Since the founding of the Church of Scientology in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard, the relationship between Scientology and psychiatry has been dominated by strong opposition by the organization against the medical specialty of psychiatry and of psychology, with themes relating to this opposition occurring repeatedly throughout Scientology literature and doctrine. According to the Church of Scientology, psychiatry has a long history of improper and abusive care. The group's views have been disputed, criticized, and condemned by experts in the medical and scientific community and have been a source of public controversy.

L. Ron Hubbard had a complex and changing relationship with psychiatry. He recalled positive experiences with psychiatrists in his youth and requested psychiatric treatment in adulthood. By 1948, Hubbard claimed to volunteer in a psychiatric clinic and two years later published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In 1951, however, Hubbard's wife Sara Northrup Hollister reportedly consulted psychiatrists who recommended Hubbard be institutionalized; thereafter, Hubbard was increasingly hostile towards psychiatry.

In 1995, Scientologist Lisa McPherson died at Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization (FSO) at Flag Land Base after leaving a hospital where she was forced to refuse psychiatric treatment.

In 2003, a man with untreated schizophrenia murdered his mother after his paranoid delusions caused him to become convinced that the Scientology-approved vitamins she was giving him in lieu of effective medication were poisonous.

In 2005, celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise strongly asserted his public opposition to psychiatry.

L. Ron Hubbard and psychiatry

L. Ron Hubbard was an American author of science fiction and fantasy stories. Hubbard reported many encounters with psychiatrists from the age of 12 onward.

During World War II, Hubbard was hospitalized; in 1947, Hubbard requested psychiatric treatment and the following year moved with his wife to Savannah, Georgia, where he was reportedly associated with a psychiatric clinic.

In 1950, Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

In 1951, it was publicly reported that Hubbard's wife Sara had been advised by a psychiatrist that Hubbard should be institutionalized for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia. They divorced, and the following year, Hubbard founded Scientology, an anti-psychiatry religious movement.

Overview Hubbard's views on psychiatry evolved over time.

Hubbard spoke positively of his childhood and teen encounters with psychiatrists in the 1920s and 30s. At the age of 12, Hubbard was accompanied by Navy psychiatrist Joseph Thompson on an ocean trip from Seattle to Washington, D.C. Hubbard likewise wrote positively of teenage/young-adult encounters with D.C.-based psychiatrist William Alanson White. Some of Hubbard's later works included acknowledgements of both Thompson and White, and Hubbard would later claim to have received clinical training from both Thompson and White.

In contrast, Hubbard spoke more critically of his later encounters with psychiatrists and psychiatric institutions. Although Hubbard had written positively of psychiatric hospital superintendent William Alanson White, White's successor (Winfred Overholser) was singled out for criticism. Hubbard likewise spoke critically of his encounters with a Washington, D.C., institution for the treatment of schizophrenia called "Walnut Lodge" (presumably Chestnut Lodge).

During the Second World War, Hubbard was hospitalized at Oak Knoll Military Hospital. In 1947, Hubbard wrote a letter to the VA requesting psychiatric treatment. The following year, Hubbard and his wife Sara moved to Savannah, Georgia, where Hubbard would later recall having been associated with a charity mental health clinic.

According to Hubbard, he worked as a volunteer helping to treat charity patients during his time in Savannah. While in Savannah, Hubbard began working on a "book of psychology" about "the cause and cure of nervous tension"; the next year, he published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

In 1951, Hubbard's wife Sara reportedly consulted a psychiatrist who recommended Hubbard be institutionalized. Hubbard initially responded by kidnapping Sara. Thereafter, he took their daughter and fled to Havana. After Sara went public with her story, Hubbard returned her daughter. In his final known encounter with a psychiatrist, Hubbard consulted a practitioner in order to rebut public claims of his own mental illness.

Thereafter, Hubbard was increasingly hostile towards psychiatry. In the 50s, Hubbard sought to identify "Subversive" psychiatrists or other "Potential Subversives". By the early 70s, Hubbard wrote of having redefined the word "psychiatrist" to mean "an antisocial enemy of the people".

Hubbard's early encounters with psychiatry

Hubbard claimed to have personal encounters with several named psychiatrists, beginning in his childhood. Some, like Thompson and White, would later be remembered favorably—Hubbard explicitly cited both as sources for his work, and he and the Church of Scientology have used these hagiographic stories to "authenticate" Hubbard's background in mental health techniques. Others, such as Overholser and Center, were the subject of scorn.

Joseph Cheesman Thompson In 1923, L. Ron Hubbard met fellow passenger Joseph "Snake" Thompson, a Navy medical officer and psychoanalyst, on a voyage from Seattle to Washington D.C. via the Panama Canal. In 1958 Hubbard recounted meeting Thompson, "I traveled with Commander Thompson from Seattle, Washington through the Panama Canal to Washington, D.C., when I was about twelve and knew him during all that time that I was in Washington and later." Hubbard recalled that "[Thompson's] friends called him 'Snake' and his enemies called him 'Crazy'. He had lots of both." Hubbard shared anecdotes from his life, and considered Thompson to be a "very great man" who sparked Hubbard's interest in the human mind. Hubbard said that Thompson told him, "If it's not true for you, it's not true." Hubbard recalled that "I was just a kid and Commander Thompson didn't have any boy of his own, and he and I just got along fine." Hubbard continued "Why he [Thompson] took it into his head to start beating Freud into my head, I don't know. But he did."

