Manufacturing Madness: The DSM as Instrument of Social Control

newsroom

Oct 15, 2025 - 07:00

0 2

Manufacturing Madness: The DSM as Instrument of Social Control

Preface

This essay draws extensively from James Corbett’s documentary “Dissent Into Madness,” which examines how psychiatry has been weaponized against political dissidents and those who question authority. Corbett’s investigation reveals the disturbing history of political psychopathy and the systematic pathologization of dissent, from Benjamin Rush’s invention of “anarchia” to the COVID-era diagnosis of “corona insanity.” His work exposes how the psychiatric establishment, in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and government institutions, has transformed the DSM from a diagnostic manual into an instrument of social control. The analysis that follows builds on Corbett’s research, focusing specifically on how diagnostic expansion serves to medicalize resistance to authority, particularly in children and political dissidents. The documentary’s comprehensive examination of this phenomenon—from historical precedents through contemporary applications—provides the foundation for understanding how mental health diagnosis has become a tool for maintaining existing power structures.

Section 1: The Opening Diagnosis

One in six American adults takes psychiatric medication. The number rises to one in four among women in their fifties and sixties. Children as young as four receive antipsychotic drugs originally approved for schizophrenic adults. The diagnostic manual enabling these prescriptions—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—has expanded from 106 disorders in 1952 to over 300 today. The growth hasn’t been random. Each expansion targets specific behaviors that complicate institutional management or challenge professional authority. Peter C. Gøtzsche’s research reveals the outcome: psychiatric drugs have become the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, while the landmark STAR*D study found only 3% of patients remained well after one year of treatment—a 97% failure rate hidden behind claims of therapeutic success.

The 1980 DSM-III introduced Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The diagnostic criteria read like a police blotter for thought crime: “often argues with authority figures,” “often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or with rules,” “often deliberately annoys others,” “often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior.” These behaviors describe Gandhi refusing salt laws, Rosa Parks declining to move seats, Thoreau withholding taxes to protest slavery. Every significant reformer in history would qualify for psychiatric intervention.

The timing matters. ODD emerged during Reagan’s law-and-order administration, as America built new prisons and declared war on drugs. The diagnosis provided medical justification for controlling defiant youth, particularly in communities where defiance meant survival. By 2016, approximately 10% of American children had received an ODD diagnosis at some point in their lives, with higher rates in foster care, juvenile justice, and special education systems.

The pharmaceutical industry recognized opportunity. Risperdal, marketed for ODD symptoms, generated $4.5 billion in 2007 alone. Johnson & Johnson paid pediatricians to prescribe it off-label to children, resulting in a $2.2 billion justice department fine—a cost of doing business against $30 billion in total sales. The company’s internal documents revealed they specifically targeted children in foster care, knowing these children lacked advocates to refuse treatment.

This intersection of diagnostic expansion, pharmaceutical profit, and social control didn’t emerge accidentally. The infrastructure took decades to build, required specific legal frameworks, and depended on professional communities accepting their role as enforcement agents. Understanding how psychiatry became an instrument of social control requires examining the blueprint’s origins, the architects who drew it, and the institution that made it possible: the DSM itself.

Section 2: The Historical Blueprint

Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence and served as Surgeon General of the Continental Army. He also invented mental illnesses that criminalized political dissent. Rush identified “anarchia,” a madness characterized by “excess of the passion for liberty.” The afflicted “cannot bear the slightest restraint upon their actions” and suffer from beliefs that “leave the united states to the desolation of the ancient republics.” Rush prescribed bloodletting, forced standing for days, and confinement in his custom-built “tranquilizing chair” with head immobilized in a wooden box.

Samuel Cartwright advanced psychiatric control with “drapetomania,” the mental illness causing enslaved people to flee captivity, describing it as “the disease causing Negroes to run away.” Cartwright wrote that with “proper medical advice strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented.” His work appeared in respected medical journals. The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal published his findings without skepticism, establishing medical authority over political resistance.

The pattern extends beyond American slavery. As Dr. Peter Breggin documents, the Rockefeller Foundation funded both the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry in Germany and American eugenics programs, creating the template for psychiatric control that the Nazis would later adopt. Ernst Rudin, director of the Rockefeller-funded institute, modeled Nazi eugenics legislation on America’s “model eugenical sterilization law.” The same foundation that promoted forced sterilization in America funded the research that led to psychiatric genocide in Germany.

