Why is there no "anti-neurology" movement or "anti-oncology" when their results are so often worse than ours? 1)Relationship much less intimate 2)Treatments more technical 3)Symptoms less personal 4)Expecations more reasonable 5)Judgment more objective 6)Tranference much weaker
Dr Annie Hickox, Clinical Psychologist@DrAnnieHickox
Sep 25
Is it fear and stigma surrounding mental illness driving the disproportionate attacks on psychiatry/psychology? What other reason leads people to single out mental health services rather than all the other medical specialties?

Sep 25, 2026 · 3:07 PM UTC

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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Coercion is one obvious answer. I certainly would not expect to be detained against my will by a neurologist or oncologist. And not a single test or scan in decades of consults with psychiatrists in my case.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Yes, neurologists have no answers for all those with neurological conditions resulting from psych meds. We'd be in a better place had psychiatrists acknowledged these harms rather pile on the diagnoses and meds. Why is the US 10yrs behind the rest of the world regarding PSSD?
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Expecations more reasonable. Psychiatry's problems are of its own making, primarily overpromising & claiming omniscience.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
I don't know enough about neurology and oncology but I'm pretty sure both of them rely on much more robust science without the coercive forceful nature of psychiatry.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Neurology and oncology are real medicine, objective confirmable abnormalities. Psychiatry is voodoo, made up labels for normal behavior. Psychiatry is to medicine what astrology is to astronomy.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Critics of psychiatry aren't "antipsychiatry," they're pro-science. Neurology is imperfect. But there's hope of improvement because it targets real medical illnesses that can be studied. Psychiatry's "treatments" won't improve because "mental illness" isn't found in the body.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
The fear & stigma shtick is dated industry propaganda. Every diagnostic category – even misogynistic fiction ‘BPD’ - attracts literally BILLIONS of TikTok hits. Zoomers collecting dxs & drug regimens like consumer goods 1/
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
'Personal ' - in part, because corporate psychiatry claims to be able to understand the workings of a person's mind better than the person whose mind it is. No-one can.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
People criticize, criticize, criticize, but when they have a crazy person on their hands that they can't ignore, who do they call. Maybe the police to just put them in a cage, but not if it is someone they care about. When psychiatry and neurology split, neurology got what was physically identifiable pathology and psychiatry got the undefined and mysterious, so of course psychiatry is mushy. Epilepsy was a psychiatric illness until a psychiatrist showed EEG abnormalities that could be seen, then it was moved to the neurology column.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
coercion is rare in most of medicine, but not in psychiatry.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Gee, I wonder. Could it possibly be because neurology and oncology are actual medical specialties while psychiatry is pretending to be? Get a grip.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Because they don't label teenaged chronic trauma survivors "personality disordered" and thus ruin their future by getting them locked in a cycle of ineffective behavioral therapies that do nothing to address the trauma, prescribing medication that leads to permanent neurological and physical damage, and denying them fair or unbiased healthcare because they have now been essentially labeled a problem patient, manipulative, untrustworthy, etc. That's just one major reason; there are hundreds more!
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
LOL. :) There is a major anti-neurologist movement as neurologists tend to be the most dissociated assholes of all medical professions.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Because your population of Narcissists/Sociopaths/Psychopaths/Sadists ABUSE PEOPLE That's why
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
They don’t use police to drag you off to hospital against your will. If you say no to their drugs they don’t lock you up or force you to sleep on a mattress on the floor in a seclusion room. They don’t use a gang to physically restrain, strip naked, and force the drugs into you. They don’t strip search you. They don’t employ a tribunal or other agency to take over every aspect of your life, including your finances. They don’t force their way into someone’s home to force drugs onto their patients. They don’t lock you up if you refuse to attend an appointment. The diagnostic labels are not as stigmatising. The public generally shows compassion for their diagnoses. They can actually do medical tests (bloods, scans) to make a diagnosis. They don’t use threats to force compliance. They don’t knowingly lock patients up with violent offenders or sexual predators. Their patients generally don’t die by suicide or homicide while in hospital under their care.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
And other movements often claim an absolute ability to solve our domain (which we don’t claim). So we are viewed as a bogeyman of sorts.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
No, psychiatry is criticized because: - It violates human rights regarding liberty and respect for physical and mental integrity, and because it engages in torture. - It drugs children. - It invents imaginary brain disorders. - It dehumanizes and stigmatizes. - Is circular logic.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
They treat a real system/organ not an imaginary/belief based entity called "the mind" whatever that is.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Sometimes its genuinely abusive practices on wards... sometimes its abusive practitioners which gets reflected onto the profession as a whole sometimes... its easier than acknowledging their own behaviours impulses and unreasonable demands
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
@DrAnnieHickox This argument falls at the first hurdle. While they may not use the anti-X framing, there are grievance communities centred around oncology and neurology treatment regret too. And let's not follow with a 'No True Scotsman' claim either. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_tru…

