2003
He is bracing himself on the tree, and trying to smile---
I can't really tell you what it was like to see my son at 15 and 16 years old stumble to the ground like a toddler---because he was so drugged---or how horrifying it was leaving him in a place I dreamed of hiring mercenaries to rescue him from...and the obvious---well, let's just say one of the hardest things I've had to learn to deal with---is how unkind and not fully human people can be.
Dr. Charles Whitfield's article concludes that trauma is the cause of most symptoms which are used for psychiatric diagnoses of mental illnesses, alcoholism, and addiction. The symptoms are treated with psychotropic drugs almost exclusively; in spite of the lack of empirical evidence to support this Standard Practice. Which begs the question, is it even an ethical standard of care being used by psychiatry? How did using psychotropic drugs to treat symptoms become standard for any condition or symptom without empirical support? I would say it is definitely not ethical, therapeutic or medicine in the Hippocratic tradition. The focus is solely on an attempt to control symptoms; even if the patient does not believe it is a "need" to control the identified symptoms...
We knew what the primary cause of his PTSD symptoms was; why mental health professionals refused to provide the recommended treatment that was in their own practice parameters; or even listen to us. he professionals used brain damaging drugs in their futile attempts to control behavioral symptoms. Doing so, they committed Medicaid fraud; but worse that that, the treatment repeatedly traumatized and eventually disabled my precious son. My beautiful son Isaac had an IQ of 146 at the age of seven; and today at twenty-four, cannot do the things he did at the age of seven...
My son was as a victim of horrific abuse in foster care and as a result, had trauma-induced PTSD; he also has Left-Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, which is caused by a traumatic head injury. Instead of the recommended treatment, he was repeatedly traumatized by pseudo-medical mental health treatment. His longest hospitalization was for over 4 years where a psychiatric researcher, Jon McClellan, further traumatized him and disabled him in the TEOSS drug trials. It is illegal what he did to my son; forcing drugs upon him, over my protests. Jon McClellan used my son like a guinea pig in Washington State's only state-run psychiatric facility for children, Child Study and Treatment Center. Quack Master Jack is a "lead researcher" for childhood schizophrenia; and the Medical Director of CSTC; the man had no right to play God, he had no right to use my son in the way he did. The effects of trauma were ignored, minimized, or misidentified as symptoms of whatever diagnosis was subjectively determined to need the massive amounts of teratogenic drugs to "treat" it. Permission, i.e. "Informed Consent," was not needed; Jon McClellan needed only his own permission apparently. The deleterious effects of the drugs on the patient; irrelevant.
Dr.Whitfield used data from over 300 studies; in writing this article. Some are the same ones I had read and used in my futile attempts to advocate for my son. I can assure you, there truly are circumstances when there is no comfort in being right. Using data from, "the work of numerous psychiatrists and psychopharma-cologists" and his own experience in private practice, Dr. Whitfield provides the evidence supporting his conclusions; he additionally explains, "most common psychiatric drugs are not only toxic but can be chronically traumatic." Dr. Whitfield's article in, "The International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine" concludes that trauma, and the PTSD symptoms which result, are often misdiagnosed; the symptoms are almost always treated exclusively with drugs. Dr. Whitfield states for some people, this "medical treatment" traumatizes them further; exacerbating, instead of alleviating their distress. (I have noticed in ten+ years of doing research, research like this that questions, or is not supportive of drugging symptoms of distress is seldom published here in the US)
Both my son and I have been saying he was traumatized, not treated. Quack Master Jack, Jon McClellan lied to me; and failed to follow legal and ethical standards; his "medical treatment" mainly consisted of using my son as a guinea pig trialing drugs that were not approved for pediatric use. Drugs not approved for use in children, some of the drugs were not approved until years after my still traumatized son no longer was a child; some still are not approved for children. Neuroleptic drugs are known to cause brain damage, heart damage and be potentially fatal. "Off label" means experimental use, according to the FDA. He never obtained Informed Consent; in fact, he claimed, he didn't need it.
In the Psychiatric Summary from May of 2004, which is in a previous post, he implies that my son was taking the drugs "willingly." The report in this same post, is from 2001, the year my son turned 13 and the age of consent law is one of the excuses this "researcher" used as an excuse to not need my consent. Given the condition my son was in, there is no way in hell anyone, even a young child, would have thought Isaac had the capacity to give consent. Quack Master Jack knows that both he and other staff members told my son if he did not take the drugs; he would never get to leave the hospital. To be Informed Consent, there can be no coercion, my son could have assented, but was in no condition to provide "Informed Consent" just because he was thirteen! My son had no choice, as an adolescent in a locked facility, he naturally wanted to leave, and if you want to leave, you have to do what you are told. I was forced to pretend to buy this thug's diagnosis and "treatment" in order to have any chance in hell of rescuing my own son. Jon McClellan's care was obviously heavy on the (drug)study, negligent, fraudulent and abusive in the extreme. Isaac has said he thought he was kidnapped; and I have no problem understanding why he would have thought or believed this. Jon McClellan ignored the Hippocratic Oath, the US Constitution, the Ethical Guidelines for Informed Consent and the Nuremberg Code in the "treatment" he inflicted upon my son.
Read Dr. Whitfields article here...
