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#431841
Dutch psychiatrists used political extortion in 2010 to obtain the right to euthanise psychiatric patients. Since then euthanisation numbers in psychiatry have skyrocketed. In just 10 years time, over 40,000 people where euthanised when translated to US population.

Euthanasia in psychiatry is an emergent practice globally and in the US it is being referred to as 'the Dutch way'. I therefore decided to start a new topic that specifically addresses the political history of the practice in the Netherlands.

- Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Oregon Tries the Dutch Way
- The Dutch way of death - PubMed

Short introduction for this topic:

A few months before an attack on my home in 2019 (described here) I was using my Android phone which I almost never use and it continuously showed a remarkable advertisement for a tiny local newspaper of a far away town that I am in no way affiliated with: De Stentor. The advertisement reminded me of a 2010 report about the political extortion used to enforce euthanasia in psychiatry in The Netherlands.

In 2019, a Dutch critical blog on psychiatry that I was author of (www.zielenknijper.com) had been closed for many years (since 2014) and I wasn't involved with the subject anymore. I had closed the blog with the idea that change for the benefit of people would best come from within and not from outside criticism so I actually completely stayed away from the subject at that time.

Considering the persistence of the ad on the phone it was perceived as awkward. It incited a feeling of responsibility with regard my witnessing of the history of the corruption that resulted in legalization of euthanasia in psychiatry in the Netherlands. How could I leave those people unattended, considering what I knew?

I decided to do a quick search on www.madinamerica.com by medical journalist and bestseller author Robert Whitaker and I found a post about eugenics by Canadian anti-psychiatry scholar Bonnie Burstow. I replied to it.

(2019) “Psychiatric Eugenics Then and Now — You Betcha It’s Still Happening!”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)
https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/07/ps ... n-and-now/

My decision at that time - as a response to the ad and the feeling of responsibility that it had incited in me - was to start a topic about the subject on a philosophy forum. My first post on this forum was titled: Euthanasia in psychiatry: ethically?

In a way, the Google ad was the cause that I joined a philosophy forum and started to invest time to study it.

Political extortion

Two countries in Europe, the Netherlands and Belgium, were the first to allow euthanasia. In most other countries, including the UK, it has long remained illegal for doctors to kill their patients.

Initially, psychiatrists were excluded from the right to apply euthanasia. In 2010 Dutch psychiatrists enforced the right to euthanise their patients by officially releasing a guideline from the Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP) that instructed psychiatrists to release patients with a suicide wish so that they could commit suicide on the street.

The head of the Dutch union for railway personnel, mr. Wim Eilert, responded with the following:

Image

This is a bad signal. Every year 200 people in the Netherlands jump in front of a train. These are horrific experiences for drivers and also for conductors. Some never come back to work. That is why suicide on the railways must be reduced as much as possible. When institutions let patients go to commit suicide, a number of them always ends before a train, because it is simply a certain path to death.

(2010) Doctors release patients for suicide
https://www.destentor.nl/algemeen/binne ... fmoord.ece

In a subsequent poll with psychiatrists in the Netherlands published on Skipr.nl, 75% of psychiatrists responded to approve of euthanasia as a treatment option and 43% responded that they would be willing to apply it.

Soon after the guideline, Dutch politics provided psychiatrists with the right to euthanise their patients and the numbers have been growing rapidly since. In 2010, the year of the guideline, 2 psychiatric patients were euthanised. In 2011 the number grew to 13 patients and in 2013 the number had grown to more than 50 patients.

Ten years later, translated to the US population, Dutch psychiatry has applied euthanasia to 40,000 psychiatric patients.

Years leading up to the guideline: blackmailing

The years leading up to the guideline had seen a lot of mainstream media attention for scandals in psychiatry and it was often cited that psychiatry turned to blackmailing to hide their wrongdoing.

In 2010, shortly before psychiatrists were given the right to euthanise their patients, politician Halbe Zijlstra (from the then ruling party VVD) raised the alarm about a measure demanded by the mental health organizations to hide their wrongdoing from the public. The demand was a response to the many scandals that had hit the news and as such it became evident that psychiatry intended to hide their wrongdoing and resorted to political blackmailing to meet their ends.

(2010) Halbe Zijlstra (VVD): “Psychiatry is blackmailing to hide scandals”
According to MP Halbe Zijlstra, there is talk of "blackmail practices" intended to "cover up mistakes and abuses".
https://www.skipr.nl/actueel/ggz-morrel ... 52225.html

The minister of Public Health Ab Klink agreed with the concerns raised by the MP. In the years before, the minister had expressed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in psychiatry several times and announced that measures had to be taken.

(2008) Minister Ab Klink demands a lower limit for the quality of care in psychiatry
https://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2686/Bi ... trie.dhtml

The minister was involved in a legal battle with mental health organizations for an announced budget measure for psychiatric care of 120 million euros. In the lawsuit, the organizations argued that they "couldn't do anything about it" that there are more and more psychiatric patients.

The organizations mentioned the following in the lawsuit against the minister which shows their anger towards him.

“The demand [for psychiatric care] has increased and therefore more is being spent on care. But that's not our fault, is it? We also think that the minister has nothing to do with it at all. This is something between us, the health care authority and the health insurers,” says chairman Marleen Barth of GGZ Nederland. “We are critically monitoring the minister's announced measure. It has no effect on its own budget,” confirms a spokesperson for the Dutch Healthcare Authority.

“It is not yet possible to quantify the exceedance at all. The institutions are currently still preparing the accounts,” said an indignant Barth. “In addition, people only receive help from us if they have been referred by a general practitioner, for example. It's not that we create that demand ourselves.


(2010) Minister Ab Klink (Public Health) sued by psychiatry
Psychiatrists furious with Minister Klink: budgetary measure is a noose for psychiatry.
https://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/419 ... html?p=7,2

The mental health organizations lost the lawsuit.

As if the mental health organizations intended to revolt against the minister, less than three months after the lawsuit, the mental health organizations started a millions of euros costing national propaganda campaign called "1 in 4" to lower the threshold for psychiatric care (www.1opde4.nl). This campaign was banned shortly after by the Advertisement Authority (Reclame Code Commissie) because the advertisement would be misleading and untruthful. The campaign included full page advertisements in newspapers costing up to 60,000 euro per day.

Image

The domain holder of the domain 1opde4.nl was Maximum Recruitment Advertising.

Why given the right to apply euthanasia?

It is seen in the preceding history that in 2010, politicians seek public media attention for “blackmailing” by psychiatry and that same fact came to light in the political extortion used to obtain the right to apply euthanasia.

Patients with a suicide wish were being released to commit suicide on the street which looked like a political extortion tactic.

Why did psychiatry receive the right to euthanise patients at that specific time?

With euthanasia, psychiatry is much stronger in hiding potential wrongdoing.

It doesn’t seem logical that politicians would have ‘given in’ to extortion at that time, considering the public shout out about the occurrence of such practices by a ruling party politician with support by a Public Health minister several months before. But if political extortion wouldn’t have been required to get euthanasia legalized, why would the Dutch Psychiatric Association have used such a tactic? If anything, it shows a lack of care for their patients and for society by essentially letting patients jump in front of a train.

