IS PSYCHIATRY CRAZY?

In a word...Yes.

Two new books on the subject were reviewed in this Saturday's Globe under the following headings:

"Is psychiatry a failure?

Two new books attack big pharma and lazy doctors for not doing enough to help patients. Sometimes talk, not drugs, is all a person needs"

The books are "prescriptions for the Mind" by Joel Paris and "Doctoring the Mind" by Richard Bentall, and the reviews are written by Todd Dufresne.

Oddly, at exactly the same time, a piece by Christopher Lane on the same subject called, "Bitterness, Compulsive Shopping, and Internet AddictionThe diagnostic madness of DSM-V,"

has appeared in Slate, the on-line journal.

This last was sent to me by my old buddy, Gavin Walker, the Jazz historian, Broadcaster and Player, who has managed to keep his own special brand of craziness going beautifully for a few decades now without the help of the couch or Big Pharma.

Question...

Does anybody take psychiatry seriously these days? After Woody Allen, is it possible?

Oh, yes, the occasional person, after much hounding and harassment and oversight by his or her family, is given the right mix of medicines for something real and legitimate and devastating like schizophrenia.

But all those other drugs that are pissed into our water systems making Big Pharma, along with Arms, Oil and Illegal Drugs one of the Four Big Businesses in the world?

All those children, especially young boys, who are given psychotropics which make them far worse than they ever were before their nitwit parents or teachers sent them to the good doctor?

I'm amazed that this pseudo-science still exists or that its spooky practitioners are still allowed to hang their shingles and take money.

Remember that the psychiatrist who is "treating" Mr. Li, the nice man who cut off a guy's head on a Greyhound Bus, has reported recently that Li is making "good progress."

Doesn't that just about sum up this alleged discipline?