHR. Psychology professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi's short review of "Psychiatrists-- The Men Behind Hitler" for example states the following: Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a professor of psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel. ...

"Scientology has attracted much attention through its propaganda effort against what it calls psychiatry. This has involved great expense and organizational effort, carried out through a variety of fronts. If the book Psychiatrists: The Men Behind Hitler (Roder, Kubillus, & Burwell, 1995) is a representative example, and I believe it is, it proves decisively that the campaign is rooted in total paranoia and pathetic ignorance. Reading this book, and I will urge you not to waste too much time doing it, makes clear that the authors simply have no idea what psychiatry is." (Beit-Hallahmi, 2003)

John Kuzma, University of Minnesota, has this to say about "Psychiatry, the Ultimate Betrayal":

"This book from the Church of Scientology offers their prospective on Psychiatry and Psychology (hint: they aren't huge fans). The book itself is the literary equivalent of a MST3K episode (my favorite 'revelation' - Psychiatrists and Psychologists are responsible for the rise in drug use in America since WW2). But it made me wish I could find a more even-handed and knowledgeable critique on the mental health professions."

APA's Lynn Schultz-Writsel comments on the same book: From left to right, Crow T. Robot, Joel Robinson, and Tom Servo (the latter dressed as a candystriper). ...

• "We have not responded in any way, shape or form. There has not been a hue and cry from members to respond. And anyway, the publication speaks for itself." (Barlas, 1996)

References

• Barlas, Stephen (1996), Psychiatric Profession Current Target of Citizens Commission on Human Rights, Psychiatric Times
• Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin (2003), Scientology: Religion or racket?, Marburg Journal of Religion
• Cooper, Paulette, Scientology Versus Medicine in Scandal of Scientology, 1997, Web Edition,
• Hausman, Ken (2005), Cruise Finds Himself at Sea After Antipsychiatry Tirade, Psychiatric News
• Hubbard, L. Ron (1969). "Crime and Psychiatry."
• Hubbard, L. Ron (1980). "Criminals and Psychiatry."
• Hubbard, L. Ron (August 26, 1982). "[http:// Pain and Sex]."
• Mieszkowskii, Katharine (2005), Scientology's War on Psychiatry, Saloon
• Roder, Thomas et a. (2005). "[{{{URL}}} Psychiatrists-- The Men Behind Hitler: The Architects of Horrory]." Freedom Publishing (CA).
• Whittle, Thomas G.. "Behind the Terror. A probe into masterminds of death and violence." Freedom Magazine. Accessed on August 14, 2005.
• Wiseman, Bruce (1995). Psychiatry, the Ultimate Betrayal. Freedom Publishing (CA). ISBN 0964890909.
• Wiseman, Bruce. "Educational and Social Ruin." Psychiatry Educations Ruin. Accessed on August 14, 2005.
• Psychiatric Times (1991). "Prozac Frees Ex-Scientology Leader from Depression."

• “'I'm passionate about life' Actor Tom Cruise talks with 'Today' host Matt Lauer about his new love, new movie and his recent controversial comments”, MSNBC (June 25, 2005)
• “National Mental Health Associates respond to Tom Cruise’s Today Show Interview”, NMHA (August 14)
• “APA responds to Tom Cruise’s Today Show Interview”, APA (August 14)
• "Why is Scientology opposed to psychiatric abuse?". The Church of Scientology International Provides Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Scientology. URL accessed on August 14, 2005.
• "Bosnia & Kosovo: On The Trail Of Psychiatric Genocide". Psychiatry a Human Rights Abuse and Global Failure. URL accessed on August 14, 2005.
• "L. Ron Hubbard pleads for psychiatric treatment". Documents of a Lifetime. URL accessed on August 14, 2005.
• "Scientology release form for the Introspection Rundown." Accessed August 14, 2005.