- Job Adverts
- Cynics Guide: Psychiatric Hotline Protocol
- Define My Madness ?
- You Don’t Have To Be Mad, But It Helps
- Better Than Butlins ?
- Stop In The Name Of My Law !
- Sectioning Detrimental To Self Esteem
- Avoiding Becoming A Patient
- Cynics Guide: Staff Retention (Part 1)
- [Cynic's Guide: How To Blog]
- Major And Minor Psychoneurotics
- Cynic’s Guide: Not Taught At University
- You know you’re an RMN when…
- A Glossary of terms
- Cynic’s Guide: How To Be An Antipsychiatrist
- The Devil’s Dictionary (Mental Nurse Edition)
- Students Guide to Acute Inpatient Wards
- ABC: A to C
- ABC: D to F
- ABC: G to I
Step 1: The Easy Introduction
You may want to join a well known new religious movement. By new religious movement I mean cult. Then you will be told what to think and how to argue very badly. You will also probably become very poor very rapidly.
There you go, you have nothing to lose but your mind itself the one step plan to becoming an antipsychiatrist.
Step 2: Slightly Harder
You do not have to be an idiot Scientologist to be an antipsychiatrist. Reading enough will probably start you thinking more critically about mental health issues.
According to Wikipedia antipsychiatry started as a protest against the abuse of the system to lock up otherwise sane people. The example given is men having their wives incarcerated for being disobedient. Back then of course a proper diagnosis would have included a wandering uterus. Generally things meandered along with a bit of an upswing when cutting out bits of brains and ECT began coming into fashion.
Things really hit their stride in the sixties when people everywhere discovered LSD.
The people you want to read up on are:
Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of “madness,” (his term). He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a ‘lose-lose situation’ and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned.
The myth of mental illness: It is a medical metaphor to describe a behavioural disorder, such as schizophrenia, as an “illness” or “disease”. Szasz wrote: “If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic.” While people behave and think in ways that are very disturbing, this does not mean they have a disease. To Szasz, people with mental illness have a “fake disease,” and these “scientific categories” are in fact used for power controls. Schizophrenia is “the sacred symbol of psychiatry” and, according to Szasz, simply does not exist. To be a true disease, the entity must somehow be capable of being approached, measured, or tested in scientific fashion. According to Szasz, disease must be found on the autopsy table and meet pathological definition instead of being voted into existence by members of the American Psychiatric Association. Mental illnesses are “like a” disease, argues Szasz, putting mental illness in a semantic metaphorical language arts category. Psychiatry is a pseudo-science that parodies medicine by using medical sounding words invented over the last 100 years. To be clear, heart break and heart attack belong to two completely different categories. Psychiatrists are but “soul doctors”, the successors of priests, who deal with the spiritual “problems in living” that have troubled people forever. Psychiatry, through various Mental Health Acts has become the secular state religion according to Thomas Szasz. It is a social control system, which disguises itself under the claims of scientificity.
To be a proper antipsychiatrist you do not want to read the above authors too closely. Honestly, it really helps if you manage to disengage all critical thinking faculties, please see Step One and how to hand over your thinking parts of an external organisation.
Effectively if something classed as a mental illness has a poorly known, or even unknown, physical basis it does not exist. If something currently classed as a mental illness has a known physical cause (dementia) it is a physical illness. Therefore mental illness does not exist.
Step Three: Deny Mental Illness Exists
This really will be the foundation of everything else. There are a few stages here.
Argue the definitions of words and how subjective other people’s considered opinions are.
Mental: Mr Smith currently believes the Mafia have replaced all the members of his family with perfectly accurate body doubles who mean to do him harm. I would consider him to be suffering from a mental illness.
Perfectly Logical Antipsychiatry Knowledge Argument, hereafter known as the PLANK argument or just PLANK.
PLANK: There is no such thing as mental illness! Can you point at what has gone wrong? Can you? CAN YOU!?
Mental: *Points at Mr Smiths head*
PLANK: Shut Up!
Other PLANK arguments include “what gives you the right to say what is right or wrong”, “you need ‘ill’ people to keep you in a job”, “he is not ill he is in an impossible situation and expressing it in a socially different way”.
Mr Smith: I think the Mafia are trying to kill me. They have infiltrated my family. I suspect I may be suffering from a Mental Illness.
PLANK: You are not ill, you have been brainwashed by the coercive powers of BIG PHARMA and the Mental Health Services. Your internal experience in this case does not count.
Remember as an antipsychiatrist that everyone who disagrees with you is either deserving of your patronising sympathy (people who think they have an illness) or are evil servants of BIG PHARMA (doctors & nurses) and deserving of wild attacks, slurs and accusations of wickedness.
You must presume that everyone who considers mental illness to exist believes only in the medical model. Ignore evidence to the contrary. Those that work in the mental health system dealing with ill people day in day out do not understand that the concept of mental illness is complex and multifaceted. Nurses and Doctors have never noticed that often peoples states of mind are influenced by environmental, social, familial factors.
