Psychiatry started the war?
DP
never started, it is necessary to gain a cursory glimpse of the old and
venerable science of psychiatry-which was actually none of the
aforementioned. As an institution, it dates back to shortly before the turn
of the century; it is certainly not worthy of respect by reason of age or
dignity; and it does not meet any known definition of a science, what with
its hodgepodge of unproven theories that have never produced any
result-except an ability to make the unmanageable and mutinous more docile
and quiet, and turn the troubled into apathetic souls beyond the point of
caring. That it promotes itself as a healing profession is a
misrepresentation, to say the least. Its mission is to control"
Peter Schilte
And where did this gem of propaganda come from?
Peter
QN
[sarcasm]
Maureen
> "To understand the forces ranged against L. Ron Hubbard, in this war he
> never started,
L Ron Hubbard:
'Our war has been forced to become "To take over absolutely the field
of
mental healing on this planet in all forms.
That was not the original purpose. The original purpose was to clear
Earth. The battles suffered developed the data that we had an enemy
who
would have to be gotten out of the way and this meant that we were at
war...
[...]
By showing him to be brutal, venal and plotting we get him discarded.
Our direct assault will come when they start to arrest his principals
and troops for crimes (already begun).
Our total victory will come when we run his organisations, perform his
functions and obtain his financing and appropriations.
-- L. Ron Hubbard
"The WAR", 2 Dec 69
<snip>
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/7f809f30d9238c11
Message: Psycho-Charlatans They Prey on Human Misery; Author: Survey
Associates January 1952
Found at:
http://www.archive.org/details/surveycharityorg88survrich
Author: Survey Associates; Charity Organization Society of the City of
New York
Volume: 88
Subject: Charities -- United States Periodicals; United States --
Social conditions Periodicals
Publisher: [East Stroudsburg, Pa., etc., Survey Associates]
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Digitizing sponsor: MSN
Book contributor: Prelinger Library
Collection: americana; additional_collections
Description
Microfilm
Vols. 1897-1911 issued by the Charity Organization Society of the City
of New York; 1912-1952 by the Survey Associates
(b/w pdf} http://www.archive.org/download/surveycharityorg88survrich/surveychar...
Full Text Version: needs correction:
http://www.archive.org/stream/surveycharityorg88survrich/surveycharit...
-------------
Psycho-Charlatans They Prey on Human Misery
The bizarre story of mental hygiene fakirs in Los Angeles shows the
needs for safeguards against the heartless exploiters of the troubled
GERTRUDE BINDER
THE GREAT SPRAWLING CITY OF Los ANGELES BEARS LITTLE
resemblance to the West of frontier days except
in this one respect: its tendency to be the Mecca for
charlatans promising a sure cure for everything at a tempt-
ing price. But the twentieth century equivalent of the
nineteenth century medicine man has kept pace with the
times. No longer does he offer his panacea in bottles at a
dollar each. Touched by the great twentieth century dis-
covery of human emotions as the roots of so much physi-
cal and mental illness, he has deserted bottles for the con-
sulting room. The medicine man has become the psycho-
charlatan, and while he can be found the country over,
Los Angeles is his capital.
There is plenty of evidence that mental and emotional
illness is increasing in the United States. Certainly, more
and mpre people are seeking help with personal problems,
and while they know that help is available somewhere,
very few know what constitutes genuine treatment or
who is qualified to give it. Legislation in the various states
is not of much help. An article in the Columbia Law Re-
view last spring, pointed out that there is no statute in any
state which defines clearly the type of mental afflictions
only licensed physicians may treat.
A number of states, including California, have medical
legislation prohibiting any unlicensed practitioner to diag-
nose or treat human ills; but while chiropractors, chi-
ropodists and osteopaths are generally among the licensed,
highly skilled clinical psychologists are not. Oklahoma has
the most stringent law of this sort. It is directed specifically
at psychotherapists, and if literally interpreted might
make it illegal for anyone at all to practice psychotherapy
in the state. However, the definition of such terms as
"diagnosis" and "human ill" is elusive, the distinction
between counseling and treatment is vague, and the pos-
sibilities of evading such laws are limitless. One man, for
instance, claimed he just listened to people's troubles
without giving advice or otherwise responding to what
they told him.
