The Stories We Live By

When some advanced civilizations in our galalxy realized sometime around 2050 AD Earth time that our planet had gone quiet the Galactic Counsel Empowered Flog, the planet closest to Earth, to visit and provide information as to what might have happened to a civiization ready to be iinvited to join the galactic community.   This is a summary of what might have gone wrong that created a series of disasters that ended both human civilization and most life on the planet. 

Psychotherapist Al Glaves and I will talk about how the medical model of mental illnesses was created and how it is fed by the American Public's acceptance of its harmful and erroneous beliefs. We will speak about the factors that motivate the various "states of being" (in essence, troubled and troubling modes of behavior, expressions of thought and emotional reactions) that are ultimately diagnosed as "mental illnesses and disorders." Finally we will discuss the ways the public can protect itself from the lies of the psychiatric model and Big Pharma and still successfully participate in the process of psychotherapy. 

In Part 3 of this series I will discuss the differences between a relationship with a Psychotherapist or other mental health professional that will help rather than hurt those seeking help for emotional pain, difficult relationships or problems realizing a life that is creative and emotionally fulfilling. I will describe what to expect and look for in a relationship that goes beyond the destructive moral labels of psychiaric diagnoses and is based on person to person interactions defined by mutual respect, honesty, openess and lacking in any forms of coercion and intimidation. I refer to the former as psychotherapy which pretends to be a form of medicine and the latter as psycho"therapy" which recognizes, in one way or another, that the interaction is medical in name only. I will argue that many professionals do practice psycho"therapy" inspite of defining their efforts with medical terms such a "therapy," "patient," "mental illnesses and disorders," "symptoms" and the like.                                                   store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by    

A second episode dealing with the myths of mental illness and health and the various ways in which your life can be ruined. I will continue my discussion of the basic information the public requires to interact with the professionals that comprise those supposedly "diagnosing" and "treating"  problems in living. 

A person writes on Twitter "I had so many dreams. Had so many things I wanted to do. I was told I needed to wait for the right cocktail of meds ...so I could be balanced. Days turned into months and years. 20 years gone. Never got to start my life." In todays episode I shall describe how being drawn into the lies of the the mental health industry steals lives and what each person might learn that will allow them to avoid or escape from the traps of our current system of so-called mental health services. I will suggest ways of finding real psychological help by becoming an educated consumer of what is currently available and ultimately being your own life advocate. store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by    

Today I will discuss some of my reactions to Wilkerson's argument that race based on skin color formed the basis of a caste here in America. I will discuss the incredible, mind altering statement that "there are no black peope in Africa.'' I will discuss this from my own vantage point that had my grandparents not left Russia for America I would have most certainly died in a killing field or extermination camp because I belonged to the "Jewish Race." Here in America Judaism is a religion and my race is White. I feel certain this will be the first in a series of podcasts on this vitally important topic. www.store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

Today I will discuss the nature of the self and try to convince my listeners that beginning a sentence that expresses a psychological fact should not be "I am" but "I do" thereby changing the nature of our selves from nouns to verbs. This small grammatical shift allows us to recognize the enormous difference between judging ourselves and judging our actions or behaviors. Once we judge ourselves as a noun the judgment becomes a permanent attribute of our identity and self. Once we judge our behaviors we have an opportunity to change any aspect of our behavior which we (or others) feel is wrong or harmful. The change from "I am" to "I do" also allows us to challenge the psychiatric nonsense of being lablelled as mentally ill or disordered and living with the belief that our selves are permenantly defective. For example, "I am Schizophrenic" changes to "I behave schizophrenically and I can always learn to behave differently."   I will also discuss the relationship of our brain's activities to our understanding of self and selves.   To learn more read my book 'Psycho"therapy" and the Stories We live By' www.store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

I will deconstruct the concepts of race and intelligence and describe how these basically unscientific and invalid concepts have been used to divide and dehumanize human beings and justify the enslavement and murder of millions as well as convince more millions into believing that race, rather than their humanity, is the primary definition of their identities.   My guest today will be Dr Chuck Ruby, author of "Smoke and Mirrors: How You Are Being Fooled  About Mental Illness" https://chuckruby.com See my book at store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

Are human beings the products of their genes, how they are treated by other human beings in their environments or by a combination of both? Are some human beings basically good and some basically evil? Do we have any control as to how human beings turn out and if so how can we describe that control? I do not pretend to know the answers to these questions but I will try and clarify how to approach these thorny, but very important issues. How do the answers to these questions shape the politics practised in any given family, social group or society? For further discussion see my book at store.bookbaby.com/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-liveby

