Mental Illness and Damaging Secular Mental Health Practices in Western Medicine

Dr. Lisa Marie Portugal

Department of Health & Wellness, College of Education, USA

*Correspondence to: Dr. Lisa Marie Portugal, Department of Health & Wellness, College of Education, USA.

Copyright © 2018 Dr. Lisa Marie Portugal. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction
Often, mentally ill individuals do not know they are ill because they are unaware that their thinking, ideas, philosophy, perspective, world-view, lens, disordered desires, actions, and lifestyle choices are damaging to self and others. In addition, mentally ill individuals may be unaware that their thinking and actions are misdirected and harmful. Furthermore, ill individuals may believe their thinking, philosophical world-view, and actions are completely normal if those areas are positively re-enforced by a maladjusted culture or environment the individual came from or is immersed in [1-3]. That is the start.

Identifying and revealing to individuals the errors of their thinking is the challenge because mentally ill individuals may not view anything out of order with their actions, lifestyle choices, and thinking [3]. When mentally ill individuals are addressed from a holistic perspective of healing, rather than merely diagnosing and drugging, all of the areas they are lacking knowledge, education, understanding, and awareness must be addressed with them in very specific, individualized approaches [1,2]. Mental illness can result from: (1) Concupiscence - disordered and unchecked desires, (2) abuse - either self-inflicted or inflicted by others that can deeply damage the mind, body, spirit, (3) self-medicating that can lead to mind, body, spirit damage, (4) lifestyle actions and choices, willfully or un-knowingly, resulting from a nihilistic, philosophical perspective, (5) willfully or un-knowingly seeking spiritual nihilism, and (6) further mind, body, spirit damage when secular, Westernized, allopathic, pharmaceutical, psychiatric, psychological methods are imposed on an uneducated, indoctrinated populace. This brief thesis seeks to address the areas presented for further understanding of mental illness and how health practitioners might address the challenge in a holistic, individualized approach.

A sick culture, environment, family, or relationship can create infected minds. When individuals are affected by these factors, their way of knowing, understanding, and perception can be altered to a point where they lose the ability to comprehend reality in a healthy manner [1,2]. A misguided perception of reality can influence how individuals operate, the choices they make, and the lifestyles they engage in. The Theory of Knowledge - Ways of Knowing includes eight ways in which individuals gain knowledge about the world and how they comprehend and interact in relationships with others. The eight distinctive ways include: (1) sense perception, (2) imagination, (3) faith, (4) language, (5) intuition, (6) reason, (7) memory, and (8) emotion [1-3]. The Ways of Knowing areas are often dependent and intertwined on each other.

Sick cultures create infected minds and infected minds do not know they are infected. For example, when a culture fosters: (1) irrational, nihilist ideologies; (2) illogical, immoral, secular philosophies; and (3) dangerous, damaging lifestyle choices; individuals adopting those harmful ways of thinking and acting within society can become mentally ill. Since the culture: (1) fosters, (2) re-enforces, and (3) sympathizes with individuals who make poor choices based off of nihilist ideologies, individuals (1) cannot see their errors, (2) cannot understand their errors, and (3) do not know they are mentally ill. In this type of environment, individuals cannot see their mental illness because the culture, the society, the dogma, the philosophies, and the ideologies they believe to be normal, are in fact, damaging and re-enforcing their negative beliefs, ideas, actions, and lifestyle choices leading to mental illness. Mental illness does not happen in a vacuum without a root underlying cause and most often those causes stem from wrong ways of thinking, understanding, and acting. The categories listed below briefly discus various mental health treatments and practices. As this is merely a brief thesis, not all mental health practices can be listed, and those that are listed are short descriptions only.

Examination of Conscience
The Jesuits practice a reflection method, or an order of prayer, called the Examination of Conscience as part of the confessional process. Designed to foster an awareness of God, neighbor, and self, the order maintains a significant place in the prayers of Jesuits’ throughout the world. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, spoke regularly of the benefits of this spiritual exercise for believers everywhere.

