There are heroes: Peter Breggin
by Jon Rappoport
May 1, 2018
“I met a charming man today. Highly educated, a conversationalist of the first order, but with an underlying toughness, which I like. A tiger with very high IQ. But a friendly tiger who enjoys other people. To say he’s an excellent researcher would be a vast understatement. I can’t explain how all these qualities center in one man. Also, there is a sense he has great empathy. I suspect some of this comes from living with his wife, Ginger. His name is Peter Breggin.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
In the flood of the Information Era…
Heroes come and depart, with the news cycle. They were here for a moment, blazing across the sky, and then they faded.
They made a stirring mark, they achieved a great feat, and then they were consigned to the shadows.
But there ARE heroes. And despite the fashions of the moment, they REMAIN.
I met Peter Breggin 25 years ago. He was speaking before a group in Los Angeles about a project he had helped stop; a sinister university experiment to do invasive brain surgery on criminals and “pre-criminals” as a “cure.”
There is no way I can detail all of Peter’s accomplishments. A doctor and a psychiatrist, he has led a courageous struggle to expose his own profession down to its fraudulent roots. If you think that’s easy to do, from the inside, think again.
Through his work, he has shown us that the whole basis of modern psychiatry—mental disorders caused by chemical imbalances in the brain—is an unsupported and convenient speculation, designed to market toxic drugs.
His 1991 classic, Toxic Psychiatry, laid bare the devastating effects of the drugs.
In the same time period, Peter testified, as an expert witness, in the famous Wesbecker case, a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, the manufacturing of Prozac. Peter presented compelling evidence that Joseph Wesbecker, who had gone on a shooting rampage after being put on the drug, was pushed over the edge by Prozac.
In fact, as Peter has shown, the effort to develop and market hundreds of dangerous psychiatric drugs stemmed from an agreement between the profession of psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies. Faced with a rapid decline in business, psychiatry needed a major boost. Pharma provided funding, and psychiatric researchers began inventing scores of new “mental disorders,” for which the only treatment was the drugs.
Yet, none of the present 300 official disorders has a lab test to confirm its existence.
Recently, Peter and his wife, Ginger, have pioneered Empathic Therapy. Peter writes: “An empathic approach allows a therapist to use the healing power of professional therapy relationships rather than the mechanical or chemical manipulation of the brain. The goal of therapy is to help clients maximize their ability to be empathic and loving toward themselves and others, to live ethically, and to become autonomous and self-determining in the fulfillment of all their chosen goals and ideals. In contrast, biological psychiatry views people as objects and suppresses their feelings with brain-disabling treatments, thereby interfering with the development of empathy and love, and the ability to take rationally determined actions based on sound values.”
Those words should be posted in tall letters in every therapist’s office.
As a friend, Peter has meant a great deal to me. Over the years, he has encouraged my investigations into psychiatry and interviewed me several times on his radio show, so I could present my findings.
He has illustrated that the battle for the truth is a marathon, and we must be prepared for the long term and the long haul.
Several years ago, while I was working as an associate producer on the documentary, American Addict, I told the director, Sasha Knezev, to just put Peter on camera and let it roll. Peter is a genuine star, in the best sense of that word, and audiences in his presence are treated to the magnetic quality of his depictions of truth vs. lies.
Peter takes that real-life human drama to rare heights and depths.
What happens to the individual in the grip of a corrupt institution, versus the true potential of the individual, is at the forefront of Peter’s concern.
He has never surrendered, never given up the ghost, and he never will.
With Empathetic Therapy, he is training a whole new generation of therapists to, first and foremost, care about people. This is the heart of healing.
With this brief article, Peter, I salute you and thank you for your decades of tireless and brilliant work. You hold a torch and you light the way.
We dream of heroes, and we should. But we also need to recognize the living heroes, here and now, who are among us.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Excellent post. I think it’s good to be reminded that we are always surrounded by heroes. It’s so easy to forget there is a balance in this world. Most are never announced to us. They come in such ordinary packages. Someone just doing a good deed for someone who needs it. The villains greatest weapon is our publicizing their deeds, while ignoring those who expose them.
The villains greatest weapon is our publicizing their deeds, while ignoring those who expose them
(redneckdavinci)
I could not have said it any better.
Reblogged this on The zombie apocalypse survival homestead and commented:
Through his work, he has shown us that the whole basis of modern psychiatry—mental disorders caused by chemical imbalances in the brain—is an unsupported and convenient speculation, designed to market toxic drugs.
Excellent read. Not many will go against there peers! Right or wrong! He definitely has guts. LOL Just like the guy that use to do CBS Health Watch so many years ago!
Reblogged this on John Barleycorn and commented:
I subscribed to his alerts
A lesson in empathy from Jordan Peterson: Winning a heated argument with your significant other is not an achievement to be proud of, because then you have to live with the loser. The same principle applies on a national scope, we see the left wanting to pound the right into submission, and the right wanting the left to just magically go away. In my wanderings of late, I went to live in the most left city (Portland, OR) and stayed with hosts who were (unlike me) leftist. Rather than engage them in argument, I listened, without feeling threatened, without feeling the need to vanquish “the enemy.” I was in no danger of being converted, but I learned much about their genuine motivations and perceptions.
Here’s the point: if I were communicating anonymously over the Internet with them on some heated issue, my first impulse would be to shut them down with argument, sarcasm, belittling, etc. But when you realize you have to live with someone, even for a short time, you win by having empathy. Winning in this case means seeing each other in 3 dimensions instead of a 2-dimensional polemic.
