A history of Psychiatry -1600-1700

I have decided to post some information on the history of Psychiatry. Recently, I visited CCHR's Psychiatry - An Industry of Death Museum, which gave me a greater understanding of Psychiatrists and what they think of the human race and WHY they think that way. This museum shows the progression of psychiatry and it's views. I'd like to try to show anyone reading this blog that same progression. So, here it goes - starting with Psychiatry from 1600-1700:

Until the mid 1800s, the practice that became known as "psychiatry" was responsible only for the warehousing of the mentally disturbed. Patients were treated like animals, often confined to cages, closets and animal stalls. They were also shackled and flogged.

Psychiatrist Lee Coleman, author of Reign of Error: Psychiatry, Authority, and Law, says the roots of psychiatry are based on control and power, "Whatever was done to make this person more manageable would be simply called a treatment. And the sad realty is that many of these so-called treatments were in essence torture."

Through the 1600s and 1700s, inmates of the infamous "Bedlam" mental asylum in London were chained, beaten, fed rotten food and subjected to regular bloodlettings. The only beneficiaries of this treatment were the asylum attendants, who made fortunes from their human warehouses and displayed their victims like circus sideshow acts to anyone willing to pay admission.

In 1684 in England, Dr. Thomas Willis authored a text on insanity, claiming: "Discipline, threats, fetters [shackles], and blows are needed...Truly nothing is more necessary and more effective for the recovery of these people than forcing them to respect and fear intimidation."

It has often been said that those who don't know the history are likely to repeat it. Lets see if Psychiatrists have. I'll be posting tidbits of history that I've been able to find every day that I can.

Psychiatric drugging behind school shootings

29 people have been killed and 62 wounded by school shooters taking violence and suicide inducing psychiatric drugs. These notorious school-yard crimes include, among others, the 2005 Red Lake Indian Reservation shooting by Jeff Weise on Prozac, the 1999 Columbine shooting by Eric Harris on Luvox, and a 1998 shooting in Springfield, Oregon by Kip Kinkel on Prozac.

Including this morning's murder in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, three shootings have occurred within the last week. One of these three shootings occurred at a school in Bailey, Colorado, less than an hour's drive from Columbine. Rocky Mountain News reports that outside Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, antidepressants were recovered from shooter Duane Morrison's jeep, after he took several girls hostage and killed one of the school girls before taking his own life.

The U.S. FDA warns that antidepressants can cause suicidal ideation, mania and psychosis. The manufacturers of one antidepressant, Effexor, now warn the drug can cause homicidal ideation. This month, a study came out in the Public Library of Science-Medicine journal, conducted by David Healy, director of Cardiff's University's North Wales department of psychological medicine, which found that the antidepressant Paxil raises the risk of violence. Though the study focuses specifically on Paxil, Healy reasoned that other antidepressant drugs like Prozac, Celexa and Zoloft, most likely pose the same risk of violence.

"We've got good evidence that the drugs can make people violent and you'd have to reason from that that there may be more episodes of violence," Healy said.

This morning another community was torn by the irrational murder of multiple school children. Violence and suicide inducing psychiatric drugs are taking a huge toll on our children and our community. School shootings are plaguing the nation. With three in the last week alone, investigators must look into the causes for this psychotic, suicidal behavior, and they should start at the most obvious place.

Was Charles Carl Roberts IV, who murdered Amish schoolgirls before shooting himself, on these behavior-altering drugs, like so many of the school shooters? Go to www.cchr.org to learn more about the connection between violence and antidepressants, or read the Report on Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs, published by the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights, a psychiatric watchdog group.