Six states have non-medical laws, three of them en-
acted in 1951, which attempt to regulate in some way the
activities of persons who call themselves clinical psycholo-
gists. In Connecticut, Virginia, and Georgia the provision
is for the certification of clinical psychologists who meet
+
By a graduate of the New York School of Social
Work with ten years of experience in community
education for social welfare with agencies in New
York, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles.
certain standards of education and experience, but this
does not prevent the uncertified from practicing. Minne-
sota, Nevada, and Kentucky require clinical psychologists
in private practice to be licensed, but their statutes have
not been in force long enough for their effectiveness to be
tested.
Psychoanalysts who have become members of the Amer-
ican Psychoanalytic Association since 1938 must hold the
M.D. degree; they are covered by the same licensing laws
as other medical doctors. Genuine psychoanalysts are in-
tensively trained and specialized psychiatrists but, outside
Oklahoma, use of the title psychoanalyst is unrestricted.
In some places absolutely anyone literate enough to
sign his name is free to call himself a psychological coun-
selor, psychologist, or psychoanalyst and go into business
as a healer of mental disease. In Los Angeles, he may not
be satisfied with any of these modest, old-fashioned titles;
he may prefer to be a practitioner of "Robotics," "Ad-
vanced Korzybski type semantic therapy with continuous
electro-psychometric monitoring," or "Psynamics, train-
ing in the art of living effectively."
A MONG THOSE WHO HAVE PAID THE ClTY OF Los ANGELES
a modest fee and set themselves up quite legally as con-
sulting psychologists is one Dolores Gunn. The Los
Angeles Examiner in June 1948, reported that before Miss
Gunn decided to become a psychologist the police knew
her as an active practitioner in another field. She had
built up a record of one arrest on a charge of procuring
and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, one denial
of a license to operate an escort bureau, one arrest for op-
erating an employment agency and two for operating an
escort bureau without a license. But she apparently had
no trouble obtaining a business license to practice as a
consulting psychologist.
In this particular instance the "doctor's" police record
was established before she became a psychologist. Gen-
erally, it is very hard to get evidence of law violations by
psycho-charlatans, because of the tremendous hold they
have over their patients, who will not testify against them.
The Los Angeles Society of Clinical Psychologists ii
Private Practice, which tries to raise standards in this field,
has known, but been helpless to act against, blackmailers,
members of narcotics rings and dealers in black market
babies who have used the protection and access to people
in trouble given them by the title "consulting psycholo-
gist" to further their criminal activities.
There are, of course, many sincere people who enjoy
116
THE SURVEY
giving advice and think very little learning is needed for
disentangling the problems in other people's lives. In
fact, probably nothing except trouble itself is more wide-
spread than the urge to solve other people's troubles.
Amateur psychologists, and people who wanted to be
doctors but never quite made it have long been a drug
on the market.
Real professional competence is built around a body
of knowledge which can be acquired only by years of
study and supervised practice through which the young
professional learns to apply his special knowledge in a dis-
ciplined and responsible way. Many who yearn for the
satisfaction and honor of being professional therapists are
unable or unwilling to devote time and effort to so much
learning or to practice so much restraint in the race for
fame and fortune. These people provide the raw material
for a profitable side-racket in the field of psychotherapy
the running of schools to train would-be practitioners. I
checked with several of these schools listed in the Los
Angeles classified telephone directory and inquired about
fees, entrance requirements, and the nature of the course
of study.
T
1 HE BLANK INSTITUTE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS OFFERS A 500-
hour course at a charge of fifty cents an hour plus a $10
registration fee. The student who has completed the 500
hours has paid $260 and is awarded a diploma. "You can
do anything you want to with the diploma; it makes no
difference to us," said the girl who answered my inquiry.
