psychiatry

Mon Sep 3 20:07:29 CDT 2007

Dear Bud, 
    Thanks for giving me an opportunity to respond. Your response is in part true, and perhaps intensified by your dismay at the degree to which it is true. Yet there is a difference between much and most, and it is really the mode of dramatized hyperbole that I wish to protest. You are by far not the only one who does this, and I have no authority to forbid it, but I can say that it hurts me. Odd, perhaps, but I have known so many of these folks, and there's a statistical bell-shaped distribution going on here. Even for those who may drift into the biological, I wish to be defensive. While admitting that some are foolish and careless, I want to affirm that the most are sincere, caring, and care-ful. 
      Most therapists I know have one or two MD psychiatrists they appreciate and feel pretty good about. Yes, you need to shop a bit, but they're there. I am for recognizing the complexity of the predicaments, and the sheer difficulty of many of the sickest patients, those that rarely are seen by the mainstream therapists. 
      Your choice of words---boring, inhuman, irrelevant--- from where I stand, these are still very far from the truth. I know you've had some unpleasant encounters, and there is certainly much to be improved, but I'm not sure as a general class of people that they're much more problematic than, say, psychodramatists or the followers of any other type of therapy. 
        Statements that begin with "All" just get my goat a bit--- I prefer a more modulated discourse. It's tough to find myself in the middle on a number of issues, psychiatry being one, spirituality being another (i.e., not everyting that uses that term is something that I can recommend), either side of the political spectrum (with no room to criticize one's allies), pro or con religion as a whole (again with no nuance), and so forth. Even psychodrama---I agree with so much, but would like to see a few modifications, though I fear that some might accuse me of betraying the trust or Moreno's spirit or whatever. 
       So this is really not just about your writing, Bud, but more about the common tendency to engage in what I sense to be immoderate exaggeration in order to make a point---even though I might agree to some degree with the point being made. 

        Warmly, ADam
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: BARNETT WEISS 
  To: Adam Blatner 
  Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 3:08 PM
  Subject: Re: religion and psychotherapy

  I am not at all surprised given that most if not all psychiatry now is biological crap!!! All of the really interesting and challenging people who I knew who entered psychiatry back in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s were more spiritual would never have gone into psychiatry had it been the totally controlled step child of the pharmaceuticals as it is today. Other than the rare psychiatrists who many of us may know (Adam et al) Psychiatry today is mostly boring, inhuman and irrelevant in really helping people as far as I am concerned. I have encountered one horror after another with my own son with the so called best that New York City has to offer. 
  In addition, given the constraints that all the rest of us are under to maintain our licenses and not be sued, we are required to refer to a psychiatrist for practically any client who comes to us to have them checked for possible medication use for their condition, we are co-opted into the system. Fortunately, I have a psychiatrist who is quite cooperative with me and rarely if ever recommends medication to my patients while letting my clients know that standard practice would recommend certain meds to them and then she gives them an informed choice showing them for example the studies of comparisons of Cognitive Therapy with antidepressants.

  For that matter, all medicine is subject entirely to the control of the pharmaceuticals who support their education and pay for the journals. 
  For alternative treatments, that are far more successful and have a much higher quality of life than the mainstream which you can see at any number of sites, you have to come after the insurance companies after you are cured from something that the mains stream was unable to be successful with in order to have a chance at reimbursement. And meanwhiole the pharmaceuticals and their good buddies the FDA sick their highly paid "Quackbusters" after the most successful costing those physicians millions of dollars to defend themselves. One of the most horrible histories of this was with Dr. Emauel Rivici one of the finest physicians, theorists, and healers ever in medicine. See the book "Revici The Man Who Cured Cancer. ( He did not like that title as he never ever said to any client that he could cure them even though he often did from very serious disease. He would instead say"{ I think I can help.) or the web site dedicated to his lifes work during which he treated most patients for free as he became a very rich man creating a process that purified crude oil back in the teens or twenties. 
  See his life at http://www.revicimedical.com/index.htm

  Often, going to other countries like Germany and England or Canada or France or even Cuba where payment even without insurance is cheaper or at no cost and better than anything you can receive here in the US. 

  HAVE YOU SEEN SICKO? if not, PLEASE DO AND JOIN THE MOVEMENT TO ESTABLISH SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE HERE LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD'S INDUSTRIAL NATIONS. 
  Blessings, Bud

  Adam Blatner <adam at blatner.com> wrote:
    Here's an article about religion and psychotherapy: 
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070903094243.htm
    Psychiatrists Are The Least Religious Of All Physicians : Science Daily - A nationwide 
    survey of the religious beliefs and practices of American physicians has found that the 
    least religious of all medical specialties is psychiatry. Among psychiatrists who have a 
    religion, more than twice as many are Jewish and far fewer are Protestant or Catholic, the 
    two most common religions among physicians overall.

    I wonder how much this also involves other types of psychotherapists? And then 
    there's the question of what is religious and when that would overlap with or exclude 
    those who consider themselves "spiritual." It depends how one asks the question. Do you 
    attend services at a mainstream church? I don't know what the key questions were.

    I think it does speak to some degree to one of the prejudices that conventionally 
    religious physicians and many others have with the stereotype of psychoanalysts, 
    psychiatrists, psychotherapists in general---that they're godless and amoral.

    Interesting. Warmly, Adam 

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  Barnett J. Weiss, MA, LCSW (Bud) 
  7410 Ridge Blvd 2D Brooklyn, NY 11209 
  Cell (917)-751-3395 http://www.budweiss.worldventures.com

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