Remind me never to google myself again

[shan564]

I googled myself and found this:

http://www.behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2014/07/22/more-psychiatric-myth-debunking/

The initial post is just a critique of what I wrote from the perspective of one of those people who thinks psychiatry is a sham. But then I scrolled down and found this comment:

http://www.behaviorismandmentalheal...sychiatric-myth-debunking/#comment-1498913422

Somebody googled the crap out of me and launched a personal attack based on the content of my CV. I understand that there are people out there with ill-founded opinions, so I won't lose any sleep over it, but wow...

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[PikminOC]

People are obsessed. Look at scientologists.

 

[birchswing]

It's funny how we used to think it was an old-wives' tale that googling yourself would lead to madness and blindness but now it's turning out to be true.

 

[splik]

well done! this guy has also written about me too (only he uses my full name!)

it could be worse - trust me I have much, much worse comments on the internet and I had a stalker for a while. The joy of being a psychiatrist on the internet

 

[675015]

I googled myself and found this:

http://www.behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2014/07/22/more-psychiatric-myth-debunking/

The initial post is just a critique of what I wrote from the perspective of one of those people who thinks psychiatry is a sham. But then I scrolled down and found this comment:

http://www.behaviorismandmentalheal...sychiatric-myth-debunking/#comment-1498913422

Somebody googled the crap out of me and launched a personal attack based on the content of my CV. I understand that there are people out there with ill-founded opinions, so I won't lose any sleep over it, but wow...

Thats legit... I'm pretty jealous. This means you have arrived as a psychiatrist!

 

[shan564]

well done! this guy has also written about me too (only he uses my full name!)

it could be worse - trust me I have much, much worse comments on the internet and I had a stalker for a while. The joy of being a psychiatrist on the internet

An anonymous commenter used my full name, workplace, and a link to a Whois page (a site that basically gives information to stalkers). But luckily, I've never had a stalker. I've had worse comments on the Internet, but I'm just astonished by the lengths to which these people went to research me...

 

[Ceke2002]

An anonymous commenter used my full name, workplace, and a link to a Whois page (a site that basically gives information to stalkers). But luckily, I've never had a stalker. I've had worse comments on the Internet, but I'm just astonished by the lengths to which these people went to research me...

The psychotherapy forum for patients that I was visiting had a fair number of people on their with major eroticised transference issues, who were stalking their Doctors. The lengths some of them were going to in order to try and ensconce themselves in their therapist's lives (and they had no qualms detailing them either, especially when a typical response from their forum peers consisted of, "well it's the therapist's fault for making themselves so available and enticing) were eye opening to say the least, including trying to go after a Doctor's family members as well. It's one of the reasons I no longer visit that particular forum, for every half decent conversation you'd have on psychotherapy from a patient's point of view you'd spend the rest of the time just being completely horrified at what some of these patients thought was perfectly reasonable and acceptable to be doing.

And I just love how the idiot who posted that information about you didn't even have the guts to do it under their own name.

 

[Ceke2002]

People are obsessed. Look at scientologists.

Yep, and apparently mental health diagnoses don't exist, except when you're applying them to people you disagree with, then you can throw terms like 'Psychopath' around with impunity. I see the hypocrisy is strong with this lot.

 

[mats7]

"By the way – if you’re not familiar with medical terminology, “exploratory encephalotomy” implies opening up somebody’s brain in order to search for something. To the best of my knowledge, it’s not a real medical procedure yet…"

IDK, that last part of the blog, if you're already distrusting of psychiatrists, may come off a bit creepy!

 

[chicagochildpsych]

This is why I got a concealed carry permit and a berretta during residency.

 

[birchswing]

This is why I got a concealed carry permit and a berretta during residency.

Why is that when people say this they never seem to have a resignation about it. Part of the act of buying a gun seems to be the statement itself, an indulgent jab at some unnamed other that poses some threat. That threat usually seems to be a mental picture from the past. I never hear of people saying that they hate that they had to do this, and the thinking doesn't seem based on fear of the actual future but on present fantasy of what one could do against some entity imagined from the past. There's nothing wrong with indulgences, but with a gun there shouldn't be satisfaction. There should be uncertainty.

Also, it's Beretta. Unless you love trilling your Rs.

 

[thoffen]

I'm glad you have the humility to post this knowing you'd be de-identified.

To go to these lengths to discredit psychiatry with no apparent motivation to do so other than sensitivity to the idea that they may somehow be deviant and not in control of their own mental processes.... the harder they push the more validated you should feel.

That said, I do agree with the notion of biologic psychiatry running a high risk of discrediting the individual, and in fact reinforcing the notion of external focus of illness to absolve individual responsibility in getting better. Knowing that, I think the better approach is balance and striving for reality instead of fantasy that therefore psychiatry and mental health disorders do not exist.

Personally, I wonder how they would respond to some data on burden of illness (suicide, life years lost, poverty, homelessness, etc.) associated with mental health diagnoses. And I wonder how they would respond if we educated them on how much of medicine as a whole consists of non-scientific clinical diagnoses and non evidence-based approaches.

I wonder only because it will be funny. If they're so concerned as to create websites to promote their fantasy that mental illness does not exist, I have no hope that disseminating this information will do anything other than prompt even more furious rationalizations.

 

[Promethean]

I recommend brandyourself.com. They are a reputation management company that helps you control what appears about you in search results. For cheap. You can monitor what links appear in your Google results and take actions to improve the ranking of links that you want to see while burying ones you don't.

Joke: Do you know where is the best place to hide a dead body? On the 3rd page of Google.

I think this becomes essential for any professional at some point. My friend has a couple of crazy internet stalkers, who have really put time and effort into slandering her and damaging her professional reputation. They objected to research her lab was doing and made it their mission to ruin her life online. She has been the recipient of death threats and anonymous calls to her employer that ultimately contributed to her choice to leave that position.

Brandyourself has been a powerful tool for her to reclaim her own namespace on the internet. Now, when you google her, the terrible things that have been said about her still show up, but they are buried several pages back in the results, under many many links about positive aspects of my friend's life. I can't recommend this highly enough if you are someone that other people are likely to google. (i.e. anyone, really. I google my landlords before I sign a lease, even.)

 

[notdeadyet]

This is why I got a concealed carry permit and a berretta during residency.

I don't see how a little hat is going to help you....

 

[clausewitz2]

So I have a somewhat distinctive last name, and property ownership records are naturally a matter of public record. Has anyone on this board gone the route of forming an LLC with some very anodyne name to buy a house instead of owning it directly?

Not any kind of foolproof solution to Google's ability to find out where I live, but might raise the difficulty threshold.

 

[Psychotic]

So I have a somewhat distinctive last name, and property ownership records are naturally a matter of public record. Has anyone on this board gone the route of forming an LLC with some very anodyne name to buy a house instead of owning it directly?

Not any kind of foolproof solution to Google's ability to find out where I live, but might raise the difficulty threshold.

Some states have better methods for hiding ownership than others. Land trusts, etc. Google it for where you live.

 

[notdeadyet]

So I have a somewhat distinctive last name, and property ownership records are naturally a matter of public record. Has anyone on this board gone the route of forming an LLC with some very anodyne name to buy a house instead of owning it directly?.

I have not, because I don't own a home, but I know several psychiatrists who have done the LLC for home ownership purposes, have all mail go to mail services/PO boxes, and do not use their home address for anything. All are forensic psychiatrists, when I think about it.

 

[Ceke2002]

Some states have better methods for hiding ownership than others. Land trusts, etc. Google it for where you live.

I have not, because I don't own a home, but I know several psychiatrists who have done the LLC for home ownership purposes, have all mail go to mail services/PO boxes, and do not use their home address for anything. All are forensic psychiatrists, when I think about it.

In South Australia you can apply to have your name suppressed from public record access on things like Land Titles, etc, if you have a legitimate and proven concern for your personal safety, or the safety of others. Of course this becomes null and void if you then proceed to not monitor potential security issues through things like your online presence as well - not much good suppressing publicly accessible information if you're just going to go ahead and leave a tasty trail of stalker breadcrumbs behind you.

 

[chicagochildpsych]

Sorry for the typo, my reason for gun ownership was a patient threatening to kill my family if I didn't give him benzodiazepines. Frankly, I'm not into guns. Have one for protection, clean it once in awhile, practice at the range every 6 mos or so. Not into it, probably would have never gotten one unless threatened.

 

[notdeadyet]

Admittedly unsolicited opinion:

If you own a gun for protection (especially with a carry permit), PLEASE consider going to the range more than q6 months.

Even if you're not into it, it's safer for literally everyone around you to get rid of the gun rather than potentially hit someone you didn't intend to due to lack of practice.

 

[Shikima]

There are a lot of fun courses one may take which will teach drawing and timed shooting to hone skills. Doing those about 2x/yr with monthly range days is best.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

Phil Hickey doesn't know what he's talking about from his incorrect statements in that article, and has shown himself to have below average intelligence.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

...And I just love how the idiot who posted that information about you didn't even have the guts to do it under their own name.

Scientologists and people who reject mental health are pure cowards. True hypocrites, for they themselves have felt the pangs of depression, anxiety, and probably know of a family or friend with schizophrenia.

Are they willing to refuse to acknowledge HIV, diabetes, or lung disease?

 

[chicagochildpsych]

Admittedly unsolicited opinion:

If you own a gun for protection (especially with a carry permit), PLEASE consider going to the range more than q6 months.

Even if you're not into it, it's safer for literally everyone around you to get rid of the gun rather than potentially hit someone you didn't intend to due to lack of practice.

I never carry it, got the permit so I could get all the safety training. It sits in a safe in my house. Also, my wife grew up in rural Texas and is a crack shot, I guess I'll have to get an extra for her.

 

[birchswing]

I think it would be good to remember that there are likely more people critical of some of the specific practices of psychiatry than of psychiatry itself. Scientology is a very small organization that garners disproportionate interest. The people in it aren't even told the real reasons why L Ron Hubbard was against psychiatry. He fashioned himself as an expert on mental health and wanted his ideas adopted as mainstream and when they weren't he created a schism between dianetics and traditional mental health care. At the highest levels of scientology (which very few pay for), they are told that the beings that today are psychiatrists are the same beings that were part of Xenu's intergalactic army. Psychiatrists are basically just today's modern incarnation of evil beings in the scientology space opera. I doubt L Ron Hubbard believed any of that. I think that creating a schism is just a successful way at building interest. There are legitimate reasons to be upset with specific practices of psychiatry. But isolating a people and telling them psychiatrists are evil and psychiatrists reinforcing that message by painting them with a broad brush as well is what allows the division to work. It's self-fulfilling on both sides. There are people born into Scientology who cannot be faulted for being a member of a movement that is difficult to leave without destroying family connection.

 

[sunlioness]

I was part of Xenu's intergalactic army?!

Sweet!

I want to know what my rank was. And see my uniform.

 

[clausewitz2]

I was part of Xenu's intergalactic army?!

Sweet!

I want to know what my rank was. And see my uniform.

In a sequence of only four courses, I can train you to contact your inner Thetan and allow you to remember your previous rank in the Galactic Empire.

That'll be ten grand.

 

[clausewitz2]

Phil Hickey doesn't know what he's talking about from his incorrect statements in that article, and has shown himself to have below average intelligence.

Unfortunately I think counter arguments like this that rely on name-calling make us look like we don't have better justifications for practice and are tools besides.

I think Phil Hickey is wrong and reasoning from some flawed assumptions about clinical sciences generally (assuming entities will be as well-defined as in chemistry, for instance) but the broad sketches of his argument are not prima facie ridiculous.

 

[jl lin]

So incredibly creepy.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

Unfortunately I think counter arguments like this that rely on name-calling make us look like we don't have better justifications for practice and are tools besides.

I think Phil Hickey is wrong and reasoning from some flawed assumptions about clinical sciences generally (assuming entities will be as well-defined as in chemistry, for instance) but the broad sketches of his argument are not prima facie ridiculous.

Where's the name calling? If I believe he has below average intelligence I can most certainly state my opinion. I'll be clear. Phil Hickey has below average intelligence.

 

[birchswing]

Where's the name calling? If I believe he has below average intelligence I can most certainly state my opinion. I'll be clear. Phil Hickey has below average intelligence.

Coming from a psychiatrist it sounds like a diagnosis. Intelligence isn't a matter of believing or opinion; it's measured. I'm guessing you're familiar with psychometrics. It's not something you do by reading a blog post.

Call psychiatry what you will, but in the end we are all trying as physicians to deliver medical care and improve lives. Remove psychiatry, and you condemn millions of people who cannot help themselves to death. Simple as that.

From the little I've read of his blog, it's a bit more nuanced than some of your takes on the field of mental health.

Until you experience your first psychotic break, then who will you beg to save you? I love the hypocrisy - people are quick to condemn. And then that day comes when you or your friend needs psychiatric help. The day will come.

Scientologists and people who reject mental health are pure cowards. True hypocrites, for they themselves have felt the pangs of depression, anxiety, and probably know of a family or friend with schizophrenia.

This is pretty much the same unsubstantiated bluster, bombast, and crisis/end-of-world writing you see in Scientology materials; it's just from a different point of view.

 

[Leo Aquarius]

You can call it bombast my friend, but I enjoy making points using loud language. I'm just the one with courage enough to say them the way I do, and my followers on here would agree. If harsh criticisms rub the wrong way, it's what an anonymous chat forum is for and I stand firm in everything I've stated thus far.

I'm not surprised by clauzewitz finding common ground with Hickey. This coming from the user who believes - more or less - that residents/med students are blind automatons on bended knee memorizing their way through medical education.

And Birch, why unsubstantiated? Haven't you ever felt depression, anxiety or known anyone with a serious mental illness? If not, then truly, you live in a bubble. Have you ever drank water? Quick, bombast!

 

[birchswing]

You can call it bombast my friend, but I enjoy making points using loud language. I'm just the one with courage enough to say them the way I do, and my followers on here would agree. If harsh criticisms rub the wrong way, it's what an anonymous chat forum is for and I stand firm in everything I've stated thus far.

I'm not surprised by clauzewitz finding common ground with Hickey. This coming from the user who believes - more or less - that residents/med students are blind automatons on bended knee memorizing their way through medical education.

And Birch, why unsubstantiated? Haven't you ever felt depression, anxiety or known anyone with a serious mental illness? If not, then truly, you live in a bubble. Have you ever drank water? Quick, bombast!

I just know you're not going to reach anyone that way. If you truly care about the suffering of Scientologists you can't start by calling them hypocrites. Scientology teaches that *they* are the ones with the answers to the problems you see them suffering with, so loud words from you aren't going to have them running to you.

The best way to talk to someone in a group with a high degree of internal commitment is to ask gentle questions and be interested in their practices. Asking questions that might lead to pointing out *internal* inconsistencies in the belief system is more effective. You don't use logic that is external to their world view. Adjusting to a new world view is a long process that starts after you get out of one of these groups; people aren't going to understand a different world view without getting out first.

The unsubstantiated part was that you said without psychiatry millions of people would die (it's an interesting question, but one without a knowable answer—at least not through the process of conjecture) and to say that generally speaking all scientologists suffer from anxiety and depression.

 

[HarryMTieboutMD]

To be fair, any time you take yourself seriously on the internet (or even if you don't), you are setting yourself up to be trolled...

 

[clausewitz2]

I'm not surprised by clauzewitz finding common ground with Hickey. This coming from the user who believes - more or less - that residents/med students are blind automatons on bended knee memorizing their way through medical education.

Hey, remember how I started out with "I think Phil Hickey is wrong" and that he was proceeding from flawed assumptions? I suppose that might require closer or more careful reading than you are interested in.

At the end of the day, though, if you really can't connect the dots between asserting someone is of below average intelligence on the basis of a cursory skim of a blog post and insults, I am not sure you are interested in good faith discussions.

This is supported by your assertion that you can say whatever you please, it's a free anonymous forum, if you can't stand the heat, etc. Let us call it the Trump gambit.

 

[thoffen]

Some heated debate. I love it. So much irony in these postings as well.

This is a (relatively) anonymous internet forum. This is not patient care. Most of us here are licensed to practice medicine, but none of us are operating as physicians with duty to anyone on this forum. This is a place for us to express our ideas and knowledge as we see fit. There is no doctor-patient relationship to foster.

 

[PikminOC]

Sorry for the typo, my reason for gun ownership was a patient threatening to kill my family if I didn't give him benzodiazepines. Frankly, I'm not into guns. Have one for protection, clean it once in awhile, practice at the range every 6 mos or so. Not into it, probably would have never gotten one unless threatened.

Jeez, what did you do? I have had this with benzo patients too..

 

[nancysinatra]

I am sorry this happened. I agree it is disturbing that someone would spend so much time looking up details about you.

However you can't expect to blog and never be identified or disagreed with. Even respectable academic psychiatrists would find some of your comments debatable. Plus you mention having an MD. This makes you a lightening rod. The public has a lot of negative sentiment towards doctors, especially psychiatrists. Some of it is legitimate. Some of it is not. If you are interested in writing about medicine, a public blog might not be the best place to start. You could look into writing workshops, which are more private, as a place to test out your writing.

Oh, and Freud was not the first psychiatrist. He was a neurologist. Psychiatry existed long before he came along. It's bad form to dismiss him like you have, but if you insist on it, at least get your facts right.

 

[WisNeuro]

Luckily, it seems a lot of people have my name, so it's hard to find me specifically. Which is definitely a good thing considering some of the forensic aspects of what I do. As for blogging, always gonna get a backlash from saying anything bad about Freud, empirical background be damned! It'd be interesting if other historical figures still had theories that people still prescribed too. Like if treating patients solely based on Galen's humors were still a thing.

 

[nancysinatra]

I have not, because I don't own a home, but I know several psychiatrists who have done the LLC for home ownership purposes, have all mail go to mail services/PO boxes, and do not use their home address for anything. All are forensic psychiatrists, when I think about it.

Forensic psychiatrists may have a reason to lay low, because of the nature of their work. There's been research into which doctors are most often stalked, and it's plastic surgeons, I believe.

But in my experience it's always the over-60 psychodynamic guys who prance around bragging about how they have to keep such a tight lid on their personal info, like they were John Travolta or something. Meanwhile county websites list their home values, addresses, and property taxes. Marriage and divorce records are public too. Funny enough, all the examples I recall from residency about "inappropriate patient behavior" always seemed to involve a 20-something female patient and one of those 60+ male faculty members, whose indefatigable professionalism was always the point of the story, as opposed to them having any serious stalking anecdotes.

 

[shan564]

Thanks for all of the comments. I should mention that I wrote the initial blog post before I'd actually started residency... looking back, now that I have more training, I said some things that weren't entirely accurate. I'm not upset that somebody disagrees with me, especially considering that I kinda disagree with my own slightly-younger self on some points... mostly, I'm just baffled by the fact that this retort to my little blog post probably has more content than my entire blog. I wonder how he even found it - did he just google "misconceptions about psychiatry" in an active effort to find something to complain about? I was surprised that somebody even read it, much less responded to it... even my parents don't read my blog (even when I ask them to)...

I recognize that I'm opening myself up for a lot of public trolling when I put this kind of stuff online. Years ago, I used to write a blog focused on data-oriented discussions of socioeconomic/sociopolitical issues, and I got way more trolling there - people didn't like it when the data didn't support their political viewpoints. I didn't take an open political stance (even though I was a classic idealistic 22/23-year-old Obamaphile at the time), and when I polled my readers, half of them thought I was liberal and half thought that I was conservative (of the ones that took a side... something like 30% also said that it was neutral). So I'm aware of that risk and I understand that I've chosen to expose myself to it.

And that's why I entitled this thread "remind me never to google myself again" rather than "remind me to remove myself from the Internet." I do not intend to substantially modify my behavior based on a random Internet troll, except that maybe I should spend less time paying attention to it. I was just stricken by the amount of time this anonymous person spent to find random pieces of information about me and embed it into a vilifying narrative. Hell, he somehow used the fact that I'm a chess player to demonstrate something negative about my underlying temperament - notwithstanding the obvious fact that this assumes that everything he knows about chess is based on the notion that "chess players are nerds" based on what he saw on TV (in reality, the world's #1 chess player is also a fashion model now, and the previous #1 chess player made a pretty good run for President of Russia), there's just something disconcerting about all of that. He even says something like "I suspect he is also the author of this pro-electroshock comment on the kevinmd blog" - I didn't follow that link, but he's probably right... I probably did write something positive about ECT as a comment on that blog, but how hard did he work to find that piece of information? Not to mention the irony of posting an anonymous comment that contains detailed personal information about somebody...

 

[hamstergang]

in reality, the world's #1 chess player is also a fashion model now

Despite his best efforts, Carlsen is not model material.

I used to google myself and found only a few other people in this country (and Canada) with the same name, so I was easy to find. But, due to my name sharing names with a more recent pop culture phenomenon, it's difficult to find me now (think of a name like Freddy Nemo, which may bring up images of a clown fish in a horror movie). So, good for me, I guess?

 

[smalltownpsych]

Where's the name calling? If I believe he has below average intelligence I can most certainly state my opinion. I'll be clear. Phil Hickey has below average intelligence.

Although he clearly has an agenda and a clear bias, he does appear to be highly intelligent and his arguments in this article are fairly logical and coherent and consistent with many of my own opinions. http://www.behaviorismandmentalheal...iatrys-and-his-own-role-in-the-adhd-epidemic/
It doesn't sound to me like this guy is saying that mental illness doesn't exist, but that we have major problems with our diagnostic system and how we conceptualize and treat mental illness. I completely agree with that. Does that mean that we shouldn't treat it? If that is indeed his point, then I vehemently disagree. We do have treatments that alleviate suffering and this includes medications and psychotherapy and social interventions. Nevertheless, there are those in psychiatry (or pharmaceutical industry) who overreach and that does feed the problem and attacking the messenger doesn't aid the defense either.

 

[smalltownpsych]

The more I read Dr. Hickey's blog, the more I see how clearly alike he is to his own criticism to the overreach of "medications indicated for everything" (which is how he defines psychiatry) and how he sees no indications for medications ever. It is sad because I do agree with many of his points, but I also see a clear role for medications in helping many of my patients. I also know that the patients who are most resistant to taking medications and tend to participate in these anti-psychiatry rants are often the ones who stand to benefit the most from appropriate and sensible use of psychiatric medications. Meanwhile the patients who won't really benefit from medications are begging for them.

 

[HenrikFuture]

Haha that is, well i was about to say truly sick.

I think what i really find it, is a complete lack of empathy from the posters. The fact that youre an actual person deserving better than to be slandered on the internet does not seem to be something they consider.

Sadly the internet has become a place with alot of social disconnect. In the sense that social responsibility and norms are discarded, and the vile hate and primitive fear all people house is launched.

So fact is i guess some of you guys have made it big enough career wise that you are now the talking point of people who stoop so low as to slander persons over the internet.

I suppose it is a cost that we all pay if we wish to brand ourselves on the internet. My honest best advice to you guys getting slandered by, what i honestly consider to be losers on the internet, is to not read their garbage comments or sites.

Out of sight, out of mind.

 

[mats7]

Admittedly unsolicited opinion:

If you own a gun for protection (especially with a carry permit), PLEASE consider going to the range more than q6 months.

Even if you're not into it, it's safer for literally everyone around you to get rid of the gun rather than potentially hit someone you didn't intend to due to lack of practice.

How much does just brandishing one without bullets help vs. not having one at all?