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Britain Exporting Coercive ‘Psychiatry’

©2019 Dr Romesh Senewiratne-Alagaratnam Arya Chakravarti

romeshsenewiratne@gmail.com Page | 1

I studied ‘medicine’ and surgery when I was at university. I learned about what
medicines to prescribe for various illnesses and diseases that I was trained to
diagnose. I also learned to assess a patient’s need for surgery, though I did not
learn much practical surgery as a student and young doctor in the hospitals. I
learned how and when to refer patients to specialists and “allied health
practitioners” but most of all I was trained to prescribe drugs for both the
treatment of overt illness and the prevention of future illness. I was a true
believer in the merits of my training and fooled myself into thinking that I knew
about promoting health.

There is much more to promoting health than knowing how and when to
prescribe medicines and surgery, including promoting healthy thinking and
activities. Learning about posture and ergonomics is important to alleviate and
prevent musculo-skeletal pain and arthritis, and learning to relax in the face of
stressful situations has many health benefits. I now know about these things
but I didn’t learn about them in medical school, my hospital training or the
continued medical education (CME) that I complied with when I was working
as a general practitioner (GP) in Brisbane and Melbourne. This included
training under the Family Medicine Program (FMP) run by the Royal Australian
College of General Practitioners (RACGP).

In practice, ‘family medicine’ means drugs (medicines) for the whole family.
We learned to promote immunization and other preventive measures (such as
drugs for hypertension and high cholesterol) though we also learned to
promote smoking cessation (with nicotine replacement if necessary), alcohol
moderation (though a glass of red wine daily was said to be good for the heart),
aerobic exercise and a low-fat, low salt diet supposedly to prevent later
atherosclerosis and heart disease. We were also taught that mental illness is
often missed and not treated when it needed to be. For many years this is the
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style of medicine I practiced and was encouraged by the system to practice.

Then I woke up to the nefarious influence of the pharmaceutical industry on
my training as a medical student and doctor.

I woke up slowly, as I read the copious promotional literature sent out to all Page | 2
GPs by the drug companies. I also spoke to drug reps and had to refuse
inducements to prescribe their drugs. I gathered that much of the CME
material that I was sent by the RACGP was sponsored by the drug companies
but I still did not know about the alternatives.

I studied both psychiatry and psychology as well as the rudiments of Freudian

psychoanalysis and neurology at university. The information we learned was
splintered and contradictory. Our prescribed text in psychology at the
University of Queensland in 1978 was Philip Zimbardo’s Psychology and Life.
This book begins by defining psychology as the “study of the behaviour of
organisms”. I had thought, since I learned the term in my early teens, that
psychology was the study of the mind – not behaviour.

Zimbardo is famous (or notorious) for conducting the Stanford Prison

Experiment that provided evidence of how apparently well-balanced students
could become cruel and abusive when they were placed in positions of power
(“guards”) over other students designated as “prisoners”. It provides a lesson
to psychiatric systems around the world, where doctors and “nurses” wield the
power to grant patients “leave” and finally “discharge” from “wards” and order
punitive injections, seclusion and ECT (electroconvulsive treatment). They
don’t call the guards “wardens” any more, but that is the job expected of them,
Their first priority is to make sure that no one escapes treatment – called
“absconding” and “non-compliance”. This reduces them to drug-dispensers
doing head-counts when they could be counselling the people in their care. In
practice, what passes for counselling and psychoeducation is reinforcement of
the idea that they are mentally ill with whatever “disorder” the psychiatrists
say they have.

Psyche means ‘soul’. In the Christian tradition in which I was raised souls can
be saved (salvation) and go to heaven or damned and go to hell. This depends

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on sin, the nature of the sin and repentance of evil thoughts and actions. The
British (Anglican) Church did away with the Roman Catholic practice of
“confessing ones sins” to the priest but promoted fear of hell. The psychiatry
profession did away with the concepts of soul, good and evil, and sin. People
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were still labelled as inherently evil, but they developed terms like “sociopath”
and “psychopath” to describe them. Most patients were said not to be mad or
bad but “sick” and “mentally ill”. This is the model that was exported to
Australia from Britain and shaped the development of coercive psychiatry in
the Antipodes.

