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Freedom and Coercion

Even in college, when Dr. Breggin was director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Mental Hospital Volunteer Program, he opposed the coercive practices so rampant in psychiatry, which include misinformation, authoritarianism, and involuntary treatment. He began criticizing coercion and involuntary treatment in his earliest scientific publications (1964 and 1965). This collection of papers makes available his earliest papers on the subject. Following the initial scientific articles, additional ones were published in magazines and journals that are not scientific in orientation. He also writes about psychiatric coercion in his book Toxic Psychiatry and then more systematically when he describes the three dynamics of love, voluntary exchange, and coercion in his book Beyond Conflict. He suggests that the reader take a good look at his seminal paper on the role of psychiatry in the Holocaust (1993) published in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, which concludes with a systematic look at the inherently oppressive principles of genetic and biological psychiatry. This paper was delivered in Germany at the first-ever conference on Medicine in the Third Reich.

Human Freedom versus Psychiatric Coercion and Involuntary Treatment

In 2016, Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD wrote a marvelous blog “Abolishing Forced Treatment in Psychiatry is an Ethical Imperative” on MadinAmerica.com. Dr. Gøtzsche’s words inspired me to write a blog with my latest thoughts and observations on psychiatric coercion and to develop this page starting with my earliest publications all […]

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Electroshock: Scientific, Ethical, & Political Issues (1998)

Breggin, PR. (1998). International Journal of Risk & Safety In Medicine, 11:5-40. Electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) is increasingly used in North America and there are attempts to further its use world-wide. However, most controlled studies of efficacy in depression indicate the treatment is no better than placebo, with no positive effect on […]

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