Fictional Facts for Advocates

The New York State Legislature held a Joint Budget Hearing on "Mental Hygiene" on March 2, 2011. 

Prior to the hearings, Daniel Hazen and Lauren Tenney asked D.J. Jaffe if he would be open to a public debate. 

They jury is still out. 

Lauren Tenney, Daniel Hazen, and Harvey Rosenthal stood in silent protest during D.J. Jaffe's testimony to the legislature, which included promoting programs of force, including Involuntary Outpatient Torture, also known out "Assisted Outpatient Treatment" carried out through Kendra's Law. 

Video: T.J. Calcagno & Lauren Tenney


The Huffington Post's bio for DJ Jaffe says:


"DJ Jaffe is the founder of Mental Illness Policy Org http://mentalillnesspolicy.org which provides the media and public officials with unbiased information about "serious" mental illness from a pro-treatment perspective. It covers issues of violence, deinstitutionalization, not guilty by reason of insanity, assisted outpatient treatment, involuntary commitment, involuntary treatment and other issues.," emphasis mine

A Call To Tell The Truth for The RealMrMe

On December 2, 2010 DJ Jaffe posted "Psychiatry vs. Antipsychiatry" on Huffington Post.  I commented on the 13th, and a few days later the article was taken down and all that remains are the comments.  The first is my comment made on the 13th, to his call to action. You are correct he responded.

Why did he put an expanded version of this post in a note on Facebook and advertise it on Twitter stating the same distortions, smearing those in the Civil Rights movement on behalf of those with psychiatric labels?

Given the fact that the first time I wrote about this on Involuntary Transformation, his call to action disappeared from the Huffington Post, I took the liberty of making his current "note" available on this website.

Oppositional to Inaccurate Analysis

I have given the thumbs up to Minds on the Edge on Facebook, which as anyone who participates on the social networking site knows, means when there is something that this page posts, it is added to my News Feed.   I was reading my feed yesterday and saw the following:

"Minds on the Edge panelist, author, advocate, Pete Earley recently received scathing comments on his blog by people who are adamantly against assisted outpatient treatment, medications, psychiatry and who do not believe there is such a thing as Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder. How do you address those critics? (Pete -- keep up the great work. We appreciate your advocacy and passion.)"


My first thought was this program, or at least the administrator of it's facebook page, has come to the defense of Pete Earley by trying to discredit and minimize the importance of the consumer/survivor movement.  This is a program that is purportedly trying to address issues that admittedly are complex and emotionally charged, treatment of and for the "mentally ill."  This person is not concerned with how some of the current language used by the advocacy movement 'for the seriously mentally ill' is representative or even respectful of the people who are consumers of psychiatry, and/or psychiatric survivors to describe their varied experiences.