Dr. Bejamin Rush's 'Tranquilizer Chair 1811
It is not possible to convey any genuine regard and respect for a person, to gain their trust, and develop a therapeutic relationship with a person with a psychiatric diagnosis in a 15 minute 'medication management' appointment.
Why do some psychiatrists seem to have so little regard for the distressed humans they treat? All that is discussed are the drugs and the effects the drugs may have---there is, in reality no real 'connection' or 'relationship' between the diagnosed and the 'doctor,' if doling out of prescription drugs is the basis of the relationship. When communicating by rote, which is what is necessary when doing a 'med check,' it is perfuntory and sterile; although this is considered professional objectivity or distance, it is not necessarily perceived as therapeutic or respectful by the patient. A psychiatrist's relationship with a patient based on med checks, does not foster trust; at least not in in my own or my son's experience---why would it? Being a 'mental health' professional of any sort, does not mean that those who come to you do not need you, the professional, to actually earn trust! The fact is, I have met so many who seem to have the notion that being 'the professional' is all that is required, and seem to believe that having a medical license should be enough to magically inspire a person's trust and garnt unquestioning confidence in their professional authority; it is not.
If the patient does not believe they are heard, or even feel as if the professional listened to them when they complain about the negative effects of the drugs prescribed, and the complaints voiced are minimized or dismissed altogether, this naturally breeds mistrust. People with a psychiatric diagnosis who are also labeled with a lack insight are aware when their doctor does this, and when a doctor acts as if they are not important enough to listen to, they will logically assume it is due to a lack of respect for them. The fact is, every person with a diagnosis of schizophrenia I have ever met was in fact cognizant of an almost universal lack of respect and lack of positive regard of mental health professionals which is apparently considered acceptable among bio-psychiatry devotees in the mental health treatment field; it is definitely pervasive. Apparently, because of the assumption that people with certain diagnoses lack insight, it is considered acceptable practice to minimize or disregard complaints; to not really pay attention to their subjective experiences, or value the patients' understanding of what "the problem" is. As a result, the necessity of trying to develop a therapeutic relationship with them based on mutual respect and positive regard is not even considered or attempted. It is more than strange to say the least, that people who are diagnoised with conditions that are poorly defined, and not very well understood, in such a negative manner.
The main purpose the additional label of anosognosia appears to serve is being used as a justification for treating those lableled with it as if they are less than worthy of being heard, understood, or even listened to, because after all, they don't know what they are talking about, they lack insight...This supposed lack of insight psychiatry has attached is used as an excuse to continue to prescribe the teratogenic drugs which the patients say cause them harm, and some say do not help them at all. It is used to convince their loved ones that they must help to coerce treatment compliance, and must also mimimize and dismiss complaints, i.e. don't listen to or even believe the person with the diagnosis. The anosognosia label serves to inform the uninformed in the general public. Once one believes that people who have certain psychiatric diagnoses are also lacking insight, they will then be less likely to listen to a person in distress, accept and/or have positive regard for the person, they will be biased by their belief the person has no insight, and will become more likely to dismiss and disregard the person. The label is, in a manner of speaking, a gaslighting of an entire group of people; that encourages people to automatically dismiss anything the person says if a patient with the diagnosis says the drugs make them sick, or cause them to feel traumatized, unable to function---because after all, according to the experts those are just the unpleasant but tolerable side effects of necessary medical treatment. No matter what, drugs are to be taken---even by those who are not experiencing an appreciable reduction in symptoms that justifies the inherent serious risks of taking the teratogenic drugs. It is this way the people that psychiatry claims have the additional diagnostic label of anosognosia, are effectively de-voiced; and are denied any choice. The patient's perspective is not considered at all, nor are the direct detrimental effects of the drugs, or the detrimental effects of a professional's lack of respect, positive regard, and lack of compassion for the person to whom they are treating.
Psychiatry according to the medical model, does not acknowledge that these drugs do not actually help a significant percentage of those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, (or other diagnoses!) It is psychiatry that will not redact fraudulently conducted or reported research from it's professional journals. The lack of scientific standards and medical ethics is evidence of the lack of respect and positive regard for people diagnosed as mentally ill whom they serve, and who are presumably to benefit from their expert treatment. This lack of respect emanates from this biomedical attitudinal bias, it is the root cause of, and the very source of the stigma of a psychiatric diagnosis. It is attached to the psychiatric diagnostic label; it begins when a diagnosis is bestowed as a life sentence: you have a disease with no cure, you just don't know it because you lack insight. Psychiatry has been using it for well over a hundred years: e.g. you have a disease or defect that requires medical treatment with neurotoxic drugs, and electrical shocks, have only replaced psycho-surgery, insulin comas, ice-water baths. The thing is, the claim has, intentionally or not, always serves to justify treating people as less than fully human, or worthy of ordinary civility, respect, and human compassion; and it still does.