Does Mental Illness Exist? (anti)
Does Mental Illness Exist?: One and Two
Stage Four: Living In The Past
The psychiatric system does not have a pleasant past if you go looking for nasty bits. The american history of the lobotomy is particularly nasty. Also you need to treat this book as a documentary account. If you can not be bothered reading just see the movie. All Mental health nurses aspire to be Nurse ‘Sexpot’ Ratched.
The point here is to take the worst examples of what you see, read, hear or just plain make up as representative of the whole. You can be international here. If in one country they continue to use a technique or intervention that is widely regarded to be inhumane this can be used to to condemn everywhere else. Time is no barrier. Something horrible was done many years ago? Use it to condemn the totally different practices carried out today.
Psychiatry: an Industry of Death Museum (warning link contains nuts)
Please note Thomas Szasz’ link to Scientology.
A particularly fabulous argument is to compare Nazis and the Mental Health system. Like here.
Psychiatry, euthanasia, and Hitler’s holocaust
Please be clear that the problem here is not that these Nazis were murderous scum, the point is that some of them were psychiatrists.
Stage Five: Only Your Labels Have Meaning
The mental health system is only there to control social undesirables that can not be easily imprisoned. People whose only crime is thinking different. No connection to Apple. The system imposes this control by labelling people as mad, bad or ill. These labels gain power by being forced on us by a bunch of quacks in the pay of BIG PHARMA who have the appearance of respectability. The same power of words and cultural manipulation is the reason we all believed Tony Blair about the Oil Iraq War and believe anything else were are told by the media.
To be fair there might be something in this argument I know people who believe the Daily Mail prints news.
Labels and How To Abuse Them.
Labels Used By Psychiatrists and what they really mean.
Mental Illness: A non existent condition used by a conspiracy of BIG PHARMA and psychaitrists to control undesirables. See Soviet History and Chinese present (pdf link).
Treatment: Torture
ECT: Torture with plug sockets.
Medication: Brain destroying poisons.
Psychiatrist: Quack, fraud, shrink, trick cyclist, Nazi
Sectioning: Use of state powers to force torture upon people.
Mental health Act: Undemocratic, government sanctioned powers used to allow the torturing of people.
Pharmaceutical Company: Paymasters to the Quacks. BIG PHARMA.
ICD10 or DSMIV: The Book Of Lies!
Patient: Victim.
Ward: Prison
Mental health Services: Government sanctioned social control services.
Schizophrenia: A particularly non existent condition.
All the words on the right above can be usefully used to make sure any discussions with psychiatrists can be conducted in the proper terms. There is a useful post here on how to refine your excellent debating style. How To Win Any Argument On The Internet.
Make sure you at all times stress the least pleasant aspects of psychiatry. talk about coercion all the time. The legal safeguards, advocacy groups, agencies, tribunals, nurses, doctors etc are all ineffective and part of the system.
Mental: Hello. I work in an average acute psychiatric ward.
PLANK: Does it have doors? Does it? Does it have them? Doors?
Mental: Yes. We have doors. Otherwise people would have to climb in and out the windows. *light giggle*
PLANK: YOU HAVE DOORS!
Mental:*confused* Yes?
PLANK: Do you lock them?
Mental: Yes, at night to keep out riff raff, Daily Mail readers and gigantic moths.
PLANK: YOU HAVE DOORS!!! YOU LOCK THEM!!!
Mental: *sinking feeling* G…
PLANK: You are a PRISON you LOCK UP INNOCENT PEOPLE!!! You are just like the Nazi Consternation[sic] Camps!!!
Mental: Oh go Fu…
You see how it goes. Here the antipsychiatrist has quite clearly won!
If there is an argument about risk to others or self respond that people should not be locked up before they have killed themselves or someone else. They should be banged up in prison afterwards. Apart from suicide of course, bit late really.
Hooray.
Later on ask if the ward has plug sockets and see where you go from there. Think electrodes.
If any health worker accepts that there actions can be seen in a negative light, even evil, this means they enjoy using statutory powers. They enjoy using these powers to remove the rights of patients without rhyme or reason, used at the drop of a hat. Patient refuses medication? Reach for the Acuphase. If they try to justify use of coercion in any forms please move on to the Nazi argument as follows:
Mental: Sometimes we have to use physical coercion, legally sanctioned, to ensure a patient takes their medication or in an emergency situation.
PLANK: That is evil.
Mental: From the patients perspective at the time probably yes. But …
PLANK: You admit it it. You NAZI!!!
An automatic win for antipsychiatry I think you would agree.
Stage Six: Mines Are Bigger Than Yours
Make a big deal of the rights of people in a democratic society. Really. To argue against this is a sign on total buffoonery. The reverse applies in mental health though. As you are an antipsychiatrist you are also and antidemocratician. Numbers be damned!
One plucky expert on your side (doctor, psychiatrist, bad political philosopher, washed up drug addict) is worth more than an overwhelming majority of similarly qualified experts that disagree. If 99% of psychiatrists say that mental illness exists and 1% argue against … plainly the minority are correct.
Anyone argues against your superior logic tell them they thought Copernicus was mad differently sane. Good eh? Brilliant!
