I am not the jerk whisperer

 

This started out being a response to a comment left on my blog post titled, "Advocacy "for the mentallly ill" is actually advocacy for an agenda" and wound up being too long for a comment, and so I made it a blog post, months later, I rewrote portions of it to more clearly state my views...

It is simply incredible to me that people with a psychiatric diagnosis who are victimized by violent crime are perceived to be somehow at fault for being victimized. 

DJ Jaffe interviewed Carla Jacobs in an apparent attempt to use the murder of Kelly Thomas to further his agenda for forced treatment, and Jaffe states that, "police could always use better training in how to handle dangerous mentally ill individuals, the police are not always the villains."

It is true that police are not always the villains when a person with a psychiatric diagnosis ends up dead as a result of police contact; it is also be true that police officers may need more training to effectively interact with people with psychiatric diagnoses safely.  It shows extremely poor judgement on Jaffe's part to make these statements in relationship to Kelly Thomas' brutal murder at the hands of rogue police officers in Fullerton, California.  It seems that DJ Jaffe is attempting to minimize the horrific nature of the behavior of the police officers involved in Kelly Thomas' murder. Jaffe's interviewee, Carla Jacobs, insults one's intelligence when stating, "When it comes to treating people with the most serious mental illnesses, the police will react where California's mental health system won't." Jacob's statement implies that the brutal attack on Kelly Thomas is in some way understandable; since he was not being drugged!

The murder of Kelly Thomas is neither understandable, nor justifiable.  I find these two advocates statements minimizing and excusing  felonious conduct of police officers who victimized Kelly Thomas incomprehensible.  How can  advocacy "for the seriously mentally ill" include minimizing homicide committed by men who had sworn an oath to perform a legal duty with honor and integrity, i.e. to protect and to serve Kelly Thomas?

People who claim to be advocating for those with a psychiatric diagnosis who fail to defend the mentally ill who are victimized and who exploit tragic events to further an  agenda, are not so much advocating for "the mentally ill," as they are lobbying for a special interest agenda; specifically, an agenda to expand the number of people who are forced into psychiatric treatment. The appropriate word which describes a person who advocates for a narrow agenda, including exploiting tragic events to further the agenda, is not "advocate;" the appropriate word is lobbyist.  DJ Jaffe and Carla Jacobs are Special Interest Lobbyists who promote forced psychiatric treatment as a public policy. Jaffe and Jacobs lobby for legislation to legally mandate forced treatment on people regardless of the adverse effects or actual benefit to the individual.

Most of the training provided to police in this country is developed by Treatment Advocacy Center, the 'research' arm of NAMI, and provided by NAMI affiliates.  If it is true that police need more or different training; it is likely that who is entrusted with developing and providing the training may also need to be reconsidered.  There is a definite bias in the training provided to Law Enforcement due to an inherent Conflict of Interest: the training serves to support, and market the forced treatment agenda; the biased "information" used in the training is meant to justify forced psychiatric treatment. To exploit Kelly Thomas's murder as a means of furthering a biased forced treatment agenda dishonors his memory. I wonder, do advocates like Jaffe and Jacobs have any ability to focus solely on the needs of the people they advocate for?  Where is the outrage for people who are victimized because of their psychiatric diagnosis?  Where is the advocacy for "the seriously mentally ill" when Justice is needed for those who are victimized? Where is the desire to protect and defend the mentally ill from perpetrators who victimize them?  Nowhere to be found...   

"AOT does not require anyone to take dangerous chemicals. The only required service is case management services. Others are optional and are negotiated by patient, his lawyer, and the court. Interestin­gly, consumers in AOT retroactiv­ely overwhelmi­ngly support it;" according to DJ Jaffe.

DJ Jaffe is apparently unaware of the glaring contradictions in his statement.  The fact that people in AOT who object to taking what are dangerous drugs--which may or may not "help" them--need to have a lawyer to help them 'negotiate' with the Court,--makes it obvious that this is not a "medical diagnosis" being treated so much as it is a psychiatric diagnosis being adjudicated, and a legal sentence applied.  I am sick of people like Jaffe claiming that "Anosognosi­a (not being aware you are ill) is very common."  This diagnostic label is assigned to anyone who is not "treatment compliant;" it is a label used to denigrate, malign and slander people who have had their rights diminished due to a legal determination under a guise of  "medical necessity." In this respect, a Court determines that a person is guilty of having a "mental illness," then sentences them to psychiatric treatment which may ultimately disable and kill them.  