A critical discussion about Mary Trump's psychological insights about how her family's dynamics shaped the personalities of its members. Dr. Trump is a clincal psychologist and provides a well written, easy to read, and in my opinion an important volume on her theories concerning the rise of Donald Trump and the fall of her father, Freddy, Donald's older brother. I will frame my discussion to include the question as to why and how Donald Trump became the personal savior to millions of American Citizens.  www.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

I will present an arguement that America's current attempts to deal with "racism" and police brutality are best understood as common elements of authoritarian political structures. Authoritarianism is the dominant  type of politics both in our world and the historical past. Authoritarian political structures are always hierarchical and maintained by convincing their citizens that those in the higher levels are inherently superior as human beings than those in the lower strata of society. The psychological mechanisms of control involve dehumanizing some individuals and demonizing those who would seek to rebel against their fixed position in the hierarchy. The police and the military usually represent the mechanisms to enforce compliance and punish rebellion among those dehumanized and demonized. The solution to the problems created by authoritarian heirarchies are found in democratic political structures adhering to the idea that all human beings are equal in their essential worth, have equal rights, privileges and responsibilities and that all its citizens are more human than otherwise.  These ideas are explored in my book "Psycho'therapy' and the Stories We Live By" to be found on Amazon.com, BN.com, and store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by       

My Co-host is Sue Parry, retired Occupational Therapist and Mother of three grown sons who were all diagnosed "at-risk" for ADHD, Conduct Disorder and various learning disabilities when they were of school age. Her personal experiences with the mental health system left her outraged at how health care and educational professionals allowed her children and millions of others to be physically and psychologically hurt by the myths of ADHD and a host of other so-callled mental illnesses , the increasing use of powerful brain diasbling drugs and bogus therapies. Sue Parry's name appears in the acknowledgments of many books including "Talking Back To Ritalin," Naughty Boys: Anti-social Behavior, ADHD and the Role of Culture, and "A Disease Called Childhood: Why ADHD Is an Epidemic." She has testified at the National Institute of Mental Health and the FDA. We will discuss what must be done to protect our children and our democracy from this authoritarian and unscientific onslaught to the life and education of our future citizens.  

 I am a familiar with a young person about to start graduate studies in School Psychology which means that this individual will be emersed in much of the same theories and ideas as Clinical Psychology. I  hope this individual (and all others entering the field) enjoys being a psychologist as much as I did but should be aware that the field has many serious critics of many of the basic concepts of the field of clinical and school psychology. These include the concepts of mental illnesses and disorders, the wholesale diagnosing of our population including children, the widespread use of brain altering and damaging drugs as treatments and the fact that the field often operates more like a religion than a science creating problems for anyone trying to be a critic of current ideas and procedures. It is my hope that all new students will be familar with all sides of the controversies within the field and respectful of those who promote them. 

A further discussion on how confusing moral labels with medical diagnoses damages both individuals and the democracy we strive to live in. Morally judging unhappiness, confusion, a host of normal human emotions and a wide number of problems people might have adjusting to a variety of life situations dehumanizes and demonizes them and not only creates the very conditions and behaviors being termed "mental illnesses and disorders" but also undermines people's abilities to participate as citizens of a democracy.  Psycho"therapy" and The Stories We Live By is available at Amazon.com, BN.com and store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

This will be the first in a series of podcasts that have two goals. The first is to try and convince the public to reject any and all attempts by professionals working in the mental health industry (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and others) to accept that confusion, anxiety and unhappiness represent actual entities called mental illnesses and disorders.  The second goal is to make the argument that the wholesale diagnosing of many milions of citizens as mentally ill represents an authoritarian system that not only damages them as individuals but has helped undermine our society as a democracy. These podcasts will be told in the form of my    personal story based on my fifty years as a "clinical" psychologist and how I began as a true believer in the  medical model of mental illness and ended as a fierce critic of this same system.  store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

There is no real thing called intelligence that can actually be measured although people do differ in the skills that they excercise in varying situations. After years of struggling to define just what intellience might be many psychologists gave up and decided that "intelligence is whatever the test tests!" However, most professionals and laypersons continue to believe that Intelligence tests measure some actual quality of the mind and that it can predict how a person will be able to learn in many, if not all situations. Moreover, it is claimed that the test is socially unbiased and results are independent of both whoever administers the test and the conditions under which it is administered. Many lives have been damaged by the continued acceptance of these incorrect assumptions. Psycho"therapy and the Stories We Live By Amazon.com, BN.com  store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

I will continue to develop ideas preresented yesterday but left unfinished when Bob Eben called in a told his life affirming story. I will discuss, love, joy, creativity as well as education, the arts and good citizenship. 