The Soviet Union refined these techniques into “sluggish schizophrenia,” diagnosed in dissidents who displayed “reformist delusions” and “struggles for truth and justice.” Soviet psychiatrists hospitalized thousands of political prisoners in psychiatric facilities, administering antipsychotic drugs causing permanent neurological damage. The World Psychiatric Association expelled Soviet members in 1983 for these abuses, yet Western psychiatrists who condemned Soviet practices simultaneously developed their own diagnostic categories targeting anti-authoritarian behavior.

The pattern repeats across cultures and centuries: behaviors threatening established power structures become symptoms requiring treatment. The Portuguese diagnosed enslaved Africans with “Banzo,” a mental illness of excessive homesickness causing rebellion. American psychiatrists diagnosed suffragettes with “hysteria” for demanding voting rights. The diagnosis changes; the function remains constant—medical authority legitimizing political control.

Modern psychiatry claims scientific objectivity distinguishes current practice from historical abuse. Yet no biological markers validate psychiatric diagnoses. No blood tests detect oppositional disorder. No brain scans reveal depression. Diagnosis depends entirely on subjective interpretation of behavior, creating infinite flexibility for those wielding diagnostic power. The same subjectivity that labeled slaves mentally ill for seeking freedom now labels children mentally ill for refusing compliance. The vocabulary evolved; the mechanism didn’t.

Section 3: The DSM Empire

The DSM functions as psychiatry’s constitution, determining which thoughts and behaviors society permits. Insurance companies require DSM diagnostic codes for reimbursement—no code, no payment. Courts accept DSM diagnoses as evidence in custody battles, criminal proceedings, and involuntary commitments. Schools use DSM criteria to identify students requiring special education, behavioral intervention, or pharmaceutical management. This diagnostic infrastructure makes the manual’s expansion a matter of social architecture, not medical discovery.

As Gøtzsche reveals, “Psychiatrists invented the myth of a chemical imbalance to motivate patients to take psychiatric drugs.” No scientific evidence supports claims of serotonin deficiency or dopamine imbalance, yet 74% of websites worldwide still promote this debunked theory. The myth persists because, as Patrick Hahn observes, “The drugmakers take our money and use it to manufacture demand for their product.” Through insurance premiums, taxes, and inflated prices, the public funds its own medicalization.

The first DSM in 1952 contained 106 diagnoses across 132 pages. DSM-5, published in 2013, lists over 300 disorders across 947 pages. The growth pattern reveals priorities. Homosexuality appeared as mental illness until 1973, removed only after sustained protest. Meanwhile, the manual added dozens of childhood behavioral disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders—categories affecting populations with less political power to resist diagnosis.

The 1980 DSM-III revolutionized psychiatric practice by introducing “diagnostic criteria”—specific symptom checklists for each disorder. This change appeared to increase scientific rigor but actually enabled massive diagnostic expansion. Clinicians no longer needed to understand context or complexity; they simply counted symptoms. Five of nine symptoms meant major depression. Six of eighteen meant ADHD. The checklist approach transformed diagnosis from clinical judgment to bureaucratic procedure, allowing anyone with minimal training to identify “mental illness.”

Robert Spitzer, who led the DSM-III task force, later admitted the manual’s scientific pretensions were “bullshit.” Task force members voted on diagnoses based on personal opinion, not empirical evidence. Pharmaceutical companies lobbied for disorders treatable with their products. The committees met in private, destroyed their archives, and signed confidentiality agreements preventing disclosure of deliberations. When researchers finally obtained meeting records through legal action, they discovered diagnostic categories were created through horse-trading, political compromise, and financial pressure.

The DSM-5 task force composition exposed the manual’s true function. Sixty-nine percent of members had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies. One hundred percent of sleep disorder panel members had industry connections. The mood disorder panel, responsible for depression diagnoses affecting millions, included 83% with pharmaceutical relationships. These weren’t disclosed as conflicts of interest but listed as “expertise.” The manual determining mental health for entire populations was written by those profiting from mental illness.