I am not saying that people who have been labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis can't have a lack of insight. I am saying that it is simply ludicrous to imply that the only reason people don't want to take neuroleptic and other psychotropic drugs is due to a lack insight; because they "just don't know what's good for them!"  The drugs have serious negative effects, and serious risks; so pretending that people in distress don't know what an adverse effect feels like, or know what is tolerable to them; adds insult to injury. It is apparent to me that even when in distress, a person in an extreme state can discern if they are being respected or invalidated by the manner in which they are being treated. A patient being de-voiced and being deprived of choice in this way is not due to the patient's lack of insight, it is a ploy which serves to prevent patients from being believed or even heard when they refute the forced treatment lobbyists claim that forced treatement is effective and in the best interests of people adjudicated as mentally ill. Advocates and professionals who are devotees to the bio-disease paradigm justify this use of force by claiming that virtually anyone who refuses to comply with psychiatric diagnosis and treament has anosognosia. It is a specious claim to make. All things considered, it is despicable that it is acceptable to malign and slander people; to in effect, deprive them of a means to defend and advocate for themselves by ensuring others don't listen to them because "the seriously mentally ill lack insight and don't know what's good for them." 

Some just may not be amenable to being coerced and manipulated; some may be sick of being misled and outright lied to about the diagnoses they are given and the drugs forced upon them purportedly to "medically treat" psychiatric diagnoses.  As DJ Jaffe knows, the drugs are, "dangerous chemicals," and are part and parcel to AOT. Some do not want to experience the negative effects of the drugs, the drugs can be agents of trauma for a statistically significant percentage of people who take them. Some are unwilling to subject themselves to the dishonesty: i.e. the manipulative, coercive and patriarchal manner that public mental health services are provided.  I would be willing to bet that anosognosia is rarely the reason a person refuses 'treatment.' This claim is offered in an attempt to rationalize and justify what is an unethical abuse of power and authority of mental health professionals and self proclaimed "patient advocates" who lack not only insight, but ethical integrity as well.

It is likely that the fraud, i.e. misinformation used to coerce treatment compliance, and the disrespectful manner in which people with a psychiatric diagnosis are treated may have something to do with the lack of trust many have for the mental health treatment system and for the professionals who adhere to the bio-disease paradigm of mental health "treatment."  The subterfuge and the disrespectful treatment is well-known and incredibly, socially accepted--and this is one reason some people do not "seek treatment," and/or become "non-compliant." It is also why some are determined to avoid "mental health treatment" like the plague. It is not a lack of insight on a non-compliant patient's part, given the reality of the subjective nature of psychiatric diagnoses, and the disabling and fatal risks of the teratogenic drugs used to treat psychiatric diagnoses, it is despicable to state the only reason that a person would avoid taking the drugs is because they lack insight. It is mental health professionals and so-called advocates that lack insight, since they seem to have decided to be willfully blind to the well-documented risks and seem to believe it's acceptable to medically neglect their patients with iatrogenic injuries. Drugs used in "standard psychiatric treatment" can and do benefit some people; they are not "effective treatment" in a therapeutic or healing sense biologically; while they do alter biological processes, they do not correct an identified dysfunction, or cure an identified disease. Whether a person treated with the drugs experiences positive benefits which justify the serious risks is not the criteria which determines whether or not a particular drug or combination of drugs is successful. In bio-psychiatry, "successful treatment" is synonymous with "treatment compliance," so the real world outcome for the patient is and never has been a determinant of what is considered successful treatment.

The fact that "treatment compliance" is the primary goal of "successful treatment;" rather that the real world outcome for the patient, is a clear indication that this "medical treatment" is not to primarily serve a patient's "best interest;" it is primarily used to control the patient. "Psychoeducation" is used to limit a patient's autonomy and restrict their ability to advocate for themselves; in effect, people are (de)VOICED; not "allowed" to make treatment decisions for themselves. Complaints of harm are dismissed; or attributed to the proverbial "tolerable side effects." Bio-psychiatry, i.e. psychopharmacology first, foremost for life; is not an ethical standard of medical care. Ethical medical care serves the individual patient's "best interest;" not the interests of the people who seek to control a patient. In the ethical practice of medicine, the actual effects of the medical treatment on a particular patient, i.e. the real world medical condition/outcome and the patients's perspective would be used to determine whether a person is "successfully treated."