No true Scotsman - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Plusieurs hypothèses peuvent être évoquées. D'abord, deux paradigmes différents : la majorité des maladies neurologiques (et somatiques) ont un substrat physiopathologique (une lésion, ou une explication), tandis que la psychiatrie peine à expliquer les raisons derrière les troubles. Des hypothèses sont avancées, des conséquences sont observées, mais la physiopathologie n'est souvent pas déterminée. Par définition, les troubles psychiatriques correspondent à des variations de la normale... Mais beaucoup se demandent qu'est-ce que la normalité finalement ? Cet aspect joue énormément. Ensuite, il y a leur incompréhension. Renforcée par l'absence de lésion retrouvée, beaucoup considèrent les troubles psychiatriques comme des « faiblesses » plutôt que comme des maladies. La divergence de prise en charge proposée sur des mêmes cas renforcent cette incompréhension. On peut également citer leur fréquence élevée (beaucoup de malades mentaux s'ignorent), la faible proportion de guérison vs chronicisation, etc.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Why? Are you joking? Now you’re hallucinating that your “profession” is more effective than neurology and oncology when you can’t agree on a “diagnosis” more than 50% of the time? You claim exclusivity over self harm dynamics yet the rate of self harm is up 30% from 2002-2022
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
There is an anti medical establishment movement due to the documented failures within the field. Highest costs with high morbidity and mortality compared to other G8 countries. Our institutions are failing and have lost the majority of public trust (Jana network 7/24).
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
You cant compare psychiatry to those you could compare it to cosmetic medicine in a way that they also medicalise humanly things (ugliness, aging) but they let the customers choose what they want to medicalise by not framing it as some disease unlike psychiatry.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
You won’t go to 3 oncologists and get 3 completely different diagnosis. Perhaps different prognosis but there is a reality at the center.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
With almost no one refusing cancer treatment, cancer soon predicted to overtake heart disease as the leading cause of death in the US. This, per the CDC.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Only psychiatry claims the authority to judge one's fitness as a human being.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Measurements. That's the one word The splits these apart. We have physical entities that can be detected in neurology and oncology. We don't have those in psychiatry. At least not yet
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
There is an anti-oncology movement (multivitamins naturopathy etc) and an anti-neurology movement ( mostly found around ASD treatment)
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
BECAUSE YOU CAN CUT OPEN A SKULL AND SEE THE HUMAN BRAIN, AND BECAUSE YOU CAN LOOK AT CANCER CELLS UNDER A MICROSCOPE AND SEE THAT CANCER EXISTS. ALSO, CAN YOU STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR "PATIENTS" AS IF THEY'RE YOUR GIRLFRIENDS? YOU'RE A DISGUSTING RAPIST WITH NO CONCEPT OF BOUNDARIES.
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Camus
@newstart_2024
8 Oct 2025
A powerful and unsettling account from psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Shipko exposes a critical failure in modern psychiatry: the suppression of informed discourse. He acknowledges a complex reality—psychiatric medications help some people and harm others. The core issue isn't this duality, but the systemic refusal to acknowledge the downside. Dr. Shipko reveals that any attempt at informed criticism—simply discussing adverse effects, risks, or prescribing practices—is met with immediate dismissal. You are labeled an "anti-psychiatrist," a tactic designed to marginalize and silence nuanced debate. He shares a shocking personal experience: while giving a balanced Grand Rounds presentation on the adverse effects of SSRI antidepressants, he was booed off the lectern. The mere act of presenting uncomfortable data was too much for his peers to hear. This isn't about banning medications. It's about the ethical necessity of informed consent and open dialogue. When the field silences its own critics, it fails its patients. The pursuit of scientific truth is replaced with dogma, and the people who pay the price are those seeking help. The question remains: Why is a profession dedicated to healing so resistant to a full and honest conversation about the tools it uses?
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
Sadly I can't respond to Dr Hickox for some reason
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Replying to @AllenFrancesMD
#6
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