The outright falsehoods about symptoms of distress and behavioral difficulties has been taught to society by the 'professionals,' along with the lies about what is and is not known about the drugs themselves. This is how stigma became entrenched in our society with the distorted 'psycho-education' which psychiatry provided as a public service. In spite of these falsehoods being recognized and are now 'common knowledge,' the biomedical devotees in psychiatry are arrogant and defensive; unwilling to acknowledge that the source of any mistrust of psychiatry as a profession is a direct result of their own outrageous, entrenched biases and their arrogant, irresponsible, and unethical behavior. In light of the academic and financial fraud and the Real World Outcomes of their victimized patients, this mistrust is entirely justified.
This is a profession who seemingly does not understand that if a person wishes to be trusted, the individual must be trustworthy; a medical license does not in fact confer trustworthiness; it only authorizes the individual to practice medicine. If a profession wants to be trusted, ethical and moral standards must be adhered to; mistakes made need to be acknowledged, consequences experienced and corrective action taken. Being trustworthy does not require perfection. It requires being willing to admit when you are wrong, and understanding that you are only the patient's partner/assistant/guide/healer with an ethical duty to serve the patient; including being able to admit when you do not know something. One needs to encourage hope and independence; or more accurately, a healthy interdependence. Declarations that a diagnosis is indicitive of disease accompanied by implied inter-personal superiority and an abusing one's medical authority, are behaviors not worthy of trust. Heavy reliance upon consensus, subjective opinions, anecdotal evidence and one's innate biases serves to discourage and inhibit a patient's chances for healing and achieving s ustained emotional growth; it fosters and unhealthy dependence upon others, and encourages a self-stigmatizing negative sense of self-worth. It is anathema to the role of a healer.
It should be obvious, but there can be no trust built or ethical care provided without being honest and forthright. Telling the truth to your 'patient' and their family about the the diagnosis given, the drugs or any 'treatment' that you recommend, and letting them make an informed choice because you are the 'doctor' and being ethical and honest, have given them all of the factual based information needed, and suport them if they desire to seek someone else's advice. It is not appropriate or ethical for you to tell a patient or parent of a child what to do---unless asked. It is not ethical to mislead them about any drug's potential benefits nor is it ethical to neglect to tell them the inherent risks. Coercion, manipulation and force are not 'therapeutic,' nor are veiled threats of locking up a patient to gain medication compliance acceptable, it is abuse of power and authority---it is not medical treatment or therapeutic in any sense. It is a psychiatrist's ethical duty to support and educate a patient; to edify them, encourage them and to treat them with respect, having a kind and positive regard for a patient in order to be helpful. If a psychiatrist is incapable of doing this, he/she is a doctor who must be stopped; because this type of failure causes injuries which last a lifetime, and often has a lasting, devastating impact for generations...
Psychiatry as a profession will not regain respect or be trusted until:
1. It is 'standard practice' to respect and protect the Human Rights of those who are labeled 'mentally ill.'
2. It is 'standard practice' to follow the "Medical Ethics Guidelines for Informed Consent" for ALL diagnoses and patients! No excuses!
3. It is 'standard practice' to tell the truth to patients and about patients to others, when necessary. (police and courts) Your duty is to the patient, not their parents, or any one else who is distressed by them and wants to confine them!
4. Psychiatry stops disseminating inaccurate information and bio-medical propaganda through advocacy groups' education and information campaigns, and public service activities; people need facts, not fallacies! It has bred fear, intolerance and discrimination against people given a psychiatric diagnoses; causing further harm and social isolation more than anything else.
5. Stop conducting 'research' and 'clinical trials' the primary purpose of which is not to help, heal or treat patients; but to expand the drug market---if it is not for an ethical, medical or therapeutic purpose, and primarily to benefit the patient, it is not medicine; but marketing!