The Australian court system is based on the Church of England, as is the

legitimacy of the rule of the British monarch. You used to have to “swear on
the Bible” to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” in the
courts and sing “God Save the Queen” to become a citizen of the
Commonwealth of Australia. I became an Australian citizen in 1990, when I
was still obliged to swear allegiance to the Queen of Britain, though I had long
been opposed to the British monarchy and the very concept of hereditary
privilege.

The Australian medical system is also closely connected with the British system.
Prior to the 1950s doctors had to travel for higher studies to the UK to become
specialists. The term ‘general practitioner’ is a British one, and used to
differentiate GPs from “specialists”. Being a specialist is a badge of honour and
they are paid more under the Medicare system. The drug companies especially
target specialists because they are more influential. Professors are sought for
their credibility and reputation. But as a GP I was still inundated by drug reps
wanting appointments to give me “samples” and show me glossy propaganda
that highlighted favourable information and ignored unfavourable data. The
small print required a magnifying glass and it was intended that way. This was
the case with all the drug companies and reps but some were more obvious in
their attempts to bribe me than others.

Last year I was forced by the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane to see
Associate Professor Mark Taylor as a requirement of the ‘treatment order’ (TA)
the hospital has me on (illegally). Taylor is a British-trained psychiatrist who
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was working at the Alfred Hospital in 2001, when he was in charge of locking
me up and drugging me for my allegation that HIV was developed as a
biological weapon and released according to a covert depopulation strategy
targeting the previous targets of the eugenics movement. I had written a 600-
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paged book over the previous 3 years, during which I researched the AIDS
epidemic, psychiatry and eugenics independently and at my own expense.
Taylor refused to read the book but wrote in his report to the Mental Health
Review Board that I had “delusions” regarding AIDS and eugenics and that this
was evidence of schizophrenia. At the time he ordered injections of depot
zuclopenthixol (Clopixol) which crippled me temporarily. The injections
stopped me talking about AIDS and eugenics but they did not make my beliefs,
which were based on my knowledge of history and epidemiology, go away.
However, to an observer looking at what I said or did not say, my “delusion”
and “preoccupation” had “improved”. I was still accused of “lack of insight”
because I refuted the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

In his report to the MHRB Taylor also wrote in all capitals, “BELIEVES HIS
FATHER IS A BIOLOGICAL TERRORIST”. This requires some explanation.

I had never heard of the term “biological terrorist” and Taylor conflated the
two separate allegations I made about my father, Brian Senewiratne. Firstly, I
said that he had trained in biological warfare in England before establishing a
biological warfare laboratory at the Kandy Hospital in the 1970s. I had deduced
this by analysing my memories and my mother’s and my notebooks (about the
research done at the lab) and the published papers I had in my possession.
Taylor didn’t ask me about any of this, and conflated my separate allegation
that my father was a propagandist for the Tamil Tigers, formally known as the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). I based this belief on extensive
conversations I have had with my parents and other members of my family and
my father’s own publications since 1983. Taylor didn’t ask me about this
evidence either, before declaring me to be suffering from “delusions”,
“psychosis” and “schizophrenia”.

After his time in Melbourne, Taylor returned to Britain and worked for the NHS
in Scotland with an academic position at the University of Edinburgh. There he
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developed a cosy relationship with the drug companies, such that when he
gave a lecture to health workers in Scotland he joked about how he is
“promiscuous” when it comes to the (pharmaceutical) “industry”, admitting to
having received “fees and/or hospitality” from 5 drug companies, including the
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Belgian company Janssen-Cilag. This company manufactures the dopamine-
blocker paliperidone (Invega) that the PA Hospital has been forcing on me
since 2011.

In 2017 I saw Taylor briefly when he was the psychiatrist on call for Sunday at
the PA Hospital where I had been locked up again for maintaining (accurately)
that my father was a propagandist and lobbyist for the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). He
didn’t recognise me and I had to be pointed out by the nurses. He did not
engage me in conversation but just said “you’re good to go”.