So I give myself an assignment – each day, I strike up a conversation, in person, with a complete stranger and see how much I can get them to tell me all about who they are in five minutes. You would be surprised how many people are ready to tell you about their problems or their cherished stories, if you give them just a little chance to open up. It is rewarding. I might get an earful of political cant, but I don’t take the bait.
This assignment just doesn’t work well over the internet, because here we communicate without body language or facial expression or tone of voice. Then we convince ourselves that our arguments and logic are the most important part of ourselves, and we all know how obnoxious things can get at that point. Godwin’s Law kicks in.
We are all potential healers and heroes by practicing a little empathy with each other.
Yes Greg. People want so desperately to be listened to. Since I am a good listener, all of my life I have been listening to people in trouble.
You can read my previous post on an article by Jon, titled: We are having a spiritual experience
April 26, 2018
+1000
Thanks Greg, that was a really nice thing to read before bed. It reminds me of something Wayne Dyer said when you are in a ‘vigorous discussion’ with a loved one, “If you have a choice between being right and being kind, be kind.”
Why can’t I reblog lately?
Thanks for this important post about heroes! Takes one to know one!
Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
‘The battle for the truth’ is truly a marathon.
Dr. Peter Breggin is my hero. After I read his book “Talking Back to Prozac” in 1998. I certainly had my eyes opened and I am alive today because of the knowledge I have gleaned over the years about neurotoxicity of the brain and how to make it healthy again. Twenty years later, I count my blessings now instead of counting the number of pills that I was prescribed to consume every day and night. 0 now.
On another front – What’s Bloomberg up to??
“Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave $300 million to the school to establish the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, a program aimed at reshaping the nation’s public-health agenda”
https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Gifts-Roundup-300-Million/237826
I’m still not with you on this one, Jon.
Putting a righteous straightjacket over someone for the “greater good” is not empathy. It is a crusader effect that has caused the problems that face the world. The powers capitalise on “us versus them”. It is the foundation stone of all wars.
Best
OT
I’m pretty much with you on this, too.
https://survivalstockpile.com/2018/05/03/psychiatry-and-the-great-fraud/
Much as I appreciate what Dr Breggin has done about the drug fraud, he has not gone far enough. Jon is welcome to Pete being his hero. I don’t have any heroes, because hero adulation is an acknowledgement of one’s own impotence. The closest anyone comes to it for me is the late Thomas Szasz, who characterized the profession for what it is–a fraud built up on mendacity, collusion, and prostitution. (The practice of hypnosis falls precisely in these categories and is a substitute for long-term, life-changing genuine empathy.) Admiration and appreciation would be better terms toward such individuals.
It has long been known that men who seek out the sex prostitute often do so for not just the sexual ecstasy, but a listening ear. That makes the profession of psychiatry, like sexual prostitution, one of paid empathy–the kind that normally comes from people who are genuinely interested in your well-being out of friendship–agape love–without remuneration. In most cases, the lack of this kind of love is traceable to family/clan dynamics. Jeffrey Masson left the field because he could not in clear conscience take money from people who expected him to listen to their problems when he truly did not care. Empathy training is a crock. As long as money changes hands on it, and there is a professional body with Regulation behind it, it remains pseudo empathy. It is a fraud.
To verify what I had been reading in the literature, I engaged psycho “therapists” on occasion over a 20 year period to ascertain for myself if the process actually works. I found what Dr Bergin described from his sifting of professional studies in the 60s: the only clients who actually improved from talk “therapy” were those whose therapist exhibited benevolence, methodology having no discernible impact whatsoever on outcome.
At best, the practice is little more than “Friendship-for Hire”, and I can say unequivocally, when the remuneration goes away, so does the “friendship” (or empathy).
I agree with your comment on Dr. Szasz. I think his work and legacy speak for themselves. Breggin has the stench of psychiatry all over him. He believes in mental illness when it suits him.
As disgraced, i.e. truthful, Nobel winning geneticist Dr. James Watson has opined, there is so much we don’t know about the combination of genes and their effects. So it is with body chemistry.
Take, for example Dr. Terry Wahls, who was wheelchair bond with progressive MS, yet used food to reverse the process. https://terrywahls.com/about-the-wahls-protocol/ A few years ago, I spoke with an Olympic level speed skater, who used the protocol to reverse her own MS and return to competition. They refer to the body’s lack of micro-nutrients, and the need to replenish the body with them. They insist, every body is different and there is no one size fits all diet. They are, however, highly critical of the food production in North America, which is chock full of food additives – that is to say chemicals. The effect of many of those chemicals, whether on the farm or in the processing, is largely unknown.
It’s not that I disbelieve the statement “chemical imbalances in the brain—is an unsupported and convenient speculation, designed to market toxic drugs” as much as I believe it is incomplete.
MS is a neurological disorder. Any psychosis involves neurology at some level. Is the connection micro-nutrients? Homosexuality was seen as a psychiatric disorder, but that was de-listed without a shred of evidence that it wasn’t. The prime directive of any organism is to reproduce itself. Denial of that prime directive is a form of suicide, and therefore harmful to the individual and the species. I’m not gay bashing. I had a family member who was a homosexual, and worked with others. I felt sorry for their delusions.
Back to Dr. Watson: there’s so much we don’t know.
Why The Institution Of Psychiatry Is Fake
https://culturaltransmissions.com/why-the-institution-of-psychiatry-is-fake/