Concerning entrance requirements, she said it would be
nice if I had a high school diploma, but courses in psy-
chology were not important because "we go right into the
psychoanalysis."
Another institute charges $100 for a ten-lesson course
in hypnosis. There are no entrance requirements. When
I asked whether I would be able to treat the sick through
hypnosis after I had completed the lessons I was told,
"It's perfectly legal, as long as you have a business license
from the city." This, incidentally, is not true; the state
medical laws are poorly enforced, but they do prohibit
treatment of the sick by unlicensed persons.
The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation during its
brief heyday collected $500 from each student for a full
time course which lasted one month. Before enrolling,
the prospective student had to read the book, "Dianetics,"
by L. Ron Hubbard. There were no other educational re-
quirements. Those who completed the course became
"Certified Dianetic Auditors." A great many Angelenos
paid the $500, although the certification was totally with-
out legal meaning and the book says anyone who reads it
through to the end will be able without further training
to treat, with invariable success, all psychosomatic ills and
human aberrations.
The way in which dianetics swept through Los Angeles
like a wild fire is evidence of the enormous number oi
people in this region who are ready prey to the hawkers
of panaceas. "Dianetics" was published in June, l c >50. A
few months later a rash of dianetic clubs, forums, dis-
cussion groups and "research" centers had broken out
all over the Los Angeles area. In the classified pages of
the newspapers the advertisements of dianetic auditors
were crowding those of noted seers, sexologists, psycholog-
ical consultants, undraped models, and hypnotists. There
were graduates of the $500 course who, for a while, were
able to collect as much as $25 an hour for their auditing
services. "Book auditors," who had not taken the course,
worked on their friends and relatives or struck out on
their own, doing what they could to earn a living without
benefit of "certification." Co-auditors listened to each
other.
In less than a year the fire was reduced to scattered
blazes. The movement had split and professional auditors
were drifting back to their former occupations. In Febru-
ary 1951, newspapers told the story of the suicide-murder
of a young "dianetics instructor" and his wife. Both had
taken the auditor's training course in Los Angeles. In
April, L. Ron Hubbard himself was being sued for
divorce and described by his wife as being mentally ill.
By summer, the original Hubbard Dianetic Research
Foundation was dissolved and some of the unhappy neu-
rotics whose illness had been intensified by dianetic
auditing had appeared in psychiatrists' private practice
and in admissions to mental hospitals.
Even the best of therapy can fail, and good physicians
sometimes fall victim to the ills they treat. But the claim
of dianetics that it was a method whereby anyone could
successfully treat all forms of illness and aberration was
an open invitation to the ignorant and the morbid.
Los Angeles' extraordinary success as a hothouse for
cults and panaceas has been attributed to everything from
the climate to the unusual magnetic emanations set in
motion by the strong passions of the gold miners of '49.
A more likely explanation is that the city has grown so
fast and has always had so high a proportion of sick and
restless persons in its population that health, civic, and
social services simply could not keep pace with need.
The growth of the medical profession in Southern Cali-
fornia followed rather than preceded the growth of popu-
lation, and for many decades various sorts of nature heal-
ers, faith healers, and Chinese herb doctors had con-
spicuous success in a community that was seriously short
of medical services. Today, there are plenty of qualified
physicians in Los Angeles, but they must compete with
entrenched quackery and they are somewhat handicapped
in reaching a population much of which is conditioned
to dramatic and mystical methods not approved by the
American Medical Association.
H
OWEVER, IT PROBABLY IS NOT THE CURE OF PHYSICAL ILL-
ness so much as release from loneliness and the neurotic
problems intensified by loneliness that Angelenos have
sought as they pressed in droves from sect to movement
to panacea. People may come to Southern California for
the climate but they usually have other reasons for leaving
the places they come from. The illusion that inner, per-
sonal problems of happiness and adjustment can be solved
by a change of scene is even more common than the
notion that tuberculosis can be cured by climate. The harsh
reality is that a migrant to the new community brings
with him all his old problems and leaves behind not only
friends, but also familiar occupations, scenes, and \va\
doing things which can be replaced only at the- cost ot
great effort on his part.
