The great mental health debate....

So this mild rant is a little late, as the event which has sparked my ire happened over a fortnight ago. One day, whilst navigating the crazed mothers and deranged shoppers of Pana, I was stopped by a gent and a young girl giving out leaflets about a "Mental Health Awareness Weekend" in Cork City Hall that was due to take place. Being a person who has a keen interest in mental health issues for many reasons, I was very interested in this. However, I was unfortunately unable to attend for personal reasons. Having now learned more about the event afterwards, I really, really regret not being able to go, but for very different reasons. It turns out the "awareness" event, was actually organised by the Church of Scientology. I realised that this wasn't an event raising awareness on mental health, but a propaganda excercise. The Church (I really do use that term loosely) preaches the evils of psychiatry in both theory and practice. According to them, psychiatry is more or less the root of all evil and should be banned. or, to quote the current leader David Miscavige, addressing the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) in 1995:
"Objective One - place Scientology at the absolute forefront of Society. Objective Two - eliminate psychiatry in all its forms. We don't care what the current thinking is regarding what's wrong with the planet. Government won't handle it. Politics won't handle it. Legislation won't handle it. All that's going to handle it is what we, of the IAS, have set down in stone. Let's get rid of psychiatry, and let's bring Scientology to every man, woman and child on this planet."
So there you have it folks. Psychiatry is a load of tripe, go join Scientology and they will fix all your mental health ills. Hmm. I think not somehow....
Now, I must try really hard to be diplomatic here. I have never had very much time for Scientology. It's definitely filed under "cult" and not so much "religion" in my estimation. But I must admit I wasn't really aware of it's mental health policies. The exorbitant amount of money they con out of people and the fact their teachings are based on that of a Science Fiction writer were enough to put me off. But having discovered that there are even wackier and more nonsensical aspects to their doctrine both amused and enraged me. Firstly I feel compelled to point out that I am not saying that psychiatry is perfect. I have my own qualms about it for certain reasons. And I do admit they can be a bit trigger happy with prescribing medication at times. I'm a firm believer in talk therapy as well as or, if possible, instead of medication. But for more serious mental health disorders, they are needed. I myself suffer from depression, and have found counselling and, to a lesser extent, medication, invaluable in my recovery frm my worst episodes. Someone close to me has a more severe disorder, and their quality of life has tripled since they began to be properly treated with medication. And I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe either he or I would be better off ditching the medical and psychological professions and subscribing to Scientologists and Dianetics. We couldn't afford it for one thing. ;)
For further reading, have a looksee here:

http://www.corkindependent.com/local-news/local-news/protest-to-city-hall-exhibition/

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/06/27/story66081.asp

http://www.cchr.ie—

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry—

http://www.psychassualt.org