Dr. Peter Breggin is a vocal opponent of the concept that mental disorders exist. His ideas are often recited by people who believe in his ideas. I have collected information about Breggin here for everyones convience.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Breggin#Early_career_and_background
From Wikipedia
Controversial author and expert witness

Dr. Breggin's work provided the scientific basis for the original combined Prozac suits, for the more recent Ritalin class action suits, (all dismissed with nasty comments about Breggin's credibility by the Judges) and for label changes in many psychiatric drugs. All doctors have an implied duty to report new adverse drug reactions to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) MedWatch [1], prompting frequent and common label changes. An example of consequences possibly attributable to the discontinuation of medication is the murders committed by Andrea Yates of her own children. [2].

Breggin's credentials are questioned by some of his critics, as he as chosen not to further challenge the rejection of his American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology certification application. The certification is not a requirement in some states, though the board certification is attained by most psychiatrists in the US. His appeal was tossed out by a court, and confirmed on appeal, because "his methodologies weren't only extrapolations but 'a biased guess'."[3]

Some have criticized Breggin for his links to Scientology. According to Time Magazine, Dr. Breggin admits that he was once an ally of Scientology and that his wife was a member.[4] Breggin's research has drawn heavily from testimonials from Scientologist-supported support groups on depression.

Some of his writings on child sexuality are very controversial. In “The Psychology of Freedom” (pp. 207-209) he writes about "... Edited for mature content/subject

Link to interview of Lawyer who help defeat all Ritalin class action suits, where Breggin was an expert advisor.
http://www.faegre.com/articles/article_1099.aspx
...and new recent court loss.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1114679112406


Link to Quack Watch article on Breggin. He goes into detail about his many failures in court and quote Judges who rebuke him, here are some samples below.

1) "This court finds that the evidence of Peter Breggin, as a purported expert, fails nearly all particulars under the standard set forth in Daubert and its progeny. . . . . Simply put, the Court believes that Dr. Breggin's opinions do not rise to the level of an opinion based on "good science."

2) "The court believes not only is this gentleman unqualified to render the opinions that he did, I believe that his bias in this case is blinding. . . . I find that he . . . was not only unprepared, he was mistaken in a lot of the factual basis for which he expressed his opinion. . ."

3) "Dr. Breggin's observations are totally without credibility. I can almost declare him, I guess from statements that floor me, to say the he's a fraud or at least approaching that He has made some outrageous statements and written outrageous books and which he says he has now withdrawn and his thinking is different. He's untrained. He's a member of no hospital staff. He has not since medical school participated in any studies to support his conclusions except maybe one. . . . I can't place any credence or credibility in what he has to recommend in this case".

http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/breggin.html


Link to Breggin's idea that ADHD is really DAD ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER (DADD). It's about five headings down.
"In my clinical experience, most so-called ADHD children are not receiving sufficient attention from their fathers who are separated from the family, too preoccupied with work and other things, or otherwise impaired in their ability to parent. In many cases the appropriate diagnosis is Dad Attention Deficit Disorder (DADD) (Breggin, 1991)".

http://www.breggin.com/methylphen.html


Link to Breggin's home page ->http://www.breggin.com/


Breggin founded the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) and still has a major hand in this organization.
Link to the organization ->http://www.icspp.org/

Thanks for the collecting the info on Breggin -- it's good to know.

Scattered

Breggin gives me the creeps.

What happened to the FRAUD class action lawsuits against the makers of Ritalin and CHADD?


"The misguided legal saga that found APA defending itself in five jurisdictions against allegations that it conspired with a drug company to boost sales of Ritalin has died with barely a whimper.

And then there were none. The plaintiffs in the fifth of five Ritalin-related lawsuits against APA and Novartis Pharmaceutical have withdrawn their class-action suit"
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/37/7/1-a




Three years later Breggin and other Antipsych websites still make reference to lawsuits as if the cases hadn't been resolved. There is no update nor has the information been withdrawn. For Antipsych's it's not about being accurate, it's about bashing and creating doubt.

http://www.breggin.com/ritalin.html
http://www.breggin.com/stimindex.html
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/ritalin.htm
http://www.learnwhatsup.com/prc/health/ADHD/drug.html

At least Dr. Baughman(another antipsych) acknowledges the defeat.
http://www.adhdfraud.com/commentary/5-6-01-1.htm

Breggin is a scientologist, and his beliefs are ridiculous. I'd like to give him my son for a day, and see if he still disagrees with the ADHD diagnosis.

