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| Enemy of psychiatry |
14-Aug-2007 |
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A recent family tragedy has focused attention on the
Church
of
Scientology
’
s controversial stance against psychiatric care. By Heather Wiseman
WHEN a Sydney court was told last month that a 25-year-old woman stabbed three family members, killing her father and sister, the Church of Scientology was thrust into the media spotlight.
A medical report filed in court alleged the woman was mentally ill, but stopped taking prescription medication and receiving treatment, apparently because of her family’s Scientology beliefs. The court also heard that she resumed taking the medication prior to the attacks.
What ultimately led to the tragedy is for the courts to decide. But the case has renewed debate about Scientology’s objection to psychiatric care.
Professor Ian Hickie, executive director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney, is concerned that Scientology may influence vulnerable individuals and says the negative health implications of this have never been adequately addressed.
“That, from a medical point of view, needs to be confronted,” he says.
“Individuals, particularly vulnerable individuals, may be taken in and avoid treatment.”
It’s a concern that is not new. The religion was banned for some years in Victoria after a 1965 State Government-commissioned inquiry that said Scientologists were conditioned to avoid psychiatrists and this “may have tragic results”.
Today, the Church of Scientology says there are constant “horror stories” of people who are adversely affected by psychiatric medication “who repeatedly report their inability to get anybody to listen or take notice”.
Professor David Copolov, professor of psychiatry at Monash University in Melbourne, rejects Scientology’s view that psychiatric drugs are dangerous and ineffective.
“For Scientology to say there are no data to support [psychiatric medication’s] usefulness is clearly incorrect,” says Professor Copolov, who was the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee’s psychiatric expert from 1992 to 2000.
“All medications have side effects, but the balance between efficacy and side effects [with psychiatric medications] is hugely in favour of efficacy.
“We have to counter this anti-psychiatric rhetoric. To the extent that it discourages seriously ill people from seeking and receiving treatment it could be very dangerous.”
Public affairs director for the Church of Scientology in AustraliaMs Virginia Stewart told Australian
Doctor that the church does “not agree with psychiatric drugs for a myriad of scientifically proven reasons”.
“It is not based on belief, but on fact, that drugs do not resolve mental problems,” she says.
“They cover them up and in doing so often cause great harm, including a worsening of the original feelings of depression, resulting in violence or suicide.”
She says this is why the church, which has 250,000 members in Australia and 10 million internationally, founded a separate organisation called the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) in 1969. The Australian Scientology web site explains that the CCHR’s role is “to expose and bring to an end the brutalizing of individuals in the name of ‘mental health’”.
The CCHR claims to operate in more than 100 countries and is an active force in Australia, making submissions to government inquiries, forming relationships with other interest groups, issuing press releases and lobbying politicians. It claims to have exposed the Chelmsford PrivateHospital’s notorious deep sleep therapy and is now lobbying strongly against pregnant women and children receiving ECT, against involuntary psychiatric treatment and the “drugging of children” for ADHD.
The Australian CCHR web site says: “Recent studies show that children who take psychiatric stimulants for ‘ADHD’ are 46% more likely to commit one felony, and 36% more likely to commit two or more felonies. Instead of overcoming supposed learning difficulties, these children are at risk of moving toward a life of crime.”
A string of sensational messages flash across the web site, borrowing spelling and facts from the international site: “There are 374 ways for psychiatrists to label you mentally ill; Every 75 seconds another innocent citizen is encarcerated [sic] by psychiatry; 2 million children and adolescents are on antidepressants that can induce violent or suicidal behaviour.”
The Australian site describes ECT as one of the “two main treatments used by psychiatrists today” and says its effectiveness relies on “overwhelming and damaging the individual”.
Professor Patrick McGorry, professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne, says the CCHR presents a very distorted picture of modern psychiatry.
“They’re projecting … that psychiatry as a profession would endorse widespread use of Ritalin, involuntary treatment and ECT,” he says.
“All of these things we have cautious views about. They’re misrepresenting psychiatry’s position and modern psychiatry’s perspective.”
He says the CCHR uses evocative issues such as ECT to more deeply entrench a One Flew Over the Cuckoo
’
s
Nest version of psychiatry, which is “not what most people’s experience of psychiatry is”.
Professor McGorry says there is great potential for CCHR fear-mongering to cause harm if it leads to a delay in people receiving treatment.
He says both the CCHR and Scientology “haven’t been tackled adequately”despite their beliefs having potential to interfere with vulnerable people’s health care.
“It is very damaging and yet they’ve not been brought to account for that behaviour,” he says.
“Great harm … can flow from the stance they have taken.”
Executive director of the CCHR’s National Office for Australia Ms Shelley Wilkins rejects that psychiatrists are cautious.
“It cannot be proven that anyone has any of psychiatry’s disorders and their DSMactually says, for example, that there are no laboratory tests for ADHD or schizophrenia, so caution does not come into it. Any use of Ritalin, involuntary commitment or ECT is therefore based on a fraudulent diagnosis and is abuse,” Ms Wilkins says.
In response to the suggestion of CCHR fear-mongering, she says psychiatry “causes fear with its brutal treatments and dangerous drugs”.
“People do not want to seek help from psychiatry because their treatments can cause great harm and even death and they fear being involuntarily detained and treated,” she says.
“CCHR is dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of psychiatric treatments, and as a result lives are saved.”
Chief psychiatrist for NSW Associate Professor John Basson acknowledges widespread concerns in Australiaabout Ritalin being overprescribed.
He also says some US courts have deemed that Prozac can make some people violent. “These circumstances seem to be rare, but they are to be concerned about,” he says.
But Professor Basson says the CCHR uses extreme, negative examples from the world literature to evidence its stance against psychiatric medication.
“It uses extreme examples to make an argument about the general use of the drug,”he says.
“A lot of adults take these drugs and get relief from serious and debilitating circumstances.”
He says those who are influenced by the CCHR “might choose not to go and get help. They may try and do without and become very sick indeed”.
Professor Basson says there is a danger in not treating mental illnesses that recur.
“Those that recur would recur much more seriously. The [risks] in not doing anything are very bad indeed.”
He says psychotic episodes can cause people with schizophrenia to lose key non-verbal communication skills and experience a degree of emotional blunting.
“It damages people’s capacity to have good intimate relationships,” he says.
“It could lead to long-term disability for people, which we feel [with treatment] we could avoid.”
Professor Basson says poor compliance is already a problem, with about 50% of mentally ill patients not taking prescribed medication.
“There is a danger [the CCHR] encourages that percentage to stay high when we are trying to reduce it.”
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