Examination of Conscience [4]
The Examination of Conscience is one of the fundamental means of furthering personal sanctification. For Catholics, the most common use of examination of conscience is in the preparation for confession. For all Christians, examination of conscience can be an effective means to greater holiness through fostering obedience to God and conformity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. To that end, and through the application of an objective measurement of how well we conformed to the will of God, the examination of conscience helps us avoid the self‐deception of thinking that our behavior, thoughts, and motives are not sinful when they actually are, as well as avoiding scrupulosity, which is seeing sin where there is none (¶ 1).

The Catholic Church has been a source of mental healing practices for centuries. The Examination of Conscience and the confessional are two directed mental health practices, but there are many others that involve spiritual healing, education, understanding, counseling, and moral direction for its members. This paragraph barely touches on how to handle and treat mental illness and mental health in a spiritual manner. Not all spiritual healing practices are listed and described in this presentation at this time. For more information in this area, research the Catholic Church directly for spiritual healing and moral direction.

Freudian Fallacies
The primary trouble with Freud is that, while his ideas appear intriguing and even common sensical, there’s very little empirical evidence to back them up. Modern psychology has produced very little to substantiate many of his claims [5].

For instance, there’s no scientific evidence in support of the idea that boys lust after their mothers and hate their fathers. He was totally, utterly wrong about gender. And his notion of “penis envy” is now both laughable and tragic [5].

There’s no proof of the id, ego, or superego. There’s also no evidence to support the notion that human development proceeds through oral, anal, phallic, and genital stages. Nor that the interference, or arresting, of these stages leads to specific developmental manifestations [5].

For example, he theorized that homosexuality was a failure to reconcile the anal phase, or the Oedipal phase. Which is nonsense. He also argued that only “mature” women could orgasm from vaginal sex, and that women who could only climax via clitoral stimulation were somehow stunted, stuck at a latent phase. Again, nonsense [5].

There’s also no evidence that Freudian psychotherapy (including psychoanalysis and “free association”) is any better than others, including Skinnerian behavioral therapy (which is diametrically opposed to Freudianism in terms of methodology), systematic desensitization, or assertiveness training [5].

More published research documented the following statements regarding Freudian psychological frauds:

According to Dr. Sulloway, of Freud’s six principal case histories, one involved a patient who fled therapy in disgust after only three months, two were not actually treated by him, and another involved no real therapy. Of the patients actually treated by Freud, only two involved purported cures, claims Sulloway. “Based on one of these patient’s subsequent testimony, his ‘cure’ was a complete misrepresentation of the facts,” he says [6].

In addition:
In one illuminating statement Freud writes, “These scenes from infancy, are not reproduced during the treatment as recollections, they are the product of construction” (translation, “I make them up”). Furthermore, it appears that Freud was obsessed with copulation from the rear and with sexual initiation of children from servant girls - something he also attempted to convince the Wolf Man of having been subjected to. On balance, according to those who have read much more of Freud than I did, “the reviews of all the major case histories compose a uniform picture of forced interpretation, indifferent or negative therapeutic results, and an opportunistic approach to truth” (translation, the whole thing is a hoax and a fraud.) [7].

Psychiatry, of which psychoanalysis is a critical branch, is anything but a “medicine of the soul”, and affects indirectly other branches of medicine [7].

As for the soul, religions and priests, in one way or another, performed the functions of current psychiatry and psychiatrists [7].

Readers may yet ask a question. How can so many people be persuaded to practice self-destruction? The answers bring Freud again into the picture, or rather his nephew, whose name is gradually becoming familiar to many, namely, Edward Bernays and his techniques [7].

Edward Bernays is credited as the progenitor of modern-day subversive propaganda techniques also known as promoting, advertising, mass media, and shadow government indoctrination. These techniques are used to control the masses today via subversive messaging, programming, and indoctrination. The researcher strongly suggests readers do more in-dept reading in this area.