Image

The end result is simple however. Psychiatrists obtained and used their right. Patients were being euthanised and it reached the international news (BBC).

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45117163

Antidepressant treatment controversial

Antidepressants have suspicious side effects while a fake pill with a side effect (active placebo) that gives users the feeling that something is happening in the body, is proven to be just as effective as antidepressants in patients with a clinical major depression.

(2008) Effectiveness of antidepressants: an evidence myth constructed from a thousand randomized trials?
https://philpapers.org/rec/JOHEOA-2

Antidepressants double to tenfold the risk of suicide and hundreds of professors raised the alarm that antidepressants can have extreme violence as a side effect. Some magazines even published covers with the title “Killer Pills”.

Image

  1. (2010) A criminal side effect
    There is no hard scientific evidence that antidepressants can be the cause of extremely violent behaviour, but the evidence is piling up.
    https://en.zielenknijper.com/pdf/trouw- ... erking.pdf
  2. (2009) Pills of the Devil
    https://en.zielenknijper.com/images/rev ... -pills.jpg
  3. (2008) Cheating with suicide rates: Miracle pill, fake pill, suicide pill
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jtgDMSLjQ
While it is almost impossible to prove why someone decides to do something and thus to prove whether antidepressants were a 'cause' for a suicide wish, that would be irrelevant. What can be concluded is that antidepressant treatment is controversial and may promote suicide in patients. If that would be the case, it would create a very strange situation when the doctor who prescribes a possible suicide wish increasing treatment ends the life of that patient on the basis of his or her wish.

‘Given up’ patients often made chronically ill by psychiatry

There is a large group of patients who are called “given up”, however, there are many psychiatrists and mental health specialists who do not accept the term “given up”, especially with youngsters, and some claim that psychiatry is often the cause of the chronicity of problems in those patients.

Dr. Detlef Petry, who is specialized in the group “given up” patients, mentions that 80% of the “given up” patients in his clinic recovered using an innovative non-medical approach that he called “rehistorization” or “biographical developmental thinking”.

(2014) Dr. Detlef Petry: Patients are deliberately put to an early death with antipsychotics
Long-stay patients belong to the group that has been written off. The long-stay departments house chronic mentally ill for whom, according to classical psychiatry, no future is left. It gave Dr. Petry the name of “psychiatrist of the craziest”. But the patients are not written off in the eyes of psychiatrist Detlef Petry. When chronic patients have degenerated into houseplants, people who come to nothing and do nothing anymore, the chronicity of their problems is often caused by antipsychotic medications, he argues in his book “The Unmasking”.
https://www.tijdschriftdeviant.nl/

Free choice?

With regard to the 'choice' to end life. If, after a few years, patients with a suicide wish are told by their trusted doctor that euthanasia is an option, it makes sense that they will make that choice, if only to prove that their problems are real. It could also be a kind of social stamp for many people to prove that their problems are the most serious.

If euthanasia is not possible, then people may unknowingly be forced to consider that there must be a way out somehow, giving specialists options to lead someone to recovery.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (Third Essay) argues that in response to a lack of ability to answer questions related to the purpose of life, people will rather choose to commit suicide than to choose nothing at all.

“If you except the ascetic ideal, man, the animal man had no meaning. His existence on earth contained no end; “What is the purpose of man at all?” was a question without an answer; the will for man and the world was lacking; behind every great human destiny rang as a refrain a still greater “Vanity!” The ascetic ideal simply means this: that something was lacking, that a tremendous void encircled man—he did not know how to justify himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, he suffered from the problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was in the main a diseased animal; but his problem was not suffering itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, “To what purpose do we suffer?” Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured to suffering, does not repudiate suffering in itself: he wills it, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. Not suffering, but the senselessness of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over humanity—and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning! It was up till then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; the ascetic ideal was in that connection the “faute de mieux” par excellence that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering found an explanation; the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation—there is no doubt about it—brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering under the perspective of guilt; but in spite of all that—man was saved thereby, he had a meaning, and from henceforth was no more like a leaf in the wind, a shuttle-cock of chance, of nonsense, he could now “will” something—absolutely immaterial to what end, to what purpose, with what means he wished: the will itself was saved. It is absolutely impossible to disguise what in point of fact is made clear by complete will that has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even desiring—all this means—let us have the courage to grasp it—a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains a will!—and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning—man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all.

Conclusion

There are strong indications that psychiatry exacerbates problems and makes them chronic. That makes it ethically irresponsible to allow psychiatrists to euthanise their patients, even though there may be situations in which people can genuinely choose to end their lives while there is nothing wrong with their body. The fact that – in view of the fierce criticism of psychiatry by many scholars – it cannot be excluded that psychiatry has provided inadequate care or even had a detrimental influence on the opinion and decision-making of an individual, makes it ethically irresponsible to allow psychiatrists to euthanise their patients.

Some perspectives of users on this forum:

“Euthanasia is at least for psychiatry the biggest hoax i ever heard of. To use psychological diagnostics for aid of something for euthanasia is disgusting. Psychological deseases cannot be compared to painful cancer or ebola where death may seem secure and super painful.”

“I can agree with the availability of the choice to competent folks suffering from serious physical problems, but I am struggling to see the acceptable scenario for suicide based on mental problems.”

Philosopher Albert Camus

Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Screenshot 2022-12-29 at 09-11-29 Ethical concerns against euthanasia in psychiatry.png (44.89 KiB) Viewed 3356 times

The following podcast from a group of philosophy professors examines the work of the French philosopher Albert Camus who has explored the concepts suicide and reason to live.

(2009) Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd
Does our eventual death mean that life has no meaning and we might as well end it all? Camus starts to address this question, then gets distracted and talks about a bunch of phenomenologists until he dies unreconciled. Also, let's all push a rock up a hill and like it, okay?
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2009/ ... he-absurd/

--

Questions:

1) What is your opinion on euthanasia in psychiatry?
2) What do you think of the political extortion used to enforce legislation of euthanasia in psychiatry? How can it be explained?
#431842
value wrote: December 29th, 2022, 4:30 am Dutch psychiatrists used political extortion in 2010 to obtain the right to euthanise psychiatric patients. Since then euthanisation numbers in psychiatry have skyrocketed. In just 10 years time, over 40,000 people where euthanised when translated to US population.

Euthanasia in psychiatry is an emergent practice globally and in the US it is being referred to as 'the Dutch way'. I therefore decided to start a new topic that specifically addresses the political history of the practice in the Netherlands.

- Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Oregon Tries the Dutch Way
- The Dutch way of death - PubMed

Short introduction for this topic:

A few months before an attack on my home in 2019 (described here) I was using my Android phone which I almost never use and it continuously showed a remarkable advertisement for a tiny local newspaper of a far away town that I am in no way affiliated with: De Stentor. The advertisement reminded me of a 2010 report about the political extortion used to enforce euthanasia in psychiatry in The Netherlands.

In 2019, a Dutch critical blog on psychiatry that I was author of (www.zielenknijper.com) had been closed for many years (since 2014) and I wasn't involved with the subject anymore. I had closed the blog with the idea that change for the benefit of people would best come from within and not from outside criticism so I actually completely stayed away from the subject at that time.

