Orthodox Psychology

[Gregory2]

anastasios, I think you're exactly right.

[away]

This is an excerpt from an article on Attention Defecit Disorder, the full article is here -

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/index_fr ... index.html

Whatever your opinion or experience regarding ADD, this article is worth reading. I think it is very important for people to understand these things, especially priests, who are dealing with people and thier souls but because of a lack of real investigation into these problems, sometimes dont fully understand how modern psychiatric treatment works and how the psych doctors think. I know this is a long post but it is very interesting and I think very important for us who are struggling spiritually and so come under attack with things like despair, hopelessness, delusive thoughts etc. The enemy's lies are everywhere, we cannot take anything for granted especially "wisdom" from outside our Holy Church.

beginning of excerpt:

"ADD does not exist. These children are not disordered."
Thomas Armstrong, PhD
The Myth of the ADD Child

"Both the FDA and the DEA have acknowledged that ADD is not a disease, or anything organic or biologic."
Fred Baughman, MD
The Future of ADD

"We have invented a new disease, given it medical sanction, and now we must disown it."
Diane McGuiness

"The Limits of Biologic Treatment for Psychiatric Distress"
"Research does not confirm the existence of an ADD syndrome -- There is no medical, neurological, or psychiatric justification for the ADD diagnosis."
Peter Breggin, MD
Toxic Psychiatry p 281

"Be forewarned that ADD is not a real disease, but rather a contrived illusion of a disease, a marketplace tool."
Fred Baughman,MD

Whoa! I wasn't ready for all that!

WHY DID ADD APPEAR?

To address this question, it is necessary to take a brief look at the American Psychiatry Association in the past century. In Chapter I of his remarkable work, A Dose of Sanity, psychiatrist Sidney Walker gives an illuminating historical summary of his profession during the past 150 years.
Psychiatrists are MDs who specialize in mental disorders. Classically, they study organic, physical causes of mental illnesses such as brain tumors, infections, and other diseases that might have a psychological component.

The father of American psychiatry was Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His book Diseases of the Mind, 1812, dealt with biological causes of mental illness. In other words, mental illness was seen generally as the result of another disease, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, or a tumor.

In the 1800s, psychiatrists like Griesinger, Alzheimer, and Kraeplin concentrated on brain anatomy and nerve cell irregularities as the cause of mental disorders. For over a century psychiatrists sought the underlying physical causes of mental illness.

Microscope study of brain slices was employed by world class psychiatrists like Adolph Meyer in the late 30s, looking for brain lesions that could be linked with mental problems.

This scientific approach began to change with the emergence and prevalence of the notions of Sigmund Freud around 1940. Although Freud's ideas about sexuality and the unconscious mind have made a lasting impact on the study of the human mind, Sidney Walker feels that for the first time, the brain was left out of the picture. Physical disease processes were no longer considered as the first place to look for the cause of mental illness. Freudian psychology concentrated on "the mind" itself, as if the mind were separate from the brain. For the first time in its history, the direction of psychiatry was no longer guided by medical physicians. Instead, psychologists took over the field, with their focus on "the psyche." Most mental illness, they said, resulted from "adverse events," such as childhood trauma, parent relationships, and early experiences. Never before has a medical specialty been assumed by "non-medical participants." This was a mistake from which it would take psychiatrists 40 years to recover.

In the 1950s and 1960s we saw the rise of psychoanalysis : the talking doctors. Their promise was to cure mental illness by psychotherapy. Sidney Walker attributes the decline of psychiatry before 1980 to the failure of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy to deliver. By and large they didn't work that well. Ignoring the biological and organic causes of mental disease was the reason, according to Dr. Walker. The profession had abandoned its roots, which held that mental illness was generally "in reaction to" some underlying physical disorder. They had traded a scientific approach for a non-scientific one.

The 1970s saw the emergence of the fore-runner of ADD: minimal brain disorder. Same pseudo-scientific underpinnings as ADD - vague rationales for targeting a vulnerable new market for "treatment," supported by the drug companies. Same opportunities for liberal, socialistic expansion and job creation to "diagnose" and monitor the newly discovered epidemic. Nixon's own psychologist, a Dr. Hutschnecker, penned a now-famous memo in 1970 in which he recommended mass testing of very young children in order to ascertain possible 'pre-delinquent' behavior patterns. Even though the memo was discredited by the APA itself, political support snowballed and became the focus for policy for the coming decade. The new magic words were disability and intervention. It was the dawn of the age of the Professional Victim.

