Psychiatrists Cannot Adhere to Informed Consent Laws… Even If They Wanted To

     By Robert Carter/October 3, 2024

     For over one hundred years medical professionals have been legally required to inform patients of their diagnosis and of the scientific reasons for it. They must also specify the benefits and risks of the treatment recommended, of the alternative treatments that are available, and of doing nothing at all.

     The patient then signs the informed consent form as part of his medical records to show that this legal requirement has taken place. That full disclosure helps keep patients in control of their own medical decisions and it is both a legal and an ethical requirement for the medical field.

     If you are diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, for instance, your doctor will show you the results of the blood tests, albumin tests, and sodium tests that show the physical evidence for that diagnosis.

     A psychiatrist has no such objective criteria on which to base his diagnosis. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists 374 categories of “diagnosis,” but none of them are based on any physical, objective criteria. There is no such thing, for instance, as a “chemical imbalance,” as has been proven by many studies over the years.

     Instead, each mental disorder in the DSM is voted on by a small panel of psychiatrists and then published in the current edition of the manual. The first edition in 1952 listed 106 disorders, but that number has more than tripled over the years to the three hundred plus categories now listed in the fifth edition.

     There is no scientific test for any of them.
     
     They are all based on the opinions of psychiatrists who, at best, are working from the reports of their patients about what symptoms they’re experiencing.

     That’s like asking someone if they think they have cirrhosis of the liver to get a medical diagnosis. The patient doesn’t know. He just knows he doesn’t feel well. The patient and his doctor have to rely on the results of the lab tests, MRI’s, CAT scans, and EEGs that are performed to come up with a trustworthy diagnosis.

     A psychiatrist does not have that ability, given the subjective nature of the DSM’s list of disorder diagnoses like “Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder” or “Unspecified Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.” You don’t even have to be experiencing particularly specific symptoms to be so diagnosed. A psychiatrist’s diagnosis is not an
objective medical statement, but it is necessary so that your insurance company will pay for the medication he prescribed for you.

     If his diagnosis is questionable, so too then is his going over the informed consent points for the risks and benefits of the recommended treatments. He – and you, his patient – are off on the wrong foot to recovery from the get-go.

     Chances are good that a psychiatrist will recommend some medication for your “condition,” but chances are not so good that he will fully inform you of the benefits and the risks of that medication. He might not read you the black box warnings on antidepressants, for instance, which warn of the risk of suicidal behavior or thought, liver damage, reduced blood clotting or decreased sexual desire or performance.

     A psychiatrist may also not be well informed on the myriad of alternative, natural treatments available. Med schools don’t spend more than a couple hours on a Thursday afternoon going over the constitutional benefits of vitamins and supplements, let alone acupuncture or yoga.

     You might not also be told of the benefit of doing nothing at all other than waiting for a few weeks for your “depression” to subside after the death of your grandmother before you can once again go on happily with your life…rather than being drugged into a zombie state to mask the appropriate emotions by ingesting a psychotropic drug.

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