Considering the persistence of the ad on the phone it was perceived as awkward. It incited a feeling of responsibility with regard my witnessing of the history of the corruption that resulted in legalization of euthanasia in psychiatry in the Netherlands. How could I leave those people unattended, considering what I knew?

I decided to do a quick search on www.madinamerica.com by medical journalist and bestseller author Robert Whitaker and I found a post about eugenics by Canadian anti-psychiatry scholar Bonnie Burstow. I replied to it.

(2019) “Psychiatric Eugenics Then and Now — You Betcha It’s Still Happening!”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)
https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/07/ps ... n-and-now/

My decision at that time - as a response to the ad and the feeling of responsibility that it had incited in me - was to start a topic about the subject on a philosophy forum. My first post on this forum was titled: Euthanasia in psychiatry: ethically?

In a way, the Google ad was the cause that I joined a philosophy forum and started to invest time to study it.

Political extortion

Two countries in Europe, the Netherlands and Belgium, were the first to allow euthanasia. In most other countries, including the UK, it has long remained illegal for doctors to kill their patients.

Initially, psychiatrists were excluded from the right to apply euthanasia. In 2010 Dutch psychiatrists enforced the right to euthanise their patients by officially releasing a guideline from the Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP) that instructed psychiatrists to release patients with a suicide wish so that they could commit suicide on the street.

The head of the Dutch union for railway personnel, mr. Wim Eilert, responded with the following:

Image

This is a bad signal. Every year 200 people in the Netherlands jump in front of a train. These are horrific experiences for drivers and also for conductors. Some never come back to work. That is why suicide on the railways must be reduced as much as possible. When institutions let patients go to commit suicide, a number of them always ends before a train, because it is simply a certain path to death.

(2010) Doctors release patients for suicide
https://www.destentor.nl/algemeen/binne ... fmoord.ece

In a subsequent poll with psychiatrists in the Netherlands published on Skipr.nl, 75% of psychiatrists responded to approve of euthanasia as a treatment option and 43% responded that they would be willing to apply it.

Soon after the guideline, Dutch politics provided psychiatrists with the right to euthanise their patients and the numbers have been growing rapidly since. In 2010, the year of the guideline, 2 psychiatric patients were euthanised. In 2011 the number grew to 13 patients and in 2013 the number had grown to more than 50 patients.

Ten years later, translated to the US population, Dutch psychiatry has applied euthanasia to 40,000 psychiatric patients.

Years leading up to the guideline: blackmailing

The years leading up to the guideline had seen a lot of mainstream media attention for scandals in psychiatry and it was often cited that psychiatry turned to blackmailing to hide their wrongdoing.

In 2010, shortly before psychiatrists were given the right to euthanise their patients, politician Halbe Zijlstra (from the then ruling party VVD) raised the alarm about a measure demanded by the mental health organizations to hide their wrongdoing from the public. The demand was a response to the many scandals that had hit the news and as such it became evident that psychiatry intended to hide their wrongdoing and resorted to political blackmailing to meet their ends.

(2010) Halbe Zijlstra (VVD): “Psychiatry is blackmailing to hide scandals”
According to MP Halbe Zijlstra, there is talk of "blackmail practices" intended to "cover up mistakes and abuses".
https://www.skipr.nl/actueel/ggz-morrel ... 52225.html

The minister of Public Health Ab Klink agreed with the concerns raised by the MP. In the years before, the minister had expressed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in psychiatry several times and announced that measures had to be taken.

(2008) Minister Ab Klink demands a lower limit for the quality of care in psychiatry
https://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2686/Bi ... trie.dhtml

The minister was involved in a legal battle with mental health organizations for an announced budget measure for psychiatric care of 120 million euros. In the lawsuit, the organizations argued that they "couldn't do anything about it" that there are more and more psychiatric patients.

The organizations mentioned the following in the lawsuit against the minister which shows their anger towards him.

“The demand [for psychiatric care] has increased and therefore more is being spent on care. But that's not our fault, is it? We also think that the minister has nothing to do with it at all. This is something between us, the health care authority and the health insurers,” says chairman Marleen Barth of GGZ Nederland. “We are critically monitoring the minister's announced measure. It has no effect on its own budget,” confirms a spokesperson for the Dutch Healthcare Authority.

“It is not yet possible to quantify the exceedance at all. The institutions are currently still preparing the accounts,” said an indignant Barth. “In addition, people only receive help from us if they have been referred by a general practitioner, for example. It's not that we create that demand ourselves.


(2010) Minister Ab Klink (Public Health) sued by psychiatry
Psychiatrists furious with Minister Klink: budgetary measure is a noose for psychiatry.
https://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/419 ... html?p=7,2

The mental health organizations lost the lawsuit.

As if the mental health organizations intended to revolt against the minister, less than three months after the lawsuit, the mental health organizations started a millions of euros costing national propaganda campaign called "1 in 4" to lower the threshold for psychiatric care (www.1opde4.nl). This campaign was banned shortly after by the Advertisement Authority (Reclame Code Commissie) because the advertisement would be misleading and untruthful. The campaign included full page advertisements in newspapers costing up to 60,000 euro per day.

Image

The domain holder of the domain 1opde4.nl was Maximum Recruitment Advertising.

Why given the right to apply euthanasia?

It is seen in the preceding history that in 2010, politicians seek public media attention for “blackmailing” by psychiatry and that same fact came to light in the political extortion used to obtain the right to apply euthanasia.

Patients with a suicide wish were being released to commit suicide on the street which looked like a political extortion tactic.

Why did psychiatry receive the right to euthanise patients at that specific time?

With euthanasia, psychiatry is much stronger in hiding potential wrongdoing.

It doesn’t seem logical that politicians would have ‘given in’ to extortion at that time, considering the public shout out about the occurrence of such practices by a ruling party politician with support by a Public Health minister several months before. But if political extortion wouldn’t have been required to get euthanasia legalized, why would the Dutch Psychiatric Association have used such a tactic? If anything, it shows a lack of care for their patients and for society by essentially letting patients jump in front of a train.

Image

The end result is simple however. Psychiatrists obtained and used their right. Patients were being euthanised and it reached the international news (BBC).

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45117163

Antidepressant treatment controversial

Antidepressants have suspicious side effects while a fake pill with a side effect (active placebo) that gives users the feeling that something is happening in the body, is proven to be just as effective as antidepressants in patients with a clinical major depression.

(2008) Effectiveness of antidepressants: an evidence myth constructed from a thousand randomized trials?
https://philpapers.org/rec/JOHEOA-2

Antidepressants double to tenfold the risk of suicide and hundreds of professors raised the alarm that antidepressants can have extreme violence as a side effect. Some magazines even published covers with the title “Killer Pills”.