The story is told with detail and clarity in Peter Schrag's The Myth of the Hyperactive Child.

Having failed to reform the malfunctioning institutions, the new game was to reform the individual. With no scientific basis, new words came into use: "pre-delinquent" "dyslexia" and "learning disabled." By 1995, over 50% of American children are identified as either 'learning disabled' or ADD! Schrag outlines how an entire empire of social, educational, political, medical, and economic power willed itself into existence in a few short years. The shoddiest of scientific studies were thrown together, funded by the drug companies, in support of the new politics of the state's new right to determine "normal" emotions and behavior.

Though most of these studies were eventually discredited, they served as a foundation for similar "scientific documentation" during the 1980s, in which nonconformity suddenly became a medical condition requiring treatment.

During the 1970s, people were going to family doctors, psychologists, social workers, priests, and marriage counselors for their problems, none of whom were prescribing drugs for minor complaints of depression. Year by year, psychiatrists were failing to attract voluntary patients, simply because the need was not perceived by most people.

ENTER ADD

So with the stock of the APA at an all-time low, we come to 1980 and the now famous APA Committee meeting. It was at this meeting that the APA decided to "re-medicalize." That meant giving up on this talking-cure psychoanalysis stuff which was pushing the profession into the basement, and re-asserting themselves as real medical professionals with the right to be successful and sell a ton of drugs. As you might imagine, no one was happier to hear this news than the pharmaceutical industry, but we'll get to that. Maybe they couldn't get voluntary patients, but what about involuntary ones?

The only problem was, if the psychiatrists were to successfully reestablish themselves as medical doctors, they needed a new disease within their specialty which would be cured by drugs. Enter ADD stage left, first named as a disorder by the APA in their 1980 meeting. Forget the fact that ADD had been around for almost a century under 25 different names, listed on p 8 of Dr. Armstrong's book. That didn't matter. What was of major significance was that now ADD had reality: it was finally named and described in the APA's bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, cited hereinafter as the DSM.

THE BIBLE SPEAKS

Breggin, Armstrong, Wiseman, and Baughman go on for pages about the significance of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. I direct the reader to them for a fuller understanding of the insidious role this book has played in catapulting a declining profession into a position of wealth and respectability, at the expense of the well-being of millions of defenseless children. If that sounds harsh or strident, I've got a feeling it's an understatement. Don't take my word for it. Now, about the Manual.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was first published by the APA in 1952. The DSM is a catalogue of mental disorders. Each disorder has a list of symptoms under it. A patient may be "diagnosed" as having a particular mental disorder if enough of the listed symptoms are present. Although the instructions in the DSM caution psychiatrists against using the DSM as a "cookbook" because there is so much overlap and so many other factors to consider before a supportable diagnosis can be made, in actual practice the cookbook method is precisely the way DSM is most commonly used.

Psychiatrists have been very busy since 1952. Each new edition of the DSM is bigger:

Title- Year # of mental disorders
DSM 1952 112
DSM-II 1968 163
DSM-III 1980 224
DSM-III-R 1987 253
DSM-IV 1994 374

Lest the reader assume that each of these "illnesses" was researched and studied in the same scientific manner as a physical illness before one appears in pathology textbooks, here are what a few professionals have to say:

Renee Garfinkel, a psychologist and representative of the APA who attended DSM meetings, told Time magazine:

"the low level of intellectual effort was shocking ... Diagnoses were developed by majority vote on the level we would use to choose a restaurant. You feel like Italian. I feel like Chinese. So let's go to a cafeteria. Then it's typed into a computer. It may reflect on our naivete', but it was our belief that there would be an attempt to look at things scientifically." (Walker p22)

Al Parides, MD, a psychiatrist, states that the DSM is not scientific at all, but a masterpiece of political maneuvering, in which the normal problems of life are turned into psychiatric conditions. (Wiseman, p 357)

How a mental disorder winds up in the DSM in the first place is a long and enlightening story, for which the reader is directed to the studies by Walker and also by Louise Armstrong.

