by Dr.Harald Wiesendanger– Klartext – 22. Okt. 2022 Updated: 4.1.2024
What the mainstream media is hiding
I bet: Gifted lay helpers would achieve much more in terms of psychotherapy than they already would if they were allowed to slip into a white coat, get a pompous title, and receive troubled souls in rooms that look like a practice. Successful impostors demonstrated this impressively to anyone who wanted to see it.
The most convincing evidence for this cheeky suspicion comes from particularly successful impostors: clever contemporaries who practiced for years unrecognized as alleged psycho professionals. They were exposed not because they failed, provided patients with inadequate care or even harmed them, or performed their tasks noticeably worse than “real” psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists. They were exposed because, at some point, it was discovered by chance that they had forged documents or had not presented them at all.
The “tailor-made companion” from Hessisch Oldendorf
On February 26, 2015, 47-year-old Stefan Brandt was arrested in Hessisch Oldendorf: As a false graduate psychologist and psychotherapist, he worked as a freelancer for almost a year at the Sana Clinic in Hameln, an academic teaching hospital of the Hannover Medical School, around 180 Patients are examined after they have been reported to him as having psychological problems, diagnoses are made, consultations are carried out, and they are assessed – based on a “cooperation agreement.”
Brandt also ran a successful “practice for holistic psychotherapy and life coaching” in his hometown for years. Their focus was “tailor-made support at turning points in life.” (1) He even offered training courses.
Even for newspaper editors, Brandt’s expertise was beyond question. The Schaumburger Nachrichten quoted him as an expert on the psychological background of eating habits. (“From a depth psychological perspective, food is most closely linked to our attitude to life.”) The city magazine Rintelner presented him as a “psychotherapist, systemic coach, and transformation psychologist. He is also trained as a supervisor (DGSv) and mediator, coach for non-violent communication, and meditation teacher.” (1) He prepared reports on patients for health insurance companies.
The clever wannabe was not discovered because of obvious malpractice; on the contrary, neither his patients nor the management and colleagues at the Sana Clinic had the slightest suspicion. Brandt seemed to meet the clinic’s claim excellently, emphasized online, to “focus on the best possible diagnostics and therapy for qualified medical care for the patients entrusted to us,” guaranteed “through internal and external quality assurance.” (2) According to a clinic spokeswoman, the brazen braggart’s undoing was caused by “information from the public about his lack of professional qualifications.” (3) The public prosecutor’s office accused him of commercial fraud and abuse of title: “In total, the man is charged with 188 crimes,” said a spokesman. (3)
23 years as a fake psychiatrist
For 23 years, Zholia Alemi, an immigrant from New Zealand, worked as a psychiatrist in English clinics with a fake diploma. She was also a director of a company called Healthy Minds and Wellbeing Limited in Huddersfield, which took in private patients. In reality, she had dropped out of her first year of medical school in 1992 after failing exams. Until then, she could only have attended a few introductory lectures on the basics of psychology. Her only qualification was a diploma in human biology.
Nevertheless, Alemi apparently cared so well for thousands upon thousands of mentally ill people that no one had the slightest suspicion: no doctor, no patient. She was considered highly intelligent and charming.
When Zholia Alemi, now 56 years old, was finally exposed in the fall of 2018, it was not a malpractice that was her downfall – but another brazen forgery of documents: she changed the will of an 84-year-old dementia patient whose trust she had gained all too clumsily to become the sole heir to 1.3 million pounds.
How did the General Medical Council (GMC), the UK regulator for doctors, respond? She did not draw the obvious conclusion from the scandal that talented laypeople like Alemi can enrich psychiatry to everyone’s satisfaction without causing any harm and deserve unbureaucratic approval. No, the chamber decided to check the authenticity of the certificates of all 3,000 foreign doctors immediately. (4) What does this teach us about the types of skills that matter in psychiatry?
Embarrassing, telling: How a postman embarrassed the psychiatric hospital
The Köpenickiads of Stefan Brandt are comparatively peeps if we measure them against the almost incomprehensible scandal that shamefully exposed Germany’s scientific mental health two decades earlier: the Postel affair. Using forged certificates, Gert Uwe Postel, a trained postman with a secondary school diploma, got at least six jobs as a psychiatrist between 1980 and 1997, some in senior positions. The ambitious son of a car mechanic and a seamstress, born in Bremen in 1958, prepared for his role as a fake doctor by attending a few lectures, reading specialist books, and familiarizing himself with psychiatric expert language. A stately 1.94 meters tall, slim, self-assured, verbally fluent, sensitive, with narrow-rimmed glasses and quick comprehension, that’s all he needed to enjoy an impressive career in German mental health for almost two decades.