It is often assumed that health, whether mental or physical, means the absence of illness. While I will not try and describe physical or medical health I will try and discuss the thorny topic of mental health. I have argued that mental illnesses are moral judgments of unwanted behaviors and have little or nothing to do with real medical ilnesses or diseases. Mental Illnesses represent a dangerous, toxic myth. In my book Psycho'therapy' and the Stories We Live By" I suggest that those of us who work in the mental health system do not ever really try and formally describe mental health as there is no economic reason to do so. (My chapter entilted "Mental Health" is the main reason I wrote this book.) I describe behaviors that might be morally wanted that might define a myth of  "mental health." Of course, I then delve into some of the reasons why some behaviors are referred to as illnesses and others as health and who gets to do the defining and creating of both these myths.  store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by. 

I will begin my discussion of schizophrenia with a statement from my book "Psycho'therapy' and the Stories We Live By: "One of the saddest expressions of a ruined identity are the words 'I am a schizophrenic.' To have one's total identity conflated with a fictitious disease that a person believes is incurable is tantamount to tragedy." (P.97) I will discuss the nature of the so-called symptoms of schizophrenia and then deconstruct the concept of the "psychoses" (defined as having lost touch with 'reality") of which schizophrenia is considered a prime example. 

Mental Illnesses are moral judgements about a variety of often unwanted, troubled and troubling behaviors that on the surface seem to be illogical and make little or no sense that pose as medical diganoses. In my own writings and podcasts I put quotation marks around "therapy," "patient," "symptoms," and all other words that relate to how the mental health industry deals with those suffering from so called "mental illness and disorders." Reports from the so-called mental hospitals during current pandemic reveals how little these institutions have to do with actual hospitals treating the wide range of actual medical afflictions including victims of the virus. I now suggest that all those institutions supossedly "treating" "mental health" issues also be placed within quotation marks. I have long tried and failed to create new non-medical terminology to replace all of the medical terms related to psycho"therapy' and today will explore proper language to replace "hospital." I will also raise the issue as to whether or not such "hospitals" should even exist. Szasz, Thomas. "The Myth of Mental Illness Rev Ed. New York, Harper and Row (1984) Simon Laurence. Psycho"therapy" and Stories We Live By. Self published by BookBaby.com store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

My fear is that people will be convinced that their emotional reactions to the pandemic will represent some form of "mental illness" and that they will turn to Big Pharma to help them get through. Let's discuss what we are experiencing as we live in these extraordinary times.  I am no longer a licensed psychotherapist after 5o years  of practice and therefore I am not seeking to provide therapy or give advice; only to have meaningful discussions. 

Andrew Solomon, in his article "Don't Ignore Clinical Mental Illness" points out that people who have existing, long term mental illnesses are especially at risk at having their symptoms severely increased by the pandemic and therefore in need of more therapy and medication. I will discuss the type of stories and patterns of behavior that end up being medicalized and diagnosed as mental illnesses and disorders espcially those stories that endure and those that are reactions to moments of stress and conflict. I will introduce the concept of stories that are "frozen in time" and their relationship to emotions such as anxiety, depression, guilt, shame and humilation. Finally, I will discuss how professionals might help in terms of what I refer to as psycho"therapy." 'Psycho"therapy" and the Stories We live By' in Amazon.com and store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by 

Today's discussion is based on an Op-Ed article in the New York Times entitled "Don't Ignore Clinical Mental Illness" by Andrew Solomon, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center. The author writes "Within weeks (of the pandemic) the familar symptoms of mental illness have become universal reality." I will read sections of the article and attempt to deconstruct it as a dangerous myth from a Post-Szaszian perspective. I will argue that mental illnesses do not actually exist and that anxiety and depression are normal but painful emotions that are necessary for our dealing with this and other crises. I will try and warn my listeners not to fall into a trap that might be life-long and damage the rest of their lives.   Szasz, Thomas. "The Myth Of Mental Illness." Rev. Ed. New York:Harper and Row (1984) Simon, Laurence "Psycho'therapy' and the Stories We LIve By" Self-Published by BookBaby.com. Both available at Amazon.com and Simon at store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by. 

Scott is a graduate of the University of Michigan, a musician and living in Spain as an educator. We will discuss our mutual interest in Szasz's ideas and how we both became convinced that the ideology of psychiatry is based on an unscientific, illogical and toxic set of ideas in which a moral judgment poses as a medical diagnosis.  Szasz, Thomas. 1974. "The Myth of Mental Illness, rev. ed. New York, Harper and Row Simon, Laurence 2019 "Psycho"therapy" and the Stories We LIve By, Self Published through BookBaby.com Both available at Amazon.com, BN.com store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by  

A discussion based on my book Psycho"therapy" and the Stories We Live By which is my attempt to seperate my idea of what the field might look like once the corrupt, illogical and toxic notions of "mental illnesses and disorders," and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disoders (DSM). I will discuss the need for new language to describe the field and what it does and speak to the need of both professionals and those who seek their help to reject the psychiatric model. store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by  

A discussion with Attorney Jim Gottstein about the release of the Zyprexa papers which revealed to the public the terrible physical effects of Zyprexa, an antipsychotic medication created and sold by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. The papers revealed that thousands of individuals developed diabetes, gained unusal amounts of weight and/or died and that Lilly knew, suppressed and lied about these so-called side effects of the drug. We will also discuss Jim's efforts to help those individuals diagnosed as mentally ill to fight against forced hospitalizations and treatments that violated their civil and human rights.  Jim's excellent book can be purchased at both Amazon.com and BN.com

Psychotherapy can be a form of liberation or permenant entrappment unless those seeking its help are educated consumers. These traps involve the false idea that mental illnesses are real, the failure to differentiate between judgments and descriptions, failing to understand the difference between what we are and what we do. We are might not be able to change what we are but we can always choose to change what we do. I will argue that psychotherapy at its best is a form of education rather than a treatment and that those individuals who seek to be students rather than patients can avoid the traps that are built into the so-called mental health system. More can be learned from my book Psycho"therapy" and the Stories We Live By.  Find at store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by 

I will share some of my thoughts both as a citizen and a psychologist concerning the difference between facts and truth and the necessity of having faith in some set of authorities if we are to understand how to best react to the events taking place in the world in which we live. I will use as my example my reactions to the televised hearing concerning the impeachment of President Trump. While I will make clear my own biases I will try and keep my discussion to a psychological analyis of the role of facts, truth and authority in making decision concerning  this vital topic. 

My guest tonight is Michael (Mickey) Weinberg, MSW, who has spent a lifetime organizing professionals to help those who have been labelled as "mentally ill" live better lives as well as reduce the power of institutional psychiatry and the mental health establishment to control their lives. His efforts have included a hunger strike designed to get mainstream media to focus on the fact that there is no evidence to support psychiatric claims that what is called mental illness has any biological basis whatsoever. (A documentary film of the strike can be found at http://hssm.semel.ucla.edu/wheres_evidence) Currently, Mickey will describe possible future efforts to reduce the power of the mental health industry's hold over the lives of those who have been diagnosed mentally ill.

My earlier show was ended prematurely. I will continue the discussion begun at 4:00 PM EST on August 19th at 4:00 PM EST

I will explore the current difficulties Americans now have discussing politics without becoming enraged with one another. Many individuals no longer speak to others who differ in their political affiliations including good friends and even family members. The political scene is rife with threats and even acts of violence if people dare criticize the politics and leaders of differing political parties. I will suggest that the firewall between religion and politics has been breached in our current situation and that authoritarianism and totalitarianism are rapidly replacing the democratic ideal of respectful debate of the issues. Moral truths replace factual understanding of our problems and of each other. Vast numbers of citizens no longer seek leaders but instead seek those who would save them from the realization of their deepest fears, guilt and shame. Finally, I will suggest that each of us must be able to examine what problems we hope to solve by adopting political rhetoric and strategies that dehumanize and demonize our fellow citizens as well as by blindly following leaders who foment hatred and the dehumanizing of others. store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

This Psychologist feels that the current wave of mass shootings are indicative of a dying society and that psychology and the whole "mental health industry" not only have contributed little to understanding our current social dilemmas but have contributed much to them. I will try and think outloud on the following: 1) Our theories fail to separate explanations from judgments; 2) examine the necessity for human beings to be both individuals as well as members of groups and society;  3) fails to adequately intergrate biology and psychology; 4) fails to integrate the roles played by politics and economics; 5) fails to develop a language of simultaneity that encompasses both individuals, the social groups that define us as individuals. Finally, I will muse on the role of science and technology that are changing every aspect of being human and ask the question "Will Alexa ever really love us?" store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

I offer today's broadcast to Kelli and the millions of others who mistakenly beleive that their hard to understand and painful patterns of behavior have something to do with mental illnesses, chemical imbalances, mental health and require something called treatments involving either drugs, talking or both. I will try and make clear to Kelly and the millions who believe as she does that she and they are caught in a number of traps created by language, particularly that which derives from the illogical, authoritarian and wholly unscientific language of Psychiatry, Clinical Psychology and other fields that follow mainstream Psychiatry. I will suggest, based upon what Kelly writes about how she currently lives that were she to fully avoid the language that  enfolds her she would feel even more than she does at present to be "a person who belongs to the world." (Final sentence of her article.) I will suggest some books for Kelly and the millions who struggle as she does that will include Thomas Szasz' "The Myth of Mental Illness" and my own "Psycho "therapy" and The Stories We Live By" store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by    

A monster has been defined as a creature that looks human but cannot care about the pain and death it causes to human beings. Too many of our children are playing the role of monsters as they take military style weapons into schools and shoot their fellow students. The problem is that judging a child killer to be a monster or mentally ill in no way explains their actual state of mind when they pull the trigger and fire at other children. It also fails to answer how they became monsters. Moreover, how do we explain the state of mind as those of us as citizens who watch these slaughters, offer prayers and condolences and then forget the incident and do nothing to either understand or try and stop these tragedies. Are we all monsters? I will ask questions that I feel are relevant to this growing problem but wiil not be able to answer the questions I raise. My new book might help provide answers: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by  

Psychiatry, Clinical Psychology and Clinical Social Work are three sad, confused orphans who all claim to treat human unhappiness and confusion referred to as mental illnesses and disorders. The term "mental illnesses" are metaphors for disturbed and disturbing behaviors, various modes of thinking and emotional expression and have nothing actually to do with real medical problems. Therefore, the brain disabling drugs psychiatrists prescribe to suffering people are neither real treatments nor actual medicines. Psychiatry's siblings talk to people about their problems and call what they do psychotherapy. Strictly speaking since the problems have nothing to do with medicine, talking is neither a treatment nor a form of therapy. All three quarellsome siblings have serious identity problems, psychiatry with its true place in real medicine. The other two sibling have no idea what words they would use to replace phony medical terms such as "patient,' "treatment," "therapist," "diagnoses," etc. and without their false medical terminology they are completely without an identity. Is there anything sadder than three ever fighting, confused siblings both homeless and without identities?

Much good often results when people seek help from psychotherapy but this has little to do with the lies and fantasies that are offered as justifications by the mental health industry for its existence and the fees charged by psychotherapists. I was recently made aware of two studies that purported to show that ordinary "housewives" and "ex-schizophrenics" had similar, if not superior results than Ph.D. psychologists in improving the lot of people seeking help for psychological distress. In today's show I will interpret the results of these findings to suggest that if we strip away the baloney of psychiatric diagnoses and most currently popular types of psychotherapy we are left with the fact that when suffering individuals are offered discussions with non-judgmental, empathic, and understanding individuals in a safe environment where what it said is totally priveleged many folks learn to better deal with their psychological problems.  

A religion can be defined as any systematic set of beliefs that set forth factual and moral truths that purport to solve various human problems in living. The factual and moral beliefs of a religion, referred to as its dogma, are created by some respected and/or feared authority and are expected to be accepted on faith alone. A religion can either be secular or theistic, the latter in which the authority is some form of higher power claimed to be a single or multiple gods. Science is a relative newcomer in human history and is based on the idea that factual truths are derived from the direct observation of the world in and around us which are referred to as facts. Explanations of observed phenomena are referred to as theories rather than as dogma and held to be valid as long as they do not deny or ignore the facts upon which they are based. Unlike a religion, anyone is capable of being a scientist as long as they base their facts on observations and call their explanations theories, or educated guesses. Religions tend to be authoritairian and hierarchical while science tends to be democratic and less hierarchical. Psychotherapy presents itself to the public as being based in science but an examination of is underlying concepts and its modes of operation suggest that the field acts much more like a faith based, authoritarian religion. The medical model of psychiatry and the numerous theories supposed to treat "mental illnesses and disorders" demand that they be accepted on faith rather than observed evidence and educated guesses.  The result is a professional enterprise composed of cult like groups more than of enlightend scientists that makes invisible the real values of psychotherapy and replaces it with magic and often fanciful ideas.

