Psychiatry

Why Failed Psychiatry Lives On: Its Industrial Complex, Politics & Technology Worship

by interviewers, I have talked about the components of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical-industrial complex, along with how psychiatry meets the political needs of the ruling class and dysfunctional families. In addition to these financial and political explanations, a fundamental cultural reason why psychiatry lives on is Western society’s worship of technology.

The Tragedies of Ted Kaczynski

Below is a profile on Ted Kaczynski (May 22, 1942 – June 10, 2023) excerpted from Resisting Illegitimate Authority (AK Press, 2018) from the chapter “Violent Anti-Authoritarians.” Of all the public figures I profile in this book, Ted Kaczynski’s story is, for me, the most tragic—tragic, of course, for his murder victims; tragically traumatizing for […]

The APA’s Apology for Racism Omits Psychiatry’s Essential Bigotry

In 2021, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the guild of U.S. psychiatrists, acknowledged its history of racism. However, it is difficult to imagine how psychiatry will ever acknowledge that its entire edifice is built on a fundamental bigotry. Bigotry is defined by Merriam-Webster as: “obstinate or intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices.” Racism […]

Once Radical Critiques of Psychiatry are Now Mainstream, So What Remains Taboo?

One need not be a Marxist to acknowledge the logic behind Karl Marx’s observation: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” It is especially important for the ruling class that the general public’s ideas about our emotional suffering and behavioral disturbances be the ideas of the ruling class. Twenty […]

From Peer Support to Psychedelics: Psychiatry’s Co-Optation & De-Radicalization

How can psychiatry co-opt the psychedelic underground subculture, discard its radical anti-authoritarian message of rejecting a dehumanizing society, retake psychiatry’s lost power and authority, and make both drug companies and the ruling elite happy? To strip psychedelic use down to its chemicals is to de-radicalize its communal and anti-authoritarian roots.

From Nazi Blitzkriegs to ADHD Treatment: What Stimulant Drugs Can and Cannot Do

When humans are forced to be cogs in a machine—be it a war machine, a workplace machine, or a school machine—we need to become more machinelike, which can be expedited by some psychostimulant drugs. Commonly used legal psychostimulants are caffeine, nicotine, methylphenidate (including Ritalin) amphetamine (including Adderall), and methamphetamine, all of which may help us better attend to boring and unpleasant tasks.