Dr. Althea Mentes

An Exposé of The Brain Police

Mental health care has always been in conflict and dispute, struggling with deep-seated cultural perceptions, changing medical practices, and a growing tide of mighty industry profit. What is often portrayed as an altruistic mission of healing and support is, in many instances, steeped in a long history of exploitation, control, and harm. From the days of crude bloodletting to corporate-driven over-medication of vulnerable people, one sees how, time and again, the mental health industry has failed to live up to its ethical obligations. This article tries to look into these disturbing histories and present practices to see how mental illness has been commodified, manipulated, and even weaponized for profit. At the same time, millions of people are still marginalized, labeled, and left to suffer.

Every large extended family has an eccentric person, Alzheimer’s patient, or a Type-A driven high achiever, or an Obsessive-Compulsive controller, etc. The stigmatization today is far worse, thanks to Big Pharma and Health Care Corporations raking in obscene profits and running astroturf “community-based” pill-pusher movements.

From Bloodletting to Exorcism: The Shifting View of Mental Health within Society

Approaches to mental illness through the ages mirrored both the ignorant and cruel elements of society. During the Middle Ages, people suffering symptoms from diseases that we now refer to as mental illness were considered possessed by demons; thus, religious rituals, including exorcisms, became part of standard therapies practiced aside from physical torture. The Middle Ages were the Dark Ages, an era of ignorance in which some superstitious ways of approaching this issue were favored over scientific treatment methods.

It was not until the 18th and 19th centuries that underdeveloped medical practitioners began various treatments. Informed by the humoral theory that four fluid types or humors form the basis of life—bloodletting—it was common practice to balance a patient's bodily fluids. The mentally ill also became recipients of bloodletting as a choice form of treatment despite its unsound scientific merit and its injuriousness. Meanwhile, parallel to this, asylums started coming into being, although they were little more than prisons, without much consideration for the actual well-being of the patients.

This historical background sets the stage for the later medicalization of mental illness, where practices would evolve, but the essential goals of control and containment remained intact. "Modern" thinking calls for depriving sufferers of their Constitutional Rights, 2nd Amendment Rights in particular, even though the Mentally Ill have lower homicide rates than the General Public.

Society, Big Pharma and "Health" Insurers have lost sight of the types of persons who have these struggles: Vincent van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Carrie Fisher, Robert Schumann, Frida Kahlo, Winston Churchill, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Katherine Hepburn, Lena Dunham, Lady Gaga, Herschel Walker, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Brittany Murphy, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, John Keats, Jack London, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Frank Sinatra, Stephen Fry, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Princess Diana, Van Gogh, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Kevin Love, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Emma Stone, Mitch Hedberg, David Foster Wallace, Chris Farley, John Belushi, Isaac Newton, and John Nash.

In the 1930's in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the local Asylum engaged patients with Vermiculture. The paitiens were free to roam the community, scavenging for newspapers, cardboard and discarded produce to feed to Red Worms and Night Crawlers. On weekends, the patients sold buckets of worms for Truck Gardens, Farmers and Fishermen from a roadside stand next to the Asylum. 95 years of "progress" later, Big Pharma keeps patients locked in behind bars and barbed wire. In the Fort Wayne model, care was very affordable; in the 2025 "care" model, the cost is extremely unaffordable. The whole system is riddled with corruption, greed and fearmongering.

The Rise of the Pharmaceutical Industry: From Thorazine to Designer Drugs

The mid-20th century witnessed a sea change in the treatment of mental illness with the advent of powerful psychiatric drugs. Thorazine, Stelazine, and Prolixin were among the popular drugs that came into the limelight during the 1950s and 1960s and were hailed as revolutionary tools in the treatment of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. These antipsychotic medications were being marketed as "chemical straightjackets," intended to sedate patients and reduce symptoms. Still, their side effects were often catastrophic: tremors, involuntary movements, and severe cognitive impairment were familiar, yet these drugs were deployed with little regard for the long-term consequences.

Over the succeeding decades, the psychiatric profession became more and more dependent on the pharmaceutical industry to develop new medications for an expanding list of disorders that seemed to be created for a plethora of new "designer drugs." The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has ballooned from its first printing in 1952, with such enlightening additions as Restless Leg Syndrome, Social Anxiety Disorder, and a host of other ailments which many argue are at best overdiagnoses and at worst fabricated to create a market for drugs.

Nothing is less comforting than recognizing how the pharmaceutical industry influences and controls the DSM. As the list of disorders grew, so did the number of drugs marketed to treat them. A 2015 report in the New York Times exposed how it was Big Pharma that had fueled efforts to broaden and redefine the diagnoses of mental health so that more medications, which would otherwise not have been approved, could be prescribed. The result has been an industry-driven expansion that produces a dangerous pattern: over-reliance on drugs prescribed without concern for the long-term health effects of the patients.

Eugenics and Sterilization: A Legacy of Shame

One of the most horrific chapters in the history of mental health care relates to the practice of forced sterilization among mentally ill individuals, particularly women. Beginning in the early 20th century, eugenics policies provided for sterilizing those "unfit" to procreate. Mental illness was often the chosen factor, and such a policy was enacted in the United States, where many thousands of indigent women, most of whom were disenfranchised and institutionalized, were forcibly sterilized for the greater good of society. The eugenic spirit has not died out in the present day, as many mentally ill persons remain stereotyped as "genetically inferior" or "unfit" to be integrated into society at large.

Most are misunderstood, and their peculiarities and actions often contribute to some of the most innovative breakthroughs in science, art, and culture. Quite ironically, many of those individuals who in times past would have been institutionalized or even drugged into compliance could comprise some of the brightest and most creative minds available to society.

The Exploitation of Prison Inmates: Experimental Drug Testing and Corporate Profits

But it does not stop with just the institutionalized mentally ill: one of the most sinister aspects in the field of mental health deals with prisoners by way of using them for drug testing. Inmates from communities that are often marginalized are paid peanuts for participating in experimental drugs during clinical trials. Most of the medicines tried on prisoners are highly toxic and, in most instances, unproven, yet prisoners, out of dire need of earning an income or serving shorter sentences, are coercively induced to take part.

These prison-based pharmaceutical trials form a constituent of a long and dark history.

For instance, in the 1950s, patients from mental institutions were made to serve as human guinea pigs for the effects of drugs such as Thorazine, among other psychotropic medications. While the companies have reaped huge profits, on the other side, the ones who have suffered such trials faced severe, irreversible side effects. Now, it's done subtler and more insidious, often with patients who cannot refuse or fully understand what is being done to them.

The Brain Drain: Intellectual Destruction Through Over-Medication

But perhaps the genuinely tragic element of the modern landscape in mental health involves this thing that came to be referred to as a "brain drain": the actual systematic suppression of a number of the brilliant minds this society has available to it. One happens upon many an individual with certain diagnoses—such as schizophrenia or bipolar illness with episodes of psychosis—exhibiting IQs above average. Research shows that the average IQ for a person diagnosed with schizophrenia, for example, is in the range of about 85-115, many of them higher than 115, well into the "genius" range. Yet these individuals are often medicated with powerful drugs that dampen their intellect, crush their creativity, and squelch their potential. Instead of honoring these people, society and the psychiatric profession would rather chemically "treat" them with medications that keep them stagnant, never entirely living to their full potential. This practice only serves to feed the tragic waste of human creativity and potential among so many gifted people, most of whom are consigned to lead lives marked by isolation, stigma, and less-than-optimal functioning.

The Global Perspective: Mental Health Care Around the World

The entity of mental health care in the U.S., compared to that of other countries, merely pinpoints how flawed the system is in the U.S.

Countries like Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands have a more humane attitude toward mental health and approach it more patient-friendly. These countries invest in preventative care, community-based treatments, and patient autonomy. Meanwhile, the U.S. remains with a treatment-based and medication-based system with little concentration on long-term wellness or rehabilitation. In most developing countries, mental health services are practically nil, and people with mental health disorders are marginalized or abandoned. Poor countries, in particular, often have recourse to antiquated methods such as ECT without modern safeguards, resulting in severe and frequently irreversible cognitive impairment.

Profiting from Stigma: How to Economize Fear and Vulnerability

The increasingly expanding diagnosis of mental health disorders is rooted in a vast, growing industry manned by profit.

Pharmaceutical companies, institutions of mental health, and even insurance companies will benefit financially from the increased diagnoses of mental health. Stigma has let this grow into a market of medicines, therapies, and institutional care for the mentally ill. The very structure of this mental health industry is based on fear, ignorance, and vulnerability: the more diagnoses are given to people, the more drugs are sold, and the more services are provided. The global market for mental health care topped $200 billion in 2020 and will only keep growing with new disorders being added to the DSM and new drugs formulated to treat these new disorders. That booming business has often been criticized for putting profits ahead of patients' well-being, providing solutions that might be about keeping a lucrative business model going rather than helping individuals live whole lives.

A Closer Look at the Psychiatric Industry: The Dark Reality

From bloodletting and exorcism in its early days to the modern-day exploitation of vulnerable populations in clinical trials, and over-medication of those with mental illness—the mental health industry is steeped in several worrying practices and contradictions. Again and again, the psychiatric profession has betrayed its ethical trust. It is a system that benefits from stigmatization, fearmongering, and the commodification of mental suffering.

While many selfless professionals labor within the field to improve patients' lives, the industry, in general, is flawed to the core.

The creation of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex has created an environment where patients are not treated according to their peculiar needs but rather as money-making objects. Until that fundamental problem is fixed, mental health care will be doomed to replicate its systemic ills, which will leave many lost in a system that was built not to cure but to restrain.

A Look at Mental Health Care Compared to How Other Cultures Do It Better
Meanwhile, the United States remains in crisis with its mental health, and many countries have made their way to more humane and patient-centered ways of dealing with mental health care. These nations prioritize preventive care, community-based services, and holistic treatment methods, far above institutionalization and medication-based models that mark the U.S. system.

The means of their methods are not limited to symptomatic relief but reach deep into the very roots of psychological distress, including social injustice, trauma, and poverty, to empower individuals toward entire and independent lives. The section explains how Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Japan approached mental health more successfully and humanely.

Norway: Emphasizing Human Dignity and Social Inclusion

Norway is also among the most progressive nations in the world regarding social welfare policies, and thus, it also tends to be among the forerunners in psychiatric mental health treatment. Norwegian mental health policy is based on social inclusion, respect for human dignity, and care provided in local communities. It insists on creating a friendly environment for social inclusion, enabling normalization processes instead of institutionalization and pharmaceutical intervention practiced within U.S. health systems.

Mental health care is highly decentralized, strongly focusing on outpatient treatment and community-based services. The government has invested in embedding mental health care into primary care systems that enable individuals to receive mental health care without being referred to complex, fragmented systems. Furthermore, the involvement of family members in the treatment process and the provision of rehabilitation services are intensely focused on enabling patients to return to work and life in the community.

Norwegian mental health services also emphasize the principle of patient autonomy. For instance, patients are never tranquilized nor confined to psychiatric wards. Instead, they are persuaded to assume active responsibility for their care that may be highly specialized and suited to a patient's liking.

Furthermore, the Norwegian "recovery model" focuses on mental, physical, social, and emotional aspects. This comprehensive approach is a means to enable people to live purposeful lives, not just medicate them. Another feature of Norwegian policy has been fighting stigma about mental illness. There have been extensive public campaigns that try to normalize having a mental health problem and put forth mental illness as something natural within the human condition.

As a result, individuals are less likely to hide their struggles or avoid seeking help. This is evidence that little stigma is associated with mental illness and further that this is a society where these illnesses are treated as afflictions to which anyone might be vulnerable.