Image

  1. (2010) A criminal side effect
    There is no hard scientific evidence that antidepressants can be the cause of extremely violent behaviour, but the evidence is piling up.
    https://en.zielenknijper.com/pdf/trouw- ... erking.pdf
  2. (2009) Pills of the Devil
    https://en.zielenknijper.com/images/rev ... -pills.jpg
  3. (2008) Cheating with suicide rates: Miracle pill, fake pill, suicide pill
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jtgDMSLjQ
While it is almost impossible to prove why someone decides to do something and thus to prove whether antidepressants were a 'cause' for a suicide wish, that would be irrelevant. What can be concluded is that antidepressant treatment is controversial and may promote suicide in patients. If that would be the case, it would create a very strange situation when the doctor who prescribes a possible suicide wish increasing treatment ends the life of that patient on the basis of his or her wish.

‘Given up’ patients often made chronically ill by psychiatry

There is a large group of patients who are called “given up”, however, there are many psychiatrists and mental health specialists who do not accept the term “given up”, especially with youngsters, and some claim that psychiatry is often the cause of the chronicity of problems in those patients.

Dr. Detlef Petry, who is specialized in the group “given up” patients, mentions that 80% of the “given up” patients in his clinic recovered using an innovative non-medical approach that he called “rehistorization” or “biographical developmental thinking”.

(2014) Dr. Detlef Petry: Patients are deliberately put to an early death with antipsychotics
Long-stay patients belong to the group that has been written off. The long-stay departments house chronic mentally ill for whom, according to classical psychiatry, no future is left. It gave Dr. Petry the name of “psychiatrist of the craziest”. But the patients are not written off in the eyes of psychiatrist Detlef Petry. When chronic patients have degenerated into houseplants, people who come to nothing and do nothing anymore, the chronicity of their problems is often caused by antipsychotic medications, he argues in his book “The Unmasking”.
https://www.tijdschriftdeviant.nl/

Free choice?

With regard to the 'choice' to end life. If, after a few years, patients with a suicide wish are told by their trusted doctor that euthanasia is an option, it makes sense that they will make that choice, if only to prove that their problems are real. It could also be a kind of social stamp for many people to prove that their problems are the most serious.

If euthanasia is not possible, then people may unknowingly be forced to consider that there must be a way out somehow, giving specialists options to lead someone to recovery.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (Third Essay) argues that in response to a lack of ability to answer questions related to the purpose of life, people will rather choose to commit suicide than to choose nothing at all.

“If you except the ascetic ideal, man, the animal man had no meaning. His existence on earth contained no end; “What is the purpose of man at all?” was a question without an answer; the will for man and the world was lacking; behind every great human destiny rang as a refrain a still greater “Vanity!” The ascetic ideal simply means this: that something was lacking, that a tremendous void encircled man—he did not know how to justify himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, he suffered from the problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was in the main a diseased animal; but his problem was not suffering itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, “To what purpose do we suffer?” Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured to suffering, does not repudiate suffering in itself: he wills it, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. Not suffering, but the senselessness of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over humanity—and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning! It was up till then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; the ascetic ideal was in that connection the “faute de mieux” par excellence that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering found an explanation; the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation—there is no doubt about it—brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering under the perspective of guilt; but in spite of all that—man was saved thereby, he had a meaning, and from henceforth was no more like a leaf in the wind, a shuttle-cock of chance, of nonsense, he could now “will” something—absolutely immaterial to what end, to what purpose, with what means he wished: the will itself was saved. It is absolutely impossible to disguise what in point of fact is made clear by complete will that has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even desiring—all this means—let us have the courage to grasp it—a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains a will!—and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning—man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all.

Conclusion

There are strong indications that psychiatry exacerbates problems and makes them chronic. That makes it ethically irresponsible to allow psychiatrists to euthanise their patients, even though there may be situations in which people can genuinely choose to end their lives while there is nothing wrong with their body. The fact that – in view of the fierce criticism of psychiatry by many scholars – it cannot be excluded that psychiatry has provided inadequate care or even had a detrimental influence on the opinion and decision-making of an individual, makes it ethically irresponsible to allow psychiatrists to euthanise their patients.

Some perspectives of users on this forum:

“Euthanasia is at least for psychiatry the biggest hoax i ever heard of. To use psychological diagnostics for aid of something for euthanasia is disgusting. Psychological deseases cannot be compared to painful cancer or ebola where death may seem secure and super painful.”

“I can agree with the availability of the choice to competent folks suffering from serious physical problems, but I am struggling to see the acceptable scenario for suicide based on mental problems.”

Philosopher Albert Camus


Screenshot 2022-12-29 at 09-11-29 Ethical concerns against euthanasia in psychiatry.png


The following podcast from a group of philosophy professors examines the work of the French philosopher Albert Camus who has explored the concepts suicide and reason to live.

(2009) Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd
Does our eventual death mean that life has no meaning and we might as well end it all? Camus starts to address this question, then gets distracted and talks about a bunch of phenomenologists until he dies unreconciled. Also, let's all push a rock up a hill and like it, okay?
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2009/ ... he-absurd/

--

Questions:

1) What is your opinion on euthanasia in psychiatry?
2) What do you think of the political extortion used to enforce legislation of euthanasia in psychiatry? How can it be explained?
I am not sure about the arguments and evidence which you cite. I don't know if you have experience of the Netherlands and its psychiatry system or whether you have found information on the internet. I have worked with the mental health care system and I am aware of the need for critical psychiatry which may be a move beyond the antipsychiatry movement.

On the other hand one has to question conspiracy theories. I am not saying that the information which you are pointing to is wrong entirely. But, there is a lot which would need careful thinking and analysis. In general, the drug companies have a role in the creation of pharmacology and there may be aspects of politics which come into this. But, at the same time, doctors are trained in ethics and to speak of euthanasia would be to disregard their commitments to standards of care.

Then, you bring in the ideas of Camus, about suicide, which is a strange inclusion because his ideas are not arguing for or against suicide. In 'The Rebel', he describes suicide as a form of metaphysical rebellion. Within my own experience of psychiatry it is often patients who are wishing to kill themselves and medical professionals are the ones who are trying to prevent this, often through measures of close observations. This means that they have staff members with them 24/7 while they are deemed to be a suicide risk. Of course, this is England I am speaking about, not the Netherlands..
#431843
Thank you for sharing your perspective! I am aware that you work as a psychiatric nurse and I have read your insightful posts with great interest!

With regard your criticism of 'potential' biased sources of my OP. The sources are the biggest news papers and official medical publishers in the Netherlands. For example, how can you discredit the citation of the Dutch head of railway personnel? Your criticism is unjustified in my opinion.

The lawsuit by psychiatry against the Dutch Public Health minister simply happened. So did the banned propaganda campaign 1 in 4 that followed. Also, the Dutch MP that made a shout-out about the occurrence of blackmail practices in psychiatry was in fact supported by the Dutch Public Health minister. And these facts were in the months before the official guideline to release patients to commit suicide on the street.

I have concluded that it concerns political extortion and it is justified to do so because it seems there is no other explanation for the guideline.

Patients with a suicide wish were being released to commit suicide on the street which looked like a political extortion tactic.

The topic asks the question how it can be explained so the topic provides room to challenge the notion and to provide an alternative explanation. With that it concerns an unbiased and honest notion of something that might simply be considered a fact.

Further, the critical blog on psychiatry of which I was author was not related to anti-psychiatry. It is was purely philosophical of nature and 100% neutral. The OP also contains positive information about regular critical psychiatrists (for example Dr. Detlef Petry).

