Nine Million Time-Bombs

In a television interview Jeff Griffin, the Executive Director for the Western U.S. of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, talks about some of the problems that our society faces in connection with the expanding power of the psychiatric industry.

This interview shares the common problem of nearly all critics of psychiatry: the extreme persuasion and bitterness. They lash out the abuses of psychiatry, and call it all kinds of bad names. It is perhaps not surprising. Anyone who spent some time uncovering psychiatry's dark secrets would probably become bitter in the process; but while their words may be correct, their very tone of voice and style of speech stand in the way of accepting their arguments. The listener can't help thinking that maybe all this is just another political game.

Nevertheless, Mr. Griffin, who has been fighting psychiatry for many years, mentions some extremely important points in this interview. One of them is the 9 million children who currently take one or more psychotropic medication.

He calls them "9 million time-bombs" and explains that in nearly every single case of school shooting or other mass-murders made by children one or another psychiatric drug was involved. The interview was apparently filmed before the Virginia Tech; I happened to watch the news on the day when it happened, and the reporters mentioned several times that the guy had been taking psychiatric drugs, although this information was not mentioned again in the subsequent media coverage.

We have never before given so much drugs to children as during the last decade; the drugs that are capable of causing restlessness and homicidal ideas, particularly in the withdrawal period. We have yet to find out what these kids will be like when they grow up. With the economic crisis that the US and its health-care system is facing, many of the people taking one or more psychotropic drugs will be forced to go into withdrawal. Jeff Griffin is right to be concerned.

Craft Addicts

A recent article describes a psychiatrist who've discovered yet another new psychiatric disorder: pathological computer gaming.

He maintains that playing computer games feels more shameful to adults who suffer from this problem than if they were watching porn, because porn is a socially accepted pastime for adults, while gaming is "for kids".

The inception of pathological computer gaming is an evidence of the continuing expansion of the list of mental disorders, and the desire of any psychiatrist to find a nice "niche" for his services. The doctor talks about singular cases of people who are distressed because they spend 15 hours a day at their computers playing games, and who forget to shower and use the toilet in the process.

His ideas, however, may be applied too loosely (as it happened with many other psychiatric ideas), and we may eventually start treating people who spend a lot of time in front of their computers simply because this is "wrong", without regard to whether they have a problem with it, or actually like it.

We also must not forget that a significant part of the "addiction" to computers, like any other addiction, lies in the inability of the society to provide a person with anything more meaningful to do. The alternative for a pathological gamer would be to immerse himself into the battles with colleagues and bosses in the office, instead of the battles with orks and goblins on the unknown planets. Exactly why is one better than the other?