I don't believe he is a Scientologist, if he was, it was a long, long... time ago. He could have very well been influenced by the teachings of Scientology and I do believe he very much shares the same belief system about the mental health field.

Looking back on his publications, Breggin seems to have started out as one of the 60's anti-establishment psyciatrists such as, better-known, Thomas Szasz (a Scientologist according to WikiP) and RD Laing.

These are all practicioners who believe culture shapes or creates and defines mental illness (whether or not they believe mental illness exists). They also strive to protect the psychiatric patient against the psychiatric establishment. Szasz and Breggin, on one extreme, find the establishment coersive, Liang finds it misinformed.

(For what its worth, Szasz wrote a book I thought was insightful, titled Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers. Here he emphasizes the cultural production of addiction and drug abuse)


Early Breggin:

Malev, J. S.; Kaplan,...; Breggin, P. R.; Robinson, D. B., and Kraut, A. P. For better or for worse: a problem in ethics. Int Psychiatry Clin. 1965 Jul; 2(3):603-24.

BREGGIN, P. R. COERCION OF VOLUNTARY PATIENTS IN AN OPEN HOSPITAL. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1964 Feb; 10:173-81.

Breggin, P. Lobotomy--it's coming back. Liberation. 1972; 17(7):15-16, 30-5.

Breggin, P. and et, a. l. Comment on "Quizzing the expert: clinical criteria for psychosurgery". Hosp Physician. 1973 Mar; 9(3):79+.

The politics of therapy. MH. 1972 Summer; 56(3):9-12.

Breggin, P. R. Psychotherapy as applied ethics. Psychiatry. 1971 Feb; 34(1):59-74.

Breggin, P. R. Therapy as applied utopian politics. Ment Health Soc. 1974; 1(3-4):129-46.

Lundy, P. J. and Breggin, P. R. Psychiatric oppression of prisoners. Psychiatr Opin. 1974 Jun; 11(3):30-7.


Breggin goes from championing patients rights to attacking psychosurgery to opposing pharmaceutical approaches to psychiatry.

Later Breggin:

Breggin, P. R. Does clozapine treatment cause brain disease? Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998 Sep; 55(9):845.

The need for "ethical" human sciences and services. Ethical Hum Sci Serv. 1999 Spring; 1(1):3-6.

Psychiatry's reliance on coercion. Ethical Hum Sci Serv. 1999 Summer; 1(2):115-8.

Questioning the treatment for ADHD. Science. 2001 Jan 26; 291(5504):595.





Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with Breggin, I'm interested in the cultural production of Breggin and others like him:

how initial good intentions (who could argue with protecting patients) get twisted through ideology and pig-headedness.

Dr. Sancz along with Scientology help found The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). http://www.cchr.org/

Sancz, Breggin, Baughman, and other major players in the Antipsych movement strongly deny any involvement with Scientology. Yet Breggin worked within the The Prozac Survivors Support Group for his book Talking Back to Prozac http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/breggen.htm


Scientology funds OR RUNS several Educational groups, Applied Scholastics, ABLE, International Association of Effective Education, and Applied Scholastics. Baughman has written several articles in support of Applied Scholastics and ABLE. All of these Dr.'s attempt to distance themselves from Scientology and yet they share the same ideologies, goals, and even work side by side. No wonder the public is confused.

There are two threads in the Spirituality sections for discussions about Scientology:

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18118

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20537

Any further comments about the Church of S should be delivered there or in the Private Debates section.

Eeeeeek peoples exactly what is the topic here so i know what to do with this thread!!!! Is it about scientology (a spiritual discussion) Adderall Concerta, (a medications discussion), or Psychiatric theology of differnt practioitners not directly connected to the general publics ADD experience ( chit-chat), or is this a potiential debate item..... Think I will take my regular scheduled medication and give this some thought.....


General ADD is to be a section about how ADD effects life in general /over all ect as understood by the common mortal moderator.... please keep discussions here at least loosly but identifiable realted to ADHD that do not fit into other catagories already offered......