The patient's perspective is never irrelevant, and should never be minimized or dismissed. No one but the patient can ultimately determine what adverse effects are "tolerable." It is inconceivable that anyone else can determine what a patient can and cannot tolerate; the need for the patient's perspective is implicit.  It is an abuse of power and authority to minimize or dismiss the patient's perspective; a disrespect that evinces a profound lack of regard, compassion and respect for a patient. Treatment that doesn't cure shouldn't have significant risks for causing a patient harm!

photo from FB~ Troublemakers
this post was originally published October 10, 2011 and appears here with minor alterations...

PACT: A Program Which Discriminates Against People With a Psychiatric Diagnosis

Mount Rainier from above Myrtle Falls

A few excerpts from a study on the effectiveness of the "Program of Assertive Community Treatment: A Review"

"Various authors claim that PACT is significantly more effective than alternate treatments in reducing hospitalization rates, that it is more cost effective, that it provides greater client satisfaction than alternate treatments, that it improves client functioning and symptomatology, and that it improves vocational functioning (Burns & Santos, 1990; Mueser et al., 1998; Olfson, 1990; Scott & Dixon, 1995; Solomon, 1992). However, an in−depth review of the 27 randomized clinical trials of PACT suggests that the PACT approach does not, contrary to these claims, demonstrate any significant positive effects (Gomory, 1998).

"This review further suggests that the prime mechanism of PACT is coercion, backed by the biomedical model, which justifies the very high "maintenance" (common or routine) use of psychotropic medication. The coercive and biomedical characteristics of PACT are well expressed in two statements: The program was "assertive"; if a patient did not show up for work, a staff member immediately went to the patient’s home to help with any problem that was interfering. Each patient’s medical status was carefully monitored and treated.  Medication was routinely used for schizophrenic and manic depressive clients. (Stein & Test, 1980, p. 394)

"Congruent with our conceptual model, we tell our patients that indeed we believe they are ill, otherwise we would not be prescribing medication for them. (Stein & Diamond, 1985, p. 272)
This paper will review the research findings on PACT, describe the development and utilization of coercion, and show how the medical model drives PACT."

"By using the biopsychosocial model to explain mental illness, PACT researchers are not using a scientific, but a scientistic model of explanation, not testable even in principle. By definition, this model allows any rationale for etiology: nothing is excludable (refutable) and ad hoc statements may explain away any potential falsifications. Its vague and imprecise nature provides a fertile environment for the growth of endless numbers of alleged etiological explanations. Strauss and Carpenter (1981, chapters 7 and 8) offer genetic, biochemical, psychophysiological, psychological, and social explanations for "serious mental illness".

"Further, psychiatry´s inability to demonstrate the existence of a discrete non−random syndrome of schizophrenia undermines a scientifically meaningful explanation of schizophrenia as a "real" disease (Boyle, 1990; Gomory, 1998). The failure to identify a specific biological dysfunction further impedes the likelihood of finding disease specific treatments."

"PACT a long−term, expensive, potentially abusive program˙continues to be promoted despite research results that demonstrate its lack of effectiveness."

From the National Empowerment Center:
"As the concept of “recovery” gains traction, however, there is also a risk that recovery principles and practices will become watered down and meaningless. It has happened  before. Consider the terms “empowerment” and “peer support.” Consumer/survivors use the word “empowerment” to mean that people who use mental health services make choices, control their own lives, and accept responsibility for their choices and decisions. True empowerment means a reversal in the power structure of traditional mental health service delivery, so that people can no longer be forced to do things against their will.

"The word “empowerment” is often stripped of much of this meaning, as mental health services claim to “empower” their clients while still retaining much or all of the decision-making power. When service providers talk about providing “empowerment services” or “empowering” their clients, they reveal a lack of understanding about the basic concept. Empowerment is something that comes from within an individual. No  one can “empower” someone else, although certainly others from the community or family can provide environments that facilitate empowerment. When we assist people to become empowered, we assist them to find their own voice, to make their own decisions, and to take personal responsibility and be accountable for finding their own pathways to recovery."