With regard philosopher Albert Camus. Well, the topic might be read by people on the patient side of the subject and that podcast (especially the song on the end) is highly motivating to pursue a life in philosophy and to prevent suicide. It is also intended to indicate that the subject in fact belongs to philosophy. Equally the citation of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals.
#431852
I have heard of the indirect euthanasia of those with mental health issues, but nothing overt since the scandals of Scandinavian practices a decade or two ago.

By 'indirect', I mean (for example) the life expectancy of autistic people. Those who do not have special educational needs might expect to live to 56. Those who do have special educational needs can look forward to only 36 years! There is no clear information as to how many of these people commit suicide, but it is a substantial proportion. Many of them end it all due to the despair that flows from a lifetime of social rejection, of being outcast —literally 'cast out'. I would call this euthanasia; others might disagree with this interpretation.
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
#431857
value wrote: December 29th, 2022, 4:30 am Dutch psychiatrists used political extortion in 2010 to obtain the right to euthanise psychiatric patients. Since then euthanisation numbers in psychiatry have skyrocketed. In just 10 years time, over 40,000 people where euthanised when translated to US population.

Euthanasia in psychiatry is an emergent practice globally and in the US it is being referred to as 'the Dutch way'. I therefore decided to start a new topic that specifically addresses the political history of the practice in the Netherlands.

- Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Oregon Tries the Dutch Way
- The Dutch way of death - PubMed

Short introduction for this topic:

A few months before an attack on my home in 2019 (described here) I was using my Android phone which I almost never use and it continuously showed a remarkable advertisement for a tiny local newspaper of a far away town that I am in no way affiliated with: De Stentor. The advertisement reminded me of a 2010 report about the political extortion used to enforce euthanasia in psychiatry in The Netherlands.

In 2019, a Dutch critical blog on psychiatry that I was author of (www.zielenknijper.com) had been closed for many years (since 2014) and I wasn't involved with the subject anymore. I had closed the blog with the idea that change for the benefit of people would best come from within and not from outside criticism so I actually completely stayed away from the subject at that time.

Considering the persistence of the ad on the phone it was perceived as awkward. It incited a feeling of responsibility with regard my witnessing of the history of the corruption that resulted in legalization of euthanasia in psychiatry in the Netherlands. How could I leave those people unattended, considering what I knew?

I decided to do a quick search on www.madinamerica.com by medical journalist and bestseller author Robert Whitaker and I found a post about eugenics by Canadian anti-psychiatry scholar Bonnie Burstow. I replied to it.

(2019) “Psychiatric Eugenics Then and Now — You Betcha It’s Still Happening!”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)
https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/07/ps ... n-and-now/

My decision at that time - as a response to the ad and the feeling of responsibility that it had incited in me - was to start a topic about the subject on a philosophy forum. My first post on this forum was titled: Euthanasia in psychiatry: ethically?

In a way, the Google ad was the cause that I joined a philosophy forum and started to invest time to study it.

Political extortion

Two countries in Europe, the Netherlands and Belgium, were the first to allow euthanasia. In most other countries, including the UK, it has long remained illegal for doctors to kill their patients.

Initially, psychiatrists were excluded from the right to apply euthanasia. In 2010 Dutch psychiatrists enforced the right to euthanise their patients by officially releasing a guideline from the Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP) that instructed psychiatrists to release patients with a suicide wish so that they could commit suicide on the street.

The head of the Dutch union for railway personnel, mr. Wim Eilert, responded with the following:

Image

This is a bad signal. Every year 200 people in the Netherlands jump in front of a train. These are horrific experiences for drivers and also for conductors. Some never come back to work. That is why suicide on the railways must be reduced as much as possible. When institutions let patients go to commit suicide, a number of them always ends before a train, because it is simply a certain path to death.

(2010) Doctors release patients for suicide
https://www.destentor.nl/algemeen/binne ... fmoord.ece

In a subsequent poll with psychiatrists in the Netherlands published on Skipr.nl, 75% of psychiatrists responded to approve of euthanasia as a treatment option and 43% responded that they would be willing to apply it.

Soon after the guideline, Dutch politics provided psychiatrists with the right to euthanise their patients and the numbers have been growing rapidly since. In 2010, the year of the guideline, 2 psychiatric patients were euthanised. In 2011 the number grew to 13 patients and in 2013 the number had grown to more than 50 patients.

Ten years later, translated to the US population, Dutch psychiatry has applied euthanasia to 40,000 psychiatric patients.

Years leading up to the guideline: blackmailing

The years leading up to the guideline had seen a lot of mainstream media attention for scandals in psychiatry and it was often cited that psychiatry turned to blackmailing to hide their wrongdoing.

In 2010, shortly before psychiatrists were given the right to euthanise their patients, politician Halbe Zijlstra (from the then ruling party VVD) raised the alarm about a measure demanded by the mental health organizations to hide their wrongdoing from the public. The demand was a response to the many scandals that had hit the news and as such it became evident that psychiatry intended to hide their wrongdoing and resorted to political blackmailing to meet their ends.

(2010) Halbe Zijlstra (VVD): “Psychiatry is blackmailing to hide scandals”
According to MP Halbe Zijlstra, there is talk of "blackmail practices" intended to "cover up mistakes and abuses".
https://www.skipr.nl/actueel/ggz-morrel ... 52225.html

The minister of Public Health Ab Klink agreed with the concerns raised by the MP. In the years before, the minister had expressed his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in psychiatry several times and announced that measures had to be taken.

(2008) Minister Ab Klink demands a lower limit for the quality of care in psychiatry
https://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2686/Bi ... trie.dhtml

The minister was involved in a legal battle with mental health organizations for an announced budget measure for psychiatric care of 120 million euros. In the lawsuit, the organizations argued that they "couldn't do anything about it" that there are more and more psychiatric patients.

The organizations mentioned the following in the lawsuit against the minister which shows their anger towards him.

“The demand [for psychiatric care] has increased and therefore more is being spent on care. But that's not our fault, is it? We also think that the minister has nothing to do with it at all. This is something between us, the health care authority and the health insurers,” says chairman Marleen Barth of GGZ Nederland. “We are critically monitoring the minister's announced measure. It has no effect on its own budget,” confirms a spokesperson for the Dutch Healthcare Authority.

“It is not yet possible to quantify the exceedance at all. The institutions are currently still preparing the accounts,” said an indignant Barth. “In addition, people only receive help from us if they have been referred by a general practitioner, for example. It's not that we create that demand ourselves.


(2010) Minister Ab Klink (Public Health) sued by psychiatry
Psychiatrists furious with Minister Klink: budgetary measure is a noose for psychiatry.
https://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/419 ... html?p=7,2

The mental health organizations lost the lawsuit.

As if the mental health organizations intended to revolt against the minister, less than three months after the lawsuit, the mental health organizations started a millions of euros costing national propaganda campaign called "1 in 4" to lower the threshold for psychiatric care (www.1opde4.nl). This campaign was banned shortly after by the Advertisement Authority (Reclame Code Commissie) because the advertisement would be misleading and untruthful. The campaign included full page advertisements in newspapers costing up to 60,000 euro per day.

