International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology

About ICSPP

The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) is a nonprofit (503c) research and educational network whose focus is the critical study of the mental health movement. ICSPP is completely independent and at present our funding consists solely of individual membership dues.

ICSPP was originally founded in 1971 by Harvard-trained, critical psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, who has been called "the conscience of psychiatry," and by his wife Ginger Breggin. Dr. Breggin is the author of "Toxic Psychiatry," "Talking Back to Ritalin," "Talking Back to Prozac" (with Ginger Breggin,) "The War on Children of Color" (with Ginger Breggin), "Your Drug May Be Your Problem" (with Dr. David Cohen), and many other books and scholarly articles. Dr. Breggin is also a founding editor of the ICSPP's scholarly journal, "Ethical Human Sciences and Services," now edited by Larry Simon and Jonathan Leo and published by Springer Publishing Company.

Our professional Board of Directors, Advisory Council and membership list consists of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, philosophers, counselors, therapists, and psychiatric victims and survivors worldwide, and includes journal editors, academics, practitioners and interested lay people.

ICSPP is concerned with the impact of mental health theories on public policy and the effects of therapeutic practices upon individual well-being, personal freedom, and family and community values. For over 25 years ICSPP has been informing the professions, the media and the public about the potential dangers of drugs, electroshock, psychosurgery, and the biological theories of psychiatry. In many cases, we have been the lone organization opposing the march of the latest hazardous psychiatric invention and alerting the media and the public to the dangers of treating social, interpersonal and personal problems as though they were medical diseases.

We have focused on critiques of the so-called medical model of psychiatry, that is, the theory that people who behave in ways neither understood nor approved by society at large have something wrong with their bodies or brains, requiring the physical intervention of doctors using such techniques as drugs, electroshock and lobotomy. We have studied the research, and documented the negative results of applying this theory, and we strongly believe it still lacks a scientific foundation and remains unproven.

We have paid much attention to the fact that many psychiatric drugs, though approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have been shown to be neither safe nor effective. We are not against the use of psychoactive drugs by competent adults who have been thoroughly informed of their value, potential side effects, and alternatives.

However, we have often found that the diagnosing and prescribing of psychiatric medications often takes place in the false belief, propagated by the highly profitable drug companies, that only good can ensue. We hold strongly to the three fundamental principles that have formed the hallmark of medical ethics for 2,500 years, and which we feel are completely lacking in the mental health field: "First, do no harm," "Informed consent," and "Patient autonomy."

We are especially opposed to the use of force and fraud in the mental health movement, and we deplore the expansion of forced psychiatric treatment in the community on our most vulnerable populations: children and the elderly.

We are highly in favor of voluntary, confidential psychotherapy, self-help, educational interventions and other means of treatment freely chosen by competent adults.

ICSPP accomplishments include:

1970s: Stopping the wide-scale resurgence of lobotomy and psychosurgery on adults and children, and stopping of all known psychosurgery on children and all psychosurgery in federal and state institutions.
1970s: The creation of the federal Psychosurgery Commission by Congress.
1983: Alerting the profession to the danger of tardive dyskinesia in children. Tardive dyskinesia is a potentially devastating neurological disorder involving involuntary muscle movements caused by neuroleptic or antipsychotic drugs.
1983: Alerting the profession to the danger of dementia produced by longer-term use of neuroleptic drugs.
1985: Causing the FDA to force pharmaceutical companies to put in their labels for neuroleptic drugs a new class warning on tardive dyskinesia.
early 1990s: The withdrawal of a large multi-agency federal program to perform dangerous invasive experiments on inner-city children in search of supposed genetic and biochemical causes of violence (the violence initiative).
early 1990s: The initial cancellation and later modification of a potentially racist federally sponsored conference on the theorized genetics of violence.
1992-94: Alerting the profession to danger of down-regulation and dangerous withdrawal reactions from the new SSRI antidepressants, such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil.
1973 to the present: Monitoring and at times modifying or stopping unethical, hazardous experimental research on children (1973 to the present).

Each of these critiques was initially considered highly controversial, and each was opposed by organized psychiatry. However, most are now accepted as rational, scientifically founded, and ethical by helping professions in general. For example, psychosurgery is no longer widely practiced and not at all in state or federal institutions or on children in the United States; the multi-agency federal research program aimed at using invasive biological procedures on inner-city children has been disbanded; the conference on the genetics of violence was delayed and then vastly modified; all experts now recognize the dangers of tardive dyskinesia in children; many researchers have confirmed that the neuroleptic drugs produce dementia; and experienced doctors as well as a burgeoning literature now recognize the likelihood for dangerous, paradoxical, or persistent withdrawal effects from the SSRIs.

Today, ICSPP members focus on several issues, including:

The pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold (by means of money) on the mental health professions, on mental health research, and on mental health policy-making;
The establishment of drug-free residential treatment centers for severe emotional distress;
The abolition of coercive or involuntary treatments and interventions;
The impact of biological psychiatry on children, notably the use of behavior-altering drugs such as stimulants to control behavior and boost rote educational performance.

In a field where nearly all of the professional organizations, research institutes, and lay organizations are underwritten by money from the pharmaceutical industry, we are proud to remain a loud and independent voice in favor of humane values in the mental health field.

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