Section 4: The Pharmaceutical Money Machine

Eli Lilly’s patent on Prozac expired in 2001, threatening $2.6 billion in annual revenue. The company’s solution: expand the market for their other drugs by expanding diagnoses. Internal documents revealed Lilly’s “Viva Zyprexa” campaign specifically targeted children and elderly patients, populations for whom the drug wasn’t approved. Sales representatives were trained to promote off-label uses, earning bonuses based on prescription volume. By 2007, Zyprexa generated $4.8 billion annually, mostly from patients who didn’t have schizophrenia, the drug’s approved indication.

Johnson & Johnson perfected the diagnostic expansion model with Risperdal. Company emails showed executives celebrating that “Risperdal’s growth is driven by Children/Adolescents!” They paid $2.2 billion in criminal fines for illegal marketing, but earned $30 billion from the drug. The prosecution revealed their strategy: fund continuing medical education courses training doctors to diagnose childhood bipolar disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, conditions virtually unknown before pharmaceutical promotion. Diagnosis rates increased 40-fold; Risperdal prescriptions followed.

Joseph Biederman of Harvard Medical School received $1.7 million from pharmaceutical companies while conducting research that created the childhood bipolar disorder epidemic. His studies, funded by Johnson & Johnson, claimed children as young as three could be bipolar and required antipsychotic medication. When internal emails surfaced during litigation, they revealed Biederman promised Johnson & Johnson his research would support their drug’s use in children before conducting the studies. He delivered as promised.

The circular economy operates through multiple channels. Pharmaceutical companies fund psychiatric research, ensuring positive results through selective publication. They ghost-write articles published under academic psychiatrists’ names, hiding industry authorship. They pay “key opinion leaders” hundreds of thousands in speaking fees to promote new diagnoses at medical conferences. They finance patient advocacy groups that demand access to treatment, creating grassroots pressure for prescription coverage. Every dollar spent on diagnostic expansion returns ten in pharmaceutical sales.

The mechanism requires no conspiracy, only aligned incentives. Researchers need grants; pharmaceutical companies provide them. Journals need advertising revenue; pharmaceutical companies buy full-page ads. Psychiatrists need continuing education credits; pharmaceutical companies sponsor the courses. Insurance companies need diagnostic codes; pharmaceutical companies ensure new disorders have billing numbers. Each participant acts rationally within their constraints, collectively creating a system where normal human variation becomes profitable pathology.

Section 5: Children in the Crosshairs

Between 1993 and 2009, antipsychotic prescriptions for American children increased 700%. Two-year-olds received Risperdal for temper tantrums. Four-year-olds took Adderall for fidgeting. Six-year-olds swallowed Abilify for arguing with teachers. The drugs caused massive weight gain—averaging 19 pounds in 12 weeks—diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and permanent movement disorders. Dr. Breggin’s research shows 4-5% of children develop tardive dyskinesia for each year on neuroleptics, meaning most long-term users will develop this often irreversible condition. Patrick Hahn documents that ADHD medications stunt growth by 5cm after 16 years of use—permanent physical damage marketed as treatment.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder’s diagnostic criteria describe normal childhood development reframed as pathology. “Often loses temper”—what toddler doesn’t? “Often argues with adults”—isn’t that called adolescence? “Often refuses to comply with adults’ requests”—since when is immediate compliance the mark of mental health? The diagnosis transforms developmental stages into diseases, rebellion into symptoms, and childhood itself into a psychiatric condition requiring medication.

Rebecca Riley died at age four from an overdose of psychiatric drugs prescribed for ADHD and bipolar disorder. Her psychiatrist, Kayoko Kifuji, diagnosed Rebecca at age two based on behaviors including “irritability” and “difficulty sleeping.” Kifuji prescribed Clonidine, Depakote, and Seroquel—powerful drugs that most psychiatrists won’t prescribe to adults without extensive monitoring. Rebecca’s parents administered the drugs as directed. On December 13, 2006, Rebecca’s heart stopped. The medical examiner ruled the death an overdose of prescribed medications.

Foster children face the highest risk. Jim Gottstein’s research reveals they’re diagnosed with psychiatric disorders at rates 12 times higher than other children. In Texas, 60% of foster children receive psychiatric medication. California spent $226 million on psychiatric drugs for foster children in 2016 alone. The financial incentives align perfectly: group homes receive higher reimbursements for children on psychiatric medications. Medicaid pays for the drugs without requiring therapeutic alternatives. Nobody advocates for children who’ve already been removed from their families. As Gottstein testified, these children are “groomed” for lifelong psychiatric disability, with recovery rates plummeting from a possible 80% to just 5% once they’re maintained on neuroleptics.