"Similarly, the term “peer support” originally meant people helping one another to achieve their own goals. Peer supporters, whether volunteer or paid, were there to  assist and encourage people to define what they wanted in life and to help them to  advocate for themselves. Peer supporters were also meant to function as role models, showing others that it is possible for people who have been diagnosed with mental illness issues to live fuller and more satisfying lives."

"Unfortunately, in many mental health programs today, people who are called “peer supporters” are used to encourage and even enforce the system’s goals rather than those of the individual. When “peer supporters” are part of a team that stresses compliance with treatment as the primary value, they are not able to provide true peer support, which means people working together to achieve self-defined goals."

summary
PACT is a program that is based on the "medical model" and relies on psychiatric drugs that are expensive and statistically inefficacious for roughly 75% of people diagnosed with chronic or residual schizophrenia. Drugs used can potentially cause a wide variety of iatrogenic illnesses and co-morbid conditions like Heart Disease, Diabetes, Obesity and Tardive Dyskinesia.  Drugs which have a serious impact on both quality of life and longevity, are forced upon people, with coercive methods for ensuring compliance routinely being used.   The medical model and it's inefficacious "medical treatments" are forced upon those targeted; under color of law.  The people who are labeled are targeted for "special treatment," with drugs and/or electroshock. These "treatments" are not safe or effective, and have fatal risks.  The PACT program stigmatizes the very people PACT proponents declare "benefit" from it.

Seriously, why would denying a person the right to refuse harmful ineffective treatments be justifiable?   How could using misinformation, manipulation and coercion to gain the person's 'cooperation' thought to be justifiable?  How is this Ethical conduct for a mental health professional?  How can manipulation of the truth, coercive and manipulative tactics be 'therapeutic' for the person treated in this manner?  Calling it 'medical treatment' does not in fact make coercion therapeutic; nor does declaring the drugs "safe and effective" change the fact that the claims are not supported by the evidence, but are perhaps based on wishful thinking, false advertising, willful blindness and fraud.

Involuntary Treatment Laws deprive people with a psychiatric diagnosis of their Induvidual Rights to Substantive and Procedural Due Process of Law.  It is in all reality, discrimination against an entire class of people under color of law. When psychiatry is "practiced" using these methods it is criminal, not medical.  A psychiatric diagnosis stigmatizes those who are labeled; once diagnosed, people are effectively denied the same rights a person without a diagnosis takes for granted.  A person with a psychiatric diagnosis is in reality, denied what the Founding Fathers declared to be universal, inalienable rights necessary for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  A psychiatric diagnosis is an obvious stigma, that is culturally entrenched.  The stigma and the resultant increase in discrimination people with a psychiatric diagnosis experience is a direct adverse effect of telling a lie repeatedly with authority, the lie: a psychiatric diagnosis is evidence of a brain disease, defect, chemical imbalance, or neuro-biological condition. 

Ultimately, there is no question that psychiatry uses unscientific methods.   Psychiatry substitutes a consensus of subjective opinions for empirical data to develop criteria for all the psychiatric diagnoses.  Worse, psychiatry develops treatment protocols, which do not rely on the clinical trial data, indeed, which ignore the data altogether, to  use consensus.  The Evidence Base does not support psychiatry's Practice Parameters for the treatment of schizophrenia in particular, yet people with this diagnosis can be forced under Court Order to be treated with teratogenic drugs with fatal risks.

Is there any doubt the source of the stigma is the diagnostic label itself?  Intentional or not, matters not even a little; bio-psychiatry has in effect, validated bigotry towards those it diagnoses, and teaches discriminatory attitudes towards them by using coercion, manipulation and subterfuge as 'treatment tools' and encouraging family members and others to use them as well.

Psychiatry has Police Powers and uses the Courts to force people to get treatment with inherent risks that include disability and death; for a diagnosis that is based on a hypothesis, not a medical certainty,  or even a THEORY, being a yet to be validated hypothesis...  This abuse of power and authority is fueled by conjecture, gossip and inuendo and results in thousands of people across the globe being effectively stripped of their Human Rights.

Here in the US, the Court Orders for inpatient or community based "assertive treatment" can rely on gossip as a basis for the order, ignoring the Rules of Evidence.   In my son's case outright lies were used---forgery and perjury---were used to strip my son of his rights.  My son's individual rights, under the US Constitution were not effectively secured or defended.  This not unusual, it is the norm.  The crimes committed by mental health professionals, and Officers of the Court were not investigated when reported, and this is also the norm.   It is discrimination based on a psychiatric diagnosis.  This was all done under Color of Law and is evidence that the diagnosis is the source of the stigma; and the discrimination starts with the way that psychiatry is practiced.  