"To read about the evolution of the DSM is to know this: it is an entirely political document. What it includes, what it does not include, are the result of intensive campaigning, lengthy negotiating, infighting, and power plays."

• Louise Armstrong

An unsuspecting neophyte like myself might expect that for a mental disorder to appear in the primary handbook of the profession licensed to treat mental disorders, years of research, experimentation, and double blind studies would have had to come first, right? Guess again. Armstrong cites the story of the origin of a disorder called "self-defeating personality disorder." The chairman of the DSM committee, Robert Spitzer, thought up the disorder on a fishing trip, and when he returned, persuaded enough of the committee to include it in the Manual. It goes on from there. (And They Call It Help)

SNAP DIAGNOSIS

The DSM is the only way that ADD is diagnosed. Here's how it's done: In the DSM, ADD has nine symptoms listed under it. If a child has any six of them, in the opinion of the doctor (or the teacher!) that child may be diagnosed as having ADD. That's it! Funny thing is, it seems like most of these entries on the list are not symptoms of a mental disorder, but just symptoms of being a kid:

1. Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
2. Often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected
3. Often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate
4. Often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
5. Is often 'on the go' or often acts as if driven "by a motor"
6. Often talks excessively
7. Often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
8. Often has difficulty awaiting turn
9. Often interrupts or intrudes on others
   Sound like anyone you've ever known? Some may ask if there are any kids who would not fit six of these criteria. The reader should understand that this is the only "diagnostic" "testing" that exists for determining ADD. Six out of nine. No lab test, no blood tests, no physical examination whatsoever, no standardized batteries of written or verbal psychological testing. Just these nine. And unlike any other disease in history, the diagnosis may be made by anyone in authority, with no medical credentials or training whatsoever: the school nurse, school counselor, a teacher, the principal, a coach...

DSM cookbook diagnosis of any disease is a ridiculous oversimplification and the primary reason so many modern psychiatrists are embarrassed by their own profession. Differential diagnosis of any disease, especially a mental disorder, requires time-consuming, thorough testing, analysis and thoughtful consideration, ruling out several possibilities, one by one, before arriving at the final diagnosis, which itself is still subject to change. DSM cookbook diagnosis, by contrast, which is standard in the profession according to most sources, is quick and easy and absurdly oversimplifying. Many patients are often labeled ADD after a 15-minute interview with a pediatrician, who has no training in mental disorders at all. As Dr. Walker says, DSM is usually a "substitute for diagnosis" not part of any scientific differential process of ruling out likely possibilities.

In the 21st century, psychiatry has lost its identity as a profession, according to psychiatrists like Peter Breggin, MD. Today psychiatry has sold most of its traditional values in exchange for being "dominated by the interests of the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, as the profession becomes wholly dependent on the drug companies for its survival." In the meantime, several million Americans "will suffer permanent brain damage from psychiatric drugs and electroshock while the profession denies it is happening." (Toxic Psychiatry, p17).

[fserafim]

In his book - Eternal Day- Seth Farber, an Orthodox psychologist laments that the Church is selling herself to biopsychiatry and psycho-analysis instead of relying on the power of the Holy Mysteries of the Church.

I believe a background in psych. could be a handicap to pastoral work.

Met Antony (Khrapovitsky) writes that there is a great spiritual force in the hands of faithful clergy. Addressing clergy he writes: "You are spiritually rich, very rich, even if you yourself are neither wise nor holy. You are rich not through you own spiritual strength, but through the - gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophesy, with the laying on of hands..." In other words, the grace of the priest, which belongs to his office, not his person.

St Tikhon of Zadonsk writes: Love seeks out the words, which can be of use to your neighbour and this does not require great learning. It requires only remembrance of God.

The analytical approach in psychology, seems to me, to be the opposite of love. If you have defined answers, you are not necessarily open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit when hearing confession.

Surely it is the grace of God, not western rationalism, that enlightens the soul of the penitent and the priest's soul as the latter stands as a friend of the Bridegroom, an intermediary between the penitent and God.

Elder Savva of Pskov warns us to be simple and not to rely on our rational and worldly-wise opinions and theories.

I notice too that when you read Peter Breggin (Toxic Psychaitry) and the alternative healing philosophy of the anti-psychiatry lobby, there is a tendency towards shamanism.