The targeting isn’t random. Black children are diagnosed with ODD and conduct disorder at rates twice that of white children displaying identical behaviors. Boys are diagnosed with ADHD three times more often than girls. Poor children receive antipsychotic medications at rates four times higher than middle-class children. The diagnoses map onto existing power structures, medicalizing behaviors that inconvenience authority while ignoring actual trauma, poverty, and systemic inequality that might explain children’s distress.

Section 6: The Chemical Classroom

Teachers receive training to identify ADHD symptoms: fidgeting, talking excessively, difficulty waiting turns, interrupting others. They don’t receive training in child development, creativity patterns, trauma responses, or sensory processing differences that could explain identical behaviors. A kindergarten teacher’s suggestion becomes a pediatric referral becomes a psychiatric diagnosis becomes a lifetime prescription. The teacher gets a manageable classroom; the school gets special education funding; the doctor gets a patient; the pharmaceutical company gets a customer.

Schools pressure parents through multiple mechanisms. Patrick Hahn documents how schools threaten child protective services referrals for “medical neglect” if parents refuse psychiatric evaluation or medication. Others ban children from attending until they’re medicated, calling it a safety issue. Still others make medication an unofficial requirement for participation in regular classes, offering parents a choice between psychiatric drugs or segregation in special education. The pressure works: 70% of children diagnosed with ADHD receive medication, compared to 30% in 1990. As Dr. Breggin notes, “We are being asked to give up most of the things that make life worth living—including sovereignty over our own bodies—in exchange for a promise of never dying.”

The chemical classroom extends beyond individual diagnoses. Entire schools implement “mental health screening” programs, administering questionnaires identifying children at risk for psychiatric disorders. TeenScreen, funded by pharmaceutical companies, screened hundreds of thousands of students before shutting down amid controversy over false positives—84% of children identified as potentially suicidal were not actually at risk. The program’s creator, David Shaffer, had extensive pharmaceutical industry ties never disclosed to schools adopting the screening.

Long-term outcomes challenge the medication narrative. The MTA study, largest ADHD treatment research ever conducted, found medication benefits disappeared after 14 months. By eight years, medicated children showed no academic advantages and had grown an average of 2 inches less than non-medicated peers. They showed higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. The study’s authors, who initially promoted medication, ultimately concluded that long-term medication use provided no benefit and potential harm.

Parents seeking alternatives face systematic obstacles. Insurance covers medication but not behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, or family counseling. Schools accommodate medication schedules but resist environmental modifications that might reduce behavioral issues. Doctors, trained in 15-minute medication management appointments, lack time for comprehensive assessment or alternative approaches. The path of least resistance—writing a prescription—becomes the only path available. Children who might thrive with different teaching methods, more physical activity, or trauma-informed care instead receive psychiatric labels and pharmaceutical interventions that follow them through life.

Section 7: COVID as Accelerator

Dr. Thomas Binder practiced cardiology in Switzerland for 24 years before questioning PCR testing accuracy in April 2020. His blog post explaining testing concerns went viral, reaching 20,000 readers in one day. On April 11, 2020, sixty armed police officers, including twenty from anti-terrorism unit Argus, arrested him at his medical practice. Two colleagues had called state police claiming he was a danger to himself and the government.

The psychiatric evaluation that followed introduced a novel diagnosis: “corona insanity.” This condition appeared in no diagnostic manual, had no established criteria, and existed solely in the evaluating psychiatrist’s imagination. The psychiatrist prescribed antipsychotic medication and offered Binder a choice: six weeks in psychiatric confinement or return home with mandatory medication. Binder, knowing the implications for his medical license, chose home confinement. The diagnosis achieved its purpose—discrediting his scientific criticism by questioning his sanity.

Dr. Meryl Nass treated over 2,000 COVID patients in Maine, reporting successful outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. The Maine Board of Licensure suspended her medical license in January 2022, ordering psychiatric evaluation for spreading “misinformation.” The board’s complaint cited no patient harm, no medical errors, no professional misconduct—only disagreement with CDC treatment protocols. The psychiatric evaluation found no mental illness, but the suspension continued for months, warning other doctors about challenging official narratives. These cases exemplified what Dr. Breggin calls “the therapeutic state,” where medical authorities use psychiatric diagnosis to enforce political compliance.