6. Conduct and report research ethically, completely and accurately---
7. Teach students of psychiatry an accurate history of psychiatry and the use of drugs and electroshock. Unless psychiatry students are taught an accurate history of this 'medical specialty' any changes are doomed to be superficial and cosmetic. Specifically, psychiatrists should not be taught that coercion, manipulation and social control of others is 'therapeutic treatment!'
It was for the practice of eugenics that these techniques became 'standard practice.' It was acceptable to mislead and misinform any patient or family member about both the diagnosis and the treatment of 'mental illness,' because based on ignorance and bigotry, 'mental illness' was perceived to be definitive evidence of a genetic inferiority which should be extinguished. Those who were physically or cognitively 'defective' or diagnosed 'mentally ill' were treated as less than human, by psychiatrists. While there are psychiatrists today who do not and have never held such views, the fact that they were trained in school to use 'standard practices' which were developed by people who very much believed in the inferiority of people diagnosed 'mentally ill.' Historically, psychiatry like any profession, developed practices based on the what was being done in clinical practice. In this country from the late 1800s up into the 50s and 60s lobotomy, sterilization, water torture, insulin coma, electroshock were all considered effective 'treatment' or a 'standard practice' and psychiatry 'treated' those in their care without regard for their dignity or humanity. It is psychiatry that used these ideas to formulate public policy. The historical record is shocking for medicine in general, what I find disturbing is the fact that there is so little NEED for those who practice psychiatry to even be taught an accurate history, or even examine exactly what the facts are.
Some things are indefensible. I personally find it reprehensible that a profession which has allowed it's members to abuse, coerce, and forcefully "treat/torture" and further stigmatize patients by telling the world they have brain defects; and additionally, they have no idea what is 'good for them' (or they would take their medicine!) Psychiatry has been instumental in the effort to implement laws and public policies which deny psychiatric patients any human dignity and any hope for a better life. How can it be in any person's 'best interest' to deny them their Constitutional Rights---which are Human Rights---how is this 'therapeutic' or 'necessary medical treatment' to strip a person of their Human rights with a diagnosis? It is within the biomedical model the idea that the people who are given a diagnostic label are less than fully human, and don't need their rights protected.
Psychiatry fails to hold members to any ethical, moral or legal standards, in research, education, and direct clinical care. APA members inexplicably cling to the delusion that because psychiatry is a 'medical' profession, everything that is done in Standard Practice is actually ethical and necessary to 'medical treatment.' The fatal outcomes and the traumatized and disabled survivors are evidence that this is not in fact the case.
The fact that many are in fact living in permanent disability with horrible conditions, due to receiving 'psychiatric treatment' which amounted to inhumane traumatizing abuse is cavalierly dismissed as, "Scientology" or "anti-psychiatry propaganda" yet never respectfully addressed, nor are the dead or disabled even acknowledged---less than humans---need no acknowledgement.
I am just a mother, who has seen my child, a victim of violent crime; be further traumatized by dangerous drugs in massive doses---drugs not approved for children and every time it was a psychiatrist, not a Scientologist, or antipsychiatrist who prescribed the drugs which did the corporeal and psychic damage. Every time it was a psychiatrist who told me the lies and used analogies substituted for facts, it was always a psychiatrist who has questioned why I have no respect for their 'authority.' I am a mother who willingly takes care of my precious son, who is now a disabled young man; but was once upon a time, my little boy. I love him beyond measure. It is he and I who have memories of separation, isolation, degradation, and invalidation which are the traumatic experiences of Standard Practices used by psychiatry.
If psychiatry wants to be respected and trusted, psychiatrists need to do what any and everybody else does. Psychiatrists like anybody and everybody else, must actually earn trust and respect; neither are issued with a diploma or medical license. Psychiatrists need to act honorably, respect those who seek help, and be accountable. Telling the truth helps make all these things possible. Lying is not acceptable--to mislead, or fail to fully inform about either the risks or potential benefits of a prescribed treatment is unethical. To misinform, mislead, coerce, manipulate, or force harmful drugs or ECT with real risk of permanent disability and sudden or decades early death---after the profession has been misinforming everybody about the actual nature of the diagnoses themselves, and the safety and efficacy of the neurotoxic drugs--is fraud, not medical treatment. The drugs used to treat the symptoms of distress and emotional trauma, which are often the effects of ignorance, poverty, and all types of abuse and other environmental influences, are no panacea, the psychiatrists who claim to be treating 'diseases' by force if necessary, are committing medical fraud; there is no place for fraud in medical practice.