Denmark: Community-Based Care Combined with Integrated Support

Alongside Norway, another beacon for enlightened mental health care in Europe is Denmark.

Like Norway, Denmark has placed emphasis on its comprehensive, integrated, community-oriented, sensitive mental health care system.

The Danish model involves early intervention that allows treatment of mental problems before they get to an acute stage. Mental health is cared for at the general level of health; the GP is often called first in incidents of mental unrest. The Danish system is organized around the principle of "social psychiatry," which emphasizes the role of social support networks and community-based care in the treatment of mental illness. Thus, persons experiencing mental problems are encouraged first to seek comfort and support from their family and friends and peer-oriented support groups before more invasive treatments are pursued. If inpatient care is called for, the patient is returned to their community immediately. But perhaps most pioneering, Denmark offers psychiatric rehabilitation, which includes teaching ways to regain such skills as may be necessary for people with serious mental illnesses to learn independent living. These programs allow for flexibility in the treatment of each person, specifically in those areas where one needs specific help and support to concentrate their efforts on general improvements in the quality of life and not just on alleviating symptoms.

One of the cornerstones of Denmark's approach to mental health is the emphasis on "human rights" and the belief in the dignity of every human being, irrespective of his or her mental state.

The mental health policies of Denmark have been drafted in such a way that they empower people suffering from mental illnesses to lead active lives, be productive citizens, and, wherever possible, return to work.

The more holistic and inclusive approach allied to a strong social safety net, has proved far more successful than the U.S. system, which often relies on isolation, over-medication, and stigmatization of people with mental health problems.

Netherlands: Patient-Centered Care and Deinstitutionalization

For many years, the Netherlands has been at the forefront of progressive mental health care in Europe and the world regarding deinstitutionalization and patient autonomy. In the mid-20th century, the Netherlands closed many of its large mental institutions and moved toward a system of community-based care. The move was underpinned by a belief that those with mental illness would fare better in smaller, supportive environments rather than the often-oppressive conditions of large psychiatric hospitals.

The Dutch system is based on the notion that patients will receive optimal care when they are active partners in their care.

This is apparent in the broad application of "personal recovery plans" that give patients tremendous active input in determining their care and rehabilitation.

Symptom management by medication or coercion is de-emphasized, while the Dutch focus on coping strategies, life skills, and a sense of community. In this manner, the patients can manage their conditions by themselves. Another innovation for mental health care in the Netherlands: "Peer support" is a method of employing people who have lived through mental health challenges to support their peers. It has been demonstrated that peer support diminishes feelings of loneliness, feelings so many with mental illness can feel and allows feelings of belonging and solidarity.

This kind of support is far more effective than the depersonalized "us versus them" mentality that dominates the U.S. mental health system. The Netherlands has also taken steps to raise the general standard of mental health care. For instance, psychotherapy is generally available and sometimes covered by health insurance.

It has paid for training so that the psych professionals could bring their patients and treat them with courtesy and concern regarding long-term care rather than merely symptomatic management using medication. These policies have improved the quality of life as people who have a mental disability get good access to services aimed at focusing their needs and their goals uniquely.

Japan: Mental Health Care and Social Harmony

Japan further presents another interesting contrast to the U.S. handling of mental health care. Though hospitalization and medication are part of the Japanese system for severe cases, the cultural dynamics of social harmony and community are influential in how mental health is approached. For instance, in Japan, mental illness is framed in the light of social cohesion, whereby the aim is not simply symptom alleviation but to restore a person to a contributory role in society.

In Japan, mental health care is always combined with care provided at the workplace and in schools.

For instance, some companies employ psychiatrists who provide counseling to their employees.

