Anti-psychiatry: A Parallel Movement
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was co-founded by anti-psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology in 1969. Some anti-psychiatry websites and psychiatric survivors groups have sought to distance themselves from Scientology and the CCHR. Lawyer Douglas A. Smith stated in his anti-psychiatry web page:
No Scientologists, please: Volunteers will be asked for assurance they are not affiliated with the ‘Church’ of Scientology or its Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which have publicized the harm done by psychiatry but which we want no affiliation with.
Similarly—:
Mind Freedom attorney David Atkin has provided a letter to clarify and emphasize that MindFreedom has no connection to CCHR or Church of Scientology. This clarification is not to criticize any organization, but to just state the facts.
Despite sharing notable anti-psychiatry views on some issues with the secular critics, Scientology doctrine does differ in some respects. Scientology has promoted psychiatry-related conspiracy theories, including that psychiatrists were behind the Yugoslav wars and that September 11 was caused by psychiatrists. Scientologists are religiously committed never to take psychiatric drugs and to reject psychology outright.
The socio-political roots of the movements have different origins. Advocates of the anti-psychiatric world view such as David Cooper, R. D. Laing and Michel Foucault had ties with the political left of the 1960s; Thomas Szasz, with the civil libertarians of the right, as well as an outspoken atheist. Many advocates of the anti-psychiatry movement have stated that they consider the idea of "mental illness" as a convenient and inaccurate label assigned by society rather than an objective biomedical state, rejecting psychiatric terms such as schizophrenia which they may see as stigmatizing. By contrast, Hubbard referred to "schizophrenics" in his writings on Scientology theory, and developed a Tone Scale to, in part, gauge the health of a person's mental state. Furthermore, in his Science of Survival Hubbard suggested putting people very low on the scale into quarantine, a practice at odds with, for instance, the aim of the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: an organization co-founded by Szasz to end involuntary commitment.
Read more about this topic: Scientology And Psychiatry
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