Search Results for: violence

11-21-14  D. J. Jaffe is a mental health gadfly, defined as “one who provokes others into action by criticism” and much like his friend and mentor, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, his views often inspire some and anger others.

Earlier this month in a speech at the New York State convention of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Jaffe claimed there was a difference between being a mental health advocate and a mental illness advocate. Here is an edited version of his talk.

By D J Jaffe

Exec. Dir. Mental Illness Policy Org.

I want to make clear that like most of you, I am not a mental health advocate. I am a mental illness advocate.  I think we need less mental health spending and more mental illness spending.  It is the most seriously ill not the worried-well, who disproportionately become homeless, commit crime, become violent, get arrested incarcerated or hospitalized. 360,000 are behind bars and 200,000 homeless because we are now focused on improving mental health, rather than treating serious mental illness.

My number one message is that we have to stop ignoring the most seriously ill. Send them to the front of the line for services rather than jails shelters prisons and morgues.  I’ll talk (now) about how mental health advocates ignore the seriously ill.

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11-17-14  WARNING: This story should make you angry!

Washington Post editorial writer, Ruth Marcus, has taken-up the cause of a 22 year-old Virginia man who has autism and has been kept in solitary confinement most of the last year under conditions that are worsening his mental and physical health.

Unfortunately, Reginald “Neli” Latson’s plight is not an isolated happening, given that our jails and prisons have become our nation’s new asylums for individuals with serious mental illnesses and, all too often, those with intellectual disabilities.

Latson’s case is especially egregious.

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An Open Letter to Anne Sweeney, Co-Chair Disney Media Networks President, Disney/ABC Television Group

Dear Ms. Sweeney,

I am writing to ask why Disney/ABC Television ridiculed and marginalized our nation’s veterans and millions of other Americans during the October 29th broadcast of its prime time television show, Modern Family.

Twenty-two veterans commit suicide each day in our nation. Nearly all have a diagnosable mental illness. Many have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that they suffered fighting for your safety and freedom. Yet, the writers of Modern Family: Halloween 3: AwesomeLand decided to make these proud warriors the butt of belittling jokes.

In the episode, Claire Dunphy decides to create the most frightening house in her neighborhood by transforming her front yard into a “scary insane asylum” complete with “deranged mental patients,” a “sadistic nurse” and “demented doctor.” The episode features daughter Alex chained to a hospital bed and Luke wearing a straight jacket – images that are intended to make viewers chuckle. Words such as “nut job, Looney Bin, cuckoo” are sprinkled throughout the dialogue — less viewers forget that nothing is more frightening than someone with a mental disorder.

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August 4th, 2014

A blog that I published recently entitled How Bipolar Disorder Destroyed Joe’s Life attracted more than 20,000 readers, making it one of my most popular. That’s  a testament to the power of stories told from the heart.  It’s author, Kathy Maloney, was profiled in a subsequent story.

The Story Behind the Story

By Shannon Mullen, Reporter Asubry Park Press, July 7, 2014

They say redheads shouldn’t wear pink, but Kathy Maloney has never been the type to let the theys of this world tell her what she can and cannot do. That explains why, late one Saturday afternoon in 1980, an 18-year-old Maloney ducked into the Simco shoe store in downtown West New York, determined to buy the hot pink boots that had caught her eye earlier in the day.

Her timing was terrible. She heard the door lock behind her, felt a gun at her back, and quickly deduced she’d just stumbled into an armed robbery.

Two well-dressed men led her to a back room and forced her to sit on the floor with a handful of other terrified customers and employees. Eventually, the robbers fled with a haul of cash and valuables.

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By my count, the Santa Barbara killings are the sixth mass murders committed by someone with a mental disorder in recent memory. I found myself making the media rounds this week saying much the same thing that I have said after all of these shootings.

I did notice two articles that I felt provided fresh views.

In Why Can’t Doctors Identify Killers? published in the New York Times,  Richard A. Friedman argues that the notion we can stop mass murders by improving our mental health system is a misconception.

“It is a comforting notion, but nothing could be further from the truth,” writes Friedman, who is a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of psychopharmacology clinic at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

Friedman also cautions against lowering the dangerous criteria for involuntary commitment and argues that drug and alcohol abuse are far better indicators of potential violence than mental illnesses. I disagree with some of his points, but found his article thought-provoking.

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I received a slew of emails about the guest blog that I published last Friday written by D.J. Jaffe, whose name has been popping up regularly in the media, most often in support of Rep. Tim Murphy’s Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act.   Gabe Howard, a mental illness advocate, speaker and blogger, who has been diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders, asked  if I would print a rebuttal by him. Of all the comments, both in support and opposed to Mr. Jaffe’s guest blog, I felt Mr. Howard’s were the most worth sharing.

Arguments about such important issues as involuntary commitment, dangerousness, and recovery can go-on-on. I will let Mr. Jaffe and Mr. Howard continue future debates between them on their own websites. I wish to thank them both for sharing their different points of view here and their efforts to improve our mental health system.

 8 Myths –A Different View

By Gabe Howard

I read with interest the recent blog from D. J. Jaffe, “8 Myths About Serious Mental Illness.” I was, however, disappointed to see that, throughout his article, Mr. Jaffe made assertions that are untrue and relied on data taken out of context to make his points. In some cases, the “myth” he debunks is a belief held only by a fringe minority, not really needing any sort of debunking. There are, indeed, many misconceptions about mental illness, but in his recent blog, Mr. Jaffe failed to adequately debunk these particular “myths.”

Mr. Jaffe disagrees with the following eight statements:

1. All mental illness is serious.

However…

Mental illness exists on a spectrum, making it difficult to decide who counts as “seriously mentally ill.”  The problem here is language. Consider dysthymia. It is not categorically a “Serious Mental Illness.” But when someone with dysthymia is contemplating suicide, it’s deadly serious. Should we deny that person services because they don’t have a “serious” mental illness? Mr. Jaffe removes people from “seriously mentally ill” status to achieve the statistics he quoted throughout his blog, going so far as to split bipolar disorder into “severe” and, seemingly, “not severe.”

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