The main goal of psychiatric interventions in schools is the treatment of children to prevent complications later on in life. A relatively new concept in Japan is the "mental health literacy" approach, meaning educating the general public about mental illness for early intervention and reduction of stigma. Another unique feature of Japanese mental health approaches has been a high emphasis on the so-called "psychosomatic treatments," which treat this mind-body interface and are described below. Many Japanese mental health professionals are trained in some holistic approach, whether traditional or as part of a synthesis involving modern psychology. This Eastern approach often includes mindfulness, acupuncture, and/or other alternative medicines to promote emotional wellness. One of the significant problems facing Japan has to do with its relatively high suicide rate, particularly among middle-aged men. However, the Japanese government has recently attempted to alleviate this through increased access to prevention programs for suicide, hotlines for superior mental health support, and even community-based intervention with the intent of decreasing isolation while increasing social support.

So, what sets these nations apart from the United States concerning their mental health? A few points are salient:

1. ★Community-Based Care★: For example, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands treat patients on an outpatient basis rather than hospitalize them. In this way, the stigma of mental illness is minimal, and such patients remain part of society. Traditionally, the U.S. system has been very institutionalization-heavy, relying on an inpatient care system that is neither effective nor humane.


2. Holistic and Preventative Models: As discussed, these countries consider the holistic model of mental health—emotional, social, and economic factors that result in mental distress. Similarly, they put into practice early intervention and prevention in their provision of mental health care to prevent upsets in mental health from being replaced quickly with more serious conditions that require long and intensive treatment.


3. Patient-Centered Care: In this respect, autonomy, involvement, and individualization of care have become a cornerstone for the mental health systems in these countries. Whereas medicines are one of the significant first-line treatments for patients in the United States, all these countries ensure that the patients take an active role in their recovery process by empowering them.


4. Social Safety Nets: Comprehensive social support systems provide for stable housing, employment, and health services to prevent mental health problems or reduce the number of people at risk. Norway and Denmark invest heavily in their social safety nets to reduce the economic pressures and social isolation that contribute to mental illness


5. Reducing Stigma: For many of these countries, one of the most important agendas has been reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. Public education campaigns, open dialogue, and community integration have helped shift the cultural understanding of mental health to one that is more compassionate and accepting.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is still fighting its mental health crisis, over-medication, institutionalization, and profit motive. Much of the rest of the world has created better, more compassionate, and holistic mental health care systems. NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) has extensive astroturf ties to Big Pharma, raising concerns about its potential bias in advocating for pharmaceutical treatments. Critics say these financial relationships color its views on medication, downplaying alternative therapies. While not an astroturf group directly, the corporate funding of NAMI gives the appearance of being swayed by industry interests, leading to accusations of prioritizing pharma's agenda over genuine grassroots support.

Systems in countries like Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Japan stress community integration, patient autonomy, preventive treatments, and less stigma, putting the person and their dignity first.

These systems understand that mental health consists of symptom management and enables people to lead fulfilling lives within a supportive, inclusive environment.

The traditional ways of dealing with mental illness in some of the oldest civilizations in the world—Amazon, Orinoco, Mexico, Africa, and among the indigenous cultures of Australia and New Zealand—have been holistic, community-based methods that allow spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. Ayahuasca, among plant medicines used by indigenous peoples of the Amazon like the Shipibo-Conibo, guides the individual through his or her psychological distress, usually with shamans, to interpret visions for healing purposes. Similarly, in the Orinoco Basin, the tribes—the Yanomami, for example—return balance to the spirit through rituals and communal support since for them, a mental illness signifies a loss of spiritual balance.

The Zapotec and Nahuatl in Mexico practiced herbal remedies and spiritual healing, incorporating communal care in treatment. The ancestral guidance and ritualistic healing from the Yoruba and Zulu of Africa attach importance to this approach in order to treat the case of mental instability.

Similarly, Aboriginal Australians take a spiritual view of mental illness, using the narratives of Dreamtime and healing ceremonies to restore balance. The Māori approach mental health through the importance of connection with whānau and hapori via the concept of whakawhanaungatanga, and traditional healing practices led by tohunga. Both of these approaches are models based on empathy, social cohesion, and spiritual bases, which dramatically contrasts with the profit-driven, pharmaceutical-focused models dominating mental health care systems in America today.

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The Dark Side of Mental Health Care: A History of Control, Exploitation, and Corporate Greed
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