1. As a biblical counselor, what would you propose as the most effective way of addressing a counselee who places great faith in a particular drug for maintaining what they believe is a disease of the brain?
2. Do you agree with the above assertion?  Why/Why not?
3. Is there ever a time you would recommend drug treatment for a counselee?  Provide a rationale for your answer.
4. Does research support the “diseased-brain” model of human functioning? Support your answer with cited resources.
5. How may biblical counselors begin to effectively confront the psychiatric drug establishment that is so influential in the modern culture?

Case Study:

Casey comes to see you because she is convinced that someone has bugged her apartment with video cameras, and is now spying on her when she sleeps at night. One of the evidences she provides is that every time she walks past her neighbor, he looks at her, smiles, and says hello.  Casey believes this is a mild form of mind-control, and that ultimately her neighbor is planning to rape her.  She claims that each night she goes to bed, she smells a bizarre odor that always makes her very dizzy.  Upon consuming this odorous substance, she believes her neighbor sends out an electronic signal from his apartment that forces her to remove all her clothes and lie on the bed.  It is at this time, her neighbor turns on the camera and films her as he manipulates her (via electronic signal) to pose provocatively for the camera. Casey is seeking help from you because she feels she is in danger.  She is not taking any medication, and becomes very angry if someone insinuates that this all might simply be figment of her imagination. 

1. What  do you believe is going on with Casey?
2. How would you address her issues?
3. Does she need medicine?  Why/Why not?

1. Industry reality

• Mental disorders are merely categorical labels of mental and behavioral symptoms observed in practice
• These labels are invented by psychiatrists and then voted upon for inclusion into the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders)
• There is no medically based, objective science behind the development of a DSM label
• Doctors, drug companies, and schools each have powerful financial incentives to label you, because more labels mean more convenient drug prescriptions, more drug sales, and more government subsidies for schools.
• So don’t believe you have the label the “experts” say you have, because it will lead you down a dangerous road.

2. Incriminating research

• You didn’t take a medical lab test when you were diagnosed. The President of the APA admitted in 2005 that no clear-cut lab test exists for identifying mental illness.[iii] How then can we know that chemical imbalances in our brain are to blame for our behavior, if no test shows this cause-and-effect relationship? 
• Researchers have continually discredited the chemical imbalance theory, but this 50-year-old myth marches on nonetheless as the culprit of our woes:

  o        “Scientists currently agree that ‘the neurotransmitter-deficiency theory of depression’--the rationale for antidepressants--has no validity.”[iv]

  o        “Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, told Newsweek [on February 26, 2007] that ‘a depressed brain is not necessarily underproducing something.’[v]  

  o        “In 1998, The American Medical Association Essential Guide to Depression stated: ‘The link between low levels of serotonin and depressive illness is unclear, as some depressed people have too much serotonin.’ That same year Elliot Valenstein, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, in Blaming the Brain pointed out, ‘Furthermore, there is no convincing evidence that depressed people have a serotonin or norepinephrine deficiency.’”[vi]

  o        “In 2002, The New York Times reported: ‘Researchers knew that antidepressants seemed to raise the brain's levels of messenger chemicals called neurotransmitters, so they theorized that depression must result from a deficiency of these chemicals. Yet a multitude of studies failed to prove this precept.’”[vii]

  o        “Far from being a radical line of thought, doubts about the serotonin hypothesis are well acknowledged by many researchers.”[viii]

  o        “In the field of mental health, not a single physical explanation has been confirmed for any of the hundreds of psychiatric 'disorders' listed in the DSM-IV.”[ix]

  o        “In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false... A serotonin deficiency for depression has not been found.”[x]

  o        “Nor do we have a clear idea about the relationship between brain function and mental phenomena such as 'moods' or 'emotions' like depression or anxiety.”[xi]

  o        “We have no techniques for measuring the actual levels of neurotransmitters in the synapses between the cells. Thus all the talk about biochemical imbalances is pure guesswork.”[xii]

  o        Many quotes from other authoritative sources (doctors, psychiatrists, etc.) here: http://www.behindthebadge.net/articles/a145.html

• So if you don’t have a chemical imbalance, why would you take a pill to correct it? Doing so would be like undergoing chemotherapy when your doctor claims you have cancer but doesn’t give you biopsy results.
• The drug labels themselves state the exact mechanism by which the drugs operate is not known. You are a guinea pig, taking a drug whose effects are not fully understood, for a chemical imbalance that has never been proven to exist.

