Talk:Psychiatric abuse

Proposed allocation of content
Based on the AfD and DRV discussions, I propose the following handling of the article and its content. Not sure if this will satisfy everyone, but perhaps most can live with this approach.


 * There would be a disambiguation page, which would be named either Psychiatric abuse or Abuses of psychiatry. The alternative name would be a redirect to the dab page.


 * Content on ethics has been moved to and would expand at: Professional ethics
 * Content on political aspects has been moved to and would expand at: Psychiatry. Individual cases and country articles would be listed at:
 * Content on anti-psychiatry and Scientology exists and could be expanded at: Anti-psychiatry and Scientology and psychiatry, CCHR, etc.

Below please find the proposed disambiguation page. Thanks for considering this suggestion! HG | Talk 13:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The Disambiguation Page (Proposed)
Psychiatric abuse and Abuses of psychiatry are discussed in articles about:

Psychiatry, its ethics and controversial practices

Political abuses of psychiatry

Controversies within psychiatry

Scientology and psychiatry and its initiatives, such as CCHR's work on psychiatric abuse

Anti-psychiatry and its criticisms

''Note: I'm assuming that criticisms of specific treatments would be handled in the above articles, or in their own articles. Of course, the above DAB text may need to be edited and refined, so suggestions are certainly welcome. Thanks.'' HG | Talk 13:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Related edits. Hi. I streamlined the China/Falun Gong content, which has been detailed and further expanded (since the AfD) in its main articles. Thanks! HG | Talk 14:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Need title change
Title of article needs to be changed. "Psychiatric abuse" could mean abuse of psychiatrists. Child abuse is about abuse of children. As discussed in previous discussion the title is too broad and has included in the past abuse by psychiatrists, by psychiatric hospitals, by non psychiatric staff in psychiatric or general hospitals, abuse of incarcerated prisoners, abuse for political ends by various states (countries) by polititians, includes an overly broad time period, (including the 19th and the early 20th century when psychiatry did not exist in the form it does today), refers to abuse disregarding the context of historical perspective&mdash;was general medicine using leaches at the time the alleged psychiatric abuse took place? etc. ..... --Mattisse 13:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Mattisse, since "psychiatric abuse" is a specific term within Scientology and anti-psychiatry, could you accept a disambiguation page, as proposed above? HG | Talk 14:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily opposed to a title change (suggestions welcome), but I think it would be a stretch to suppose that "psychiatric abuse" could be interpreted as abuse of psychiatrists, though "psychiatrist abuse" certainly could. "Psychiatric abuse" translates loosely to "abuse through psychiatry." — xDanielx T/C 04:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Ethical issues in psychiatry
As proposed above -- and using a title discussed in the AfDs and -- a DAB is now set up as Ethical issues in psychiatry. Efforts to rename or fine tune the DAB should be discussed on its Talk page. Currently, this DAB covers all the disparate subtopics brought together here in Psychiatric abuse. Thanks. HG | Talk 17:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

why is the Psychiatric abuse page up again?
...and why is it being edited?--scuro 22:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Replied to user Talk. HG | Talk 02:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

problems with the intro
Sentence #1 - We have a broad generalization that attempts to define the term for all PA. Where is the good secondary source which supports this statement? The citation given is specific to Russia within a given time period. Sentence #3 - This sentence tries to qualify what mistreatment is. Where is the good secondary source which supports this qualification? Many examples can be found which don't fit the parameters of the definition. The citations given only support specific forms of abuse and not the broad qualifying terms of the sentence. Sentences #2, #4, #5, and #6 are supportable but then again you could put a lot of sentences in the intro. Why do all six sentences belong in the intro to the exclusion of others, in the order that they appear?

What the intro desperately needs is context and proper weighting. Here are some basic questions to consider: i)who specifically uses the term PA and to what degree? ii)do they all use the term in the same way? iii)is it a term used broadly in society, or is it specificly used by certain populations or groups? iv)Do we give the right weight to those different parties that use the term? v)Is the term used legally or by the profession itself..who recognizes the term?--scuro 01:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't be any clearer on how to fix the article. If other editors continue to choose to remove citation requests, and delete material unilaterally, often without posting in talk. It is pointless to try and improve the article when the process has never been respected on this article. I will no longer edit the article but want to clearly state that from my perspective the article is still fundamentally flawed as it always was, although certain POV issues have improved somewhat.--scuro 15:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. You are right. I guess now and then I cannot resist pointing out the article's failures by an edit. It is fruitless, I agree. --Mattisse 15:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Another citation request was removed, again no mention of this in talk.--scuro 11:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

A generic term?
The lead asserts that "psychiatric abuse" is "a generic term." First, I find this is misleading. Occasionally, within mainstream literature, authors will happen to use the words "psychiatric abuse" but that doesn't make it a "generic term" within the field. They also happen to talk about "abuse of psychiatry" or malpractice, or political oppression, etc., in many other ways. Granted, there is a generic set of problems discussed in the literature, but not through any particular term of art. In other words, within mainstream discourse, "psychatric abuse" is at best one of many possible terms. Second, the assertion that it's a "generic term" appears to be clearly juxtaposed with the verifiable statement that it is a term within Scientology. Well, it's hard to ameliorate the situation, since it's odd to use a Scientology term as our choice of how to describe the mainstream phenomena, which are defined so very differently. Anyway, if it's a mainstream generic term, can somebody find it defined in the standard glossaries of psychiatric literature? Thanks. HG | Talk 01:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think a generic term is rather different from a term of art. The latter I might expect to find in a scholastic glossary; the former I wouldn't. A term of art is understood primarily based on its past uses in relevant literature; a generic term is just understood through the intuitive meaning of words in some particular arrangement. I think there's definitely a gray area in between, but I understand psychiatric abuse as being closer to a generic term than a term of art. It does have some loose connotations with Scientology, and has been used substantially in that context, but it also has a strong literal meaning (unlike, say, "Scientology," which has a strong empirical meaning and virtually no literal meaning), and it has been used substantially outside of Scientology-related discussions as well. — xDanielx T/C 08:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Daniel, here's what you might consider: (1) A generic term is a noun phrase that offers a fairly definite (vs. indefinite) reference to a genre or category (or items within). E.g., a pencil or a covered bridge. But "psychiatric abuse" offers far less definiteless, esp since the mainstream and the (well-publicized) Scientology uses cover such different categories of referents. (2) For the mainstream set of referents, there are various alternative terms, "psychiatric abuse" just being one incidental choice. Can's say the same for "pencil" and other generics. (3) "Psychiatric abuse" is a sloganeering term and term of art in Scientology, which is being disseminated in a way that now influences the general literal meaning of the term. (4) Hence, if the article is about "abuses" in the mainstream sense, it would be misleading and odd to use the term appropriated by Scientology for its view. If anything, "Psychiatric abuse" would work as a Scientology article, but then better qualified as Scientology doctrine of psychiatric abuse -- with mainstream abuses put under different article titles. Thanks, I look forward to your reply. HG | Talk 13:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Regarding (1) -- I don't think it's an issue of differing meanings as much as differing standards. Mainstream and Scientology-based literature both take psychiatric abuse to mean malpractice through psychiatric processes, they just have different ideas of what qualifies. Scientology tends to consider a very broad range of psychiatric practices psychiatric abuse, but they don't define psychiatric abuse as psychiatric malpractice -- that would be akin to treating communism as a synonym for political corruption based on what a vocal majority thinks of the system. I'm somewhat confused by your definiteness comment; in the grammatic sense I believe "psychiatric abuse" are generally considered definite (except in referring to particulars, like committed a psychiatric abuse), but it seems like you're using definiteness in another sense.
 * I don't think (2) is really related to the meaning of a generic term. "Clean" is a generic term, even though some say "tidy." I don't think a generic term has to be empirically defined; rather, if it acquires strong nonliteral connotations empirically, then it ceases to be a generic term. Using Mattisse's example, "self-help group" could be substituted with "self-help organization" or the like; each is a generic term.
 * (3) is a fair point. See my comments on (1) for why I don't think it's really become a term of art.
 * — xDanielx T/C 22:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I agree with HG. An example of a generic term would be self help group, an umbrella term for groups like Twelve-step programs, Self-help groups for mental health, Addiction recovery groups and List of Twelve-Step groups,  of which Alcoholics Anonymous is a specific example. --Mattisse 13:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, but why does a generic term have to leave no room for ambiguity? I think the most key characteristic of a generic term is descriptiveness. "Xerox" doesn't describe the function of a copy machine, so it isn't a generic term. "Scientology" isn't a generic term since there's no clear literal meaning and the empirical meaning isn't really associated with the term in any meaningful etymological sense (maybe extremely loosely). "Copier," "tissue," and "self-help group" are unquestionably generic. Based on this, I don't see why psychiatric abuse wouldn't qualify. — xDanielx T/C 22:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

If it satisfies these concerns, what would you (plural) think of renaming to psychiatric malpractice? I think moving to Scientology doctrine of psychiatric abuse would require a near-rewrite, but psychiatric malpractice should allow us to keep most of the current content and recycle some that was removed. — xDanielx T/C 22:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In my world, xDx, we answer a question with a question: What would you think of putting relevant content into the "Professional ethics" or related subsections of Psychiatry? What content do you have in mind for malpractice? (Clearly not the political abuses....) Fondly, HG | Talk 23:58, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm slightly reluctant as we'd be sacrificing the usual benefits of forking content (comfortable article size/formatting, more specific links/further reading/categories/see also), but it might still be the most agreeable option. — xDanielx T/C 00:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Taking a step back. If I read the above dispute correctly, User:XDanielx and User:HG are in disagreement about the meaning of the term "generic term". User:HG feels "generic" implies implies a homogeneous category of ideas or objects and it is patently clear that the laundry list of ideas associated with "pschyatric abuse" is anything but homogeneous. User:XDanielx agrees that the ideas contained in this article are heterogeneous but insists "generic" is still a valid adjective. ("why does a generic term have to leave no room for ambiguity?"). Do I have this right?

