This is the text of a column written by DJ Jaffe, who first posted it on Huffington Post; and when I responded to his inaccuracies, he pulled the column, my comments remained. In any case, I wrote a blog post in reference to his "Psychiatry vs. Antipsychiatry" post and have this for those who wish to read what my post was referencing.
This page also has a copy of DJ's infamous "Tip Sheet" and some communications from the NY NAMI affiliate.
Psychiatry vs. Antipsychiatry
by Kendra's Law on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 5:39pm
Antipsychiatry vs. Psychiatry
There are two broad groups controlling the nation’s mental health agenda: antipsychiatry and psychiatry. They are both right about some things, and wrong about others. It is disappointing that there is no third group that fills the gap.
ANTIPSYCHIATRY
Antipsychiatry groups deny mental illness exists. And whatever does exist, is not medical in nature.
The antipsychiatry agenda is led by religious organizations (Scientology/Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights-CCHR) and government-funded “survivor” and “ex-patient” organizations. The gurus of the movement are Ron Hubbard,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianetics Thomas Szasz and Peter Breggin.
Thomas Szasz claims schizophrenia is merely a “myth.” (T.S. Szasz, SCHIZOPHRENIA: THE SACRED SYMBOL OF PSYCHIATRY (1976). Dr. Peter Breggin argued that people with schizophrenia bring the symptoms on themselves because of “cowardice” or “failure of nerve.” (P.R. Breggin, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FREEDOM (1980)). Scientology believes that “aberration” is caused by “Engrams” (past memories) that recording can reduce. They, along with Thomas Szasz founded CCHR which believes using psychiatry (vs. Scientology) is torture and therefore wants to end psychiatry. A SAMHSA funded 'consumer" group claims schizophrenia is merely “severe emotional distress and loss of social role” brought on by “trauma.”
Believers in antipsychiatry use terms like “survivor” “ex-patient” and “people who have been labeled with mental illness”. Using these terms allow groups to avoid acknowledging that mental illness exists, while simultaneously getting mental health funding. Neat trick. They promote “Alternatives” to psychiatry.
PSYCHIATRY
Psychiatry groups represent the other extreme: they believe almost everything is a mental illness. Their literature claims up to 50% of people had a “diagnosable” mental disorder during their life. (http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/62/6/593)
Psychiatry is led by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Mental Health America (MHA) and—above all others—the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and pharmaceutical industry. They believe that almost every feeling (too sad, too happy, too removed, too involved, too bereaved) and social issue (bad marriage, poor grades, no job, love of internet) etc are mental illnesses that need a psychiatrist and an expensive new medicine.
They have successfully directed mental health dollars to all these issues.
COMMONALITIES
Interestingly, antipsychiatry and psychiatry share the same goal of expanding the definition of people with whatever it is they claim to represent. To both groups, casting a wide umbrella is the goal and narrowing focus is anathema.
Psychiatry casts it’s net through the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
Anti-psychiatry casts their net through the refusal to say who is in or out. Any “Person with Lived Experience (i.e., everyone) or as the Executive Director of one government funded group, said in response to a previous Huffington Post blog of mine, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/people-with-mental-illnes_b_746222.html everyone who has had “severe emotional distress which interferes with community participation.” is welcome. So if you were ever mad at your brother and skipped his birthday party in protest, welcome to the club
In this regard, antipsychiatry and psychiatry are in agreement that the term mental illness means nothing and therefore mental health dollars can be spent anywhere.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF ANTIPSYCHIATRY
Antipsychiatry has done a fearless job of identifying and publicizing many abuses in the mental health system: especially of people who have been mistreated. They have also done a good job at bringing the over marketing of psychiatric medications (especially to children) to the public’s attention.
Scientology and anti-psychiatry have done a brilliant job at confronting the APA, BigPharma and NAMI for medicalizing everything.
Unfortunately scientology and anti-psychiatry go to nonsensical next steps: because some things psychiatrists believe are mental illnesses really aren’t therefore mental illness doesn’t exist. They apparently believe every organ in the body, except the brain can have illness, and the brain is always functioning. As “proof” they point to the lack of bio-medical markers sufficiently developed to be used to diagnose serious mental illness. This is akin to saying colon cancer did not exist before the invention of the colonoscopy. Antipsychiatry has tried to eliminate your right to choose electroconvulsive therapy, antipsychotics, hospitalization and others. They work to eliminate the right of people with anosognosia to receive treatment unless they are well enough to choose it.
Another widely shared misguided belief among antipsychiatrists is that because some people were mistreated; the system of care should be eliminated. The Baby/Bathwater syndrome.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF PSYCHIATRY
Psychiatry has done a good, albeit incomplete job of coming up with medications for people with serious mental illness and providing patients and their families educational materials on how to deal with serious mental illness. They have done a stellar job at getting mental illness covered under the insurance policies of corporations.
Unfortunately in their rush to medicalize “lived-experiences” they have, like antipsychiatry become a major force behind the elimination of services for the most seriously ill. (Ex. standing by as hospitals close; refusing to engage in efforts to reform involuntary treatment laws, etc)
As psychiatry demand that more and more services focus on the worried-well, fewer dollars are left for the seriously mentally ill. Their anti-stigma campaigns contribute to the problem because they only show the highest functioning individuals, leading to tremendous misunderstanding as to the nature of serious mental illness.
THE THIRD WAY
There is a desperate need for an organization that focuses on serious mental illness only.
An organization that accepts the antipsychiatry mantra that we have medicalized everything, and their devotion to confronting abuse, but rejects their position that mental illness does not exist. An organization that embraces their holding a microscope to the medical/pharmacological/mental health complex; but is grounded in science.
An organization that accepts pro-psychiatry philosophy that mental illness exists, and medications can work, but rejects their philosophy that everything is a mental illness and deserves equal funding.
Some organizations fill parts of the gap. Privately funded research organizations like NARSAD, IMHRO and The Stanley Medical Research Institute are looking for cures for serious mental illness, but they only focus on research.
Organizations like the Treatment Advocacy Center focus on serious mental illness but intentionally and appropriately limit their campaigns to reform assisted treatment laws and changing Medicaid policies to insure more impatient treatment is available to those who need
A third organization is needed. One that brings together the best work on serious mental illness no matter where it comes from.
DJ Jaffe's Tip Sheet
How to prepare for an emergency
by
D.J. Jaffe
Sometime, during the course of your loved one’s illness, you may need the police. By preparing now, before you need help, you can make the day you need help go much more smoothly. There are three things to do.
First, you should establish contact with your local precinct, before you need help.
Secondly, you should have the attached info sheet filled out in duplicate, ready at all times.
Thirdly, you should read the article at the end of this page on how to make 911 respond to your calls.
1. ESTABLISH CONTACT WITH PRECINCT
Someday your loved one may be missing from home or hospital. Normally, the police will not fill out a missing persons report & start looking for them until they are gone 24 hours. But by making arrangements beforehand, you can insure that if this happens to you, they will start looking immediately. Or, let’s say your relative is becoming increasingly agitated & uncontrollable & you have to call the police to take them to a hospital. It is very likely that the police will go to the hospital of their choice, not yours. But by making arrangements beforehand, you can have a say in where that person is taken. In addition, if your relative is picked up for some crime (drugs, let’s say); by making prior arrangements, you can help see that they go to a hospital instead of jail. Finally, it may make it easier for you to get someone involuntarily committed, if & when you have to do that.
The way to make these arrangements is to call the “Community Patrol Officer Program” (C-POP Officer) at your local police precinct, now, before you need help. If you do not have a C-POP program (i.e, outside NYC), call the station commander.
Tell them that you have a MI relative at home & that you want to make the police aware of it, in case you ever need help. Tell them you are worried that if they are ever missing the police won’t start looking until after 24 hours; or that if you need police to take your relative to a hospital, they won’t go to the one you want; or that if your relative is busted, they will go to jail, instead of to a hospital. Tell the C-POP (pronounced, “see-pop”) officer, that it was suggested that individuals with MI relatives contact the C-POP officers, before help is needed to make them aware of the situation, & that is why you are calling. The officer may think this is unusual, but you should do it anyway. FOLLOW THE CONVERSATION UP, WITH A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE C-POP OFFICER & SEND A COPY TO THE PRECINCT COMMANDER.
If you ever do need help, call 911 if it’s an emergency. If not, call your local precinct. When the police come, mention the C-POP Officer & Precinct Commander by name. The police who come to your door do not know what to expect. By mentioning these names, you help calm them & help identify that it is not you who needs help, it is your relative. They will also be more likely to listen to you, & may even get the Commander on the phone or walkie talkie. Because you have prepared ahead of time, they are more likely to take the person where you want them to be taken, & to listen to you carefully. Be calm.
