FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Whistleblower Claims Psychiatry Destroyed His Friends

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death exhibit in Atlanta gives voice to a man whose life was shattered by psychiatric abuse.  

Citizens Commission on Human Rights has brought their traveling exhibit, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, to Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. The exhibit is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Sunday, May 29. 

In addition to the exhibit displays, there are seminars and forums on subjects of great importance to the Atlanta community. One such forum featured a psychiatric whistleblower who described his personal and professional experience with psychiatric abuse.    

As a young man, he had a friend who was given a prefrontal lobotomy. “After that he basically became a vegetable,” he said. “He was incapacitated, could not do activities of daily living and ended up committing suicide.”

Another friend took his own life at an early age after receiving electroconvulsive shock, ECT.

The man spoke of the horrors he has witnessed of people administered this so-called treatment. “Most people know what [ECT is] like,” he said, “but they haven't seen it like I’ve seen it, where a person is strapped down and massive amounts of electroconvulsive shock wreck their brain to destroy any thoughts that they have.”

Finally, he spoke of his personal experience with the psychiatric practice of labeling youngsters as ADHD and administering powerful drugs. “I have people today that are on meth and heroin,” he said, “and so many of them started as normal kids just going through some stress.” Their parents took them to psychiatrists who put them on Adderall and other dangerous drugs. “So many [of the drugs] are just a step away from methamphetamine,” he points out. Their lives have been destroyed. “And now they're living under bridges.”

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights Traveling Exhibit is based on the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum at the group’s international headquarters in Los Angeles. The exhibits bring the harsh realities of psychiatric abuse to tens of thousands in countries around the world each year.

Throughout the museum and exhibit are documentary films that are also available on DVD. These films, many of which can also be viewed online on the CCHR website, raise public awareness of the abusive practices of psychiatry and so inspire individuals to take action.

The museum and traveling exhibit spearhead a global campaign to bring psychiatry under the law and to clean up the entire field of mental health.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a nonprofit charitable mental health watchdog co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry emeritus, the late Dr. Thomas Szasz. It is dedicated to eradicating psychiatric abuses and ensuring patient protection. 

The Scientology religion was founded by author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in Los Angeles in 1954 and the religion has expanded to more than 11,000 Churches, Missions and affiliated groups, with millions of members in 167 countries.

CONTACT:
Church of Scientology Media Relations
mediarelations@churchofscientology.net
(323) 960-3500 phone
(323) 960-3508 fax