Stage Seven: Discomfobulataliation
Read the comments. If someone scores a point against you ignore it and it will eventually go away. Redefine words as needed, even in the middle of a sentence. Ensure your opponent does not know. Use the small list of labels above as a starting point.
Discomfobulataliate as much as you can.
Mental: Most of my patients are entirely voluntary.
PLANK: But you would try to section them if they tried to leave.
Mental: No.
PLANK: They must imagine they will be sectioned if they try to leave.
Mental: No.The majority are able …
PLANK: They must only be staying in hospital because their lives outside are worse.
Mental: Well possibly, many of them are very ill and …
PLANK: There is NO SUCH THING as mental illness!
Mental: W…
PLANK: They have to check with staff before leaving?
Mental: Yes, the Fir…
PLANK: You are a prison of the badly labelled differently sane!
Mental: What?
PLANK: DO YOU HAVE DOORS!?
Mental: *softly cries to self*
Stage Eight: Stylistic Concerns.
Admire the bold use of colour, CAPITALS, speling and grammer. Gaze in awe at the lack of links to primary sources. Look at the shock news that companies exist to make profits.
Encouraging people to check references and sources will only distract them from the brilliant purity of your argument. If you must link to an external source please ensure it does not confound the issue by engaging in rational discussion or debate. Only link to articles that are reminiscent of being attacked by a rabid antipsychiatry poodle.
If you must respond to a point made use proper Internet etiquette.
Mental: Mental illness does exist.
PLANK: You are wrong.
A weak response. Better would be:
PLANK: YOU ARE WRONG!!!
Triple exclamations are a sure sign of the strength of your argument.
Stage Nine: Bringing It All Together.
An example with commentary.
Mental: I am a mental health nurse. I help treat people suffering from mental illnesses.
PLANK: There is no such thing as mental illness.
A gentle start. The nurse here should rightly see the clarity of your argument and ignore many years of training and experience and give up.
Mental: Yes there is. Many people I work with suffer from problems which affect their ability to think rationally and interferes with their ability to live their lives.
PLANK: Who are you to define rationality? What gives you the right?
Here we have cunningly moved the argument away from the fact of mental illness to a philisophical debate. Here we can argue meanings and human rights.
Mental: Umm. Well I can define rationality by looking it up in a dictionary. I suppose I gained the ‘right’ by studying hard, using life experience, being aware of social norms etc and working as part of a system devoted to studying this very type of thing.
Good. We have moved the nurse off the topic of mental illness and he or she is trying to defend him or herself by appeal to expertise and logic. we could discomfobulataliate here for several paragraphs with a discussion of rights, who made you an expert and examples of where people who do not conformto social norms are beneficial to society etc. For the sake of this example please assume there are several paragraphs of philisophical verbiage following. We will move on to the BIG PHARMA attack.
PLANK: BIG PHARMA makes millions billions from selling so called psychiatric medications.
Mental: Pharmaceutical companies make money do they?
Here the nurse is trying to be flip. On to the next stage.
PLANK: Mental illness is an invention of Psychiatrists and BIG PHARMA. To disempower the different and make money.
Mental: You do know a group of psychiatrists probably could not organise themselves enough to teach a monkey to eat bananas, never mind take part in a Machiavellian conspiracy?
Somehow the nurse is still resisting your wonderful words. More vitriol from a random direction!
PLANK: The NAZIs KILLED people labelled as Mentally ILL! PSYCHIATRISTS ARE NAZIS.
That should do it.
Mental: Eh? What?
Got him.
Will end the example here with a clear win for the antipsychiatry movement. This is only the briefest of examples. We will leave it as an exercise for the reader to come up with better examples. We have not even used the “my expert is correct your vast majority of experts are all wrong” argument. Nor have we mentioned ECT or lobotomies.
Summary
So to be an antipsychiatrist:
- Attack
- Rant
- Never debate
- Redefine words
- Attack at tangets
- Never reference a dissenting voice
- Ignore tricky points
- Call your opponent a Nazi.
For an example of this you know the post to read.
@ Mr Ian
“Yet you still failed to answer the question. How is it done outside in those grey areas?”
But I don’t need to. It is plain that competence is very often judged without the help of psychiatric experts, and so there is no reason they ought to exist. If the function of a psychiatrist is simply to decide who is and who is not competent, why do we need all of the accompanying lies and propaganda? If they were honest about what they do and reasons for it, then at least we’d be getting somewhere.
“So which are you actually arguing for or against?”
This criticism doesn’t make sense.
“Essentially, their conscious is clouded; their judgment impaired”
Yet more speculative nonsense and moralising masked as care and science.
“Is this man in control of himself? Would it be fair to send him out in public so labile and unable to control himself?”
Obviously he is not controlling himself. This may be because he cannot, or because he will not. To assume that a person is literally unable to control himself (to do *what* is the question we need to address) is at odds with his ability to discuss his behaviour, and in no way legitimises coercing him. What actual evidence do you have that the man is not making very bad choices? If his actions are not under his volition, then I suppose you don’t talk to him about them? (Why bother!)