Dismissive patronizing attitudes, manipulation and coercion as 'standard practices' were developed during the several decades of the psychiatric profession 'medically treating' the 'genetically inferior' by practicing eugenics in State Institutions and social services. Some of the standard practices, attitudes and 'widely accepted wisdom' prevalent in bio-psychiatry today, originated during the widespread eugenics movement from this era; and were accepted then due to the ignorant notion that subjective observation was evidence of genetic inferiority. Individuals who were labeled genetically inferior, with a 'brain disease' were considered unworthy of respect, or humane treatment. People with psychiatric diagnoses led miserable existences in which abuse and torture were considered 'treatment' in State run facilities; and this 'medical treatment' was provided by psychiatrists...
It is this type of treatment that was forced upon my son, I am a witness, and I am a mother who could not rescue my son fast enough. It took years for me to believe my friends who told me I need to forgive myself. That it is not my fault, I am not the one who beat him or abused him---in my heart, I failed because my son was harmed so very badly and I couldn't stop it; it still has not stopped...
I am insulted when a person says I should be proud for not walking away from him, for not giving up. It is the only option I have. He is my son. I love him.
Why are force, coercion, manipulation, and lying to those diagnosed and about those diagnosed to their families, and the general public considered acceptable by the members of the APA? If the drugs are so safe and effective, why are people being disabled, and dying from illnesses and sudden death as a direct reselt of taking the drugs? More importantly, if psychiatric drugs are so very safe and effective, why is so much fraud, illegal marketing and dishonesty necessary to practice psychiatric 'medicine'? Why is it necessary to take children away when a parent exercises their Parental Rights to make decisions for their own flesh and blood? It is because psychiatrists who are devotees of the biomedical madness believe as one psychiatrist told me, "Parents who objected to medical treatment they would see as at best ill informed and at worst impaired themselves." This is why psychiatrists have felt themselves justified and have purposely mislead, and outright lied to everybody. A belief that anyone who doesn't recognize their superior brains and apparently their psychic abilities; is either simply 'misinformed' or IMPAIRED. This quote is from a psychiatrist who is a 'Human Rights activist.'
If psychiatry is no longer practicing eugenics; and a diagnosis of 'mental illness' is just like any other illness, because the people who are diagnosed are not genetically inferior; and psychiatry is practicing medicine; why is psychiatry still using the same 'standard practices' developed when psychiaty was practicing medicine by implementing eugenics as a Standard of Care? Just as importantly, why are subterfuge, academic fraud, financial corruption, illegal marketing, and court orders necessary; but Informed Consent for 'treatment' is NOT required, and barely paid lip service? I do have a biased, but I believe understandable view. It is based on the ten psychiatrists who all misinformed, and all of them apparently had no ethical qualms about the harm done by their ethical, diagnostic and treatment failure...How is the modern biomedical model of psychiatric practice different from what the Germans did in the 30s and 40s? I see no difference myself. I know I have to this day, never been respected by any of the psychiatrists who have harmed my son, and would not allow me to protect my own child. I will not stop trying to help my son recover, or stop protecting him as best I can from an under-recognized pathology.
I call it pathological psychic psychiatry psychosis. A diagnosis that is characterized by delusions and grandiosity particularly, a belief in one's superior intellect, and one's innate ability to determine what another person can tolerate in terms of physical and psychic trauma. People with this diagnosis are emotionally capaple sociopaths, with an ability to commit crimes without guilt and use of coercion, seclusion, chemical lobotomies, and give Electrical Shocks to gain behavioral compliance. These crimes committed by psychiatrists with pathological psychic psychiatry psychosis, are medically necessary. The people who have pathological psychic psychiatry psychosis can diagnose a disease in anyone's brain by simply looking at them and talking to people who are unhappy about the patient's behavior...Is that a skill or what! To be able to pull a disease out of a collection of subjective observations, like a magician pulls a rabbit from a hat, that is mighty handy! I wonder if these psychiatrists demand respect bucause their diagnosis of pathological psychic psychiatry psychosis, allows them to know there is no way in hell they can earn it.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santanyana
"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
John F. Kennedy
'When a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm." Hippocrates
first posted with the title, 'If Mental Illness is Like Any Other Why Don't We Court Order Exercise?' on July 19, 2011
picture found at mentalhealthstigma.com
first posted with the title, 'If Mental Illness is Like Any Other Why Don't We Court Order Exercise?' on July 19, 2011
picture found at mentalhealthstigma.com