I didn’t see him again till 2018 when he was appointed “my” doctor by the PA
Hospital. I researched him on the Internet and found that he is now an
associate professor at the University of Queensland (where I graduated in
1983). I also found a few articles in which he is a co-author and his LinkedIn
page which has only 15 connections, no photo and outdated information that
he is a Consultant Psychiatrist for the (British) NHS. His LinkedIn page boasts
that he is “delivering high quality, evidence-based, patient centred healthcare”.

In the past year he has modified what had earlier been typed as a single
sentence with capitals but no full stops:

“Motivating others to do the same Providing leadership within mental health

Conducting clinically relevant research Teaching and training other health care
professionals”.

Now he has edited the page so the separate statements are on separate lines,
but he still does not say that he works for Metro South in Brisbane, where he is
the “corresponding author” of a paper (in 2018) promoting the use of “long-
acting injectables” (LAIs) which he claims are “stigmatised and under-used”. In
this paper he claims that current recommendations for drug treatment are 18
months for first episode psychosis increasing to 5 years on subsequent
admissions. He asks the rhetorical question, “would a cardiologist wait until
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the second or third heart attack before starting the most effective treatment?”
in reference to his outrageous claim that young people be started on depot
injections (LAIs) for first episode psychosis. This is despite the drug company
itself giving the indication as being for “maintenance treatment of chronic
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schizophrenia”.

This is where the coercion and human rights abuses become obvious. If a
patient refuses the injections (for a range of good reasons including that they
feel worse and the short and long-term effects of the drugs) they can be locked
up again, constituting another “admission”. This extends the treatment from
18 months to 5 years, according to Taylor.

It stands to reason that drugs should be prescribed at the lowest effective dose
for the minimum of time necessary. Good psychotherapy makes long-term
medication unnecessary. This saves money and also saves lives – since the
dopamine-blockers and serotonin-blockers shorten the life. I tried to discuss
this with Taylor when I saw him and said that the stats indicate that people on
medication for schizophrenia have a reduced life expectancy by 15 years. “It’s
actually 13 years” he argued, adding that the best stats are obtained by using
the atypical antipsychotic clozapine (Clozaril).

I also told him that I have a strong family history of diabetes and these drugs
are known to cause diabetes. He offered me oral hypoglycaemic drugs
although my blood sugar is normal and it is not clinically indicated.

I also told him about the other adverse effects I am suffering from but he was
dismissive of them and refused to even lower the dose of the drug let alone
obey the law and cease the abusive treatment. It is patently obvious from my
behaviour, including my publications and professional network that I do not
have schizophrenia.

His LinkedIn page lists his “experience” as Consultant Psychiatrist NHS (2012 –
present) and Consultant Psychiatrist Melbourne (1998-2002). It lists his
education as University College, London (Medicine) and University of
Nottingham (BSc) with no dates provided.

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I told Taylor that I wanted to be treated like a colleague rather than a patient.
He said “I won’t do that”. It so happens that my father also worked at
University College Hospital in London, and also grossly over-prescribes
psychiatric drugs, especially antidepressants.
Page | 7

“Wake Up, It’s Medication Time”

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough district hospitals have announced a

“radical” change of practice in their psychiatry wards. They now offer patients
a cup of tea when they are woken up rather than shaking them and saying
“Wake up, it’s medication time”.

The hospitals psychiatry director has also trumpeted the achievements of his
“333 program” and “Promise Global” initiative in reducing coercion and
shortening hospital stays. The 333 Program aims to place time-limits of 3 days,
3 weeks and 3 months for assessment, treatment and recovery respectively.
He says that you can’t treat anything in three days, so the first 3 days of
hospitalisation are for “assessment”.

It does not take 3 days to assess a person’s mental health and the law
precludes forced admission to hospital unless the person is a risk to
themselves or others. Psychiatrists in Britain and Australia get around this by
claims that the person’s mental health will deteriorate if they do not have
(drug) treatment thus constituting the legally required “risk”. In addition,
refusal to agree that one is mentally ill is routinely regarded as “lack of insight
and judgement”. “Lack of insight and judgement” are among the 30 items on
the PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) used for evaluating drugs
(and other treatments) in the treatment of schizophrenia.

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Problems with the PANSS

There are many problems with the PANSS rating scale. The “items” do not take
into consideration the psychological and behavioural consequences of being Page | 8
locked up and disbelieved and they do not take into account the known and
predictable effects of blocking receptors in the brain to the neurotransmitters
dopamine and serotonin.