Image

The domain holder of the domain 1opde4.nl was Maximum Recruitment Advertising.

Why given the right to apply euthanasia?

It is seen in the preceding history that in 2010, politicians seek public media attention for “blackmailing” by psychiatry and that same fact came to light in the political extortion used to obtain the right to apply euthanasia.

Patients with a suicide wish were being released to commit suicide on the street which looked like a political extortion tactic.

Why did psychiatry receive the right to euthanise patients at that specific time?

With euthanasia, psychiatry is much stronger in hiding potential wrongdoing.

It doesn’t seem logical that politicians would have ‘given in’ to extortion at that time, considering the public shout out about the occurrence of such practices by a ruling party politician with support by a Public Health minister several months before. But if political extortion wouldn’t have been required to get euthanasia legalized, why would the Dutch Psychiatric Association have used such a tactic? If anything, it shows a lack of care for their patients and for society by essentially letting patients jump in front of a train.

Image

The end result is simple however. Psychiatrists obtained and used their right. Patients were being euthanised and it reached the international news (BBC).

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45117163

Antidepressant treatment controversial

Antidepressants have suspicious side effects while a fake pill with a side effect (active placebo) that gives users the feeling that something is happening in the body, is proven to be just as effective as antidepressants in patients with a clinical major depression.

(2008) Effectiveness of antidepressants: an evidence myth constructed from a thousand randomized trials?
https://philpapers.org/rec/JOHEOA-2

Antidepressants double to tenfold the risk of suicide and hundreds of professors raised the alarm that antidepressants can have extreme violence as a side effect. Some magazines even published covers with the title “Killer Pills”.

Image

  1. (2010) A criminal side effect
    There is no hard scientific evidence that antidepressants can be the cause of extremely violent behaviour, but the evidence is piling up.
    https://en.zielenknijper.com/pdf/trouw- ... erking.pdf
  2. (2009) Pills of the Devil
    https://en.zielenknijper.com/images/rev ... -pills.jpg
  3. (2008) Cheating with suicide rates: Miracle pill, fake pill, suicide pill
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jtgDMSLjQ
While it is almost impossible to prove why someone decides to do something and thus to prove whether antidepressants were a 'cause' for a suicide wish, that would be irrelevant. What can be concluded is that antidepressant treatment is controversial and may promote suicide in patients. If that would be the case, it would create a very strange situation when the doctor who prescribes a possible suicide wish increasing treatment ends the life of that patient on the basis of his or her wish.

‘Given up’ patients often made chronically ill by psychiatry

There is a large group of patients who are called “given up”, however, there are many psychiatrists and mental health specialists who do not accept the term “given up”, especially with youngsters, and some claim that psychiatry is often the cause of the chronicity of problems in those patients.

Dr. Detlef Petry, who is specialized in the group “given up” patients, mentions that 80% of the “given up” patients in his clinic recovered using an innovative non-medical approach that he called “rehistorization” or “biographical developmental thinking”.

(2014) Dr. Detlef Petry: Patients are deliberately put to an early death with antipsychotics
Long-stay patients belong to the group that has been written off. The long-stay departments house chronic mentally ill for whom, according to classical psychiatry, no future is left. It gave Dr. Petry the name of “psychiatrist of the craziest”. But the patients are not written off in the eyes of psychiatrist Detlef Petry. When chronic patients have degenerated into houseplants, people who come to nothing and do nothing anymore, the chronicity of their problems is often caused by antipsychotic medications, he argues in his book “The Unmasking”.
https://www.tijdschriftdeviant.nl/

Free choice?

With regard to the 'choice' to end life. If, after a few years, patients with a suicide wish are told by their trusted doctor that euthanasia is an option, it makes sense that they will make that choice, if only to prove that their problems are real. It could also be a kind of social stamp for many people to prove that their problems are the most serious.

If euthanasia is not possible, then people may unknowingly be forced to consider that there must be a way out somehow, giving specialists options to lead someone to recovery.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (Third Essay) argues that in response to a lack of ability to answer questions related to the purpose of life, people will rather choose to commit suicide than to choose nothing at all.

“If you except the ascetic ideal, man, the animal man had no meaning. His existence on earth contained no end; “What is the purpose of man at all?” was a question without an answer; the will for man and the world was lacking; behind every great human destiny rang as a refrain a still greater “Vanity!” The ascetic ideal simply means this: that something was lacking, that a tremendous void encircled man—he did not know how to justify himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, he suffered from the problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was in the main a diseased animal; but his problem was not suffering itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, “To what purpose do we suffer?” Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured to suffering, does not repudiate suffering in itself: he wills it, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. Not suffering, but the senselessness of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over humanity—and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning! It was up till then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; the ascetic ideal was in that connection the “faute de mieux” par excellence that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering found an explanation; the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation—there is no doubt about it—brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering under the perspective of guilt; but in spite of all that—man was saved thereby, he had a meaning, and from henceforth was no more like a leaf in the wind, a shuttle-cock of chance, of nonsense, he could now “will” something—absolutely immaterial to what end, to what purpose, with what means he wished: the will itself was saved. It is absolutely impossible to disguise what in point of fact is made clear by complete will that has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even desiring—all this means—let us have the courage to grasp it—a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains a will!—and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning—man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all.

Conclusion

There are strong indications that psychiatry exacerbates problems and makes them chronic. That makes it ethically irresponsible to allow psychiatrists to euthanise their patients, even though there may be situations in which people can genuinely choose to end their lives while there is nothing wrong with their body. The fact that – in view of the fierce criticism of psychiatry by many scholars – it cannot be excluded that psychiatry has provided inadequate care or even had a detrimental influence on the opinion and decision-making of an individual, makes it ethically irresponsible to allow psychiatrists to euthanise their patients.

Some perspectives of users on this forum:

“Euthanasia is at least for psychiatry the biggest hoax i ever heard of. To use psychological diagnostics for aid of something for euthanasia is disgusting. Psychological deseases cannot be compared to painful cancer or ebola where death may seem secure and super painful.”

“I can agree with the availability of the choice to competent folks suffering from serious physical problems, but I am struggling to see the acceptable scenario for suicide based on mental problems.”

Philosopher Albert Camus


Screenshot 2022-12-29 at 09-11-29 Ethical concerns against euthanasia in psychiatry.png


The following podcast from a group of philosophy professors examines the work of the French philosopher Albert Camus who has explored the concepts suicide and reason to live.

(2009) Episode 4: Camus and the Absurd
Does our eventual death mean that life has no meaning and we might as well end it all? Camus starts to address this question, then gets distracted and talks about a bunch of phenomenologists until he dies unreconciled. Also, let's all push a rock up a hill and like it, okay?
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2009/ ... he-absurd/

--

Questions:

1) What is your opinion on euthanasia in psychiatry?
2) What do you think of the political extortion used to enforce legislation of euthanasia in psychiatry? How can it be explained?
I am definitely not trying to suggest that the evidence you cite is wrong. The reports which you mentioned are very important. It is simply that it is so difficult to get a full perspective of what is going on in another country. I don't know where you are based. Even in many aspects of medical practice, including psychiatry, it is hard to know what is going on beyond the surface of newspaper headlines and even within organisations.