2. PREPARE INFORMATION & HAVE IT READY
If your relative needs emergency hospitalization, it will be extremely stressful to everyone. It is made more difficult by the myriad of questions that need to be answered. By having the answers to these questions written and ready, you can insure that the emergency hospitalization will not only be less stressful, but that your relative is more likely to get proper care. For instance, identify his doctor, & what medicines he is currently on, so those medicines can be continued, increased, or removed as appropriate. Indicate what hospital you use. Below is a form you should fill out. After filling it out, make two copies & keep one on hand (in your wallet) all the time. One for you, one for the police, one for the hospital.
FILL OUT THE FOLLOWING FORM AND KEEP DUPLICATES HANDY
CRISIS INFORMATION PAGE (FOR POLICE/HOSPITAL/EMS)
Please take this person to _____________________hospital.
This person is not a criminal. He/she has a mental illness. Please treat with compassion and dignity. Thank you.
Name__________________________________Age_________
Address____________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Telephone_______________________Birthday____________
Social Security #______________Blue Cross #_____________
Blue Shield #_____________Other Med Ins #_____________
Is on SSI?_________Is on SSDI?________Other?__________
Eye Color______Hair Color_________Skin______________
Blood Type_________Eyeglasses?_______
Height_______________Weight__________________
Tatoos?Other Identifying Marks_______________________
Military/VA Status?__________________________________
Current Primary Diagnosis____________________________
Secondary Diagnosis__________________________________
Name of Commanding Officer where patient lives______________
Name of Community Officer where patient lives_________________________
Precinct Phone Number______________________________
Name of Doctor______________________________________
Doctor’s Phone Number_______________________________
Name of Hospital____________________________________
Current Medicines and Dosages________________________
___________________________________________________
Suicidal?_____________Violent?________________________
Date of Last Hospitalization_________How Long?________
Date of Last Crisis____________________________________
Allergies?________________Hi Blood Pressure?__________
Name of outpatient program___________________________
Number of outpatient program________________________
Name of Case/Social Worker__________________________
Number of Case/Social Worker________________________
In Emergency Contact________________________________
Relationship to Patient________________________________
Address_____________________________________________
Day Phone__________________Eve. Phone____________
How to make 911 respond to your calls
(This article was based on information provided by Dr. Darwin Buschman, Chief Psychiatrist, Manhattan Mobile Crisis Intervention Services.)
Individuals with neurobiological disorders (“NBD” formerly known as serious mental illnesses) are occassionaly danger to themselves, suicidal and/or danger to others. When this happens, you may want to call 911.
It is often difficult to get 911 to respond to your calls if you need someone to come & take your MI relation to a hospital emergency room (ER). They may not believe that you really need help. And if they do send the police, the police are often reluctant to take someone for involuntary commitment. That is because cops are concerned about liability. They don’t want to be sued for taking someone to the ER involuntarily. Another reason is that they must stay with the person until he or she is admitted. This can take between 2-48 hours. Cops don’t want to sit in ER; sergeants don’t want to take two police off the streets. Following is how you can make 911 & the police overcome their reluctance to help.
When calling 911, the best way to get quick action is to say, “Violent EDP.” Or “Suicidal EDP.” EDP stands for Emotionally Disturbed Person. This shows the operator that you know what you’re talking about. Describe the danger very specifically. “He’s a danger to himself” is not as good as “This morning my son said he was going to jump off the roof.” Be specific. “He’s a danger to others” is not as good as “My son has just struck a neighbor for no reason.” Also, give past history of violence. This is especially important if the person is not acting up. Again, be specific. “Every time my son gets psychotic, he has hurt himself. Last spring, he cut his wrists. I think he’s going to do it again.”
When the police come, they need compelling evidence that the person is a danger to self or others before they can involuntarily take him or her to ER for evaluation. If the person stops acting out by the time police arrive, this can be difficult. Again, give specific recent examples of danger.
Realize that you & the cops are at cross purposes.
You want them to take someone to the hospital. They don’t want to do it. You need to get on common ground with the cops to gain their cooperation. Say, “Officer, I understand your reluctance. Let me spell out for you the problems & the danger. I understand that if you take my son to the ER involuntarily, you’ll have to wait with him until the doctors make a decision on whether to admit. I also understand your concern about litigation if you take him involuntarily. Therefore, why don’t we work together so my son goes voluntarily.” Cops will often change their attitude dramatically if you say this. If a person goes voluntarily, the cops don’t have to stay in the ER. They don’t have to use handcuffs. If a person goes involuntarily, they go the same way, except in handcuffs. This can often be used to convince a person to go voluntarily. You can say, ” I know you don’t want to go, but I think you need to go.” The cops can say, “You’re going to go one way or another, cuffs or no cuffs.” Usually the person will go voluntarily when faced with this choice.
Once the person is taken to the ER, cops leave. So it’s a good idea to have a family member accompany the patient. Let the ER security guard, triage nurse, & others know that the person is MI & a danger to self or others. When you go to ER, make sure you have the “How to Prepare for Emergencies” form that is in this newsletter (Note: This is a form with the name, address, SS#, Med history, current med, diagnosis, name and number of doctor, name and number of next of kin, insurance, etc. In otherwords, all the info you would be asked in an emergency).
911 should be first resort in an immediate emergency, & the last resort when it’s not. If your family member needs help, not necessarily hospitalization, try Mobile Crisis Intervention Services.
While AMI/FAMI is not suggesting you do this, the fact is that some families have learned to ‘turn over the furniture’ before calling the police. Many police require individuals with neurobiological disorders to be imminently dangerous before treating the person against their will. If the police see furniture disturbed they will lusually conclude that the person is imminently dangerous.
Read How and why to change involuntary treatment laws in your state.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT WHICH MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION TO THOSE WHO COULD BENEFIT FROM IT.
NAMI/ NYC (formerly AMI/FAMI) does not endorse any medicines or treatments. This info is a public service as part of our efforts to educate and help others affected by these disorders. Do not rely on it. Consult your doctor before making any decisions. NAMI/NYC is a non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of people with neurobiolgical disorders (“NBD”, formerly known as ‘mental’ illness) through education, advocacy, support, and research. If this has been useful to you, PLEASE JOIN US. Send a deductable contribution of $30 (or more) to NAMI/NYC, 432 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 to get on our mailing list or call (212) 684-3AMI. To join chapter outside NYS: 1 800 950 NAMI. This was downloaded fromhttp://www.schizophrenia.com/ami
Families Helping Families is what NAMI/NYC is all about. Thank you for helping us help others.
Diagnosis | Medicines | Coping Tips | First person advice | Policy Papers
Managing a Chapter | By Dr. Fuller Torrey | Recent Research
More on the Dorkdom
Intro to response
From: Quinn D Rossander
To: Carlson@TIS.LLNL.GOV Cc: CGLOVER@OISE.ON.CA
Subject: NAMI and Forced OutPatient Treatment
Gentlemen,
The following message has been prepared as a response to D.J.Jaffe's
annoucement that NAMI (the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill)
intents to and has in fact already launched a national campaign in
support of OutPatient Forced Treatment Laws and protocols across the
United States. I, as both a professional and as a wearer of psychiatric
labels myself, find this action to be distasteful beyond measure. I have
attempted to reply to NAMI and their board and would greatly appreciate it
if you would consider posting this file on your schizoph service where
other people who are effected by this motion will have access to this
information.
Thank you,
Quinn D. Rossander, MaCEd
qdr@copland.udel.edu
Intro to NAMI Policy
From: D.J.Jaffe
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:32:57 -0400
Subject: NAMI approves Invol. Treatmnt Policy
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE AND PUBLISH
I am pleased to report that after a great deal of study, the board of
directors of NAMI has approved a policy on involuntary treatment and
court ordered treatment. This policy was developed after a year of
analysis with input from grassroots members, including consumers, around
the country.
In passing the enclosed, the board was unanimous in it's feelings that
"the availability of effective, comprehensive community-based systems of
care for persons suffering from biological brain diseases will diminish
the need for involuntary commitment and court ordered treatment." They
also agreed that court-ordered treatment should only be used as a 'last
resort'. On the other hand, the board was cognizant of the fact "that
there are certain individuals with biological brain disorders who, at
times, due to their illness, lack insight or judgment about their need
for medical treatment." The board believes the enclosed policy does a
good job of balancing an individuals civil rights with society's
obligation to provide kind and compassionate care to those in need.
Over the next year, NAMI will continue to focus on providing states with
the technical assistance to fight the impending reductions in funding for
services, housing and Medicaid that are being proposed in Washington. In
addition, they will be providing materials on the new world created by
managed care. These issues will significantly impact on the well-being of
people with neurobiological disorders. And your continued attention to
these issues is extremely important.