Effectiveness of Antipsychotics in Patients With Chronic Schizophrenia


Program of Assertive Community Treatment: A Review


Voices of Transformation

Originally published July 3, 2011
photo credit: wikipedia

Who Lacks Insight in Washington State?

Seattle Times columnist, Nicole Brodeur, recently wrote about an innovative project jointly operated by MultiCare Health System and OptumHealth Pierce Regional Support Network to bring primary health care to the people who receive mental health services at Community Mental Health Clinics in Pierce County.  Awesome idea and the program is reportedly successful and cost efficient, which is not surprising.  I am however disappointed that a columnist at the State of Washington's largest newspaper missed the opportunity to inform the public more accurately about some things she mentions.


The cost savings was mentioned, as an obvious advantage to the taxpayer; better health care for those who used the mobile unit since they are at an increased risk for illness and co-morbid conditions like diabetes and heart disease--and as Nicole also mentioned, early death.  She stated that the people who receive care at Community Mental health clinics, "die on average 25 years earlier than the rest of us due to lack of care according to the National Association of State Mental Health Directors."   The statistic is accurate the reason cited however, is only part of the truth.   

In the only study thus far to ask , "Why are people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia dying so much earlier?" The answer: the neuroleptic drugs they are prescribed to "treat" their schizophrenia is causing them to die sooner.  After adjusting for lifestyle issues and co-morbid conditions like diabetes and obesity, which incidentally, are actually conditions the drugs are known to cause; people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia die young because of the drugs themselves.  


The study took place in Finland, and was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, it states, "It has been claimed that the contemporary high natural mortality in schizophrenia results from a variety of lifestyle factors (Brown, 1997; Mortensen, 2003). Of these factors we were able to consider several (smoking, exercise, body mass index, blood pressure, serum total and HDL cholesterol), but not all (e.g. dietary factors). However, after adjustment for these factors the excess mortality of people with schizophrenia persisted. Similarly, comorbid somatic diseases did not account for the mortality. Obviously there are other factors associated with mortality in schizophrenia and the association with neuroleptic drugs was very clear. This remained after adjustment for many different potentially confounding factors." (emphasis mine)


Now it has been reported the news that the new much more expensive "Atypical" neuroleptics are no more effective than the older drugs and they all cause diabetes, heart disease and tardive dyskinisia, and a range of other health problems, and since they cause brains to literally shrink---they cause cognitive and intellectual decline as well.  So, this really begs the question "Why has the State of Washington allowed the "medical model" of mental health care to predominate?"  This erroneous approach to "helping the mentally ill" in all reality has devastated the Medicaid budget.  Even so, "advocacy" groups (pharmaceutically funded and 'advised') have successfully lobbied for stricter Involuntary Treatment laws--to force people to take drugs which according to the latest evidence are ineffective; and cause a wide range of physical and neurological illnesses.   In effect, Washington State's Mental Health Division and the State Legislature have allowed special interest groups with obvious Conflicts of Interest to be the driving force in the "mental health transformation;" and to bankrupt our social service system.   


One of the premises behind the Involuntary Treatment Act including the "Program for Assertive Community Treatment," is that the people who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia lack insight and this is why they will not take the drugs willingly, and have to be forced under court order to do so--Another premise is that the drugs have risks, but are effective.  Well, we know now that the scientific data shows that the drugs are not effective for the majority of people with schizophrenia.  The  new "Atypical" neuroleptics  are not safer or more effective, just much more expensive.  The old and the new neuroleptic drugs cause physical illnesses and neurological disabilities; and many people with a diagnosis (even if they do lack insight!) are aware of both adverse effects and the increased mortality.  Since many people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia do not lack the capacity to feel their own bodies, they notice the deleterious effects they experience; and since the majority are not blind either, they notice when their friends die young. 


The American people have been sold a bill of goods by unethical psychiatric researchers and the pharmaceutical industry, who have colluded to commit massive Medicaid and Medicare fraud, lied about what is known about the etiology and pathology (or lack thereof) of mental illnesses; and lied about the safety and efficacy of the drugs used to treat them; it is  obvious to me that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia are not the only ones who may be lacking insight.


