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Psychiatry and Crime
Philip Hickey, PhD
In DSM-III-R, the APA defined a mental disorder as:
"…a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in a person and that is associated with present distress (a painful symptom) or disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning) or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom. In addition, this syndrome or pattern must not be merely an expectable response to a particular event, e.g., the death of a loved one. Whatever its original cause, it must currently be considered a manifestation of a behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction in the person. Neither deviant behavior, e.g., political, religious, or sexual, nor conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict is a symptom of a dysfunction in the person as described above." (p xxii)
I have made the point many times that this definition can be accurately paraphrased as: any significant problem of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving. The definitions of a mental disorder provided in DSM-IV and DSM-5 contain slightly different wording, but are essentially the same as that in DSM-III.
It is important to note that the APA's definition of a mental disorder/illness is entirely arbitrary, in that there is no objective reality to which it must conform. A mental disorder is what the APA says it is, and there is no way to argue that a particular problem is not a mental disorder, because there is no reality against which this kind of labeling can be checked. Mental illnesses, unlike real illnesses, are not discovered in nature. Rather, they are decided by APA committees and membership votes, and are codified in successive revisions of the DSM. If a problem is listed in the manual, then it's a mental disorder. And the manual is extraordinarily inclusive. One would be hard put to name a problem of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving that is not listed in the APA's catalog.
Obviously, habitual criminality conforms to the APA's definition, and criminal behavior has been included in every DSM edition since DSM-I (1952). In DSM-III-R there are indications that the drafting committee struggled slightly with this issue, and developed the individual vs. society exclusion contained in the above quote, though this has had little or no effect with regards to the inclusion of habitual criminality in the manual. It is also worth noting that the exclusion clause is too vaguely worded to be of much practical use.
In DSM-5, the following "diagnoses" all embrace criminal activity:
kleptomania pyromania
intermittent explosive disorder
voyeuristic disorder
exhibitionistic disorder
frotteuristic disorder
sexual sadism disorder
pedophilic disorder
The crimes entailed in the above "diagnoses" range in severity from relatively minor to extremely serious. Conduct disorder, for instance, can range from threatening others to homicide. Here are the DSM-5 criteria for conduct disorder (p 469-470):
"A. A repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated, as manifested by the presence of at least three of the following 15 criteria in the past 12 months from any of the categories below, with at least one criterion present in the past 6 months.
Aggression to People and Animals
Often bullies, threatens, or intimidates others.
Often initiates physical fights.
Has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun).
Has been physically cruel to people.
Has been physically cruel to animals.
Has stolen while confronting a victim (e.g., mugging, purse snatching, extortion, armed robbery).
Has forced someone into sexual activity.
Has deliberately engaged in fire setting with the intention of causing serious damage.
Has deliberately destroyed others' property (other than by fire setting).
Deceitfulness or Theft
Has broken into someone else's house, building, or car.
Often lies to obtain goods or favors or to avoid obligations (i.e., 'cons' others).
Has stolen items of nontrivial value without confronting a victim (e.g., shoplifting, but without breaking and entering; forgery).
Serious Violations of Rules
Often stays out at night despite parental prohibitions, beginning before age 13 years.
Has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in the parental or parental surrogate home, or once without returning for a lengthy period.
Is often truant from school, beginning before age 13 years.
B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
C. If the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for antisocial personality disorder."
Under Diagnostic Features, P 472, it states:
"Physical violence may take the form of rape, assault, or, in rare cases, homicide."
Note in particular that it requires only 3 items out of 15 to make the "diagnosis." Also note the potential range of severity. A person has the "mental illness" conduct disorder, if he has run away from home at least twice, skipped school "often" before age 13, and has done some shoplifting. At the other end of the scale, a person who has engaged in armed robbery, rape, and arson has the same "mental illness." And it's important to recognize that the APA is not saying that a person engages in these activities because he has another "mental illness" (e.g. "schizophrenia" or "bipolar disorder"). Rather, the contention here is that armed robbery, rape, arson, murder and the other criminal activities listed constitute a "mental illness" in and of themselves.
Within psychiatry's spurious and comprehensive medicalization perspective, all criminal activity is a manifestation of a mental illness. With the possible exception of politically motivated crimes like espionage, treason, etc., there is no criminal act that cannot be considered a symptom of a mental illness. Rape, murder, torture, arson, theft, embezzlement, sexual abuse of children, burglary, cruelty to animals, etc., are all "symptoms" of one or more of psychiatry's spurious illnesses.
Nevertheless, for the past fifty years, while psychiatrists have been busy expanding and promoting their services with regards to other life problems, they have been peculiarly silent with regards to the fact that their taxonomy also includes criminal activity. They have vigorously promoted the notion that depression, anxiety, shyness, painful memories, childhood temper tantrums, inattention, etc., are all "treatable mental illnesses", but have not promoted the notion that crimes are also "mental illnesses", that are cataloged and codified in their manual.
I have always assumed that this uncharacteristic reticence on psychiatry's part reflected a recognition that promoting the notion that crime is an illness might stimulate some resistance from the general public, and might precipitate a questioning and scrutiny of psychiatry's more fundamental falsehood, that all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are illnesses.
But whatever the reason for the reticence, there are indications that it is fading. I have come across several articles in recent months in which psychiatrists are promoting the notion that particular crimes should be conceptualized as mental illnesses, or symptoms of mental illnesses. The notion, for instance, that road rage and wife battering should be conceptualized as symptoms of intermittent explosive disorder is being promoted vigorously.
Road Rage, Wife Beating, and Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Here's a quote from a press release that was issued on December 18, 2013 by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The release is titled Markers of inflammation in the blood linked to aggressive behaviors
"Intermittent explosive disorder (IED), a disorder of impulsive aggression (which includes 'road rage'), can disrupt the lives of those with the disorder, as well as the lives of their family, friends and colleagues. People with IED overreact to stressful situations, often with uncontrollable anger and rage." [Emphasis added]
Note in particular the spurious leap from the fact that a person didn't control his anger to the conclusion that he couldn't control his anger ("uncontrollable rage"). This is a recurrent theme in psychiatry. The child who doesn't pay attention in school, can't pay attention; the depressed person who doesn't pursue normal activities, can't pursue normal activities; etc… The disempowering implications of these unwarranted conclusions are obvious. Also note the bland assertion that this so-called illness "includes road rage." So road rage, the crime, becomes, by psychiatric edict, an illness.
Here are the DSM-5 criteria for intermittent explosive disorder (p 466):
"A. Recurrent behavioral outbursts representing a failure to control aggressive impulses as manifested by either of the following:
Verbal aggression (e.g., temper tantrums, tirades, verbal arguments or fights) or physical aggression toward property, animals, or other individuals, occurring twice weekly, on average, for a period of 3 months. The physical aggression does not result in damage or destruction of property and does not result in physical injury to animals or other individuals.
Three behavioral outbursts involving damage or destruction of property and/or physical assault involving physical injury against animals or other individuals occurring within a 12-month period.
B. The magnitude of aggressiveness expressed during the recurrent outbursts is grossly out of proportion to the provocation or to any precipitating psychosocial stressors.
C. The recurrent aggressive outbursts are not premeditated (i.e., they are impulsive and/or anger-based) and are not committed to achieve some tangible objective (e.g., money, power, intimidation).
D. The recurrent aggressive outbursts cause either marked distress in the individual or impairment in occupational or interpersonal functioning, or are associated with financial or legal consequences.
E. Chronological age is at least 6 years (or equivalent developmental level).
F. The recurrent aggressive outbursts are not better explained by another mental disorder…and are not attributable to another medical condition…or to the physiological effects of a substance…For children ages 6-18 years, aggressive behavior that occurs as part of an adjustment disorder should not be considered for this diagnosis." [Emphasis added]
There are several noteworthy features to this definition of intermittent explosive disorder. Firstly, the frequency/duration specifications included in section A, 1 and 2 (twice weekly; for a period of 3 months; within a 12-month period) are entirely arbitrary. Secondly, there is no way that a psychiatrist, or anyone else for that matter, can discern whether an outburst of rage was perpetrated with the purpose of intimidating a victim. Thirdly, chronological age is at least 6 years! So a six-year-old child throwing a verbal temper tantrum twice weekly on average for a period of three months has a "psychiatric illness" for which he presumably needs psychiatric treatment. If the duration is only two months, however, he does not have an illness. He needs to keep it up for another month, then he'll have an illness!
Here's another quote from the same University of Chicago Medical Center press release:
"IED outbursts are out of proportion to the social stressors triggering them. Such blow-ups may at first be written off by friends as 'simple bad behavior,' [Dr. Emil] Coccaro said, 'but intermittent explosive disorder goes beyond that. It has strong genetic and biomedical underpinnings. This is a serious mental health condition that can and should be treated.'"
Here's a quote from an article in Pacific Standard, January 28, 2014: The Psychology and Biology of Road Rage:
"Emil Coccaro, a professor and psychiatrist at the University of Chicago, has studied Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) for many years. People with this disorder repeatedly respond with violent or verbally aggressive outbursts, disproportionate to any given situation. (Not all road-ragers have IED, but road rage can be a symptom of it.)"
Dr. Coccaro has been developing and promoting this notion since at least 2006. Here are three quotes from a USA Today article, 'Road rage' disease affects as many as 16 million Americans, study says (June 2006):
"To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it — intermittent explosive disorder — and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized, affecting up to 16 million Americans."
Note the extraordinary phrase: "suffering from road rage." In reality, it is other road users who suffer from the road ragers' petulant, and sometimes violent, outbursts. Note also that this "disorder" is "far more common" than had been previously realized. What's not mentioned is that the criteria for this so-called illness have been progressively relaxed since DSM-III (1980), as is the case in many other psychiatric "illnesses." I have discussed the progressive easing of the "intermittent explosive disorder" criteria in detail in an earlier post.
"'People think it's bad behavior and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know … is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this,' said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school.
Road rage, temper outbursts that involve throwing or breaking objects and even spousal abuse can sometimes be attributed to the disorder, though not everyone who does those things is afflicted." [Emphasis added]
The phrase "be attributed to" is logically equivalent to "be caused by." So some wife batterers are "afflicted" by an illness which causes them to batter their partners. The clear implication being that there is nothing they can do about this except, presumably, seek psychiatric treatment. Psychiatry's track record in other areas would not inspire great confidence in this field, but at least the "knowledge" that their abusive partners are "afflicted" by an illness should be a great comfort to battered women everywhere.
"Coccaro said the disorder involves inadequate production or functioning of serotonin, a mood-regulating and behavior-inhibiting brain chemical."
This, of course, is the famous neurochemical imbalance theory. In his more recent writings, Dr. Coccaro stresses the importance of plasma inflammation markers as correlates of this "illness", but the serotonin hypothesis is still alive and well.
Mayo Clinic (2015): "There may be differences in the way serotonin, an important chemical messenger in the brain, works in people with intermittent explosive disorder."
Valley Behavioral Health Systems (2015): "Research has suggested that intermittent explosive disorder may occur as the result of abnormalities in the areas of the brain that regulate arousal and inhibition. Impulsive aggression may be related to abnormal mechanisms in the part of the brain that inhibits or prohibits muscular activity through the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin, which works to send chemical messages throughout the brain, may be composed differently in people with intermittent explosive disorder."
Harvard Medical School (2011): "Several studies suggest that the disorder [intermittent explosive disorder] is associated with abnormal activity of the neurotransmitter serotonin in parts of the brain that play a role in regulating, even inhibiting, aggressive behavior. Impulsive aggression in general is associated with low serotonin activity as well as damage to the prefrontal cortex, a center of judgment and self-control."
As recently as August 2015 (Intermittent explosive disorder in adults: Treatment and prognosis), Dr. Coccaro has stressed the putative uncontrollability of the aggressive impulses:
"Patients with intermittent explosive disorder are periodically unable to restrain impulses that result in verbal or physical aggression." [Emphasis added]
In other words, if a person's temper tantrums cross arbitrary and vaguely-defined thresholds of severity, frequency, duration, and disproportionality, then they constitute an illness, and the tantrums pass, by psychiatric alchemy, out of the sphere of ordinary voluntary behavior for which we are all considered to be answerable, into the looking-glass sphere of mental illness, over which people have no control, and therefore should, presumably, not be held answerable.
And, incidentally, Dr. Coccaro, Psychiatry Chair at University of Chicago, consults for, and owns equity in Azevan Pharmaceuticals. Here's a quote from Azevan's website:
"Azevan Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage, small molecule drug development company developing novel therapeutics to treat disorders of stress, mood, and behavior. The Company's first clinical compounds selectively block the effects of arginine vasopressin, a peptide neurohormone involved in the pathophysiology of Intermittent Explosive Disorder, neuropsychiatric symptoms in neurodegenerative diseases, PTSD, and other affective disorders. Vasopressin 1a receptor antagonists represent a novel mechanism of action for addressing these indications.
A 12 week Phase II Clinical Trial with SRX246 for the treatment of Intermittent Explosive Disorder launched in Q2 2014."
This trial is scheduled for completion in December 2016 (ClinicalTrials.gov site)
Psychiatric Expansion into the Criminal Justice Sphere
The expansion in recent years of psychiatry's involvement in the criminal justice sphere should come as no surprise. Expansion has been an ever-present part of psychiatry's agenda since at least the early 50's, and it is clear that these efforts, fuelled by pharma dollars, have been very successful. In the 1950's, "mental illness" was considered extremely rare, and very few people ever came within the orbit of a psychiatrist or a mental institution of any kind. Today, psychiatry assures us that about one fifth to one quarter of the population experiences a mental illness each year, and that the life-time prevalence is about 50%. And these numbers are widely accepted by government, healthcare agencies, the media, and the general public. But I doubt that it is widely appreciated that virtually all criminal activity is included in these numbers.
The expansion of psychiatry's concepts and practices into the criminal justice arena is also entirely consistent with psychiatry's definition of "mental illness", as embracing every significant problem of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving. According to psychiatry, crime – any crime – is a symptom of a mental illness, with all its implications of powerlessness and non-accountability.
In recent years, psychiatry has come under a good deal of scrutiny and criticism. Its long-touted chemical imbalance hoax has been exposed, as has the ineffectiveness of its "treatments" and the fraudulent nature of most of its research. But there has been virtually no critical self-appraisal or apology from psychiatry. They continue to promote their invented illnesses and their destructive treatments with ever-increasing vigor, and, as in the case of crime, to extend their conceptual framework of false powerlessness into new arenas.
Psychiatry has not been entirely successful in their efforts to infiltrate the criminal justice system, and there is still a measure of skepticism among judges and prosecutors on these matters. Here's a quote from psychiatry.us:
"Courts are generally skeptical of claims of insanity based on various impulse control disorders such as Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), Pyromania and Pathological Gambling."
But psychiatry and its pharmaceutical allies have long known the value of patience. In the business of conceptual shifts, seeds planted today bear fruit years, if not decades, hence. But psychiatry's seeds have definitely taken root in the criminal justice field.
State of New York vs. Jason Bohn
Jason Bohn, 35, a New York attorney, was charged last year with the torture/murder of his 27-year-old girlfriend. The murder and the events leading up to the murder were recorded on the victim's cell phone, unbeknownst to Mr. Bohn. On the basis of this recording and an earlier call to the police by the victim, prosecutors were able to provide a timeline demonstrating that the torture/murder lasted at least 60 minutes. Nevertheless, part of Mr. Bohn's defense was that he was suffering from "intermittent explosive disorder", and that this should mitigate his culpability to a lesser charge, e.g., manslaughter.
After the trial, CBS reported Troy Roberts produced a 45-minute account for 48 Hours. A modified transcript of the program can be found here. Here are some quotes from this transcript:
"Dr. Alexander Sasha Bardey is a Harvard-educated forensic psychiatrist and a consultant for the TV show 'Law & Order: SVU'.
'I spent a total of about 6 or 7 hours with him [Jason Bohn]… over the course of three different sessions,' Bardey told '48 Hours'.
Now working for the defense, he spoke with Bohn and others who know him.
'What conclusion did you reach?' Roberts asked.
'I concluded that Jason was suffering from … intermittent explosive disorder,' Bardey replied. 'It's a mental illness … characterized by bouts of loss of control and bouts of anger and bouts of violence.'"
Note the phrase "suffering from."
"Prosecutors Patrick O'Connor and Marilyn Filingeri still can't quite believe it. They know Jason Bohn brutally beat Danielle Thomas to death. But Bohn's defense is claiming he's mentally ill — his anger stemming from his mother abandoning him almost three decades ago.
'It's ridiculous and it makes a mockery of the judicial system. This is why people … have a problem, with science, psychology, with psychiatry, because they come up with these concepts which are meant to excuse us from taking responsibility for our actions,' said O'Connor."
" 'At some point in the process of him killing her … her phone was activated,' said O'Connor.
And a recording of Jason killing Danielle was made.
'He speaks in a very calm voice at several times throughout the tape saying, 'Listen, Danielle, you have to listen to me. You don't have a lot of time,' ' said O'Connor.
It's extraordinarily graphic, so '48 Hours' decided just to share a small portion of it:
Jason Bohn: You have 5 seconds. I'm gonna let you up and then you need to answer quickly or else you die.
'Danielle on this tape is begging for her life … she's being strangled repeatedly … and at various points, she is saying that she can't breathe. She repeatedly claims that she loves him,' said O'Connor."
"Defense attorney Todd Greenberg concedes that Danielle Thomas' pocket-dialed voice mail is chilling.
'It's never, never a pleasant, pleasant experience when you have to dig into these type of facts,' said Greenberg. But he hears a different story in that recording. 'When I heard that tape, I heard howling.
I heard shrieking from Jason. …it's almost like somebody else coming out of him.'
At trial, Greenberg hopes to persuade jurors that when Jason Bohn was beating and strangling Danielle, he was overwhelmed by his emotions.
'Jason has never denied the act of killing Danielle Thomas. It has been the defense's position that he did so when he was suffering from a mental illness and under extreme emotional disturbance,' Greenberg said. 'Jason Bohn is a classic case of intermittent explosive disorder.' "
" 'It's a viable psychiatric illness that people suffer from,' said Psychiatrist Alexander Sasha Bardey, who is a key defense witness."
To which Troy Roberts responded:
" 'You hear him strangling her and then stopping. Asking her questions … telling her she's gonna die in five seconds. It sounds like someone who is in control to me,'
'Being out of control doesn't mean you're just screaming gibberish and – and — and waving your arms and flailing around,' he replied. 'You're just doing something that you really shouldn't be doing, that you don't wanna do that your rational reason tells you not to do, but you can't help yourself.' "
Note the extraordinary degree of obfuscation. Mr. Bohn's defense was that during the 60 minutes that he was torturing and murdering his girlfriend, he was, because of rage, not in control of his actions. Troy Roberts makes the point that in the taped conversation, he sounds very much in control. To which Dr. Bardey replies that being out of control just means that one does something that one shouldn't do. The "symptom lists" given in the DSM are inherently vague, and lend themselves to a very wide range of interpretation.
And, incidentally, Dr. Bardey is a very eminent psychiatrist, currently employed as Director of Forensic Psychiatry for Nassau County Department of Mental Health, Chemical Dependency, and Developmental Disabilities.
Ultimately, the jury rejected Mr. Bohn's defense and convicted him of torture/murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
State of Tennessee vs. Davis Bradley Waldroup, Jr.
In May, 2009, Davis Bradley Waldroup was tried in Benton, Tennessee with the attempted murder of his ex-wife, Penny, and the murder of her female friend Leslie Bradshaw. NRP did a segment on the trial on July 1, 2010, and there is a transcript on their website. Here are some quotes from the transcript:
"New discoveries about the brain are raising the question: Can your genes make you kill? Already, neuroscience has been presented as evidence in more than 1,200 cases. It's being called neuro-law, and it played a role in a murder trial in Tennessee last year. That trial is one of the first where jurors heard evidence from neuroscience to help them decide guilt or innocence."
"When the police arrived at Bradley Waldroup's trailer home in the mountains of Tennessee, they found a war zone. Assistant District Attorney Drew Robinson says there was blood on the walls, blood on the carpet, blood on the truck outside."
"Waldroup shot his wife's friend, Leslie Bradshaw, eight times, and sliced her head open with a sharp object. Prosecutor Cynthia Lecroy-Schemel says when Waldroup was finished, he chased after his wife, Penny, with a machete, chopping off her finger and cutting her over and over."
"Prosecutors charged Waldroup with the felony murder of Leslie Bradshaw, which carries the death penalty, and attempted first-degree murder of his wife, Penny. It seemed clear to them that Waldroup's actions were intentional and premeditated."
"Ms. LECROY-SCHEMEL [prosecutor]: One of them was, he told his children to come tell your mama goodbye, because he was going to kill her. And he had the gun, and he had the machete."
"Richardson [defense attorney Wylie Richardson] went to forensic psychiatrist William Bernet of Vanderbilt University, and asked him to give Waldroup a psychiatric evaluation. Bernet also took a blood sample and brought it to Vanderbilt's molecular genetics laboratory."
Dr. Bernet is a Professor Emeritus at Vanderbilt, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA and the AACAP.
"Bernet cited scientific studies over the past decade that have found that the combination of the genes and child abuse increases one's chances of being convicted of a violent offense by more than 400 percent. Other studies have not found such a connection, but Bernet thought the jury should know about the gene."
The gene in question is a variant of the MAO-A gene. It is sometimes referred to as "the warrior gene." There's a Wikipedia article on the subject here.
"The genetic testing was only one piece of Waldroup's defense. His attorneys also argued that he was depressed, suffered from intermittent explosive disorder, and acted in the heat of passion." [Emphasis added]
"After 11 hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Waldroup of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Leslie Bradshaw, and attempted second-degree murder of his wife."
"Another juror, Debbie Beaty, says the science helped persuade her that Waldroup was not entirely in control of his actions.
Ms. DEBBIE BEATY (Juror): A diagnosis is a diagnosis. You know, it's there. A bad gene is a bad gene."
A diagnosis is a diagnosis! The blandly expressed, but chilling acceptance, of the great psychiatric hoax.
"Prosecutor Drew Robinson was stunned.
Mr. ROBINSON: I was just flabbergasted. I did not know how to react to it.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Nor did fellow prosecutor Cynthia Lecroy-Schemel. She worries that this sort of defense is the wave of the future."
"Scientists and legal experts expect to see more cases like this as neuroscience makes inroads into the courtroom – and presents guilt and innocence not in terms of black and white, but in shades of gray."
But, of course, this isn't neuroscience entering the courtroom. This is psychiatric neuroscience – the same hodge-podge of unsubstantiated assertions that has convinced an entire generation that depression is an illness caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. It bears as much resemblance to genuine neuroscience as astrology does to astronomy.
Defense Lawyers and Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Defense lawyers are charged with the responsibility of defending their clients with as much vigor and creativity as they can bring to bear. They are beginning to recognize the value of "intermittent explosive disorder" in this area.
The Gage Law Firm is, according to their own website:
"…a premier criminal defense and estate planning law firm serving metropolitan Atlanta…"
Here's a quote from their website:
"The Gage Law Firm is skilled in handling criminal cases involving:
Paranoid Schizophrenia
Major Depression and Major Depressive Disorder
In many criminal cases involving mental illness, including felony cases, securing treatment for one's mental illness can help in avoiding criminal prosecution altogether. In other cases such treatment can offer significant mitigation. The Gage Law Firm can help set up low-cost treatment in the community and often negotiate a more desirable outcome with prosecutors. [Emphasis added]
Those who suffer from mental illness aren't criminals."
But in fact, violent defendants "suffering from intermittent explosive disorder" are criminals. That's what this "diagnostic label" means.
The Forbess Law Firm in Jacksonville, Florida, has a website called Jacksonville Crime Attorney Blog. On November 18, 2012, they published a post on intermittent explosive disorder. In the article they describe a case in which a person, diagnosed with this so-called disorder, shot four of his co-workers, killing two. The article also sets out the "symptoms for IED." Then there's this:
"Many times, people go through with actions that they would not normally ever think of doing because of altered states of mental acuity. When this happens, things said, acts done, and effects rendered can leave the accused what seems like a very rough position with no way out. However, if one obtains an experienced Jacksonville felony violent crimes defense attorney to fight for one's case, one can ensure one's rights will be known and protected and that one will be able to receive the treatment one needs to improve one's life in the future.
The Forbess Law Firm has been aiding clients who face criminal charges in Jacksonville for years and is here to provide aggressive criminal defense to anyone accused of a crime. If you or a loved one requires a Jacksonville criminal defense lawyer, contact our firm today." [Emphasis added]
In the evolutionary timeframe, it is but yesterday since our ancestors were a feral species hunting and foraging in small groups in the plains and forests of Africa. In that dangerous, adversarial, and competitive context, anger and aggression, nature's antidotes to fear, were adaptive traits that served our forebears well, and undoubtedly contributed to their survival.
And the species did not shed its wildness en masse when the first ploughshare turned soil, or when the first animal was captured and domesticated, or the first towns built. The civilization of the human species was not a one-time historical event, but is rather a continuous responsibility vested in each successive generation of parents: the responsibility to train their children to a level of anger control that is appropriate to the culture and norms of our present-day, highly organized, over-crowded living conditions.
Every child is born with his/her anger apparatus intact and ready to develop. When we see an adult routinely displaying outbursts of rage, the relevant question is not: why does he do that?, but rather: why doesn't everybody do that? And the answer to this latter question is: because they were trained not to. Until about 30 years ago, parents understood and accepted that this training was an integral part of their responsibility. Today, thanks to psychiatry, an habitually angry, petulant, bad-tempered child "has an illness", and parents are being actively urged, and in some cases coerced, to seek psychiatric "treatment" for this "illness." In general, psychiatry's success in this area has been abysmal, and these children routinely grow up to be habitually angry, petulant, bad-tempered, and sometimes viciously violent, adults.
Jason Bohn, whose murder conviction was discussed above, at age 14, had reportedly punched a pregnant 18-year-old woman in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry. He was never charged with this offense.
"No charges were brought in the first killing [the miscarriage]— Bohn was already under psychiatric care and authorities made certain that the care was continued." New York Post, February 21, 2014.
The fact is that habitual outbursts of violent rage, such as wife-battering and road rage are not illnesses, and are not amenable to medical treatment. What we're dealing with here is simply another example of psychiatry self-servingly expanding its drug-peddling activities regardless of considerations of validity, efficacy, or ethical integrity.
The hoax goes on.
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Behaviorism and Mental Health: Philip Hickey is a retired psychologist. He has worked in prisons (UK and US), addiction units, community mental health centers, nursing homes, and in private practice. He and his wife, Nancy, live in Colorado, and have four grown children. His posts can also be seen on his website, Behaviorism and Mental Health.
Marie January 4, 2016 at 9:58 am
It's not surprising that psychiatry wants to expand its power and profitability by calling criminal acts illnesses. But I suspect it can do this because it is a common belief that criminals are ill. I can't tell you the number of times someone has told me an abusive individual, a murderer , a child molestor or even someone with nothing more than a very bad temper is "sick." And, I believe, this attitude is more prevalent among better educated individuals who are in the higher socio-economic strata.
Philip Hickey, PhD January 5, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Thanks for commenting. It is indeed a common belief, but it was not always so. This is something that has been "seeping" into the collective consciousness for only about the last 30 years, and is a direct result of pharma-psychiatric propaganda.
BPDTransformation, B.A. January 4, 2016 at 11:43 am
This is so utterly ridiculous that it defies words, Philip. The "doctors" in this article are charlatans to the 10th degree. I find it hard to imagine they are not aware on some level of how hollow their "research" is and how contemptible and pathetic it appears to most well-informed people.
When it comes to accepting or challenging the claims of psychiatry in America, most Americans are woefully uneducated or just flat-out stupid. They will accept anything they read from nondoctors. So part of the responsibility for accepting these nonillnesses falls not only on the hoaxers (psychiatrists) who peddle them, but on the mindless sheep who allow themselves to be deceived. As Macchiavelli said,
"Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions."
Furthermore, the lies that psychiatrists promote about diagnosis are so extreme and so blatant that many Americans find it hard to believe that an entire official diagnostic and research system, one promoted by our best universities and institutions, could be nothing more than a self-serving fraud. But it is indeed so.
I am a former criminal (this was years ago, beyond the statute of limitations and more importantly not provable… these could just be fantasies, for all you all know, although they aren't). But when I was carrying out my criminal acts, including stealing very significant amounts of money and items of property to survive, I never felt as if I had an illness. Instead my criminal behavior was adaptive, conscious and intentional; it allowed me to survive for a period when I had no regular income but didn't want to enter the disability system which would have involved diagnosis and drugging. And I could afford psychotherapy when all my parents and the psychiatrist wanted was to drug me. And I have to admit that doing "bad" things was exciting and thrilling, involving the feeling of defying the parents and authority figures that I feared and hated.
Back then I was a rather cunning, calculating and opportunistic individual – something I know society looks down on as "bad" traits, but I don't. The only moral code I had was never to directly hurt someone else physically; anything else was fair game. I would spend hours planning specific thefts, both electronic and physical, carefully accounting for the risk / reward ratio of different plans of action. And these actions paid off because I was able to accumulate large amounts of money, pay for therapy, pay for living expenses, not go into debt like most young people, finish college, and most importantly get away with all of it. Today, I don't steal anymore, mostly because I have a real job and so it doesn't make sense from a risk/reward standpoint, but also because through therapy I have more of a conscience than I used to.
To those moralizers out there: Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged. If more people did whatever it took to survive and escape the psychiatric system, including illegal acts that are not directly physically harmful to others, we would be better off. Sometimes the ends do justify the means, as they did in my case. Breaking the law can occasionally be a very good thing. There is a good book about this, "McMafia", which explores the culture of crime and how the individuals who commit illegal acts are complex, often fascinating individuals who break the law for many reasons, some of them adaptive or even helpful to others.
It's also ironic because it was the pressures of the psychiatric system that encouraged me to commit crimes; if I had been offered lower-cost psychotherapy rather than being pressured to take drugs and have only the recourse of expensive therapy, I would not have had such a need to steal.
BPDTransformation,
Thanks for the insights – and I mean that sincerely, and literally. Crime is definitely not an illness!
Steve Spiegel January 4, 2016 at 12:59 pm
This is an area of disagreement between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry; the drug companies want to expand their market while psychiatry wants to protect is fledgling credibility. It makes no sense that problems with behavior are "mental illnesses" unless they are bad enough to be criminal whereupon it is debatable depending upon who pays for the diagnosis.
Diagnosing criminal behavior may be a touchy topic for this website since it seems that most people on this website do not want their emotional distress identified with criminal behavior. Most people with lived experience of emotional distress want to defend themselves from a loss of their human rights that is based on fear of criminal behavior.
It seems like the "movement" against the medical model should advocate an abolition of the "insanity" defense to reject the validity of the DSM.
Best wishes, Steve
Thanks for this. There certainly are complex ramifications. But psychiatry has already taken it position (with DSM-III) and confirmed it twice (IV and 5), so the die is pretty much cast, and the implementation has begun.
Steve McCrea January 6, 2016 at 7:11 pm
Szaz took that very position, as I recall. He believed people should be held accountable for their crimes, regardless of mental state, and that incarceration should be based on what one did, not on some theoretically perceived risk of harm to self or others based on a spuriously-defined "mental disorder." I tend to agree with him. Unless it can be proven that the person was in a condition where they genuinely did not understand what they were doing, they should be 100% accountable for their choices. The fact that someone has some speculative "warrior gene" is neither here nor there.
It is interesting that the IED description says that the person can't be using this for any kind of specific gain, such as power 0r control over another. This would disqualify 99% of domestic abusers even by their own definition.
"Intermittent Explosive Disorder" may be the most ridiculous "disorder" in this entire ridiculous volume. That anyone can read that name and still take this book seriously is indication of how gullible the public has really become.
Donald J. Bermont, Ph.D. January 4, 2016 at 1:16 pm
The difference between "can't" and ""won't" has always been a very difficult differentiation for anyone dealing with mental health issues. It certainly has been for me as a therapist.
I have always felt that part of my role as a therapist is to help the people I see to feel more in control of their lives and their destinies. Yet, as a Psychologist and a scientist it is impossible not to realize that every behavior has an antecedent — that every effect has a cause — that humans really do not have "free will" at the moment that they are making decisions. Behavior is determined by who we are biologically, and how that has interacted with all of the experiences we have received from our environment. Our actions don't just randomly appear, they come from our history and our motivations, most of which we are not consciously reappraising at the moment of action.
As Dr. Hickey describes,recently there have been many attempts by defense lawyers to use a psychiatric diagnoses, such as bipolar disorder, or intermittent explosive disorder, to get their clients to be seen as being victims of the disorder and not responsible for their actions. Philosophically, in many ways this is true. It is true of all of us. We are limited by who were are and what we have experienced. I don't have the "free will" to wake up tomorrow and play in the NBA, be a lawyer, a hedge-fund manager, or even be a good trash collector. (although, obviously I could run for President of the U.S., as the bar for that is very low).
But we can't live in a society that forgives people for the lives they have led. Laws and courts are there to judge people by their actions. There has to be a sense of responsibility, especially for anyone over eighteen years old. The question becomes one of how much "extenuating circumstances" are considered in the sentencing.. Sometimes, treatment is a much better solution than just throwing someone in jail. It could be a better option for the criminal, and for society. Sometimes it's not. Michael S. Gazzianiga, the psychologist/neurologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara discusses this issue at length in his 2014 book "Whose in Charge Here."
Unfortunately, this is a very difficult and complex question to throw at a jury of untrained citizens. "Common sense" gets very confusing. Also, sadly, it plays into many prejudices, especially racial. The question of who is culpable often becomes one of who we are afraid of. In addition, what needs to be considered is how effective treatment would be for the criminal. If we believe that a crime was determined by a person's genetic make-up, does that mean there is nothing we can do about it. If so, shouldn't that person be put away forever, just to keep the rest of us safe? If I know someone has an uncontrolled warrior gene, shouldn't I just shoot him before he shoots me, and then tell the judge I feared for my life?
Laws are there to answer these questions, not psychiatry.
As Dr. Hickey writes, people are responsible to learn from their parents, their community and from their own mistakes. Responsible people learn to alter their behavior in order to function better, as individuals and as citizens. We assume that people who "act-out" are making a choice, based on who they have allowed themselves to become. I feel it is the role of a therapist to help create a series of new experiences that help with that learning process, and perhaps have some input into who goes to jail.
BPDTransformation, B.A. January 4, 2016 at 2:23 pm
This is a difficult conundrum. If it were to be widely acknowledged that we often or always lack free will; that criminals do things not because they are innately evil people but because other causes influenced them which they were not responsible for… the entire basis of the prison / corrections industry would collapse and morality would have to be in some way abandoned. People would come to feel powerless and like drones. Yes this is the state in which many murders or thefts are committed; by people who do not choose or want to commit these crimes, but are pushed to do so by a chain of other causes including abuse, neglect, poverty, etc. Many murderers would be normal "good" citizens if only their childhoods had been better. The logical response would actually be to forgive and rehabilitate many of these people, not imprison them for life. But then there is the argument for deterrence, and possibly the reality that the myth of free will and personal responsibility (something I partly believe in, out of need) helps to maintain the degree of societal order that would not exist otherwise and that it would be dangerous to go without.
Thanks for a thoughtful and detached analysis. I think the critical issue for the criminal justice system is, or rather should be: how can we intervene with this individual in order to reduce the likelihood of re-offending, while at the same time adequately avenging the victim, and protecting potential future victims? Obviously this is a huge issue, but, and this was the point of my post, psychiatric "diagnosis" and "treatment" is not the answer.
It is important to distinguish between unconscious motivations and lack of free will. A person acting out of unconscious or subconscious motivations is still exercising free will – s/he is making a decision, but is simply not being honest with him/herself of the reasons for doing so. This is very different from not being able to become an NBA star due to lack of athletic skills, height, or other abilities. It's also different from being able to decide to be attracted to a particular person or gender.
A great example is child sexual abuse. I've heard it argued that certain people are sexualized toward younger children and molest for this reason. But I would bet you a whole lot of money that there are many, many people who feel sexual attraction for younger children and choose not to act on it, because they know it is socially inappropriate. Or perhaps a less threatening example: I can readily admit to finding certain high school girls very sexually attractive. But I'd never choose to engage in a sexual relationship with someone of that age, because I know it would be harmful to them (in addition to being illegal). We always have a choice as to whether we give in to a particular impulse. It may be harder for some people to make that choice, but it's still a decision that is being made. To say that prior circumstances force a person to act a certain way dehumanizes us all and makes efforts to change and to address personal challenges appear pointless and meaningless.
Humans make choices. It's what we do. Conscious or not, we're still making choices, and saying we have a "disorder" preventing us from making those choices takes away both agency and meaning from our lives.
FeelinDiscouraged February 3, 2017 at 7:58 pm
I know what you mean about the young girls, Steve. While I don't find high school boys terribly attractive, as a single woman, I sometimes am attracted to married men. I never act on this, because I believe adultery is wrong. The only reason I am still alive, is that I believed suicide was murder and therefore wrong. This saved me many times. Psychiatric hospitalization (voluntary) and drugs were no help at all. At the end the opposite became apparent–to me.
sam plover December 16, 2019 at 3:13 pm
I am often on the fence on whether we have free will and is a massively long subject, or debate. And I doubt with real answers because as humans we only have limited thinking ability (pun)
I sort of lean to "no free will" and I will explain. I believe many of my actions are a result of things learned. Now if I steal, it might not be because my parents stole, but could be because my parents lacked impulse control in other areas, or I was taught how to be suspicious that others might steal. It could be many things that the child internalizes and eventually morph into certain ways of interacting within their environment.
So People bump along, they might act in societal inappropriate ways, but often it is not until they acted that they look back and see what they did right or wrong.
In some ways, people are aware of what society expects or else they might not sneak around in the dark of night.
But the will to not be impulsive is the biggie and I believe that is learned early and along the way. Perhaps a kid had anxiety and tantrums and the parents gave in to them, who knows, it could be anything.
These are not illnesses, but are changeable through acquiring life skills.
Psychiatrists have absolutely no qualifications to work with people. Medications do nothing but harm the person or worse, prevent them from experiencing that growing phase.
There are lightbulbs that go on for people and that mechanism never stops.
Psychiatry disrupts any chance of people changing and for the most part, jail does not help either. They are both comparable in helping society.
The list of behaviours deemed normal are invented by psychiatry and does not allow for variation. I remember the "hit your pillow" to put your energy or anger into something. I never found it to help. I would rather throw a plate.
WHICH I have done. I did feel like throwing it at the person, yet chose the floor. Should I have been calmer? Should ALL of society remain calm or just use our anger in monotone voice? Some people do.
It is not a crime for me to throw 20 plates in one month.
It is industry at work.
We live in a strange society where personal crimes are MI's. Crimes of selfish leaders that send men to battlefields and resend them even broken. Cops who act out aggression and bullying, lawyers who play mind games and stand by as they watch people get ground into the floor. selfish delusional psychiatrists who tell immense stories of what is abnormal, who hold innocent women down as they receive ECT, who taint people with labels that prevent them from basic rights, give meds that destroy brains of little kids, split families.
If we counted all the bodies that psychiatry, medicine and politics took and compare that to street crimes, who gets the trophy?
We might hear the word "intentional". Psychiatry, medicine and politicians, cops do NOT to this intentionally. HMMM, well then, did the criminals do it with intention? If it was an "illness", then perhaps he should get off free and then really, since medications don't effect criminality, no meds either. Or should we medicate or not psychiatry who also does not intend harm? Or imprison them?
(In fact it seems intentional by psychiatry,when you have the stats and theories are disproven. To not recognize or admit is not an excuse)
We really have to call harm what it is. I would hope that a psychiatrist through his status quo and education and such should have a better handle at damage control than the average street criminal.
Yet he does not. He harms great amounts of people and also causes their death (not intentionally, since the drugs did that) through his practice.
First of, the diagnosis are so convoluted, so full of lies and do nothing to protect or reduce harm. People who are real criminals usually don't go to psychiatrists. Often the people who feel they want help for their frustrations do. If a guy shows up in a shrinks office because he can't control his horn beeping, and he gets sacked with labels and meds?
No realization that somewhere mom and dad, combined with adapting just causes him some frustration which he is trying to deal with. No realization that maybe his one problem is anxiety from a busy stressful environment that he is not able to cope with, with the tools he has.
Psychiatry invented something that a lot of people like to believe. However, these folks need to dig deeper into the record, the positive outcomes of psychiatry. There are none.
The courts are there to handle criminals. We can only focus on the crime and let the proper people handle it. But it is another attempt at brainwashing a very easily brainwashed society.
We all know children that can be little buggers and even little criminals. I would bet all of it is learned, in one way or another. NOTHING about learning and adapting is "illness". If it was, people would never change. There would never be a person that learned.
oldhead January 4, 2016 at 3:34 pm
Within psychiatry's spurious and comprehensive medicalization perspective, all criminal activity is a manifestation of a mental illness.
That about covers it. And all psychiatry is a manifestation of social control rather than "health care." Anyone still harboring illusions about this should pay closer attention.
If all crime is really just an expression of "mental illness" the logical extension would be to replace all prisons with "mental hospitals." Which to be sure some mh "pros" would love. But the more sinister implication is that anyone could be arbitrarily labeled "mentally ill" then considered a criminal threat to be contained by any means necessary. And precious few of the few remaining undiagnosed would appreciate the fine distinction that, although all crime is (allegedly) "mental illness," all those labeled "mentally ill" are not criminals.
If we had a "justice" system based primarily on protecting people from crime, and secondarily on changing/rehabilitating the offender rather extracting revenge; the reason for someone's criminality would be secondary. A dangerous person with no sense of remorse for his crimes should not be wandering freely among us, no matter what psychiatric condition supposedly motivated his/her actions. At the other end of the scale are those who are charged with crimes as a result of defending themselves, or because they acted impulsively or foolishly in a particularly stressful situation, who are less likely to represent a continuing danger. Once there is little reason to believe the behavior will be repeated, there should not be undue continued sanctions based on official sentencing requirements, mandatory minimum sentences, etc.; everyone should be treated as an individual. One's state of mind certainly may be considered when evaluating extenuating circumstances, but psychiatric terminology and testimony should be excluded from this process as outmoded and unscientific.
So some wife batterers are "afflicted" by an illness which causes them to batter their partners. The clear implication being that there is nothing they can do about this except, presumably, seek psychiatric treatment.
And let's not forget the wives who are then guilt-tripped for not "understanding" that their poor abusive husbands are "suffering" from a serious illness, and maybe even blamed for provoking the behavior by this lack of understanding.
Oldhead,
Thanks. What you've managed to do here is set out just how complex and involved these issues are. Against which, psychiatry's claim, that crimes are simply illnesses, can be seen for what it is.
Fiachra January 4, 2016 at 8:28 pm
Hi Philip, thanks for the Article (I hope I'm not wandering off, too much). How about 'Severe Mental Illness'- what is to be understood by this term?
I think the general rule is that if a doctor in the UK does n't understand normal English then they shouldn't be allowed to practice. I think this Rule should be specifically applied to native English Speaking doctors.
According to a UK GP I saw in October of 2012 anyone with a historical Severe Diagnosis was a Severely Mentally Ill person (forever).
According to a Lancet International Study Severe Mental Illness is more disabling than paraplegia or blindness. I don't know anyone with a 'historical diagnosis' that could be described like this.
Fiachra,
Thanks for coming in. It's a great, but understandable, error to imagine that one can make sense of psychiatry. All the fundamental principles of psychiatry are unmitigated nonsense. A problem is severe, if a psychiatrist says so. A problem is lifelong, if a psychiatrist says so. Any "mental illness" can be experienced at a mild, moderate, or severe level. The term "severely mentally ill" is generally reserved for people with a "diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder", though the concept is currently expanding.
It's a funny one Philip.
(My GP Practice put my name on a SMI Register without telling me while I was working as a building subcontractor).
I wonder if I can have my ex girlfriends arrested for having sex with a "Severely Mentally Ill Person" (at some stage they've all left me for younger men).
urica January 4, 2016 at 10:24 pm
Psychiatry is a crime.
Urica,
Well, technically, it isn't. But it sure ought to be. Did you notice how quickly the various governments were all over VW for their recent discovered deception? Wouldn't it be nice if psychiatry were held to the same standards!
markps2 January 5, 2016 at 9:26 am
Szasz wrote the only sin ( a choice people make) left is a lack of compassion, everything else (vice and virtue) has been medicalized.
People believe it is compassionate to help the mentally ill, but who gets to judge who is mentally ill?
"Involuntary mental hospitalization and the insanity defense should be seen for what they are: symmetrical symbols of psychiatric power. In the one case, the psychiatrist "accuses" the innocent; in the other, he "excuses" the guilty." Szasz
Too much compassion is given to the criminal. The purpose of prison is to keep law abiding people safe from dangerous ones. People can only be put in prison if (there is evidence of) a crime has occurred. Past tense.
Psychiatry is needed for the present time, the present fear of possible crimes performed by those who look/act different than the norm.
If psychiatry does get the power to judge, personal freedoms will further disappear.
Carolyn Barnes (JAILED U.S.) May of 2010, Carolyn was arrested and charged with assault for allegedly firing a gun at a census worker. She was declared incompetent to stand trial and sent to the Maximum Security Unit at the North Texas State Hospital for the criminally insane. https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/12/a-psychiatric-assault-on-liberty-the-case-of-carolyn-barnes-2/
Psychiatry wants control over everyone.
Thanks for coming in and for the Thomas Szasz quote.
Stephen Gilbert January 5, 2016 at 9:46 am
Psychiatry is an insidious disease or virus that just keeps engulfing everything so that just being alive will be an illness! This is just so much bull feces and it's amazing to me that more people don't see through it. Eventually, everyone will be "ill" except for the people running the drug companies. I was going to say that psychiatrists will also be exempt but we all know that many of them are totally delusional to the extreme.
Thanks for this. Psychiatry is a hoax, whose tentacles are spreading everywhere.
boans January 5, 2016 at 1:29 pm
Hi Dr Hickey,
Our Chief Justice in Western Australia has come out and said that domestic violence is a medical issue and should be treated as such.
Our police force has been given a 'needle squad' to deal with this medical matter (and well, a few inconvenient truths might fall through the cracks).
Public officers have been given carte blanche to fabricate any evidence they require through the corrupt practice of 'verballing', and manipulate outcomes which suit current policies.
Our new psychiatric unit is to be built within the confines of a Supermax. Treatments so good that even hardened criminals are shaking in their boots.
So, come on down, the Devils in town in sunny Western Australia 🙂
Boans
boans January 5, 2016 at 11:19 pm
I might just add after thinking about this pattern that before the introduction of our new Mental Health Act with "added protections" (just don't say they are to protect doctors from any action) that there was a crisis meeting of psychiatrists as a result of the flood away from the public system. The 'locals' don't appear to want to be involved in what may result in blood guilt. Thus the definition of what is a psychiatrist have been lowered and doctors imported to 'do the deed'.
As the Kennedy, Wood and Fitzgerald Royal Commissions exposed the use of the same torture techniques used in Guantanamo by police (beatings, cattle prods, simulated drownings, sleep deprivation) back in the 80s, we have in some ways been a little ahead of the US.
I know I was handed over to police for questioning and not informed I had been drugged without my knowledge with benzos. I can see advantages for law enforcement in this.
Any researcher looking for a canary in a coalmine, might do well to have a look at what's going on in this corner of the world.
I'm feeling eerily psychic.
If all crime is really just an expression of "mental illness" the logical extension would be to replace all prisons with "mental hospitals"…But the more sinister implication is that anyone could be arbitrarily labeled "mentally ill" then considered a criminal threat to be contained by any means necessary. And precious few of the few remaining undiagnosed would appreciate the fine distinction that, although all crime is (allegedly) "mental illness," all those labeled "mentally ill" are not criminals.
In his "gun" control speech this morning Obama just announced that physicians will now be not only permitted but expected to inform the FBI if they believe a patient is "mentally ill." In highly coded terms he noted that Obamacare was crafted to emphasize "mental health" care, and that now he was going to make it "easier" for people who are unhappy with their lives under this system to get the "treatment" they need. I will point out for the politically blind amongst us that this statement screams Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! But now it seems like Obama is not going to even bother waiting to pass Murphy, he's just going ahead with his pogrom. Our lives and the integrity of our bodies and brains are in great immediate danger, whether or not we have ever even touched a gun or committed a violent act. As in the 30's in Germany the psychiatrized are again one of the main scapegoats for the fear and desperation people are feeling in this country, and what this system needs more than anything right now are scapegoats for its inability to meet the people's needs.
This needs to be recognized as an urgent crisis and the discussion needs to be officially taken up on this site by someone with "writer" credentials. Ye lawyers and others involved with legal advocacy need to mobilize and prepare to defend those who will be victimized by this organized hysteria, and who may be targeted for opposing it. Hopefully many tactical discussions will ensue, not just a couple threads on MIA.
I hope everyone who watched Obama understands the enormity of all this without needing to read this post (which I have also put in the Forums).
I guess I should clarify that the specific thing about the FBI I got from listening to Rush Limbaugh's post-speech analysis; despite the source I have no reason to believe it's untrue. I didn't listen to the entirety of the speech, as I knew what was coming from the stultifying(officially acceptable) emotionalism of the buildup; I kept saying c'mon dude, c'mon, just SAY IT.
I have noticed that Limbaugh & other "talk radio" types are very cogent and adept at interpreting psychiatric code when it suits their purposes; in this case they are likely to be focusing, as RL did today, on how gun ownership and "anger" can be exploited in the name of "mental health care," and how the language of health care is manipulated to further political goals. We should try to capitalize on this, and I have encouraged the right-wingers on this site to try to engage the "talk radio" crowd on this.
kim January 6, 2016 at 6:10 am
The title of this article should read "Psychiatry IS Crime"!
I wonder ….. when psychiatry's crimes are exposed and the court cases come thick and fast, will psychiatrists try and use the insanity defence?
John Hoggett January 7, 2016 at 5:13 am
"It is important to note that the APA's definition of a mental disorder/illness is entirely arbitrary, in that there is no objective reality to which it must conform." So when a psychiatrist tries to diagnose me with some fictitious diagnosis I can retort, "So you say love. Whatever."
Psychiatry, as I like to say, has two functions:
1 to be the drug delivery agent for Big Pharma
2 to stop people thinking why someone is distressed
Now they want to add
1 to stop people taking responsibility for their bad behaviour
2 to stop people thinking about why people behave badly
Actually they always did this to some degree with people diagnosed as psychopaths whe are often deemed untreatable.
There is however a prison abolitions movement, especially in the USA. The criminal justice system often does not reform people and is harsh and often racist. I do not see psychiatry as much better.
There are psycho-social factors around bad behaviour, just as there are around mental distress, and both the criminal justice and psychiatry ignore this. Most violence is committed by men. Most people who end up diagnosed as psychopaths have had appaling childhoods. Diagnosis generally ignores this but if we want to reduce violence in society then we need to look at this and if we want to reform people, usually men, who have acted appalingly we may need to look at this too.
The prison movement is our natural ally. Until we collectively understand fighting psychiatry as primarily a law enforcement/justice issue and not one of "health reform" we will be sabotaging our own vital analysis and strategy, as well as millions of brothers & sisters already involved in taking on the Prison Industrial Complex, which could easily be renamed the Prison/Psychiatric Industrial Complex if we took the nature of our struggle more seriously.
sam plover December 10, 2019 at 9:05 am
Crimes are committed by psychiatry every day, all day, in a legal manner. SO much abuse happens within medicine and psychiatry, it is surprising they don't receive backlash by consumers. Which is a testament to the so called MI.
The mainstream of society never is witness to the crimes committed inside the walls of any hospital.
We have tried to enlighten them, by releasing photos from asylums from years ago, and the public genuinely believes this happened then and not now.
How anyone can look at the crimes by psychiatry and not see it as such is beyond me and can only suppose that those people have an empathy button lacking.
Psychiatry hides behind behind every nook and cranny they can find. Constantly appealing to the general lack of interest in the mainstream of society, a society that tends to be concerned with mainly themselves.
On another note, this newsworthy bit. A judge who "thinks" about not just the crime. I hope the judge would extend this line of thinking to anyone, but glad he judged as he did.
vhttps://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/why-an-alberta-judge-sentenced-armed-robber-to-one-day-when-crown-asked-for-two-years/ar-BBY0spx?ocid=spartanntp
Steve McCrea December 11, 2019 at 1:02 am
The trick is, they portray anyone who actually gets caught as a "bad apple" and an outlier and assure everyone that they are HORRIFIED that any doctor would act this way, and THEY certainly don't ever do anything like that! It is a great way to distract attention from any deeper investigation or analysis.
boans December 12, 2019 at 4:42 am
The 'trick' (if it can be considered one) is to have legislation passed under the guise of being about "compassion" and "care" and all that nice stuff people wish they had time to feel. Then once you have the legislation passed it can be 'tweaked' and used for purposes that were never intended.
I look at our current legislation (passed yesterday) for "Assisted Dying" (don't call it Euthanasia, people will start thinking about the Nazis those wanting it passed told the newspapers). This striking similarity to "life unworthy of living" and how easily our legislation can be "amended" (the Chief Psychiatrist has written to me telling me that he has the power to amend Mental Health Act without any involvement of Parliament effectively removing 'legal protections' and authorising arbitrary detentions and torture [think i'm joking? Ask me to prove it. Email from the Minister confirming this]) should allow the 'delousing' (with some serious side effects) of anyone who is a problem to our Government. Why only last month our Treasurer was bemoaning the cost Mental Illness and Old Age was having on our economy.
Opening up areas to make legal what would normally be criminal is something that psychiatrists are experts at. No need to look back to National Socialist Germany, take a look at Western Australia 2019. (Lets make forced sterilization of children without parental consent legal, woops the world is looking, lets not) 2021 let the killings begin.
I am reminded of Pte Joker in Full Metal Jacket looking at those citizens 'reeducated' by the Viet Cong. "The dead know only one thing, it is better to be living."
There are no "bad apples" in my country Steve, they kill anyone who complains and thus none of their colleagues are ever held to account. Sun Tzu explained this method of terrorising citizens 2000 years ago in his demonstration to the Emperor of Wu. If you are serious about maintaining control of a population then these methods are tested and work in a highly effective manner.
Consider, psychiatrists acting as Sun Tzu did all those years ago? Touting his wares to those who wished to maintain control of their 'property'? The external threats created and maintained by one group, and the internal threat dealt with by another. See the Power of Nightmares and the consequences on the populations "Mental Health" and how to generate a profit from that? Politicians creating an 'enemy' who is coming to get us to maintain fear and thus their power, but what happens when that fear results in the rumblings within from an anxious population? Nothing any drug dealer wouldn't know how to generate a profit from.
Psychiatry does not need assisted dying, they don't even believe in it. They believe in keeping people alive to profit. There is NO interest on their part in anything MI, or death.
Not for a second do I believe that they believe in MI. I do believe that some are disillusioned, possibly from a young age onwards, but I do think many of them realize, but keep up the game.
Really psychiatry is in itself funny. That very paranoid view they hold, that constant surveillance of behaviour, to me it is so alien, yet I recognize how people could possibly become dastardly entrenched in their views.
But the majority of people if educated, grow, they change.
Our views and understanding changes. Why not psychiatry?
It is not possible for us not to see unique differences within each other, and I am pretty keen in noticing others and do like to study people. But get paid for that? And how did they come up with the labels? Imagine twisting your brain up like that, coming up with labels. Imagine coming up with disorders that basically point the fingers at any human or animal.
Sitting in a boardroom and discussing "clusters"…..pass the grapes.
I can totally see what makes them so interested in the lively or depressed population.
I am VERY interested in criminal behaviour, and psychiatry commits unethical ones, yet have no excuse like an insanity plea.
I really believe they are acting out something deep inside of themselves.
. The thing that always fascinated me is that a human "thinks" that he is "more" normal, "better" than someone else, which is fine, but to be, umm, not intelligent enough to realize that possibly it's not them, and just that illusion, and yet run with that illusion…..well that just floors me, ESPECIALLY if that illusion, delusion causes harm.
Psychiatry folks are the very LAST folks to talk about crime.


STEVEN GERRARD has warned Raheem Sterling not to quit Liverpool and disappear as just another squad player at another club.
Sterling is locked in a contract dispute with Liverpool despite being offered a new £100,000 deal at Anfield and some fans have turned against him.
Real Madrid and Arsenal have both been linked with the 20 year old but Gerrard, speaking at the launch of BT Sport Europe, the new home of the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, said: "He needs to make the decision quickly. I hope he stays for his development. It's important he plays week in week to learn and become a world-class player.
Jurgen Klopp's agent, meanwhile, has specified he would be prepared to take charge of English clubs outside the top four.
Liverpool have insisted Brendan Rodgers' position as manager is safe but the departures of Colin Pascoe and Mike Marsh from his coaching staff have served to raise doubts as to his long-term future.
Klopp is taking a sabbatical after leaving Borussia Dortmund, although it is understood Liverpool is one club that could a change of heart.
And his agent, Marc Kosicke, did little to counter that by indicating Klopp would consider an English club outside the Champions League, while highlighting the importance of an ownership model that would ensure he does not become bogged down in negotiating transfers.
"The Premier League is very exciting," said Kosicke. "And we do not only think about the top four because there are some other great clubs below them. But I am not sure the profile of the job could work.
"In Germany there is a clear separation between manager and sporting director and I think in principle this is very good.


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The Fear of FearIain Armstrong2020-09-27T15:34:47+01:00
THE FEAR OF FEAR
The Fear of Fear is a piece of new writing by theatre maker Stephanie Ridings. It was commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre, supported by Arts Council England and The Sir Barry Jackson Trust. I composed some music and created the sound design for the show.
A mysterious figure haunts an untamed Scottish island. No one is immune to the heightened campaign of fear and terror she pours onto those who cross her path. But what does that fear actually feel like and how did wanting to create a scary ghost story mean I ended up 60 meters underground in a watery cave?
The Fear of Fear wrestles with the emotion to try and understand what makes us afraid and why it doesn't always have to be a bad thing.
In researching this show, writer and performer Stephanie Ridings undertook a number of fear inducing tasks including caving, a zip wire ride and attending a seance. The work is a response to her investigations into fear and follows an episodic structure where Ridings recounts two parallel stories, the caving experience and a visit to Barnhill on the isle of Jura to write the script.
The sound design helps to create the two worlds with authentic cave sounds recorded during the caving experience and a subtle naturalistic soundscape of Barnhill cottage and surrounds. Both worlds are heightened with abstract design elements that reference horror/thriller movie soundtracks and the fantastical imagery of some scenes.
The Fear of Fear premiered at Warwick Arts Centre Studio, 3rd & 4th October 2018.
Writer & Performer – Stephanie Ridings
Director – Sarah Wyott-Meadows
Composer & Sound designer – Iain Armstrong
Lighting & Set Designer – Ben Pacey
Producer – Pippa Frith
Photographer – Graeme Braidwood
"The Fear of Fear creates some undoubtedly spooky moments, using music and lighting to create suspense. The feeling that something terrible is about to happen never quite leaves you, at least not until you leave the theatre."
Pablo Sandomingo Adams, The Boar
Stephanie Ridings
Pippa Frith

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Muscle biopsy under a microscope
(Image Credit: Rob Judges / Oxford University Images)
HomeAdmissionsGraduateCoursesDPhil in Biomedical and Clinical Sciences
DPhil in Biomedical and Clinical Sciences
This three-year programme is tailored specifically to the needs of talented clinicians who aspire to a career in academic medicine or clinical psychology. The course is also known as the Doctoral Training Fellowship Scheme for Clinicians.
Successful applicants will work towards a DPhil within one of three streams which are in basic sciences, mental and cognitive health, and translational/experimental medicine.
You will be offered generic research training and required to meet standard University milestones for progress. All students are formally monitored via supervisor feedback forms submitted three times per year.
1. Basic sciences
This stream aims to provide high-quality research training in basic and applied molecular science for clinical academics who aspire to a career in academic medicine. It is expected that you will carry out DPhil projects in one of the following broad areas:
infection/immunity/inflammation
rheumatology related disease, including the process of inflammation, damage and repair.
Training provision is tailored to your needs, in relation to your research project and determined in consultation with supervisors, mentor and programme directors.
It is expected that you will have both basic-scientist and clinician-scientist supervisors, to bridge the gap between basic and applied research.
2. Mental and cognitive health
This stream aims to recruit clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and neurologists to the DPhil programme and place them into internationally-recognised research groups that have successfully developed new treatments, clinical assessments and rehabilitation procedures and/or novel experimental medicine approaches to psychopharmacology.
You should expect to receive core teaching in a range of skills important for clinical research in mental and cognitive health. These may include: experimental design, structured clinical interviews, cognitive testing, programming experiments MATLAB/using E-Prime/SuperLab etc, design and analysis of clinical trials, acquisition and analysis of fMRI and other imaging data.
In addition, Oxford has exceptional multimodal imaging facilities to which you should have access. If appropriate for your research, you will normally be able to join the FMRIB graduate training programme.
Throughout the DPhil course, students on this stream will have a weekly day-long placement in a unit that conducts clinical work closely related to your research programme, in order to:
observe how research and clinical implementation can work together
continue to develop your clinical skills
Each placement normally lasts for twelve months, during which you should have the opportunity to work in units that aim to help you observe translational work in a complementary area to your research. In this way, the programme aims to equip you with the skills you need to ensure that, when relevant, you can rapidly translate your future research findings into patient benefit.
You will be required to meet standard University milestones for progress and will be monitored formally via supervisor feedback forms submitted three times per year.
3. Translational/experimental medicine
This is a new theme, introduced to take advantage of other strengths in biomedical science. These include projects in:
the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, which provides a unique environment where engineers and clinicians work together, focusing on novel technological approaches to healthcare problems;
vaccinology through the Jenner Institute and the Oxford Vaccine Group, where novel vaccine approaches for infection and also non-infectious targets such as cancer are developed and tested through clinical trials;
veterinary science in collaboration with the Pirbright Institute (formerly the Institute of Animal Health) and the Royal Veterinary College in conjunction with the Jenner Institute and Wellcome-funded projects (eg in orthopaedics and in neuromuscular disease) and an interdisciplinary training initiative on Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning;
translational and applied neurosciences including advanced neuro-imaging available through the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Building (fMRIB) and novel PET approaches with Imanova, interfacing with scientists with skills in physics and big data;
major non-communicable diseases through the Nuffield Department of Population Health, Clinical Trials Service Unit, and Epidemiologic Studies Unit, and the new Big Data Institute (BDI), focusing on the analysis of large, complex, heterogeneous data sets for research into the causes and consequences, prevention and treatment of disease. Ethox, also based in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, provides an environment where empirical research and ethical analyses can be combined around clinical ethics, research ethics, and global/population health ethics; and
international health and tropical medicine, building on collaborations between Oxford investigators and its major overseas programmes with bases in Kenya, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology has more than 25 research groups working in the areas of immunity and microbiome, inflammation biology and tissue remodelling and regeneration. The Institute has close ties with nearby clinical centres in Oxford and beyond, which provide a gateway to patient cohorts in inflammatory arthritis, osteoarthritis, cancer and inflammatory bowel disease that enable translation from bench to bedside. Examples of translational initiatives include The Arthritis Therapy Acceleration Programme (A-TAP), which was launched to speed up the delivery of better treatments for Immune Mediated inflammatory Diseases (IMIDs). This programme targets the underlying causes of disease by applying innovative trial design allowing repurposed or new drugs to be tried out across a range of IMIDs, with success determined through tissue biomarkers rather than clinical outcomes. The programme is initially focusing on rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, Sjogren's syndrome and seronegative spondyloarthropathies. The Institute also houses the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Osteoarthritis (OA) Pathogenesis, which seeks to create a seamless transition from molecular discovery through pre-clinical modelling to experimental medicine in OA. Additional translational programmes include those in Dupytren's disease, fibrosis, and fracture repair.
For this course, the allocation of graduate supervision is the responsibility of the Medical Sciences Doctoral Training Centre, and it is not always possible to accommodate the preferences of incoming graduate students to work with a particular member of staff. Under exceptional circumstances a supervisor may be found outside the Medical Sciences Doctoral Training Centre.
Most graduates from this programme continue in academic research in prestigious laboratories worldwide.
Applicants are strongly advised to visit the Medical Sciences Graduate School website to help them identify the most suitable course and supervisors.
Courses suggested by the centre
Clinical Medicine DPhil
Medical Sciences DPhil
Molecular Cell Biology in Health and Disease DPhil
Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics DPhil
Clinical Neurosciences DPhil
Surgical Sciences DPhil
Musculoskeletal Sciences DPhil
Molecular and Cellular Medicine DPhil
Experimental Psychology DPhil
Psychiatry DPhil
Neuroscience DPhil
Oncology DPhil
All graduate courses offered by the Medical Sciences Doctoral Training Centre
Biomedical and Clinical Sciences DPhil
Cancer Science DPhil
Cardiovascular Science DPhil
Cellular Structural Biology DPhil
Chemistry in Cells: New Technologies to Probe Complex Biology and Medicine DPhil
Computational Discovery DPhil
Genomic Medicine and Statistics DPhil
Ion Channels and Membrane Transport in Health and Disease (OXION) DPhil
Neuroscience combined MSc and DPhil
a first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours in a relevant subject.
For applicants with a degree from the USA, the minimum GPA sought is 3.5 out of 4.0.
Research or working experience in a relevant field may be an advantage. Applicants will be asked to indicate in the fellowship application form why they wish to undertake a research training fellowship and how this will further their career.
Evidence of peer-reviewed publications (including those in press), would be an advantage, but is not a requirement.
Further guidance
For the basic science and translational/experimental medicine streams
Candidates must be medically qualified and eligible to undertake clinical practice in the UK (having General Medical Council registration or proven eligibility for registration). Successful applicants will be required to hold an honorary clinical contract and therefore must ensure that they have fulfilled all the criteria required by the GMC, their LETB and the National Health Service Trust. Candidates with a veterinary qualification can also be considered.
Candidates must have a strong academic record (preferably with honours or distinction in the MB finals and/or a BSc (or equivalent) with a first or upper-second class grade). It is envisaged that those appointed will generally have some specialist experience – typically having obtained MRCP or equivalent, but not CCT or consultant status.
For the mental and cognitive health stream
Candidates must have a strong academic record including a psychology degree (first or upper-second class grade). Before starting the Fellowship, they must have qualified as a clinical psychologist with a DClinPsych or equivalent doctoral level clinical qualification. They must also be eligible to undertake clinical practice work in the UK (please consult British Psychological Society and Health Professions Council Regulations). However, applications will be considered from candidates who are in the last year of a DClinPsych course as long as they expect to qualify before the start of the fellowship and they are fully up to date with all the requirements of their DClinPsych course.
Candidates must be medically qualified, with a strong academic record (preferably with honours or distinction in MB finals and/or have a BSc (or equivalent, eg BMedSci) with a first or upper-second class grade and be eligible to undertake clinical practice in the UK. Other evidence of interest or achievements in psychiatry and related disciplines, and in research, will also be an advantage. Typically, the candidate will have completed core training and the MRCPsych. However, the point of entry is flexible, and the overriding selection criterion will be the candidate's excellence and potential as an academic psychiatrist. Entry at any stage from the end of CT1 through to those who have obtained their CCST (but have not been appointed to a substantive consultant post) would be considered.
Candidates must be medically qualified, with a strong academic record and evidence of interest in pursuing a research career (eg BSc or equivalent and/or research experience with publications). It is envisaged that those appointed will have obtained MRCP or equivalent, but not CCT or consultant status, and be eligible to undertake clinical practice in the UK. The point of entry is flexible, and the overriding selection criterion will be the candidate's excellence and potential as an academic neurologist. The department welcomes preliminary enquiries to discuss individual circumstances.
The DPhil will count as an out-of-programme experience, but the one day a week of clinical work built into the programme can be counted towards training requirements (subject to confirmation).
This course requires proficiency in English at the University's standard level. If your first language is not English, you may need to provide evidence that you meet this requirement.
Detailed requirements - standard level
The minimum scores required to meet the University's standard level are:
Interviews are normally held as part of the admissions process.
Applications are reviewed by a panel of academics associated with the programme. A short-list of applicants is confirmed, based on assessment of your academic record, academic references, research experience to date/publication record, and your research proposal, including the suitability of project proposal (both to Oxford and for the applicant's clinical and research background). For the mental and cognitive health stream, the availability of appropriate training opportunities/clinical placements will also be taken into consideration.
It is expected that the ratio of interviewed candidates to places will be around 3:1.
Short-listed candidates will be invited to attend an interview in Oxford. The interview will last approximately 20-25 minutes. Candidates will be required to give a 3-5 minute oral presentation covering their career to date, the research project they propose to undertake, aspects of the project that interest them and how they feel it will enhance their academic career. PowerPoint presentations (or other visual presentations) are not required. Approximately 20 minutes of questions from the panel will follow the presentation.
Candidates from outside Europe are normally interviewed by Skype/phone, unless they are in Europe at the time of interview.
Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS)
Some postgraduate research students in science, engineering and technology subjects will need an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) certificate prior to applying for a Tier 4 visa. Further information can be found on our Tier 4 (General) Student visa page. For some courses, the requirement to apply for an ATAS certificate may depend on your research area.
You will have access to:
experimental facilities, as appropriate to your research
IT support from both the host department for your research and University IT Services
library services such as the Radcliffe Science Library and the Cairns Library.
The provision of project-specific resources will be agreed with the relevant supervisor during the planning stages for the research project.
All applicants who are offered a place on the DPhil in Biomedical and Clinical Sciences course will be offered a fully-funded scholarship, covering course fees for the duration of their course and a living stipend. Please see the course page on the Graduate School website for further details about funding for this course.
Home/EU (including Islands) £7,970
Following the period of fee liability, you may also be required to pay a University continuation charge and a college continuation charge. The University and college continuation charges are shown on the Continuation charges page.
There are no compulsory elements of this course that entail additional costs beyond fees (or, after fee liability ends, continuation charges) and living costs. However, please note that, depending on your choice of research topic and the research required to complete it, you may incur additional expenses, such as travel expenses, research expenses, and field trips. You will need to meet these additional costs, although you may be able to apply for small grants from your department and/or college to help you cover some of these expenses.
The following colleges accept students on the DPhil in Biomedical and Clinical Sciences:
Green Templeton College
You should contact your potential supervisor(s) before you apply as supervisor approval of your research project proposal is required.
A list of potential supervisors is provided on the Medical Sciences Doctoral Training Centre website, though this is not designed to be an exhaustive list. Applicants are expected to meet with potential supervisors, to discuss/develop their research project proposal for inclusion in the Wellcome Trust Training Fellowship application form.
For the basic sciences and translational/experimental medicine streams, please review research opportunities in your field of interest at Oxford via the Medical Sciences Graduate School website. For basic sciences you are encouraged to identify both a basic science and a clinician-scientist supervisor.
For the mental and cognitive health stream, please see the list of potential supervisors and research projects on the Doctoral Training Fellowship Scheme for Clinicians website.
Research proposal and Wellcome Trust Training Fellowship application form:
Up to 1,400 words
You must submit complete a Wellcome Trust Training Fellowship application form from the DTC website and submit this in your application as your research proposal.
The research proposal that forms part of the WT Fellowship application should cover areas such as the background to the research, methodology, expected results and the contribution to the field of learning.
The word count should include any bibliography and/or brief footnotes.
The project proposal in the WT Fellowship application should be designed to fit within one of the three streams of the course. However, it is recognised that some projects may be regarded as sitting in more than one stream and the department reserves the option to assess these against applications from more than one stream. Please note that a supporting statement is required from the identified supervisor(s) as part of the WT Fellowship application.
the coherence of the proposal
the originality of the project
the ability to present a reasoned case in English
the feasibility of successfully completing the project in the time available for the course (a maximum of 3 years)
commitment to the subject, beyond the requirements of the degree course
preliminary knowledge of research techniques
capacity for sustained and intense work; reasoning ability
It will be normal for your ideas subsequently to change in some ways as you investigate the evidence and develop your project. You should nevertheless make the best effort you can to demonstrate the extent of your research question, sources and method at this moment.
Your references should generally be academic, though professional references are acceptable if they are relevant to the course.
Your references will support intellectual ability, academic achievement, motivation, ability to work in a group.
RB_1
Standard required
Medical Sciences Doctoral Training Centre
Course page on the department's website
Funding information from the department
Departmental research
Medical Sciences Graduate School
✉ enquiries@msdtc.ox.ac.uk
Application fee waiver scheme
You can apply to this and up to two selected other courses in the same admissions cycle and pay only one application fee


