Talk:Anti-psychiatry

Severely non-NPOV
This article is about a pseudoscientific movement, and yet it presents everything as if they are facts (except for a few throw-away lines that seem to have been inserted in order to pretend that this article is NPOV). The entire article reads as if it were written by a pseudoscience true believer. This is especially pernicious because it deals with a topic that has life-and-death consequences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.195.76.57 (talk) 20:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Psychiatry is not science in the first place. 79.18.247.218 (talk) 20:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed.The regular inability to replicate results from experiments should strongly suggest so. ProofCreature (talk) 22:30, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal
A 2021 discussion related to another proposal (see Talk:Mental disorder/Archive 4) was archived with a final view that Mental illness denial might be better merged to Anti-psychiatry. I'm hence restarting the discussion here, based on this alternative target. I'm rather neutral on the proposal, but RJJ4y7 and Xurizuri were more positive in their assessment (from November). Klbrain (talk) 06:48, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Support I was a bit wary of this causing WP:NPOV. But I think I'm okay with this. There is a concept of "lack of insight" that shows up in psychiatry. And I don't think *this concept* belongs in anti-psychiatry (apart from criticism about the misuse of the diagnosis "if you don't agree it's evidence that you are crazy). I don't think it's correct to identify the entire anti-psychiatry movement as a "lack of insight" into their disorder and there seems to be an attempt to identify "lack of insight" with "criticism of psychiatric diagnosis" within the denialism article. This is suspiscious... but maybe that's genuinely what some literature is trying to do. Talpedia (talk)
 * Oppose "Mental illness denial" denies the existence of mental illnesses. "Anti-psychiatry" opposes the modern treatments of mental illnesses. Conceptually, they are completely separate. In the same vein, criticism of medieval medical practices and the denial of disease are different. - (from Talpedia: I think this is for. 99.160.141.248)
 * Oppose per unsigned comment (why is nobody using signatures or even just saying “User X wrote this”?) above, denying mental illness exists and opposing modern treatments are completely different things. Dronebogus (talk) 14:11, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose Modern anti psychiatry is more so about rejecting modern approaches towards mental health rather than denying its existence. 98.35.9.22 (talk) 04:36, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose Theses are different matters: one can be opposed to the instution of psychiatry or diagnoses, or even its scientific grounds without denying that mental illness exists. This would merge two different POV. Hploter (talk) 13:27, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment More generally, I note that there is a distinction between "the study of the people who think X" and "the study of X" and that slipping between the two is a way to discredit X and something to watch for. So we have "study of conspiracy theories surrounding covid" rather than "lab leak hypothesis", and "mental health denialism" rather than "criticism of the legitimacy of some mental health diagnoses". "The people who think X and why they think it" is a valid area of study, and yet strangely it is more applied to things that people think are false rather than true. For flat earther this is entirely legitimate, the world is round, some people think it's flat isn't that weird and interesting; the problem comes when people don't really know whether X is true or false and then oddly focus on the reasons that people believe X rather than whether X is true or not. You also get fun comments like "Research suggests that people tend to overestimate the relationship between immigration and criminality" an interesting fact, but is it really the most important fact about Immigration and crime such that it is second sentence of the article, rather than you know talking about wheter immigration in any way relate to crime. Talpedia (talk)
 * Comment The similarities between these subjects seem overstated. While they both concern rethinking the true nature of mental illness, they come from completely different angles. Mental illness denial is more about how people outright deny the suffering of people, like how it mentioned South Park and India. Anti-psychiatry, however, is more about the idea that psychiatry views mental illness wrong more broadly. Even radicals, such as Thomas Szasz, don't flat out deny that people can be depressed or schizophrenic, but instead treat the idea of mental ILLNESS as a misnomer. The anti-psychiatry article is also about critiques of specific psychiatric practices. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.160.141.248 (talk) 00:23, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * just saw this a few minutes ago. I still think the 2 articles should be merged. as a said before mental illness denial doesn't warrant its own article and should be merged with anti-psychiatry.RJJ4y7 (talk) 13:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * OPPOSE: Psychiatry is an aspect of psychology that has historically been weaponized against marginalized groups. Just like evolutionary psychology has been used to assert that some groups are inherently inferior to others, psychiatry has been used to assert that some groups are inherently less capable of autonomy and self-determination than others. If it is already tenuous enough to define concepts like "consciousness," then attempts to define WHO is at an ACCEPTABLE level of consciousness lies on similarly shaky ground. IPausedMyVPNForThis (talk) 21:42, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * OPPOSE: The mental illness denial page is just a slightly jumbled page with an identity crisis. It currently makes little/no distinction between the wider movements that criticise how we conceptualise and treat mental health, and cases where individuals disagree with mental health professions about their personal issues, or cultural stigma and skepticism. I think both of those topics deserve their own articles. While they are related, I think a proper rewriting of mental health denial page (removing the reference to Szasz which is already covered in the anti-psychiatry page) would be a more balanced solution. Djelibey (talk) 13:20, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose: These are two separate subjects with vast complexity and wide coverage in reliable medical sources. Wretchskull (talk) 12:14, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, for reasons that have basically been stated above. Anti-psychiatry is a broad range of philosophical and political positions (indeed, positions held by many psychiatrists) that exist in opposition to the modern practices of government, corporate, and academic institutions. Mental illness denial is a specific thing which occurs when someone denies mental illness. Even if your opinion is that antipsychiatry is incorrect or whatever, they're obviously two separate things: we wouldn't merge Lying and Presidency of Richard Nixon (or Presidency of Bill Clinton, for that matter) on the basis that "he lied about a bunch of stuff". jp×g 09:06, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, For reasons that denial would entail denial of symptoms or incompatibility with society while Anti-psy entails a problem with modern treatment. Warmallis0n (talk) 03:11, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Agree with most of the above. There is certainly overlap between mental illness denial and anti-psychiatry, but the latter is a distinct thing that refers to a particular political/social movement and discourse.
 * With that said, it seems like there is very strong consensus against merger. Should I go ahead and remove the template? Donna's Cyborg 🏳️‍⚧️(talk)(contribs) 16:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Two completely different things with some similarities, as stated above by many. Reliable sources very clearly distinguish the two. Wretchskull (talk) 14:35, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Antipsychiatry has examined academically. including professors like Bonnie Burstow who identify as antipsychiatry (i'm pretty sure). also individuals like Thomas Szasz are labeled as antipsychiatry despite vehemently rejecting the label. antipsychiatry seems notable historically and academically. anyone who thinks it should be merged with mental illness denial seems extremely biased. I will admit that i am biased myself, since i have read many szasz books including Antipsychiatry: Quackery Squared. relavent article by szasz Mental illness: psychiatry's phlogiston phlogiston. limitless peace 🕉🐉🐅 Michael Ten (talk) 02:45, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Dead links
85 and 87 are dead links. Shoesoft93 (talk) 09:29, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Sorta fixed it. The nofreelunch citation goes to archive now. All I could find for the other one was this google scholar page, which is where it goes now. Donna's Cyborg 🏳️‍⚧️(talk)(contribs) 17:06, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

anti psychiatry vs anti coercion
since szasz is mentioned.... maybe note that Szasz embraced "anti-coercion" rather than "antipsychiatry".

Anti-Coercion Is Not Anti-Psychiatry

The Case against Psychiatric Coercion Michael Ten (talk) 02:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Website...
...is www.cchr.org - Website links to a antipsychiatry human rights org founded by Scientology. I have a Satellite TV unit and I do have the Scientology Channel on it. My unit has it as SCNTV, channel 320. Can that be used as well? Thanks. Nuclear Sergeant (talk) 16:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I've seen several anti psychiatry documentaries on this system. Nuclear Sergeant (talk) 16:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)