However, if you would like to learn more about the subjects covered in
the following policy, I suggest reading Madness in the Streets: How
Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill by Rael Jean Isaac and
Virginia Armat (Free Press). It is available through NAMI Book Sales
Division (1-800 950-NAMI). You may also want to get a copy of a my
presentation called, "How and why to change involuntary commitment and
court-ordered treatment laws in your state" by writing DJ Jaffe c/o
AMI/FAMI at 432 Park Ave. South, NY NY 10016 (212) 684-3264. You can
e-mail me at djjaffe@aol.com
Thank you very much to those who supported the process of developing this
policy. Feel free to use the following policy as guidance in your own
efforts with whatever changes are appropriate for your state. PLEASE
PUBLISH AND DISTRIBUTE THE POLICY TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE
The "Policy"
Special thanks to Bettey Seibels, Missouri AMI, Brian and Carla Jacobs,
Long Beach AMI, AMI/FAMI, AMI/NYS, Dr. Fuller Torrey, Rael Jean Isaac,
Jan Brackel, and all the others who contributed to developing the following:
The following policy was approved by NAMI Board of Directors 10/7/95
****************************************************************
NAMI Policy on Involuntary Commitment & Court Ordered Treatment.
The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) believes that all
people should have the right to make their own decisions about medical
treatment. However, NAMI is aware that there are certain individuals with
biological brain disorders (also known as severe mental illnesses) such
as schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness who, at times, due to their
illness, lack insight or judgment about their need for medical
treatment. NAMI is also aware that, in many states, laws and policies
governing involuntary commitment and/or court ordered treatment are
inadequate.
NAMI, therefore, adopts the following policy:
1. The availability of effective, comprehensive community-based systems
of care for persons suffering from biological brain disorders will
diminish the need for involuntary commitment and/or court ordered treatment.
2 Methods for facilitating communications about treatment preferences
between individuals with biological brain disorders, family members and
treatment providers should be adopted and promoted in all states.
3. Involuntarily commitment and court ordered treatment decisions must be
made expeditiously and simultaneously in a single hearing so that
individuals can receive treatment in a timely manner. The role of Courts
should be limited to review to ensure that procedures used in making
these determinations comply with individual rights and due process
requirements, and not to make medical decisions.
4. Involuntary inpatient and outpatient commitment and court ordered
treatment should be used as a last resort and only when it is believed to
be in the best interests of the individual in need.
5. States should adopt broader, more flexible standards which would
provide for involuntary commitment and/or court ordered treatment when an
individual:
(A) is gravely disabled, which means that the person is "substantially
unable, except for reasons of indigence, to provide for any of his or her
basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, health or safety or,
(B) is likely to "substantially deteriorate"if not provided with timely
treatment, or
(C) "Lacks Capacity" which means that as a result of the brain disorder
the person is unable to fully understand or lacks judgment to make an
informed decision regarding his or her need for treatment, care or
supervision."
6. Current interpretations of laws which require proof of dangerousness
often produce unsatisfactory outcomes because individuals are allowed to
deteriorate needlessly before involuntary commitment and/or court ordered
treatment can be instituted. When the "dangerousness standard" is used,
it must be interpreted more broadly than "imminently" and/or "provably"
dangerous.
7. State laws should also allow for consideration of past history in
making determinations about involuntary commitment and/or court ordered
treatment, since past history is often a reliable way to anticipate the
future course of illness.
8. An independent administrative and/or judicial review must be
guaranteed in all involuntary commitment and/or court ordered treatment
determinations. Individuals must be afforded access to appropriate
representation knowledgeable about biological brain disorders and
provided opportunities to submit evidence in opposition to involuntary
commitment and/or court ordered treatment..
9. Responsibility for determining court ordered treatment should always
be vested with medical professionals who, in conjunction with the
individual, family, and other interested parties must develop a plan for
treatment.
10. The legal standard for states to meet in order to justify emergency
commitments for initial 24 to 72 hours should be "information and
belief." For involuntary commitments beyond the initial period the
standard should be "clear and convincing evidence." Involuntary
commitment and/or court ordered treatment must be periodically subject to
administrative or judicial review to ascertain whether circumstances
justify the continuation of these orders.
11. Court ordered outpatient treatment should be considered as a less
restrictive, more beneficial and less costly alternative to involuntary
inpatient treatment.
12. Efforts must be undertaken to better educate justice systems and
law enforcement professionals about the relationship between severe
biological brain disorders and the application of involuntary inpatient
and outpatient commitment and court ordered treatment.
13. Private and public health insurance plans must cover the costs of
involuntary inpatient and outpatient commitment and/or court ordered
treatment.
End of policy
****************************************************************
Rebuttal
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 00:54:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Quinn D Rossander
Subject: NAMI Criminalizing of the "Mentally Ill"
One of the most difficult things to write about is when you have a topic
that is just too fantastic and horrible for anyone to believe. Maybe
that is why I had to wait until the witching hour on Haloween's Eve to
prepare this message. It goes with the gouls and goblins that are loose
tonight terrorizing the country.
Tonight on CBS I watched the movie, "Edward Sizzorhand." The story of
his own gentleness and creativity and his total rejection by both
neighbors and friends left me speechless. I wonder if anyone else felt
the hollowness of the final snow scene where he was portrayed there still
chipping away in his silent isolation making beautiful objects d'art that
no one would ever see. How sad!
Well in a similar vein, Ron Thompson sent me the follow message. He is
off to NARPA where he will attempt to interest someone in the topic of
"Forced Treatment." Hey good luck Ron, maybe if you offered then a free
sandwitch, French Fries with a Coke or something?
His message follows:
Ron Thompson comments
*********************************************************
Fragments - Ron Thompson - October 27, 1995
Without specifically mentioning what he is referring to (psychosurgery*),
the former superintendent (1903-37) of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in
Washington, DC, says, "Near relatives not infrequently, I am afraid,
would be willing to give their consent from motives that would hardly be
those that the administrative officer would care to consider. In other
words, relatives not infrequently desire the death of patient in
hospitals. I do not mean that they do this consciously, although I have
no doubt that they do in many cases, but that they do so in the back of
their heads there is no question, because these sick people cause them a
tremendous amount of trouble."
William Alason White, The autobrigraphy of a Purpose (1936), p. 139-140.
* That this is what White is talking about is explicitly confirmed in a
volume of reminiscences on his career, by former colleagues and admirers
- see WAW, the Washington Years, published by the Department of Health
Education and Welfare (1976), p.49, in a piece by Zigmund Liebensohn, Md,
who was at St. Elizabeth's from 1935-39. Liebensohn notes that literally
weeks before his autobiography was published, the modern world's first
psychosurgery was performed in Washington, though not at St. Elizabeth's,
by the infamous Drs Freeman and Watts on September 14, 1936, about which
procedure "Dr. White expressed his categorical disapproval in no
uncertain terms."
Without going here into a long argument about why the National Alliance
for the Mentally Ill - the modern and fearfully well-organized relatives'
organization - consciously and unconsciously desires the existential (if
less often the actual psysical) death of its relatives - in the
two-pronged form of involuntary neuroleptic drugging combined with the
insistent demand that the druggee agree this is "treatment in his/her
best interest? (i.e. Compliance), I ask the following two questions:
1) What good does it do to oppose Neglect and Abuse in or out of
psychiatric institutions if the only thing that can happen instead of
neglect and abuse is mistreatment?
2) If the "mental" or nervous problem is fundamentally not a "genetically
caused chemical imbalance", what else can you do but hurt someone
spititually and emotionally if you treat them - voluntarily or
involuntarily - in the belief that it is?
************************************************
Closing comments
Two weeks ago Wayne Smith posted onto Madness a copy of D.J.Jaffee's
Motion that was passed on the 7th of October, 1995 by NAMI. No one has
commented or raised a protest about what that motion accomplished with its
insidious attack on all people who are or will be labeled "mentally ill."
I am not surprised. I was not surprised when all of the neighbors turned
on Edward Sizzorhand after he refused the sexual advances of an older
woman who wanted him to be a hair stylist in her beauty parlor. He was
in love with a young beautiful girl his own age. Didn't he know that he
was too wierd and different to be accepted? People wanted him killed not
healed and certainly not respected for being different and creative.
Well the new NAMI motion says that C/S/X will not only be "force
treated," but every NAMI Chapter will start promoting the use of "force
treatment" protocols in the courts, the clinics, the hospitals and most
importantly in the jails. They will first attack the homeless and once
this population has been thoroughly subdued, they will then move onto
other less vulnerable populations. What you may have missed in their
motion, however, is point number 7.
"7.State laws should also allow for consideration of past history in
making determinations about involuntary commitment and/or court ordered
treatment, since past history is often a reliable way to anticipate the
future course of illness."
What that means is once you are labeled "mentally ill," the law will keep
track of you and any time you come to their attention, they will
immediately know of your psychiatric history. Now doesn't that put a new
spin on the idea of patient confidentiality?
Well folks, there may be some of us who do not agree with the NAMI
Motion. Some may say that "Forced Out-patient Commitment" and crimping
court supervision down to the status of a rubber stamp approval whenever
a psychiatrist wants to lock you up or kill your mind with drugs or ECT
makes good sense. If you don't agree, I would like to hear from you.
I believe that there is a continuing danger for all C/S/X people of being
killed and crippled by the NAMI hatred and fear being fostered upon those
of us who are least able to protect ourselves from their onslaught. If
you would be interested in forming a teleconference group to discuss what
we can do about this new NAMI proposal, please let me know along with
what time would be best for such a teleconference call.