Thanks

Meadd, wish I could help you. Breggin swears he is not a Scientologist so this shouldn't go into the Religion section. The posts are factual and not contested so the debate section doesn't fit. he doesn't believe in Psych Meds so the medication section doesn't fit either.

Are you joking about the Chit Chat section? He is an incredible influence on current thinking about ADHD. If you go to wikipedia website, he is in there and not Barkley who is the leading expert in the field. People should really understand where society gets their ideas about this disorder. Thats why I started the thread. It's highly relevant to whats happening with ADHD today. I hear his thoughts echoed often on this board.

Maybe a new section entitled leaders in the field should be created?

In my clinical experience, most so-called ADHD children are not receiving sufficient attention from their fathers who are separated from the family, too preoccupied with work and other things, or otherwise impaired in their ability to parent.


This thoery has been abonden for over 15 years due to many studies of ADHD over the years. The most compelling are the studies of twins and the incidence of ADHD. Studies of idenical twins who share the same genes indicate that if one of the twins shows signs of ADHD the chances are very high the second twin will also show the same ADHD symptoms.


These results were comapred to the same study done on faternal twins who share the same parents and enviroment but do not share the same genetics. Studies showed that when one of the faternal twins showed signs of having ADHD the second twin's chances of having ADHD was not any higher than other sibblings produced by the same biological parents.

There was even a study published about a study of idenical twins who were genetically ideancal but seperated shortly after birth and reared in different household they two were just as likely to both have ADHD.

These studies dis-prove the theory that parental actions are responsible for ADHD. There have been numerious other studies that sopport genetics as being determining factor in ADHD.

Breggin has a blog and it should come as no surprise that he wrote about Tom Cruise. It is revealing and reinforces my point that Antispychs and Scientology share the same ideology and truly have a symbiotic relationship.

Here it is, straight from the horses mouth.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-pe...ise_b_4284.html
Thanks Tom Cruise

On June 25, 2005 Tom Cruise did the unthinkable on TV. Actually, he did several “unthinkables” in a filmed interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer for the Today Show.

First, Tom stopped smiling. He deprived us of that multi-million dollar grin and got serious.
For a star to do this to the American public was unthinkable.

Second, Tom pointed out that Matt Lauer actually was very “glib” (shallow) and didn’t know what he was talking about. He also urged Matt to be “more responsible” and to learn something about psychiatry before touting it. For a star to do this to a media personality was unthinkable. Since nearly all of them are shallow, this was a threat of potentially epidemic proportions. Suppose other guests began pointing out that media hosts don’t know what they are talking about and are shallow?

Third, he got serious about one of the most important issues in our personal lives, in this case our widespread use of psychiatric drugs to solve our personal distress and anguish. Tom concluded, “I’m passionate about life.” For anyone to speak this way on television, except perhaps on the Catholic channel, is truly beyond the TV pale; and even the Catholic channel doesn’t criticize psychiatry.

Fourth, he criticized psychiatry and drew attention to its genuine flaws and failings. I suspect he’s actually read my book, Toxic Psychiatry. Tom said that psychiatry had a long history of abusing people, including electroshock. He said, “There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.” He said that antidepressants can only “mask the problem” and that “these drugs are very dangerous.” He called psychiatry a “pseudoscience” and suggested that there are better approaches. He was right about all of this.

A few days later NBC invited me to New York City as a psychiatric expert to discuss the Tom Cruise affair on the Today Show, and when I began by saying it sounded like Tom had been doing some serious reading about psychiatry, I got cut off, again and again, throughout the show.

Why was the media both drawn into the story and shocked by it? It was too good a story to simply ignore: “Tom Cruise Gone Wild” was the theme. It should have been, “Tom Cruise gets serious.”

The media would have liked to attack Tom on the grounds that he’s a Scientologist. Scientologists seem to share a number of views about psychiatry with me, including everything Tom said. In fact, I’d go further. Modern biological psychiatry is a materialistic religion masquerading as a science.

How can I say that my profession of psychiatry is a materialistic religion? Because modern psychiatry makes believe that psychological and spiritual problems, such as anxiety and depression, are caused by mechanical failures in the physical brain, and because psychiatry then attempts to correct these psychological and spiritual problems with physical interventions such as drugs and electroshock. Modern biological psychiatry takes these views and implements these interventions on faith and it has won a lot of converts with the help of billion-dollar marketing campaigns. If you want more detailed analyses of the faith and fake science behind the claims of modern psychiatry, you’ll find them in my books such as Toxic Psychiatry (1991), Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry (1997), Talking Back to Ritalin (Revised, 2001), the Antidepressant Fact Book (2001) and the Ritalin Fact Book (2002). You can find my scientific papers on my website. In my books and on the website you’ll also find discussions of the many drug-free alternatives that are available for helping people with problems such as anxiety and depression.