There are 30 items in the scale, to be recorded by the interviewer on a scale of

1 to 7. Thus the lowest possible score is 30. The maximum is 210. The higher
the score the greater the indication of ‘schizophrenia’, which is itself a
misnomer meaning ‘split mind’.

The 30 items are divided into 7 ‘positive’, 7 ‘negative’ and 16 ‘general

psychopathology’ symptoms. Collections of symptoms are known as
‘syndromes’ in medicine and psychiatrists refer to the positive and negative
syndromes of schizophrenia. The drug companies present improvement in
PANSS scores as evidence of efficacy, but there are problems with their science
and logic.

The items are as follows:

P1 – delusions

P2 – conceptual disorganization

P3 – hallucinatory behaviour

P4 – excitement

P5 – grandiosity

P6 – suspiciousness/persecution

P7 – hostility

N1 – blunted affect

N2 – emotional withdrawal
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N3 – poor rapport

N4 – passive/apathetic social withdrawal

N5 – difficulty in abstract thinking

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N6 – lack of spontaneity and flow of conversation

N7 – stereotyped thinking

G1 – somatic concern

G2 – anxiety

G3 – guilt feelings

G4 – tension

G5 – mannerisms and posturing

G6 – depression

G7 – motor retardation

G8 – uncooperativeness

G9 – unusual thought content

G10 – disorientation

G11 – poor attention

G12 – lack of judgement and insight

G13 – disturbance of volition

G14 – poor impulse control

G15 – preoccupation

G16 – active social avoidance

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Dopamine-blocking drugs are reputed to be much more effective at treating

positive than negative symptoms. The more honest psychiatrists have
admitted that they can make the negative syndrome worse. This is predictable
from the known actions of dopamine in the limbic system, basal ganglia and
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frontal lobes, in particular.

Blocking dopamine receptors in the limbic system can be expected to cause

blunted affect (emotions) as well as anhedonia (lack of pleasure). Blocking
pleasure centres such as the nucleus accumbens can be predicted to cause
depression (low mood) as can the experience of being disbelieved and
stigmatised as having a sick mind, and being convinced that you have an
incurable and progressive brain disease. These factors can be expected to drive
some people to suicide.

Blocking dopamine receptors in the basal ganglia can be predicted to have

negative effects on the initiation and control of voluntary movements (and
volition together with the limbic system). These include Parkinsonism,
characterised by stiffness and tremor and the terribly stigmatising disorder
known as tardive dyskinesia (TD) when the limbs writhe uncontrollably and the
face twitches and grimaces. TD is a consequence of long-term damage to the
brain and only occurs as an iatrogenic (treatment induced) disease. There is no
cure or satisfactory treatment for TD, which makes people look like the
stereotype of a mad person.

Another disabling and stigmatising side-effect of dopamine-blocking drugs is

akathesia, characterised by a physical restlessness that makes the victim pace
the floor and have difficulty staying still. This is another side-effect of drug
treatment that can be miscategorised as an “item” of abnormality on the
PANSS.

The frontal lobes are involved in complex cognition including abstract thinking.
Blocking dopamine receptors can be expected to interfere with the clarity of
thought. However, they can “quieten” patients and also have a genuine
therapeutic use in quelling hallucinations.

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Hostility and uncooperativeness are listed as separate items in the PANSS.

Hostility can be expected if you tell people that they are mad by whatever
name, unless they think so themselves. Hostility can also be expected when
you force treatment on people and lock them up. This can also foster the belief
Page | 11
that they are being persecuted and make them suspicious. People writing
notes about them that they don’t get to read can also make people suspicious.

What is glaringly absent from the apparent “science” of this rating scale is the
subjectivity of the ratings, which depend on the personality and attitude of the
interviewer. Lack of rapport and flow of the conversation is blamed on the
“disease” of the patient rather than the social skills of the interviewer.

In the assessment of delusions the belief system of the interviewer is pitted

against that of the patient. There is a tendency to try and “elicit” delusions to
“document” them, rather than debate with and cure them.

Psychoeducation

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