Generally, there are so many aspects of psychiatric ethics and politics which are open to criticism. If euthanasia is going on, overtly or covertly, it is important for it to be exposed and, there are probably many far less extreme but negative practices going on in various parts of the world. There are so many angles, and I would imagine that so many people have seen such varying aspects of psychiatry and healthcare on this forum because site users are living across the world and, are probably so diverse in life experiences.
#431888
JackDaydream wrote: December 29th, 2022, 11:51 am
value wrote: December 29th, 2022, 4:30 am...
Did you re-post the complete OP a second time on purpose? It makes the topic less readable in my opinion.
JackDaydream wrote: December 29th, 2022, 11:51 am I am definitely not trying to suggest that the evidence you cite is wrong. The reports which you mentioned are very important. It is simply that it is so difficult to get a full perspective of what is going on in another country. I don't know where you are based. Even in many aspects of medical practice, including psychiatry, it is hard to know what is going on beyond the surface of newspaper headlines and even within organisations.

Generally, there are so many aspects of psychiatric ethics and politics which are open to criticism. If euthanasia is going on, overtly or covertly, it is important for it to be exposed and, there are probably many far less extreme but negative practices going on in various parts of the world. There are so many angles, and I would imagine that so many people have seen such varying aspects of psychiatry and healthcare on this forum because site users are living across the world and, are probably so diverse in life experiences.
I understand your concern and I believe that it is valid. However, when it concerns euthanasia for a mere mental wish per se, it is still a subject in my opinion that could be addressed by philosophy.

Why does life has meaning? This question was addressed by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (cited in the OP) and it is often asked on this forum.

The fact that people have big problems with some questions has lead to religions with several excesses.

There have been cults in which people collectively committed suicide. People are easy to manipulate and are capable of a lot for a belief or idea.

What effect could there be for people in general when doctors give up their patients purely on the basis of their mental will? It may promote the idea in insecure people that life is meaningless, resulting an escalation of mental problems and instability and a lack of compassion for fellow human beings (increase of violent crime).

Further, it is simply a fact that psychiatry has a history that includes absurdly profound abuses of human rights and practices that are considered 'torture'. In the case of abuses with euthanasia it will be even more unlikely that potential victims could have received help from media attention, politics or reporting, because it is very difficult for outsiders such as politicians or reporters to interfere and assess a situation when it comes to someone's personal choice to commit suicide.

What should one think of the idea that doctors enforce the right to apply euthanasia using political corruption? Are those doctors truly acting solely on behalf of the wish to die of their patients? Even if so, wouldn't that remain strange?

Patients with a suicide wish were being released to commit suicide on the street which looked like a political extortion tactic. In that same year, psychiatrists were given the right to apply euthanasia and euthanised 2 people.

What do you think of the perspective of the Dutch head of railway personnel? What do you think about the guideline in general? Can it be explained other than having been a political extortion tactic?

Image

This is a bad signal. Every year 200 people in the Netherlands jump in front of a train. These are horrific experiences for drivers and also for conductors. Some never come back to work. That is why suicide on the railways must be reduced as much as possible. When institutions let patients go to commit suicide, a number of them always ends before a train, because it is simply a certain path to death.

(2010) Doctors release patients for suicide
https://www.destentor.nl/algemeen/binne ... fmoord.ece
#431946
JackDaydream wrote: December 30th, 2022, 10:35 pm @value

I didn't necessarily wish to re-post your OP. It is extremely difficult to get everything in correct boxes, especially if replying on a mobile phone. In the post which I wrote above I simply jolted my phone while writing it and it sent it while I was writing and, I am unable posts to edit my posts.

Getting back to your argument, I got into a discussion with a friend on the phone today who had heard of euthanasia in psychiatry in the Netherlands. Until you raised this, I had not heard of this. I don't have any knowledge of psychiatry in that country. It sounds horrific and, in spite of this, I am a little unsure if you are wishing to point to this specifically or raise issues about euthanasia and psychiatry in general. One major question would be is it exclusive to the Netherlands or more widespread as a form of abuse, or even amidst a spectrum of more subtle abuses of power?
#431948
Belgium and The Netherlands were the first countries to allow euthanasia in psychiatry.

Other countries are following and in the US the practice is being referred to as 'the Dutch Way' (even on PubMed). The OP mentions a few articles such as "Oregon (US) tries the Dutch Way" on PsychiatricTimes.com.

With regard the course of the discussion, that would be up to you.

I merely intended to fulfil my duty as a human being by addressing the subject as good as possible on behalf of the people involved: I intended to stimulate and show a path to prevention of suicide and my specific interest in this matter is the political corruption that seems to have laid at the basis of the practice, which might make it extra important that the subject is addressed from the perspective of philosophy.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (Third Essay) argued the following. It could be a foundation for the argument that euthanasia in psychiatry is fundamentally wrong.

let us have the courage to grasp it—a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains a will!—and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning—man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all.

There are questions unanswered. In specific the following:

Why given the right to apply euthanasia?

It is seen in the preceding history that in 2010, politicians seek public media attention for “blackmailing” by psychiatry and that same fact came to light in the political extortion used to obtain the right to apply euthanasia.

Patients with a suicide wish were being released to commit suicide on the street which looked like a political extortion tactic.

Why did psychiatry receive the right to euthanise patients at that specific time?

With euthanasia, psychiatry is much stronger in hiding potential wrongdoing.

It doesn’t seem logical that politicians would have ‘given in’ to extortion at that time, considering the public shout out about the occurrence of such practices by a ruling party politician with support by a Public Health minister several months before. But if political extortion wouldn’t have been required to get euthanasia legalized, why would the Dutch Psychiatric Association have used such a tactic? If anything, it shows a lack of care for their patients and for society by essentially letting patients jump in front of a train.

The end result is simple however. Psychiatrists obtained and used their right. Patients were being euthanised and it reached the international news (BBC).


https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-451171

My position is actually neutral in this. As can be seen in the quote of Nietzsche, there are simply arguments by which it is questionable that doctors euthanise their patients on the basis of their wish. The OP also cites sources that show that psychiatry could cause a suicide wish in people which would make the practice additionally questionable.

For example, in the Netherlands innocent young depressed girls have been locked up in an isolation cell for more than a year which destroyed them mentally. A girl talked about it once on national news in the Netherlands. The isolation cells were often unclean with poo of other patients on the walls and cockroaches crawling on the floor. In my opinion one would not even put a dog in such a situation 'for multiple years'.

This is where they would be locked up for more than a year. No TV or radio. A masked window. Stench. Loud crying patients in other cells that are unable to bare their 'treatment'.

Isolation cell
Isolation cell
isolationcell.jpg (33.2 KiB) Viewed 3193 times

This was actually happening on a regular and large scale in 2010 in the Netherlands. With innocent people and young girls (not criminals in any way).

After such a long isolation cell treatment would often follow forced electroshock as a 'last resort' that would erase their memory. With euthanasia as an additional option such people might be driven into euthanasia by psychiatry and psychiatry washes its hands clean as being 'powerless' in the face of the wish of their depressed patients.

