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Opinion: Psychiatry is Not Rooted in Science (Not the Sound Kind, Anyway)

 

Psychiatry is not rooted in science (not the sound kind, anyway).

Psychiatry is not rooted in science (not the sound kind, anyway).

There is a common misconception that psychiatry is a rigorous, evidence-based branch of medicine. But look closer, and you'll find something troubling. Psychiatry does not, as a rule, run biological tests. There are no brain scans, no blood work, no conclusive metrics used to confirm diagnoses.

Instead, patients are diagnosed based on what can be observed by the treating psychiatrist. That’s right—your entire identity can be pathologized through someone else's eyes. And those eyes are subject to human bias, fatigue, prejudice, and error.

Worse still, treatment decisions are often made based on a person’s past behaviour. But science—real science—is not just about what has already been observed. It’s about experimentation, current conditions, hypothesis testing, and present data. Shouldn’t your treatment, your dignity, your freedom, rely on more than a backward glance?

A Personal Case in Point (Singapore)

According to Singapore's Mental Health Act—as it was explained to me by my mental health 'scare' team—you can be legally remanded if you meet one of three criteria:

  • You are a danger to yourself.
  • You are a danger to others.
  • You are self-neglecting.

I met none of these conditions. I was calm, peaceful, and very much in control. I'd requested they take me off medication, and for them to observe my behaviour in the hospital ward—confident that I still wouldn’t meet the criteria for 'treatment'. That, to me, seemed like the rational, evidence-based thing to do.

But I was met with a hard and resounding "No."

And then came the assault.

I was in my telekung (prayer garment), holding my Quran, when they pinned me down. Nine or ten nurses. They stripped me, snatched my Quran away, and injected me forcibly—despite the fact that I was not a threat to myself or anyone else.

How is this sane? How is this science? How is this a proper way to treat a human being?

Psychiatry, in its current institutional form, often hides behind the language of science—but fails to meet the basic standards of it. When power is exercised without accountability, and people are forcibly medicated without valid cause, we must begin to ask uncomfortable questions.

And we must stop calling it “care” when it looks and feels like something else entirely.

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