Author, researcher Torrey [8] examined the history of Freudian thought in America and argued that Freud’s theory concerning early childhood development had a negative impact and was completely unfounded. The researcher outlined what he calls a Freudian religion in the United States and discussed how indoctrination lacking factual, scientific support and theoretical rigor brainwashed the public into believing doctrine that was completely discredited by scientifically-minded anthropologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Torrey argued that once a myth is firmly rooted in the public’s mind, via subversive propaganda techniques, common sense vanishes.

Master of Freud debunkers, researcher Crews [9], examined the tragic and harmful myth of psychoanalysis and its mentally ill, pedophile, cocaine-addicted creator. “A man who blundered tragicomically in his dealings with patients, who in fact never cured anyone, who promoted cocaine as a miracle drug capable of curing a wide range of diseases, and who advanced his career through falsifying case histories and betraying the mentors who had helped him to rise” [9]. “The legend has persisted, Crews shows, thanks to Freud’s fictive self-invention as a master detective of the psyche, and later through a campaign of censorship and falsification conducted by his followers” [9].

Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud plagiarized the concept of the Jesuits’ Examination of Conscience and confessional and renamed it psychoanalysis. “Few of his ideas were original. He plagiarized. He borrowed ideas from rivals but then backdated them and treated them as his own” [10].

Freud’s secular psychoanalysis mimicked the Jesuits’ process, but left out important healing factors to help individuals address, confront, and take responsibility for their actions and lifestyle choices leading to a mental illness condition. Furthermore, secular psychoanalysis cannot remove negative spiritual conditions present in many mental illness circumstances. Freud dominated the mental health system in Western medicine for decades. New research indicates he has been ousted as a fraud. “Frederick Crews has written a reassessment of Freud based on newly available correspondence and re-evaluation of previously available materials. He shows that Freud was a fraud who deceived himself and succumbed to pseudoscience” [10].

“He claimed that his critics weren’t entitled to pass judgment on psychoanalysis because they didn’t understand it. His criterion for the truth of his ideas was internal consistency, not external reality. He believed dreams could reveal arcane knowledge and were more accurate than conscious memories. He believed in the paranormal, in numerology, and in occultism. Conclusion: A bad man. Freud was a despicable person with multiple character flaws. He betrayed his scientific training in a tour-de-force of self-deception, succumbing to all sorts of irrational beliefs. His vaunted psychoanalyses never objectively helped a single patient. It is astounding that his ideas and his cult were so influential for so long. Freud was a fraud, a liar, a bad scientist, and a bad doctor; but Crews’ book about him is excellent. Crews’ detailed, well-referenced investigation of Freud’s descent into pseudoscience is a fascinating read” [10].

There are many more researchers who have investigated Freud and found his mental health practices fraudulent. Anyone interested in this topic can easily find more research available with a quick Internet search.

“One of the foundational cases of psychoanalysis, the prototype of a cathartic cure, was the “Anna O” case reported in a book by Breuer and Freud. They said she had recovered after Breuer’s treatment, but that wasn’t true. In fact, she got worse and was hospitalized. After leaving psychoanalytic treatment, she improved on her own and eventually led a successful life as an activist opposing the sex trade. (This was interpreted in psychoanalytic terms as a means of unconsciously wishing to prevent her mother from having sex with her father!) She probably didn’t even have a psychiatric illness, but rather a physical, neurologic one, and many of her most troubling symptoms were caused by the morphine addiction Breuer had inflicted on her. Freud’s interpretation of the case contradicted the facts: he was either lying or venting a delusion of his own.” [10].

Anna O’s case clearly reveals that her change in negative behaviors, replaced with positive and healthy behaviors, and her later activism opposing the sex trade, were the real reasons why she came to a healthier condition. Removing the drugs prescribed by Freud and living and advocating for a more positive healthy sexual lifestyle led to her improved health. This is the type of counseling and healing practices the Catholic Church advocates for rather than secular drugging, the promotion of promiscuity, hypnosis, lobotomy, electro-shock therapy, medical experimentation, and medical warehousing. Freud damaged Anna O; he could not, and did not care to heal her.

