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Cognitive
Liberty & Mental
Health What exactly is "mental
health" and who gets to decide whether or not your mind is healthy?
Certainly, if a person's conduct is a danger to others, the State
ought to intervene. But, history shows that
various mental health labels have been exploited by the State for
political purposes, and that people have been (and continue to be)
subjected to "mental health" treatment against their will,
although they pose no danger to others. Such State actions
raise deep concerns, and ought to be recognized as human
rights violations that are unconstitutional violations of the fundamental
right to cognitive liberty and autonomy.
See Also:
CCLE Neuroethics Project
CCLE Ritalin Resources
Pharmacology
Psychedelics
Resources:
CCLE
Materials in Legal Case Objecting to Forced-Drugging of Dentist
"On the one hand the government is
bent on creating a "Drug Free America," while on the other
hand it forces a citizen to take mind-altering drugs despite his
repeated objection," said Mr. Boire. "The only thing
consistent here is the government's astonishingly arrogant assertion
that it has the power to determine which mind states and types of
thinking are allowed and which it can prohibit or coerce."
Drugs Can Kill You
Eighth Circuit rules that
death row inmate can be force-drugged in order to make him mentally fit
for execution.
Scott
Starson, Canadian Physics Professor Fights Against Being Forced Drugged
Chemical
Straight Jackets for Children, by Thomas Szasz
"In a paper published in January
1957 -- at the dawn of the "new psychiatric revolution" -- I
stated that psychiatric drugs are "chemical straitjackets"
that control -- not cure -- the persons self-servingly called
"patients." [Elsewhere I commented] about the
nineteenth-century epidemic of mental illness called "masturbatory
insanity." In this column, I comment about our present-day epidemic
of mental illness called "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD)."
Drug
Use as Disease?: Development of the Disease Model
"Th[e] change in perception of drug
abuse from sin to disease led to the adoption of a new terminology.
Toward the end of the 19th century, the temperance and antiopium social
movements started using the term addiction to refer exclusively to the
excessive use of drugs, and it replaced terms like intemperance and
inebriety (Alexander and Schweighofer, 1988). The medical profession
also adopted the term addiction and started using it as a diagnosis and
an explanation of excessive drug use, thereby giving it the implication
of a disease."
ECT.Org
A site with information about the pro's
and con's of electroshock therapy, as well as legal information and
news/alerts about people receiving ECT against their will.
"Gender
Identity Disorder" Should be Removed from the DSM
"APA removed homosexuality from DSM-III
in 1973; with the 1987 publication of DSM-III-R, ego-dystonic
homosexuality was deleted as well. Thus, homosexuality is no longer
considered an illness. But a vestige of those earlier diagnoses remains
in DSM-IV in the category of psychiatric illness known as
"gender identity disorder" (GID) in children, which implicitly
labels homosexual boys as mentally disordered."
Key
Legal Cases
Pivotal legal cases in the field of "mental illness law."
Support
Coalition International
"The roots of Support Coalition
International go deeply into the psychiatric survivors' liberation
movement itself, which came directly out of civil rights ferment of the
late 1960's and early 1970's. The description "psychiatric
survivors" is used by individuals who identify themselves as having
experienced human rights violations in the mental health system."
SCI often calls attention to individual cases in which people are being
given electroshock therapy against their will.
The
Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty & Responsibility
Thomas
Szasz, respected professor, renowned author, and CCLE Board
of Advisors member http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/who.html,
was among the first to take to task misapplied terms of “mental
illness” in his classic critique, The Myth of Mental Illness as
really an applied cultural metaphor that effectively maligns undesirable
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons. This site is a tribute to
his on-going integrity and diligence in his life and work.
If you would like to suggest additional resources, please contact us at
info@cognitiveliberty.org.
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