I have been asking around and at present I have a server available that
has only 6 slots, but we may with careful linking to other multiple phone
sites increase our capacity beyond that small number.
I will continue to post information about this idea for the next week. I
will also continue trying to contact J.Rock Johnson, president of the
NAMI Consumer Counsel. My understanding in talking to her in Washington
in August and by phone in September is that the Consumer Counsel opposed
the NAMI motion. D.J.Jaffee's announcement clearly states that the
motion received "unanimous" approval from the NAMI Board. Either
D.J.Jaffee is again lying or he has created another stellar advertising
campaign to kill his enemy, "mental illness" or should I say those people
who are carrying its label and make him and the NAMI board uncomfortable?
Please send me email (qdr@udel.edu) or drop me a note at:
Quinn D. Rossander
611 West 19th Street
Wilmington, DE 19802-3904 (302) 652-2204
Love, Ross [;-)
Intro to response from DJ Jaffe, BoD, NAMI
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 00:54:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Quinn D Rossander
Subject: NAMI Criminalizing of the "Mentally Ill" - Jaffe responds
D.J.Jaffe writes me the following letter and asks that I post it to
MADNESS for him and NAMI. To do so would be to endorse the evil that he
sets forth in the original motion and this message, but to not respond
would be to give him and NAMI my tacit approval. The sad truth is that I
can not ignore him without lending my approval to his lies. Let me
explain: Evil to me is the absence of God. Evil has no mind or will of
its own, it is senseless and purposeless. Without the opposition of men
and women of good will, however, evil will always triumph and cover the
world with its darkness and decay. In passing the October 7th resolution
supporting Involuntary Out-patient Commitments, NAMI has certainly proved
that even when good men and women support bad ideas, those people come to
personify evil themselves. Of course to do this, NAMI had to ignore and
nullify the vote of J.Rock Johnson, President of the Consumer Counsel
(former NAMI Client Counsel) and the other C/S/X support on their own
board. I understand that yet a third person choose to abstain entirely
from voting. Being loyal children of these dysfunctional NAMI parents,
there is only silent whimpering coming from the back of the chimney where
these second class NAMI members are kept. They hope that D.J.Jaffe will
keep quiet and the evil of this motion will die a silent death. Sadly
that is like the child in the ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) family
hoping daddy won't ever come home drunk again.
You will note that any opposition contradicts with D.J.Jaffe's own
recollection of what occurred. First his claim that this motion had
unanimous support. Then in the following message to me he over anxiously
rushes to credit a schizophrenic psychiatrist with supporting the
motion. I would have to agree with Jaffe's assessment that anyone who
voted for his motion really was "crazy" and thinking like a typical
psychiatrist from the Mental DEath System. Unfortunately that would miss
the obvious fact that the NAMI board once again refused to pay attention
to even their own children's point of view. At any rate it becomes
clearly obvious that the NAMI board is not unanimous in its support of
this really bad idea. Contrary to D.J.Jaffe's statement made to the
effect that punishing people labeled "mentally ill" had unanimous NAMI
Board support and approval, this may give some room for C/S/X hope.
I will not ignore D.J.Jaffe's challenge, but because it is evil, I also
can not accept it on his terms. To do so would ensure its victory and
the immediate defeat of life and the pursuit of happiness for all the
people NAMI is crippling and disabling and disempowering. The NAMI point
of view toward "mental illness" is based on "Forced Treatment" and
totally ignores the patient's point of view.
My real problem is how to respond? What I decided is to send the
D.J.Jaffe letter to MADNESS but introducing it with these comments. I
will not interpose my arguments into D.J.Jaffe's letter because that
would interrupt his presentation and I consider that to be unfair and in
this case, really unnecessary. D.J.Jaffe's arguments against all the
points I made in my message, "Criminalization of Mental Illness by NAMI"
are so weak or non existent that by printing his reply, I have done more
to substantiate by own arguments than anything that I could have said in
rebuttal. I believe that every point of view needs to be heard and
evaluated on the basis of its own merits. Obviously I can not let
D.J.Jaffe have the last word, however. What I will do is to follow his
message with my own observations on the NAMI point of view as
orchestrated by him and the other advocates of "forced threatment." I
will also open this message to VooM, (the Voice of Madness) to let people
react with thought, passion and insight to the continuing lies that
D.J.Jaffe sets forth as well as to correct my own lies as well.
Hopefully this will encourage those people on the Schitzo and MHPolicy
net who are not already brain dead or NBD to react as well. Hopefully
the NAMI BRAIN DEATH/DISEASE (NBD) concepts which D.J.Jaffe espouses,
will be put into the trash along with the other tenants of "forced
threatment" which the NAMI family now appears to so uncritically support.
Jaffe's Response
**************************Jaffe's Message************************
From: DJJAFFE@aol.com
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 22:19:41 -0500
To: qdr@udel.edu
cc: jawinet@ucdavis.edu,
schizoph@vm.utcc.utoronto.ca,
MHPOLICY@rfmh.org
Subject: Response to Mr. Rossander
Mr. Rossander:
I would like to take you up on your invitation to "please send me email
(qdr@udel.edu) or drop me a note" Specifically I would like to respond,
and possibly correct, some of the information you posted to multiple
lists about NAMI and its recent adoption of a comprehensive policy on
involuntary treatment.
1. Contrary to your post, the NAMI motion concerning involuntary
treatment does not mean, "every NAMI Chapter will start promoting the use
of "force treatment" protocols in the courts, the clinics, the hospitals
and most importantly in the jails."
What local and state chapters do is up to them. If you don't think that
changing the laws in the way suggested by the policy is the right thing
to do, I would suggest you consider joining your local AMI chapter so you
can bring your perspective to them. You can get their number by calling
NAMI at 1 800 950 NAMI. I would also point out that a substantial part
of the NAMI policy concerns increasing consumer protections. Finally, I
would like to point out that the goal of the policy is to keep more
people out of jail, not put more in. This is accomplished by allowing
people to receive care before, not after, they become 'dangerous'.
2. NAMI will not, as you said, "first attack the homeless and once this
population has been thoroughly subdued, ...move onto other less
vulnerable populations."
3. It is true, as you said, that NAMI voted, "State (involuntary
treatment) laws should also allow for consideration of past history in
making determinations about involuntary commitment and/or court ordered
treatment, since past history is often a reliable way to anticipate the
future course of illness."
But that policy does not, as you have said, mean, "once you are labeled
"mentally ill," the law will keep track of you and any time you come to
their attention, they will immediately know of your psychiatric
history." The exact opposite is true. The involuntary treatment policy
adopted by the NAMI board of directors is designed to help individuals
from coming in contact with the law in the first place, by allowing them
to receive appropriate care before they become "danger to self or others"
not after. The "past history" referred to in point 7 is primarily past
"medical" history. BTW, in NYS, they did pass a law which is the
opposite of the one you suggested. The law gives psychiatrists access
to police records of consumers. Friends and Advocates of the Mentally
Ill, the AMI chapter in NYC, opposed that.
4. I am sorry you feel, "there is a continuing danger for all C/S/X
people of being killed and crippled by the NAMI hatred and fear being
fostered upon those of us who are least able to protect ourselves from
their onslaught."
NAMI is the largest consumer/family org in the USA and world.. Everyone
in NAMI loves someone who has an NBD, and/or has NBD themselves. I would
encourage you and your family to join and discover this for yourselves.
(I also assume you are not characterizing individuals with NBD as "those
who are least able to protect (themselves) from their onslaught." I
believe many in the consumer and family movement would not agree with
that characterization.)
5. You said, "D.J.Jaffee's (BTW, one 'e') announcement (that the policy
passed) clearly states that the motion received "unanimous" approval from
the NAMI Board."
The vote was not unanimous. If memory serves me right, one consumer
member of the board abstained, one (J.Rock) voted against it. Another
member of the NAMI board, (a psychologist and individual with
schizophrenia who works with the chronically ill), voted for the policy
because he has compassion for the most seriously ill and thought, as did
the rest of the board, that it was a good policy. The "majority"
statement you are quoting only refers to the part of the statement that
says if more community based facilities were built we could dramatically
cut down on involuntary treatment. On that, there was agreement across
the board.
6. You said, " D.J.Jaffee is again lying or he has created another
stellar advertising campaign to kill his enemy, "mental illness" or
should I say those people who are carrying its label and make him and the
NAMI board uncomfortable?
I hope my responses above have set the record straight on this.
I will send this to Schizoph and MHPOLICY, since your message was posted
there and I have access privileges. But could you please do me the favor
of posting it to "Madness" and the other forums you posted your message
to? That way, individuals who care about this issue can understand there
are multiple points of view.
If you would care to continue this dialogue, and want to make it
productive, I'd like to suggest we do it privately. I have attempted to
engage another individual who shared similar sentiments to you in a
dialogue on this. Most people did not find that public dialogue useful
and in fact, many objected to the messages going to their mailboxes.
Thank you very much. I hope you find the information above helpful.
I believe, that on 90% of the issues, NAMI and your own point of view are
in 100% agreement. Perhaps those issues are where we should focus our
efforts, and agree to disagree on others, like the one above. Thank you.
djjaffe@aol.com
Ross Comments pt.1
****************** Part I of Ross's response *****************
to NAMI Criminalization of the "mentally ill".
Thank you, Mr. D.J.Jaffe for your reply but because of my own patterns
and weaknesses, I am not sure that I have all the correct answers so that
the current evil of the Motion you passed through the NAMI Board on
October, 7th, 1995 will become self evident in my reply to you. As I try
to always remember, "God is not yet finished with me yet." The truth is
that unless you and NAMI are stopped from your present course of
supporting iatrogenic madness, or NBD (NAMI Brain Disease as you prefer
to call it), we will all suffer greatly. For that reason, I need to keep
our dialogue public and invite as many voices as possible to join us.
Let me assure you, D.J.Jaffe, that I am not even .0001 percent in
agreement with what *you* and *your* direction are threatening to
accomplishing in the United States. With the Motion you drafted and
crafted and steam rolled past the C/S/X opposition on your own NAMI
Board, you have taken all of us into a disaster and are leading us
blindly into a catastrophe. If people accept as true your arguments
against people labeled "mentally ill" and in favor of more medical
malaise, all you will succeed in destroying are basic human rights and
everyone's freedoms.
In her book, *Don't Shrink to Fit*, my good friend, Eileen Walkenstein,
M.D. uses the ancient story of a rich and powerful man, a courteous regal
man, who loved to invite strangers to his place, feed them wines and the
best of venison, and give them a wondrous bed upon which to rest. The
only proviso for the stranger was that he had to fit the bed precisely -
if there was any deviation in size between the stranger and the bed, the
stranger's limbs were either lopped off or stretched to fit, the process
almost invariably killing the unsuspecting stranger.
In ancient Greece this courteous, regal man was given the name of
Procrustes. In our modern era we have changed his name - today we call
him Doctor Psychiatrist. Thus does Eileen begin her description of what
it is to practice psychiatry in the United States today.
Last year NAMI put on a blitz campaign to get parity coverage so that all
hospitalization and insurance plans would have the same number of days
available for a mental illness as would be available for a physical
illness. That was the most stupid, horribly ill-timed argument that you
could make because it did not take into account the vast and horrible
atrocities to human freedom and medical accountability that have already
being perpetrated by the American Psychiatric System thanks to their
over-use of Involuntary Commitment Laws.
If you will be so good as to obtain a copy of the book, *Bedlam: A Mental
Health System Gone Crazy* written by Joe Sharkey, you will learn in
reading his investigation that the private psychiatric hospitals in
America have set out their nets of acquisition so as to imprison people
without rhyme or reason and gouge their insurance programs for every cent
they could. At the same time these facilities were totally ignoring the
results in human suffering, poverty and destroyed family relationships
that these iatrogenic disease mongers were creating. I will not re-argue
the facts clearly set forth in the book, Bedlam but I would prevail upon
you to read his book very carefully. Please note especially that in the
states of California and Texas where the provision for establishing
community need before giving construction permits to new psychiatric
facilities, allowed these dens of iniquity to open branches on every
street corner and flood the medical market place with refurbished motels
and hotels that could be converted to "health spa" like psychiatric jails
that were enormously profitable capital ventures.
With NAMI's blind enthusiasm you succeeded. You got the concept of
parity pushed through legislators minds in Washington. With your NAMI
War Chest, there was no counter argument even offered. No one bothered
to say,
"Wait a minute - until we correct the forced criminality of
'mental illness,' our request for parity will also mean more
iatrogenic disease and allowing the psychiatric and drug
industry to profit unfairly off people's sickness."
You at NAMI ignored all the fiscal warnings. "Forced Psychiatric
Treatment" is without question the most expensive and extensive medical
service being put upon people in the United States today. It is a cross
we all must bear until we recognize that it is but a form of mental
slavery. It is our own awareness and willingness to submit to such
suffering in a mindless manner that hopefully one day will end as we
awaken to this needless psychiatric evil and put a stop to it.
Today in the United States we pay more than $3,094 per person each year
on health care according to data from the year 1992. That figure is more
than double the figure for yearly expenditures per person for healthcare
for most of the other 23 countries tracked by the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group.
What I am trying to say is that employers have moved from providing
general healthcare coverage for their workers to a concept called
"Managed HealthCare" for the simple reason that psychiatry since World
War II has experienced a fantastic growth with almost a total disregard
to their very substantial and growing audience of critics.
When the dollars were tabulated for what psychiatric parity would cost in
terms of the National HealthCare package, the cost projections were into
astronomical figures with yearly estimates that would require us to
extend our National Debt ceiling. It became obvious to everyone except
for those pundits at NAMI and the Bazelon Center who continued to trumpet
the supposed benefits of more and more "Forced Treatment" with their
cries of parity.
What you and I disagree most about, however, is something much more
subtle, but very profound. My understanding is that you have a cancerous
condition and are dying. I also am dying as is every person on this
planet which is what we must do from the very day that we are born. That
does not mean that we should abandon hope. Hope is what sets us free and
keeps us searching for new and better ways to spend each and every day of
our life. Hope only exists in an atmosphere of freedom. When you take
away personal, social and national freedom you are creating a form of
slavery.
I have worked for hospice programs and am familiar with some of the
issues of dying. I direct your attention to that topic because there is
no aspect of the human condition where freedom becomes any more
significant than when a person has only a matter of days or months left
to live.
Death is what makes life and living both obvious and so very precious to
each and every one of us. It takes us from our daily struggle with bills
and acquiring new adult toys to core issues like examining our human
relationships and deciding whether we really are free to do and say what
we ourselves want to. It is against the contrast with death that the
elements of life and freedom become undeniably visible. What NAMI has
done is to decide that healing being impossible for "people who" have
problems, are hurt, victims of abuse, hear voices, see visions or exhibit
other behaviors that psychiatry has declared to be abnormal and therefore
symptomatic of "mental illness." To all of us C/S/X people, NAMI has
promoted only Psychiatric directed forms of brain damage (NBD = NAMI
Brain Damaged with the unevaluated and unexamined and hence uncontrolled
use of EST, Pharmacotherapy, Psychosurgery and "Forced Treatment"
protocols in general. Your personal focus has always been on control
with the complete exclusion of even the possibility that there is a state
of being on the far side of MADNESS.
What I want to tell you is that as bad as the past with NAMI has been,
your current attack on people with the label of "mental illness" is much
worse. It is not just built on an economic defense of psychiatry and
psychiatric drugs, but on promoting the idea that anyone who is violent
is "mentally ill." Dr. Torrey in his "crazy person of the year" award
set forth in the APA Journal, H&CP of July of 1994, and again in his
testimony in defense of the Kassebaum Bill, began this attack as part of
a Crime and Justice approach to human problems. What most disturbs me is
that Dr. Torrey then merged both victim and criminal in his violence
attack, saying that not only the rapist, but the homeless woman who was
being raped needed to be lobotomized with psychiatric drugs.
This is tragic. You are using one lie to support another. People who
are labeled "mentally ill" have always shown a lower propensity to
violence than the general population. What your NAMI juggernaut of
"Forced Treatment" is doing is to sell the idea that anyone labeled
"mentally ill" should be lobotomized with drugs to make the world safe.
That is so stupid, so non logical and so effective because it builds
walls of fear and suspicion around your (NBD) NAMI BRAIN DAMAGED people.
You are smearing false stigma against people labeled "mentally ill."
NAMI will be as about as successful against "mental illness" as the
Interdiction approach was with drug addiction. Since 1981 we have poured
more than 100 Billion dollars into drug interdiction and the result is
that we now have more street drugs of better chemical quality and lower
price than ever before in our history. All that Interdiction has done is
to jack up the profitability of pushing more and more drugs and promoting
in every other way, a chemical answer to personal, community and social
problems.
With lots of help, last year NAMI destroyed our chance at a program for
National Medical Health Coverage, that could have possibly have been done
under a single vendor system. This year NAMI is promoting a violence
initiative against adults, children and all of those who are unable to
protect themselves from a medical/psychiatric attack. If you do not wake
up you will even destroy our chance to stop the onset of Mangled
HealthCare across America which may become the newest way to disable and
defund all good community treatment programs and take us back to the days
of Alylum punishment and control for all people labeled "mentally ill."
I have tried for years to work with AMID, The Alliance for the Mentally
Ill in Delaware. They continue to operate with total indifference to
hearing any C/S/X in put as to what healing is really about. They have
counter-attacked in the most simplistic manner saying I am against people
who push drugs - therefore I am against NAMI, because NAMI prides itself
in being the biggest pusher of prescription narcotics in the world.
Whether your claim of powerful drug pushing is true, you accusation
against me is not true. What I am saying is that I am for all people and
I support of freedom and individual choice in all areas of life, but most
especially free choice in terms of all healthcare matters.
On February 27 1990, Justice Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion on the
Supreme Court Decision which ruled 6-3 that prison officials can force
inmates to take psychotropic drugs against their will without first
receiving a judge's permission after a formal hearing. In the dissenting
opinion Justice Stevens wrote,
"A competent individual's right to refuse psychotropic
medication is an aspect of liberty requiring the highest
order of (Constitutional) protection."
Unfortunately this is against a background of "Involuntary Inpatient and
Outpatient" laws against the "mentally ill" in virtually every state in
our country.
What I have tried to say is that people who choose to take Psychoactive
drugs need to be supported, not criminalized. They need to have full
information that all of the so-called psychoactive drugs on the market
today attack the human brain. The confusion is that in our willingness
to attack "mental illness" we have chosen our weapons only from those
that dull or destroy or put holes into the human mind. What that does is
to control the human's who are being treated, but it does nothing to
return them to wholeness or even a semblance of health. There is no drug
that heals "Manic Depression" or cures "Schizophrenia." There are lots
of psychotropic drugs, however, that fog a person's depression and cloud
their states of euphoria so that their lives become easier to manage -
but at a very heavy psychological price. People who take neuroleptic
drugs are generally characterized as behaving as if they suffered from
Encephalitis Lethargica.
During the 1960's I worked at the University of Delaware where the new
wonder psychiatric drugs were evaluated. Without exception they all
caused a clear reduction in both mental and physical test scores of
college student volunteers. This research was not paid for or sponsored
by the drug companies so the research findings were not widely
disseminated. What did happen, however was that the A.P.A. lie was put
forth that people with mental illness must have a brain disease so the
same drugs that were mentally destructive to "normal people" would be
seen as good treatment for people with "mental illness" because their
brains were different. That is another lie that Dr. Torrey presented at
the Kassebaum hearings about "Forced Out-Patient Commitment Laws" in July.
Anyone who takes drugs has to know about ADR (Adverse Drug Reactions)
because even the common aspirin can cause people to go into shock and
die. Powerful Substances such as Haldol and Prozak are as dangerous as
mental Atomic Bombs, when you compare them to other medical drugs. Yes,
every psychiatric drug also plays a role in the market place of street
drugs used by addicts and drug abusers.
It would seem that NAMI wants to promote intentional blindness of these
dangers. By not only encouraging but now forcing those drugs on people,
NAMI must also assume direct personal and fiscal responsibility for the
damage done to these drug victims who your motion proposes to create.
Warning people of the dangers of psychoactive drugs is inconsistent with
forcing people to take drugs against their will, whether it kills them or
markedly shortens their life span or only creates a condition of physical
and mental dysfunction. Many psychotropic drugs impair the body's
ability to regulate its temperature. This leaves the person vulnerable
to increased body temperature and environmental heat stress which can be
deadly. Lithium is notorious for giving folks problems in dealing with
extremes of heat. There are also problems of Tardive Dyskinesia, Tardive
Dystonia, Kidney and Bladder failure, Toxic Neuroleptic Malignant
Syndrome and a whole host of drug related side effects that your search
for a chemical panacea has thus far blithely ignored.
Certainly we will shoot ourselves in the foot in our struggle for freedom
and independence if we are not aware of these dangers. You can hear more
about Tardive Dyskinesia, however, in the latest public information
releases from the drug industry. The pharmaceutical industry seldom
mentions TD except in promotional literature on a "new drug" which they
proudly assert affects a "different part of the brain so there is no
possible danger of Tardive Dyskinesia." Over time, however, few of these
claims for the new drug's supposed efficacy and absence of ADR prove
warranted.
In August Health and Human Services Secretary, Donna E. Shalala announced
new rules by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) that requite 75% of
patients to receive "useful, written and easy-to-understand" drug
information with prescriptions by the year 2000. By 2006, 95% of
patients would receive such information.
This proposal had been drafted by David Kessler, the consumer activist of
the Food and Drug administration. He followed up this announcement by
citing the ethical statues of England's Royal College of Physicians which
stated in 1555, "Let no physician teach the people about medicines, or
even tell them the names of the medicines, particularly the more potent
ones ... for the people may be harmed by their improper use." That is
the attitude which has persisted into this century in the United States.
Drug laws passed in the 1930's, fore instance, mandated that the
information found in a directory of medicines called the Physicians Desk
Reference be written "in language that was not understandable by the
average person" according to Tom McGinnis, a pharmacist with the FDA's
Office of Health Affairs. We know from repeated medical research studies
that 30 to 50% of patients do not take their medication properly in the
United States which leads to an estimated $20 Billion in unnecessary
health care costs each year.
Before a person takes any psychoactive substance, they need to be warned
what the danger signs of the drug are because unwarranted side effects
can kill them. If you take Prozak, you need to know that in a small
percentage of people it seems to trigger violent anger responses that
have caused people to kill family members and commit suicide themselves.
The lack of such warnings - and the concomitant insistence that more
drugs and forcing drugs and using more powerful drugs will provide the
only answers we can live with is a degree of NAMI myopathy that is
virtually inexcusable.
Psychotropic Drugs cause TD (Tardive Dyskinesia) and all kinds of
systemic problems including EPS (extrapyramidal symptoms) and the deadly,
sometimes fatal, NMS (Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome.) TD is preventable
but rarely reversible. The least obvious, but most common EPS is
"akathisia", often misdiagnosed as anxiety or increased psychosis and
miss diagnosed as a sign that MORE antipsychotic drugs are needed. It is
a restlessness or muscle discomfort, with constant movement. It is said
to be so intolerable that some folks have attempted suicide to escape its
misery.
Obviously there are many dangers associated with using psychotropic
medications that impact the central nervous system, our control center
for many involuntary regulatory functions essential for survival. Anyone
who takes medications, psychiatric or otherwise, needs to know a lot
about what to watch for and the risks they take. There is no such time,
where ignoring "informed consent" in the use of these drugs is ever
warranted. Tragically you can see information withheld from patients by
healthcare professionals daily.
When you speak of "forced treatment," NAMI is invariable speaking only
about drugs. Thorazine, the first of the modern neuroleptics, was
synthesized in France in 1950. It was observed that the drug had
additional effects such as decreasing the person's interest in what was
going on in his/her environment. This introduced the use of a whole
class of drugs known as phenothiazines which were first used in the
United States in 1954 as "therapy" for mental patients. Thorazine
rapidly became the preferred treatment for schizophrenics and by 1970
over 85% of all patients in state mental hospitals were receiving
chlorpromazine or one of the other phenothiazines.
It has been claimed that deinstitutionalization occurred as a result of
the introduction of psychoactive drugs. That is a lie. Since their
inception we have known that the Asylum idea of treating people who were
"different" was a total failure. In his book, *The Discovery of the
Asylum*, David J. Rothman makes the following assertion: The original
split between the A.M.A. (American Medical Association) and the A.P.A.
(American Psychiatric Association) came as a direct result from their
disagreement about whether the "mentally ill" should properly be
warehoused in a separate facility with a minimal expenditure of state
funds that would allow the asylum to treat those for whom there was some
reasonable expectation that they could return to the community and become
productive citizens (the ones who could be cured). Now the fascinating
history of this argument is that the A.M.A. was in favor of such a
position saying that is was fundamentally more honest to admit that some
people obviously could not be "cured," but the doctors of the A.P.A.
continued to maintain that they could cure everybody, hence they should
be given total and complete control over the lives of the "mentally
ill." It is directly from this maniacal desire to "cure" everybody that
the "Forced Treatment" laws against the "mentally ill" were originally
drafted.
Like the Bastille in France, these laws would allow a family to hide a
relative who was embarrassing or acted weird so that they would not have
to be even be seen by the public. Following the standards developed as a
result of the McNaghten trial in England, the NGRI policies for legally
sanctioned silence were set forth so that anyone could be imprisoned
without having to defend himself or his acts and of course this also
prevented him from speaking out against a social or political condition
that needed to be corrected.
Continued in Part II of Ross's response
to NAMI Criminalization of the "mentally ill".
Ross Comments pt.2
****************** Part II of Ross's response *****************
to NAMI Criminalization of the "mentally ill".
On the subject of "Forced Treatment" a woman I love dearly wrote me the
following message. "My own personal view is if the police were knocking
at the door: I have a skill saw my little brother left in my living room
and I would turn it on and lean it up against my throat."
The real truth of "Forced Treatment" is that is never works. What it
always does is destroy the will and thus all hope for the person is
vanished. The "mentally ill" person is forced to become slave to the
will of another. If you take away dignity and respect, then you create
dependency and support infantile behaviors. the more force and coercion
you apply to an individual, the more disabled he becomes and the less
able to use his own talents and ability. The more you act as an expert
that knows what is best for someone .... the less you enable him to know
what is best for himself and the more confused he becomes.