Hypnosis
Freud was a strong advocate for hypnosis. He used this method to fleece, have sex with, and blackmail patients who came to him for help. In his practice, he advocated for the use of cocaine, induced hysteria, surgical procedures such as excision of the clitoris, and hysterectomy. He had an obsession and preoccupation with sex. Freud’s wife described psychoanalysis as “a form of pornography” and he used hypnosis on his suffering, naïve, unknowledgeable patients as a way to impose his own sexual desires and sexual abuse on them [10]. He also used hypnosis to fleece and blackmail his patients into taking anything he wanted from them.

“Freud spent several months at Charcot’s Salpêtrière hospital in Paris. Another observer, Delboeuf, spent only a week there and quickly realized patients were being sadistically abused and coerced into stereotyped hysterical performances through hypnosis, strong suggestion, peer pressure, and other influences. Freud saw the same evidence Delboeuf saw, but his hero worship of Charcot and his need to ingratiate himself with his mentor made him blind to what was really going on. He believed Charcot had understood and mastered hysteria. At one point, he admitted privately that he had yet to help any patients. In the first years of his practice, he was preoccupied with the rank and status of his patients. He came to specialize in a “disease of the rich,” hysteria, which could never be cured and which generated a continuing stream of income. When some of his “hysteric” patients were subsequently shown to have organic diseases, he still maintained that hysteria was part of the clinical picture. He never admitted being wrong, in one case saying his diagnosis had not been incorrect but had not been correct either. Crews says, “He chose to remain deceived even after having been proven wrong” [10].

He was “actively evasive, malicious, and dishonest” in covering up his mistakes. Crews relates many instances where he re-wrote history, changing the story to put himself in a better light. He made things up as he went along, constantly changing his theories and methods but not making any actual progress towards a successful treatment.” [10].

Freud told one virginal female patient that she had an “unconscious desire to suck her father’s penis” because of the cough she was experiencing at the time (Science-Based Medicine, 2018). He once told a friend, “we do analysis for two reasons: to understand the unconscious and to make a living…we certainly cannot help [the patients]” [10].

Psychotropic Drugs
Chemical lobotomy, physical lobotomy, and psychotropic drugging of adults, seniors, and children are still the common practice in Westernized psychiatry, psychology, and allopathic medicine. In true Freud the Fraud fashion, Westernized medical practitioners commonly prescribe psychotropic drugs and opioids for almost (if not all) health conditions individuals face today. Further, psychotropic drugs and opioids do not cure or heal any health condition. The medically prescribed opioid crisis takes the lives of about 115 Americans each day and approximately 40,000 each year. It is not the abuse of street drugs that is the primary driver behind this disaster. According to the NIH, “In the late 1990’s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive” [11].

Pharmaceutical opioids and psychotropics are an atrocity. Did you now that Fentanyl is 75 times stronger than morphine? Can you imagine how much harder it is to ‘kick the habit,’ and how much easier it is to overdose? The same medical system and its practitioners that prescribe the drugs are responsible for this murderous epidemic. They do not have the answers, they do not have the solutions, but they do have the death drugs, and they will prescribe those drugs to you, your family, your children, your seniors, and your communities.

This is why natural alternatives are needed more than ever. The public needs proper education, therapy, counseling, traditional spiritual healing, and pain-killers that are not addictive and do not also kill the person experiencing pain or mental illness. Naturopathy, Traditional Chinese medicine, natural nutrients, diet changes, traditional spiritual healing, natural healing remedies, and healthy lifestyle and behavior changes are the answer to this crisis. This is where the real health educators, advocates, and practitioners can help society today.

Electro-Shock Therapy
To those indoctrinated, westernized mental health practitioners who demonize health advocates by namecalling them “anti-science” and “archaic,” guess what…those are the same people who electro-shock adults, seniors, and children. Yes, helpless children and seniors! Electro-shock “therapy” is still widely used as a “best practices” medical procedure and they call this “science.” Does that sound like medicine and science to you? The American Psychiatric Association is asking the U.S. FDA to allow them broader use of electro-shock “treatment” on children, stating to the FDA that,

“Having access to a rapid and effective treatment such as ECT is especially meaningful in children and adolescents” [12]. Many find this hard to believe, but the fact is no one is actually monitoring how many children are currently being electro-shocked except CCHR International. CCHR has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with nearly all U.S. states, asking for the age breakdown on those receiving electro-shock, including children. CCHR has uncovered a large number of states currently electro-shocking children, including those aged 0-5 years old [12].