It begins at the beginning of 1981 in a specialist hospital for psychotherapy near Oldenburg. There, he introduces himself as a young doctor fresh out of university, presents a fake license to practice medicine, makes an impression, and is hired. He received treatment there for a quarter of a year to everyone’s satisfaction before returning to his hometown of Bremen. There, he gives a short-term guest appearance as a senior doctor in a rehabilitation center.
Then he reads in a medical journal that the city of Flensburg has a vacancy in the health department. He then applies for the position of “Dr. med. Dr. Phil. Clemens Bartholdy, son of a medical councilor and a medical director”. At just 24 years old, he was promptly appointed deputy medical officer in Schleswig-Holstein’s third-largest city – by the way, with the internist, later member of the Bundestag, and Council of Europe member Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg as immediate superior. (5) Postel was successful there from September 1982 to April 1983. Under his leadership and supervision, the rate of compulsory psychiatric admissions fell from over 95 to 10 percent. (6) If anyone lodges a complaint against the decision they have made, the regional court will confirm its findings.
Postel soon finds his work at the authority too strenuous and doesn’t want to get stuck there. He applies to the psychiatric clinic at Kiel University – and receives an employment contract. The next stop is Julius Hackethal’s private clinic in Riedering near Rosenheim. (6)
As a psychiatric expert, Postel works for, among others, the Berlin Vocational Development Agency and the Stuttgart State Insurance Institute. He prepares court reports, including in murder trials, and appears in main proceedings. (7)
The Postel affair: a resounding slap in the face for psycho profits
In November 1995, he took up a position as a senior physician in the 140-bed specialist psychiatric hospital in Zschadraß, Saxony. He is the supervisor of 28 doctors and decides on dismissals and hiring. In addition, he is a further training officer, assessor, and chairman of the specialist medical examination committee. The certificates of some specialists, which are still valid, still bear his signature today. His competence remains undisputed. Postel did not harm a single patient, according to the clinic’s chief physician, Dr. Horst Krömker, later emphasized as a witness in court. (8) Rather, Postel proves himself there with “above-average performance” (9) to such an extent that Saxony’s Social Minister, Dr. Hans Geißler (CDU), personally supports a C4 professorship as chief physician in the forensic department at the Saxon Hospital Arnsdorf in the Bautzen district.
When asked by his chief physician about his dissertation topic, Postel states: “The Pseudologia phantastica using the literary example of the character of Felix Krull based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Mann.” Pseudologia phantastica? That means: pathological lying. How thick would the fence post have to be so that the chief doctor didn’t miss the hint?
According to medical colleagues at the time, Postel occasionally behaved arrogant and short-tempered. He seems to have underlined rather than damaged his excellence in white coat circles.
Postel held the position of senior physician in Zschadraß for twenty months.
Investigators caught Postel in a telephone booth at Stuttgart Central Station on May 12, 1998. On January 22, 1999, he was sentenced to four years in prison for multiple counts of fraud, forgery of documents, deception, and misuse of academic titles.
Previously, not a single colleague, not a superior, not a patient, not a judge had had the slightest suspicion. This clever fellow didn’t just fly over the cuckoo’s nest – he staged himself perfectly in it. He was never convicted of a mistake – instead, his diagnoses, his admissions, his treatments, and his reports went unchallenged and much praised. Charming and eloquent, Postel was considered a highly competent “artist of empathy” (10) who did no harm to anyone and excelled everywhere. Praise even came from the presiding judge of the First Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice, Armin Nack: “Postel was the senior expert, and I’ll tell you one thing: he was the best expert, better than the two trained psychiatrists.” (11)
During his senior doctor position in Saxony alone, Postel earned over 200,000 marks in salary – adjusted for inflation, this would be around 160,000 euros today. He was allowed to keep the additional almost 44,000 marks that he earned for psychiatric court reports in 23 criminal proceedings. Although the Saxon Ministry of Justice examined a claim for repayment, it did not initiate any proceedings. In order to claim the money, it would have had to prove that the reports were incorrect. Yet not a single court has ever rejected or challenged any of Postel’s expertise. (12)
Honor where honor is due: Postel’s story was made into a film (13), and to this day, fans have dedicated their own website to him. Postel still enjoys cult status in the anti-psychiatry movement today. What you can find out about his doctor games in print and online probably easily eclipses a hundred hours of laughter yoga in terms of its antidepressant value.
Postel has been present again on “X,” formerly Twitter, since August 2023 after a long break: “It’s time to delight Twitter again with my witty tweets. This low-level place needs an eloquent person like me again.” (14)
Holding up a mirror with “blabbering art.”
“Gert Postel is to psychiatry what Jürgen Schneider is to banks and the real estate business – a nightmare, a ghost,” wrote Der Spiegel in 1997. (15) The fact that the supposedly scientific spiritual healing company prefers to cover this hair-raising case It is easy to sympathize with the spread of silence. In hardly any other profession, would it have been possible for the impostor to work unmolested for such a long time? “[All] of these people have to be able to do something concrete in order to fulfill their job,” says cultural critic Burkhard Müller. “Psychiatry […] sufficiently authenticates itself in a certain demeanor and a certain jargon.” (16)
Postel himself said disparagingly about the job description of the soul doctor: “Even a trained goat can practice psychiatry.” Words make the man: “Anyone who has mastered the psychiatric language can formulate any nonsense without limits and dress it up in the guise of academic.” There is an immeasurable amount of work “Enough words,” along with an insatiable “longing for labeling.” Psychiatry is “the art of gibberish,” “linguistic acrobatics plus a little bit of staging” – a hollow jingle of words. It “lives by throwing empty terms back and forth, that is, not taken from any view. I can prove anything with the help of psychiatric language, including the opposite and the opposite of the opposite. This is all very dubious.”
The limited technical idiom is learned quickly. Anyone who behaves in a noticeably lively manner is suffering from an “acute schizophrenic psychosis,” while anyone who behaves silently is suffering from a “weak-symptom autistic psychosis.” In a lecture to psychiatrists, Postel introduced a nonsensical technical term, third-degree bipolar depression – it is swallowed without contradiction. (17) (“I wanted to see how far I could go.”) Afterwards, “I asked a university professor, the then medical director of the Münster University Hospital, whether he often experienced third-degree bipolar depression in everyday university life. He said with an arrogant gesture typical of the Ordinary that this was not common, but it did happen from time to time. That made it clear to me: I ended up as an impostor among impostors.” (18)
As a former senior physician, Postel says he encountered “very strange” people among the doctors: “One made a diagnosis for a patient without being able to tell me the symptoms. You lose all respect, I despised all the doctors,” and that is mutual: Psychological professionals and their interest groups are unanimously outraged by the total damage that Pfiffikus inflicted on their image. Because of this, Till Eulenspiegel demonstrated to them in the most painful way the folly of their specialist world: What professionals have over laypeople was exhausted in his curious case in being in possession of titles, certificates, and the social prestige that goes with them. They looked ugly in Postel’s mirror – and so they hit it indignantly. But what can the mirror do for what it shows?
This emperor who showed off his new clothes to an academic world of illusion: is he a liar? “Not every untrue statement has the moral quality of a lie,” says Postel. (18) “Sometimes you have to help the truth break through using the means of ‘lies.’ In any case, there are higher goods than the good of truthfulness at all costs. (…) Cheating the fraudsters has always been a ploy by the weak against the supposedly strong.”
What, then, is the power of the psycho-expert based on? “He speaks to his patient in a hierarchical relationship,” explains Postel. This arises from “the fact that the psychiatrist, according to his self-assessment, is the healthy person, while the patient has to play the role of the sick person. This results in the power of the psychiatrist and his authority to define the emotional state of the ‘patient’ at his mercy.” (18)
Postel drew much of his criminal energy from a family tragedy: his severely depressed mother committed suicide. He accused the psychiatrist treating her of having prescribed the wrong medication. (18)
“There is only one proof of ability: doing.”
Wouldn’t so-called “modern mental health” have been in the dock in the criminal trials against Brandt and Postel? Shouldn’t the draconian prisoners deserve praise and recognition for their undisputed contributions to public health? Should anyone be punished if they successfully provide obstetric assistance without being a certified midwife – or if they save someone from drowning without having a lifeguard diploma? I can hardly think of a more instructive basis for discussion on the supposed competence advantage of psychoprofessionals over laypeople than Postel’s own retrospectives Die Abenteuer des Dr. Dr. Bartholdy – Ein falscher Amtsarzt packt aus (1985) und Doktorspiele – Geständnisse eines Hochstaplers (2001). Mendacity and self-importance are the keys to certain circles – this is how a devastating judgment falls on these circles.
What prevents capable lay helpers from working as full-fledged psychotherapists is primarily one thing: the legal situation, which protects the interests of the profession. In doing so, they would be using a professional title that has been protected since 1999, which would cost them dearly: According to Section 132a of the Criminal Code and Section 1 of the Psychotherapists Act, they risk considerable fines, and in the event of persistent repeat offenses, up to a year in prison.
