I've watched the tape several times over the last few days because it's been on the various news shows. He had an interview with Matt Lauer on one of our morning shows. Cruise is not in favor of psychiatry, and his Scientology background has simply ratified that bias for him. Matt brought up that Brooke Shields had gone public talking about her post-partum depression and how much she had been helped, and even if meds weren't good for all people, maybe they might have helped her, that she felt they helped her, and Cruise basically disagreed with him. In the process he was very overbearing. You can disagree without interrupting and basically intimating the other person is an idiot, IMHO. He also said Matt was not allowing him to express or have his opinion because Matt brought up Brooke Shields, which was pretty off the wall, I thought. He was quite earnest and seemed very hyper - which he's seemed in a series of interviews lately.
Cruise kept on and on about how he'd studied psychiatry and he KNEW psychiatry, particularly the history of it. And that Matt didn't know anything about psychiatry. (that's what he said.) He seemed to be hung up in things like electro-shock therapy and so on.
And sure, (my comment) medicine has come a long way since Freud started Psychoanalysis. And yes, some of the current range of antidepressants and psychotropic drugs are probably overprescribed. And in my opinion, ALL medicine is a balance of art and science. But as I said, he's not a doctor, and particularly, he's not a neurologist, and he seems to be (from what I heard) hung up in the history of psychiatry, but not really in the the know about current medical knowledge.
Cruise doesn't believe that there are "chemical imbalances" and I guess he thinks everyone who is severely depressed just needs to get out and exercise. Or better yet, join Scientology and be audited to clear out the engrams. I don't mean to step on anyone's toes who might be a Scientologist on the forum. He's certainly entitled to his beliefs (as we all are) - I just didn't care for the way he expressed them.
Oh well, water under the bridge.
Pam
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