As part of its awful history, psychiatry first promoted the Asylum Lie in
the 19th Century that said they would cure all people if only you gave
them full and unquestioned physical control over the lives of these
people. On this basis most of the Involuntary Commitment Laws were
written. Now as we approach the 20th Century, some psychiatrists still
say that with more powerful Chemicals, and EST and the use of police
force, they can control any person's will. Even when that fails, they
always have recourse to the implantation of electrical devices in the
brain that will control patients and turn them into robotic cyborgs.
All of this is of course being done for the good of the individual and
for the good of the country and especially for the good of the family.
The very same arguments that NAMI and you are using in promoting
Involuntary Treatment of all people labeled "mentally ill." It is
because of this iatrogenic disease spawning mental attack that we call
today's system of healthcare, the Mental DEath System.
What is hard to accept is the real horror that your main advocate for
"Forced Out-Patient Commitment is doing so to cover up his own
culpability not only for the death of his sister who he sequestered in a
psychiatric prison for the majority of her life, but because he is
rumored to have caused the death of a patient at St.Elizabeth's Hospital
in 1979-1980. The circumstances as reported to me are that Dr. E.Fuller
Torrey treated an elderly depressed woman with Lithium and by failing to
recognize an Adverse Drug Reaction caused her death by continuing this
medication in spite of the patient's own protests. To camouflage his own
calumny, Dr. Torrey wrote on her death certificate that this woman died
of Malignant Schizophrenia. In his enthusiasm to share his own horror,
he would wish upon all people labeled "mentally ill," suffering from the
brain disabling effects of his forced psychiatric mental poisons.
Few people can understand that in Medical Science today we have a
phenomena called social selection. The practice of this discipline led
the Germans to create the gas ovens and the death chambers of World War
II. What no one seems to recognize is that after the war at the
Nuremberg trials - we had no legal basis to try the Germans who were
guilty of their unspeakable human atrocities called Genetic Cleansing.
Every single German defendant argued correctly that they had operated in
all these matters within the laws and acceptable medical practice of Germany.
When Hermann Goering and other German leaders went on trial in a
Nuremberg courtroom a half-century ago, defeat had stripped away much of
the chin-jutting arrogance they once exuded. "They did not look like the
leaders of a great nation. They looked like people who were picked off
the street," Whitney R. Harris, a lawyer who was on the U.S. prosecution
team at the 1945-46 war crimes trial, said recently from his home in
St.Louis. "Sitting in Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, dressed in bland
suits and uniforms stripped of medals, the defendants showed no remorse.
All 21 pleaded innocent, and their lawyers said the court had no
authority over them."
My point is that these German racial killers followed scrupulously the
principal of due legal process and each and every prisoner that was
executed in the death camps was first declared to be "mentally ill" and
therefore was legally expendable if the person did not fit the model of
Aryan Perfection and Supremacy. Males, females, and children were
exterminated as a "useless lives, devoid or value, they were useless
eaters," a person who did not fit the Psychiatrist's Procrustean bed. It
was an Euthanasia Program that eventually killed more that 8 million
people in Europe and North Africa and it was done with Germanic precision
- every death was medically and legally correct.
The only way that the Allied Lawyers were able to convict these NAZI War
Criminals was that they resorted to a higher principal of law. They
utilized the concept of Substantive Legal Due Process. What that said is
that you can not commit crimes against humanity and go unpunished. It is
to create just such invalid, destructive crimes against human liberty and
constitutional freedoms that NAMI proposes Involuntary Outpatient Medical
commitment. You are attempting to create an atmosphere where one's legal
rights are abrogated to a concept of forcing drugs on everyone,
perpetrator, criminal and victim; the elderly and Attention Deficit
Disorder children; everyone who can not protect themselves from NAMI
parenting itself.
It is with considerable pride that I can announce that the recent NARPA
meeting voted to oppose all Involuntary Commitment Laws for the "mentally
ill" in the United States. Now when I argue against the continuing
practice in Delaware of warehousing 360+ patients at Delaware State
Hospital, my arguments may seem more warranted than only the ravings of a
single crazy man. What we need to do is to close every one of these
Asylum holdovers. People we can help - deserve such help, but
imprisoning people for being sick is not only wrong, it will lead only to
more misery for everyone.
MADNESS in any form is idiosyncratic. You at NAMI want to take and
organize it. NAMI wants to find the magic pill and you are trying to
create a reality that will vanish your own fatal sense of personal and
family failure. How do you do this? By ultimately blaming the
child/consumer. All C/S/X know that. If you call me a consumer, I will
not even let you finish the sentence. I do not consume anything because
I am not given any choice in the current system based upon Involuntary
Treatment (a pseudonym for punishment). Under the NAMI party line, I am
the problem. I have a biogenic brain. As the character Rodney
Dangerfield would say, "you give me no respect" except for being totally
disabled and even then you blame me by saying my fault is in my genes.
From this concept comes the gospel of forced drugging with Case
Management and the psycho-social rehabilitation religion. There is no
Hope, there is no humanity, there is no hugging and no smelling of the
other person. There is only FORCE and CONTROL. C/S/X people are all
biogenic problems that need to be fixed. We are not who, we are a bunch
of "that's" in need of repair and programs so that someone can get
wealthy by re-training us how to wipe our ass.
In marked contrast, Alice Miller in her many books illustrates that
children are abused and devalued in our Western Society and this causes
people to become dysfunctional when facing the stress of adult life. She
shows that by not giving children the support, safety and structure that
they need, you create a state of dependency and emotional weakness that
will eventually lead to a state of "mental illness."
"Mental Illness" from the NAMI viewpoint, however, can only be a biogenic
disease. This attitude ignores the fact that the only covariant with
"Mental Illness" that has ever been determined in epidemiological studies
is Unemployment. As Unemployment raises - so does the incidence of
"mental illness." That is a clear piece of sociological data that the
biogenic people choose to ignore. The current truth is that "mental
illness" is and likely will always remain an illness of idiopathic
origin. My guess is that the ultimate truth we will one day re-discover
is that what we call "mental illness" is really a stress reaction that is
endemic to the human condition and symptomatic of those families and
cultures that do not have sufficient interpersonal support patterns and
lack adequate interpersonal coping mechanisms. NAMI claims that "mental
illness" in not curable and the "mentally ill" or NBD as you call us are
"hopeless" and therefore "not responsible." Tragically, in large measure,
that is true at least for the people who have to depend upon the medical
model or public health services. The present medical model depends upon
drugs and brain damaging protocols as their method of control/treatment.
Truthfully we do not have any good healing models today for "mental
illness" being practiced in the United States.
The National Empowerment Center (NEC) in Boston Massachusetts has been
working on a model that makes use of the concept of empowerment where an
individual is helped to make decision in his own life that he can then
learn from in terms of his/her own chance for success and happiness.
They have de-emphasized the importance of drugs other than to provide
temporary stabilizing effects. They work more on developing healing
interventions and positive interpersonal support on the part of their
professional staff. At every step of their process it is the C/S/X
person whose evaluation and participation in the planning and execution
of community programs is what really makes them effective. As Dan Fisher
of NEC published recently, "we hold that recovery from mental illness
depends on an environment which facilitates the active participation of
people in their own treatment on an individual and a community level.
This model encourages people to learn coping strategies and self-help
which are less costly than traditional treatment."
We know that all healing is self-healing. If you have a small cut on
your finger, I can put all kinds of ointments and salves and lotions on
it, but it is up to you and your own body to create the scar tissue under
which new skin can grow to replace the skin that was cut. I can,
however, do a lot of things to make healing impossible for you. One of
the best ways is to simply act in opposition to the person who is
attempting any act of healing.
Assume for a moment that you are in a room, comfortably seated in a
chair. I come in and for my own reasons decide that you need to stand
up. I tell you and then order you and finally call in the police to
physically force you to stand up. I have now created a situation where
you and I are engaged in a battle of wills. As long as the battle
continues, all of our energy and resources will be directed toward it.
In the concept of "Forced Treatment" that has emerged in this country,
that struggle of wills is symptomatic more of the Mental DEath System
than of any individual or family problem.
In 1840, the Eastern Prison was built in Philadelphia. At the time it
was the most extensive and expensive building in the United States. It
was a Quaker idea of penology that was built around meditation and
keeping a prisoner in isolation so that in thinking upon the "sins
against God and his fellow man" he would come to a state of holy
enlightenment thereby stopping his criminal behaviors. What penal
historians today acknowledge is that this system was doomed to failure
because it became an incubation chamber for every imaginable form of
"mental illness" in the inmates who were housed there. As myriad mental
and emotional problems from the prisoners cascaded in upon them, these
early prison reformers had no idea what was causing the problem and of
course no resources to deal with the confused ideation and rampant
emotionalism of the prisoners. The practice of keeping every prisoner
isolated and in total silence, however, was religiously accomplished by
having each cell with its own access to a small outdoor exercise yard.
The Jailers even went to the extreme of making prisoners wear cotton bags
over their heads to keep them from making any social contact when it
became necessary to move them within the jail itself. Luckily this
seclusion idea quickly proved unmanageable as prison populations at
Eastern Prison doubled in the first few years of its operation.
I have worked with people professionally for more than 35 years myself.
When I start to challenge them or control them or hurt them in some way,
I make all healing impossible and completely stop any healing that might
have been in process. Any good clinician will tell you the same thing.
What few if any physicians will ever tell you is that to facilitate
healing, one needs to expose oneself to emotional and mental changes
along with the clients that you are working with.
In terms of the current research on Forced Treatment results in the
United States today, there is no scientific justification for this
practice. Fortunately in the October 9th article in the Washington Post,
Michael F. Conlan reports that there is a bill before Congress that would
require the "disclosure of financial arrangement between authors and drug
manufacturers." All too much medical research is done by people who have
a vested interest in a particular outcome.
In this regard, the first comparative study on "Preventive Commitments:
The Concept and Its Pitfalls" was reported in the MPDLR/Vol.11, No. 4 by
Susan Stefan who was a staff attorney with the Mental Health Law Project
in Washington D.C. In her conclusion she states,
"It is clear that states with preventive commitment statues are operating
on an ad hoc basis, groping for a solution to the dilemma posed by an
increasing number of chronically mentally ill people who must rely on
inadequately funded community mental health programs. Hastily
legislated preventive commitment is not solving the problem. States
considering such legislation should realize that is no panacea. They
must be prepared to address all the social, legal and economic
implications of preventive commitment. A legislature fully apprised of
these implications may wish to consider more expensive but ultimately
more successful solutions to the problem of serving chronically mentally
ill clients by appropriating enough dollars to provide comprehensive
community mental health care, adequate housing and improved medical
coverage."
In Canada in May of 1990, the Browne Consulting & Research Company
published a study entitled, "Mental Health and the Community: Part II, A
Brief on Outpatient Committal." This report states in its conclusion
that "given the evidence provided in the literature, it appears that
outpatient committal programs, where they have been tried, have been
largely ineffective for most people." Then in 1992, Kathleen A. Maloy
wrote a paper for the Mental Health Policy Resource Center entitled
"ANALYSIS: Critiquing the Empirical Evidence: Does Involuntary Outpatient
Commitment Work?" This review of all extant research studies on
Outpatient Involuntary Commitment Research studies in the United States
is extremely critical of the procedures, protocol and conclusions of
published clinical research findings. It sets forth the challenge that
following a careful review of present research, there was no clear
advantage or benefit demonstrated from "outpatient involuntary commitment."
What is much more informative and even more useful is a companion report
put out by the National Institute of Mental Health from a Round Table
discussion on Alternatives to Involuntary Treatment held on September
14-15 in 1990. You can not read that document without realizing that
C/S/X people do not object to "mental death" and psychological abuse by
psychiatry without good reason. They have been trying for years to
propose that healing alternatives be adopted, if only they could get
medical/legal sources to pay any attention to the people who they are
supposed to be helping and include them in the process of creating
treatment protocols.
In spite of this overwhelming preponderance of scientific opinions, many
people would say that C/S/X as a movement is too busy fighting with one
another to see what was being done to us. We will let you NAMI folk pick
up the mental hammer of the Kassebaum Bill (Senate Bill 1180) which was
defeated, and turn it into the sledgehammer by your October 7th NAMI
Motion. I say that is not correct. We are not fighting among
ourselves. We are more like blind and deaf lemmings marching side by
side into the waiting sea. We are being guided by your NAMI and our
Federal funders in Washington and as long as we are listening to the
music you play, we are totally helpless to have any effect on our own
destiny. E.Fuller Torrey is like a psychiatrist playing a pied piper
flute to lead us straight into the sea of drugged slubberdegullion - to
drown.
One of our greatest needs in the c/s/x field is to find professionals who
will help people who are addicted or habituated to psychiatric drugs. We
are acutely aware of the horrible results of withdrawal failures. We
know that coming off drugs can be a disastrous experience and cause worse
problems than the original psychological condition that caused a person
to start on the medication. One of our continuing problems has been
finding any treatment specialist who recognizes this problem and is
willing to help by developing a protocol for safe systematic chemical
withdrawal that would promote healing instead of simply pushing the
person into a chemical crisis that they would justify by re-asserting
that the patient "will always be mentally ill."
Today there are more than 300 separate and distinct forms of social and
psychological therapy. There is absolutely no effort being made by NAMI
or the psychological or psychiatric professions to determine which
methodology works and which makes people less and less functional. There
are therapists in the field who recognizing this danger and have been
trying for decades to tell people that something was very wrong. The
problem as always is that they were always talking to the wrong people.
It is only C/S/X people who have the real means to know who is telling
the truth. We are the only experts on "mental health" because in fact we
are the only healers on the planet. Four years ago I sat with the
Chaplain on the grounds at Delaware State Hospital. He was old and
tired. He looked at me and said,
"Isn't it a shame. There go thousands of people a day
driving right by on the duPont Highway. If only a few
of them cared enough to stop and talk with our patients,
we could all discover what is wrong with our society
in the United States and we could correct all the violence
and all the hatred and love of war."
That old man was right. It is a principal of Christianity that the
weakest among us will be the source of our greatest leader and the
stimulus for healing the planet.
You closed your last message to me by offering an invitation to come over
to the NAMI point of view. In like measure I would invite you to come
over to the NARFTL (The National Association for the Repeal of Forced
Treatment Laws) point of view. In a paper prepared for the recent NARPA
(The National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy) convention,
Ron Thompson explained this idea as follows:
NARFTL is founded on the proposition that Forced Treatment of persons
diagnosed or labeled "mentally ill" is a vast moral wrong and historical
injustice which should be abolished.
We believe the practice of forced treatment leads to a lifelong
dependency on mental health professionals of great numbers of persons who
are perversely prevented from achieving or regaining their social and
economic independence and freedom. We also believe an enormous number of
iatrogenic (physician-caused) illnesses and injuries are caused by either
the force or threat of forced treatment - illnesses and injuries which
are wrongly attributed to an underlying biochemical brain illness rather
than to the harmful and even fatal physical and psychological
consequences of involuntary treatment.
As a result of these observations and conclusions (members of NARFTL are
former and current mental patients and survivors of unwanted psychiatric
treatment, mental health professional and lawyers who oppose the
medico-legal doctrine of Forced Treatment, and interested others), we
advocate that forced treatment should be abolished WHETHER OR NOT
INDIVIDUALS SUBJECTED TO IT ARE LEGALLY COMPETENT.
In other words, we believe the difficult issues of incompetence, and
control of persons adjudged to be incompetent,. are independent of each
other and should not be commingled and confused under a medical rationale
which is based neither on valid science nor elementary common sense, but
on primitive fears and a dangerous ideology.
THEREFORE, we are dedicated to achieving the following goals:
1) Repeal and abolition of all forced treatment laws.
2) The separation by Law of the two functions of psychiatric practice,
which have been unwisely joined for centuries, but with momentously
increasing consequences in an overly technological era which thinks the
human mind can be exclusively explained in terms of the brain, and is
aggressively spreading that ideology around the world. That is, we
advocate the complete and explicit separation of the two psychiatric
services of providing therapy to patients according to the terms and
values of the Hippocratic Oath, and providing social control to the
authorities, the families of involuntary patients, and to society
generally under the State's broad Police Power.
3) By law, no citizen shall be forced to pay, personally or through any
insurance plan, for unwanted psychiatric treatment.
4) Because the Insanity Defense - that is, the complete escape from
legal responsibility for acts otherwise criminally culpable - is
inextricably related to forced treatment, we advocate the abolition of
this defense. We oppose it as tending strongly to create self-fulfilling
and lifelong psychological conditions or attitudes rendering people unfit
for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and personal freedom.
This document was written two days before the Board of directors of NARPA
meeting in annual convention at Madison, Wisconsin, voted - without a
dissent - to add the following sentence to its Mission statement:
NARPA is committed to advocating the repeal of all forced treatment Laws.
Mr. D.J.Jaffe, I invite you to work together with us not to force
treatment but to identify forms of treatment that heal and do not simply
silence the voices of complaint and protest. What we do need is both
more fairness and of course more love. I want you and all NAMI staff and
families to recognize that without love, there is no fairness, no justice
and of course no healing even possible.
In the present shift to Managed HealthCare programs based on a reduction
in and denial of community services - we need to be aware of effective
C/S/X programs and community services for fear that in a rush toward
parsimony they will all be eradicated. Perhaps that is the real reason
behind your new NAMI motion. You not only want to take away what is
helpful and healing, but leave in its stead a forced drug protocol to
punish all people and disable those labeled as "mentally ill." Wouldn't
you rather try listening and working with people who above all else need
to be heard and can bring us all to the table of healing?
Sincerely,
Quinn D. Rossander, MaCEd
HOPE Chapter,
Mental Health Consumers of DE, Inc.