Vol. 5, No. 4 - Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto

an interview with Dr. Lee Coleman
Psychiatry's 'reign of error'
Markman: Dr. Coleman, your book is very critical of the
psychiatric profession's role in the courts, in mental hospitals
and in prisons. How did you come to be so critical of
your own profession?
Coleman: Basically, from the things that Isaw in practising
psychiatry, first in a crisis clinic which is typical of
many county mental health centres where people were
brought in - many times against their will- by police, and
byfamilles. I saw the things that were being done to the
patients - the effects of the labels, drugging - and Icame
to conclude based on seeing what was going on in front of
me, thatthis was not helping people. Ialso began out of my
own interest to get exposed to the role of psychiatry in
prisons - specifically in sentencing, where we would have
psychiatrists influencing parole boards. And the very fact
that we have a parole system where we're trying to decide
whether somebody is no longer dangerous, whether they
are dangerous, and so forth. Ibegan to see what a sham
this was. Psychiatrists had no way to help anybody decide
whether a person was ready to be released. So psychiatry
was corrupting the business of criminal sentencing.
Each time I've had a chance to investigate and look into
any area where psychiatry is connected with state power, I
have seen it to be corrupt. The other area that I've had a lot
of exposure to is the role of psychiatry in trials of all kinds.
Many times, society is kind of hiding behind psychiatrists in
order to avoid certain other issues.
Markman: Why are you opposed to psychiatrists having
any influence at a1/over court proceedings? Couldn't they
serve some useful function vis-a-vis the courts?
Coleman: No, they can't, although Ican certainly understand
why people might think so - because by long tra-
16 Phoenix Rising
dition the psychiatrists have been in there, and because
they use the jargon, and they have M.D. after their names.
People assume that ifother doctors have legitimate
methods to contribute to a courtroom - and I don't quarrel
with other kinds of doctors being in there or other kinds of
scientists being in there - psychiatrists must too. But the
truth is that we only have the window dressing, not the
substance. When a medical doctor examines a patient and
decides the patient's problems are not stomach ulcers but
stomach cancer, the doctor can prove his diagnosis with
real scientific evidence - a tissue specimen that he mounts
on a slide. Hematologists can show you a blood sample, etc.
The psychiatrist doesn't have anything like that. All he, or
she, has is what they see or what they hear, and then they
filter itthrough their own subjective impressions. The
reason that psychiatrists cannot contribute anything of
value to the court is they don't have methods to do what
the court thinks they can do: they cannot measure people's
minds, or their intentions; they cannot tell whether
someone knew what they were doing or whether they will
be dangerous in the future. As a matter of fact, psychiatrists
are worse than lay people at evaluating these
issues, and therefore do not deserve to be testifying as
experts. Lay people can do a much better job - that is, the
members of a jury - in deciding the issues that the court
wants to know than psychiatrists can. The reason is that a
jury, or the judge (who is also a lay person) , will pay
attention to the behaviour of the person to deterrnine
whether they think they are legally competent, or crimi,
nally responsible, whatever the issue on trial is. Psychiatrists,
on the other hand, get all caught up in phony
labels and the jargon of psychiatry, which is totally un-