In 1953, Hubbard argued "It's very odd to realize, as I did one day, that in subsequent years I have approximated to a very remarkable degree the career of Commander Thompson – to show you what an impressed – impressionable boy can have handed to him suddenly.""It's very odd to realize, as I did one day, that in subsequent years I have approximated to a very remarkable degree the career of Commander Thompson – to show you what an impressed – impressionable boy can have handed to him suddenly. I have followed that, however, fragmentarily. It just sort of dubs in to the career that I have been following to this degree that – I didn't realize this until one day I looked at a map, and in the field of expeditions, explorations, I always favored certain quarters of the world, always went there and, when there, did certain things. It fits Commander Thompson's record. Amusing. It just suddenly struck me one day, I hadn't ever realized it. Nothing would do at a certain place I went but what I would dig up one of the old, ancient tribal burial grounds. Never realized the significance of this until one day – I hadn't known this, you see – I was standing in the Bishop Museum in Hawaii and saw there the exhibit of Commander Thompson on some of the men he had dug up in a tribal burying grounds.", Lecture Mechanics of the Mind January 10, 1953

In 1954, Hubbard described an encounter with psychiatrists in which playing sports was seen as a positive indicator: "I knew people, and the people who were trained by these people. And, if there was anything they were in awe of, it was somebody who engaged in sports. So this fellow was phenomenal to them. They knew this was very good somehow or another, but they couldn't quite put their finger on it. And to this day it is enough to tell a psychiatrist that, and prove to him, that you are very energetic and engaged in sports, to have him dismiss you immediately as being completely sane. Only that's just, bing. He just says, "Well, I..." He just goes into apathy right at that point. That's the truth. "The... it was an interesting thing, for instance, to William Allen White. And Commander Thompson. Both of them, where I was concerned, that I wasn't very interested in sitting around figuring about this stuff and didn't seem to be terribly interested in the insane.""The Mind and the Tone Scale", 1954

Hubbard described later encounters with Thompson: "In 1930 I knew a fellow by the name of Commander Thompson. I had known him before, actually".The Purpose of Human Evaluation (3) (1951)

In 1958, Hubbard told an audience: "I have made people feel better by using straight Freudian analysis the way I got it from Commander Thompson who imported it to the US Navy, not via Catherine [sic] Horney".Hubbard, "Special Effect Cases, Anatomy Of – Q&A period", lecture of 23 July 1958

Thompson died in 1943, seven years before the publication of Dianetics. Thompson was included in the Acknowledgements section of 1951's Science of Survival, as was William A. White.

William Alanson White

William Alanson White was an American neurologist and psychiatrist who served as superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital. A letter from the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International to the FBI, dated June 12, 1954, claims that Hubbard was trained by both Joseph Thompson and William Alanson White. Hubbard recalled "Dr. William Alanson White, a very fine man. He was head of the big St. Elizabeth's, the big mental institution there in Washington, D.C., and he had been a friend of mine for quite a while. I had met him through other friends of Dr. Thompson's".Hubbard, L. R. (1952, 6 February). Dianetics: The Modern Miracle. LRH Recorded Lectures In a lecture, Hubbard described consulting White about a theoretical calculation of human memory capacity, apparently during Hubbard's university days. Hubbard recalled that "he [White] used to see me every once in a while".

In a 1951 lecture, Hubbard described St. Elizabeth's as "where they sent the naval officers after they had received their fifth contradiction from the Navy Department"."Purpose of Human Evaluation", 1951

For two years in the 1920s, White had opened the doors of St. Elizabeths to Alfred Korzybski, enabling Korzybski to directly study mental illness, research that contributed heavily to Korzybski's 1933 Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Hubbard cited the relationship between Korzybski and White in his lectures.

White died in 1937, thirteen years before the publication of Dianetics. White was included in the Acknowledgements section of 1951's Science of Survival, as was Joseph Thompson.

"Walnut Lodge"

For much of the 1920s and 30s, L. Ron Hubbard lived in Washington D.C. In 1932, Hubbard listed the US Naval Hospital in Washington as his address; In 1933, Hubbard listed a P.O. Box in Beallsville, Maryland.

In a 1952 lecture, Hubbard recalls his interaction with staff and patients at a facility specializing in schizophrenia which he calls "Walnut Lodge" (presumably Chestnut Lodge):

In 1966, Hubbard recalled "Identification by classification. This is a type of thing Psychiatry does all the time. They say this is a Dementia Praecox case. They've gotten so idiotic with it now that if someboy goes to Chestnut Lodge... if a person is transferred to Chestnut Lodge, regardless of their symptoms before, they now have schizophrenia."