I was actually supposed to spend my day off printing prototypes and doing other ridiculous fun stuff but instead I went to see this:
http://www.psychiatrie-industrie-des-doods.nl/Documentary: Psychiatry the industry of death.
It freaks me out when I see how easily we label ourselves and others as sick. It seems like in today's society not being happy equals having some disorder or another. The pharmaceutical industry sedates us first and then empties our pockets. It's our wellbeing we're talking about here and thats why we should be in charge. Much has changed since the beginning of Psychiatry but still no way has found to prove whether that what we define as disorders are actually disorders. There should be more information available other than what whitejackets tell us and what marketing campaigns in drug stores make us believe.
For fucks sake. We sedate 7 and 8 year olds up to the point where they can't even count their own fingers anymore and in the U.S every 75 seconds someone is involuntarily institutionalized.
Despite the connection to the Church of Scientology, I feel that this documentary and Expo is worth watching/visiting. It is one of those documentaries where the creators went in with an obvious agenda, but they nevertheless point out a lot of startling facts, both historical and contemporary, about the "luminaries" in the field of psychiatry, as well as the industry's web of links to government and pharmaceutical companies. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to take some of value from this.
The Expo is in Amsterdam until Ocotober 25th, Spuistraat 239 (website is in Dutch). Documentary can be found online as well.