The pattern repeated globally. In Australia, police arrested pregnant Zoe Buhler for creating a Facebook event promoting anti-lockdown protests. Canadian and American institutions pushed for psychiatric interventions for those violating COVID protocols. Academic journals rapidly published papers on “COVID-19 anxiety” and related conditions. The infrastructure for psychiatric control, built over decades, activated instantly when authorities declared emergency.

Academic journals legitimized diagnostic expansion with remarkable speed. The Journal of Anxiety Disorders published research on “COVID-19 anxiety syndrome.” Psychiatric Times introduced “pandemic paranoia.” Frontiers in Psychiatry described “COVID-19 phobia.” Each publication created medical vocabulary for dissent, transforming political opposition into psychiatric symptoms. The same journals that take years to publish research on medication side effects fast-tracked papers pathologizing resistance to government mandates. The speed revealed priorities: psychiatric diagnosis serves power, not patients.

Section 8: The Perfect Control System

Psychiatric diagnosis achieves what legal prosecution cannot. No jury deliberates. No evidence standards apply. No appeals process exists. A single psychiatrist’s opinion, reached in a fifteen-minute consultation, can trigger involuntary commitment, forced medication, loss of parental rights, or employment termination. As Jim Gottstein discovered through his legal victories, Alaska statute actually provides that “denying one is mentally ill is considered proof that one is mentally ill”—a perfect Catch-22 where resistance to diagnosis confirms the diagnosis. The diagnosed person’s protests become symptoms—”lack of insight” confirming the diagnosis. Their anger at confinement proves “emotional dysregulation.” Their refusal of medication demonstrates “non-compliance.” Every response to psychiatric power becomes evidence justifying its exercise.

The system creates what researchers call “secondary psychopathy”—institutions so pathological they make normal people behave like psychopaths. The Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib demonstrated how quickly ordinary individuals adopt cruel behaviors within diseased systems. Psychiatric institutions operate on the same principle, transforming healers into enforcers, teachers into diagnostic screeners, and parents into medication compliance officers.

The diagnosis follows forever through electronic medical records, background checks, and insurance databases. “Bipolar disorder” appears on employment screenings. “Oppositional defiant disorder” shows up in custody evaluations. “Anxiety disorder” affects life insurance rates. The label becomes identity, shaping how institutions perceive and process the individual. A person who challenged authority becomes a patient whose judgment cannot be trusted, whose testimony carries less weight, whose resistance stems from illness rather than principle.

Insurance reimbursement structures incentivize diagnosis through payment differentials. A therapist receives $50 per session for “adjustment difficulties” but $150 for “major depressive disorder.” The same conversation, the same intervention, pays three times more with a psychiatric label. Electronic health records require diagnostic codes for every encounter, forcing practitioners to pathologize normal responses to life challenges. Grief becomes “complicated bereavement disorder.” Job loss triggers “adjustment disorder.” Divorce necessitates “anxiety disorder.” The billing system transforms every difficulty into disease.

Professional enforcement mechanisms punish practitioners who resist diagnostic expansion. Psychologists who question overdiagnosis face ethics complaints for “denying care.” Psychiatrists who criticize pharmaceutical influence lose hospital privileges and research funding. Therapists who refuse to diagnose clients risk insurance audits and license reviews. The few who persist become cautionary tales, their dissent attributed to their own mental health issues. Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatry’s most persistent critic, has been called “psychotic” by colleagues for questioning psychiatric drugs’ safety.

The control system’s elegance lies in its invisibility. Unlike political imprisonment, psychiatric detention appears therapeutic. Unlike censorship, diagnostic invalidation seems medical. Unlike physical coercion, chemical restraint looks like treatment. The system operates through helping professions—doctors, teachers, social workers—whose genuine concern for wellbeing obscures their function as enforcement agents. Everyone involved can believe they’re helping while collectively creating a mechanism for social control more effective than overt authoritarianism.

Section 9: The Expansion Algorithm

Each generation’s new disorders map perfectly onto contemporary social anxieties. The 1980s created attention deficit disorder as schools eliminated recess and increased standardized testing. The 1990s introduced social anxiety disorder as job security disappeared and networking became survival. The 2000s brought adult ADHD as the gig economy demanded constant productivity. The 2010s unveiled social media disorder as platforms designed for addiction were blamed on individual pathology. The 2020s promise climate anxiety disorder, pandemic stress disorder, and whatever diagnoses serve emerging control needs.