Willful blindness, and society's collective lack of insight is victimizing far more people with a psychiatric diagnosis than it is helping; I'd be willing to bet on it.  


Nicole Brodeur's Column


British Journal of Psychiatry Article


New England Journal of Medicine Effectiveness of Antipsychotics

The Head of NIMH Has Not Heard About "Nothing About Us Without Us?"

Photo Credit: David Hathcox

Thomas Insel, M.D.: “We're in the middle of a revolution. We have the chance to change the world—not tomorrow, but by staying on course.” here

Apparently, Thomas Insel is not aware of the Consumer /survivor movement. How this can be the case is not easily explainable. It is most disturbing that this man is the head of the National Institutes of Mental Health. This statement flies in the face of the Mental Health Transformation that is being implemented in this country. It is a statement I can relate to applied to my advocacy for myself and my family and fellow consumer/survivors; but not in the context to which Dr. Insel applies it. The context he applies it is indicative to me he is perhaps ignorant of the grave harm done by the bio-psychiatric model of defining and treating those people who have what are often trauma-induced symptoms: including maladaptive coping strategies, difficulty in social situations, and/or those who experience extreme emotional or spiritual crises which are misunderstood. Labeling a person with a "mental Illness" and then telling everyone mental illnesses are caused by a "brain disease," a "chemical imbalance " or a "neurobiological illness" has in fact been determined to be the cause of the stigma entrenched in human society. As reported in the Science Daily and The American Journal of Psychiatry Online

The abstract in the the American Journal of Psychiatry acknowledges claiming that "Mental Illness is like any other illness," was developed as an anti-stigma strategy meant to gain acceptance of the general public for those with psychiatric diagnoses. The reality is as reported, in the same journal Dr. Insel's article: that the general public were supportive of more treatment, but those labeled were rejected more! So it is this lie which became a strategy to decrease the stigma of "mental illness" did not; and worse, it increased the discrimination the very people this fraud was perpetrated to "serve!" The strategy enabled the general public to be more supportive of psychiatric treatment; but reports that those labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis were rejected and discriminated against more--by the general public! This lie, which became part of an anti-stigma strategy to decrease the stigma of "mental illness" did not have the effect that was intended, and worse, it misinformed people about the nature of psychiatric diagnoses. It is no surprise that dishonesty about psychiatric diagnoses caused further harm to those who have been labeled as "mentally ill" by psychiatrists.

Bio-psychiatry devotees medicate into disability and early or sudden death those whom they treat "traditionally" with medication; wanted or not, informed consent or not. It is common for coercion and manipulation to be tools used in "treatment." An example of this is the Assertive Community Treatment, or 'Program of Assertive Community Treatment', as it is known in Washington State.

The PACT Advocacy guide distributed by NAMI as part of it's PACT across America campaign, leaves no room for personal choice to forgo psychiatric drugs, for an individual or family that chooses to access more effective holistic methods of dealing with spiritual, emotional and behavioral symptoms which are called schizophrenia. It is plain that NAMI is advocating and lobbying for the pharmaceutical industry. This clearly is a Conflict of Interest with it's stated mission of being advocates for the people who have been diagnosed as "mentally ill," and their families.

The consumer/survivor movement has stayed the course for decades now, as has the NIMH. Why we survivors have stayed the course is obvious. Our recovery and very survival depend upon our staying the course; and taking a stand against the tyrannical practices to which we have been subjected. These experiences have forged among us a firm resolve to transform the current system to one which is grounded in science, morality, and compassionate care leading to recovery.

What is motivating the NIMH? It seems to me from this article, it is being driven by the same flawed thinking that drives the pharmaceutical industry and the media machine funded by Big-Pharma, cosigned by the American Psychiatric Association and perpetuated by a so-called grassroots movement of "Advocates for the Seriously Mentally Ill." Altruism is not the only thing missing from this type of advocacy; it lacks valid science. Most telling, is the failure to advocacte for the people diagnosed as "seriously mentally ill" AS IF they are worthy of having their fundamental Human Rights preserved or defended.

Shame on you Thomas Insel! 

NIMH Head Urges More Emphasis on Mental Illness as a Brain Disorder 

The Trouble With PACT

Programs of Assertive Community Treatment: A Critical Review 

Practical and Legal Dangers of Outpatient Commitment