Fr Serafim

[Anastasios]

Fr Seraphim,

What do you make of Archbishop Chryostomos of Etna who has a PhD in psychology? Interstingly enough, he wrote an article this month in Orthodox Tradition about psychology. I haven't had time to read it yet.

Yours in Christ,

anastasios

[fserafim]

Dear Anastasios,

I have read the article in OT and a former monogram co-authored by Rdr Joseph MIller.

The Archbishop writes with the premise that erractic and delusional behaviour is a 'disease', somewhat like diatbetes or Parkinsons and that it can be treated by therapy and/or drugs, surgery.

I do not subscribe to this - but I don't want to start a thread about my views on what I considered philosophy masked as science. Psychotic behaviour can be caused by physical diseases - Cushings is an example as well as Wilsons.

He also writes that the Priest should not play psychologist nor should the therapist play priest. What's the difference? How does a priiest know (if trained in secular philosophy) when to apply psycho-analysis and when to apply the grace of the priesthood through the mystery of Repentance?

The bishop does not give examples but rather suggest that if priests do not have 'training' they are not qualified to deal with such matters.

To my mind if you take the spiritual out of the equation, you have nothing left but the wisdom of the world. By saying this - am I suffering from the mental delusion of anit-intellectualism?

Too much to discuss here, but you may like to exchange private emails. which I would be willing to share with others on this forum.

I have a rudimentary background in cognitive psychology and I consider myself an educated reader. In these times of extreme specialization, we need to keep a general perspective on the body of knowledge and not leave such things to the 'experts'.

Yours in Christ,
Fr Serafim

[away]

I dont mind discussing it right here if no-one else does. Its an important thing to talk about, the public relations companies that do the job of selling diseases dont restrict themselves to private correspondance, they advertise under false premises by providing "press releases" to "journalists" who cant be bothered actually investigating anything and so just run these "press releases" word for word in newspapers warning everyone about new "diseases" like "dyscalculus" (basicaly, being bad at math, a sister disease to dyslexia) or "female sexual dysfunction" (the invented disorder created to sell viagra for women.

I have spent time in a psychiactric hospital after a psychotic episode and I have a few friends who have had similar experiences. The only people I know who have survived this sort of thing and escaped with thier sanity, are left with a deep mistrust in psychiatry, especially the pharmacutical based "therapies". These therapies are pretty much based on the idea that a person who cannot think or feel, because of the medication they are forced to take, is less trouble than a person who thinks and feels deeply enough to refuse to adapt to the modern insane asylum outside the hospital walls. These therapies are also based on the lie that the effects of the drugs are the symptoms of the illness, and the patients who believe this lie, along with the other common deception that the illness is permanent, life long and requires daily medication for life, those are the patients who never get cured.

I am talking here about the false science of inventing the concept of "chemical imbalances" in the brain, in order to justify expensive and mind destroying chemical asaults on the physical seat of a persons intelligence. If anyone can provide any scientific paper or research that proves that mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, I will take back everything I am saying, but this evidence does not exist.

Forgive me if my words are harsh or if they upset anyone, but it was Jesus Himself who said the blind cannot lead the blind. The whole mental sickness industry is tottally out of control. Why would we trust the conclusions of people who dont believe in the soul, and have a name for the mental illness of believing in demons, angels and omnipotent personal forces. I laugh at thier silly dreams, and then I cry for the grey, mechanical world they inhabit, that they are populating with grey mechanical people who need to find a purely material cause for every entrenched passion, every spiritual delusion, every pervertion of human nature, and every broken, fallen, godless illusion that Christ came to heal and still heals.

Try this article by Seth Farber.

http://www.thechristianactivist.com/Vol%205/V5image.htm

I know I have ranted in an uncontrolled way above. I feel very strongly about this, I hope my intensity doesnt render my words useless. I dont know a great deal about psychology, so I wont say any much about it, but the modern version of psychiatry, especially when it comes to children being fed amphetamines and ssri pills, is nothing more than beautifully packaged drug dealing, however much psychology is tied in with this madness, I reject that as well.

[Alyosha]

Daniel,

I have been very interested in the subject of Orthodox psychology. This article on Vladyka Alexander's web site is easy to read and quite interesting: http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets ... deev_e.htm

Thanks.