The expansion follows predictable patterns. First, identify common human experience—shyness, grief, distraction. Second, medicalize it with scientific-sounding terminology—social anxiety disorder, prolonged grief disorder, attention deficit disorder. Third, lower diagnostic thresholds until normal variants qualify as illness. Social anxiety once required inability to leave home; now it includes discomfort with public speaking. Depression once meant suicidal despair; now it encompasses two weeks of sadness. ADHD once described hyperactive children; now it includes adults who check phones frequently.

“Pre-disease” diagnosis represents expansion’s cutting edge. Pre-diabetes, pre-hypertension, pre-psychosis—conditions that might develop into illness someday, justifying immediate intervention. The logic parallels pre-crime: identifying potential future problems requiring present control. Psychiatry now diagnoses “attenuated psychosis syndrome,” medication for people who might become psychotic based on subtle indicators like “unusual thoughts” or “suspicious ideas.” The entire population becomes pre-symptomatic, requiring surveillance and potentially treatment for disorders they don’t have and may never develop.

Gaming disorder, approved in 2018, illustrates expansion methodology. The criteria—preoccupation with gaming, withdrawal when gaming stops, tolerance needing more gaming—simply describe engagement with compelling activity. The same criteria could diagnose reading disorder, gardening disorder, or exercise disorder. But gaming threatens productivity, challenges authority allocation of time, and occurs primarily among young people already targeted for psychiatric control. The diagnosis medicalizes pleasure that doesn’t generate profit, enthusiasm that doesn’t serve employers, and focus that doesn’t follow institutional priorities.

The impossibility of being normal drives expansion’s success. When 50% of Americans qualify for psychiatric diagnosis by age 75, mental illness becomes statistically normal. When every classroom contains multiple diagnosed children, diagnosis becomes expected. When psychiatric medication advertisements saturate media, pharmaceutical intervention seems routine. The expansion normalizes its own existence, making resistance appear abnormal. Refusing diagnosis becomes its own diagnosis—anosognosia, the inability to recognize one’s own mental illness.

Section 10: Recognition and Resistance

Allen Frances chaired the DSM-IV task force, personally crafting diagnostic criteria affecting millions. He now calls DSM-5 “the wholesale medical imperialization of normality” and warns of “massive overtreatment” causing more harm than benefit. Robert Spitzer, architect of modern psychiatric diagnosis, admitted before his death that “psychiatry has never been scientific” and diagnostic categories were “constructs” without biological validity. These aren’t radical critics but psychiatry’s founding fathers recognizing their creation’s mutation into something monstrous.

The data confirms their warnings. As Gottstein’s research documents, people diagnosed with serious mental illness now die 20-25 years earlier than the general population—they had normal life spans before the introduction of neuroleptics in the 1950s. Recovery rates have plummeted from a possible 80% without drugs to 5% with forced medication. Gøtzsche’s analysis shows psychiatric drugs have become the third leading cause of death, with antidepressants doubling suicide risk across all age groups. The UN Special Rapporteur on Health has declared forced psychiatric treatment “torture,” yet the practice continues worldwide.

Parent networks share strategies for protecting children from diagnosis while addressing behavioral challenges. They document dietary interventions reducing hyperactivity, exercise programs improving focus, and sleep hygiene eliminating mood swings. These parents aren’t anti-medicine zealots but educated professionals who’ve researched psychiatric drugs’ long-term effects: metabolic dysfunction, cognitive impairment, emotional blunting, sexual dysfunction, and withdrawal syndromes lasting years. They choose difficult lifestyle modifications over convenient chemical solutions.

Legal challenges mount against psychiatric coercion. Jim Gottstein won five Alaska Supreme Court cases establishing that forced drugging violates constitutional rights unless proven in the patient’s best interest—a standard that can never be met given the drugs’ devastating effects. His Myers v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute decision has been called “the most important State Supreme Court decision” on forced drugging in 20 years. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Health declared forced psychiatric treatment “torture.” The Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities prohibits involuntary commitment based solely on psychiatric diagnosis. Families successfully sue pharmaceutical companies for hiding drug risks, winning billions in settlements. States investigate foster care drugging practices, finding systematic overmedication. Each victory remains isolated, failing to challenge the diagnostic system itself, but collectively they reveal growing recognition of psychiatric abuse.

