Because of your stance on psychiatry, I love to share this text with you: The Most Common Manipulative Tactics in Psychiatry 1. Selective Perception and Narrative Distortion. (→ Confirmation bias, Selective attention) They listen only to the parts of your story that confirm their existing model. Everything that doesn’t fit is omitted or rewritten. Gradually, your file becomes the record of a stranger, a tool that can be used against your own life story. 2. Triangulation When you resist, they bring in a third party, a colleague, a so-called peer worker, or even a fabricated “person or team discussion.” The goal isn’t collaboration, but pressure. You are surrounded by voices all pushing the same message, take the drug, or take more of it. 3. Denial and Minimization When someone says a drug is harming them or that therapy made things worse, staff downplay it or blame “the illness.” The system remains pure, the patient becomes the problem. 4. Cognitive Reframing of Emotion (→ Reframing, Euphemistic labeling) When medication dulls a person’s emotions, it’s presented as “recovery.” Emotional flatness is renamed “stability,” and numbness becomes “balance.” The less you feel, the healthier you’re told you are. 5. Misattribution Withdrawal symptoms are labeled as “relapse.” With a single word, the story flips, suddenly the damage isn’t caused by the drug, but by you, for stopping it. 6. Pathologizing Normal Reactions If you question something, you’re “resistant.” If you’re angry, you’re “unstable.” If you cry, it’s “a sign you need an SSRI.” Everything human becomes a diagnosis. 7. Reductionism (→ Reductionism, Biological determinism) Real-life suffering, grief, trauma, poverty, stress, is flattened into “brain chemistry.” Once your story is reduced to serotonin and dopamine, your voice disappears and their control grows. 8. Medicalization of Humanity (→ Medicalization of normal distress) Ordinary pain, heartbreak, fear, and confusion are turned into disorders. It’s no longer about understanding you, but about keeping you inside a treatment plan, indefinitely. 9. Deflection and Topic Shifting (→ Deflection, Distraction) When medication harms someone, acknowledgment is rare. Instead, the dose is increased, or the drug is changed. The focus always shifts away from the damage, back to the illness they themselves labeled you with. 10. Reversal of Blame (→ Blame shifting) If someone becomes suicidal after a prescription, it’s explained as “the illness getting worse.” Never the drug, never the process, always the person. 11. Gaslighting (→ Gaslighting, Reality manipulation) You describe what you feel, and they subtly question it until you no longer trust your own body, memory, or perception. Once they control your sense of reality, they control everything, and, of course, they suggest another drug, often the newest one on the market. 12. DARVO (→ Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) When you confront them with wrongdoing, they deny it, attack your tone, and flip the roles. Suddenly you are the aggressor, and they are the victim. The result is predictable, an increased dose, “for your own good.” 13. Intermittent Reinforcement (→ Intermittent reinforcement, Operant conditioning) After periods of coldness or deliberate misunderstanding, they suddenly act kind and empathetic. That brief flash of warmth keeps people hoping, waiting, cooperating. It’s emotional conditioning disguised as care. 14. Framing Emotion as Risk (→ Emotional invalidation, Risk framing) If you cry or get angry, it’s recorded as “agitation” or “risk behavior.” Authentic emotion isn’t understood, it’s punished. Anger is especially dangerous, every reaction is weaponized against you. 15. Jargon as Armor (→ Language obfuscation, Authority through technical jargon) They hide behind terms like “evidence-based,” “expert,” and “professional.” The language sounds scientific, but its true purpose is to make meaningful dialogue impossible. 16. Symbolic Dominance (→ Symbolic authority, Institutional power display) The white coats, the framed diplomas, the meetings with ten professionals facing one patient, all rituals of hierarchy. Theatre designed to remind you who owns the narrative. 17. Narrative Hegemony (→ Control of narrative framing) Psychiatry doesn’t fight for truth, it fights for ownership of the story. Whoever owns the story, owns the power.