Psychiatry and Social Control

by Gerard Emershaw

The FDA is currently weighing whether to ban “electrical stimulation devices” used by mental health professionals to modify aggressive or self-injurious behavior in patients suffering from severe emotional problems or developmental disorders such as autism. Critics of these devices have compared them with shock collars used on dogs. The devices are applied to the arms or legs and deliver a two-second shock that has been compared to a “hard pinch.” These devices are rarely used, but they have been widely employed at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Massachusetts—a residential facility which treats children and adults with severe developmental disabilities. Former Rotenberg students have likened this “aversion therapy” to “torture, in the plainest sense of the word.” One former student said it feels “like a thousand bees stinging you in the same place for a few seconds.” Rotenberg students have claimed that these devices have burned them and caused them to feel anxiety, fear, and depression and that the devices were employed to give shocks “for things like noncompliance with staff direction, talking too much and being disruptive in class.”

The most troubling thing here is the very idea that punishment someone constitutes therapeutic treatment. Punishment is meant to do harm, so how can such practitioners honor the Hippocratic Oath? Forms of aversion therapy have been employed in the past in the dubious effort to treat homosexuals. Such treatment will forever be associated with the Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange based upon the Anthony Burgess novel. The iconic image of Malcolm McDowell’s Alex being forced to look at violent images while being sickened by drugs and forced to listen to his beloved Beethoven will forever be burned into the public consciousness.

Psychiatry seems to be alarmingly becoming more a tool of social control than a therapeutic discipline. Psychiatry was widely abused in the Soviet Union and used as a means of stifling dissent. Political dissent was defined arbitrarily as a form of mental illness and treated as such. As the United States becomes increasingly authoritarian, it is alarming to see how the psychiatric profession is becoming more like that of Soviet psychiatry.

An astounding 19% of American boys between the ages of 14–17 have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and about 10% are taking medications such as Ritalin for it. Ten percent of high school girls have been likewise diagnosed. Between 2007–2012 sales of stimulants such as Ritalin to treat ADHD have more than doubled from $4 billion to $9 billion. At some point, the public education system transformed overly energetic and fidgety students into mentally ill patients. If students are not “normal”—e.g. they will not sit quietly and do exactly as they are told—then they are sick and need to be medicated. There is no telling what effect generations of Ritalin zombies will have as they enter adulthood in greater numbers. Judging by the increasingly poor academic performance of American public school students, this treatment of ADHD as if it is an epidemic has not been particularly helpful.

A symbol of American psychiatry’s move away from medicine and toward political control can be seen in the disorder Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). ODD is a personality disorder defined by a persistent and disruptive pattern of  negativity, hostility, disobedience, and hostility by children toward adult authority figures. What is even more troubling is that there is some movement within the psychiatric establishment to characterize ODD as an adult affliction as well as a childhood personality disorder. If Adult ODD manages to gain acceptance as a legitimate disorder, it will only be a matter of time before it is used in Soviet-fashion to label dissidents, protesters, and government critics as mentally ill. One wonders what forms of psychiatric medications or “aversion therapy” might be used upon such individuals.

The Department of Homeland Security seems intent on categorizing difficult school students not just as mentally ill, but as terrorists. On April 15, 2014, Lisa O. Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, delivered a speech entitled “Countering Violent Extremism and the Power of Community” at the Harvard Kennedy School Forum. Ms. Monaco spoke of American youth as if they were a gang of ticking time bombs or Al Qaeda sleeper agents. She claimed that 80% of cases involving “homegrown violent extremists” involved “warning signs” that had been observed by members of the community. These “warning signs” were allegedly subtle:

What kinds of behaviors are we talking about? For the most part, they’re not related directly to plotting attacks. They’re more subtle. For instance, parents might see sudden personality changes in their children at home—becoming confrontational. Religious leaders might notice unexpected clashes over ideological differences. Teachers might hear a student expressing an interest in traveling to a conflict zone overseas. Or friends might notice a new interest in watching or sharing violent material.

Despite the best unconstitutional efforts of the NSA, FBI, and CIA:

The government is rarely in a position to observe these early signals, so we need to do more to help communities understand the warning signs, and then work together to intervene before an incident can occur, while always respecting our core commitment to protecting privacy and civil liberties. During the past several years, that’s what we’ve attempted to do.

So, the government not only may wishes to declare difficult adolescents mentally ill, but now it wishes to suggest that moody teens may be future bin Ladens.

Ultimately, the more Americans that the federal government can stigmatize as being “mentally ill,” the more Americans whose rights it can take away. The government will attempt to violate rights such as the Second Amendment right to bear arms from such individuals. It will not be a shock if one day the growing numbers of American students diagnosed with ADHD will be placed on lists which prohibits them from legally owning firearms. When any part of the medical profession is coming so perilously close to becoming a cadre of social engineers instead of a community of healers, it is time for conscientious practitioners to champion reforms to get the field back on track. Such reform in the psychiatric profession is long overdue.