Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Religion: Myths We live By

Todays story begins with a brief discussion of "The Book of Woe: The DSM and The Death of Psychiatry" by psychologist Gary Greenberg. In it Greenberg demontrates how the same psychiatrists who developed the DSM refer to it as "bullshit" and a "noble lie." While I will discuss the book itself at a later date (hopefully with Dr. Greenberg himself) the book makes clear that psychiatry fits its own definition of a delusion: a false belief held as true in the face of all evidence that disproves it. To mental health professionals delusions are proof of the most serious forms of mental illness and disorders. We will then continue with the Freudian and Psychoanalytic interpretation of how delusions represent defence mechanisms that create alternate views of reality too painful for the deluded individuals to live by and Freud's contention that all religions are, in fact, myths and delusions! I will then discuss Freud's theory that sexual repression causes mental illness and suggest that this was Freud's delusion, accepted by a majority of psychonanalysts. Finally, I will suggest that our species lives according to myths and delusions that we are destroying ourselves and our planet by doing so. I will end by hoping  that my beliefs are delusions and that I am wrong about everything I said in tonight story.