Having lost a friend to Scientology (she got out after 12 years, but thus never went to college or did many of the other things on her list before they trapped her), I do not believe scientologists are entitled to their harmful beliefs. Besides, scientology’s anti-psychiatry stance is analogous to those cults which thing that if they just pray hard enough, God will cure their child’s appendicitis or other non-curable condition. Scientology is destructive.

“The ideal scene is someone not having to take antipsychotic drugs.”

Yeah, and it would be optimal if you never had to take an antibiotic. But in the real world people get sick, and sometimes they need drugs to get well.

@ Jude - Out of sheer curiosity, I read L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought a few years ago. I could see (at least, I think I could see) some of the attraction to Scientology, but it’s not for me. I have yet to read Hubbard’s Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, though I’ve heard it caused quite an uproar.

I’m sorry about your friend. I hope she is, or is starting to, get her life where she wants it now.

@ Joel - I agree a hundred percent.

I only half listened to the interview this morning but basically Cruise received so much backlash that he was sorry he said it on Tv.
“No such thing as a chemical imbalance?” Too bad he’s not a woman in menopause…

Perhaps Cruise’s point would have been better made if he had stated *there is no test* that can determine if an individual has a chemical imbalance.

Unlike diseases such as cancer or diabetes, diagnoses of mental illness are based on clusters or reported or observed symptoms. A patient could easily see several doctors and receive several different diagnosis. As a result, what is presented as a science often becomes a subjective practice…

‘“There are lots of studies which show that clinicians diagnose most of their patients with one particular disorder and really don’t systematically assess for other disorders. They have a bias in reference to the disorder that they are especially interested in treating and believe that most of their patients have.” Unfortunately, because psychiatry and its sister disciplines stand under the authoritative banner of science, consumers are often reluctant to challenge the labels they are given. Diagnoses are frequently liberating, helping a person to understand that what he views as a personal failing is actually a medical problem, but they can in certain cases become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Source: http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot.com/2007/01/alix-spiegel-dictionary-of-disorder.html

I’m not familiar with Cruise’s entire comments but certainly, if he had pointed out this potential diagnostic flaw, I would have to agree with him.

@ Dee - That is so true, lol.

@ spiritual_emergency - Thanks for chiming in. I believe the argument that there are no tests to determine chemical imbalances is on the fast track to becoming outdated. While there are no current approved tests (that I know of), researchers are working on blood tests to detect mental illnesses. I hope that in the near future, these tests will be a working reality; no doubt they will help many people.

However, here in the present, we must make do with what we have. It’s similar to how patients of various illnesses (and their doctors) had to make do before there were tests (or even knowledge) of such health conditions as cancer, AIDS, diabetes, etc. We haven’t always known so much about these health conditions - that didn’t make them any less real, and we had to make do with treatment options as they became available. Cruise could have easily said, “There are no tests that determine chemical imbalances,” but that could be swiftly counter argued with, “Yes, but there didn’t used to be tests for any health condition. We have to discover them, and that takes time.”

Thanks for the link regarding blood tests and chemical imbalances/diagnoses. That article was from Jun/2007. I found something slightly more current but it appears a reliable blood test for diagnosing mental illness is still a long way off: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23337532/

Even once such tests are available there will still be inconsistencies to iron out. For example, thyroid disorders can mimic depression but a thyroid function test can help rule out this possibility. When that test is performed clinicians will assess the patient’s TSH function against a normal range. However, just as some people are tall and some are short, an individual’s normal range may be something entirely outside of “the norm”

So too with “chemical imbalances”. To take the case of Dee, she may be well aware that she is different since the onset of menopause but if a doctor took a blood sample and declared that she was “just fine” as based on her results, where would that leave Dee?

Ultimately, we like to believe there are easy answers and solutions (if not now, just around the next corner!) but when it comes to the mind, consciousness, the brain, the emotions and even the definition of reality — science still has a long way to go. Until then, people will simply do their best to cope with whatever they get. That goes for Mr. Cruise as well.

@ spiritual_emergency - Thanks for the extra link. Here’s to hoping the tests and other advancements are nearer than farther

It’s no different from an overly rigid parent that will accept nothing less than perfection from his kids.

Hopefully Surry will be bipolar with a severe manic episode (just as an example here folks) and end up in lockdown after age 18. Then he can preach his bs to the psychiatrist working with drugs and therapy to save her life. Would he “believe” in saving her life?

@ Damien - I do often wonder what people like Cruise (people with his attitude toward mental health, psychiatry, medications, etc.) would do if mental illness hit them a bit closer to home. It’s very often that we change our tunes when “it happens to us,” you know?

I wouldn’t listen to a thing cruise says about scientology and psychiatry.
Scientology was created by a science fiction writer who plagerised dead mental therapists works and then combined hypnosis, brainwashing, and forced perception to accomplish “Clearing of the body” in reality, it does nothing. they’ll proport it does but it doesn’t.

I know… I was there. Scientologys goal is to make money.

by the way under the 2nd amendment I am entitled to my opinion and base it off of various studies. any pursuit to have this comment traced back or removed from an outside agency (scientology lawyers) constitutes a 2nd amendment violation. Furthermore, as no copyright works were referanced, there is no pressure on the writer of the blog to reveal the identity of any writer critical of scientology.
Keep that in mind cause they are notorious for going after people who disagree with them.

edit 1st amendment.