I never stopped by this museum when I lived in LA, but felt that I had to after having working in Psychiatric Hospital for the past 3 years. I tried to go with an open mind and mostly wanted to find out what Tom Cruise would say if he wasn't so manic. Turns out it was pretty much the same thing.
This Museum is basically a catalogue of all the horrible things Psychiatry has done. There is the typical stuff everyone agrees on: lobotomies, crude electric shock, poor past patient care, etc. But then their history kind of veers off around 1940 into a special version of history. A special history of suspicion and conspiracy theories not so much based in objective science.
Now, lets see if you need to go to the Museum on not.
See if you can answer these questions:
1. Who is responsible for the Holocaust?
2. Who is responsible for school shootings? (starts with P, is not Pearl Jam)
3. Who is a main contributor to Terrorism? ( rhymes with Physiatrists)
4. Is Psychiatric medication ever justifiable?
OK, I think you are getting the point. I almost made it out the door, but there was a tour guide lady who wanted to talk to us. I asked her if she thought Psychiatrist did anything right. She said as long as they didn't prescribe Psychiatric medication, they were fine.
She asked for my point of view and I told I thought her assumptions of all Psychiatric medications being ineffective and all Psychiatrist were evil was unreasonable and indefensible according to evidence based practice. She said all research is biased because of Psychiatrist being payed by drug companies. I told her that their were numerous studies not financed by people affiliated with drug companies that showed some effectiveness to treatment in specific cases. And then after talking in circles and making my pregnant wife endure our conversations, I realized I was doing that thing I do that I always tell myself I will never try to do again. You just can't reason with unreasonable people. All in all, the conversation was about as successful as Matt Lauer, and hey I even know the history of Psychiatry to some extent.
Anyways, it made for a good story for my coworkers back at work. I showed this picture to my coworkers and everyone thought it was awesome
2 comments:
That's funny. I don't know what else to say.
I can't imagine what my job would be like without antipsychotics. Hey, I wonder how much paranoia involved in the making of this museum was caused from not being on meds...?
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