Originally posted January 16, 2011 "Can Trauma Be A Cause of Mental Illness?"
We knew what the primary cause of his PTSD symptoms was; why mental health professionals refused to provide the recommended treatment that was in their own practice parameters; or even listen to us. he professionals used brain damaging drugs in their futile attempts to control behavioral symptoms. Doing so, they committed Medicaid fraud; but worse that that, the treatment repeatedly traumatized and eventually disabled my precious son. My beautiful son Isaac had an IQ of 146 at the age of seven; and today at twenty-four, cannot do the things he did at the age of seven...
My son was as a victim of horrific abuse in foster care and as a result, had trauma-induced PTSD; he also has Left-Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, which is caused by a traumatic head injury. Instead of the recommended treatment, he was repeatedly traumatized by pseudo-medical mental health treatment. His longest hospitalization was for over 4 years where a psychiatric researcher, Jon McClellan, further traumatized him and disabled him in the TEOSS drug trials. It is illegal what he did to my son; forcing drugs upon him, over my protests. Jon McClellan used my son like a guinea pig in Washington State's only state-run psychiatric facility for children, Child Study and Treatment Center. Quack Master Jack is a "lead researcher" for childhood schizophrenia; and the Medical Director of CSTC; the man had no right to play God, he had no right to use my son in the way he did. The effects of trauma were ignored, minimized, or misidentified as symptoms of whatever diagnosis was subjectively determined to need the massive amounts of teratogenic drugs to "treat" it. Permission, i.e. "Informed Consent," was not needed; Jon McClellan needed only his own permission apparently. The deleterious effects of the drugs on the patient; irrelevant.
Dr.Whitfield used data from over 300 studies; in writing this article. Some are the same ones I had read and used in my futile attempts to advocate for my son. I can assure you, there truly are circumstances when there is no comfort in being right. Using data from, "the work of numerous psychiatrists and psychopharma-cologists" and his own experience in private practice, Dr. Whitfield provides the evidence supporting his conclusions; he additionally explains, "most common psychiatric drugs are not only toxic but can be chronically traumatic." Dr. Whitfield's article in, "The International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine" concludes that trauma, and the PTSD symptoms which result, are often misdiagnosed; the symptoms are almost always treated exclusively with drugs. Dr. Whitfield states for some people, this "medical treatment" traumatizes them further; exacerbating, instead of alleviating their distress. (I have noticed in ten+ years of doing research, research like this that questions, or is not supportive of drugging symptoms of distress is seldom published here in the US)
Both my son and I have been saying he was traumatized, not treated. Quack Master Jack, Jon McClellan lied to me; and failed to follow legal and ethical standards; his "medical treatment" mainly consisted of using my son as a guinea pig trialing drugs that were not approved for pediatric use. Drugs not approved for use in children, some of the drugs were not approved until years after my still traumatized son no longer was a child; some still are not approved for children. Neuroleptic drugs are known to cause brain damage, heart damage and be potentially fatal. "Off label" means experimental use, according to the FDA. He never obtained Informed Consent; in fact, he claimed, he didn't need it.
In the Psychiatric Summary from May of 2004, which is in a previous post, he implies that my son was taking the drugs "willingly." The report in this same post, is from 2001, the year my son turned 13 and the age of consent law is one of the excuses this "researcher" used as an excuse to not need my consent. Given the condition my son was in, there is no way in hell anyone, even a young child, would have thought Isaac had the capacity to give consent. Quack Master Jack knows that both he and other staff members told my son if he did not take the drugs; he would never get to leave the hospital. To be Informed Consent, there can be no coercion, my son could have assented, but was in no condition to provide "Informed Consent" just because he was thirteen! My son had no choice, as an adolescent in a locked facility, he naturally wanted to leave, and if you want to leave, you have to do what you are told. I was forced to pretend to buy this thug's diagnosis and "treatment" in order to have any chance in hell of rescuing my own son. Jon McClellan's care was obviously heavy on the (drug)study, negligent, fraudulent and abusive in the extreme. Isaac has said he thought he was kidnapped; and I have no problem understanding why he would have thought or believed this. Jon McClellan ignored the Hippocratic Oath, the US Constitution, the Ethical Guidelines for Informed Consent and the Nuremberg Code in the "treatment" he inflicted upon my son.
"Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm."
Hippocrates
Read Dr. Whitfields article here...
Originally posted January 16, 2011 "Can Trauma Be A Cause of Mental Illness?"
3 comments:
I have no word to express the anger at this. My children also were victims directly and indirectly when the drugs incapacitated me and they basically lost their mother. I'm so sorry you and your family were also victims of psychiatry. This is terrible.
Susan,
Thank you for your empathy. Naturally, I have anger and a whole lot of sorrow; but I must remember that I have also been blessed with having my family intact, in spite of tremendous odds. I am thankful that I know that recovery is possible for each of us and as a family--even more grateful that both of my sons know that recovery is possible! Isaac in the last few days is regaining some of his self-confidence after the setback of being medicated, unethically last summer.
I totally agree. How dreadful. what become diagnosed as psychiatric problems do make sense, in the context of the person's experiences of life. Psychiatry doesnt understand this, and in my opinion never will, because its whole existence depends on the re-interpretation of experience as pathology.
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