Search Results for: that way madness lies

(5-10-16) How many more horror stories need to be told?

It’s time for us to stop the inappropriate jailing and imprisonment of persons with mental illnesses.

On April 17, CBS 60 Minutes broadcast a segment that showed how prisoners with mental illnesses were being neglected and abused at Rikers Island in New York.

On May 2, The New Yorker published MADNESS by Eyal Press, which tells how mentally ill prisoners in Florida have been tortured, driven to suicide and killed by correctional officers.

The nurses said that Rainey had been locked in a stall whose water supply was delivered through a hose controlled by the guards. The water was a hundred and eighty degrees, hot enough to brew a cup of tea—or, as it soon occurred to Krzykowski, to cook a bowl of ramen noodles. (Someone had apparently tampered with the T.C.U.’s water heater.) It was later revealed that Rainey had burns on more than ninety per cent of his body, and that his skin fell off at the touch.

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(5-6-16) “How does a family member get the cooperation of a loved one who happens to be mentally ill?”

Senator John Cornyn (R. Texas) posed that question during a recent U.S. Senate Committee on Finance hearing entitled Mental Health In America: Where Are We Now?

He raised it after explaining that he had read my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, and had been intrigued by how difficult it was for my family to get help for my son because he didn’t think he was sick and didn’t want to take medication that had helped him. I had no idea that Senator Cornyn, who invited me to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, would mention my book or our struggle. It was very kind of him.

While other senators talked about how difficult it was for families to access help, Sen. Cornyn added that compliance also is an issue that must be addressed. He mentioned the effectiveness of Assisted Outpatient Treatment and he specifically talked about how jails and prisons have become our new mental asylums.

Cornyn reminded his colleagues that Congress is currently considering several bills, including his — the Mental Health Safe Communities Act of 2015, which calls for expansion of Crisis Intervention Team training, jail diversion and mental health dockets. He urged his fellow senators to take advantage of what he described as a “magic moment” in Congress by taking their different bills out of their individual committee “silos” and working together to get a consensus bill passed.

As Senator Majority Whip, Cornyn wields tremendous clout and having watched him several times at hearings and listened to him speak, I am impressed by his commitment to getting legislation passed this session, his call for non-partisanship,  and his sincerity in wanting to stop the use of jails and prisons as de facto mental facilities. Sadly, partisan bickering and game-playing continues to threaten a consensus, especially during an election year. Here is a link to the committee hearing. Senator Cornyn’s comments begin at 1:46:49.

At that same hearing, Linda Rosenberg told the committee that “we know what to do” to help most people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems.  We just aren’t doing it. Linda is president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health and a former colleague of mine on the Corporation for Supportive Housing board. She also is also one of our nation’s leading experts on the financing and delivery of mental health care in America. In her testimony and during questioning, she eloquently gave no-nonsense practical advice.

I also was delighted that the committee heard from someone with lived experience. Former NFL Receiver Brandon Marshall described how borderline personality disorder made his life and career “a living hell” until he got help. Here’s an except of his impassioned testimony.

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I will be appearing on NPR’s nationally syndicated Diane Rehm Show on Tuesday, August 4th, discussing innovative ways to divert individuals with mental illnesses from jails and prisons into treatment.  Check local listings for broadcast times and please call her show to add your voice to those in support of mental health courts and other jail diversion efforts.

Also at noon on Tuesday, Senators Scott Chris Murphy  (D-CT) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) will introduce their bipartisan Mental Health Reform Act of 2015 during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. This bill is similar, but different from Rep. Tim Murphy’s House version, the Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act, that failed to make it out of committee last session but was re-introduced and has 100 sponsors. I will be posting a comparison after the Murphy/Cassidy bill is introduced. I am a fan of both Senators, especially Senator Cassidy, who I’ve spoken to several times and is a medical doctor. He understands first-hand why reforms are necessary.

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Journalist and author Robert Whitaker has been a controversial figure in mental health circles since 2001 when he published his first book, Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. In 2010, Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of An Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America predictably sparked outrage and condemnation in many circles while it was loudly endorsed and applauded in others. An article by Whitaker in the non-peer-reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses, titled The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm than good should explain to those unfamiliar with his work why he has become such a lightening rod.

In April, Whitaker released a new book entitled: Psychiatry Under The Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform, which he co-authored with Lisa Cosgrove, a fellow critic of the pharmaceutical industry and a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. This book is aimed at more of an academic crowd than a mass audience.

Knowing how controversial Whitaker’s work is, I asked Virgil Stucker, executive director of CooperRiis Healing Community to write a review, which he was kind enough to send me.

Book Review: Psychiatry Under The Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform

By Virgil Stucker

CooperRiis Healing Community

Bob Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove’s 207 page book Psychiatry Under the Influence is packed full of provocative and thoughtful comments accompanied by detailed analyses of pharmaceutical research, clinical practice, organizational psychology and social philosophy. It reveals very troubling behaviors that have resulted from the confluence of the practice and promise of psychiatry with the profit seeking of pharmaceutical companies. Thought leaders in psychiatry, who have no financial ties to these companies, need to respond to its findings. It is also a book that should be read by everyone who seeks to help some of society’s most psychically vulnerable as well as by those who seek to help restore grit and resilience into daily life.

Thankfully, it is a book that also helps us to begin bridging the divide between the “It’s All-About-the-Medication” versus the “No-Medication” groups, also known as the Psychiatrists versus the Anti-Psychiatrists.   These divided groups are much like the Fundamentalists versus the Atheists. Too often, these divides cause people to lose their heads, to stop listening and to react mindlessly. From my perspective this book is not fuel for the fire but is instead an honest and open expression of Whitaker and Cosgrove’s best efforts to show us compelling evidence of undue influence on psychiatry by pharmaceutical interests while suggesting a unifying path forward.

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I am honored to be named a Mental Wellness Warrior by CNN, especially after reading the names of my fellow warriors. It’s nice to be noticed, but everyone who has a mental illness and is quietly going about their lives — are warriors. And everyone who loves someone with a mental illness and is fighting to reform our system is a true warrior too!

Thanks to Wayne Drash for reminding  the public that there are many faces to mental illness.

From CNN    Mental wellness warriors: Fighting for those who need it most

Pennsylvania Congressman Tim Murphy gets my nod as the Impact Person of 2014 in Mental Health.

Whether you agree or disagree with the Republican from Pittsburgh, his relentless attempt to radically change how the federal government oversees the delivery of mental health services has focused a national spotlight on our current broken system.

Murphy launched his crusade two years ago after he met with the parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary school by Adam Lanza, who had a mental disorder. He recently told a reporter from CNN that he keeps photographs of those children in his Capitol Hill office as a reminder of his pledge to their parents that he would introduce wide sweeping changes.

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