ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that psychiatry's tenets are unfounded, that psychiatry inherently and inevitably harms, and it calls for phased-in abolition. It problematises psychiatry's use of the concept 'mental illness' and, in line with that, psychiatry as a whole. While mental illness as a concept has become so hegemonic that most people use it without hesitation, stop to reflect on it and it begins to look strange, perhaps even suspect. Psychiatry's way around the 'metaphor problem' has been to be more biologically specific and name the diseased organ. The psychiatric claim, as articulated by Andreasen, is that 'mental illnesses' are illnesses of the brain – moreover, that they have been conclusively proven to be such. As demonstrated by researchers like Breggin, all quintessentially 'psychiatric treatments', whether they be electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or one of the drugs, work by impeding and damaging the brain. Indeed, demonstrates Breggin, there is a one-to-one ratio between the 'effectiveness' and the degree of damage done.