In "Southern California Country," Carey McWilliams
writes of the "aching loneliness the really terrible loneli-
ness that for years has been so clearly apparent in the
streets and parks, the boarding houses and hotels, the
cafeterias and 'lonely clubs' ot Los Angeles." Currently,
MARCH 1952
117
the Los Angeles Mirror carries daily in its personal col-
umns half a page or more of ads for husbands, wives, or
"friends," and announcements of at least twenty "lonely
clubs." Consider, against such a background, the promise
of a cure-all like dianetics.
Whatever the reason, there are a great many unhappy
people in Los Angeles who could benefit by psycho-
therapy, and the fact that they seek help is probably a
healthy sign. What is unfortunate is that there is so little
to guide them in judging what is reliable service as dis-
tinguished from quackery. The Southern California So-
ciety for Psychoanalytic Medicine, the Los Angeles Psy-
choanalytic Association, the Los Angeles Society of Neu-
rology and Psychiatry, and the Los Angeles Society of
Clinical Psychologists in Private Practice all set training
requirements and ethical standards for their members.
However, they do not carry on public education programs
and the bulk of the population hardly knows of their
existence.
Social agencies might be expected to play an active role
in letting people know where they can safely take their
troubles, but they need all the resources at their disposal
to support direct service programs and have not accepted
community education in this field as a part of their respon-
sibility. A good many individual social workers have
themselves been opening up shop lately as private prac-
titioners. Since the standards and codes of ethics of social
work professional organizations apply to persons em-
ployed by social agencies or other community service
institutions, but not to independent practitioners, social
workers in private practice are very much on their own.
A
ALTHOUGH NO GROUP IS DEVOTING MUCH EFFORT TO EDU-
cating the Los Angeles public on the need for professional
competence in dealing with emotional problems, there is
a great deal of interest in proposals for state legislation to
license non-medical psychotherapists in private practice.
In fact, one of the obstacles to getting a good law enacted
is the number of groups concerned. They range all the
way from dianetic auditors and chiropractors to medical
doctors and by no means all of them favor high standards
of education and experience.
An effective licensing law would have to cover both
psychotherapists and psychological counselors in private
practice and accomplish three major objectives: first, de-
fine the activities which could be performed by the persons
licensed, differentiating among them sufficiently to allow
for specialization; second, establish minimum standards
of education and experience for licensees; and third, pro-
vide for a proper relationship between psychiatrists, who
are, of course, medical doctors, and psychologists. The
third point is the one which causes the most difficulty.
The most flexible and workable suggestion seems to be
that the licensing board be composed of both psychiatrists
and psychologists and that it be authorized to promulgate
regulations defining the practice of psychotherapy and
regulating the relationship between the two professional
groups.
Another problem has to do with nonprofit organiza-
tions like social agencies, vocational guidance services, re-
ligious institutions, schools, and universities where serv-
ices given might come within the definition of the li-
censed profession. This has been dealt with in some of
the legislative suggestions by making the proposed law
applicable only to individuals who give service for fee or
profit. In this way private practitioners would be con-
trolled, but the employes of nonprofit agencies would be
exempt.
t)uring the 1951 session of the California legislature
three bills, one to certify and two to license psychologists,
were introduced. Two of the bills would have set very
low standards and, fortunately, aroused little interest. The
third, a licensing bill, was supported by the California
Psychological Association and the State Department of
Mental Hygiene. It would have required psychologists in
private practice to have a doctoral degree in psychology
and one year of supervised experience. It died in com-
mittee chiefly because of the disagreement over the way
in which the relationship between the psychological and
medical professions should be worked out, but the Psy-
chological Association is preparing what it hopes will be
a stronger bill for introduction in 1953 when the legis-
lature meets again. The Mental Health Association of
Southern California is also working on legislative recom-
mendations to present in 1953. All in all, there is a fair
chance that by the time another legislative year has come
and gone a little order will have emerged from the chaos,
and emotionally distressed Californians will have some
form of legal protection from predatory charlatans.
"This furor over the world against Scientology is stirred up by small
psychiatric controlled groups. It cannot help but result in world-wide
demands to investigate the inhuman brutality they use in their
institutions. Their 19th century methods must end. They act like the
mad scientists in a bad old-time movie. The true medical doctor is
ashamed to be associated with them. The psychiatric idea of man is a
Godless, soulless piece of meat. They demand their rights to butcher
at will. They mock every Christian sentiment. According to them,
everyone is helplessly mad and anyone who opposes them is especially
so. Yet where are their cures? They only have victims. They torture
and kill out of sight in their institutions."
L. Ron Hubbard in Freedom Scientology early in 1969, "International
Edition No. 1"
Miki
>
<snip long quoted article with expired copyright>
I actually read this whole post, even though it took 20 minutes.
Unlikely that many other people are going to bother, since most Usenet
people consider any post longer than two paragraphs to be too
"tedious" to read. I snipped the post but you can see the whole thing
by scrolling up to the previous message. Although, if you bother to
read the next paragraph, you might not want to bother.
Buried in the middle of this long article is the phrase "will...in
1953." That means the article was published in 1952 or earlier. Since
it's a current-events article, how it is of more than historical
interest is beyond me. And it's specifically about the history of Los
Angeles, although other places in the U.S. are mentioned, so the
historical interest is largely local.
But Maureen does have an extensive Google Groups profile, and from the
contents of that profile it's obvious that she means well. Something
you should be aware of, Maureen: Usenet is now an abandoned backwater.
Only losers like me bother to post or read newsgroup messages any
more. All the good people of the world have moved on to sext messaging
and Twitter. A word to the wise.
Miki
xenufrance
"DP" <d...@destroypsychiatry.org> a �crit dans le message de news:
006ff40b$0$26916$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>
DP
> "DP" <d...@destroypsychiatry.org> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 006ff40b$0$26916$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
Roadrunner
> "xenufrance" <xenufra...@free.fr> wrote in messagenews:4af51803$0$16781$426a...@news.free.fr...> > 006ff40b$0$26916$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com...
> >> "To understand the forces ranged against L. Ron Hubbard, in this war he
> >> never started, it is necessary to gain a cursory glimpse of the old and
> >> venerable science of psychiatry-which was actually none of the
> >> aforementioned. As an institution, it dates back to shortly before the
> >> turn of the century; it is certainly not worthy of respect by reason of
> >> age or dignity; and it does not meet any known definition of a science,
> >> what with its hodgepodge of unproven theories that have never produced any
> >> result-except an ability to make the unmanageable and mutinous more docile
> >> and quiet, and turn the troubled into apathetic souls beyond the point of
> >> caring. That it promotes itself as a healing profession is a
> >> misrepresentation, to say the least. Its mission is to control"
>
> >> --
> >www.scientologyistotallynuts.org>
>
> "a false theory "
> Why is it a false theory? Psychiatry does not CURE anything.
Indeed, in regards to ECT, chemical lobotomy, or the extensive
drugging, these do not cure. Which should be obvious for a straight
unprejudiced thinking person.
RR
Peter Schilte
You are, of course, not referring to yourself, right Michel?
Or do you mean by "unprejudiced thinking person" someone who didn't
research and evaluate the subject of psychiatry? In that case you ARE
referring to yourself.
Of course you never heard of treating an illness. That is when an
illness cannot be cured. (I thought you needed some explanation as you
didn't research psychiatry.) But some mental issues surely can be
cured. But how would you know, right?
Peter
"Remember one thing, we are not running a business, we are
running a government.
We are in direct control of people's lives.
But for the first time we are not making victims of them,
we are making them more able.
So bring order into these
people's lives."
- HCO Secretary WW2
© 1975 L. Ron Hubbard Library