Gottstein proposes the “Transformation Triangle” as a path forward: changing public attitudes about psychiatric harm, creating alternatives to drug-based treatment, and honoring legal rights to refuse treatment. The three elements reinforce each other—as the public learns about harm, they demand alternatives; as alternatives demonstrate success, attitudes change; as rights are honored, the system must adapt.

Homeschooling doubled between 1999 and 2020, partially driven by families escaping psychiatric pressure. These parents sacrifice careers and income to avoid schools that demand medication compliance. They create alternative educational environments valuing curiosity over compliance, creativity over conformity. Their children, freed from diagnostic frameworks, often thrive—suggesting that the pathology lay not in the child but in the system that couldn’t accommodate difference.

A society that medicates its questioners has already failed. When arguing with authority becomes mental illness, authority escapes accountability. When refusing compliance becomes a disorder, compliance becomes mandatory. When dissent requires diagnosis, democracy dies. The manufacturing of madness doesn’t protect society from dangerous individuals—it protects dangerous institutions from questioning individuals. The real madness lies in accepting this inversion, in believing that chemical compliance represents mental health, that diagnostic expansion serves public wellbeing, that a society sedating its children and silencing its critics has achieved anything worth preserving. Recognition begins with vocabulary: these aren’t treatments but tranquilizers, not diagnoses but control mechanisms, not mental health services but social engineering through psychiatric power. The resistance starts with refusing their language, rejecting their labels, and recognizing that the ability to say no to authority isn’t a disorder requiring medication—it’s the foundation of human dignity and democratic society.

References

Breggin, P. R. (1991). Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the “New Psychiatry”. St. Martin’s Press.

Breggin, P. R. (1994). Talking Back to Prozac: What Doctors Won’t Tell You About Today’s Most Controversial Drug. St. Martin’s Press.

Corbett, J. (2022). Dissent Into Madness [Documentary]. The Corbett Report. Available at: https://corbettreport.com

Frances, A. (2013). Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. William Morrow.

Gøtzsche, P. C. (2024). Is Psychiatry a Crime Against Humanity?. Institute for Scientific Freedom.

Gøtzsche, P. C., & Tasch, G. (2023). Systematic violations of patients’ rights and safety: Forced medication of a cohort of 30 patients in Alaska. Psychosis. Available at: Institute for Scientific Freedom website.

Gottstein, J. (2020). The Zyprexa Papers. Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative Inc.

Gottstein, J. (2024). Interview: “From Straitjacket to Supreme Court: The Fight for Psychiatric Justice.” Unbekoming.

Gottstein, J. (n.d.). Report on Improving Mental Health Outcomes. Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights). Available at: http://psychrights.org

Hahn, P. D. (2024). Interview: “On Covid ‘Vaccines’, Schizophrenia, Antidepressants, ADHD and more.” Unbekoming.

Hahn, P. D. (2021). Madness and Genetic Determinism: Is Mental Illness in Our Genes?

Hahn, P. D. (2019). Prescription for Sorrow: Antidepressants, Suicide, and Violence.

Hahn, P. D. (2020). Obedience Pills: ADHD and the Medicalization of Childhood.

Myers v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, 138 P.3d 238 (Alaska 2006).

Spitzer, R. L., & First, M. B. (1992). The DSM: Classification of psychiatric disorders. In The Encyclopedia of Psychology.

United Nations Human Rights Council. (2013). Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. A/HRC/22/53.

Whitaker, R. (2002). Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Perseus Publishing.

Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Random House.

I appreciate you being here.

If you’ve found the content interesting, useful and maybe even helpful, please consider supporting it through a small paid subscription. While 99% of everything here is free, your paid subscription is important as it helps in covering some of the operational costs and supports the continuation of this independent research and journalism work. It also helps keep it free for those that cannot afford to pay.

Please make full use of the Free Libraries.

Unbekoming Interview Library: Great interviews across a spectrum of important topics.

Unbekoming Book Summary Library: Concise summaries of important books.

Stories

I’m always in search of good stories, people with valuable expertise and helpful books. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at unbekoming@outlook.com