3. Inevitable risks

• Doctors echo the drug companies by reassuring, “the benefits outweigh the risks.” In reality, however, the majority of psychiatric drug show benefits not measurably better than placebo,[xiii] and risks range from minor side effects to violent behavior, homicide and suicide. The drugs can literally cause you to kill yourself and others, as they have done to thousands of others.[xiv] Are the risks really worth it?
• Taking a psychiatric drug treats symptoms, not causes; masks the real issues at hand; complicates accurate diagnosis of the problem; and opens the mind to fleshly and demonic influence.

4. Inexhaustible resources

• Instead of masking symptoms with psychiatric drugs, try to understand the source of the symptoms. Take a four-part inventory:
  • Practical: diet, exercise, sleep, stress
  • Medical: any true, measurable medical problems
  • Spiritual: unconfessed/unrepentant sin, Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, walking in the Spirit versus the flesh, spiritual warfare and demonic influence, etc.
  • Do any of these areas need improvement? If not, you fall into the fourth category of Normal: suffering as a part of God’s will and plan for your life to accomplish Christlikeness in you.
• You don’t have an industry-invented mental disorder caused by an imaginary chemical imbalance, and you don’t need dangerous drugs to treat it.
• If the source of the problem is spiritual or we are experiencing normal suffering, we can turn to Jesus Christ by faith. His gracious and helpful resources are sufficient for us:
  • “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”[xv]
  • “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”[xvi]
  •  “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”[xvii]
  • “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:”[xviii]
• With psychiatric drugs out of the picture, and the general source of the problem identified, we are now in a position to clearly understand the real issues at hand in the counselee’s life, and to diagnose and treat them biblically.

Common Objections

While this all sounds wonderful in theory, in practice we can still get counselees who insist that psychiatric drugs have helped them or someone close to them. They will say this regardless of the mountains of biblical and scientific evidence you provide to the contrary. In this case we need to help the counselee understand God’s will in “helping” someone. His definition of help as described in His Word is very different than the typical counselee’s. One is God-focused and God-glorifying, the other self-focused and self-serving. See http://www.psychologydebunked.com/email0705_home.htm for a brief discussion.

Others claim that discouraging use of psychiatric drugs for mental disorders is akin to discouraging use of insulin for a diabetic, or chemotherapy for a cancer patient. To this we would argue that since there is no objective testing of the presence of a mental disorder, and no objective treatments of that disorder, psychiatric drug use becomes a philosophical and moral choice more than a scientific and medical treatment. Diabetics, cancer patients and Alzheimer’s patients do not choose to acquire these diseases. Psychiatric drug users, alcoholics and marijuana smokers, on the other hand, do not have diseases, but make a philosophical and moral choice to numb the pain of life with mind-altering substances.

The Case of Casey

What about counselees like Casey in this month’s case study who are not living in reality—shouldn’t they receive psychiatric drugs? Even though this type of counselee represents less than one percent of the population, the tendency is for relatively normal people with normal life problems to classify themselves as such in order to justify their psychiatric drug use. In any case, we do not believe psychiatric drugs benefit those who do not seem to have their right minds, and the research supports this view. Take schizophrenics, for instance. A recent study by the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, Dept. of Psychiatry compared recovery rates between schizophrenics treated with antipsychotics and those treated with non-drug approaches. 40% of the non-drugged population showed improvement, versus just 5% of the drugged population.[xix] In short, psychiatric drugs’ blunting, brain-damaging effects do not segregate between someone who is in their right mind and someone who is not. They are equal-opportunity poisons.

Conclusion

End Notes

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