CCHR is still in the process of getting the responses to all FOIA requests filed, and in each state where they have found children being electro-shocked, they have sent the documentation obtained through their FOIA’s to legislators in those states, along with their model legislation to BAN ECT (electro-shock therapy) on children and adolescents. Six states have responded directly to CCHR from these FOIA’s and want to introduce legislation to BAN electro-shock on children [12].

When individuals, families, communities, and cultural groups ban together and understand the implications of dangerous Westernized allopathic, psychiatric, psychological practices, a healthier society can evolve. Part of that process means educating others, advocating for each other, and removing damaging medical practioners and their damaging incorrect advice from our lives.

Behavioral Health Centers
The practices of warehousing, experimentation mental health medical centers, and lock-down, criminally insane medical centers and prisons are common in the secular, Westernized, allopathic, pharmaceutical, psychiatric, psychology mental health system. As stated before, when psychotropic drugs and secular psychoanalysis does not work, the end result is the warehousing of mental health patients who have not been healed or addressed properly. Furthermore, patients trapped in this warehousing manner, are never healed, only drugged, lobotomized, and experiment on.

Impact of Psychosocial and Social Cognition aspects of Mental Health
When individuals, families, cultures, and societies are ill, the affects are wide-spread and all-encompassing. Mental health and mental illness affects and touches everyone globally. When medical practitioners merely drug the helpless, the problem is not resolved, but further exacerbated. Healthy families and cultural groups create healthy societies. When a government works with corporations, the media, the medical system, and the education system to undermine and indoctrinate the public, healthy families are damaged. How do we impact positive psychosocial and social cognition aspects of mental health? By educating and fostering healthy individuals and families. How do we do that? Avoid Westernized medical practices, avoid the practitioners who follow those practices, and create new educational avenues to re-educate the public properly.

Relationships Influencing and/or Hindering Mental Health Behavioral Change
Positive mental health behaviors can greatly impact a healthy mind, body, and spirit. Negative healthy behaviors do the opposite, and in fact, over a prolonged period of time, unhealthy behaviors can lead to serious mental illness and even demonic possession. Secular, Westernized medicine purposefully ignores the latter discussion and in fact, demonize those who discuss it. Ignoring the logical conclusion of negative, unhealthy behaviors, ignores the presence of the existence of evil and the existence of demonic possession. When this factor is ignored by Westernized psychiatric medical practitioners, patients suffering from mental illness are drugged and their problems are ignored. That is not healing, that is malpractice. That is also turning a blind eye to serious mental health issues. Mental health is always on a continuous spectrum for all individuals in every race, culture, society, and family.

At any point, depending on the lifestyle behaviors and ways of thinking individuals choose to engage in, or behaviors they are subjected to by others or the culture, mental illness can progress on a declining continuum. To ignore those factors is ignoring what individuals are experiencing and ignoring how to help them. Many methods can be used to help individuals heal and those can include: (1) diet and nutrition assessment, (2) physical health assessment, (3) drug use assessment, (4) lifestyle practices and behaviors assessment, (5) social and cognitive assessment, (6) family and environment assessment, and (7) spiritual assessment. Ignoring any of these areas, is in fact, ignoring how to help individuals achieve better health. Most often, individuals suffering from mental illness typically may experience problems in many of these areas and all areas must be addressed properly to achieve a better mental and physical health status.

Drugging and Westernized mental health practices only: (1) mask the problems, (2) never actually address each area in an individualized manner, and (3) never address every detailed, specific problem that might be present. When any of these areas are ignored, mental illness can persist and become more dangerous to the individual and to others. Mental illness can lead to severe demonic possession and murder - suicide. Drugging individuals with psychotropic drugs or administering any of the Westernized psychiatric practices mentioned in this presentation do not solve a mental illness problem. Furthermore, many Westernized health practitioners are taught that mental illness cannot be healed, but merely contained by drugging. That ill-conceived indoctrination needs to change. When Westernized health practioners are taught that a spiritual component to healing is archaic, backwards, and anti-science, they are engaging in malpractice and their views need to be challenged.

