Battle of the Titans

Tom and Matt on Today

The actor Tom Cruise, in his strange attack on psychiatry, brought up an interesting topic. Pragmatist that I am, I always thought that Freud's ideas about oedipal complexes were some type of gross oversimplification. And cognitive therapy always seemed like undiluted bullshit. This type of therapy is best exemplified by Bob Newhart saying, "Follow that thought Mr. Petersen." Certainly there is beneficial catharsis in talking of your inner thoughts and misdeeds. But does it actually cure anything significant in your brain's wiring? Psychiatry redeemed itself some in recent years with the advent of psychoactive drugs that actually do what they say (e.g., SRI’s for depression and obsessive/compulsive behavior). Psychiatry moved ever closer to hard science from that state of soft, psycho-babble mushiness.

Now comes neural expert Tom Cruise. And what is his beef with psychiatry? Those very drugs - Ritalin, antidepressants, etc, that cause definitive changes in the functioning of neurons. And he even personalized the attack by using Brooke Shields’ medication for postpartum depression as an example. Were Tom to come at it from a different direction, I might say "Bravo, Tom". But Tom is coming from a place called Scientology. Tom is parroting the Scientology line -- a stern opposition to shrinks. Psychiatry is so "unscientific". And what does Scientology offer as an alternative -- a series of electronic readings called "ingrams" that say how free you are from thetans. What are thetans? According to L. Ron Hubbard (now deceased), they are extraterrestrial creatures who were deposited on Earth millions of years ago, frozen and dead. An evil galactic emperor, Xenu, put them here. And now the souls of these dead thetans haunt human bodies.

Why is it that both approaches leave me unconvinced? The thetan story would qualify a more average person to a padded cell, mass doses of Thorazine and occupational therapy at Belleview hospital. But it's all in the delivery -- other silly things have gained credence from a good sales pitch: spray-on hair, pet rocks, mood rings, chia pets and most anything sold by Ronco. There are aspects of Christianity itself that would qualify lesser evangelists for a straight jacket. What's that you say? He walked on water, raised Lazarus from the dead, and fed the multitude with a loaf of bread? Perhaps you need a 6-week stay at Club Belleview.

Cynic that I am, I liken the Church of Scientology to a grifter who sees another con artist treading on his turf. Prior to truly effective psychiatric medications, it might be a coin toss between cognitive therapy and scientology – which will make me better? Both are somewhat a crock after all. Now, psychiatry has been supplemented with neuroscience, and there are actual results to be had. Are drugs sometimes over-prescribed and abused? Certainly. Does that mean that all use of these effective drugs should be curtailed? Certainly not. So I’ll now leave it to Brooke Shields to set Tom straight. Matt Lauer went too easy on the guy.