I wonder if we have an issue of perspective here. Since the days of Wittgenstein linguists and philosophers have acknowledged that the meaning we associate with a word depend on experience as much as it does the dictionary. For example, Joe and Jane both hear the word "cat", but Jane grew up with a sleek elegant Siamese and Joe lives in Jerusalem where most cats are feral and as ragged and plentiful as rats. Both know the dictionary definition. Both can distinguish between their emotions and facts. Both even know the difference between domestic and feral cats! There is common ground in their understanding of the word cat, but Jane will think first of domestic cats and Joe will think first of feral cats. (credit goes to the late Princeton professor Malcolm Diamond for the use of cats to explain Wittgenstein).

I note that User:XDanielx has a lot of computer science experience. In computer science the word "class" means what User:HG (and the field of linguistics) consider "generic". For computer scientists, the word "generic" has taken a different meaning, one quite consistent with User:XDanielx's reading of the word "generic". In computer science a generic function is a group of functions that have a common name but potentially vastly different implementations. For example, "move" is a generic function. However,  and   have little in common but the name. Similarly, a generic variable includes diverse sorts of information all using a common name. Depending on context and the history of usage it can store a string, a number, or even a compound object representing a real word entity.

Given that the term "generic" can mean so many different things, I wonder if the two of you might consider using the word "term" without qualification or at least look in the thesauraus for an adjective that is less likely to cause confusion. Best to all, Egfrank 06:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Aw, terrific Eg, go ahead and pull a Wittgenstein on us! You're saying that "generic term" isn't only a term of art in linguistics, it's also whatever people might use (conf-use?) it to mean due to whatever 'generic' might mean to them. LOL, reconstituting our dispute over "psychiatric abuse" within your answer! But then you solve it, saying, don't pick on that term of art -- 'generic term' -- if you want to cover multiple meanings, use 'term' instead. Yes, that's parallel to what I said about 'psychiatric abuse' -- don't use a term of art to cover the multiple (i.e., beyond the term of art) meanings. Um, thanks Ludwig Egfrank! ;->


 * Anyway, Daniel et al., a lead sentence might work as follows: Psychiatric abuse is both one of the terms that may describe specific ethical issues in psychiatry as well as a term of art used in the broader Scientology criticisms of psychiatry. What do you think of that rewrite? Regards, HG | Talk 09:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hm, I'm still uncomfortable with calling it a term of art, just because I think "term of art" implies divergence from literal meaning, while I think Scientology-based use is more of a divergence from mainstream standards. Maybe we could just say that the term has been used significantly within Scientology in reference to the general practice of psychiatry, but is also used in other areas of literature? Then we can just leave readers to draw their own conclusions about the literal/empirical meaning of the term? — xDanielx T/C 09:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Impressive analysis! I guess my understanding of "generic term" is mostly based on the concept of genericness in trademark law, because I think that the general use of "generic term" draws most heavily from that area, but my hypothesis might be off. I think the genus/species understanding of "generic" is somewhat counter-implied in context ("Psychiatric abuse is a generic term used for real and alleged mistreatment") since it renders the "generic" modifier rather superfluous (by my reading, at least), but then again if viewers are reading it with that understanding then that isn't very relevant (at least from a descriptive view). Throwing out "generic" sounds like a good idea to me, if only for the sake of removing a potentially substantial ambiguity. — xDanielx T/C 09:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, here's a rewrite for the first sentence based on your response, adding CCHR (which uses the slogan): Psychiatric abuse is both one of the terms that may describe specific ethical problems in psychiatry as well as a significant term in the broader Scientology criticisms and campaigns against psychiatry. Thanks. HG | Talk 10:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me! I would tweak the wording slightly, but I think it's perfectly good for now. — xDanielx T/C 10:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But now consider how does the Antipsychiatry movement, and then more specifically it's individual critics, use the phrase? Does the movement and the individual critics all use the phrase in the same way as Scientology does? Also if there is to be an article, this broad based attempt at a definition would need context. Wikipedia wants context. You are getting close to describing "who"...but the context of "when"/ "how"/ "why" need filling out. As example, When the phrase is used by non Anti-P's/ scientologists, do they often use the phrase? ...or is it used more for a specific purpose? Finally, does the phrase have any traction in society?--scuro 11:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Good q's. But here we go back to notability. The general, diffuse meaning is mainstream. The specific Scientology or anti-P meaning is incompatible (aka "fringe"). So the article should only focus on one or the other. Written with the mainstream meaning, the article will probably be deleted in favor of the disambiguation page to its divers articles. Written for the Scientology meaning, which is what Sullivan originally did (perhaps unintentionally), the article would need a full rewrite (as Daniel noted above) and probably renamed to Scientology doctrine of psychiatric abuse or the like. Anyway, scuro, don't worry about much rewriting until the AfD closes. HG | Talk 12:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)