The media kept hinting that the problem was Tom’s Scientology beliefs but they didn’t want to say it. To some extent it’s not politically correct to criticize someone’s religion, especially when people like Tom and John Travolta are members. But that was really not the issue. The media is afraid of Scientology because the religion has been extremely aggressive toward media critics, often charging them or threatening to charge them with libel and slander.

I was also invited on to CNBC’s the Donny Deutche talk show. This time I remained in Ithaca, New York, only a few blocks from my office in a high tech TV studio. I was kept waiting in front of the live camera for almost an hour and a half to get a word in as I watched Tom get excoriated. Although I could see the show on the uplink for this entire time as I sat waiting at any moment to be called upon, they decided not to link me into the show at all and I never got to say a thing in Tom’s defense or in criticism of biological psychiatry, drugs and electroshock. Sitting upright that long without twitching in anticipation of momentarily appearing on millions of televisions was hard enough, but listening to Donny was worse.

While I sat listening to the CNBC show that I was never brought onto, I felt a mixture of outrage and sadness. Outrage that the show host Donny Deutche bragged up his work in advertising where he helped to produce the Zoloft TV ads with their clever little bouncing faces that made the antidepressant so much more “accessible,” in his words, to millions of Americans. Donny was bragging about an actual fraud—ads that falsely suggest that Zoloft corrects biochemical imbalances and that leave out the warning that the drug causes mania, not to mention psychosis, violence and suicide.

What was tragic? Donny’s guest was Jane Pauley who was flogging her new book, Out of the Blue. Jane is the epitome of a media personality, having anchored the Today Show with Tom Brokaw and Bryant Gumbel, and having earned many broadcast awards. Jane is also a promoter of psychiatry. She admitted to having developed “hypomanic” (milder than full-blown mania) symptoms on an antidepressant. At the time, she explained, her mind and thoughts were racing and she couldn’t control them. But then she added that of course the drug didn’t make her become manic; the drug just “brought out” her underlying or pre-existing bipolar disorder.

Of course, I don’t know anything about Jane Pauley except what she’s told us and she’s not really the issue. Celebrities are actively recruited by marketing departments to promote medical and psychiatric treatments. I do know that psychiatrists often lie to patients to protect themselves and their drugs. My colleagues lie by saying the antidepressant merely “brought out” their mania, psychosis, violence or depression, rather than the drug caused it in the otherwise innocent victim. Jane Pauley thinks she is a victim of bipolar disorder when she sounds to me like a victim of psychiatry.
It’s no small matter to falsely inform a person that their drug-induced mania shows they have bipolar disorder. It results in a false diagnosis and a stigmatizing label (bipolar or manic-depressive disorder) that follows people for the rest of their lives. It leads to additional medications, often including antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa and Risperdal that can cause lethal diabetes and pancreatitis, and tardive dyskinesia, a potentially disfiguring and disabling neurological disorder characterized by bizarre-looking abnormal movements.

So the media personalities had a feast promoting their religion, psychiatry, while Tom Cruise got hammered for criticizing psychiatry, and indirectly promoting his religion, Scientology.

No, I’m not a Scientologist. Except when they occasionally say hello to me at conferences, I have hardly spoken to a Scientologist in more than thirty years. But when I saw Tom’s bravery come out from behind his marvelous smile, I wanted to help, and I made clear I wanted to defend him.

Well, Tom, you said on TV things I’ve been saying in the media and in my books and scientific articles for three decades—but boy did you generate a lot more attention to the issues. Thanks!

