Iatrogenic Quotes

FMSF Advisory Board Members Dr Martin Orne and Dr Louis Jolyon West are CIA and military mind control contractors with TOP SECRET CIA clearance. Both received MKULTRA contracts to study dissociative disorders, implantation of false memories, and techniques for creation of Manchurian Candidates. The dissociative disorders, false memories, and the therapist-created multiple personality are the focus of the FMSF campaign. ~ Colin A. Ross

The USDHEW calculates that 7% of all patients suffer compensable injuries while hospitalized ... One out of every five patients admitted to a typical research hospital acquires an iatrogenic (Caused by the treatment process) disease, one case in thirty leading to death. Half of these episodes result from complications of drug therapy; amazingly, one in ten come from diagnostic procedures. ~ Ivan Illich

The story of Sybil is true, not fictional or fraudulent. One early commentator actually suggested that Sybil and Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, her treating psychiatrist, were a case of folie à deux, or shared psychosis (Victor, 1975). Having met Dr. Wilbur, listened to her presentations on multiple personality (now known as dissociative identity disorder), and read the many critiques and reviews of Sybil, I have concluded that Sybil was not iatrogenically created by Dr. Wilbur. ~ Philip M. Coons

Environmental degradation is an iatrogenic disease induced by economic physicians who treat the basic malady of unlimited wants by prescribing unlimited growth ... Yet one certainly does not cure a treatment-induced disease by increasing the treatment dosage. ~ Herman E. Daly

... as Herman (1992b) cogently noted two decades ago, these personality disorders can be iatrogenic, causing harm to individuals as an inadvertent result of the social stigma they carry and the widespread (but not entirely accurate) belief among professionals and insurers that those with Cluster B personality disorders (especially borderline personality disorder[BPD]) cannot be treated successfully, cannot recover, and are a headache to practitioners. For example, the BPD diagnosis continues to be applied predominantly to women often, but not always, in a negative way, usually signifying that they are irrational and beyond help. Describing posttraumatic symptoms as a personality disorder not only can be demoralizing for the client due to its connotation that something is defective with his or her core self (i.e., personality) but also may misdirect the therapist by implying that the patient's core personality should be the focus of treatment rather than trauma-related adaptations that affect but are distinct from the core self. In this way, both therapists and their clients may overlook personality strengths and capacities that are healthy and sources of resilience that can be a basis for building on and enhancing (rather than "fixing" or remaking) the patient's core self and personality. ~ Christine A. Courtois

Debbie Nathan's thesis is that Shirley Mason was a vulnerable hysteric and was manipulated by her therapist into iatrogenic DID and false memories of child abuse. Nathan says that this is generally true of DID, except for perhaps a small number of genuine cases. One problem with this thesis is that it is based on a stereotypically male chauvinist view of women as impressionable hysterics who do not know, and are not in control of, their own minds or histories; this demeaning view of women is presented as a feminist thesis. ~ Colin A. Ross

Consider the iatrogenics of newspapers. They need to fill their pages every day with a set of news items - particularly those news items also dealt with by other newspapers. But to do things right, they ought to learn to keep silent in the absence of news of significance. Newspapers should be of two-line length on some days, two hundred pages on others - in proportion with the intensity of the signal. But of course they want to make money and need to sell us junk food. And junk food is iatrogenic. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb