October 1, 2011 - News of the Week
WITH FACTS LACKING,
FACTOIDS FILL GAP AND SHAPE ATTITUDES
"A
factoid is a questionable or spurious -
unverified, incorrect, or fabricated - statement
formed and
asserted as a fact but with no veracity. The word
appears in the Oxford English
Dictionary
as 'something which becomes accepted as fact, although it
may not be true'."
Quote is from Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
In the field of psychiatry, the lack of facts is a major
obstacle to understanding. This leaves the field open to
inventive adaptations of the existing information. For example,
studies designed for a specific purpose are often mined inappropriately
for data to support a different purpose. Authoritative research
findings are cherry-picked for statements to support a cause.
Facts become grossly distorted when statistics reported by researchers
as relative are presented as absolute to bolster a cause.
Unfortunately, these methods have produced a new body of psychiatric
factoids about violence that now are becoming entrenched, with the
media acting as catalyst.
Media's Primary Role
Years ago, an in-depth study of public attitudes
toward psychiatric disabilities by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
concluded that "Mass media is, far and away, the public's primary
source of information about mental illnesses." Concerned about
the media's vast influence, mental health advocates nationwide began in
the late 1980s to monitor media coverage of mental illnesses. In the mid-1990s, the advocates saw and
recorded a surge of violence-loaded television features, op-eds, and
articles. Most if not all promoted compulsory medication
for psychiatric outpatients, and most of them involved or referred to
Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, forced-medication's most visible proponent.
It was soon clear that the violent media features were part of a
well-funded campaign to legalize forced meds that continues to this
day. A suggestion by a Torrey supporter in 1993 that "it may be
necessary to capitalize on fear of violence to get the law passed" had
swung into action.
Misused Research
A recent addition to this scene is a website
headed
by D. J. Jaffe, a newly-retired adman. Judging from
a sampling of Jaffe's 'fact' sheets, he has appropriated briefing
papers developed over the years by the Treatment Advocacy Center (which
Jaffe co-founded with Dr. Torrey in the late 1990s). The papers consist
of summarized findings of original studies from many sources.
Unfortunately, the Torrey/Jaffe summaries present self-serving
interpretations of the original studies. This led authors of at least four
authoritative studies to state that the Torrey/Jaffe team did not
accurately represent their study's findings. But the
inaccuracies live on. In 1999, an abbreviated version of the
popular but bogus statistic, "1,000 homicides are committed annually by
untreated individuals with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia,"
reportedly made the Congressional Record. Shortened and twisted
by 20 years of use, the 1,000-homicides factoid has morphed to
meaningless and is now applied to people with any history of mental
illness, or half the American public.
Misperceptions Become
Entrenched
Has the twenty-year focus on violence affected the
public's view of mental illnesses? Former Surgeon General David
Satcher found that the public's exaggerated fear of individuals labeled
'mentally ill' raised discriminatory barriers to their health and
well-being. In his groundbreaking report on mental health in 1999
(Introduction and Themes, page 8), Dr. Satcher underscored his concern:
“Because most people should have
little reason to fear violence from those with mental illness, even in
its most severe forms, why is fear of violence so entrenched?
Most speculations focus on media coverage and deinstitutionalization.”
There can be little doubt that the two-decade emphasis on violence by a
determined group of controversial 'advocates' has contributed to the
public's misperception of conditions called 'mental illnesses'.
MORE
INFORMATION
Article:
New York Times
Print Edition: October 4, 2011
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/health/research/04schiz.html
Reprinted using Fair Use
Standard
October 3, 2011
Talk
Therapy
Lifts Severe Schizophrenics
People with severe schizophrenia
who have been isolated, withdrawn and considered beyond help can learn
to become more active, social and employable by engaging in a type of
talk therapy that was invented to treat depression, scientists reported
on Monday.
These new findings suggest that such patients have far
more
capability to improve their lives than was previously assumed and, if
replicated, could change the way that doctors treat the one million
patients for whom the disorder is profoundly limiting.
The therapy — a variant of cognitive behavior
therapy,
which focuses on defusing self-defeating assumptions — increased
motivation and reduced symptoms. In previous studies, researchers have
used cognitive techniques to help people with schizophrenia manage
their hallucinations
and sharpen their attention and memory. The new study is the first to
rigorously test using the therapy to combat so-called negative symptoms
— the listlessness, exhaustion and emotional flatness that trap
many people in solitary lives, playing out their days smoking in front
of the TV or holed up in their homes.
Dr. Bob Buchanan, a psychiatrist at the University of
Maryland
School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, said the results
looked impressive. “This is a group of patients who have tried
just about everything — drug treatments as well as psychosocial
ones — and many clinicians and systems of care have essentially
given up on them. If there’s an intervention out there that can
make a difference, I think that’s an incredibly important
development.”
In the
study, appearing in the current issue of The Archives of General
Psychiatry, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania enrolled 31
people from community health clinics in Philadelphia in a therapy
program that included weekly sessions, each about an hour in length, in
addition to their normal medication regimen. Each person set a goal,
whether to find a job, start a relationship or go back to school. Aided
by the therapist, the person then took incremental steps toward that
goal, going out for coffee, visiting a local bookshop or volunteering
at a community center.
“It took a long time to get patients engaged,”
said
Dr. Aaron T. Beck, a psychiatrist and one of the authors. “We
used video games a lot at the beginning, just to give them a sense of
some mastery.” Dr. Beck invented cognitive therapy decades ago,
about the same time another therapist, Albert Ellis, was developing
similar techniques.
The therapists in the study, all either psychiatrists
or Ph.D.’s, all working from manuals guiding the technique,
helped their patients correct self-defeating beliefs, like
“taking even a small risk is foolish because the loss is likely
to be a disaster,” and “making new friends isn’t
worth the energy it takes.” After about six months, the patients
began to show measurable improvement. After 18 months the benefit was
clear, on the Global Assessment Scale, a standard scale tracking
overall functioning.
“They made a jump of about 10 points on that scale,
on
average, which we consider to be moving a whole level up in terms of
functioning,” said Paul M. Grant, the study’s lead author.
A comparison group of 29 patients who received standard treatment
— medication, and case management services as needed —
showed no such improvement.
Dr. Grant’s co-authors were Gloria A. Huh, and Dr.
Neal M.
Stolar, along with Dr. Beck, of the University of Pennsylvania, and
Dimitri Perivoliotis for the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare
System.
Measures of emotional vitality and sociability were not
changed
much. But motivation improved significantly, and some who got the
cognitive therapy altered their lives for the better, in significant
ways. One woman, who had been frequently hospitalized before the study,
began making coffee at the clinic as a part of therapy, then took her
cart to a community clinic, parlaying that into a job as a cook. She
has not returned to the hospital since.
Still, the course of therapy was extraordinarily long
compared
with what is usually offered. A standard course for depression lasts
three or four months. That may make the approach difficult for strapped
institutions to provide, some experts said. And it is not clear whether
community therapists will be as effective as the University of
Pennsylvania’s highly trained team.
“You have to understand that this is not like
therapy for
depressives,” who usually get better sooner or later anyhow, Dr.
Beck said. “These people do not get better; no one had any good
therapy for them.”
-End of Article-
September
26, 2011 - News of the Week
'HEARING
VOICES USA' JOINS WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT
September 14, 2011,
was International Hearing Voices Day!
To celebrate, the USA network of voice-hearers launched
their new website, ( http://www.hearingvoicesusa.org
) Already the site offers a wealth of
information including resources and links to a network of websites
across the globe -- in Australia, Greece, England, Wales, Denmark, the
Netherlands and more.
In growing numbers, people who hear voices are breaking a silence
imposed by negative social attitudes (stigma). This breakthrough
movement, aided by the Internet, eases the pain of misunderstanding
and isolation. Learn more with a visit to About Us: Hearing
Voices USA
http://www.hearingvoicesusa.org/about-us.html
Below is an excerpt from the National
Empowerment Center press release:
What is World Hearing Voices Day?
From the Intervoice
Website (http://www.intervoiceonline.org):
World Hearing Voices Day
celebrates hearing voices as part of the diversity of human experience,
increasing awareness of the fact that you can hear voices and be
healthy. It challenges the negative attitudes towards people who hear
voices and the incorrect assumption that hearing voices, in itself, is
a sign of illness.
And Don’t Forget to Join
the Hearing Voices Network USA on Facebook, too…
In addition to the new Hearing Voices USA website,
we’ve also found a home on Facebook so come join us there as well
and take part in making the Hearing Voices USA Facebook page an
informative and interesting place to be! Click here to join the Hearing
Voices Network USA on Facebook.
September 2,
2011 - News of the Week
Format
#1
HOW FICTION BECOMES FACTOID
A factoid is a questionable or spurious -
unverified, incorrect, or fabricated - statement
formed and asserted as a fact but with no veracity. The word
appears in the Oxford English
Dictionary as 'something which becomes accepted as fact, although it
may not be true.'"
Quote is from Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Dr.
E. Fuller Torrey is perhaps psychiatry's most visible spokesperson. He
is also the nation's most active proponent of forced psychotropic
medication for psychiatric outpatients. Unfortunately, Dr. Torrey
has often stretched or misquoted outright the research findings of
others to win support for his controversial agenda.
The
most recent example of Dr.Torrey's self-serving work appears in an
article, Stigma
and Violence: Isn't It Time To Connect the Dots,
which first appeared in July in the advance publication of Schizophrenia
Bulletin (SB), and
is now in the September 2011 issue.
In
the SB article, Dr. Torrey contends that actual acts of violence are
the basis of stigma against people who are labeled mentally ill. Torrey
says this cause of prejudice and discrimination can be
eliminated by accepting and acting upon his assumptions about
violence (named 'dots'). In his discussion of the assumptions,
Torrey cites studies to support his views.
Interestingly,
some of the studies quoted in the SB article are on file at the
National Stigma Clearinghouse. In every one, Torrey has either
cherry-picked, or worse, altered the study findings to suit his
purpose.
Below
are some factual errors in the connect-the-dots article:
|
(1) Dr. Torrey misstates
former Surgeon General David Satcher's conclusions about stigma and
violence described in Dr. Satcher's groundbreaking report on mental
health in 1999 (page 8). Dr. Torrey mistakes "perception of
violence" to mean "evidence of violence" and thus twists Dr.Satcher's
conclusions to agree with his own opinion that violence causes stigma. In fact, Dr.
Satcher concludes that the public's fear is disproportionate the the
low risk of violence; his report states: "Because most people should
have little reason to fear violence from people with mental illness,
even in its most severe form, why is fear of violence so entrenched?"
(2) Dr. Torrey misrepresents research findings (article
1996) of Matthias C. Angermeyer and Herbert Matschinger, University
of Leipzig to support his view that violence committed by mentally ill
people is a major cause of stigma. In fact, the researchers
concluded that media coverage of mental illnesses promotes stigma by
focusing selectively on incidents of violence. They noted that such
selective coverage has a detrimental effect on public opinion and
“important implications for public policy issues," and to correct
this they proposed that "Having demonstrated the detrimental
effects of selective reporting, we must focus our attention on the
inevitable question of how to counteract such reports." In sharp
contrast, the Torrey article's opening paragraphs deride advocates'
attempts to balance the media's coverage of mental illnesses. For 20 years, Torrey's
focus on "walking time bombs" has taken precedence over features that could show
voluntary treatment programs that work for hard-to-treat individuals,
and articles that reflect a growing recognition that despite serious
psychiatric conditions, people can achieve fulfilling lives.
In a later paper (International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 2001
Vol. 24, pp 469-486) Dr. Angermeyer and Beate Schulze state that
"deviance is a prime component of 'newsworthiness'. The marked
over-representation of forensic cases in press reporting about mental
health is clearly the product of impact-maximizing and
complexity-reducing selection routines in news production."
(3) Dr. Torrey implies that his views are confirmed by a study by Jason
C. Matejkowski et al (2008). This study does not
support and is not relevant to Dr. Torrey's opinion that violence
is increasing among people who have a serious mental illness. In
fact, the reseachers' findings discredit the familiar stereotype that
Dr. Torrey has so often promoted. The article by Matejkowski et al is
an analysis of violence committed by persons who have a mental
illness, and is free online. “Characteristics
of Persons With Severe Mental Illness Who Have Been Incarcerated for
Murder”, The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the
Law,
36:74-86, 2008.
Could the
public's unwarranted fear of people labeled with mental
illnesses, described by Surgeon General David Satcher and
others, be fallout from Dr.
Torrey's 20-year public focus on violence to attain his medication
goals?
MORE INFORMATION
Excerpt from News
of the Week (National Stigma Clearinghouse) December 7, 2007
TAC'S "TOP 10 STORIES OF 2007" CONTINUE A
PATTERN OF FEARMONGERING
Last week, the Treatment Advocacy Center, the nation's leading
proponent of compulsory neuroleptic medication, issued a list of ten
"under-reported stories of 2007." Seven of the ten stories involve
crime or dangerousness. Clearly, http://www.psychlaws.org
intends to continue its pattern of fanning fear to win public support
for its controversial agenda.
Also troubling are errors of fact. For example, by lifting a phrase out
of a research study published by Jeffrey Swanson et.al. (Archives of
General Psychiatry, May 2006), TAC created an astounding rate of
violence for patients with schizophrenia, 10 times greater than the
general public, (or 19.1% vs 2%).
Acts considered violent by TAC range from a brief threatening gesture
to a physical assault causing injury. TAC fails to mention that the
Swanson team found two levels of violence: only 3.6% of research
participants were involved in serious violence. This rate is similar to
the general population rate of 2% (ECA data circa 1980).
For the public, violence means danger. But Swanson's research team uses
the word to mean involvment in a fight whether or not the respondent
was the aggressor or defending himself. The researchers called such
fights assaults by the respondents. The fights involving 15.5% were
called "minor violence" (no injury and no use of threat or knife). The
remaining 3.6% were called "serious violence" (a weapon was used or
there was some injury, at least a bruise.) Quoting from Heathcote
W. Wales, Georgetown U., letter to the Washington Post, "Hype Won't
Help The Mentally Ill," 6/4/06.
The Treatment Advocacy Center also ignored the Swanson team's finding
that the odds of violent behavior varied with factors other than
psychotic symptoms. Further, the data used for the Swanson study
was designed for a different project, the Catie study on medications.
This raises questions about the data's findings.
Read an interesting
commentary by John Grohol, founder of PsychCentral, about the
pitfalls and variations that plague research
on violence. Go to
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/05/04/crime-consequences-and-mental-illness/
|
Format #2
HOW FICTION BECOMES FACTOID
"A factoid is a questionable or spurious - unverified, incorrect, or
fabricated - statement
formed and asserted as a fact but with no veracity. The
word appears in the Oxford English
Dictionary as 'something which
becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true.'"
Quote
is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr.
E. Fuller Torrey is perhaps psychiatry's most visible spokesperson. He
is also the nation's most active proponent of forced psychotropic
medication for psychiatric outpatients. Unfortunately, Dr. Torrey
has often stretched or misquoted outright the research findings of
others to win support for his controversial agenda.
The
most recent example of Dr.Torrey's self-serving work appears in an
article, Stigma
and Violence: Isn't It Time To Connect the Dots,
which first appeared in July in the advance publication of Schizophrenia
Bulletin (SB), and
is now in the September 2011 issue.
In
the SB article, Dr. Torrey contends that actual acts of violence are
the basis
of
stigma against people who are labeled mentally ill. Torrey says
this
cause of prejudice and discrimination can be
eliminated by accepting and acting upon his assumptions about
violence (named 'dots'). In discussing these assumptions,
Torrey cites studies to support his views.
Interestingly,
some of the studies quoted in Torrey's SB article are on file at
the
National Stigma Clearinghouse. In every one, Torrey has either
cherry-picked, or worse, altered the study findings to suit his
purpose.
Some
examples
of errors in the connect-the-dots article:
(1)
Dr. Torrey misstates former Surgeon General David Satcher's conclusions
about stigma and violence described in Dr. Satcher's groundbreaking
report on mental health in 1999 (page 8). Dr. Torrey mistakes
"perception of violence" to mean "evidence of violence" and thus twists Dr.Satcher's conclusions to agree
with his own opinion that violence causes stigma. In
fact, Dr. Satcher concludes that the public's fear is disproportionate
the the low risk of violence; his report states: "Because most people
should have little reason to fear violence from people with mental
illness, even in its most severe form, why is fear of violence so
entrenched?"
(2)
Dr. Torrey
misrepresents
research findings (article
1996) of Matthias C. Angermeyer and Herbert Matschinger, University
of Leipzig to support his view that violence committed by
mentally ill people is a major cause of stigma. In fact, the
researchers concluded that
media
coverage of mental illnesses promotes stigma by focusing selectively on
incidents of violence. They noted that such selective coverage
has a detrimental effect on public opinion and “important
implications for public policy issues," and to correct this they
proposed that "Having demonstrated the detrimental effects of
selective reporting, we must focus our attention on the inevitable
question of how to counteract such reports." In sharp contrast,
the Torrey article's opening paragraphs deride advocates' attempts to
balance the media's coverage of mental illnesses.
For 20 years, Torrey's focus on "walking
time bombs" has taken precedence over features that could show
voluntary treatment programs that work for hard-to-treat individuals,
and articles that reflect a growing recognition that despite serious
psychiatric conditions, people can achieve fulfilling lives.
In a later paper (International Journal of Law and
Psychiatry, 2001 Vol. 24, pp 469-486) Dr. Angermeyer and Beate
Schulze state that "deviance is a prime component of 'newsworthiness'.
The marked over-representation of forensic cases in press reporting
about mental health is clearly the product of impact-maximizing and
complexity-reducing selection routines in news production."
(3) Dr. Torrey
implies
that his views are confirmed by a study by Jason C. Matejkowski et
al (2008). This study does not support and is not relevant
to Dr. Torrey's opinion that violence is increasing among people
who have a serious mental illness. In fact, the reseachers'
findings discredit the familiar stereotype that Dr. Torrey has so often
promoted. The article by Matejkowski et al is an analysis of
violence committed by persons who have a mental illness, and is
free online.
“Characteristics
of Persons With Severe Mental Illness Who Have Been Incarcerated for
Murder”,
The Journal
of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 36:74-86,
2008.
Could the public's
unwarranted fear of people labeled with mental illnesses,
described by Surgeon General David Satcher and others, be fallout
from Dr. Torrey's 20-year
public focus on violence to attain his medication goals?
MORE INFORMATION
December 30, 2007 - News
of the Week (National Stigma Clearinghouse)
TAC'S "TOP 10 STORIES OF 2007" CONTINUE A PATTERN OF
FEARMONGERING
Last week, the Treatment Advocacy Center, the nation's leading
proponent of compulsory neuroleptic medication, issued a list of ten
"under-reported stories of 2007." Seven of the ten stories involve
crime or dangerousness. Clearly, http://www.psychlaws.org
intends to continue its pattern of fanning fear to win public support
for its controversial agenda.
Also troubling are errors of fact. For example, by lifting a phrase out
of a research study published by Jeffrey Swanson et.al. (Archives of
General Psychiatry, May 2006), TAC created an astounding rate of
violence for patients with schizophrenia, 10 times greater than the
general public, (or 19.1% vs 2%).
Acts considered violent by TAC range from a brief threatening gesture
to a physical assault causing injury. TAC fails to mention that the
Swanson team found two levels of violence: only 3.6% of research
participants were involved in serious violence. This rate is similar to
the general population rate of 2% (ECA data circa 1980).
For the public, violence means danger. But Swanson's research team uses
the word to mean involvment in a fight whether or not the respondent
was the aggressor or defending himself. The researchers called such
fights assaults by the respondents. The fights involving 15.5% were
called "minor violence" (no injury and no use of threat or knife). The
remaining 3.6% were called "serious violence" (a weapon was used or
there was some injury, at least a bruise.) Quoting from Heathcote
W. Wales, Georgetown U., letter to the Washington Post, "Hype Won't
Help The Mentally Ill," 6/4/06.
The Treatment Advocacy Center also ignored the Swanson team's finding
that the odds of violent behavior varied with factors other than
psychotic symptoms. Further, the data used for the Swanson study was
designed for a different project, the Catie study on medications. This
raises questions about the data's findings
Read an interesting online conversation between John Grohol,
psychologist, and Jeffrey Swanson, researcher, about pitfalls and
variations that plague research on violence. Go to
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/05/04/crime-consequences-and-mental-illness/
August
9, 2011 - News
of the Week
A CLOSER
LOOK AT HEARING VOICES
Benedict
Carey continues
his remarkable New York Times series on mental illnesses with "Learning
to Cope With the Mind's Taunting Voices"
(Times Front Page, August
7, 2011). The series' first article ("Expert
on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight,”
June 23) described
in detail a therapist's successful battle against against suicidal
impulses.
Clearly, Mr. Carey is
attuned to a growing willingness
among psychiatric survivors to explain their experiences of living with
disabling psychiatric conditions.
It's worth noting
that many Europeans do not automatically
link hearing voices to schizophrenia -- a common assumption in the
US. Below are links to more information.
MORE
INFORMATION
Can
You Live With the Voices in Your Head?, by Daniel B. Smith March 25,
2007
Voices of the Heart
Facilitator Training
Coverage
of Mental Illness Provides Good Cheer , by Robert David Jaffee, August
9, 2011
Learning
to Cope With the Mind's Taunting Voices, by Benedict Carey, August 7,
2011
Expert
on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight. by Benedict Carey, June 23,
2011
Wikipedia: Hearing Voices
Movement
July
18, 2011 - News of the Week
Article Source: NYAPRS Enews
Addressing
Metabolic Conditions In People Diagnosed
With SMI
by Ed
Knight, Ph.D.,
Mental Health Weekly From the Field July 18, 2011
Metabolic
conditions like
weight gain, hypertension and diabetes, are common in populations with
serious, persistent mental illnesses. People are dying 25 years younger
than average, mostly from cardiovascular illnesses. This problem is
made worse by the most common side effect of psychiatric medications:
weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
There are two related issues in prescribing: off-label use
against FDA recommendations; and unnecessary use of multiple
psychiatric medications (documented by Lloyd Sederer, M.D., medical
director at the New York State Office of Mental Health, in journal
articles and blogs).
Despite widespread
knowledge, addressing metabolic side
effects beginning with monitoring is low among mental health
practitioners and providers. Well-researched psychiatric rehabilitation
strategies to increase wellness and reduce the number and doses of
psychiatric medications tend not to be followed much. Even
very
obvious strategies like changing medications to medications that cause
fewer metabolic complications are not widely practiced. Why?
Mental health providers are not financially incentivized to
prevent costly side effects that are causing a Medicaid funding crisis
and increased mortality. Changing medications or implementing
medical or psychosocial practices create costs for mental health
organizations. To address this issue, some mental health organizations
are becoming licensed to bill for medical services. This
provides
funding for metabolic management. However, this extra billing creates
no disincentive for causing metabolic problems in the first place and
to date does not lessen them.
Attempts were made to
solve this issue of perverse
incentives for over a year within ValueOptions where I served as vice
president of recovery. Those attempts failed. At
one small
Colorado clubhouse 30 people on psychiatric medications have died in
the last three years below the age of 62. Three were suicides
likely due to their friends dying. Research shows increased
suicide rates associated with metabolic side effects.
Advocacy Pursuits
I resigned from
ValueOptions to devote my time to solving
this crisis with advocacy, research and consulting on managed care
issues. Unless these issues are solved recovery is unlikely.
In advocacy, I am providing information to Medicaid
authorities
and actively lobbying. If providers were accountable for
pharmacy
costs, mental health costs and medical costs for their clients, this
would financially incentivize providers to detect and prevent metabolic
side effects and lower medical costs. Savings could then be used to
provide the evidence-based psychiatric rehabilitation practices needed
to reduce the number and doses of medications. Accountable Care
Organizations (ACOs) could be structured to address the metabolic
side-effects. There is now a division between acute and well care and
long-term care. A disease caused in the acute treatment could then be
billed in long-term care. This would carry perverse financial
incentives driving side effect disease into health care reform
[efforts]. Extending the period of acute and well care to
include
sufficient time to make ACOs responsible for the side effects from
improper use of psychiatric medications would create incentives to
lessen them and save monies which could be used to pay for medical
monitoring and rehabilitation interventions.
I am working with a
UCLA team led by Alex Young, M.D.,
psychiatrist and health services researcher, to address the prescribing
issues with simple shared decision-making techniques and the lifestyle
issues with some new psychosocial interventions to deal with symptoms
and concrete skillful means to motivate change. The lowering
of
doses and numbers of medications is interrelated with lifestyle issues
in complex ways. We have developed a “stages of
change” model moving from learned helplessness to a healthy
lifestyle which may allow for medication reductions. The UCLA pilot is
about Mindfulness Based Self-Directed Rehabilitation (MBSDR). We are
seeking grants to support this work. In consulting I am
working
with Peer Links, a peer-run technical assistance center funded by the
SAMHSA at the Mental Health Association of Oregon to bring MBSDR in
webinars to the larger peer recovery movement. I am available
to
consult about managed care to advocate for wellness and recovery.
Ed Knight, Ph.D., is a
national consumer leader. He resigned in May as vice president of
recovery and resiliency at ValueOptions. For more information on MBSDR
visit www.professored.com
.
Knight
can reached at
daiguangy@hotmail.com .
-
End of Article -
MORE
INFORMATION
Hopes were high when Ed Knight joined Value Options in 2001. At the
time,
Mental
Health Weekly,
December 3, 2001, wrote, "What Ed Knight has
demonstrated is that you
can give people new medication and they will have fewer symptoms, but
their lives won't change until you change the approach to treatment.."
As it happened, efforts to point the delivery system toward
recovery and mutual support lost favor after a Goldman Sachs
company, Crestview Investments, gained the controlling interest.
Read Full
Article
July
6, 2011 - News of the Week
A
PLAN TO
REDUCE STIGMA DISTORTS DATA
In
the July issue of Schizophrenia
Bulletin,
Dr. E.
Fuller Torrey, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and chief
proponent of compulsory psychotropic medication, proposes a way to
reduce stigma. Dr. Torrey outlines his plan in an article
titled, "Stigma and Violence: Isn't It Time to Connect the
Dots?"
For those who are
unfamiliar with Dr. Torrey's views
concerning stigma, he believes that a primary cause of stigma is
violence committed by mentally ill individuals. A basic flaw
in
Dr. Torrey's argument concerns his merging of perception
and evidence.
The public's perceptions
may not accurately reflect reality
– as any advertiser knows.
Dr. Torrey suggests
six 'dots' as follows: (quote -
bold type added)
(1) Stigma
against individuals
with mental illnesses has increased
over the past half century.
(2) Violent acts
committed by mentally ill persons have increased
over
the past half century.
(3) The perceptions
of violent behavior by mentally ill persons is an important cause of
stigma.
(4) Most episodes of
violence committed
by mentally ill persons are
associated with a failure to treat
them.
(5) Treating
people with serious mental illnesses significantly decreases episodes of
violence.
(6) Reducing violent
behavior among individuals
with mental illnesses will reduce
stigma.
(Note:
'Treat' and
'Treatment' are code words for antipsychotic medication. ja)
Unfortunately, Dr.
Torrey misinterprets the findings of
researchers to promote his plan.
(1) Dr.
Torrey misstates former Surgeon General
David Satcher's conclusions about stigma and violence described in Dr.
Satcher's groundbreaking report on mental health in 1999 (page
8). Dr.
Torrey mistakes "perception of violence" to mean "evidence of violence"
and thus twists
Dr.Satcher's
conclusions to agree with his own opinion that violence causes stigma.
In fact, Dr. Satcher concludes that the public's fear is
disproportionate the the low risk of violence; his report states:
"Because most people should have little reason to fear violence from
people with mental illness, even in its most severe form, why is fear
of violence so entrenched?"
(2) Dr.
Torrey misrepresents
research findings (article
1996) of Matthias C. Angermeyer
and Herbert
Matschinger, University of Leipzig
to support his view that
violence committed by mentally ill people is a major cause of
stigma. In fact, the researchers concluded that media
coverage of
mental illnesses promotes stigma by focusing selectively on incidents
of violence. They noted that such selective coverage has a detrimental
effect on public opinion and “important implications for
public
policy issues," and to correct this they proposed that "Having
demonstrated the
detrimental effects of selective reporting, we must focus our attention
on the inevitable question of how to counteract such
reports." In
sharp contrast, the Torrey article's opening paragraphs deride
advocates' attempts to balance the media's coverage of mental
illnesses. For 20 years, Torrey's focus on "walking time bombs" has
taken precedence over features that could show voluntary treatment
programs that work for hard-to-treat individuals, and articles that
reflect a growing recognition that despite serious psychiatric
conditions, people can achieve fulfilling lives.
In a later paper
(International Journal of Law and
Psychiatry, 2001 Vol. 24, pp 469-486) Dr. Angermeyer and
Beate
Schulze state that "deviance is a prime component of 'newsworthiness'.
The marked over-representation of forensic cases in press reporting
about mental health is clearly the product of impact-maximizing and
complexity-reducing selection routines in news production."
(3) Dr. Torrey implies
that his views are confirmed by a study by Jason
C. Matejkowski et
al
(2008).
This study does not support and is not relevant to Dr.
Torrey's
opinion that violence is
increasing among people who have a serious mental illness. In
fact, the reseachers' findings discredit the familiar stereotype that
Dr. Torrey has so often promoted. The article by Matejkowski et al is
an analysis of violence committed by persons who have a
mental
illness, and is free
online. “Characteristics
of Persons With Severe Mental Illness Who Have Been Incarcerated for
Murder”, The Journal
of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law,
36:74-86,
2008.
June
28, 2011 - News of the Week
RESEARCHERS EXPOSE MYTHS
ABOUT VIOLENCE
For decades people
with mental illnesses have been
unjustly blamed for the nation's extraordinary amount of gun
violence. The truth about violence, long distorted by
violence-prone media and forced-medication advocates, is the topic of
an article
by
Jonathan Metzl of Vanderbilt University, Focus
on mental illness
in gun debate is misleading.
The entire
essay has been published on the
website of The
Lancet (www.thelancet.com)
PREVIEW
ARTICLE by Jim Patterson
ENTIRE
ESSAY by Jonathan M. Metzl
The excerpt below, from the National Stigma Clearinghouse archive, is
just one example of distortion by the media and forced-treatment
advocates. Ignoring protests, CBS aired this 60
Minutes segment for a second
time in 2003 when Congress was
considering
changes to the National Instant Criminal Background-check System.
October 13, 2002 - News of the Week
CBS
RUSH TO JUDGMENT
SENSATIONALIZES MENTAL ILLNESSES (AGAIN)! (first
broadcast)
Assumes unknown "sniper
on a killing spree" has a mental
illness
Using bogus homicide numbers and a bumbling choice of archive
materials, "Armed and Dangerous," (a 60
Minutes
segment on October 13), tried to link a proposed federal gun law
amendment, a series of sniper murders, and mental illness. Not enough
time was spent on opposing facts and views, and people with mental
illnesses were made to seem like one of society's most dangerous
populations.
This is just the latest example of "walking time bomb" stories aired by
CBS on 48 Hours, 60 Minutes,
and 60 Minutes II.
The earliest example in our CBS News file is a report in 1987 by
Bernard Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg mentioned some form of "killing" 20
times in the 4-minute "news" piece, which concerned five violent
incidents committed by "deranged" people over an unspecified number of
years.
Last night, "Armed and Dangerous" tried to weave together stories about
the present sniper killer in Maryland; a proposed gun law to add
involutarily-committed psychiatric patients to federal criminal
databases; and high-profile shootings by Colin Ferguson (1993), Russell
Weston (1995) , Michael McDermott (2000), and Peter Troy (2002). Only
Mr. Weston and Mr. Troy had any history of involuntary
institutionalization, meaning that the gun law amendment would not have
red-flagged the other two men for gun checks.
The important story missed is that Weston and Troy are prime examples
of dismal mental health system failure. Mr. Weston was known both to
the system and the FBI as someone who desperately needed help. Mr. Troy
was also well-known as deeply disturbed and needing intensive care. Both
cases show negligence at all levels of government to fund the required
programs.
Most outrageous were the lead-in statements by Steve Croft: "Why is it
so hard to stop deranged gunmen from terrorizing American communities,
like the sniper who has terrorized Maryland?" And, "Every year across
the United States, nearly 1,000 homicides are committed by people with
severe mental illness."
The initial statement has two flaws. First, it assumes that the
Maryland sniper is "deranged," at a time when there is absolutely no
evidence to that effect. The killer could equally as plausibly be a
sociopath, or an El Queda terrorist, or simply an angry boy of the
Columbine type. Secondly, it implies that such activity is going on
almost routinely across America, when anyone who reads the newspapers
knows it is not.
The second statement includes the infamous "1,000 homicides" statistic
that originated in the imagination of Dr. Fuller Torrey, and is
unsupported by any scientific evidence.
In addition, the program failed to stress the existence of various
sub-populations in this country that are far more violence-prone than
people with mental illnesses.
One has to express dismay at such a sloppy, misshapen piece of
journalism. It certainly falls far below the standards we have come to
expect from 60 Minutes.
This segment must not be repeated. Contact 60
Minutes and
executives at CBS.
E-mail: 60m@cbs.com
E-mail Viewer comment: audsvcs@cbs.com
Telephone comment: 212-975-3247
Mail: Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes, CBS News, 524 West 57th Street, New York,
NY 10019
David F. Poltrack, Senior V.P., Research & Planning, CBS, Inc.,
51
West 52nd St., New York, NY 10019
For a transcript ($9 + $3 fee for tel.), call 1-800-777-8398
End of excerpt
from NSC archive
June 16, 2011 - News of the Week
WORDS
MATTER:
A BRITISH WEBSITE AIMS
FOR CHANGE
Ten
mental health
organizations in the UK have joined in launching a
beautifully-designed, well-organized new website, WordsMatter.
Their aim
is to establish a systematic process for encouraging people to praise
good, and challenge poor, reporting on mental health issues.
To guide their work,
the group has chosen simple criteria
that are in keeping with standards set by the UK's Press Complaints Commission.
American mental health advocates should check out the Commission's Code of Practice
guidelines
concerning Accuracy
and
Discrimination.
To our knowledge, the US lacks a similar national standard for the
press, and
media entities here 'self-regulate' their content using their
own standards of practice.
This innovative
response system shows vitality,
determination, and ingenuity. KUDOS TO ALL INVOLVED!
Link to WordsMatter
http://www.wordsmatter.org.uk/home
June
2, 2011 - News of the Week
HOW
STATISTICS
CAN TWIST THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MEDICAL TREATMENTS
A New
York Times column ("Translation
Matters In Choices On Data"
(5/31/2011) by Nicholas Bakalar reports
a recent study of how treatment choices are typically made by health
professionals, patients, students and the general public.
Dr. Elie A. Akl, University of Buffalo, who led the researchers,
cautioned journalists to "be careful about press releases with 'new' or
'groundbreaking' studies presenting a relative risk
reduction." Relative
risk differs
from absolute
risk in
important ways seldom
understood by the public, and the difference between them is a major
source of confusion.
For example, a "50
percent reduction" in relative
risk
could mean a drop from "20 percent to 10 percent," (impressive), but it
could also mean a reduction from "2 percent to 1 percent,"
(unimpressive). This curious fact can be important in
making treatment decisions.
According to the researchers' plain language summary (Cochrane
Reviews), "there are strong
logical arguments for not reporting relative
values alone, as they do not allow a fair comparison of benefits and
harms as absolute
values do."
It may be
necessary to
right-click the link, then click "open in new
window"
May
11, 2011 - News of
the Week
THOUGHTS
ABOUT
LANGUAGE, ATTITUDES, AND DISCRIMINATION
Offensive
language is
bias having a good
time (paraphrasing
Michael Wood, 1995)
Society's
attitudes toward any minority group can be
measured by how willingly the public accepts discrimination against
that group. But surely an equally valid measure of public
attitudes is everyday language. The idea that the
way we talk about
people is the way we treat them
seems self-evident. Take
the case of derisive words like "faggot" and "nigger." They
have become off-limits to everyone except the members of the group
involved. But similar progress has eluded the mental health
community.
Psychiatric slurs are
so common that they go unnoticed in
our everyday
speech. Even a standard-setter for language, the New York
Times,
lets columnists vent their frustration by calling opponents "crazies,"
and "certifiables."
It would be
comforting to think that psychiatric slurs
have taken on
such broadened usage that they no longer denigrate mental illnesses.
Sadly, that hasn't happened. Take for example Alfred
Hitchcock's
use of the prefix "psycho" (the original meaning is "mind") as a movie
title. Hitchcock would surely be pained to know that his
creation
is a lucrative favorite of product merchandisers who twist the word to
mean violence. A recent example is the 2011
calendar cover of Psycho Donuts
in Silicon Valley.
To the detriment of the mental illness community, "psycho" has become
so popular that dictionaries now list as its colloquial meanings
"psychotic" and "psychopathic." This causes major confusion
since
clinically these are very different conditions.
Is there a solution? Suggestions are welcome.
For
starters, the following quote is from Michael Wood, historian and
educator. Source: "We Are What We Write," New York Times, May
21, 1995.
Offensive
language is more than bias; it's bias having a good time.
One
reason we can't get rid of it is that people like to be offensive.
__________________________________________________________________________
Just
received, May 15: An astute and thought-provoking essay on
language by
David Oaks, Director, MindFreedom International, click "LET'S
STOP SAYING "MENTAL ILLNESS"
!
___________________________________________________________________________
Announcing a new
peer-reviewed open access
Journal
Stigma Research and Action is an open-access
not-for-profit journal
with no article-processing charge. It provides
immediate
open access to its papers on the principle that making research freely
available to the public supports a greater global exchange of
knowledge.
SRA's online journal is a multi-disciplinary forum
for the
dissemination of information advancing both research and
practice as applied to any stigmatizsed condition or group.
To learn more and to read the first
issue, visit http://www.
stigmaj.org
April
8, 2011 - News of the Week
HOUSING CRUCIAL TO TREAT
MENTAL HEALTH
ISSUES
By
M. J. Bright, The Daily News, Nanaimo (British Columbia, Canada)
April
4, 2011
Source:
Canada.com via
Google Alerts
Re:
'Councillors waffle on
housing plan' (Daily News, March 31)
I
am a senior who
volunteers three times a week on
the psychiatry in-patient unit. I have been doing that volunteer work
for over three years and have never felt concern for my safety.
The truth is that the
vast majority of people with a
mental illness are
not threatening or dangerous. Rather, they are much more likely to be
victims of crime.
It saddens me that so
many people have stigmatized those
with a mental
illness as being bad or weak-willed, or scary or dangerous. That simply
is just not true. People with mental illnesses are just like you and
me. Chances are, someone you know has a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental
illness.
Councillors need to
educate themselves on the realities of
mental
illness and become true leaders in Nanaimo. They must allow the housing
for people with mental illness to proceed.
M. J. Bright
Nanaimo
©
Copyright (c) Postmedia
News
Reprinted using Fair Use
standard
Jauary
23, 2011 - News of the Week
A
MUST-SEE VIDEO: SEVEN INSIGHTFUL PATIENTS DESCRIBE BOUTS WITH PSYCHOSIS
In
brief videotaped portraits, seven courageous
young people open their lives to the public, showing that
self-understanding can be both rewarding and distressing.
This is a timely, must-see segment in a New York Times
health series titled
Patient Voices.
The
Voices of Schizophrenia was
created by Tara Parker-Pope (September
15, 2010).
Link
to video: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/16/health/healthguide/te_schizophrenia.html
January
16, 2011
INVOLUNTARY
OUTPATIENT COMMITMENT (IOC) IS NOT THE SOLUTION
Commentary:
It
is now clear that forcibly medicating psychiatric
outpatients will not prevent mass murders. When rare rampages
have occurred, very few assailants had predictive histories that would
have qualified them for involuntary outpatient commitment
(IOC).
IOC laws give the public a false sense of
security rather than protection.
Kendra's Law, said to be the nation's model IOC statute, was quickly
passed in August 1999 by the New York State Legislature and signed by
Governor George Pataki following an intense campaign of scare tactics
and false
information. There was never doubt that Andrew Goldstein was
guilty of
Kendra Webdale's death on January 3, 1999, in a Manhattan
subway. But for two previous years Goldstein had
searched in vain for the help and supervision he knew he needed. Yet
the forced-treatment proponents, ignoring Goldstein's 13 voluntary
admissions to psychiatric facilities, proclaimed him a "treatment
refuser." Anger overwhelmed facts and an
outpatient
forced-treatment statute (Kendra's Law) was enacted with record speed.
Thus was lost a singular opportunity to focus public attention on New
York's dangerously broken
system and scarcity of effective programs.
Has Kendra's Law met its promise to successfully treat patients who
have histories of violent behavior (description not available)
?
An internal report in 2005 showed
that 85%
of the program's participants had NO such history. A brutal
murder in Manhattan (2008) was commited by a man who, according to his
father, was in treatment under Kendra's Law. The Arizona
version
of Kendra's Law failed to deter the Tucson tragedy. And although the
Treatment Advocacy Center claims spectacular success, a close look at
the figures (elevated
by basing
outcome results on percentages-of-percentages)
show a
self-serving
interpretation of the program's
outcomes. Two recent independent evaluations found that the program's
flaws are serious enough to postpone its expansion or permanence.
Oddly, forced treatment proponents say next to nothing about the
well-known dangerous combination of alcohol, street drugs, and
psychiatric diagnoses. One would expect the Treatment Advocacy Center
to be in the forefront of developing and promoting integrated treatment
programs aimed at treating a population whose rates of violent behavior
far exceed those who have a mental illness alone. The Treatment
Advocacy Center's narrow focus on medication for close to 20 years is
inexplicable when safer, more acceptable treatment methods are
available but lack the resources to expand. j. arnold
RELATED LINKS
Below
are excellent selected
links:
Media
Ignore Key Perspective About Arizona Tragedy
A statement by
David
Oaks, Director, MindFreedom International
Advocates
Warn Against Stigmatizing Mental Illnesses
A video
interview with Harvey Rosenthal, Director, New York State Association
of
Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS)
Challenge
the Stigma That Deters Mentally Ill From Seeking Services
by
Eduardo Vega, Executive Director, Mental Health Association
of
San Francisco. Source: San Francisco Chronicle (Jan 14, 2011)
January
12, 2011
ADVOCACY
COALITION SUGGESTS WAYS TO AVERT FUTURE TRAGEDIES
For Immediate Release:
National
Coalition of
Individuals with Mental Health Conditions Calls for Reasonable Response
to Arizona Tragedy
WASHINGTON
(1/10/11) – The
National
Coalition for Mental Health Recovery
(NCMHR),
an
organization of statewide networks of persons in recovery from mental
health conditions as well as individual members, joins the nation in
grieving the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other Arizonans.
“We especially understand the impact of violence because,
contrary to popular belief, research has shown we are no more violent
than the general population and in fact are 11 times more likely to be
victims of violence,” said NCMHR steering committee member
Daniel
B. Fisher, M.D., Ph.D.
“Let’s
not
scapegoat and stigmatize an entire group for the actions of a single
individual,” Fisher said. “A literature review has
shown
that the homicide of a stranger by a person with severe mental health
issues occurs to 1 in 14 million persons. This is so rare that the
authors concluded it was impossible to predict violence by individuals
with mental health issues (Nielssen
et al., Schizophrenia Bulletin,
2009).”
The
NCMHR urges decision makers
to focus as much on Arizona’s and the nation’s
climate of
violent discourse and the need for gun control as on controlling
persons labeled with mental illness. “We know from our
personal
experience that recovery from trauma is nurtured by respectful dialogue
and blocked by vitriolic diatribe such as we see today,”
Fisher
continued. “We have developed the values and skills to heal
the
anger we believe causes much of our discord. We have learned that anger
and hopelessness can be transformed to a passion for life when people
are listened to and understood, especially by peers,” he said.
“As
usual, there are
calls for forced treatment,” he continued. “Yet
Arizona
already has involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC)”
–
which allows the compulsory treatment of individuals with mental health
conditions who live in the community – “and that
did not
prevent this violence. In fact, IOC makes people afraid to seek
treatment, fearing services that are stigmatizing and
coercive.”
The
NCMHR supports the
provision of hopeful, compassionate services and support, and research
into holistic, non-pharmaceutical approaches instead of the
system’s over-reliance on psychotropic treatment.
“We know
from experience that peer support can reach isolated, frightened
persons,” Fisher said. “So we call for a national
initiative to provide peer support services at colleges and high
schools to help troubled students through respectful, mutual
assistance. We need to infuse recovery and support into our mental
health care systems, our first responders and the criminal justice
system through innovative programs such as emotional-CPR (a
preventative public health program) and peer-run alternatives to
hospitalization.”
NCMHR
member Harvey Rosenthal,
a leading spokesperson for the peer movement, was Rep.
Giffords’
classmate in 2003 at Harvard's Kennedy School for Policy Leadership.
“Gabby has a long record of fighting against discrimination
on
behalf of Americans diagnosed with mental health issues,”
said
Rosenthal. “We don’t believe she’d want
stigma and
discrimination to be fueled by this shooting."
In
March 2008, Giffords praised
passage of the parity legislation designed to end discrimination
against persons seeking treatment for mental health issues.
"Discrimination has no place in our society," said the Tucson lawmaker.
NCMHR
supports the federal
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA),
which works to promote hope and recovery for individuals with even the
most severe mental health conditions. “We appreciate the
groundbreaking work SAMHSA is supporting to expand innovative outreach
and engagement services, to improve service responsiveness and raise
standards of care,” said NCMHR director Lauren Spiro.
Contacts:
Daniel
B.
Fisher, M.D., Ph.D., cell: 617-504-0832, info@ncmhr.org
Lauren
Spiro, info@ncmhr.org, 877-246-9058
Harvey
Rosenthal, executive director, New York Assoc. of Psychiatric
Rehabilitation
Services, harveyr@nyaprs.org, 518-527-0564
National
Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, 877-246-9058, info@ncmhr.org
January
10, 2011 - News of the Week
Excellent
Article from Slate.com
'MENTAL
ILLNESS' NOT AN EXPLANATION FOR VIOLENCE
Arizona
shooter's psychiatric condition reveals little about propensity or
motive for criminal behavior
by Vaughn
Bell, Slate.com
Shortly after Jared
Lee Loughner had been identified as
the alleged shooter of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, online sleuths
turned up pages of rambling text and videos he had created. A wave of
amateur diagnoses soon followed, most of which concluded that Loughner
was not so much a political extremist as a man suffering from "paranoid
schizophrenia."
For many, the
investigation will stop there. No need
to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted
political anger. The mere mention of mental illness
is explanation
enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence
has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire
weight of the medical evidence in unable to shift it. Severe
mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but
don't expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.
Seena Fazel is an
Oxford University psychiatrist who has
led the most extensive scientific studies to date of the links between
violence and two of the most serious psychiatric diagnoses --
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, either of which can lead to
delusions, hallucinations, or some other loss of contact with reality.
Rather than looking at individual cases, or even single
studies,
Fazel's team analyzed all the scientific findings they could find.
As a result, they can say with confidence that psychiatric
diagnoses tell us next to nothing about someone's propensity or motive
for violence.
A 2009 analysis of
nearly 20,000 individuals concluded
that increased risk of violence was associated with drug and alcohol
problems, regardless of whether the person had schizophrenia.
Two
similar analyses on bipolar patients showed, along similar lines, that
the risk of violent crime is fractionally increased by the illness,
while it goes up substantially among those who are dependent on
intoxicating substances. In other words, it's likely that
some
people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than
your average peson with mental illness.
Of course, like the
rest of the population, some people
with mental illness do become violent, and some may be riskier when
they're experiencing delusions and hallucinations. But these
infrequent cases do not make "schizophrenia" or "bipolar" a helpful
general-purpose explanation for criminal behavior. If that
doesn't make sense to you, here's an analogy. Soccer
hooligans
are much more likely to be violent when they attend a match, but if you
tell me that your friend has gone to a soccer match, I'll know nothing
about how violent he is. Similarly, if you tell me your friend punched
someone, the fact that he goes to soccer matches tells me nothing about
what caused the confrontation.
This puts recent
speculation about the Arizona suspect in
a distinctly different light: If you found evidence on the Web that
Jared Lee Loughner or some other suspected killer was obsessed with
soccer or football or hockey and suggested it might be an explanation
for his crime, you'd be laughted at. But do the same with
"schizophrenia" and people nod in solemn agreement. This is
despite the fact that your chance of being murdered by a stranger with
schizophrenia is so vanishingly small that a recent study of four
Western countries put the figure at one in 14.3 million. To
put
it in perspective, statistics show you are about three times more
likely to be killed by a lightening strikc.
The fact that mental
illness is so often used to explain
violent acts despite the evidence to the contrary almost certainly
flows from how such cases are handled in the media. Numerous
studies show that crimes by people with psychiatric problems are
over-reported, usually with gross inaccuracies that give a false
impression of risk. With this constant misrepresentation,
it's
not surprising that the public sees mental illness as an easy
explanation for heartbreaking events. We haven't yet learned
all
the details of the tragic shooting in Arizona, but I suspect mental
illness will be falsely accused many times over.
Original article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41002034/ns/slatecom/#
Reprinted using Fair Use
protection
January
7, 2011 - News of the Week
FALLOUT
FROM FEARMONGERING
DEFEATS GOALS OF ADVOCATES
Associating mental
illness with violent
behavior creates a huge barrier to funding services adequately
... a
larger concern is about the long-term consequences of stigma aroused by
the report, especially when reinforced by prevailing media images of
mental illness. Stigma sets up barriers to housing, jobs,
forming relationships -- it really sets people back. And
individuals who are ill won't seek help because they don't want to be
considered one of 'those' people. Jennifer
Stuber, Washington
State Coalition to Improve Mental Health Reporting.
From article
by Judy Lightfoot, Crosscout.com, Jan 05, 2011
Bad
news came this week from Washington state. Facing cuts to mental health
services, a healthcare union hoped to win more funds from the state
legislature by playing a violence card. Union spokespeople
told protesting advocates that tight competition for scarce funds drove
them to use a violent cover image and caption on a report they
submitted to the legislature.
The downside is that
fearmongering results in less public support, not more. (Study
Finds Fear
Tactics Win Public Support for Coercion, Segregation, and Avoidance --
But No Increase in Resources)
Source: Patrick Corrigan et.al., Implication for Educating
the Public on
Mental Illness, Violence, and Stigma, Psychiatric Services 55-577-580
May
2004
See the crude and
deeply stigmatizing report cover, and
read the excellent article
by Judy Lightfoot concerning the advocates' vehement protest, Can
scare tactics sell the state on mental health funding
December
18, 2010 - News of the Week
THOUGHTS
ON A HUFFINGTON POST BLOG AUTHOR
From a marketing
perspective, it may be
necessary
to
capitalize on violence to get the law passed
Memo
from D.J. Jaffe to NAMI
advocates, 1993
D.J. Jaffe, an advertising executive, worked for seventeen years to
secure state laws permitting the forced psychotropic medication of
psychiatric
outpatients. Eventually, his fearmongering
strategy delivered New York's Kendra's Law after just six
months of intense publicity.
Jaffe told a national NAMI audience in July of 1999 that
"laws change for a single reason, in reaction to highly
publicized incidents of violence." He urged his audience to
focus their advocacy on law enforcement agencies. Looking for
help from their state's mental
health systems, he said, was a waste of time.
That fearmongering
leaves lasting effects on public
attitudes was
clearly not Jaffe's concern. Jaffe first took his coercive
medication law to the law enforcement sector and won its
support.
Then on January 3, 1999, a fatal encounter between Andrew Goldstein and
Kendra Webdale gave Jaffe the highly publicized violent incident he
needed. The anguish of a shocked and grieving family was
transformed into a threat to every New Yorker. Andrew Goldstein was
*railroaded into the role of "treatment refuser." (*term used by a
former NAMI
board member)
Jaffe's strategy
worked. As he described it, he
approached
the Webdale family a few days after Kendra's death and told them that
"her killer was mentally ill, and that her death happened because he
wasn't getting treatment, and we've been working to get treatment, and
why don't you come and join us... And what happens is the media goes
and interviews these people and because we've seen them first, they are
telling our story."
But has the end
justified the means?
During its first
three years of operation Kendra's Law
drained vital
resources from new York's scarce community programs. The
public-safety
selling point that won Kendra's Law seemed hollow when a participant
committed a brutal murder, and even more hollow when statistics showed
that only 15% of program participants had committed a violent act
before entering the program.
The upside is that
many families have been able to
negotiate
alternatives to court orders, putting their family members first in
line
for scarce enriched programs. For others, Kendra's Law is a
way
to
obtain a beneficial discharge plan (a prior law exists but is often
broken for lack of community services).
Three evaluations of
the law are available online.
Despite
a strong push by supporters of Kendra's
Law
to make it
permanent, New York's lawmakers voted in June 2010 to extend the law
for five years and
further test its effectiveness. The
most recent
evaluations (see list below) of the
controversial law found that the key issue of voluntary vs.
involunary psychiatric medication was far from resolved due to
insufficient
data. Researchers also found
troubling disparities in the law's implementation across the
state.
Click
for:
1st
evaluation of Kendra's Law:
Final Report on the Status
of Assisted
Outpatient Treatment
Issued
March
2005 by the New York State Office of Mental Health. The findings of
this internal report did not justify making the law permanent.
2nd
evaluation of
Kendra's Law:
New York State Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program Evaluation
An independent evaluation issued
June 30,
2009 by the New York State Office of Mental Health.
This independent evaluation, led by Marvin S. Swartz et. al,
was
required by the New York State Legislature when it
extended the law in 2005.
3rd evaluation by
Jo C.
Phelan et. al, published in
Psychiatric Services:
Effectiveness and Outcomes
of Assisted
Outpatient Treatment in New York State This
independent evaluation was published in February 2010 after its
initial presentation at the annual conference of the Internationals
Association for Forensic Mental Health Services, Vienna, Austria, July
14-16, 2009. The article abstract is free. The
full article might be free for a first-time request (it was for
me-j.arnold).
December
3, 2010 - News of the Week
A STUDY
OF
CONSUMER-RUN PROGRAMS YIELDS WEALTH OF INNOVATIVE IDEAS
A
national survey of more than three dozen
consumer-run programs has just been published by the Temple
University
Collaborative on Community Inclusion
(formerly the UPenn
Collaborative). This useful compendium of examples,
titled Into the Thick of Things,
proves that people with psychiatric disabilities are discovering many
paths for reconnecting to community life.
Excerpt
from Introduction:
"Many
consumers may be living in community settings but nevertheless still
remain isolated from the real richness of community life.
This
study, therefore, has sought to gather examples of consumer-operated
programs that have focused, at least in part, on promoting community
inclusion."
Click
here to download Into
the Thick of Things
__________________________________
HELP
PLAN THE 2nd INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY INCLUSION CONFERENCE
CALL
FOR PAPERS
Click
here
for full information concerning the TUC's Call For Papers
WORKSHOP
AND PRESENTATION
PROPOSALS
Proposals
for workshop and
institute presentations are due
January 31, 2011. Proposals
from consumers are
especially welcome.
The conference
focuses on new research and innovative
programs and policies that promote community inclusion.
Go
to Temple
University
Collaborative on Community Inclusion
website for more
information.
October
21, 2010 - News of the Week
SURVIVORS
OF
PSYCHIATRIC TRAUMA ARE HEARD AT LAST
For
as long as most of us can remember, psychiatric
survivors have said that peer-run respite programs can often head off a
psychiatric crisis and traumatizing trips to an emergency room
or jail. A growing body of data now prove beyond question
that
respite programs are extremely effective. And thanks to the
tireless work of Daniel Fisher M.D., Ph.D., a founder of the National Empowerment
Center, and
fellow activists coast-to-coast, peer-run respite programs are at last
headed for serious expansion.
October
2, 2010 - News of the
Week
A
NEW STUDY UNDERSCORES THE NEED TO RETHINK STIGMA REDUCTION EFFORTS
BLOOMINGTON,
Ind. -- A
joint
study by Indiana University and Columbia
University researchers found no change in prejudice and discrimination
toward
people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems despite
a greater
embrace by the public of neurobiological explanations for these
illnesses.
The study, published online September 15 in the American Journal of
Psychiatry,
raises
vexing questions about the effectiveness of
campaigns
designed to improve health literacy. This "disease like any other"
approach,
supported by medicine and mental health advocates, had been seen as the
primary
way to reduce widespread stigma in the United States.
"Prejudice and discrimination in the U.S. aren't moving," said IU
sociologist
Bernice Pescosolido, a leading researcher in this area. "In fact, in
some cases,
it may be increasing. It's time to stand back and rethink our
approach."
Stigma, the well-documented reluctance by many to socialize or work
with
people who have a mental or substance abuse disorder, is considered a
major
obstacle to effective treatment for many Americans who experience these
devastating illnesses. It can produce discrimination in employment,
housing,
medical care and social relationships, and negatively impact the
quality of life
for these individuals, their families and friends.
Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the study examined
whether
American attitudes concerning mental illness have changed during a
10-year
period when efforts on many levels and by many groups focused on making
Americans aware of the genetic and medical explanations for depression,
schizophrenia and substance abuse. While Americans reported more
acceptance of
these explanations, this did nothing to change prejudice and
discrimination, and
in some cases, made it worse.
The study involved questions posed to a nationally representative
sample of
adults as part of the General Social Survey (GSS), a biennial survey
that
involves face-to-face interviews. Around 1,956 adults in the 1996 and
2006 GSS
first listened to a vignette involving a person who had major
depression,
schizophrenia or alcohol dependency, and then they answered a series of
questions.
Some key findings include:
In 2006, 67 percent of the public attributed major depression to
neurobiological causes, compared with 54 percent in 1996.
High proportions of respondents supported treatment with overall
increases in
the proportion endorsing treatment from a doctor, and more specifically
from
psychiatrists, for treatment of alcohol dependence (79 percent in 2006
compared
to 61 percent in 1996) and major depression (85 percent in 2006
compared to 75
percent in 1996).
Holding a belief in neurobiological causes for these disorders
increased the
likelihood of support for treatment but was generally unrelated to
stigma. Where
associated, the effect was to increase, not decrease, community
rejection of the
person described in the vignettes.
Pescosolido said the team's comparative study provides real data for
the
first time on whether the "landscape for prejudice for people with
mental
illness" is changing. It reinforces conversations begun by influential
institutions, such as the Carter Center, about the need for a new
approach
toward combating stigma.
"Often mental health advocates end up singing to the choir,"
Pescosolido
said. "We need to involve groups in each community to talk about these
issues
which affect nearly every family in America in some way. This is in
everyone's
interest."
The research article suggests that stigma reduction efforts focus on
the
person rather than on the disease, and emphasize the abilities and
competencies
of people with mental health problems. Pescosolido says
well-established civic
groups -- groups normally not involved with mental health issues --
could be
very effective in making people aware of the need for inclusion and the
importance of increasing the dignity and rights of citizenship for
persons with
mental illnesses.
For
a copy of the study, please
contact Alex Capshew at acapshew@indiana.edu
Co-authors
include Jack K.
Martin, Schuessler Institute for Social
Research
at
IU; J. Scott Long and Tait
R. Medina, Department of Sociology in
IU's College
of
Arts and Sciences; and Jo
C. Phelan and Bruce G. Link, Columbia
University
Mailman
School of Public
Health.
End
of Press Release
_________________________________________________________________
EDITOR'S
NOTE: A look at what is possible
In January of 2009,
three British consumer-led
organizations joined
forces to launch a massive, well-funded anti-discrimination
program called Time to
Change.
Having survived harrowing symptoms and social isolation, the oganizers
were determined to tell the public the real story about mental
illnesses. Endorsements of their campaign came from the Prime
Minister, members of Parliament, and favorites from the entertainment
world,
among other bold-type names.
Six months into the campaign,
the British Department of Health issued a report on the preliminary
results. An ongoing evaluation will not only increase the project's
effectiveness but will help others plan stigma reduction programs.
ja
September
5, 2010 - News of the Week
IN
VIOLENT CRIMES, WHY IS SCHIZOPHRENIA A FAVORITE CALL?
(YOU
CAN THANK ALFRED
HITCHCOCK)
Isn't
it amazing that
psychiatrists are able to diagnose the perpetrator of a violent crime
based only on news reports? Say again? On Wednesday
last
week, gunman James J. Lee was killed by police after taking three men
hostage at the Discovery Channel headquarters. On Thursday,
ABC
News quoted several prominent
psychiatrists who speculated that the
assailant must be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
Can even the most experienced psychiatrists diagnose a person they've
never seen? It seems unlikely. Many psychiatric
patients
receive different diagnoses from different psychiatrists despite
intensive reviews of their conditions. If psychosis is a symptom, there
are many possible causes.
A just-published
study
makes a strong case for re-examining the
efficacy of current diagnostic practice, particularly as it concerns
schizophrenia. This study is accessible (but not permanently)
at
www.miwatch.org
In the
miwatch Headlines box, scroll to JOURNALS where you will find "Are
psychiatric diagnoses of psychosis scientific and useful? The
case of scizophrenia" by Jim Van Os.
Why would the media circulate a diagnosis based on a rush to
judgment? Are such diagnoses ethical? What about
the media
who circulate them? Is the potential jury pool the target of
such
premature speculation?
Many experts have said that schizophrenia is a last-ditch choice when
other diagnoses seem not to fit. To be sure, schizophrenia is a term
fraught with misunderstanding and misuse. For decades, the
public
(which includes jurors, judges, and lawyers) has been confused about
what "schizophrenia" actually means.
Largely to blame for the confusion is the word "psycho," a movie title
coined in 1960 by Alfred Hitchcock. It's been forgotten that
for
Hitchcock, "PSYCHO" had no link to psychosis or schizophrenia. Yet 70
years later this false and stigmatizing notion thrives in the public's
imagination. Schizophrenia seems permanently associated with violence,
causing untold damage to millions of gentle law-abiding individuals.
Likely to prolong the confusion and stigma that plague schizophrenia is
a proposed category in the new upcoming edition of the psychiatric
diagnostic manual. The DSM-5 proposes a category titled
"Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders," while other category
titles are very broad. A typical category is titled "Mood
Disorders," (which
includes disorders that may have psychotic symptoms.)
August
8, 2010
- News of the Week
For
people who have psychiatric vulnerabilities, an emergency room visit
can be prohibitively traumatic. An extreme example is the
death-by-neglect of Esmin Green, a woman who collapsed and died
unnoticed on the floor of a psychiatric waiting room after a 24-hour
wait for
help. June 18, 2008, at
the Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, New York City.
Psychiatric peer counselors have become a fast-growing source of
valuable assistance in programs that provide psychiatric
services. They can also contribute valuable help in emergency
rooms.
Phyllis Vine (www.miwatch.org)
explores this innovative services model, now expanding nationally,
in Peer Counselors Support
Consumers in
Emergency Rooms
_____________________________________________
Update on Kings County
Hospital Psychiatric
Center
Source: NYAPRS Enews, August 10, 2010
Following Esmin Green's
tragic death in
the Kings County Hospital psychiatric emergency room in 2008, a legal
settlement
prompted New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation to
increasingly hire peer staff in their inpatient and outpatient programs
at Kings County and other HHC public hospitals. Here
is a promising account of this
welcome new direction: Peers
Bring Hope To The Mentally Ill by
Erin Durkin, New
York Daily News, August 9th, 2010.
July
18, 2010 - News of
the Week
5
Communities Re-examine
Use of Police to Intervene in Mental Health Crises
Source: Bazelon Center for Mental
Health Law
Press release: July 6, 2010
ARTICLE:
More
frequently, news
outlets across the country, like the ones below, are reporting shocking
stories about tragic outcomes stemming from police involvement in
mental health emergencies.
·
“Camden County Man Dies
After Struggle with
Police,” Philadelphia
Inquirer 4 May 2010
·
“Autopsy Links Taser to
Cardall’s
Death,” Salt
Lake City Tribune 19 November
2009
Recognizing
the
devastating impact of cyclic arrest, incarceration and hospitalization
on people with serious mental illnesses and their communities, the Bazelon
Center for
Mental Health Law has launched
an initiative designed to reduce
reliance on local law enforcement to intervene in psychiatric
emergencies. The goal of the initiative, called the Performance
Improvement Project (PIP), is
to enable community mental health
systems to take a more active role in preventing the scenarios whereby
people with serious mental illnesses are subject to police intervention.
Five
sites were selected
to participate in the Performance Improvement Project--Travis County
(Austin), TX, Wayne County (Detroit), MI, Allegheny County
(Pittsburgh), PA, Multnomah County (Portland), OR, and Westchester
County (White Plains), NY. The Bazelon Center, with support
from
the Open Society
Institute and others, is the
lead organization. The Bazelon
Center will coordinate the initiative and provide partial funding to
each project site.
The
project relies on
local expertise and a systematic process of observation and analysis to
track down the “root causes” that leave people with
mental
illnesses vulnerable to police involvement. From this
information, project sites will be able to uncover service
shortcomings, assess social and fiscal costs, and identify any needed
systems improvements. A compilation of findings across sites
will
reveal structural obstacles faced by public sector providers as they
attempt to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people with serious
mental illnesses.
“For too long, we have viewed people with serious mental
illnesses cycling through jails and emergency rooms as routine, when
this is, in fact, a clear signal of failing public systems,”
said
Robert Bernstein, executive director of the Bazelon Center for Mental
Health Law.
“Although
the
results of the Performance Improvement Project will lead to better
performance by community mental health providers, the greater goal of
this initiative is to illuminate barriers to improvement that stem
directly from regulations and policy made at various levels,”
Bernstein said.
“Establishing
an
engaged, coherent and fully-resourced community mental health system
improves outcomes for people with serious mental illnesses, reduces
costs, and reduces the burden on law enforcement to serve as the social
service safety net,” he added.
“This
project could
represent a giant step forward for community mental health”
said
Linda Rosenberg, President and CEO of the National Council for
Community Behavioral Healthcare. “Applying a
performance
improvement model to quantify how policies and practices are actually
affecting services makes a lot of sense. Data from this
project
can fuel long-needed change,” added Rosenberg.
The five sites selected by the Bazelon Center have a history of making
efforts to provide coordinated community services and supports designed
to help avert mental health crises that lead to contact with law
enforcement. Each has also demonstrated interest in pursuing
policy reforms that support better outcomes for individuals and
improved accountability for government investment in mental health and
other human services.
#
# #
The Bazelon
Center for
Mental Health Law is the leading
national legal-advocacy organization representing people with mental
disabilities. It promotes laws and policies that can enable people with
psychiatric or developmental disabilities to exercise their life
choices and access the resources they need to participate fully in
their communities.
March
21, 2010 - News
of the Week
DOES
THE TREATMENT ADVOCACY CENTER HELP OR HARM?
See 'more information' (below) for A
Factoid in the Making
Kendra's
Law, New York's
controversial statute permitting compulsory medication of psychiatric
outpatients, is due to expire at the end of June. Already we are seeing
efforts to make it permanent by the law's chief proponent, the
Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, VA. Recent quotes by key
spokespeople suggest that a new wave of fearmongering may be in the
making.
Seventeen
years ago, D.J. Jaffe, an
advertising executive, advised mental health advocates that "from a
marketing perspective it may be necessary to capitalize on violence" to
pass laws compelling psychiatric outpatients to take psychotropic
medication. Soon Jaffe joined forces with Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a
psychiatrist who shared Jaffe's compulsory medication agenda. Thus was
launched an intensive public relations campaign linking mental illness
with violence. Since then, factoid-laced, sensationalistic articles,
op-eds and television features have appeared with depressing frequency
in the national media. For an example, see "Will
The Damage Be Doubled?"
What's a financially-strapped advocacy movement to do? Advocates'
protests requesting fairness fall on deaf ears at "60 MINUTES," "48
HOURS," "The Washington Post," and other national media. For nearly 20
years the Torrey/Jaffe team, unimpeded, has relied on a scare strategy
to win public support for compulsory medication.
The fact is that there are no violence studies that focus on people
with untreated schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, the Torrey/Jaffe
team's target population. The Treatment Advocacy Center copes with this
problem by lifting phrases out of context from work by others. The
result is self-serving misinformation with respectable citations.
Does this twisted form of advocacy help or harm those it purports to
assist ? Could this be a reason researchers are finding the public to
be less tolerant toward people with psychiatric disabilities and
decreasingly willing to accept housing and community support programs?
See
"Study Finds Fear Tactics Win Public Support for Coercion"
Below are examples of *factoids
circulated by the Treatment
Advocacy Center. They are available online in the archive of the
Anti-Stigma Home Page, http://www.stigmanet.org
The Torrey/Jaffe
team wrongly interpreted conclusions
concerning stigma in the Surgeon
General's Report on Mental Health
(1999). See "Torrey
Twists Meaning of Surgeon General's Report"
The Torrey/Jaffe
team distorted research concerning the
effect of the news media on public opinion. See "Selective
Reporting of News Skews Views"
and "The
Most Important Cause of Stigma?"
The Torrey/Jaffe
team selectively reported violence
estimates (in research based on a study investigating medication
effectiveness) to inflate the result. See Treatment
Advocacy Center Reduces Research on Violence to a Stigmatizing Soundbite
The Torrey/Jaffe
team added incorrect interpretations
to findings of a U.S. Department of Justice report on homicide. See "Just
the Facts, Please!"
The Torrey/Jaffe
team summarized research involving 49
subway pushings and attempted pushings over a 17-year period
(1975-1991). The researchers (Martell & Deitz) chose to gather
data
only on assailants who were psychotic at the time of the offense (20
individuals - 1 of these rejected ). Torrey's 1-sentence summary of
this study is nonsensical:
"Among 20 individuals who pushed or tried to push another person in
front of the subway in New York, all except one was severely mentally
ill and offered motives directly related to their untreated psychotic
symptoms." Who would guess the study found that such pushings occur
once or
twice a
year in a city of (then) 7 million people?
The Torrey/Jaffe
team mislabeled Andrew Goldstein (of
Kendra's Law fame) a "treatment refuser" even after his psychiatric
records proved he had repeatedly tried to get treatment from a
downsizing mental health system. See "More
About Kendra's Law"
Four prominent and
respected research organizations,
The Lewin Group, the U. S. Department of Justice, the National Advisory
Mental Health Council (NIMH), and the MacArthur Foundation on Mental
Health and the Law have confirmed that their work does not support
findings attributed to them by the Torrey team. See "Just
the Facts, Please!" and "Ten
Top Stories of 2007 Continue Fearmongering"
As the Kendra's
Law expiration date draws near (June,
2010), the Torrey/Jaffe team has doubled its earlier 5% estimate of
homicides committed by people with "untreated schizophrenia and bipolor
disorders" to a frightening 10% of all homicides in the U.S. The
doubled (10%) figure, however, misuses research and homicide numbers
from data spanning 1990-2002.
See Dr.
Torrey Doubles Bogus Homicide Estimate
*Editor's note: "A
factoid is a questionable or
spurious
- unverified, incorrect, or fabricated - statement formed and asserted
as a fact but with no veracity. The word appears in the Oxford
English Dictionary as 'something
which becomes accepted as fact,
although it may not be true.' "
Quote
is from Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia.
MORE
INFORMATION
A FACTOID IN THE MAKING
A quote from Dr. Torrey
In an ABC News interview
last week, Dr. Torrey stated: "The
most recent data would suggest
that about 10 percent of the homicides in the United States are
committed by people who are bipolar or schizophrenia -- when they are
not on medication."
Where's the evidence?
The Treatment Advocacy Center's most recent briefing paper on violence
(updated April 2009) states that Individuals
with severe mental
illnesses are probably responsible for approximately 10 percent of
homicides in the United States.
They cite the following study.
"In Indiana, researchers examined the records of 518 individuals in
prison who had been convicted of homicide between 1990 and 2002. Among
the 518, 53 (or 10.2 percent) had been diagnosed with schizophrenia
(n=27), bipolar disorder (n=12), or other psychotic disorders not
associated with drug abuse (n=14). An additional 42 individuals had
been diagnosed with mania or major depressive disorder. It should be
emphasized that the study included only those who had been sentenced to
prison and did not include those individuals who had committed
homicides and were subsequently found to be incompetent to stand trial
or not guilty by reason of insanity and therefore sent to a psychiatric
facility instead of prison. Thus, the 10.2 percent is an undercount.
The authors also noted that 80 percent of the mentally ill individuals
who committed homicides had received past psychiatric treatment but
that "many of the offenders were not receiving treatment" at the time
of the homicide." Matejkowski JC,
Cullen SW, Solomon PL. Characteristics of persons with severe mental
illness who have been incarcerated for murder. Journal of the American
Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 2008;36:74â€"86
Quoting Dr. Torrey: "In 2007, there were 16,929 homicides in the United
States. If individuals with severe psychiatric disorders were
responsible for only 10 percent of these, that would be approximately
1,690."
What's Wrong With This
Picture? Torrey is either deceptive
or very careless.
In fact, the research shows there were 27 people with schizophrenia and
12 people with bipolar (39 people). There's no information on their
medications status. Torrey's "preventable tragedies" file (2008) showed
that homicides sometimes are committed while the assailant is on meds.
Problem #1:
Torry has included 14 people with "other psychotic disorders" to bring
his total number to 53. He can't do that and then apply the figure to
"untreated people with schizophrenia and bipolar."
Problem #2:
Torrey can't assume that none of the 39 assailants with schizophrenia
and bipolar were on meds. The study confirms this. An analysis I did of
his preventable tragedies showed 1/3 of homicide assailants were on
meds at the
time of the crime. (Also, some years ago in a NYTimes article about
rampage killers, of 24 assailants who were prescribed meds 10 were
taking them at the time of their rampage murders.) If we speculate that
13 of the 39 assailants could have been on meds, then Torrey's estimate
is reduced to 4.4%.
Problem #3:
Torrey uses an outdated figure for total homicides in the U.S, 16,929
(2007). The most recent figure is 14,180 (2008). This lowers his
already unsubstantiated estimate (1,690) committed annually by people
with untreated schizophrenia and bipolar illness
March
12, 2010
-
News of the Week
! DR. TORREY DOUBLES
HIS BOGUS HOMICIDE ESTIMATE !
Dr.
E. Fuller
Torrey's obsession with homicide figures dates back to the 1990s when
the media were quick to accept his unsubstantiated estimate that "1,000
homicides are committed annually" by an unmedicated group of people
with schizophrenia or bipolar illness. Last week, in a startling claim
in an ABC News feature, Torrey raised the estimate to 1,690 annually--
that would be 36 per week every week committed by an extremely small
group of individuals.
Dr. Torrey's new
'discovery' about homicides is clearly
as bogus as his previous guesstimates. The new number (10% of all
homicides!) doubles his earlier estimate (5%), a figure based on six
clippings from the Washington Post and some deceptive tinkering with
research done by others. (Note: authors of the studies have confirmed
that their work does not support Torrey's conclusions.)
Torrey's source of
the 10% figure, which he projects to
1,690 homicides annually, seems even more shakey. Oddly, Torrey's
website file of "Preventable Tragedies" showed only 179 homicides
during the peak year of 2003.
It is alarming
that the most visible, articulate, and
engaging psychiatrist in the business has successfully promoted facts
and figures tailored to suit his narrow agenda of coerced medication.
Continuous repeated references to violence by the Treatment Advocacy
Center can't fail to affect public attitudes. And this is after all the
Torrey/Jaffe team's goal
March
9, 2010 - News of the Week
"SCHIZOPHRENIA" AND THE
UPCOMING DSM-5
Now
is an ideal time,
while
the DSM-5
authors are open to public comment on their new version of the APA's
diagnostic manual, to recommend change to the much-misused diagnostic
term “schizophrenia.” An excellent place to start
is
Phyllis
Vine's “Should
the Term Schizophrenia Be Changed?”
Phyllis tells of a
lively
discussion on the topic last summer among 75 psychiatrists and
psychologists from 25 countries. Of special interest is work being
done outside the United States to find alternatives to a term that
all seemed to agree is deeply stigmatizing. Her article's links and
video clips add useful information.
There
is
no evidence in the APA's Proposed
Revisions that
“schizophrenia” might be replaced. Quite
the
contrary, a list of 16 non-specific labels (e.g. “mood
disorders”)
includes a odd 17th ,
“schizophrenia and other
psychotic
disorders.” Why not just “psychotic
disorders?” Why
include a
term that is universally confusing? Why give it special billing over
every other psychiatric condition?
Schizophrenia
is a popular choice of
people, sometimes even psychiatrists, who rush to judge an assailant
on hearing a news report of violence. Schizophrenia is a term
lawyers sometimes drop when they are concerned about a future
criminal trial. Beyond hope of correction at this point is the
popular misuse of schizophrenia to suggest
“self-contradiction.”
Let
us
hope the confusion surrounding
schizophrenia will be given serious attention before the DSM-5 goes
to press.
February
21, 2010 - News of
the Week
RESEARCHERS
FIND LITTLE DATA CONCERNING ATTITUDES OF PROFESSIONALS
Researchers
Otto Wahl and
Eli
Aroesty-Cohen, University of Hartford, after searching for literature
concerning the attitudes of mental health professionals toward those
they treat, report a serious lack of scientific data on this
important topic. Their findings appear in the Journal
of
Community Psychiatry, Vol. 38 No. 1 (2010), Attitudes
of Mental Health Professionals About Mental Illness: A Review of the
Recent Literature. View Online at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123215869/PDFSTART
For
decades, social
scientists have
sought to understand the general public's attitudes toward mental
illnesses. The result is a significant body of research concerning
the public's views of psychiatric disorders; most has been negative.
Little scientific data is available, however, about the attitudes of
mental health professionals. Yet the attitudes of mental health
practitioners are important for good treatment outcomes and good
quality of life for their patients. Further, in their roles as
educators and members of their communities, professionals' views
shape the opinions of future practitioners and other influential
community members. Not least, the growing emphasis on recovery-oriented
psychiatric programs calls for mental health professionals to
understand and adapt if need be to those programs.
Researchers
Wahl and Cohen
focused
their study on how psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric
nurses view and respond to the people they treat. After a
comprehensive worldwide search, the researchers found 19 articles
published since 2003 that met all their criteria for review. These
19 studies, though few in number, show that professionals' attitudes
are a topic of concern around the globe. Coming from Scandinavia,
Australia, Japan, Brazil, the U.S., Switzerland, the U.K., Austria,
Turkey, Italy, and Singapore, the studies reflect unique cultures and
conditions within each country. The researchers note,
Conclusions
about
prevailing attitudes in any one country will need a greater number of
studies from each country than currently exist. For example, the
three studies that employed U.S. samples are hardly sufficient to
draw firm conclusions about the attitudes of U.S. Practitioners.
Overall, Wahl and Cohen's
review of the
existing literature suggests that while psychiatrists, psychologists,
and psychiatric nurses are generally more positive in their attitudes
toward people with psychiatric diagnoses than the general public, the
researchers found negative attitudes present even in studies with
overall positive results.
The
failure to
find consistent positive results for the attitudes of mental health
professionals and the substantial number of mental health
professionals expressing negative views is troubling... It is easy
to see how the negative views expressed by many professionals may
perpetuate stigma and interfere with practitioners' ability to
respond helpfully to their patients' needs or to establish successful
therapeutic relationships. It is easy to see how those negative
attitudes may provide models for continued public negativity related
to mental illness. … At the very least, we may need to
include
more discussion of attitudes about mental illnesses within our
training programs
Worth special attention: Wahl and Cohen provide a useful guide to
the challenges that confront future researchers in a section titled
“Implications and Directions for Future Study.”
They chart
the
pitfalls as well as the fruitful directions needed to advance this
fledgling field of study. Hopefully, the article will inspire
researchers and advocates alike to give the topic its due attention.
Correspondence
to: Otto
Wahl, Department of Psychology, University of Hartford, 200 Bloomfield
Ave., West Hartford, CT 06117. E-mail:owahl@hartford.edu
Article
published:
JOURNAL
OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY,
Vol. 38, No. 1, 49-62 (2010)
Published
online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com)
Copyright
2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.20351
|
January 4, 2010 - News
of the Week
ARE
SHOCK TREATMENT MACHINES SAFE? WILL THE FDA RULE OUT
AN EVALUATION?
The following article comes from a nationwide coalition of mental
health consumer/survivor organizations. This Washington-based coalition
represents a large population with incomparable experience of
electroconvulsive therapy.
This Friday, January 8, the FDA will decide whether or not to evalaute
ECT as required. The advocates urge us to ask the FDA to meet its
obligation to review medical devices.
ARTICLE
Source: National Coaliton of Mental Health Consumer/Survivor
Organizations (NCMHCSO)
E-mail, January 4, 2010
The
FDA Wants to Declare Electroshock
Machines Safe Without a Safety Investigation.
TELL THEM NO!
The Food and Drug Administration is in charge of regulating medical
devices just as it does drugs, including the machines used to give
Electroshock.
But it's not doing its job. It has allowed these machines to be used on
millions of patients over the past generation without requiring any
evidence whatsoever that shock treatment is safe or effective. This is
so even though shock machines are Class III -- high risk -- devices,
which by law are required to be subjected to thorough clinical trials
as thoroughly as new drugs and devices just coming onto the market.
But because of intense lobbying by the American Psychiatric Association
-- which claims the devices are safe but opposes an investigation --
the FDA has disregarded its own law. (For the full story of how shock
survivors and other advocates have fought for a scientific safety
investigation of Electroshock for the past 25 years, see Linda
Andre's new book, Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want
You
to Know About Shock Treatment.)
In April 2009 -- 30 years after it first ruled the devices high-risk
and named brain damage and memory loss as risks of the treatment -- the
FDA belatedly announced it would call on the manufacturers of the
devices to provide evidence of safety and efficacy.
The deadline for submissions has passed, but the manufacturers have not
conducted any clinical trials, claiming they cannot afford them. They
simply point to the opinions of shock doctors (including those who have
financial interests in companies making Electroshock machines) as
evidence that shock is safe.
[To
submit your electronic comment to the FDA, click here.]
For
more information and sample
letters, please visit our website: http://www.ncmhcso.org/ect.htm
National Coalition of Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Organizations
1101 15th Street, NW #1212, Washington, DC 20005
Tel: 877-246-9058
Email: info@ncmhcso.org
Website: http://www.ncmhcso.org/
The purpose of the NCMHCSO is to share information that is
consistent with our mission and values and that
is significant for our constituency. The information above
does
not constitute an endorsement of any particular organization.
END OF ARTICLE
MORE
INFORMATION
Go to
OTHER
CONTACT INFORMATION
Record a comment by phone:
1-202-205-5445
U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services (oversees FDA)
Email FDA:
webmail@oc.fda.gov
Phone FDA:
1-888-463-6332
Write FDA:
Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
10903 New Hampshire Ave.
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
|
November 1, 2009 - News
of the Week
DECONSTRUCTING
TOXIC STIGMA: SURVIVORS OF FORCED
PSYCHIATRIC "TREATMENT" SPEAK OUT
Link: Archived radio
program
produced and
hosted by Anne Barbano with guests Marj Berthold, Nora Jacobson, and
Laura Ziegler
Thanks to TWITTER's spreading-ripple effect, the first Vermont weeky
radio program concerning autism and disabilities has found a national
audience. The show, "The Next Frontier," is produced and hosted by Anne
Barbano (abarbanovt@juno.com),
a Burlington mother who excels at empathetic listening.
Earlier programs on "The Next Frontier" are archived at "Living
the
Autism Maze."
This week Barbano introduces a new documentary, "Tremors
in the System: the help you want or the help you get,". Her guests are the film's co-directors
Nora Jacobson and
Marj Berthold, and Laura Ziegler. Beginning gently, the hour-long
program soon becomes intensely illuminating and thought-provoking. A
colorful background enhances the computer screen.
Enlightening moments occur when least expected, so savor every minute
of this moving, stereotype-shattering program.
Note:
The TWITTER
link
was forwarded to us by Morgan
Brown, a long-time advocate, chronicler of homelessness, and a veteran
blogger: http://norsehorseshometurf.blogspot.com/
For more links to Morgan's work, GOOGLE 'Morgan Brown Norsehorse'
|
|
October
25, 2009 - News of the Week
GLENN
CLOSE FAMILY HOPES TO DECONSTRUCT AND ELIMINATE
"TOXIC" STIGMA
Bring Change
2 Mind
offers encouragement and help: "This is where the misconceptions stop"
Take a beautiful accomplished celebrity, her
close family, a
topic often shunned; start a camera rolling with Ron Howard in charge.
Then hope for good results.
In this case, the result is superb. Last week ABC-TV unveiled a candid
public service announcement featuring Glenn Close and her sister Jessie
followed by an interview on "Good Morning America," where the actress
and her family talked freely about their experiences with serious
mental illnesses. Click
here to view The open
discussion is far more compelling than a
script could ever be.
Equally impressive is the Close family's new organization and its
website, Bring Change
2 Mind.
This promising project came into being while Glenn Close was working at
Fountain House, a 50-year-old "clubhouse" in New York City (the model
is used internationally) that promotes recovery of people who have
psychiatric disabilites.
Soon, we hope, this unprecedented mental health coalition will include
prominent ex-patient/survivor organizations. That's the coalition of
our dreams.
|
|
October
18, 2009 - News of
the Week
GIFTS
OF WISDOM FROM JUDI CHAMBERLIN
Two
Interviews (source: NYAPRS E-NEWS)
A
Talk With Judi Chamberlin;
Facing
Death, A Plea For The
Dignity Of Psychiatric Patients
By Carey Goldberg
Boston Globe
March 22, 2009
"NOTHING
ABOUT US Without Us."
That is the motto of a grass-roots movement that has carried various
names over the last generation, but has always revolved around a single
principle: self-determination for people diagnosed with mental illness.
Call them psychiatric patients or consumers or survivors, they are
fighting together to gain more control over their treatment, and more
say in the mental health system overall. And they have won some
striking successes in recent years, gaining more input into official
policy and creating new jobs for people who, 12-step-style, have
recovered from the worst of their illness and now want to help others
in crisis.
The mother of that movement, many people would say, is Judi Chamberlin
of Arlington.
Chamberlin was hospitalized against her will for depression in 1966,
and shocked by how she was treated. Her seminal book, "On Our Own:
Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System," came out
in 1978, and became a manifesto for the movement. Chamberlin's activism
for patients' rights spanned the next 31 years, and evolved with the
history of mental health treatment in this country.
At first, in a system that relied heavily on state hospitals, she
focused largely on protecting inpatients' basic rights. As
"deinstitutionalization" took hold and the hospitals emptied, she
focused more on outpatients' needs for services and dignity as well.
She also joined forces with activists for people with physical
disabilities, and extended her reach internationally, helping push a
treaty on disability rights that the United Nations passed in 2006.
Now, at 64, Chamberlin is dying. She has entered hospice care for
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an incurable lung disease. (It
is most commonly caused by cigarettes, but Chamberlin never smoked.)
Largely confined to bed, Chamberlin relies on an oxygen mask and works
when she feels well enough, including a blog chronicling her experience
at judi-lifeasahospicepatient.blogspot.com. Her partner, Marty
Federman, figures heroically in the blog, as well as a broad circle of
friends, admirers and helpers. True to form, Chamberlin is using her
final experience as a patient to argue for reform: The hospice system,
she says, with all the autonomy and respect it gives dying people,
could serve as a model for psychiatric care.
IDEAS: Psychiatric illnesses can and sometimes do disrupt things like a
person's judgment, their perception of reality, their ability to think
clearly. So couldn't that possibly, at least sometimes, justify
coercion?
CHAMBERLIN: I think the only justification for coercion is where
there's actual dangerous, violent or criminal acts. Because we let
people do weird, possibly self-destructive things all the time -
smoking, drinking, jumping out of airplanes. You go into the mental
health system and it sucks you in, and a lot of people who've been in
it in the past are willing to suffer rather than go in again.
IDEAS: What was the experience with the mental health system that got
you going?
CHAMBERLIN: I originally went voluntarily. I was extremely depressed,
and I thought I'd get some help. And after a couple of voluntary
hospitalizations, I was sent to state hospital involuntarily and that's
when I really realized, "Hey wait a minute, something is very, very
wrong here."
IDEAS: And from that experience came . . .
CHAMBERLIN: . . . the fundamental conviction that there's something
really wrong here and it needs to be addressed by people who've been
through this experience. And of course, this was the '60s - the civil
rights movement was underway, the women's movement, the gay liberation
movement. And it just seemed to me that we needed that kind of movement
for people with our issues.
IDEAS: I'd have to say that women's liberation and gay liberation and
civil rights have probably moved a lot farther and are a lot more
recognized as legitimate. Why, do you think?
CHAMBERLIN: I think there's still a tremendous amount of social stigma.
I think there's a reluctance on the part of people who've had a
psychiatric past but have become successful in life to identify
themselves publicly because there's no upside to it, there's only a
downside, and there are certainly some people who are fairly well known
and successful who have, but a lot more who are wanting very much to
stay in the closet.
IDEAS: What has been your movement's greatest failure?
CHAMBERLIN: The greatest failure is that we're not seen as an organized
group that can speak for ourselves. Lots of times you read an article
about disabilities and have someone with cerebral palsy speaking about
cerebral palsy or somebody blind talking about being blind, and then
you have a family member talking about what it's like to be mentally
ill and the interviewer seem to think that's the same thing, but it's
not.
IDEAS: What would you highlight as the issue that still most needs to
be taken on in our societal life?
CHAMBERLIN: The issue of mental illness and violence. It's so linked
together in people's minds and it so distorts what most people with
psychiatric disabilities are like. Because while the research shows
over and over again that people with psychiatric diagnoses are not more
violent than anybody else, that's not what people believe, and it's
hammered in all the time with crime shows - that this is what people
with psychiatric disabilities are like: They're unpredictably violent
in a way that justifies all this forced treatment.
IDEAS: What do you think people need? You've talked in the past about
alternative services - mental health services offered noncoercively,
often run by people who've been through the experience of psychiatric
illness, so they're built on a self-help model.
CHAMBERLIN: When people are in emotional distress and they're asking
for help, and a lot of people are - they say "This is awful, I'm in
hell" - we want to make sure that help is provided in a way that meets
people's self-defined needs. And one thing that's useful is the
equivalent of a living will document. "When you see me doing this, try
this or don't try this. Because I know from past experience this makes
me feel good and this makes me feel horrible."
IDEAS: And you see a parallel between that kind of patient
self-determination and hospice care?
CHAMBERLIN: The hospice model puts the patient in the center. What
matters is what the patient wants. And then the various people who are
the staff - the nurses and social workers and others - are there to
support their choices. They're not there to impose their ideas.
IDEAS: I guess the difference may be that hospice amounts to an
agreement that the traditional medical system has little left to offer
you, whereas in psychiatric treatment, sometimes a clinician might
think medicine has a lot to offer while the patient may disagree.
CHAMBERLIN: Right, but again, I think this is the choice part. A lot of
people have used psychiatric drugs in ways that have benefited their
lives and made the trade-off on some of the side effects because the
overall balance is positive. But other people have said, "This drug
doesn't work for me." . . . There's a jokey definition of mental
illness as doing the same thing 10 times and expecting a different
result. I think that can apply to doctors who push the same drug when
10 times it's failed.
Carey Goldberg covers brain science and mental health for the Globe.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/22/a_talk_with_judi_chamberlain?mode=PF
End
of Boston Globe interview
Reprinted using Fair
Use doctrine
_________________________
INTERVIEW with Judi
Chamberlin
Off Our Backs
by Leah Harris
BNET Health Publications
July/August 2003
lh: How did you come to do the work that you do?
jc: It was all based on my own experiences with the mental health
system. I saw that something was very wrong and that people needed to
do something about it-especially the people that this was currently
happening to. Five years after I got out of the hospital, I found one
of the [ex-patient] groups in New York. I found out that there were
other people who felt the same way! It just seemed so logical to us
that locking people up and depriving them of their basic humanity
couldn't possibly be good for anybody.
lh: What issues did you focus on when you first organized over thirty
years ago?
jc: It's the same stuff we're doing now. Just trying to get the issues
across. That this is about rights, it isn't about "better treatment" or
about needing people to take care of us. We're human beings, we're
citizens. Why don't we have these rights that supposedly the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights talk about? Why does it suddenly
not apply to us?
lh: Was there an attempt in the beginning to reach out to the feminist
movement?
jc: We tried to reach out to everyone. The early 1970s was a time when
all these movements were growing. We made some good contacts with the
gay rights movement. But I've always felt that the feminist movement
just didn't seem to get it. There are an awful lot of therapists in the
movement, and when you talk to women who identify as feminists, and you
mention that you're involved with mental health issues, they always
mention Phyllis Chesler's book Women and Madness. But Phyllis Chesler's
a psychologist, and it's a book in which somebody else talks for us.
And this comes from a movement that says that women should speak for
themselves, but somehow they think it's OK that a psychologist should
talk for women who are "mentally ill" and getting locked up. She gets
it so wrong in that book, and it really hurts me when that's considered
a feminist classic.
lh: How are women uniquely affected by coercive psychiatry?
jc: Well, there's an assumption that if you have a psychiatric
diagnosis, you couldn't possibly be a good mother. There's also a
distinction made between women who are distressed and women who are
"crazy." You see this in the battered women's' shelters and the crisis
centers, that if you're battered and subsequently distressed to an
"appropriate" level then that's OK, but if you're distressed beyond
that, you get packed off to the mental health system. And that's awful.
A long time ago, a group of women at one of the psychiatric survivors'
conferences said, "we reject the idea that there's an 'appropriate
level for our anger' when we're raped or battered."
lh: Can you talk about the experience of writing On Our Own!
jc: At the time I wrote it, there wasn't anything in print about our
experiences. There's a long history of people writing books about their
mental health experiences, but certainly not about so-called crazy
people getting together and organizing for rights and liberation. I
really wanted to get that message out. Over the years, so many people
have told me, "that book helped me, it came along and let me know I
wasn't alone. I was able to get through what I was going through, and
to hook up with other people and get involved." You couldn't ask for
more than that as a writer.
lh: It seems that some of the advances made by our movement, however
small, are being slowly eroded. Can you speak a little bit more to that?
jc: When I first got involved in the early 70s, the mental health
system was very different than it is today. In some ways it was much
worse, because you had the long-term institutionalization that exists
less today. And in some ways it was much better-because there wasn't
this biological determination, this idea that everybody needs to be on
drugs forever. And so today you may or may not be in an institution,
but you always have to be in "treatment"-engaged with the mental health
system in some way. And the mental health system becomes so
all-encompassing-providing housing, etc. All the services are provided
on the condition of you being "compliant" with the system. And that
didn't really exist before.
lh: And I think it gets back to how psychiatry is so all-pervasive in
our culture.
jc: Yeah, and how people are so convinced that what we're dealing with
here are "brain diseases," and I'm sure if you asked the average person
on the street what causes mental illness, they would say that it's a
gene, or a chemical imbalance in the brain-all these little slogans
that there's no scientific evidence for! The science isn't there to
back this up, but the PR certainly is.
lh: Can you tell me a little bit about the Bush administration shutting
down the Technical Assistance Centers (TACs) such as the National
Empowerment Center?
jc: It's this little tiny federal program-all five TACs-it's all
together a $2 million dollar program, which doesn't even compute on a
federal level. And here the administration went out of its way to
single out this teensy little program. You'd think on a superficial
level, we would fit in well with their Republican right-wing
agenda-people being self-sufficient and "getting back into society."
The initial attempt was to yank our funding right then and there,
before the end of fiscal year 2003, and that we fought. And I think the
administration saw that we could rally support, and we did rally
thousands of phone calls and emails. So we got our funding for the rest
of the fiscal year, but with a cut.
lh: Can you say more about what the TACs do?
jc: Three out of five of the TACs are run by consumers and survivors.
They provide information, and technical assistance and knowledge, about
self-help, about rights, about connecting up with others who have
experienced psychiatric abuse. There's so much that you can read about
drugs, and institutions, and formal programs. It's much harder to find
information about alternatives, information telling you that people can
get better, and saying "here we are, people who've been diagnosed with
these supposedly lifelong illnesses, who are functioning well." We
provide a lot of hope for people that they can do it too. I think it's
very important to be out there. There are limits to what TACs can do
because they are government-funded. So I think it's important to have
the independent groups out there, it's important to have the
government-funded groups-it's important to have the whole range.
People need hope. When you get diagnosed with a major mental illness,
you're probably also told that you have something wrong with you on a
genetic or chemical level, that you have to be on drugs for the rest of
your life, that you're probably never really going to get better.
That's taking hope away from people. So to provide hope for people-it's
just thrilling. All the letters, the phone calls, the emails we get.
People didn't know, until they found us, that they can recover, that
they can have a good life, that they're not just doomed to being good
little mental patients. That's very important.
lh: On the issue of forced psychiatric treatment, what do you say to
people who tell of friends or relatives who were forced into treatment
and were actually helped by it? The idea that "by criticizing the
mental health system, you're discouraging suffering people from seeking
help?"
jc: Help is only help if you think it's help. I certainly don't want to
take any options away from people. I want to increase people's options.
So if somebody has a lot of options, including medication, and they
decide that medication's the right one, that's very different from
medication being the only option, and it being forced on people. It's a
strange kind of reasoning. The one that always gets me is, "if we had
been able to get our relative into treatment, she or he wouldn't have
killed themselves." That might be a way of soothing your pain, and if
you want to soothe your pain that way, OK, but you don't know that.
When I was in the crisis center, I had this real break with reality
kind of situation, and after a couple weeks of being in this totally
supportive and helpful environment, I was OK. And for years afterwards,
I would think, "well, I've had two breakdowns in my life. One was
really severe, because it lasted for so long, and one was pretty mild
because it was over quickly." Then I realized that if the first time, I
had been treated like a human being instead of being hospitalized in
this horrible place and treated as less than human, maybe that one
would have been over in a couple of weeks too. And again, we are not
about trying to take away from people anything that they find helpful,
it's about giving people choices and information. Anyone who's opposed
to giving people more choices and information. I just don't get it!
lh: What is your vision of an alternative to the mental health system?
jc: There's no single model because different things work for different
people. The idea is to give people the space to find what it is that
makes them feel better, and to help them get away from what makes them
feel worse. And to find ways to enable the things the person wants to
happen for her. And ideally there should be multiple settings where
that takes place. It could be in your home, if that's the most
comfortable place for you, or in someone else's home. I would say
probably not in an any kind of institution, because institutions by
their nature are very dehumanizing.
lh: What would you say to women who are going through a crisis and
don't have access to alternative services?
jc: It's very hard. If someone needs something today, to tell them
we're trying to make it possible soon isn't enough. They need to know
that so many people have recovered. And that there are so many people
who still have symptoms, but they are working, they are going to
school, they have a social life, a love life. There's real life out
there. That's our biggest unity with the disability movement. Even if
you have a disability so severe that you can't move your body, you can
still live a full life. And we too may need some extra help or some
extra accommodations. But that shouldn't get in the way of living a
full life. The idea that you can't have these things unless you're
"normal" disenfranchises an awful lot of people. The fact is that
people are living their lives and making choices with disabilities of
all kinds. As a society, we are so fixated on the idea that there's
only one way of doing things. I've learned from my work in the
disability movement that people possess an amazing variety of
capabilities. The human spirit is what's important.
Leak Harris interviewed Judi Chamberlin, who is a psychiatric survivor
and an activist since 1971 in the consumer/survivor/ex-patient
movement. She has been a member of the Mental Patients' Liberation
Front (MPLF), one of the earliest ex-patient groups, since 1975. MPLF
operates the Ruby Rogers Advocacy and Drop-In Center in Somerville,
Massachusetts, a self-help center which she helped to found in 1985,
and which is run by and for people who have received psychiatric
services. Chamberlin is the author of On Our Own: Patient-Controlled
Alternatives to the Mental Health System and has also written numerous
articles about the movement, self-help, and patients' rights.
Chamberlin is affiliated with the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation
at Boston University, where she directed studies of people who use
ex-patient run self-help groups, and on personal assistance services
for people with psychiatric disabilities. She is also a co-founder and
associate at the National Empowerment Center, in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, a federally-funded technical assistance center which
serves the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3693/is_200307/ai_n9241237/?tag=content;col1
End
of Interview by Leah Harris
Reprinted using Fair
Use doctrine
|
September
20,
2009 - News of the Week
CUTTING-EDGE
CONFERENCE WILL EXPLORE "FIRST BREAK" OPTIONS
Rethinking Psychiatric Crisis: Alternative Responses to "First Breaks"
Save this date: November 23 at
New York University's Kimmel Center,
60 Washington Square South in Manhattan
Present-day treatments for psychiatric crises too often traumatize the
patient and prolong suffering. The successful use of alternative
methods -- mostly outside the U.S. -- has provided a strong catalyst
for change.
These advances will be addressed by a distingished group of
practitioners, researchers, and users of such alternatives on November
23, 2009, at New York University's Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square
South, in Manhattan.
The sponsors of the daylong conference are: The International Network
Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR),
joined by The Center
to Study Recovery in Social Contexts, and Community Access Inc.
Supporters include The Empowerment Center, Mental Disability Rights
International, and SUNY Downstate Medical Center.
Don't miss this unique
opportunity to learn about treatment
alternatives from the field's top experts.
|
September 2, 2009 -
News of the Week
PEERS ENCOURAGE
WELLNESS WITH SUPPORT
ARTICLE forwarded by NYAPRS E-News:
Peer Wellness Coach - A
New Role for Peers
by Peggy Swarbrick.
Peer Connection
Sept. 2009, MHA in NewJersey
There is significant concern that people living with mental illness die
too young and/or live a poorer quality of life due to significant
medical conditions. The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) has
issued the "10 in 10 Campaign" seeking to lengthen life expectancy by
10 years in a decade.
In response, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ-School of
Health Related Professions (UMDNJ-SHRP) Department of Psychiatric
Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions and the Collaborative Support
Programs of New Jersey (CSP-NJ) Institute for Wellness and Recovery
Initiatives partnered to design a peer
wellness coach certificate
to address health and wellness needs from a self-management
perspective. This training curriculum educates peer wellness coaches.
These individuals become competent to proactively support peers to
promote wellness through addressing high risk behaviors and health risk
factors such as smoking, poor illness self-management, nutrition, and
infrequent exercise.
This summer, 18 peers in the New Jersey mental health workforce
completed the peer wellness coach coursework at the UMDNJ-SHRP in the
Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions.
This collaborative academic experience included instruction from
faculty in the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Nutritional
Sciences, Allied Dental Education, Rehabilitation, and Movement
Sciences along staff from CSP-NJ. The coursework was intense, but the
students bonded through the shared experience of learning many new
skills that could empower them to empower others in pursuit of
wellness.
The following are some student responses:
Louis Blicharz, CPRP, CSP-NJ:
"I am proud to have taken the Peer Wellness Certification Course with
so many dedicated people. It was an intense 8 weeks, but everyone
really bonded and supported each other. I believe that this is an
indication of the caliber of the Wellness Coaches who will be going
forth to serve the people in the community. I personally have battled
with mental illness for most of my life. I hope to use my personal
experience, combined with the knowledge I have gained from this
training, to help promote better health combined with increased
longevity and a better quality of life for my peers".
Robin Weiss, CPRP
"I think that for the consumers/clients who take advantage of this new
service, they will find coaching to be a fun and effective way to
accomplish wellness goals that they couldn't previously achieve on
their own. The excitement and enthusiasm we have about the coaching
method/technique is sure to communicate hope and enthusiasm".
Lori J. Bell, Certified W.R.A.P. Facilitator and Trainer:
"I feel this training directed me to go from a peer 'counselor'
approach, which is a more medical model, to a 'coaching' approach,
which leaves accountability up to the individual themselves".
What is a Peer Wellness
Coach?
A peer wellness coach is someone who can help a peer to set and achieve
a wellness or health goal by offering support and encouragement and
asking questions to see what would be most helpful. A coach does not
provide a prescription, wisdom, or advice, but rather helps a person
seeking coaching to define what is important and set a plan to
accomplish a personally valued goal.
What is coaching?
Coaching is not counseling or therapy; therefore a coach is not a
therapist, counselor or mentor. Coaching does not require that you
explore your past experiences or gain insight into the problem or
challenge you encounter. Coaching is a positive supportive relationship
between the coach and the person who wants to make the change. This
positive supportive connection empowers the person seeking change to
draw upon their own abilities and potentials so they can achieve
lasting lifestyle changes. A critical aspect of coaching is
self-responsibility. A person seeking coaching should accept
responsibility for where they are in their own life, including their
health. Through coaching, a person can determine what they are
responsible for and become empowered to take the action to improve
their wellness status, in terms of the many dimensions of wellness:
spiritual, emotional, physical, occupational, financial, environmental,
intellectual, and social.
Why Peers?
We believe that there are many possibilities for peers to contribute to
the health and well being of people living with mental illness who are
seeking support in pursuit of recovery. Wellness Coaching is a new
opportunity for people in recovery seeking a career in the helping
professions to explore….
End of Article
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August
24,
2009 - News of the Week
CALIFORNIA DOUGHNUT
SHOP AND MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATES REACH A
TRUCE
For over four months, the Psycho Donuts shop in Campbell CA has amused
its customers by pretending to be a 'fun-filled mental institution.'
Advocates who protested the shop's 'fun' at their expense were not
taken seriously. But now that's over. The owner is reported to be
moving toward a music theme and presumably all psychiatric references
will soon be replaced.
The informative article below from Mercury News in San Jose CA was
forwarded by Sarah Triano, an extraordinary advocate who is the
director of the Silicon Valley Independence Living Center and a
founding member of CAUSE (Community Alliance United to Seek Equality).
Emailed August 24, 2009
Dear CAUSE members (formerly FUSE),
I am sending you an article from today's Mercury News covering our
success with Psycho Donuts. This is the result of a lot of time,
effort, hard work, skilled organizing, and persistence by you and the
leaders within CAUSE (Community Alliance United to Seek Equality), the
coalition formed as a result of Psycho Donuts. The biggest success of
this, in my mind, is the coalition we've formed - a united,
cross-disability coalition that is ready to take on stigma and
discrimination against people with disabilities in other areas now!
As the CAUSE t-shirts at our August protest/community rally said,
"Disabilities are nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame
us all."
Best,
Sarah
Sarah Triano
Executive Director
Silicon Valley Independent Living Center
2306 Zanker Road
San Jose, CA 95131
saraht@svilc.org
408-894-9041 (v)
408-894-9012 (tty)
408-894-9050 (fax)
http://www.svilc.org/
Article Source: Mercury News, San Jose CA
DOUGHNUT SENSIBILITY
By PATTY FISHER
pfisher@mercurynews.com
Posted: 08/23/2009 Updated: 08/24/2009
It appears that sanity has come at last to Psycho Donuts. The place
still has a crazy feel. The Bates Motel sign still welcomes visitors,
and the doughnuts have names like "manic malt" and "coco kooks."
But the "bipolar" and "severe head trauma" doughnuts are off the menu.
The décor no longer includes straitjackets and a padded
cell.
Something else is missing: protesters.
For the first time since the Campbell doughnut shop opened in March,
mental health advocates aren't waving signs in the parking lot,
complaining that Psycho Donuts' brand of zany humor was an insult to
the mentally ill.
All it took was one meeting, one face-to-face conversation, to bring
peace to the corner of Campbell Avenue and Winchester Boulevard. The
question is, why did that take so long?
When I first visited Psycho Donuts in April, it was obvious that the
owners didn't understand how offensive their mental-hospital theme was.
It's one thing to make jokes about a Hitchcock film, but people who
have been through shock therapy or spent time in a real padded cell
wouldn't find the shop very appetizing. Making light of serious mental
illness only contributes to the stigma, which makes it difficult for
people to admit they need help and seek treatment.
Hey,
it's all in fun
Yet when I tried to broach the subject with Kip Berdiansky, one of the
original owners, he just kept saying it was all in fun. He refused to
meet with local mental health groups to hear their concerns. While he
insisted to me that he didn't want to offend anyone, he obviously was
offending people and didn't seem particularly bothered by it.
Perhaps he knew just what he was doing. The protests turned into a
publicity gold mine for Psycho Donuts. All the local papers carried
stories about the shop and the protests. They even made national TV. An
op-ed piece criticizing Psycho Donuts appeared in USA Today. And while
a lot of other businesses that started during the recession were
struggling, lines were out the door at Psycho Donuts.
Then, over the summer, Berdiansky sold his share of Psycho Donuts to
his partner, Jordan Zweigoron. The first thing Zweigoron did was set up
a meeting with the coalition of mental health groups. "The meeting
started out pretty angry," he said, "but within an hour it went from
contentious to a brainstorming session."
A
sign of good faith
Coalition member Sarah Triano, who runs the Silicon Valley Independent
Living Center, was relieved to finally have a chance to express her
concerns. She called off the pickets. "We told him we would have a
cooling-off period," she said. "Several of our members went down and
bought doughnuts as a sign of good faith."
Zweigoron wanted to get past the protests, which he said were a
distraction. And he wanted to make Psycho Donuts reflect his own
passion: music. The padded cell is now a mini music studio. There's a
"mellow submarine" doughnut on the menu. And "massive head trauma," a
tasty creation with a totally tasteless name, has become the "head
banger," a nod to heavy metal fans.
Zweigoron plans to keep talking with the advocates. "In the past few
days everything has jelled and I couldn't be happier," he said. "The
key point is: If you can keep a place fun and edgy without offending
people, why in the world wouldn't you do that?"
Makes sense to me. Then again, without all that free publicity, where
would Psycho Donuts be today?
End of Mercury News article
Reprinted using Fair
Use Doctrine
|
|
June
11,
2009 - News of the Week
PSYCHO DONUTS SPREADS
STIGMATIZING MESSAGE TO COLLEGE CAMPUS
Does a so-called fun doughnut named 'massive brain injury', decorated
with oozing red jelly and a battered face really exist? Unbelievably,
yes, in the small Silicon Valley town of Campbell CA.
Since mid-March, the owners of Psycho Donuts have claimed their right
to continue their sales gimmick of poking fun at psychiatric
disabilities. The tiny shop is set up to be a 'fun-filled mental
institution'. Children are especially welcome and are encouraged to
pose for photos encased in a straitjacket in a padded cell.
[Straitjacket games at home can be fatal.] Anyone who thinks this isn't
'fun' is labeled humorless. Critics of the shop, who from long
experience know a demeaning message from a benign one (such as Patsy
Kline's signature song "Crazy") are ridiculed. Those who suggest a
choice of alternate themes are accused of aiming to destroy the shop's
business.
Recently the doughnut makers broadened the range of their stigmatizing
message by taking it to a nearby college campus. Students have been
recruited to peddle donuts they buy at wholesale. The implied message:
ridicule of psychiatric vulnerabilities is socially acceptable at
DeAnza College.
Would any stigmatized minority quietly accept such harrassment? Kim
Hing, a film student who has autism, has voiced her objections to the
college administration and to public officials. So far the college has
not dismissed her legitimate concern outright, but it is unclear
whether she has been taken seriously. Explaining her objection to the
doughnut's 'fun' diagnoses and decorations, Kim likened them to a
doughnut covered with licorice and named 'nigger'. It's an apt
illustration.
MORE
INFORMATION
-
Read Kim Hing's statement questioning the
right to exploit
psychiatric conditions for commercial gain.
I am an Aspie, that's a nickname for someone who has been diagnosed
with Asperger's Syndrome. It means I am on the autistic spectrum. I
also have Major Depression, Anxiety, and ADD. I want to bring the
following incident to your attention.
I am taking a film class at DeAnza College in Cupertino, CA. The DeAnza
Academy of Independent Filmmakers club on campus held an event recently
which I attended. Marc Buckland was the featured speaker. He gave a
great presentation with insights on directing and producing for TV.
Following his presentation, the owner of a new local shop called
"Psycho Donuts" took the stage. Apparently the club invited him.
This man and his donut shop have stirred up huge controversy in Santa
Clara County. This owner decided he wanted to make a "fun, themed
restaurant where parents can take their children and not pay a lot."
The theme is a mental institution. You can eat your donuts in the
"Group Therapy Room" and have your children photographed in a real
straightjacket in the shop's padded cell. The donuts have strange
toppings, such as cereal and candy. Order your favorite - Bi-Polar,
Massive Head Trauma, or any of the DSM IV psychiatritic diagnoses.
Seriously, the owner thinks it is funny to name the donuts after mental
illnesses. So why was this man on DeAnza College's campus? (DeAnza is a
local community college.) He came to encourage students to send him
short films with donuts in them that he will play on monitors at Psycho
Donuts. He apparently has a channel on YouTube, as well. Also, he
offered to help the students with fundraising by providing them Psycho
Donuts at wholesale prices to sell on campus. He will even send over
some "crazy doctors and nurses to help." (His employees wear doctor and
nurses uniforms and lab coats.)
Nice way of marketing, isn't it? Get the students to sell your donuts
and you don't have to pay a dime. Never mind the effect it will have on
students who have diagnoses. When I protested that it wasn't funny, I
was told by an officer of the club to "stop disrupting the meeting."
She also told me, "you're taking this too seriously." And when I
persisted, she told me to "take it outside."
I wrote the college's newspaper and my letter was published in it. My
letter is starting to make the circuit to various organizations (by way
of people forwarding it) such as NAMI (National Alliance on Mental
Illness) and Silicon Valley Independent Living Center. I also wrote the
San Jose Mercury News and my letter was published May 9.
The local NAMI president e-mailed me the press-release that NAMI sent
out on 4/28/09 about the impact this shop is having on the mental
health community. He said I could e-mail it to anyone at the college. I
e-mailed it to the film club members. The officer who told me to "take
it outside" responded by asking if I also would have protested Jack
Nicholson for his portrayal in a mental hospital. She wrote that she
has visited mental hospital 3 times and was in special education. Her
mother has bi-polar. She sees nothing wrong with the donut shop owner's
"creativity" and says "this is a free country."
Clearly there is a difference between "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
which dramatized the deplorable treatment of patients in mental
hospitals of that era and the ridiculing of those with mental illnesses
in the guise of "humorously" naming strange looking donuts after
psychiatric illnesses and encouraging students to sell them on campus
regardless of how students with diagnoses might feel.
There is a federal law, ADA, that protects those with disabilities from
discrimination at school. DeAnza College is funded by the State of
California. I do not expect to be publicly humiliated and to have my
disability ridiculed at a school sponsered event. While this is a free
country, not everything that is creative is allowed at school.
I am certain that if the owner covered a donut with black licorice and
named it "Nigger", he would never have been allowed on campus.
I do not feel I should be subjected to this at school.
-Kim Hing
Film Student
End of statement
__________________________
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|
April
26,
2009 - News of the Week
LANGUAGE
MATTERS: WHAT DOES
"TREATMENT" MEAN?
Dr. Sally Satel asserted this week in a New
York Times opinion
piece that "treatment" for
mental illnesses is the best way to
fight the stigmas that plague the field. But how does she define
treatment?
Satel's article makes clear what the word "treatment" means to her. She
applauds a current trend in treatment promotion by noting that
"psychiatric medications are now routinely advertised on television."
She is pleased that the military is taking steps to standardize
"treatment" for combat stress disorders. Is she referring to a
medicated approach which many veterans say does not
work for them?
Most mental health advocates consider housing and a network of
community support services to be crucial to the successful treatment of
psychiatic disorders. To our knowledge, Dr. Satel has never used her
impressive public relations skills to advocate for programs such as the
successful "housing first" program in New York and much needed
veterans' counseling programs. Why?
The pharmaceutical industry must love her.
MORE
INFORMATION
Link: Mental
Health Needs are Stressing Out Veterans
Administration by
Lou Michel, Buffalo
News, November 7, 2008
Link: To
Fight Stigmas, Start With Treatment by
Sally Satel, M.D., New York Times, April 21, 2009
|
|
April 19, 2009 - News of
the Week
WHEN
DOES FREE SPEECH BECOME HATE
SPEECH ?
A few years ago, a lighthearted attempt at
humor by a small
group of firemen in Long Island NY caused public outrage. In a parade,
the men tied an effigy of a black man to the back of their engine. When
accused of racial bias, they claimed the protection of their right to
freedom of speech.
Will public outrage sensitize the lighthearted marketers of a
jelly-filled doughnut they named 'massive head trauma' and decorated
with a battered face and dripping red jam? Or has such crude
exploitation become socially acceptable?
Please read and circulate the eloquent letter below.
April 16, 2009
I am a disabled veteran from the 'Cold War' era. I was medically
retired from the US Army after a training accident left me with a
severe and permanent brain injury. I am speaking to the customers of
"Psycho Donuts" in Campbell. Not only are these entepreneurs
capitalizing on the backs of my fellow disabled veterans, but at the
expense of all decent people who are sensitive to basic human rights
and dignity.
Imagine yourself as a lower-class citizen in England during the Middle
Ages. Now see yourself as the court jester in the town square or a
monkey on the shoulder of a clown meant to amuse the King. You feel the
indignity of the spit, smirks and jeers, all day, every day. Switch to
current day and substitute the jester and the monkey for brave veteran
troops returning from Iraq ...with a severe brain injury from a
roadside bomb or a rocket-propelled grenade.
Twenty miles north from the Campbell donut shop, soldiers at the Palo
Alto PolyTrauma Rehabilitation Center are struggling with a new,
strange version of themselves, struggling with a brain that interprets
colors, sounds, touch, voices and pictures in weird ways...and nobody
can understand this new perspective...the only thing they know is
they're alone and these changes will last forever. When they joined the
military they didn't sign up for ridcule and the butt of public humor.
They didn't expect a greeting like they are recieving from this
seemingly harmless donut shop. But they did have a "Massive Head
Trauma."
Let's protect the dignity of our veterans ... let's not trivialize
brain injury. It's so devastating, so permanent. One of their pastries
is called "Massive Head Trauma" -- this is the kind of scorn that can
send our wounded warriors and their families into a downward spiral of
depression. We feel like outsiders as it is. All survivors of head
trauma are embarrassed by this display. Veterans of all wars are
disgusted. "Support our troops" is the vogue catch-phrase of our
age...let's be true to our convictions.... Tell Mayor Kennedy and the
Campbell City Council that language is a reflection of intelligence,
and Campbell is developing a reputation of callous ignorance.
Hardy Stone
US Army Airborne Infantry
USMA 1980
Frederick, Maryland
Reprinted
with permission
|
|
April
15,
2009 - News of the Week
'PSYCHO DONUTS' TURNS
BACK THE CLOCK
Two Silicon
Valley entepreneurs have discovered a cool way to market products. They
opened a donut shop and turned it into a fun-filled insane asylum. The
store teems with "lighthearted" ideas based on vulnerable human
conditions. Favorites are wrapping children in straitjackets for fun
photos, donuts with clever names like cereal killer, and a
'head-trauma' donut decorated with dripping red jam.
What's wrong with mocking mental illnesses to sell products? Other
stigmatized minorities (such as GLAAD - Gays and Lesbions Against
Defamation) could answer that question easily. The mental health
community is still not sure.
Perhaps the extraordinary article below, reprinted from 2004, will help
us to rethink our community's goals and how to reach them.
April 18, 2004 - News
of the Week
A
PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVOR NAMES BIGGEST CHALLENGE
Source: Santa
Cruz Sentinel, "Severe mental illness is a tiring challenge, every
waking moment, every waking day. Do not dismiss this essay..."
Biggest
challenge of mental illness is the stigmatization
By MAEL ANNE DINNELL
April 18, 2004
I belong to a community, a social class and a subculture that, by
necessity, requires that I regularly be categorized for the purpose of
treatment and concrete assistance.
This is a community whose members are familiar with constant challenges
and frequent anguish. People die frequently in this community, from
suicide, drug overdose and physiological complications, which are the
side effects of very powerful medications — side effects like
tumors, heart problems, kidney failure, poor liver function, toxicity,
etc.
But for all these high prices, we in this community suffer most
profoundly from stigmatization, derision, misunderstanding and
discrimination that no other minority would allow to pass unchallenged.
Paradoxically, the way we are included in society is by segregation,
which we wearily (and necessarily) allow. We are the "mentally ill,"
the consumers in a system of a particular kind of care.
I feel urgency, in the light of attempts by the governor of California
to minimize and even cap our services, to address the larger society
about what life is like for us. Severe mental illness is a tiring
challenge, every waking moment of every waking day. Do not dismiss this
essay at this point out of an ignorant conviction that we are lazy,
crazy or unsalvageable. You stand to learn something about your fellow
human beings.
Segregating us allows for specific kinds of treatment the average
citizen does not require, but it also engenders our dismissal. We are
accused often of being dependent on the mental-health services that
provide us with medication, living assistance, payees, programs,
therapy and group support. But you would not judge a diabetic for being
dependent on insulin, or the dependence of someone with kidney failure
on dialysis. These things are matters of life and death to us, not only
health and comfort. At some point we have been judged inappropriate
enough often enough by society to warrant our assignment as members to
this system, but at some point our functioning in it becomes relevant
to the length and quality of our lives. There are many people in this
society with fixed delusions or idiosyncrasies of thought and behavior
that never get diverted into this system, and whose lives are not
affected in terms of length or quality. The quality of our subjective
experience (of ourselves and of the world) then becomes the most
important aspect of being assigned to this system.