I'd argue that the "father issue" thing is likely one of those situations that illustrate how correlation does not imply causation. My reaction would be that AD/HD is likely hereditary, which makes sense when you look at my parents, and that the issues of a father who is always distracted and never pays attention to the kids, always preoccupied with something else, are really the fact that the father likely has AD/HD symptoms as well, and that it is his genes, not his actions, which cause his son to develop AD/HD

Oh, and I've found that it's usually very easy to tell the quacks from the real scientists and doctors. A real PhD/MD will report scientific evidence in qualified terms, speaking of statistical significance, multiple peer-reviewed studies, corellations between sets of data, and differentiate between hypotheses and evidence, stressing that effect can be shown by evidence, but causation is often only hypothetical.

Quacks, on the other hand, tend to speak in absolutes. They tend to pick one or two pieces of evidence and trumpet them. They are RIGHT and other claims are WRONG. Evidence, when presented, tends to be anecdotal, and there is often little differentiation made between corellation and causation, or between hypothesis and observation.

The hereditary/genetic etiology has been proven many times over.

Many of the things that anti-psych's talk about can't be measured (or they deliberately avoid that idea), so it's more of a "subjective philosophy."

In the latest (Sept-Oct) issue of the National Psychologist, there's a story on APA (Amercian Psychological Association: not the "other" APA( Am Psychiatric Assoc.) that reports : "Evideneced based psychology gets APA council approval."

That's wonderful news, as it lends support to the national trend of psychologists needing to be able to "prove/show" that what they're doing for a particualr problem (including test instruments) actually works for that problem.

Oh, and I've found that it's usually very easy to tell the quacks from the real scientists and doctors. A real PhD/MD will report scientific evidence in qualified terms, speaking of statistical significance, multiple peer-reviewed studies, corellations between sets of data, and differentiate between hypotheses and evidence, stressing that effect can be shown by evidence, but causation is often only hypothetical.

Quacks, on the other hand, tend to speak in absolutes. They tend to pick one or two pieces of evidence and trumpet them. They are RIGHT and other claims are WRONG. Evidence, when presented, tends to be anecdotal, and there is often little differentiation made between corellation and causation, or between hypothesis and observation.

Excellent observations. :)

Ditto. Excellent points.

That's why we gravitate towards Barkley,Biederman, Kevin Murphy, Sam Goldstein, George Du Paul, etc.

One of my favorites is a well respected researcher named.....George Bush.

He always introduces himself as George "No W" Bush.

His work is very good and the neurodevelopmental pediatrician I saw Mon pm qouted some of his work.

The research I qoute is all "mainstream." Thats where the (real) science is unfolding.

Thanks again.

So the media personalities had a feast promoting their religion, psychiatry, while Tom Cruise got hammered for criticizing psychiatry, and indirectly promoting his religion, Scientology


You sound like you live an exciting life scuro being invited to talk shows and such....and the clebs. I guess it is cool meeting them ...personally speaking I really don't care what celebreties think of medicine, psychology,religion, or the weather.

I do find your points of view challenging because they are very different than my own....which is cool!!! To me you are "real life' interactive three demensional. I can ask questions and recieve answers......

I guess is what I am saying is Tom Cruise and Pauly whomever are like ,plasitc two demisional TV beings. I want them to do thier job which is acting, achoring ect.....but quit trying to be experts on every thing.In other words do their job act achor then shut the #@^&** up!!!! Those star shows that waste TV time airing these TV peoples personal life crud/prespectives on subjects they know little or nothing about is quite nauseating to me. This is a free country and often stupidity sells however just because a cleb, thinks some thing doesn't make it true.

The very idea that I would believe Tom Cruise, Donny or Pauly over the neurophysicrist I have been seeing for over ten years whould be bright like a burnt out light!!!!!!!

Later Breggin:

Breggin, P. R. Does clozapine treatment cause brain disease? Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998 Sep; 55(9):845.

The need for "ethical" human sciences and services. Ethical Hum Sci Serv. 1999 Spring; 1(1):3-6.

Psychiatry's reliance on coercion. Ethical Hum Sci Serv. 1999 Summer; 1(2):115-8.

Questioning the treatment for ADHD. Science. 2001 Jan 26; 291(5504):595.

The Science reference is actually a letter to the author. I happened to be browsing PubMed yesterday, because someone posted an article on a German messageboard that cited all kinds of quacks, including Breggin an Baughman. If anyone's interested, there's a response to his assertions here, stating one of the experiments he cited was methodologically flawed:

Faraone, S.V; Biederman, J; ADHD: disorder or discipline problem? Science, 2001 Feb 23;291(5508):1488-9.
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5508.1488