We Didn't Start the Stigma

I've submitted this letter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Psychologist Daniel Holland peddles the mental-health lobby’s vintage whine that “mental illness . . . continues to be stigmatized” (“Remove the Stigma of Mental Illness,” January 15). Who is responsible for that? Is it the general public that locks up the so-called mentally ill and calls it hospitalization? Is it the general public that compels the so-called mentally ill to take toxic drugs against their will and calls it treatment? Is it the general public that attributes violence to mental illness? Is it the general public that testifies in court that people who commit heinous crimes can’t help it and should be acquitted by reason of insanity? Is it the general public that arbitrarily defines misbehavior as brain disorders? No. It is the psychiatric and allied professions that do those things. Then they blame the public for being uncomfortable with the people these professions have branded sick in mind or brain. Could the good doctor of psychology be engaging in projection?