The typical image of a mental-health client is one of a client in
crisis. That is when the public notices us, and that is when we come to
the attention of the police. These acute episodes are the subject of
ignorant jokes and the reason for unquestioned prejudices.
In actuality, most of the time we are not visibly distinguishable from
you. But jokes and stereotypes at our expense occur regularly even in
ultra-liberal Santa Cruz, and even in the alternative publications.
Derisive references one would never dare to make toward blacks, for
instance, or women, are commonplace and acceptable. Even now someone
reading this is protesting that I am overly sensitive. I think not.
We joke about or own behavior sometimes. But there is really nothing
funny at all about the experience of serious mental illness. Coping
with it requires an outstanding level of strength, willingness,
motivation and commitment. Most people could not survive it; in fact,
many of us don't. I, personally, thank God every day for the new
generation of "atypical" psychotropic drugs; they have freed me from
the nightmare of cognitive confusion, misperception and emotional
deadness that I lived with for almost half a century, whether acutely
or in relative remission.
But I have paid a price for the use of the drug that changed everything
for me: my body thermostat has been ruined and I suffer regularly from
overheating and feverish states. This long-range effect was not known
when I started on it. This is a typical example of the kind of
trade-offs we are required to make in exchange for the blessing of
being functional and feeling well.
In spite of infighting, we emphasize our segregation by the inclusion
of only each other in our social lives. Why should we struggle
valiantly to blend in with and facilitate the rest of the people in
society? We accept each other as we are and meet each other where we
are. We do not have to constantly explain ourselves or strive for some
vaguely understood kind of appropriateness or redeem ourselves for the
sin of being subjected to a condition we can manage but not cure or
control. We can live, work and socialize within a group in which each
individual is faced with the same dilemma.
It is trite and cliché to say, but the world itself is
insane.
World and local events are dominated by acts that are profoundly
inappropriate — that is, inhumane — from genocide
to child
abuse and molestation to wars fought for the sake of territory and
resources. It is almost amusing because the behaviors that find us
relegated to the mental-health system (very early on in our lives)
seldom involve violence against other human beings. As a group, we are
no more violent than society at large; in fact, we are more likely to
be victims of violence.
Sickness and health are determined mostly on the basis of peculiarity
— not a moral standard, not a measure of our respect toward
the
rights of others. To "fit in" — somewhere — is the
more and
the mantra in this society. It does not pay to stand out. And neither
is it easy to stand out. Thus, our sub-community is open to those who
do not belong, and closed to those who do.
There is beginning to be movement in our community, as there has been
for some time already in the ranks of the physically disabled, toward a
kind of solidarity, political involvement and awareness that we
represent an important voting bloc. My personal mission is to write and
act toward the goal of not only establishing and maintaining concrete
"patients' rights," but educating society at large about the image and
the needs of the mentally ill — in all of their various
circumstances, from life in the larger community to homelessness to
institutions and facilities.
I know without a doubt there are people who have read this far saying,
"This cannot be a person with real mental illness, she is too logical
and articulate." And this is precisely the point I have endeavored to
make. We are talented, we are verbal, we are interested in things; we
struggle with a handicap the majority of people don't have, but you
make a grave mistake to dismiss and outcast us.
In any case, we will be heard, and we are here.
Mael Anne Dinnell is a
Santa Cruz resident.
Reprinted
using Fair Use Doctrine
|
|
February
1, 2009 - News of the Week
BRITISH
LAUNCH MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR
'TIME TO CHANGE' CAMPAIGN
Don't miss the inviting website! www.time-to-change.org.uk/
Three British consumer-led organizations have united in a massive
effort to defeat discrimination against people with mental illnesses.
They are determined to get across the real story about mental health,
told by those who know. The campaign will appear in 4-week phases over
the coming months.
The first 4-week phase is a straight-talking campaign which runs from
January 21st and includes:
-
Celebrity press ads featuring Stephen Fry,
Ruby Wax and
Alastair Campbell
-
Bold, uncompromising stunts to grab public
attention
-
A string of high-profile supporters, from
celebs to
politicians
-
Press
events
The TV ad shows that being told to 'pull yourself together', being left
out of things and treated as 'a problem' can lead people with mental
health problems to despair – tragically for some, they just
can't
go on. TV viewers will be left in no doubt that the way they treat
people with mental health problems like depression can make all the
difference.
'Time to Change' is run by leading mental health charities: Mental
Health Media, Mind, and Rethink, and
is backed by £16 million from the Big Lottery Fund
and £2 million from Comic Relief.
Each of these organizations is an established powerhouse. Their united
website, www.time-to-change.org.uk/
offers a wide range of excellent resources.
|
|
December
7, 2008 - News of the Week
A
LOOK BACK AT DUBIOUS JUSTICE
Would A Jury Today Be More Enlightened?
Nearly a decade ago, the year 1999 began in New York City with a
senseless tragedy that shocked and saddened the city and dominated the
news for months. On January 3, Andrew Goldstein, who had been
discharged three weeks earlier from a psychiatric hospital with a
one-week supply of medication, pushed Kendra Webdale, a lovely young
aspiring writer, to her death under an oncoming train.
The Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington VA quickly declared Andrew
Goldstein a "treatment resister" and made him a poster boy in their
crusade for forced medication. Then on May 23 a different view of
Goldstein emerged in a stunning cover story in the New York Times
Magazine. The article exposed a trail of negligence - mixups, dead-end
waiting lists, premature discharges - by the mental health facilities
where Goldstein had repeatedly asked for the help he knew he needed.
But by then, "treatment refuser" had become Goldstein's destined label.
Latest update: in 2007 a third trial for Andrew Goldstein ended with a
negotiated conviction for murder and a prison sentence of 25 years plus
5 years probation after release.
A decade-old article below by Michael Winerip leads one to ask, Has the
public become more aware of mental health issues since Goldstein's
first jury trial in 1999?
Another article reprinted below, The
Railroading of Andrew Goldstein (2002)
shows how justice was
derailed.
ARTICLE:
New York Times
November 21, 1999
The
Way We Live Now: 11-21-99; The
Jurors' Dilemma
By MICHAEL WINERIP
While the jurors tried to figure out what, if anything, was going on
inside Andrew Goldstein's head when he shoved Kendra Webdale to her
death, we reporters stayed busy speculating on what was in the jurors'
heads. Midway through the trial, during a lunch break, half a dozen of
us were sitting around the courthouse press room eating our $3.50 tuna
sandwiches from Lil's when a TV reporter cut right through all the
expert psychiatric testimony. "I'd vote guilty," she said. "I'd want to
make sure Goldstein goes away for a long time."
That of course was not what the trial was supposed to be about. It was
the jurors' job to decide whether Goldstein knew right from wrong when
he pushed Kendra Webdale in front of the subway train or whether he was
insane at the time, and thus not responsible for what he did. Was he
once again in some sort of uncontrollable psychotic fog as he had
repeatedly told psychiatrists in recent years each time he'd punched
and shoved people? Or was he a budding Ted Bundy who craftily used his
schizophrenia as a shield for his rage against women?
If judged sane at that awful moment, Goldstein would be guilty of
murder and most likely would serve at least 25 years in a state prison.
If judged insane, he would go to a secure state psychiatric hospital.
There he would be re-evaluated every two years to determine whether he
was fit for discharge. And that, I believe, scared the hell out of many
New Yorkers -- the possibility that Andrew Goldstein could be back on
the streets in a few years' time. It was, to my mind, the prosecutor's
secret weapon.
At the start of their deliberations, the 12 jurors polled themselves.
Five felt Goldstein was guilty of murder; three felt he was not guilty
by reason of insanity; four were undecided.
Hannah McCaughey, 32, a graphics designer, was among the undecideds.
But as the days passed, she and most of the others switched to guilty.
Partly, she said, it was because Goldstein had seemed more rational in
his videotaped confession than she'd anticipated. "I would have
expected him to seem more delusional," she said. "Like he thought
Kendra was a green monster and her head was on fire and he was trying
to put it out."
But there was something else, several of them said in interviews, that
kept eating at them, that they knew, as jurors, they were not supposed
to consider, but that they could not help worrying about. "I was
thinking, What happens if he's found not guilty by reason of insanity
and gets out in a short time," McCaughey said. "I know we weren't
supposed to talk about it, but I brought it up once myself. I said,
"Let's talk about the ramifications of our judgment."
"Having grown up in New York," she added, "I know that people don't
stay in mental institutions very long. I thought to myself, How am I
going to feel in a year or two or five when he's killed somebody else?
The state's record is so bad -- it definitely had an influence on me."
The truth is, if Goldstein was judged insane, he would probably spend
as much or more time locked away. A 1995 study from the journal Law and
Human Behavior looked at the cases of 526 New York defendants in
criminal trials who claimed insanity; most of them, about two-thirds,
were unsuccessful. But those who were judged insane actually wound up
spending more time confined to psychiatric facilities than their guilty
counterparts spent in prisons. Experts I spoke with agreed. Dr. E.
Fuller Torrey [see
footnote by ja], one of the
nation's leading researchers on
schizophrenia, has examined John Hinckley Jr., written a book on Ezra
Pound and pushed for tougher commitment laws for mentally ill people
resistant to treatment. But he has no doubt that if Goldstein was found
insane, he'd be locked away for a long, long stretch: "In these
high-profile cases, psychiatrists know the public is watching.
Psychiatrists aren't particularly brave people. No psychiatrist is
going to stick out his neck for someone like Goldstein. There's too
much at stake."
Even a veteran New York City prosecutor told me, "We generally don't
have a problem with criminally insane people being released before we
think they're ready."
After the jury deadlocked, 10-2, and a mistrial was declared, the media
focused on the biases of the two holdouts who felt Goldstein was
insane. It is just as important to look at the biases of the majority.
I am no bleeding heart. The primary victim here is not Goldstein but
the Webdales. They've already been tortured twice this last year. They
lost a beautiful daughter, and now, after forcing themselves to attend
this gruesome murder trial every day for weeks, they will face it all
over again at the retrial. And yet, because they labored to turn
despair into something constructive, George Pataki this month, for the
first time during his five years as governor, was shamed into offering
significant new resources for the mentally ill.
Still, Andrew Goldstein was also dealt a losing hand twice. First, by a
mental-health system that refused his repeated requests for community
care and long-term treatment, that kept dumping him back on the streets
even though he'd attacked more than a dozen people in two years. When I
first obtained his 10-year, 3,500-page record for the article I wrote
in these pages last spring, I was amazed by how clearly a dysfunctional
system was able to document its own failures.
Knowing that 3,500-page record, can we really expect a juror who
suspects that Goldstein was insane to have faith that the system will
someday in the future correctly judge whether or not it is safe to
release him? That is a lot of added pressure to place on a juror. It's
the second bad hand dealt Goldstein: a psychiatric system that has lost
the public's trust lowers the odds that a mentally ill human being will
get evenhanded justice.
Michael Winerip is a staff writer for the magazine. His last article
was "Bedlam on the Streets."
End of New York Times Article
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-
Footnote by
J Arnold: Dr. E. Fuller Torrey is the chief proponent of forced
psychotropic medication. In 1999, Dr. Torrey and his supporters labeled
Andrew Goldstein a "treatment refuser" to influence the passage of
Kendra's Law.
MORE
INFORMATION
-
ARTICLE: The
Railroading of Andrew Goldstein
by Patricia Warburg Cliff, The
Journal of California NAMI V.11,1.3 (September, 2000)
The failure of the legal profession, the court system and the public to
grasp the vital concepts involved in the two trials of Andrew Goldstein
further reinforce the fact that we at NAMI have much work to do.
In January 1999, Andrew Goldstein, an unmedicated, delusional person
with paranoid schizophrenia who had been unsuccessfully seeking help at
various hospital emergency rooms, pushed Kendra Webdale to her death on
the tracks of the New York City subway. Unfortunately the terrible
tragedy of this young woman's death clouded public perception of the
situation which allowed this to occur: the failure of the public system
to offer the required state-financed housing with day services, clinic
visits and an intensive case manager, to this seriously ill young man.
It was, however, not the system which was on trial, but the other
"victim" of this tragedy, Andrew Goldstein himself. The first trial
ended in a hung jury, because two jury members had had some limited
experience with the mental health system and consequently understood
the nature of Goldstein's illness and his inability to form the
necessary intent to commit murder in his psychotic state. The public's
outcry for revengeful punishment did not, however, cease.
In late February, 2000, a second trial was commenced. After hearing the
evidence, the judge instructed the jury that they had the option of
convicting the defendant of manslaughter in lieu of the second degree
murder charges, if they found that he had acted with "depraved
indifference," but without the requisite intent necessary for a
conviction of second degree murder. It took the jury only two hours to
reach the verdict of second degree murder.
The irony of the situation should not be overlooked: Andrew Goldstein
was being held at Bellevue Hospital following his arrest where he was
willingly receiving treatment for his illness and consequently would
not be able to appear sufficiently psychotic at his trial to
demonstrate to the jury the disabling effect of this illness on his
judgment. The defense pinned its hopes on taking Mr. Goldstein off his
antipsychotic medication and putting him on the stand, to better show
the jurors his mental state at the time of the attack. This novel
concept was thwarted when Mr. Goldstein struck a social worker, further
indicating his violent state of mind when unmedicated. Judge Berkman
insisted that Mr. Goldstein be offered the choice of taking his
antipsychotic medication, which he chose to do. The result was that the
jury was able to see a passive, sedated individual and not the person
whose delusions caused his violent behavior.
NAMI's suggestions to the defense counsel to utilize the virtual
reality videos produced by pharmaceutical companies which demonstrate
the psychotic state of mind, as well as comparisons to the diminished
capacity suffered by individuals who are experiencing the onset of a
diabetic coma or an epileptic seizure, fell on deaf ears. The
subsequent result demonstrates the ignorance of the judge, jury and
defense counsel with respect to paranoid schizophrenia. Andrew
Goldstein never got a fair chance.
At the conclusion of the trial, the jurors were convinced that
punishment, not treatment, was warranted. Mrs. Webdale, the victim's
mother spoke at the sentencing hearing: "It is my contention that if
Andrew Goldstein had been held responsible many incidents ago, there
would not have been 13 assaults and one homicide committed by him. His
ongoing aggression was tolerated and acceptable." The presiding judge
concurred saying that the attack stemmed from the state mental health
system's failure to punish Mr. Goldstein for past assaults.
On May 5, 2000, Judge Berkman gave Andrew Goldstein the maximum
sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the murder of Kendra
Webdale. What is wrong with this picture? Has the "justice system"
reverted to a witch hunt to punish the violent mentally ill whom the
public system has dismally failed? Are we, as a society, going to be
content with the gross misunderstandings of mental illness which were
demonstrated in this trial? How are we going to educate the judiciary
about these issues?
The ultimate irony is that the New York State legislature, ever
reluctant to provide sufficient funding for treatment for the mentally
ill, hastily passed a bill, commonly referred to as "Kendra's Law,"
allowing for court ordered treatment or commitment of the mentally ill
under certain circumstances. Andrew Goldstein who is now rotting in the
state prison system, had tried repeatedly to get help before the
attack. He even sought his own commitment when he realized that he was
out of control. The misnomered "Kendra's Law" would not have prevented
this tragedy.
PATRICIA WARBURG CLIFF, an attorney and mental health advocate in New
York City, serves on the national board of NAMI as well as on the board
of NAMI-NYC Metro. Her only child, Kenneth Johnson, succumbed to
depression in 1995, as a result of the private health care system's
failure to adequately diagnose and appropriately care for his illness.
End of article
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November 21, 2008 - News
of the Week
'ANOTHER
KIND OF VALOR' CAPTURES
TORMENT OF STRESS DISORDERS IN VIDEO VIGNETTES
An Audience Discussion Guide is Included to Promote Public Awareness
For
details and order information,
click http://www.cimh.org/Learning/Publications-DVD/Another-Kind-Of-Valor.aspx
Will the grateful American public provide our returning war veterans
with the help they need to cope with combat-related stress disorders
and brain injuries? The public first needs a basic understanding of
these challenging conditions. To bridge the gap in public understanding
of wounds that are disabling but invisible, the California
Institute for Mental Health (CIMH)
has released 'Another Kind
of Valor', an outstanding set of
videos that is both deeply moving
and a powerful stimulus for discussion of problems that affect families
and communities nationwide.
The CIMH video kit consists of 3 DVDs with nine powerful half-hour
vignettes based on actual stories of battle trauma, plus a learning CD
that serves both as a learner's guide and a facilitator's handbook
useful for self-study or group discussions.
RELATED
INFORMATION
Returning
to civilian life from combat is almost always a
hard road to run. Studies have shown that a third of G.I.'s returning
from the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan - more than 300,000 men
and women - have endured mental health difficulties.
-
A
quote from David W. Gorman, Executive Director of Disabled
American
Veterans, praising Another
Kind of Valor and its creator,
filmmaker Dan E. Weisburd.
While
most Americans can empathsize with the challenges
faced by veterans suffering from physical injuries and disabilities, it
is often more difficult for civilians to comprehend the complex
emotional and psychological problems confronting veterans suffering
from post-deployment mental health issues - or the invisible injuries
of war - such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and
traumatic brain injury. By bringing these stories to life through the
docu-drama format, Another
Kind of Valor helps to foster
awareness, discussion, and understanding of the struggles our disabled
veterans and their family caregivers face, and contributes to the
development of a more supportive encironment in which they can begin to
heal and recover from the wounds of war.
-
The
article below typifies a growing trend. It underscores the urgent need
for public action on behalf of men and women returning from Mideast
battlefields.
MENTAL
HEALTH NEEDS ARE STRESSING OUT VETERANS'
ADMINISTRATION
War Veterans Seeking Help In Record Numbers
By Lou Michel
Buffalo News
November 7, 2008
Dana Cushing is a disabled veteran who is supposed to receive an hour
of counseling each week through the Buffalo VA. But she shares that
hour of a psychologist's time with 15 others in group therapy. "So you
have 60 minutes divided by 15 people. That's four minutes apiece, and
that's not going to help," Cushing said.
She is not alone.
Returning war veterans are seeking help for depression, anger and other
mental health problems in record numbers in Buffalo Veterans Affairs
Medical Center and similar hospitals around the country.
The most common treatment is medication. In fact, the number of
prescriptions given to local [Buffalo] veterans to help them with
mental problems has increased from about 1,700 seven years ago to
almost 8,000 in the 2007-08 fiscal year.
The problem is that medicine, on its own, does not teach the veterans
how to cope. That is why a campaign is under way to enlist
psychologists and other mental health providers to work with war
veterans.
There's just one catch. There's no pay. It's volunteered time. Not a
lot. Just one hour a week. "We're appealing to the social and moral
conscience of behavioral providers in the community to reach out and
offer one hour per week," said Thomas P. McNulty, president of Mental
Health Services of Erie County. "Soldiers and their families deserve
nothing but the very best from our community."
The need is pressing and will continue to grow, according to Barbara
Van Dahlen Romberg, national founder and president of Give an Hour. "I
hear from some veterans that it is difficult to get immediate
appointments and frequent appointments," she said.
The effort here and in other states comes at a time when more federal
money is pouring into the Department of Veterans Affairs to treat
psychologically injured veterans. Critics say there is too much
emphasis on medication and not enough on counseling. Antidepressants
top the list of medicines prescribed to returning Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans at the Buffalo VA, which has spent more than $2 million on
psychiatric medications since 2001.
E-mails to Romberg from the loved ones of veterans across the country
often express concern that the vets are "primarily receiving
medications and not enough counseling," she said. A volunteer force of
psychologists is "nimble and fluid" and can fill in the gaps as needed,
Romberg said.
The demand for counseling is expected to continue to increase as more
veterans return home, McNulty said. To date, an estimated 1.6 million
service members have spent time in Iraq or Afghanistan. "What we're
hearing is that the wave of veterans returning will put undue stress on
the current system, and new resources must be identified to meet that
need," he said, adding that he is working with VA employees who cannot
be faulted for the growing demands.
And, McNulty says, it's not only veterans who need the care. Their
family members, children especially, need counseling to cope with
extended absences caused by multiple deployments. "Let's say the mom is
the one in the service, and mom's not home two years. The kids feel
bad. They've lost two years. Then mommy, or daddy, returns from the war
into a home that is already stressed by their absence," McNulty said.
"In addition, there's the issues the soldier brings home."
There are others, as well, who could benefit from the planned local
chapter of Give an Hour. Consider Army veteran Christopher Simmance.
Over the last two years, the City of Tonawanda man says he has seen
four or five psychiatrists and is awaiting assignment of a new one. "My
old psychiatrist quit in May. He told me he couldn't stand how the VA
was treating vets. He gave me a bunch of refills," said Simmance, who
developed post-traumatic stress disorder several years after serving in
a Middle East international peacekeeping force.
Medication alone, the vets say, doesn*t heal. Yet it is a big part of
their treatment. And while the VA's mental health staff might appear
sufficient in number to treat the more than 2,000 new war veterans
[from Buffalo] of the last several years, these men and women are not
the only ones who rely on the VA. Each year, the Buffalo VA treats more
than 40,000 veterans, who are all entitled to care from its 11
full-time psychiatrists and 70-plus psychologists, social workers,
addiction therapists and part-time mental health workers.
Working with McNulty to launch the local volunteer effort a few weeks
from now is Christopher M. Kreiger, a disabled Army veteran, who
suffered traumatic brain injuries serving in Iraq and post-traumatic
stress. "I've been out trying to push to see if psychiatrists would be
willing to donate an hour a week to a veteran in need who cannot get it
at the VA," Kreiger said. "Even the staff that works at the VA says
there's a shortage."
Rather than sit at home and complain, Kreiger, of the Town of
Tonawanda, says working to help fellow veterans has helped him. "The
more I get into it, the more my problems don't seem so big," he said,
explaining that idle time is a big problem for psychologically wounded
veterans. "I just sit at home. I just watch TV," Simmance said. At one
point, he said the VA wanted to assign him to a foreign-born
psychiatrist. He refused, claiming his overseas military experiences
would make it difficult for him to open up to that particular doctor.
Simmance said he consumes up to four prescription drugs a day for his
post-traumatic stress. Bret Mandell, an Army veteran who has seen
action in Iraq and Afghanistan, described similar experiences in
dealing with the VA, adding that he has taken up to seven different
medications for post traumatic stress. "Every time I went up there,
they kept switching me around to different people, and I couldn't get a
good relationship with anyone to where it benefited me," Mandell said
of the VA.
Tracy Kinn, a New York State veterans counselor, says vets need to be
proactive if they want to secure VA services. "They work for us, but
they are very overworked," said Kinn, a former Marine. Veterans who
don't take a proactive approach, she said, may wind up only with
medications and "without the care."
Jeremy Lepsch, a psychologically disabled Marine from North Tonawanda,
said he has noticed progress in the level of VA care. "It seems they've
talked to the staff because everyone seems a lot more friendly and
caring," Lepsch said. The VA also has enhanced its day treatment
facility on Main Street at Hertel Avenue, describing it as a
"psycho-social rehabilitation recovery center," according to Buffalo VA
spokeswoman Evangeline Conley. "We're learning and modifying the
programs based on current needs and what seems to be best for
veterans," Conley said.
End of Buffalo
News Article
Source:
http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Mental+health+needs+are+stressing+out+VA&expire=&urlID=32281567&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.buffalonews.com%2Fhome%2Fstory%2F486523.html&partnerID=173606
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November
9, 2008 - News of the Week
IT
CAN BE DONE! Peer
Counselors Become Agents of Recovery
ARTICLE:
Note
on language: readers may prefer to substitute the
terms "people with psychiatric disabilities and substance use
disorders" instead of "the mentally ill and drug addicts."
Philadelphia Agency Is
Rolling Out A Model For Clients,
Including Addicts, With Emphasis On Recovery
By Don Sapatkin Philadelphia Inquirer October 9,
2008
Recalling Philadelphia's roots as a medical innovator dating to
colonial times, city officials outlined yesterday what they described
as sweeping changes - some completed, others envisioned - in the
treatment of drug addicts and the mentally ill.
Over the last several decades, scientific advances have dramatically
improved the lives of the mentally ill, many of whom are also addicted
to drugs and sometimes homeless. But those discoveries have not always
guided government programs across the nation that are intended to help.
"The question is how do we reorganize our system to deal with the
realization that people get better?" said Arthur C. Evans, director of
the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation
Services.
At a news conference yesterday at a community mental-health center,
Evans said some recovering addicts were being trained as peer
counselors, allowing them to use their experiences to help others in
similar straits. By paying the peer counselors, the program serves
another need - getting people back on their feet and staying connected,
as opposed to what has been described as the treat-them-and-drop-them
approach.
Evans described the new longer-term model as the most sweeping change
in the field since hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people were
released from institutions during the deinstitutionalization wave of
the 1970s.
The changes, which will be phased in over the next two or three years,
will be accommodated in his department's $1.4 billion budget, Evans
said, noting that peer counselors are not paid like doctors.
The speakers made a point yesterday of describing their new approach as
"recovery" rather than "treatment."
Among them was Robert D. Martin, 42, who said he had bipolar disorder
and was addicted to crack and living on the streets of Center City in
the late 1980s and early '90s. Early in this decade, he said in an
interview, his treatment in "partial programs" - "you sat for eight
hours a day, then were sent back on the street" - gave him "a glimmer
of life."
In mid-2007, just as some of the rethinking was being implemented at
Evans' agency, two weeks of intensive training taught Martin how to
support recovering addicts, how to run groups, and how to teach people
the skills that most Americans take for granted, such as applying for
Social Security cards and preparing to go back to school.
He got a job as a peer counselor and has since been promoted. He moved
from the street to a shelter to the three-bedroom house he now rents
with his wife of two years in Logan. And he just traded in an old
clunker for a 2006 Nissan Maxima.
"I'm living life again," Martin said, sitting outside the news
conference at the Philadelphia Recovery Community Center at 1701 W.
Lehigh Ave.
The site is the first of several planned centers that will offer a
range of support groups, counseling, education and social events in
communities.
In general, Evans said, the changes that he calls "recovery
transformation" - but that may be known to professionals elsewhere as
"recovery-oriented systems of care" - are supported by research.
When he was a deputy commissioner of mental health and addiction
services in Connecticut, Evans implemented what was described as the
first such comprehensive effort, and when he arrived several years ago
in Philadelphia, he set about doing the same thing.
"Over the years, it has become clear that people with addiction
problems also have other mental-health issues," said Joe Troncale,
medical director of the Caron Foundation near Reading, a leading
addiction treatment center.
Troncale had no direct knowledge of the changes in Philadelphia but
said the integrative or holistic model that was described to him
appeared to be the direction in which behavioral health was heading.
Philadelphia, he said, had been known as a leader in humane mental
health services going back to the beginning of the nation, when Dr.
Benjamin Rush sought to classify forms of mental illness and wrote the
first American textbook on psychiatry.
End of Article
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Source: NYAPRS Enews
MORE
INFORMATION
___________________________________
EDITORIAL
New York Times
November 7, 2008
GOOD
NEIGHBORS
New York City pioneered the strategy of providing homeless people not
just with housing but with drug treatment, psychiatric care and other
services they need to live successfully on their own. Even with all the
add-ons, supportive housing apartment buildings cost substantially less
than shelters and are many times less expensive than jails or beds in
psychiatric hospitals.
This strategy is taking root all over the country and proving beyond a
doubt that people who were once homeless can be good neighbors and good
citizens. Unfortunately, many neighborhoods are continuing to fight the
developments, believing that they bring down property values. A
long-awaited study from New York University's Furman Center for Real
Estate and Urban Policy should put an end to that misperception.
The study examined the sale prices of apartment buildings, condominiums
and individual homes in New York City neighborhoods where 123
supportive housing developments were opened between 1985 and 2003.
Fear seems to have suppressed property values somewhat while the new
developments, which often replaced vacant lots or eyesores, were being
built. But that evaporated once people saw the buildings and how well
they were run.
In the five years after the developments were opened, the study finds,
the prices of buildings nearest the supportive housing development
experienced "strong and steady growth," and appreciated more than
comparable properties that were slightly farther away. In other words,
the closer property owners lived to these often handsome developments,
the better they fared.
The Furman study confirms what advocates have been saying for years:
well run supportive housing can help both formerly homeless citizens
and the neighborhoods in which they are built. Politicians and business
leaders across the country should pay attention.
End of New York Times Editorial
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October
26, 2008 - News of the Week
IT
CAN BE DONE!
Neighbors and Civic
Organizations Join With Advocates to
Develop Housing Opportunities
Massive institutions on Long Island in NewYork once warehoused tens of
thousands of people with psychiatric vulnerabilties. When
deinstitutionalization began to sweep the nation in the 1970s, wave
after wave of patients were dispersed from Long Island's institutions
to fend for themselves. Many sought refuge with families who searched
in vain for needed services. Many others ended up on the streets of
local communities with no housing or supportive services --
impoverished, homeless, with deteriorating health.
By 1990, community care had become a bitter broken promise. As a
result, throngs of destitute patients across the nation are now in
jails and prisons for illness-related offenses. The U.S. Dept. of
Justice reported in 2006 that more than half of all jail and prison
inmates had symptoms of a mental health disorder.
In sharp contrast...
As early as 1972, a Long Island group called Concerned Friends and
Parents of Central Islip State Hospital began to meet in Suffolk
County. The group grew, evolved, and was renamed Concern for
Independent Living. This active, creative group has just celebrated the
opening of its latest outstanding housing project (see News item for
Sept. 30 below), increasing their creation of apartments to
appproximately 550.
An article from 2006 describes how community
cooperation turned
a seemingly doomed project into a success.
ARTICLE
source: http://www.concernhousing.org/pollackgardens/Journal-Page9.pdf
ARTICLE
NEIGHBOR OF THE YEAR:
Town of Islip and the West Sayville Civic Association, Neighbors of
Pollack Gardens, a project of Concern for Independent Living.
In many areas, local civic associations and community boards provide
the primary
opposition to
developing new affordable housing (emphasis added by by
NSC).
But in the case of Concern for Independent Living's Pollack Gardens, an
outstanding new supportive residence in West Sayville, Long Island, the
project would not have moved forward without the help and support of
the West Sayville Civic Association (WSCA) and the Town of Islip
Community Board.
After hearing about the proposal to build Pollack Gardens, Brendan
McCurdy, President of WSCA, didn't object; instead he called Concern to
learn more about both the agency and the program. He brought the
information back to WSCA and convinced its members to support the
project, a ground up, gut rehabilitation conversion of a run-down adult
home. His wife Maura updated neighbors about the progress of the
project through the WSCA newsletter, expressing the view that
supportive housing would be a positive addition to the community.
Equally important, the Town of Islip Community Board played a critical
role in cutting through red tape to save the project's tax credit
funding. Three months before the funding deadline, it was discovered
that part of the property needed to be rezoned to get site plan
approval. This process normally takes more than nine months.
Everyone said it was impossible to secure the necessary approvals in
only three months and the project appeared doomed - everyone except
Eugene Murphy, Planning Commissioner, and Hope Larson, who was then the
Director of the Building Department.
The Town of Islip scheduled an emergency Town Board meeting one day
before the deadline, something that had not been done in at least 25
years.
Ten minutes after they unanimously passed the resolution, Hope Larson
— who happened to be dressed as Wonder Woman for Halloween
— issued the building permit. The very next day, Concern for
Independent Living closed on the tax credit financing five minutes
before the deadline.
The building opened a little over a year later, where it now provides a
wonderful home to fifty individuals with psychiatric disabilities,
thanks to the community leaders of West Sayville and Islip. The Network
is pleased to honor Mr. McCurdy, Mr. Murphy and Ms. Larson as the
Network's 2007 Neighbors
of the Year.
-End of Article-
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September
30, 2008 - News of the Week
IT
CAN BE DONE!
Former Adult Home Undergoes Transformation in NY
ARTICLE: http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=170539
New
Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center
Opens In Riverhead
By Jessica DiNapoli Southhampton Press
September 30, 2008
The building at 260 West Main Street features beautiful artwork, crown
molding, high ceilings and a well-equipped gym. These luxurious
amenities would suggest that the building is an apartment complex or a
hotel found in New York City.
But the newly renovated facility is actually located in downtown
Riverhead and owned by Concern for Independent Living Inc., a
not-for-profit housing agency that offers permanent shelter for those
who are recovering from psychiatric disabilities. The facility, called
Concern Riverhead, has been in operation since June and offers its 50
residents apartment-style living as each single-occupancy room comes
with its own bathroom and kitchenette.
The residents of Concern Riverhead range in age from 18 to 60, and
either have low-income jobs or are homeless, explained Elizabeth Lunde,
the associate director of Concern for Independent Living. The
Medford-based organization runs similar facilities across Suffolk
County and, at the present time, provides housing for approximately 550
people.
The Riverhead facility celebrated its official grand opening with a
ribbon-cutting ceremony last Thursday, September 25, that was attended
by local government officials and representatives of the mental health
field.
Concern for Independent Living purchased the building, which was
constructed in 1929 and formerly known as the Henry Perkins Hotel, four
years ago. From the 1970s until 2004, the building housed the Henry
Perkins Adult Home, a facility mostly known for its dilapidated
condition.
For the past three years, Concern for Independent Living has invested
close to $15 million in renovating the building, with construction
commencing in August 2007. Work was completed on the facility in June.
The money for the extensive renovation came from three sources,
explained Steve Piasecki, the upstate coordinator for the Supportive
Housing Network of New York, a housing advocacy organization. Mr.
Piasecki said the New York State Office of Mental Health, the Federal
Home Loan Bank and the Community Preservation Corporation all
contributed to the project.
"We absolutely improved the facility," Ms. Lunde said. "We want our
places to look like apartment buildings or hotels because the folks
rise to the level of their surroundings." She noted that there are
staffers at the facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
As part of the renovations, Concern for Independent Housing restored
the historical architecture of the first floor of the building,
including the pediments, and added office space. The agency gutted the
second, third and fourth floors of the building, which now house 50
apartments.
"It was a warren of old rooms from the old hotel," Ms. Lunde said. "The
Henry Perkins Adult Home ... kept almost everything from the old hotel."
Ms. Lunde noted that there might have been some renovations completed
in the adult home in 1920s, shortly after the structure was built.
When Concern for Independent Housing acquired the building in 2004,
there were still 120 people living there as residents of the Henry
Perkins Adult Home, explained Ms. Lunde. The not-for-profit helped
relocate those residents to other mental health facilities in the area
before embarking on their renovation plan, she said.
Riverhead Town Supervisor Phil Cardinale, who attended last week's
ceremony, said the Henry Perkins Adult Home was "not a positive for the
Town of Riverhead." He emphasized during the event that the home, which
had been cited by the state for a variety of violations, was poorly
managed prior to its closure.
As Ms. Lunde explained, the pristine interior of the Concern Riverhead
facility is designed to help improve the mental health of its residents.
"It's nice, it's clean," said Sharon Francis, one of the 50 residents
of the facility. "The staff is nice and helpful." Before moving to her
new home in downtown Riverhead, Ms. Francis said she received treatment
at the Buckman Center at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood.
The Main Street location is also convenient for residents as they are
within walking distance of many small shops and a bus stop, according
to Ms. Lunde. Ms. Francis noted that she takes the bus by herself when
she has to run errands.
Christopher Betts, the vice president of the Albany-based Community
Preservation Corporation, said the former adult home that once occupied
the building had been a blight on the community for years. He said the
former facility provided substandard housing to its residents.
Mr. Betts added that the recent renovations to 260 West Main Street are
not only an investment in the building but in the surrounding
community. "Supporting projects like this has a positive impact on
property values," he said.
Town officials agreed that the new facility, one of the first buildings
that greets drivers who are traveling east on Route 25 in Riverhead,
improves their overall impression of the downtown area, which has seen
a number or retail stores close shop in recent years following the
shuttering of Swezey's Department Store.
"It's a great building to greet everyone," said Riverhead Town
Councilman John Dunleavy.
"The restoration of the site is wonderful," Mr. Cardinale added.
And elected officials were not the only ones to agree with that
assessment.
"Once upon a time this was a rundown adult home," said William
Polchinski, a therapist at the Peconic Center on East Main Street in
Riverhead, an outpatient clinic of the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center. "But
Concern made it beautiful and it absolutely affects people's mental
health."
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=170539
End of Article
___________________________
Source: NYAPRS ENews
Reprint protected by
Fair Use Standard
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July
21,
2008 - News of the Week
DR. TORREY'S SHORT
MEMORY
E. Fuller Torrey is no ordinary psychiatrist. His success at attracting
publicity is legendary. His questionable statistics are accepted by the
media. His made-up statistic concerning 1,000 annual homicides commited
by people with untreated mental illnesses made the Congressional
Record. The National Stigma Clearinghouse file is thick with Torreyisms
that have appeared in the national media and elsewhere.
Most recently, a muddled Torrey statement charged that "as our readers
are well aware, changes in state commitment laws have made it
impossible to treat nearly half of discharged patients after they have
left the hospital." (see Link below) Torrey's seeming amnesia about his
activities over the past 15 years is disconcerting. In 1993, his
newly-created Treatment Advocacy Center (Psychlaws.org) launched a
fearmongering crusade to make outpatient commitment easier nationwide.
Now, nearly every state has a law that permits involuntary outpatient
commitment to psychiatric treatment. The catch: There are far too few
resources to treat involuntary or voluntary patients.
Psychlaws' strategic use of fear to gain public support may have
backfired. Their dire warnings and an obsessive focus on violence may
have had an unintended consequence. A study by Corrigan et al
(Psychiatric Services, May, 2004) found that such tactics produce a
negative effect on public attitudes and less willingness to provide
resources. The system backup we now see -- hospitals overcrowded with
patients ready for discharge with nowhere to go, and long waiting lists
for community housing and programs -- could be fallout from Torrey's
successful campaign to change the laws.
Torrey has spent fifteen years crusading for an untested concept that
over-relies on medication alone. Meanwhile his charismatic domination
of the mental health scene has slowed progress toward more viable
solutions. The good news: Although Torrey denigrates all who disagree
with him -- actually denying the citizenship of
consumers/survivors/ex-patients in the subtitle of his latest book --
his dismissive behavior may have fueled the burgeoning
consumer/survivor movement. The first-hand experience of this group has
become a boon to the mental health community.
MORE
INFORMATION
Go to http://www.miwatch.org/
for a Book Review by Sue E. Estroff of Dr. Torrey's latest book
The
Insanity Offense: How America
Fails the Seriously Mentally Ill and Endangers Its Citizens, and What
We Must Do to Stop It
Go to http://www.psychlaws.org/
for an announcement of Dr. Torrey's book. Top of home page, click Read
More
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For
earlier news postings, click here, then scrolll down to News Items
THE FEDERAL CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES OFFERS A FREE EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCE: CHALLENGING
STEREOTYPES: AN ACTION GUIDE - a 32-page
booklet with directories. For a
free copy call 1-800-789-2647.
Available ONLINE at http://www.mentalhealth.org/stigma/pubs.asp,
publication SMA-01-3513
The mass media wield a powerful influence over public opinion. It is
essential that the news media are challenged to be fair and accurate,
and that the mass entertainment media meet standards of fairness when
using the public's communication channels.
At stake is the public's understanding of what are known as "mental
illnesses." A 1990 survey of public attitudes sponsored by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation concluded that "Mass media is, far and away,
the public's primary source of information about mental illness."
There is an inexpensive and direct way to combat stereotyping. It is
not the only way (perhaps not even the best way), but it is effective
and often leads to further dialogue with members of the community and
key representatives of the media. The method is a "smoking gun"
approach; it addresses misrepresentation head on, explains the damage
done, and offers alternative ways of portraying mental illnesses to the
people in charge. When the media get it right, praise and honors should
reward the extra effort.
Like members of the public, many media professionals have limited
knowledge about mental illnesses. Stereotypes become self-perpetuating
unless they are replaced by clear, credible alternatives. If mental
health activists fail to speak out, we resign ourselves to the status
quo.
Most people, and particularly media people, have a natural curiosity
about what they don't understand. Seek to build good relationships with
journalists and other media professionals by being informative and
reliable. Let members of the media know you respect their intention to
be fair and accurate.
For a copy of CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES: AN ACTION GUIDE (32-page
booklet), call 1-800-789-2647 and ask for publication #SMA 01-3513.
When you call, ask for a list of other excellent educational resources
offered by the federal Center for Mental Health Services, a division of
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
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responsibility for their content or accuracy.
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