Euthanasia is an extra step next to that existing isolation cell and electroshock practice so in my opinion people might be at risk and perhaps only philosophy can actually help them from an outside perspective while media, journalism and politicians are pretty much powerless.

Hopefully the reporting about political corruption as origin of the practice might help to provide a tool for specialists to protect people against the practice. The quote of Friedrich Nietzsche clearly shows that questions related to 'the purpose of life' can logically result in a wish for suicide while that wish itself is not actually a wish to die but an expression of the will to live.

I personally find it strange that:

1) psychiatry used political extortion to obtain the right to euthanise people
2) that 43% of psychiatrists responded in a poll to be willing to euthanise people
3) in general for mental/mind doctors to euthanise their patients for a wish to die

You mention that euthanasia in psychiatry is a horrific practice. What is your opinion on the official guideline by the Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP) to release patients with a suicide wish so that they could commit suicide on the street?
#431990
What do you think of the following consideration?

Free choice?

With regard to the 'choice' to end life. If, after a few years, patients with a suicide wish are told by their trusted doctor that euthanasia is an option, it makes sense that they will make that choice, if only to prove that their problems are real. It could also be a kind of social stamp for many people to prove that their problems are the most serious.

If euthanasia is not possible, then people may unknowingly be forced to consider that there must be a way out somehow, giving specialists options to lead someone to recovery.
#431992
The song on the end of Partially Examined Mind episode 4 on French philosopher Albert Camus has the following text.

My friends, please don't desert us, tho you may recall the many things that hurt us. Tho you've forgotten what it means to wish for anything at all. And you forgotten what it felt like to be subject to a call. That doesn't tempt you from this onpit of a world.

My friends, please stay around please. Please don't levitate away, stay on the ground please. Tho you forgotten how to care, if you are young enough for air, there is still use for you. We all have use for you. Don't let us down please.

My friends, please hold on tightly. When your life bucks you around it is so unsightly. But if you are smarter than a lox your place is not yet in a box. So beware your darkest edging and the darkness that it mocks.

My friends, please don't desert me. Tho your presence in this world may well subvert me. And if we try to shake you off, please don't take personally the scoff. We're just afraid of your deminor but your inside is still soft.

My friends, don't you get off here. There's so many things to hold you tho we're not clear. Please hold on to you, and I'll do anything for you. There is still love for you. There is still love for you somewhere around here!

My friends, please don't desert us. Tho you may recall the many things that hurt us. If you could just please stick around and stay out of that dark ground. That would be nice. I promise. That would be nice. I promise. That would be nice.


https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2009/ ... he-absurd/

I find it beautiful and hopefully it helps someone.

What does it mean that the question "what is the purpose of life?" has been a major subject in philosophy? What does the quest for the meaning of life imply?
#432237
value wrote: December 31st, 2022, 1:44 amHopefully the reporting about political corruption as origin of the practice might help to provide a tool for specialists to protect people against the practice. The quote of Friedrich Nietzsche clearly shows that questions related to 'the purpose of life' can logically result in a wish for suicide while that wish itself is not actually a wish to die but an expression of the will to live.

I personally find it strange that:

1) psychiatry used political extortion to obtain the right to euthanise people
2) that 43% of psychiatrists responded in a poll to be willing to euthanise people
3) in general for mental/mind doctors to euthanise their patients for a wish to die

You mention that euthanasia in psychiatry is a horrific practice. What is your opinion on the official guideline by the Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP) to release patients with a suicide wish so that they could commit suicide on the street?
For clarity and transparency with regard the political corruption used to get euthanasia for a mental wish legalized.

The critical blog that I was author of helped to expose pedophilia within the judiciary.

Dutch minister Els Borst planned to expose a pedophilia ring in the government and was murdered by a psychiatric patient. According to sources, she was murdered by the secret service (AIVD), where she worked herself in the past.

The minister was an elderly woman and an active advocate of free choice to end life, while the critical blog at the time was actively counter-arguing euthanasia by psychiatry. Essentially, the minister was the primary opponent (enemy) of the critical blog, on behalf of free choice for euthanasia for a mental wish.

Since then the secret service (AIVD) appears to have been an enemy and the attack on my home in 2019 is likely related.

In 2019, my home was attacked and I was subjected to a display of absurdly profound corruption of the judiciary that included unnatural police intimidation. I even received a threat letter from the official national Legal Counsel of the Netherlands.

My home in Utrecht
My home in Utrecht
springweg-conemans-158-768w.jpg (71.29 KiB) Viewed 3034 times

My businesses and all my personal belongings were destroyed, I was assaulted, threathened, subdued to unnatural slander and I lost my home.

The head of the local police was personally involved and was watching during the attack on my home and appeared to protect the perpetrator. The perpetrator meanwhile, a few months into the attack, communicates that he had come to admire me and then makes a confession that a false slanderous suspicion and threat with a police raid a year earlier (which had been absurd) had originated from the local police.

Shortly after confessing to the false suspicion, the landlord makes the same false suspicion again while the local police chief watches on. The perpetrator again threatened a police raid.

It was simply absurd what the perpetrator did. The perpetrator is an engineer so he must have known what he was doing. There seems to be no explanation for what he did other than trying to make clear that people from the local police (Justice) were responsible for the attack on my home in which all my personal belongings were destroyed (over 30.000 euro in physical damage and my health was hurt as well).

It was simply illogical what was going on.

With regard my reporting about pedophilia in Justice.

I had discovered that sweet old lady Yvonne Keuls was spat in the face on the street by law enforcement officers and verbally threatened by the public prosecutor when she tried to have a pedophile judge prosecuted. At one point, the woman did not dare to leave her house for three months because of the threats.

Volkskrant: ‘It is an absolute injustice what happened’
While pedo-porn photos were taken in the Hague Palace of Justice, Justice looked the other way. And not the pedophile judge, but whistleblower Yvonne Keuls was slandered and threatened. Charges against the judge were dropped.

The judge (Theo Reub) was never prosecuted and was allowed to retire early while Yvonne Keuls was faced with threats.

The Minister of Justice was involved. It is already the 4th pedosexual judge to be protected by his colleagues and Justice in recent years.

Yvonne: “Minister of Justice Opstelten, who has always protected the pedo judge Joris Demmink in a striking manner, was a friend of the judge.

I was reviled for suing a juvenile court judge as a whistleblower. It was apparently irrelevant that in the meantime it was someone who had committed the highest form of abuse of power against children.


The head of the Dutch Justice system (highest function) raped children.

I myself [lawyer] represent two Turkish victims who were raped and sexually abused when they were
11 and 14 years old. The perpetrator was a high ranking Dutch government official, nowadays
Secretary-General of the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice, Mr. Joris Demmink.

Demmink in 1995 was caught during the act of sex with the two children, in Turkey, while attending a party in Bodrum. At this party, young children were sexually abused.

https://www.csce.gov/sites/helsinkicomm ... timony.pdf

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nrc-topman-justice-pedophile-483w.jpg
nrc-topman-justice-pedophile-483w.jpg (100.44 KiB) Viewed 3034 times

Through the Dutch minister Els Borst, the reporting about pedophilia in Justice appears to be related to the political process to legalize euthanasia in psychiatry.

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