text:
Conosciuto per i suoi lunghi capelli biondi e per il numero 15 di maglia, era soprannominato El Matador.

Carriera

Club
In Messico Hernández ha militato nel Querétaro FC, nel Cruz Azul, nel CF Monterrey, Necaxa, nel Club América, nel Tigres UANL, nel CD Veracruz e nel Jaguares de Chiapas. Ha vinto il titolo di miglior giocatore del Messico nel 1997 e 1998. Ha militato anche nella squadra argentina del Boca Juniors dopo la Copa América 1997, ma non è riuscito ad essere tra i titolari.

Tornato in Messico, ha vestito le maglie del Necaxa prima e nuovamente del Tigres UANL poi. Con la prima ha messo a segno 9 gol in 12 partite, mentre con i Tigres il suo bottino è stato di 38 gol in 64 partite. Inoltre è l'unico giocatore ad aver segnato nel derby con entrambe le squadre di Monterrey.

Dopo un paio di stagioni senza qualificazioni ai play-off, Hernández ha provato l'avventura americana e nel 2000 ha firmato con una squadra della Major League Soccer, i Los Angeles Galaxy, che lo hanno pagato 4.000.000 di dollari. Atteso come un giocatore di categoria superiore destinato a segnare molte reti, Hernández ha realizzato 17 gol in 40 presenze. Nel 2002 è tornato in patria per vestire le maglie di Club América, CD Veracruz e Jaguares de Chiapas, prima di dare l'addio al calcio giocato nel 2004.

Nazionale
Si fece notare nella Copa América 1997, dove con sei gol diventò capocannoniere del torneo. Al  segnò 4 reti, diventando così il primo giocatore messicano a segnare più di 2 reti in un mondiale. I 35 gol (in 85 presenze) lo rendono il quarto miglior realizzatore della storia della sua Nazionale, a pari merito con Carlos Hermosillo e superato solo da Jared Borgetti, Cuauhtémoc Blanco e l'omonimo Javier Hernández. Hernández ha giocato anche nel , senza però segnare.

Statistiche

Cronologia presenze e reti in Nazionale

Palmarès

Club

Competizioni nazionali

Necaxa: 1994-1995, 1995-1996, Invierno 1998

Necaxa: 1994-1995

Necaxa: 1995
 US Open Cup: 1
L.A. Galaxy: 2001

Competizioni internazionali

Monterrey: 1993

L.A. Galaxy: 2000

Nazionale

1996, 1998

1999

Individuale
 Capocannoniere della Copa América 1997

 Capocannoniere della CONCACAF Gold Cup: 1
1998 (4 gol)

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni

Calciatori della Nazionale messicana
Calciatori campioni del Nord e Centro America
Calciatori vincitori della Confederations Cup
Calciatori del Club Deportivo Tiburones Rojos de Veracruz

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia