@louis What is?
Its hard for me to respond to that because i wasnt there, we just have your opinion. While i completely believe it is an honest opinion you hold, its still tricky on a few accounts.
For example if i take everything at face value then it sounds like you just had some really shitty doctors. From what I know of UK healthcare that is no surprise your system is horrific and you will have a hard time finding qualified doctors in general.
If that is the case that is not an argument against psychiatry it is only an arguments against unqualified psychiatrists. Which i agree are likely to do more harm than good.
The other side of the coin is that depending on the nature of your mental health its hard to gauge what sort of mental health issues you have and if that prevents you or not from being objective about your own treatment. Not saying this applies to you, I dont know you. But it is common for many with mental illness.
I once helped someone I cared about who as he got older developed Paranoid Schizophrenia rather severely. When untreated he couldn't sleep, believed people were beaming thoughts in his head, telling him to kill himself, i would often find him just crying in his room alone due to all the stress.
Despite this he refused treatment of any kind. He felt everyone was part of some grand conspiracy, doctors, me, everyone, so he naturally refused. Ultimately i told him the only way i would continue to help him is if he was getting treatment, otherwise he had to go back and live with his parents. This was enough for him to seek his treatment and take medication.
The thing is on medication he gave me a huge hug and cried as he told me how much happier he was and how grateful he was to me for forcing it on him in his otherwise incoherent state. Thing is after a few weeks he told me he was stopping the medication as he didnt feel he actually needed, he thought he was healthy again and the meds just "made him tired". So he went off of it and back to his old self in a few days.
The thing is when he isn't on the meds he would say things that sound similar, that it was all horrible and just part of the torture and "mind games" of the conspiracy. Despite the fact that clearly when he was on it and rational he felt it was helpful.
Long story short its hard to know without knowing someones mental health history if that may not apply or not.
If we use the opinions of licensed therapists to sway us. Then why THIS licensed therapist you linked? Why not one fromt he vast majority who are more educated (not just licensed therapy but actual psychologists who need much more training)? Seems like a overly cherry picked source with minimal credentials...