Modern-day, Westernized psychiatry and psychology mental health practices originate from Freud. “Freud was a fraud, a liar, a bad scientist, and a bad doctor” [10]. It is time we question all those practices and everything Westernized practitioners reject about a spiritual component to mental healing. How can we help people suffering from mental illness? Teach individuals, families, communities, society, and cultural groups how to live better, make better choices, and operate in healthier ways with others. Finally, give people the proper tools, understanding, and education regarding true and lasting health success.

Behavioral Diversity and the Role of Health Educators
Every race, group, culture, society, and family has its own way of viewing and understanding mental health. The issues and challenges involve: (1) addressing beliefs, taboos, and incorrect information about mental health and illness; (2) addressing how to correctly handle mental health and illness; (3) educating the populace with correct information; and (4) dismantling damaging indoctrination by governments, the allopathic - pharmaceutical industry, the psychiatric - psychology industry, the education system, and the media. When designing mental health wellness education programs, each of these areas need to be addressed while creating messages appropriate for specific groups, cultures, populations, and language barriers.

Mental health educators can be the catalyst for sharing accurate mental health healing while providing education, research, and directing groups to appropriate service providers. In addition to educating the populace, educating health practitioners is also the goal of this presentation. In Westernized countries, health and wellness practitioners have also been negatively influenced by secular, allopathic, pharmaceutical, psychiatric, psychology, government, education, and media indoctrination regarding mental health practices. The objective of this presentation is to address that indoctrination and ask health practioners to further investigate and question that indoctrination. Drugging, electro-shock therapy, warehousing, lobotomizing, and experimentation are not the answer to mental health and healing. It is time for health and wellness practitioners to question what they have been taught in Westernized medicine.

Conclusion
This brief thesis examined: (1) mental illness and damaging secular mental health practices in Western medicine; (2) the examination of how those harmful mental health practices impact the psychosocial and social cognition aspects of health; (3) how relationships can either influence or hinder health behavioral change; and (4) the role of the health educator related to educating the populace regarding harmful secular mental health practices. The evidence and discussion presented might help individuals, families, and healing service providers influence more positive health behaviors, perceptions, and alternative choices. Health and wellness choices and behavioral diversity of individuals and groups affect every race and the role of the health educator / advocate is to educate and inform a diverse global population. Further research into Westernized indoctrination mental health practices should be considered by health and wellness practioners.

Bibliography

1. Grayshield, L. (2010, Fall). Indigenous ways of knowing as a philosophical base for the promotion of peace and justice in counseling education and psychology. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 1(2), 1-16.
2. Mantzorou, M. & Mastrogiannis, D. (2011). The value and significance of knowing the patient for professional practice, according to the Carper’s Patterns of Knowing. Health Science Journal, 5(4), 251-261.
3. Stein, K. F., Corte, C., Colling, K. B. & Whall, A. (1998, Spring). A theoretical analysis of Carper's Ways of Knowing using a model of social cognition. Sch Inq Nurs Pract., 12(1), 43-60.
4. Examination of Conscience. (n.d.).
5. Dvorsky, G. (2013). Why Freud still matters, when he was wrong about almost everything.
6. Mallove, E. F. (1991). The faults and frauds of Freud 'COOKED' DATA. MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
7. The Saker. (2018). The fraud of Freud.
8. Torrey, E. F. (1993). Freudian fraud: The malignant effect of Freud's theory on American thought and culture. HarperCollins, Reprint Edition.
9. Crews, F. (2017). Freud: The making of an illusion. Metropolitan Books.
10. Science-Based Medicine. (2018). Freud was a Fraud: A triumph of pseudoscience.
11. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2018). What is the U.S. opioid epidemic?
12. CCHR International: The Mental Health Watchdog. (2018). About mental disorders. Citizens Commission on Human Rights International.