“Mental illness THAT DISPLAYS RISK BEHAVIOURS is detainable under the same risk predictions that these laws are based on.
Shoujld we abolish all of these too? Or just some of them?”
If there are observed risk behaviours (threats of force), then there is no need for the idea of mental illness, and no need for special mental health laws. These things being abolished, I will be happy. Then we can talk about what constitutes risk.
“I don’t have time to explain the last 400 years too.”
That’s fine. I’d prefer you not to anyway.
“To limit the discussion to only psychiatry and ignore other coercive practices”
We’re on a psychiatric blog, for heaven’s sake!
“Not absolve – to understand.”
Absolve:
tr.v., -solved, -solv·ing, -solves.
1. To pronounce clear of guilt or blame.
2. To relieve of a requirement or obligation.
3. a. To grant a remission of sin to.
b. To pardon or remit (a sin).
No, you are absolving the man. Unless you want psychiatry to redefine yet another word…
“Of course, we should have just let him kill himself when it was his wish?”
“Let him” live his life as he sees fit. You speak like you own him.
“Serious question: Why don’t you argue for a prison system that is equitable to mental health rather than the other way around – ie prisoners are released once they have proven reduced risk – not just time-served?”
Punishment ought to be proportionally based on the crime, functioning where possible much as a money debt is repaid. Your position assumes that the government own the people, who must prove to government experts that they are not a risk to themselves or others. That is tyranny.
“You seem to think that everyone is detained on a whim.”
No I don’t, nor does my position rest on anything like that. If you seriously believe I think that, you still do not understand my point.
“Catching the few, however, is an ever improving art”
Yes, the ever-improving art of psychiatry!
“No. There is a law that says it is legitimate. Laws undergo due process and I assume the MHA underwent that same process.”
But if you think that whatever our government decide upon is legitimate, why are you talking so much about risk? I like the boardgame, sure, but I’ll leave it at that thanks.
“All other things equal – a person who is suffering delusions of paranoid persecution but not acting on them will be far less likely to be detained or as medicated than one who is acting on them.”
So you admit people *can* choose to ignore their “paranoid delusions”!
“So dangerous of you!”
For whom? Psychiatrists and mental health workers would be out of a job. Quite a risk, wouldn’t you say?
Ted, Fair play to you mate, you make a lot of very good points. As you, quite rightly, point out the mental health professionals on this site are biased and, therefore, less likely to accept your argument. However, I would like to ask you why, in your opinion, are you not receiving much support for your arguments from patients, patients who have been detained under the Mental Health Act and any family / friends of the aforementioned who may be reading ( you still out there, MMW ? )
@ oldschoolbaby
“However, I would like to ask you why, in your opinion, are you not receiving much support for your arguments from patients, patients who have been detained under the Mental Health Act and any family / friends of the aforementioned who may be reading”
The loss of personal liberty is only one side of the psychiatric coin. As Szasz stresses very strongly, many psychiatric patients are more than happy to be relieved of the responsibility of living as an adult. As I mentioned somewhere above, a friend of mine I was recently talking to described her stay in a psychiatric institution in precisely that way, and she does not agree with my general position by any means. It is not unkind or unfair to point this out, since it does not imply a value judgement about whether the evasion of responsibility is a worthy decision or not. In any case, voluntarily offering resources to provide for those who actually want them is very different from forcing them on people.
Both common sense and personal experience tell me that families are relieved to have the burden of difficult family members taken off their hands. Plus they are told that their relative has a medical illness which is treatable with drugs and talking. We are taught to trust both the government and men in white coats, so this adds to the confusion.
To be fair, there are many people who see themselves as psychiatric survivors, and reject psychiatric coercion on principle. Szasz was lucky enough to train as a psychiatrist at a time when coercion was not mandatory. Clearly, psychiatry as an institution has since then taken steps to remove and ridicule any dissenting voices.
“To limit the discussion to only psychiatry and ignore other coercive practices”
We’re on a psychiatric blog, for heaven’s sake!
Then perhaps we should limit commentary to those who work in psychiatry – and not the wider general opinions?
It’s mental health to be pedantic – but the title is merely a starting point. And mental health law is not psychiatry. It is law. Perhaps take the argument to the legal people?
I find your dismissive nature difficult to present a counter argument too – most your opinions are expressed as:
“But I don’t need to.”
“This criticism doesn’t make sense.”
“Yet more speculative nonsense and moralising masked as care and science.”
“We’re on a psychiatric blog, for heaven’s sake!”
Of the few I feel you have answered, if only superficially:
“Let him” live his life as he sees fit. You speak like you own him
Close. I owe him.
He did a service to my community by removing paedophiles from circulation.
For his troubles he suffered a temporary loss of sanity. There is no greater plausible reason for his actions.
Ought I abandon him and leave him rot?
Had coercive psychiatry not been employed he would have gone to jail and served time – having survived that without taking his own life – he would then be required to return to the community to face his demons; and probably top himself then instead.
He was devastated for his actions; in fact, once his clarity returned for his criminal actions – he became so remorseful it overwhelmed him more than he was at the time of the original offence. (Kinda like a pendulum effect)
How would you suggest we prevented him from taking his own life – preserved by incarcerating him in hospital and observing him every moment and escorting him when he left the unit until such time as he thanked us for helping him restore some dignity to his life and left.
“Punishment ought to be proportionally based on the crime”
Says who?
This does not prevent them returning to crime, and I as a citizen have a right to remain as free as possible from crime.
Current risk assessment improvements are ever-increasingly demonstrating close associations with personality traits and recidivism.
Incarcerating psychopaths until they mature to conformity is no real different to coercive psychiatry – and I’m happy to keep high risk offenders under restrictions – or coercions.
So are the government – based on what the people asked for – when they implemented the Sex Offences Act 2003:
Introduced by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, RSHOs are civil preventative orders used to protect children from the risks posed by individuals who do not necessarily have a previous conviction for a sexual or violent offence but who have, on at least two occasions, engaged in sexually explicit conduct or communication with a child or children and who pose a risk of further such harm. For a RSHO to be made it is not necessary for there to be a risk that the defendant will commit a sexual offence against a child – the risk may be that s/he intends to communicate with children in a sexually explicit way. The RSHO can contain such prohibitions, as the court considers necessary. For example, an adult could be found regularly communicating with young children in a sexual way in Internet chat rooms. A RSHO could be used to prohibit the person from using the Internet in order to stop him/her from such harmful activity.
Would you argue that coercive practices such as this that significantly encroach on an individual’s liberties (not only losing access to chat rooms – but cannot even book a pizza online) in the preservation of child safety are excessive or currently necessary?
If there are observed risk behaviours (threats of force), then there is no need for the idea of mental illness, and no need for special mental health laws.
Then we can talk about what constitutes risk.
I strongly agree with this. In fact, it has been my whole argument.
Let’s talk practical scenario, as I am at a loss to see how your abolishment of MHA laws will work.
Yesterday I approached a patient to advise him of an impending blood test that morning so he wouldn’t be getting all his medications at that time.
He responded by clenching his fists and lurching forward at me to assault.
Once we had applied our coercive psychiatry -
Restraint
Moved into a low stimulus area
Contained with 3 staff – not allowed to leave
Permitted and encouraged to ventilate his feelings – ie ranting and verbally threatening
Given PRN medication
.. he was able to tell me what happened.
He said that when I had told him of the blood test – he thought we were going to test his DNA and send the results to the CIA who were holding his passport because he is really the Queen of England but is currently hiding here in Australia as a bush snake.
Without coercive psychiatry – he would be roaming free – putting anyone else who should compromise his camoflague at risk.
He had already been to prison for wielding a knife and then transfered to us at the end of his sentence. He had not ‘learnt his lesson’ about not going off at people – as his mental state is deluded.
He ought not be returned to prison because the last time he spent over 3/4 of it in complete isolation due to risk of assault on others and reciprocal assault from others.
He is not psychopathic. He is a lovely bloke when in control of himself.
He is mentally unwell. And gets angry at himself for being so.
It is not sufficient to say he ought not be in hospital – as he would be outside, most likely wielding a knife at someone – as evidenced by prior behaviour (risk), current marked lability of mood (mental state) and his pervasive inability to self-regulate (ego depletion).
My risk prediction says he is high risk by nature of mental illness and it is not fair to allow other innocent people become the unwitting victims of his delusional beliefs.
What should I have done?
Ted:
Before (or while) you respond to my previous comment – you may wish to read some of my other recent posts on this topic – on this site.
http://www.mentalnurse.org/200.....eneration/
http://www.mentalnurse.org/200.....l-control/
I may have been a little less than honest to my true beliefs in my representations/protestations in this thread and you’re arguments are something I oft lament.
Ive been enjoying playing devil’s advocate.
I still think you need to tighten up on some of the issues you represent.
However, I genuinely feel that all crime and/or mental illness either:
goes with risk assessment, based on an obviously imperfect risk-prediction that falls foul of liberty laws, which is unfortunate;
or:
goes with incarceration for determined lengths of time – based on acts done – rather than feared – but requires some act to have been done in the first place, which is unfortunate.
Coercive psychiatry is far from perfect – but change is only worthwhile in a radical sense and requires a radical rethink in terms of what the public are prepared to accept against what the individual is entitled to have.
Your arguments, where you made them, are far better this time around.
@ Mr Ian
“Perhaps take the argument to the legal people?”
Just as psychiatrists shift responsibility to lawmakers while saying “we don’t make the laws,”, lawmakers respond by pointing out that “we just do as we’re told by the experts.”
“I find your dismissive nature difficult to present a counter argument too”
I dismiss your positions because they are wrong, not because of my “dismissive nature.” One example: I said “this criticism doesn’t make sense,” because it is clearly obvious that thinking a rapist should be locked up forever and holding that people should be free once they have served their time are not mutually exclusive positions. In other words, there could be some crimes where the offender is never released. Not that I necessarily hold the position that a rapist should be detained forever, but then that is not required for my point to stand. Another example: “But I don’t need to.” I explained why, if competence is generally decided without recourse to psychiatrists, that the whole idea of mental health experts is unnecessary. You even agree with me, when I stated that there is no need for the idea of mental illness, nor for special mental health laws: “I strongly agree with this.” Hence, your criticism is without foundation.
