Playing Doctor: Responding to Tom Cruise's psychiatry rant.

I found this great article at slate.msn.com
I am posting it here:

Playing Doctor
Responding to Tom Cruise’s psychiatry rant.
Posted Thursday, July 28, 2005, at 3:35 AM PT


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Dear Prudie,
After hearing Tom Cruise’s ignorant and uninformed rant about psychiatry being a “pseudoscience,” I had to write. Unfortunately, too many people listen to the opinions of celebrities and take them as gospel. Tom Cruise’s irresponsible preaching could harm many people and increase the stigma our society already attaches to those with mental-health issues. I respect your support of the mental-health fields, so I hope this message can get to those folks who need help but are afraid to get it because of people like Mr. Cruise, who have easy access to the media. I am a licensed clinical psychologist currently providing care for our nation’s military. I could only stare in disbelief at Mr. Cruise’s announcement that psychiatric disorders “can be treated with exercise and vitamins.” Part of a soldier’s job is to exercise and be healthy, including taking vitamins as appropriate, and let me tell you, those things have never “cured” a psychiatric disorder yet. Tell a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder that exercise and vitamins will “cure” him, and he’ll walk out of your office and continue suffering. Tell a suicidal young mother that exercise and vitamins will “cure” her, and you will leave her feeling just as hopeless as when she walked in. I don’t know what “research” Mr. Cruise is reading that tells him there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance, but I suspect it is more of L. Ron Hubbard’s. Talk to any reputable neurologist; it is not Mr. Cruise who can read the results of PET scans or functional MRIs. For those of you out there who are suffering from depression, anxiety, PTSD, or any other mental-health disorder, please don’t listen to the preaching of celebrities who claim to be experts in mental health. Seek help from a licensed mental health provider. Contact your HMO, NAMI (the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), or talk to your family doctor for a referral. There are affordable mental-health options in every community.

—M.D., Ph.D

Dear M.,
Prudie seldom runs comment letters like yours, but it seemed worth doing in light of the massive publicity given to this particular actor’s pronouncements. We must hope that thoughtful people do not take their medical directives from celebrities who have ties to a religion or a cult, however one wishes to see it. And of course Prudie is a lay person, but jumping up and down on a couch—on television—did suggest that this young man was, at the very least, manic.

—Prudie, consequentially

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