"We should recognize that the infiltration of value judgements into 'objective' terminology is not just loose talk, a psychological weakness of scientists; to classify actions which are seen as a threat to society as malignant process is a means of repression more final and devastating in its effects than any overt condemnation."--David Ingelby (important for understanding the culture of oppression in which human scientists, including psychiatrists, operate within)

First and foremost is the fact that it can serve to re-silence and re-victimize those who have already experienced violence firsthand, and thus by default serves to exclude such innocent victims from any effective movement for social change.

I have to wonder if the reticence about speaking out on abuses/prejudice aimed at people with a psychiatric label, or about the inherently oppressive nature of psychiatry and the 'mental health' system themselves isn't rooted in peoples' fear of their own capacity for madness as well as being rooted in another long-standing historical prejudice.

I remember when I first got sick, it was like I woke up and decided I wanted nothing to do with the world anymore. I had just turned 15. I was at boarding school and none of my so called friends wanted to throw a party. My mom came to the school and I hadn't even known, she dropped off a painting of an angel watching over two kids on a cliff. Well that's just how I felt at the time, I was the girl on the edge just about to fall.

Searching via scroogle.org today I stumbled across some excellent excerpts of two books which are VERY hard to find these days (unless, of course, you have the cash to buy from amazon or a bookstore's used-books search). First, a link to a real nice excerpt from Theodore Roszak on "the myth of objective consciousness"; second, a link to Aldous Huxley's especially interesting nonfiction book (in its ENTIRETY!) Brave New World--Revisited, excerpts which I'm providing here. The topic? The perils of "over-organization", suppressing symptoms, and the authoritarian attitudes that are making their way into many mind-sets these days regarding what it "is" to be "normal" and so forth.

http://bacque.graeme.tripod.com/articles.htm