“Close. I owe him.”
So you first fail to dispute that you mis-used the word “absolve,” then imply that my answer – “you speak like you own him” – is incorrect. Well, you are once again completely wrong: if you own something, you need not ask permission to perform action X towards it. If you do not own something, you do not have this privilege. Given that you think you are entitled to coerce this man, you necessarily own him to the extent that you can order him around. That is the meaning of the word! To avoid this basic point, you move the goalposts and suggest you “owe him” because he “did a service to my community by removing paedophiles from circulation” and for his troubles “he suffered a temporary loss of sanity.” What utter nonsense! Consider this: do you owe him because he did a service to your community? What if he hadn’t done such a service? Or do you owe him because he allegedly lost his mind? You even say that he was remorseful at the time and even more so afterwards — to me, this sounds like that thing we call guilt Only a fool feels guilty about things they were not responsible for. To be sure, are you saying that he literally lost his mind and was literally not in control of his body? Please understand that I am not suggesting that his actions are not understandable. Obviously, his job sounds less than ideal. But that does not excuse what he did. Just like any mental health worker, he is free to leave his job at any time.
“he would have gone to jail and served time – having survived that without taking his own life – he would then be required to return to the community to face his demons; and probably top himself then instead.”
Sounds like a totally acceptable and honest course of events to me. In plain language — person does a terrible thing, is punished, feels guilty as community despise his actions, and may think suicide is the easier course of action.
“How would you suggest we prevented him from taking his own life”
I never suggested anything of the sort.
[“Punishment ought to be proportionally based on the crime”] “Says who?”
I say so, and so does the history of Western civilization, as do common sense and consistent political theory.
“I as a citizen have a right to remain as free as possible from crime.”
If it applies to you, then it must apply to everyone. If you don’t think locking up innocent adults is a crime, then there is probably nothing I can say to help you see that your position contradicts itself. Your use of “crime” is erroneous, since it includes non-crimes.
“Current risk assessment improvements are ever-increasingly demonstrating close associations with personality traits and recidivism.”
Leaving aside the morality of locking up innocent people, I cannot believe you are still staunchly defending the ability of psychiatrists to predict dangerousness. Even most industry professionals on this site would not make such absurd claims.
“Incarcerating psychopaths until they mature to conformity is no real different to coercive psychiatry”
At last, we agree! The point, however, is detaining innocent “psychopaths” shows how redundant and insincere the idea of mental illness is.
“Would you argue that coercive practices such as this that significantly encroach on an individual’s liberties (not only losing access to chat rooms – but cannot even book a pizza online) in the preservation of child safety are excessive or currently necessary?”
I would not regulate the internet. As for other measures, it depends what kind of crime had been committed. If a crime has been committed, I suggest that people are punished proportionally to the extent that they injure the victim. It is of note that statutory law takes away from the alleged victim both the right to decide that a crime has been committed, and compensation for the loss incurred.
[“If there are observed risk behaviours (threats of force), then there is no need for the idea of mental illness, and no need for special mental health laws.
Then we can talk about what constitutes risk.”] / “I strongly agree with this. In fact, it has been my whole argument.”
If that is your whole argument, you might want to rethink the next line you wrote, which runs as follows: “I am at a loss to see how your abolishment of MHA laws will work.”
“Without coercive psychiatry – he would be roaming free”
Nice to see you compare a person to an animal. Why not just write that he would be free? Free to act responsibly or not. If not, and to the extent that he acts irresponsibly, there is no place in civil society for him.
“He had already been to prison for wielding a knife” & “last time he spent over 3/4 of it in complete isolation due to risk of assault on others and reciprocal assault from others.”
Obviously, this is not acceptable behaviour. If he did not respect the safety of his fellow prisoners, then extend his sentence for what is objectively criminal behaviour. It sounds like he prefers violence over respecting other people. It may be tragic, but this man is a problem and needs to be dealt with. To do so, no recourse to “he is mentally unwell” is necessary, and neither is detaining him on the basis of alleged future harm. If he has demonstrated his inability to stop assaulting people, there is no need to justify his incarceration based on something he hasn’t yet done. It almost goes without saying that your principle can justify the detention of anyone, for any reason.
“his pervasive inability to self-regulate (ego depletion).”
/laughs!
“What should I have done?”
If you don’t like what you do, then leave.
@ Mr Ian
Having read your odd admission, I have this to say:
“My proposition: Detention for involuntary treatment based on criminal behaviour should be prescribed as a maximum fixed time period commensurate to the offence commited as if they were a mainstream criminal before the law. Early release/Parole (?s25) can be achieved through judicial review based on criminalistic behaviour – not presence/absence of mental illness.”
If someone had behaved in a criminal manner, what is it you are seeking to treat involuntarily? You say “AS IF they were a mainstream criminal before the law”, but have no evidence that this is not the case, unless there is no crime. You go on to say that mental illness should not be the criterion for early release, yet you have previously sentenced someone to “treatment” because they have a mental illness. You can’t have it both ways. You sound like the government when they team up with a private company and pretend to play free markets.
“Having a mental illness isn’t a crime; why do we lock people up for it”
But you still lock them up for it! I’m not sure I really follow the rest of what you say, but to my mind, it comes down to this: if you are honest in your intentions to institute the rule of law to psychiatry, then the only conclusion is to abolish coercive psychiatry. There is no middle ground.
“Coercive psychiatry is far from perfect – but change is only worthwhile in a radical sense and requires a radical rethink in terms of what the public are prepared to accept against what the individual is entitled to have.”
I never suggested the public would accept an end to coercive psychiatry. Quite the opposite, it would seem. But you can offer only rationalizations of violence against innocent people. Just give up the idea of mental illness, and use the law to punish lawbreakers as it does everyone else. You can go on about risk all you like, but it is not a psychiatric issue.
“Yesterday I approached a patient to advise him of an impending blood test that morning so he wouldn’t be getting all his medications at that time.”
Were you “a little less than honest” about this example too? If you work in psychiatry and genuinely wish it to be subservient to the rule of law, then you are a hypocrite. If you are not a hypocrite, then you accept the use of psychiatric violence against law-abiding citizens. From what you have said, the latter option seems to fit best. I don’t see how you are any different in principle from the others who post messages on this site.
What diluted my original position was the same responses you are getting, which are obviously having less effect on you, that caused me to rethink my theories. Perhaps I’m weak, but I felt some sense of reality was required before I made a total idiot of myself.
“If you are not a hypocrite, then you accept the use of psychiatric violence against law-abiding citizens.”
For someone lunging at me making threats to assault? I’d do that (and possibly worse) if it happened in a pub; and the law would protect me for ‘defending myself’. Are you saying I don’t have the right to defend myself?
I was less than honest about the PRN tho; he declined the offer. We took the extra time and talked it out.
MHA law exists because there is no better alternative. I would graciously accept a “Potential Risk to Others Law” that permitted us to incarcerate any individual who presented with high risk behaviours – but then we’d be locking up politicians too.
As for risk prediction – in the higher probability categories – risk is as close to “beyond reasonable doubt” which is the same burden of proof required in a court of law to incarcerate someone. We accept it is not a perfect system and some win, some lose. Que sera.
Your arguments are damaging to your arguments.
“Says who?”
I say so, and so does the history of Western civilization, as do common sense and consistent political theory.
You’ve obviously thought through on the coercive psychiatry and I admire your value position, as would many on this site.
However, you’ve not thought through the reality, the alternative, the consequences or the want of the people.
“What should I have done?”
I didn’t say I either liked nor disliked it. I do what I do cos it’s what I do.
If you don’t like what you do, then leave.
If you don’t like how it is, then leave.
@ Mr Ian
“Perhaps I’m weak, but I felt some sense of reality was required before I made a total idiot of myself.”
I don’t know what you mean.
“Are you saying I don’t have the right to defend myself?”
No.
1.I am saying that you know what happens on psychiatric wards, and if you were serious about the evils of coercive psychiatry, you would seek employment elsewhere. People who do precisely what they verbally reject are hypocrites. The conclusion, which we seem to agree on, is that you are not a hypocrite, because your position is no different in principle to everyone else who works in psychiatry. I notice that you made no attempt to deny this.
2. You accept then that you have a right to defend yourself, but the patient does not? The psychiatric situation is totally unlike a assault in a pub, because people are not detained in pubs and forced to drink alcohol. It may be true that the person may initiate violence outside of the psychiatric setting, and then you can compare it to the pub example. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, and everyone has the right to be free from psychiatric violence.
“MHA law exists because there is no better alternative.”
Here is a better alternative: no mental health laws. Everyone would be equal under the law, and not fear or expect psychiatry to take their liberty and responsibility. There would be functions of social control that would need to be taken over by other authorities, but that just proves psychiatry is not medicine but social control.
“As for risk prediction – in the higher probability categories – risk is as close to “beyond reasonable doubt” which is the same burden of proof required in a court of law to incarcerate someone.”
Yes, but this has nothing to do with psychiatry. We seem to agree that coercion is both the use of force and the threat of the use of force. We can debate the intricacies of what counts as a threat, but here is not the place.
“However, you’ve not thought through the reality, the alternative, the consequences or the want of the people.”
But I am literally the only person here who *has* given thought to alternatives to coercive psychiatry — that is my whole point! Re: reality/consequences, I have addressed this in numerous places above. The will of the people does not make something correct, but it does sway politicians. What hinders the will of the people is the nonsense we are fed through the scientistic lies of those at the top of the profession, which filter down so easily through the entire field.
“I didn’t say I either liked nor disliked it. I do what I do cos it’s what I do.”
Attempting to avoid the moral element to what you do by saying “it’s what I do” is hardly a viable response. If you disliked it more than you liked it, you would leave. The fact that you haven’t left means you like it more than any alternative. I never said changing career is easy, just that it is possible.