However, psychotherapy is primarily not a legal matter but rather an omnipresent event in the social space: a supportive, caring relationship in emotional distress that is as old as human civilization. The elite group of people whose professional organizations have given them the sole legal authority to give themselves the appropriate title is neither exclusively nor guaranteed to have the necessary and sufficient skills for this. The Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) was spot on: “There is only one proof of ability: doing.”
(Harald Wiesendanger)
This text is a revised excerpt from H. Wiesendanger: Psycholügen, Volume 3:Seelentief: ein Fall für Profis?, Schönbrunn 1st edition 2017.
The consequences of this series:
1 Extensively researched: Many laypeople can do more
3 Dodo bird in the Psychotechnics race
4 How much does psychotherapy really help?
5 Why is psychotherapy beneficial?
6 Why some laypeople are better therapists
7 Embarrassing, telling: successful imposters
8 Psychotherapy as a source of danger
9 What many professionals can do better – and why
10. Pragmatism instead of lobbying – For wise psycho-politics
See also > Nine days in the future – from the “Auswege” camp to the clinic of the future
Remarks
1 https://der-rintelner.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/DR_03_12_LR.pdf, S. 22
2 Laut der Klinik-Homepage www.sana-hm.de/ueber-uns/qualitaetsbericht.html, abgerufen am 16.6.2016.
4 Näheres zum Fall Alemi: https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/17230748.doctor-who-faked-will-of-west-cumbrian-widow-led-life-of-deception/, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46258687; https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-45894587; https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-45881079
5 Hamburger Abendblatt 4.3.2015: “Falscher Psychotherapeut begutachtet Klinik-Patienten”, https://www.abendblatt.de/region/niedersachsen/article205192449/Falscher-Psychotherapeut-begutachtet-Klinik-Patienten.html, abgerufen am 2.1.2023; MK Kreiszeitung, 4.3.2015: „Falscher Psychotherapeut begutachtet in Hameln Klinik-Patienten“; Hannoversche Allgemeine, 17.5.2015: „Falscher Psychotherapeut angeklagt“; DeWeZet: “Top 10 der Hochstapler”, https://www.dewezet.de/lokales/top-10-der-hochstapler-FZAFZFF5Z5CA76AY66D6FDECYD.html, abgerufen am 2.11.2023
6 „Dr. Clemens Bartholdy – als der falsche Doktor aufflog”, Flensburger Tageblatt, http://www.shz.de/lokales/flensburger-tageblatt/dr-clemens-bartholdy-als-der-falsche-doktor-aufflog-id11051411.html, 27. Oktober 2015, abgerufen am 2.11.2023.
7 Eckhard Rohrmann: Mythen und Realitäten des Anders-Seins – Gesellschaftliche Konstruktionen seit der frühen Neuzeit, 2. Aufl. Wiesbaden 2011, S. 192.
8 https://www.abendblatt.de/archiv/1999/article204569285/Die-Possen-des-Dr-Postel.html; „Die Possen des Gert Postel”, http://archiv.rhein-zeitung.de/on/99/01/20/topnews/postelhin.html, Rhein-Zeitung, 20. Januar 1999, abgerufen am 16. Januar 2016.)
9 So urteilte der damalige Klinikleiter über Postel während dessen Probezeit.
10 Der Spiegel 29/1997: „Ein Gaukler, ein Artist“, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ein-gaukler-ein-artist-a-de8925d4-0002-0001-0000-000008742708
11 In einem Vortrag bei der juristischen Fakultät der Universität Passau am 31. Mai 2012, zit. nach www.zwangspsychiatrie.de/2013, abgerufen am 17.6.2016.
12 https://www.gert-postel.de/Buch%20Rezension%20Psychotherapie.htm
13 „Der Unwiderstehliche – Die tausend Lügen des Gert Postel“ (2002), https://www.tvspielfilm.de/kino/filmarchiv/film/der-unwiderstehliche-die-tausend-luegen-des-gert-postel,1302172,ApplicationMovie.html
14 https://twitter.com/Postel_X
15 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ein-gaukler-ein-artist-a-de8925d4-0002-0001-0000-000008742708
16 Burkhard Müller: „Postel – Die Einsamkeit des Hochstaplers“, Merkur – Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken 801 (70) 2016, S. 21-23.
17 https://www.gert-postel.de/clinicum.htm
18 Zit. in https://www.rhetorikmagazin.de/?p=4408
Cover image: Generated by Microsoft’s AI “Bing Image Creator” according to my specifications, “Münchausen runs a psychiatric clinic”.