My conversation with Chuck Ruby, author and psychologist, will cover a range of subjects including the invention of the myth of mental illness, what constitutes abnormal behavior, morality and the myth of mental illness, social control and mental illness, strategies for escaping emotional pain, and existential emotional pain. We will finish our discussion by suggesting changes needed to be made by the mental health industry and the responsibilty of those seeking help for emotional pain. 

Volunteers in Psychotherapy, Inc. (VIP) is an organization in West Hartford CT that allows people seeking psychotherapy for emotional pain to perform four hours of volunteer work at the charity or governmental agency of their choice for one hour of psychotherapy with a licensed professional. This revolutionary and common sense approach allows individuals to avoid being diagnosed as mentally ill or disordered, maintain complete privacy concerning their personal life and history and avoid the complex problems of dealing with managed care. Moreover, Dr Shulman's unique approach to helping people live better represents democracy at its best. 

I will tie together my response to an interview with Peter Carruthers in Scientific American with a response by my colleague Al Galves to my response and use the dangerous and pernicious phony diagnosis PTSD as an example.

Al Galves is a psychotherapist in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He and I will discuss the myth of the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness and then he will talk about his involvement with the Psychiatric Survivor Movement. The Survivor Movement is made up of individuals who have been forcibly drugged and/or hospitalized against their will. Many have recovered from the injustice and terror of losing their civil rights and their so-called treatments that have included solitary confinement. Al Galves will present some of their stories and the varied goals of the movement which include abolishing psychiatry all together.

I have written extensively and spoken on my blogtalkradio podcasts about the myth of mental illness and the nature of mental health. The terms mental illness and mental disorders have nothing to do with real medical illness but in fact are bad names professionals call people dressed up as medical problems. I have argued that psychotherapy has nothing to do with medicine, that psychiatry is a humbug and dangerously authoritarian and unless those of us who practice psychotherapy divest ourselves of our relationship with the psychiatric medical model we will fail to live up the the promise of what our field can be. Psychotherapy is a proud product of the enlightenment, science, humanism and the rise of democracy and I believe is best understood as a noncoercive form of personal education of the self and its relationship to society. I am writing still another book on what I call psycho"therapy" and have hit a wall on my proposed chapter on "mental health." On today's broadcast I will ruminate outloud on the nature of mental health. If mental illnesses are moral judgments on how others should not live then mental health must be judgments on how others should live. How does that work and who dares to know and tell others the right and moral way to live their lives? How and why should the field of mental health and psychotherapy even exist?

Dr Jeanne Stolzer will discuss the growing mountain of evidence that psychiatric drugs are potentially dangerous to health, are addictive, often worsening the emotional difficulties for which they are prescribed, and which are implicated in acts of violence toward self and others including a number of the school shootings that have so horrified our society. We will discuss the politics inherent in convincing our society that problems in living and emotional distress are the result of undiagnosable and possibly fictitious brain diseases that condemn millions to a life on drugs and limited aspirations. Finally, we will discuss the role professionals might play in helping people who suffer emotional distress without any reference to any medical terminlology unless those terms are used metaphorically.

America has seen another mass murder, this time at a Synagogue in Pittsburgh to be added to those in schools, houses of worship or where people congregate for relaxation. The explantion for these events suggests that the gunman is a deranged, mentally ill and isolated figure and the solution to the problem is for citizens to arm themselves and for society to provide more mental health services. I suggest that the mental illness theory hides and denies the political motivation for these behaviors and prevents us from finding real solutions for them. In order to survive and thrive human beings formed tribes whose structures were almost always hierarchical and authoritarian and  their politics guided and justified by demanding belief in supernatural deities superior to human beings. The rise of universal literacy, scientific inquiry, and ecnonmic expansion led to the emrgence of secular democracies. Mass murderers are motivated by authoritarian tribalism and defeated by those holding to democratic ideals. Calling them mentally ill implying inferiority only furthers the aims of authoritarian politics.