“If you don’t like how it is, then leave.”
I did leave, and now some years on I am having a discussion about the merits of coercive psychiatry with some psychiatric employees. I appreciate that you admire my “value position,” but it is no substitute for argument. You have offered much that has made me think, and you have stayed on longer than the others, and I in turn appreciate this. I enjoy talking about these issues for many reasons, one of which is to subject my position to as fine a counter-argument as I can find. So far, there has been nothing said by anyone which has caused me to think that coercing innocent people is a legitimate course of action.
coercing innocent people is a legitimate course of action
I repeat my previous examples of risk reducing laws:
seat belt
drink driving
dog license
Abide by them, or have a sanction imposed. This is legally enforceable coercion.
Prison is a coercion. Break the law and we will deprive you of your liberty for a fixed term. There is no requirement for the prisoner to rehabilitate but there is no requirement for the patient to become mentally well – just to reduce the risk of acting in harmful ways.
“But I am literally the only person here who *has* given thought to alternatives to coercive psychiatry”
Perhaps in this thread; but you are (to put it nicely) blinkered to presume others have or do not contend the same.
“There would be functions of social control that would need to be taken over by other authorities, but that just proves psychiatry is not medicine but social control
Which is why MHRT is represented by a legal, medical and lay person – and not just 2 psychiatrists.
“The will of the people does not make something correct
You contend this point as if ‘rights’ are determined by a regulating body external to mankind.
We make laws that suit the governance of our people at the time we make them.
They change over time and perhaps MHA laws will also change to something more precise and purposeful in the preservation of public safety – just as the sex offender laws have changed in the westernised world in the last 15 years.
“and you have stayed on longer than the others, and I in turn appreciate this”
I wouldn’t read too much in to it.
“I repeat my previous examples of risk reducing laws: seat belt … drink driving …dog license”
I’m not sure how repeating what you said answers my point, but it does bring up some other points. One is that the existence of such laws is in no way a justification for them. The drink driving law is ostensibly aimed at reducing harm to others, but makes many questionnable assumptions which we need not delve into here. The interesting one is the seat belt law, which makes little effort to attempt to justify itself based on harm to others. Instead, it focuses on harm to self. It must be said that once the government assumes responsibility for the health of its citizens, there is a good argument for outlawing much risky behaviour. The same applies to psychiatry, and you show your allegiance to it with comments on preventing people using the internet, and other localised coercions which are not directly related to the initial crime (if one even exists). The point is clear when we look at real medicine — government clearly has an interest in preventing people acting in ways which will cost the NHS money. Now, your position calls for risky behaviour (both to others and to oneself) to be outlawed. This is plainly absurd, and just drives home the fact that you think people do not own their own bodies. To the extent that they do not (which your principle seems to extend as far as conceivably possible), then you think that people are as good as slaves. If, instead, you were to fall back on the “whatever the democratic process decides” argument, you would avoid some of the problems I’ve outlined, but in that case, many more would arise.
“Perhaps in this thread”
Precisely! I never said that my position is somehow unique, or anything of the sort. What is clear is that every other participant on this thread cannot conceive of a viable alternative to coercive psychiatry, which surely says more about them than it does me.
I have tried my best to respond directly to each of your points over the course of the discussion. What I have found is that in response, while you do make several points relatively clearly, you will change (or ignore) the subject whenever you hear something which presents a problem for your argument.
What I find interesting is that quite a few proponents of coercive psychiatry are happy to agree on the legitimacy of the use of force, despite having very different reasons for their agreement. If someone held the positions I do, but for diferent reasons, I would want to ask them why. To be fair, you seem to have made some attempt to do this, but I must say that it is a shame you still think that locking people up on the basis of democracy / alleged risk is just.
“I must say that it is a shame you still think that locking people up on the basis of democracy / alleged risk is just.”
Democracy is not the freedom of choice; but the freedom to choose between the lesser of two evils.
I believe coercive social control to be the lesser.
I’m sorry, but point 4 shows a complete lack of analysis or empathy with past mental health patients. It also seems that you are totally unaware of continuing issues in the mental health system (in the UK at least- I can’t speak for America if that’s where you are). I personally have been verbally abused and threatened by mental health professionals. I’ve sat with an elderly lady awaiting ECT who was obviously distressed and yet when I requested staff to help comfort her, they refused to acknowledge any responsibility. Sure, this is nowhere near as bad as forced lobotomy or the like, but it is still destructive and damaging for people who are already vulnerable. Yet then, and now, people working in the mental health field refuse to accept any responsibility for their negative behaviours (to the point of ignoring or lying about complaints that are made through official channels).
It is not a huge leap for people witnessing this kind of conduct by supposed professionals to become sceptical of the psychiatric system in general. This is unfortunate, as I believe many mental health professionals genuinely wish to help, and many drug treatments can be effective (I know some have been for me), but mistrust is spread by abuse of authority from some individuals. Some recognition of the validity of concerns about this would probably help more people to get help, and yet this kind of self-righteous blame-shifting does the exact opposite.
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