You know we keep saying that psychiatry cannot predict violence.
Psychiatrists are unable to predict whether a person is a danger to oneself or others as this relies upon subjective opinion, not science.
Behavioral threat assessment is not based on science but mostly conjecture, and such an inexact “science” means prediction can be futile.
The popular refrain that psychiatry can determine if a person is a danger to self or others is a complete fraud.
In fact, psychiatrists cannot predict, treat or cure violent behavior, and they know it. Prediction is a characteristic of awareness, so an inability to predict is a barrier to full awareness. This would also lead to an inability to contemplate consequences.
In 1979, an American Psychiatric Association’s task force admitted in its Brief Amicus Curiae to the U.S. Supreme Court (Case No. 79-1127) that psychiatrists could not predict dangerousness. It informed the court that “‘dangerousness’ is neither a psychiatric nor a medical diagnosis, but involves issues of legal judgment and definition, as well as issues of social policy. Psychiatric expertise in the prediction of ‘dangerousness’ is not established and clinicians should avoid ‘conclusory judgments in this regard.'”
To quote from the APA Task Force on Clinical Aspects of the Violent Individual (1974): “The ability of psychiatrists or any other professionals to reliably predict future violence is unproved.”
Psychiatrists do not have any scientific or medical test to diagnose a person’s condition, and rely upon faulty observation and opinion of behavior. They admit to not knowing the cause of a single mental disorder or how to cure them. The error in their opinions is enormous—they condemn the innocent, release the dangerous, induce violence in others through drugs and commit people who are not in need of help or turn those away who may genuinely be in need of it.
Really, what is psychiatry all about? Psychiatrists are really playing the game “Let’s find something wrong with them.”
What game should they be playing? “Let’s improve their abilities.”
The Importance of Prediction
Prediction is the process of weighing the consequences of projected action; it is an estimation of risk plus cost versus gain. Prediction is part of knowing and creating the future. Problems begin with an unpredictability, and humans would be bored to tears without a few problems to spice up Life. It is valuable to be able to make such considerations.
Interest is intimately connected to prediction. If one could predict the future with certainty, interest would be very low. Example: if everyone knew everyone else’s hands in a game of cards, there would be little interest in playing the game. On the other hand, if one could never predict at all, one would be easily overwhelmed and would likely quite playing that game. Example: what if everyone’s hand in a card game were made up solely of jokers? You get the idea. Each person has their own optimum ratio of prediction to surprise in order to maintain their interest.
It is not possible to look directly at the future, since it has not happened yet. One can, however, recall the past, look at the present and imagine the future. Lacking the ability to look at the present or imagine the future, however, leaves one only able to think. So thinking, in an aberrated fashion, is a substitute for prediction. Thus we get someone lost in thought instead of actively living the game of Life.
It is certainly possible to predict someone’s actions. Psychiatry then is missing a significant chunk of knowledge about humanity, and remains lost in thought instead of doing something about it.
The end result? Psychiatry has turned to violence themselves, since creating it is the only way they have of predicting it. Shock treatment, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) — the ultimate violence as a “treatment.”
