Tom who?

May I have a drumroll please? Mr. Tom Cruise has declared war on Psychiatry! And the world stood still and the mountains listened and the vast sea stopped its ever ebbing and flowing motion! Perhaps even the Sun herself took a moment! He called psychiatry a "pseudo-science". A person whose last contact with Science was probably in 7th grade chemistry (and I'm sorry but Scientology doesn't count), called a 5000 year old testament to human innovation, exploration and self knowledge a fraud. It would probably be a laughable matter (after all the dignity and status of psychiatry - or any science - doesn't, thank god, hinge on Mr. Cruise) except these words were uttered by a "public figure" and reached thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people. The other laughable matter is myself of course, for I will reach - how many? Two? Five people? I should be so lucky.

Yet, the presence - or absence - of an audience is no reason to not say something, or write something as the case may be. Thus, let me say, that psychiatry is not a fraud. Certainly not. What Mr. Cruise - and many others - fails to do is distinguish between the Science and those who serve it. Because, make no mistake, right underneath his discrediting opening Mr. Cruise makes a valid point. One that the... "pseudo science" has debated for a long time and is debating still: Are drugs good or bad?

I will not delve into this question, because it would take volumes, volumes which I am not qualified to write. I will tell you what I think, though, as someone training in psychiatry in the very early stages (yes, if you didn't know I'm on my way to becoming a shrink). Drugs have almost no place in treating children (many psychiatric schools agree with this, or rather I agree with them). It is unfortunate that Mr. Cruise was offered drugs for his dyslexia, it is unfortunate that so many children with ADHD are just given a pill and not given a second thought. But that is not the fault of the science, but of the people serving it.

Now, let me tell you something about psychiatry. It is vast and - perthaps unfortunately, but unavoidably - depends on the person. Sure, there are "minimums" one must fulfill in order to be awarded the degree, but the practice, the help one offers patients in the end, depend upon the doctor's knowledge, intelligence, self cultivation, personal beliefs and much more that cannot be quantified. Thus many kinds of psychiatrists emerge: The great bulk (I'd like to think), who treat the patients to the best of their ability (and yes, drugs are sometimes necessary, get that through your skulls). Then there are other kinds, the downright incompetent ones, but also the ones who have made their practice a little industry: What is easier? Listening to a patient, scheduling many intense sessions and getting to a cure in the end? Or half-listening to the patient's complaints and prescribing "appropriate" medication thus making everyone happy (pharmaceutical companies included)?

Now, again, don't get me wrong: Pharmaceutical companies provide doctors with necessary tools, without which our life expectancy would still be 40. But again, as with any tool, drugs can be used properly, or abused.

I have written too much and am starting to get incoherent, I apologize. Let me finish by saying that I have personally (through association) suffered harm, because medicine wasn't as advanced 20 years ago as it is today. Or perhaps because that certain doctor didn't know enough. Does this mean that medicine is fraud? No, that generalization might be made by a 5 year old, but not by an educated adult. In the same vein, are there bad psychiatrists? Of course there are! Are there still advances to be made in the field? I will not even answer that, it's too obvious. Is there a phenomenon of doctors over prescribing drugs? Yep! Unfortunately there is and we should look for the causes in the scientific community (doctors), in the industrial quadrant (pharmaceutical companies) and - in no small degree - in society (parents, schools, the patients themselves). Does all this mean that psychiatry is a fraud? Well, I'd hope that even Mr. Cruise would agree... no.