Why the 'improvement rates' in psychiatry are meaningless:

Let's face the facts: some people probably do get better after undergoing psychiatric treatment. However, some people also get better from a placebo or on their own. In such complex emotional problems, a small trigger can occasionally lead to a huge mental shift, provided that a person was nearly ready to make that shift. With placebo treatment, this 'positiveness' is usually more temporary, but is also beneficial.

But even so, biopsychiatry's 'treatment' figures fail to properly state the failures of the profession. What's an easy way to this? Blame the person as a biological entity for being 'treatment resistant' rather than relating to them and trying to ascertain what made them feel that way. This easily absolves psychiatry of admitting 'treatment failure' and rather blames the patient. Thus, instead of laying off, they now have the go ahead to force more drugs and possibly electroshock. It's brilliant, but sickening. Here, psychiatry has created a logical loop which always ends up with them winning out. By refusing to acknowledge the dismal conditions of 'hospitals' and the lobotomizing effects of drugs, the field has come to be viewed as 'ironclad' by many misguided individuals.

Also, biopsychiatry neglects the fact that 'treatment' or 'improvement' is highly subjective, and that this judgment is probably best made by the person being 'treated'. Of course, placebo can play a role, and in a drugged up fog, people may think they're doing better because they've been blunted and can't feel anything, but often psychiatrists will judge someone as 'better' simply because they're less expressive and easier to control. This hardly constitutes an improvement at the root of the problems at hand, and may actually worsen them (especially if these problems are with authority).

Human beings are complex. There's no doubt about that amongst people with common sense. But biological psychiatry tends to be devoid of it.