Today I talk about Scientology and their war on professional mental health care. And some of the bizarre beliefs about psychiatry and psychology. And of course, my late husband, Brian.
My late husband, Brian, always said, "Scientology saved my life." For the first year or so I just smiled and nodded - and wondered what the heck that meant. Later I began to ask about it. Did they pull you out of the way of an oncoming truck? Nurse you through polio? Stop a terrorist attack in progress? (Okay, I may not have been that... ahem... overtly... ahem...sarcastic but I may have thought it.) The answer to my more generically worded question was, for years, sketchy. "They just did." "I was a mess." "All the wins I got from the tech." And then he'd start expounding on how great the tech was and "if only I could get more Scientology." Since that tended to lead to me rolling my eyes (always excellent relationship behavior, by the way) after a while I just didn't ask.
It was years later that he finally told me 'saving his life' meant he stopped taking anti-depressants and other psych meds when he got involved with the church. Now, I'll be the first to tell you I'm not a big fan of drugs of any sort but I never thought of ditching anti-depressants as life saving. Quality of life? Maybe one could make an argument for that; it would be up to the person making that choice. But life saving? I was back to smiling and nodding.
By the time he explained the life saving heroism of Scientology I had a fair understanding of their position on psych meds: Evil and forbidden. But I didn't really understand the hate/hate relationship with the field of psychiatry and psychology. L Ron Hubbard taught, and Scientologists believe, psychiatrists are actively seeking to destroy humanity by continuing to decrease their 'abilities by fogging their brains with these medications. All psychiatrists. And the psychologists too. And probably your local school counselor. Not only that, the evil psychs have the government in their pocket, and use the power of legislation to forward their evil designs on humans. They're bad. Really bad.
How do you even address that kind of crazy belief? And here's the interesting cognitive dissonance -
...more here.