Coalition for Informed Patients and Doctors

[Guest guest]

Gang,

Here is an call to action. a Caplan is a personal hero of mine. Dr.

Caplan is calling for congressional hearings to draw attention to the

minimally-investigated enterprise of psychiatric diagnosis and to find

ways to protect people from the harm that can result.

Her campaign started in September, but this is the first I've been aware

of it.

a is an expert. She was involved in two workgroups that updated the

DSM-III-R.

She documented the outrageous shenigans involved, resigned from the

project, and at a significant professional risk, wrote a great book about it.

Her book, " They Say You're Crazy: How the World's Most Powerful

Psychiatrists Decide Who's Normal " is a must-read for those of us who

really must know exactly how things get into the DSM.

A word of caution; you will probably sleep better if you do not know.

Hint, there's a lot more politics, and hardboiled Yankee entrepreneurialism

involved

than science.

To me, reading a's book was an epiphany. When I put this book down,

I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or what (???). Instead I got very

angry.

Many of you receiving this email are leaders of professional, consumer,

and parents groups concerned with mental health policy. I urge each of you to

take personal action to see that your group signs onto this very

worthwhile campaign.

Vince Boehm

Coalition for Informed Patients and Doctors

September 24, 2004

Dear Colleagues:

Request

We are writing to ask you not for any time or money but simply to

co-endorse our call for Congressional Hearings about psychiatric diagnosis

in an attempt to explore the nature and extent of harm that many Americans

have suffered solely because of being given a psychiatric label. The aim

of the hearings would be to find ways to prevent this harm, beginning with

a clear-sighted examination of the totally unregulated nature of

psychiatric diagnosis. Many people have the mistaken impression that the

Food and Drug Administration oversees psychiatric diagnosis, but nothing

could be further from the truth.

In 2002 and 2003, two Congressional Briefings were held on this subject,

co-sponsored by a dozen groups concerned with health matters and by New

York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter.

The Need

This Call is not an attack on or a questioning of psychotherapy or even

diagnosis across the board but simply an attempt to draw attention to this

minimally-investigated enterprise of psychiatric diagnosis and to find

ways to protect people from the harm that can result. The kinds of harm

have included loss of the right to make decisions about one's legal and

medical affairs, loss of health insurance or skyhigh premiums, loss of

child custody, and plummeting of self-confidence.

This issue affects people across the spectrum, regardless of social class,

education, sex, race, and age.

The Problem

Few laypeople or even therapists realize that psychiatric diagnosis is not

a scientific endeavor, although some of the most powerful people and

organizations in the mental health field assert that it is. As a result,

millions of people who seek help because they are suffering have no idea

that they are not being diagnosed in scientific ways and thus that their

treatment largely lacks a scientific basis; nor do they know that in

important ways their treatment may be experimental because they are given

labels that may not stand for anything that has been proven to exist.

Furthermore, although drugs can be helpful for some people, it is

important for the public and their therapists to know that they are often

prescribed to treat diagnostic " entities " that may not even exist.

Patients have a right to try anything that might help them, including

medication, but it is essential that they do so after being fully informed

of the limitations of the diagnostic labels that are usually the rationale

for therapists' treatment recommendations.

The absence of science creates a vacuum, and biases and distortions rush

in. This happens in three ways:

Such biases as racism, sexism, ageism, classism, and homophobia powerfully

affect psychiatric diagnosis, becoming partial determinants of who gets a

psychiatric label and the seriousness of the label that is chosen.

Serious problems such as depression are overlooked as people are diagnosed

with unproven " mental illnesses " such as Compulsive Shopping Disorder or

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

Many people who are suffering because of social problems like poverty or

because they are victims of hate speech or violence are wrongly treated as

though the problems come from within themselves.

Why Congressional Hearings?

First and foremost, the purpose of a Call for Congressional Hearings is to

put psychiatric diagnosis, with its problems and possible solutions, on

the national, public agenda.

There are many reasons for choosing the Congressional Hearings route,

related to why in numerous respects this is a federal issue. In the

interests of keeping this letter from being unduly long, we do not provide

those details here but would be more than happy to send information upon

request.

What You Can Do

All we ask of you is that you grant permission to have your name or that

of your organization listed as a co-endorser of this Call for

Congressional Hearings, which we want to issue in October in the form of a

press release and possibly at a live press conference.

If you know of other groups or people who might be interested, please let

us know so that we can contact them. You can send information to me by fax

at 617 491-0960 or via email at a_Caplan@...

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

a J. Caplan, Ph.D., Director

Coalition for Informed Patients and Doctors

26 Alpine St. Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 491-0962

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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm