(23-03-13) Empathic therapy vs. modern psychiatry: The future of human services

by Peter Breggin

(NaturalNews) Three years ago my wife Ginger and I decided to form the Center
for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education and Living (a nonprofit 501c3).
The organization is founded on twin principles of equal importance: First,
modern psychiatric theory and practice does more harm than good. Second, all
human services, from self-help through therapy and education, must begin with a
caring and even loving attitude toward the individual.

The organization already has an outstanding Advisory Council of more than 70
professionals , advocates and family members. Its free newsletter has more than
3,000 subscribers and its first two April conferences Syracuse has nearly
filled its 210 capacity. Future conferences are being held in partnership with
other reform organizations.

So what is this all about? What is it and why is it necessary?

Empathic therapy is not a specific form of treatment. The Center's Advisory
Council and other participants include a broad spectrum of therapeutic,
psychological, spiritual and educational approaches. They hold in common that
human beings do not need psychiatric diagnoses and drugs, they need each other.
It's a good motto: People not pills!

The concept of Empathic Therapy has many roots. The Person-Centered approach.
Existential psychology with its focus on values. Humanistic psychology and The
Third Force in Psychology. Modern psychoanalytic theory. So how is the Empathic
Therapy movement different? What's new?

None of the other reform movements, and few if any of their leaders, have
faced the fundamental conflict between these empathic approaches and modern
psychiatry with its genetic and biological theories, diagnoses, shock
treatment, and drugs. At best, they have turned a blind eye to psychiatry with
a "live and let live approach." At worst, and far more commonly, these groups
and their leaders have sought to collaborate and to gain power from their
affiliations with organized psychiatry. Instead of resisting psychiatric power
and authority, they have feared and even envied it.

Now that psychiatry has gained such overwhelming control over the public
discourse about human suffering, and now that the pharmaceutical industry has
gone so wholly into partnership with psychiatry, the battle would seem to be
lost. That's all the more reason for one umbrella group to a take stand and to
build coalitions with individuals and group who say no to psychiatric
objectification and abuse and say yes to empathic approaches.

Empathic approaches, increasingly crushed by the psychopharmaceutical complex,
must stand up for themselves and in opposition to psychiatry. It's no longer
sufficient to be caring toward our patients and to empower them to live
responsible, loving, and creative lives. They simply won't accomplish their
goals as long as they are simultaneously convinced that they have biochemical
imbalances, suffer from psychiatric diagnoses, and need drugs.

The Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education, and Living is holding
its third annual conference in Syracuse, New York on April 26-28, 2013. That's
little more than one month away. It will continue to fulfill our twofold
purpose of providing trenchant critiques of biological psychiatry while
presenting the frontiers of empathic therapy. There will be dramatic
demonstrations and presentation about how to help people. These will draw sharp
contrast with equally dramatic testimonials, descriptions and scientific
analyses of the damaging effects of modern psychiatry.

This year the Empathic Therapy Conference is cosponsored by "Its About
Childhood and Family" and by "Mother Bear Community Action Network." We are
building strong coalitions with these other organizations to oppose psychiatric
abuses and to promote empathic approaches.

Our Empathic Therapy Conferences are not only humane, caring, and scientific--
they are healing events for the participants. Many describe it as fulfilling
and educational, and among the best they have ever participated in. The public
is welcome. Come join us April 26-28, 2013. The world needs the changes we are
making and you can make a difference.

About the author:
Peter R. Breggin, MD is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New
York. Dr. Breggin criticizes contemporary psychiatric reliance on diagnoses and
drugs, and promotes empathic therapeutic relationships. He has been called "the
Conscience of Psychiatry." See his website at www.Breggin.com

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In evidenza

"L'informazione presente nel sito serve a migliorare, e non a sostituire, il rapporto medico-paziente."

Per coloro che hanno problemi di salute si consiglia di consultare sempre il proprio medico curante.