I will once again define what I call Psycho"therapy" suggesting that it is a process in which individuals examine the type of life narratives which create much of their misery without adding to their problems by becoming ensnared in the destructive narratives of the "mental health industry." Tonight I will join with the famous Psychoanalyst Karen Horney by suggesting that many aspects of a personal therapy can be achieved by individuals themselves if they understand some of the principles contained in the stories that guide their lives and the choices they make because of these principles. Such an examination includes the differences between judgments and descriptions, the nature of self and identity, and the relationship between the brain and behavior. Finally, I will suggest that an important mode of changing destructive life narratives involves continuing their personal education including reading fiction and nonfiction stories that deal with the lives of other people.

Our stories are increasingly narrow and do not communicate across larger social groups. Our stories contain  fewer facts but more myths, fantasies, and outright lies. Our stories are growing shorter with fewer meaningful narratives. Our stories have fewer heroes unless they are fictional superheroes but contain more villains. Our stories are less about skills and resilience and more about victimization and trauma. Our stories are incresingly based on judgment rather than description.  

In order for human beings to survive they need to develop both factual information about the world and skills to solve the problems that prevent satisfaction of their many needs. Human beings have the longest period of development of any species making parents, families, teachers and others including political leaders critically important in the development of factual information and various skills necessary for survival and sucess in complex environments. We have evolved powerful emotional bonds between caretakers and their charges, particularly between parents and children, to insure that the important survival skills and information be transmitted between the generations. These bonds tend to insure that developing individuals will trust their most important caretakers over any competing sources of information and skill development. These bonds also tend to insure that the caretakers will be loyal to their charges over the prolonged period of social, intellectual and moral development. Today's discussion concerns itself with the psychological consequences that might occur when loyalty and trust rupture between between a developing child and their most important catetakers. Much of what we, in the mental health industry falsly call mental illness and disorders, are best understood to be the intellectual and emotional consequences of failed loyalty and trust. These consequences include massive anxiety, confusion, and rage as well as the desperate struggles of individuals to find the truths and skills to orient themselves to the world indorder to survive and prosper.                 

The suicides of of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain has created a conversation about suicide dominated by the bullshit that suicide is a symptom of a disease called depression; that depression is a brain disease; that the mental health industry is the place for the disease to be treated; that the first line of treatment should be drugs! Depression is not a disease but a collection of beliefs and the emotions arising from those beliefs. Belief one: "I am no good and unworthy of love." Belief two: "The world is a cruel and loveless place that only creates pain." Belief three: "I am all alone in this world and am helpless to do anything about changing it." Belief four: "I have no hope for my future at all. Things are bad now and can only get worse." Put these beliefs together as an individual's view of life and you have an individual drowning in self- hatred, hatred and fear of the others in the world, despair, loneliness, helplessness, and hoplessness. Living with these belief and emotions makes suicide both probable, for themrational and positive. Help a person question any of these beliefs and change any of the emotions dramatically reduces the probablitiy of suicide.  

As we slide into tribalism it is in part because we have lost faith in our democracy and this loss of faith, in part, stems from our failure to keep the promise of universal education for all of our citizens. We are abandoning public education which seeks to inform students about the history and common activities of their country. We are being bombarded with political ideologies, conspiracy theories and outright lies but not giving our citizenry the intellectual tools to develop what Postman and Weingarten called "the crap finder." We have moved from educational ideologies that suppressed individuality and demanded conformity to the idea that the creative individual is the only valid goal of education. We now see all education as job training forgetting that the liberal arts empower individuals to live rich meaningful lives.  

First I will rant and rave about my beloved country's continuing descent into barbarism. As usual we will hear the usual nonsense about the need to pray for the victims and their families, adding millions of more guns into the population for folks to protect themselves, arming teachers and turning schools into fortresses and increasing the budget of the mental health industry to deal with the "crazies" and "monsters" who commit these crimes. What will not occur will be an attempt to try and understand why these atrocities are increasing and take rational steps to slow, if not end the violence, hatred and alienation permeating the very fabric of society that helps turn children into mass murderers. I will focus on a number of issues that possibly increase violence but mainly the role of Big Pharma and the Mental Health Industry in helping destroy our society.

A more detailed discussion about the process of being diagnosed as mentally ill or disordered and the long term interpersonal and intrapersonal consequences of believing that one is permenantly damaged as a human being. The difference between a medical diagnosis and a moral judgment. Good people, Bad people and People who do good and bad. The judgments of children and those of adults. The difference between a drug as a medicine and a drug as just a drug. Believing in democracy and living democratically.