Let’s say John has suddenly started telling everybody that he is Batman. He incessantly talks, or listens, to his obviously absent assistant Robin. No amount of explaining dissuades him from this behavior, even though it is causing him to lose his job, his family, his health. What could be causing John to do this?

The standard biopsychiatric answer is “schizophrenia.” But that only attaches a label to John’s behavior. It does not explain what causes it.

Schizophrenia, according to currently fashionable beliefs among "experts" as well as the lay public, is caused by faulty brain chemicals, which in turn are caused by faulty genes. To explain why these faulty genes were not noticed earlier in John’s life, environmental triggers are presumed. John (and Jane) will most certainly be prescribed so-called antipsychotic drugs, which, if he refuses them, may even be administered by force, without his genes or brain chemistry ever being examined. Such examinations don’t exist.

Do the alternative explanations shed more light on John’s behavior?

Famous U.S. psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey might ascribe John’s behavior to a virus transmitted by cats. Torrey endorses the use of psychiatric drugs, including by force, even though patients are never screened for viruses. Besides, these drugs are by no means antivirals.

Sidney Walker III might ascribe John’s behavior to the presence of an as yet unidentified physical aberration, such as a brain tumor, thyroid or other hormonal imbalance, malnutrition, exposure to toxins, or build-up of cholesterol in the brain arteries.

R. D. Laing might have blamed the social environment for John’s behavior. According to Laing’s theories, John might be having an understandable response to the pressures of the rat race.

Peter Breggin might suspect that John is suffering because his parents did not shower enough love on him, failed to set clear boundaries, or restricted his freedom too much.

Thomas Szasz might suggest that John is lying, conceited, putting on an act for attention, or malingering.

Phil Thomas might point out that such behavior is not uncommon, and not necessarily a sign that anything is wrong with the person.

Harold Foster might attribute John's behavior to minerals missing from his diet or environmental pollution.

MeTZelf Chairman Mira de Vries suspects that the majority of conditions called “schizophrenia” are caused by drugs, either used illegally or prescribed by doctors. She has talked with dozens of (parents of) people so labeled, and almost always they confirm that indeed there was such exposure before the (worst) troubles started. However, her theory has never been tested to either lend it credence or discredit it, and probably never will be. Certainly the role of prescription drugs in causing the behaviors that are called "schizophrenia" will not be investigated without bias, as long as the manufacturers of those drugs are the people who fund the research.

There are many more theories about the causes of odd behaviors. All these theories, including those of the biopsychiatrists who today comprise the psychiatric establishment, have two things in common:
1. They are unproven and unprovable;
2. The believers in those theories tend to be sure that their explanation is right and other explanations are wrong.

It is unlikely that the same cause, whichever one we choose, can be responsible for all the infinite variations of behavior we see in psychiatrized people. Perhaps each of the theories mentioned above is sometimes correct, but usually not. The unsatisfying fact is: we don’t know. We never know. We have no proofs. Most of the theorists mentioned above don’t even try to provide any. Only the biopsychiatrists acknowledge any need for proof, and they maintain that it will be discovered … very soon, meaning it does not exist now.

Given that in spite of all the many labels we have for strange behaviors we don’t know their causes, what can be done to help people who display them? We propose practical, non-medical solutions, for instance:

• If the person is surviving on his own and not committing any violent crime, the best thing we can do is leave him alone.
• If the strange behaviors cause friction in the family, “divorce” is in order. Providing the person with living space and an income can facilitate this divorce.
• If the person is suspected of having committed a violent crime, or planned or threatened one, he is entitled to a fair trial, the purpose of which is to determine whether the crime ascribed to him actually was committed by him. If so, it is necessary for the protection of others to prevent repetition by isolating him from society. The place for this is jail.
• If the person is innocuous but not surviving on his own, for instance incapable of managing his daily affairs, he needs practical assistance, say, someone to do his shopping, cleaning, and/or budgeting. Or he could be provided refuge in a humane institution with a true asylum function.
  

What we don’t need is the pretense of medicine, which greatly drives up the cost of caring for these people, deprives them of liberty, and harms them bodily, without attaining the promised results.

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