What Kind of Forced Treatment Would You Prefer?

I believe the mental health world would have more credibility (which fades more every day, from what I hear out here in the world) if it were to actually focus on healing and personal growth rather than who has power over whom and who can force whom to do what. There is no civility in this. I think we need to start over.

Thank you Olga for exposing the way that these psychologists talk about forced treatment and for your pledge to never diagnose anyone and never condone forced treatment. I wonder how many others would take that pledge? In psychiatry, psychology, social work, psychiatric nursing or any related profession?

We need to use the language against the mental health movement’s, and the psych industry’s, mutilations of it. Mental institutions are psychiatric prisons, they aren’t hospitals, not so long as people can’t sign themselves in and out at will. Forced drugging, of course, is not assisted outpatient treatment, if it’s anything it’s outpatient, or rather outprisoner, maltreatment, and doctors who resort to it should be liable for malpractice, of course, when patient/prisoners are, as they all so often are, injured. Doctor assisted suicide, especially in the case of so-called “mental illness”, is not assistance at all, it is murder. Suicide doesn’t require assistance.

Erving Goffman had it right when he critiqued the mental institution as a total institution, that is, as a dictatorial institution. The proper response, as far as I’m concerned, is, “Given a dictatorial government, what kind of forced treatment would you prefer?” The inmates of the mental, no, not hospital, imprisonment and medicine are at antipodes, prison, are not free. Isn’t this unfreedom a threat to the liberties, in a limited sphere, the rest of you take so much for granted. Also, the matter of locking people up as pre-crime suspects. If precognition is your game, know that the science behind it is weak to say the least.

I don’t know the answer really. I just think I would try to go for the jugular vein here, and I think that that jugular vein is the amount of deceit that is practiced in the mental health industry. Jargon is a free ticket to indulge in this kind of deceit. Tell the truth, and suddenly you become, to them, offensive. Straight off, we’ve got the fact that this is somehow about social control and not about medicine at all. Real medicine doesn’t take prisoners.

Thanks for this article; you come across in a very compassionate, human way. It is surprising to me that so many psychologists think in these ways… it makes me wonder whether they have intensively worked with people in long-term therapy. Perhaps they are more the kind of psychologist that works briefly with people in hospital settings rather than getting to know them on a deeper level. Their thinking reminds me more of the stereotype of inpatient psychiatrists (who meet with people briefly in hospital settings but don’t establish a long-term relationship) than private/independent therapists (who see people in outpatient settings over long periods).

It is a good goal to stop or more realistically minimize forced treatment. But when reading these articles I wonder how much good it will do for distressed people in the big picture, even if such treatment is minimized. Forced treatment is damaging, but even more damaging, I believe, is the lack of affordability, awareness or access to long-term psychotherapy and adequate levels of social support/love from people in general. If people were not coerced, that would help them. But many would still be left in a situation where they couldn’t form long-term lasting relationships because of a lack of financial and other resources or perhaps a lack of safety in their living situation (e.g. they might even need a safe home first).

So, reading about forced treatment in this way sometimes reminds me of the following situation here in the US: seemingly important issues like gun control, voting rights, police/community relations, etc. are vociferously discussed as if the future of the country depended on them. And they do matter. But the problems that can truly devastate in the long term – like climate change, depletion of oil/gas/coal without renewable resources scaling up quickly enough to replace them, and depletion of key resources like water and soil – these are barely discussed. And arguably these resources are much more crucial to long-term stability than the surface social issues that get people so excited. Likewise, I would suggest that if forced treatment is on the surface, the more important depth issue for many in the psychiatric system is the lack of financial/practical resources for alternative love/support, whether from family, friends, or long-term intensive group or individual psychotherapy.

I feel it’s these interpersonal resources that can make people strong enough that they can eventually remove themselves from the psychiatric system entirely. I think that offering intensive interpersonal therapeutic interventions for periods of years would actually save society money, compared with decades of overmedication and disability. But the obstacle is getting people to see that, especially in that it would result in a loss of market share for psychiatrists and medication.

I don’t mean to be redundant… Have said this for years:

For all of those who would like to see psychiatry replaced with psychology, be careful what you ask for.

Both groups have power. Psychiatry is built on illegitimate authority, and as it dies, it will need to be replaced. There are legitimate psychotherapists, but even among those that don’t use labels or force – there are very few good ones.

Duane

Thanks for the article, Olga. Being a danish psychologist working for the 10th year at a psychiatric hospital I too am a bit surprised by the reactions you quote. It appears to be very much powered by an inferiority complex of some sort – wanting to be like a psychiatrist. Or at least have the wage of one… I have actually found it a huge help in my work, that I do not have to be a gatekeeper to medication or forced treatment.

I find myself very much in agreement with the above comment by bpdtransformation: What is lacking in psychiatry is interpersonal capacity. Medication can be distributed very efficiently, in the present system, but not so much with care, support and love. Which is really sad because care, support and love has this almost magical quality: When used it does not get depleted or ineffective. It grows and multiplies.

I fear that the more we as professionals focus on medication, force and control the more we risk loosing the know-how to transform fear, shame and anger into courage, self-worth and strength by way of interpersonal connection.

The danish psychological association, of which I also find myself a member, seems to have lost track of the bigger picture along with at least some of its members.

Compassion is what is needed. Without it nothing good will come. It is not something a person learns in a school. In fact university training is apt to discourage compassion by replacing it with thoughts. However, a great deal of mental health is about money and not about healing. Thus the more “education” the better the pay. Unfortunately the men and women who are in positions of power often are unfamiliar with compassion and therefore attempt to substitute something more appropriate for a machine. In this respect unfortunately science often comes to their aid.

What manner of forced treatment do I want? The kind that allows me to skin my captors alive as soon as they drop their guard. Pro-force psychiatry is a “battle” that its proponents will lose. This is not the 19th or 20th century. If we go down, we’re going to take our perpetrators down with us.

Wanna call me “dangerously mentally ill” for my candor and rage? Go ahead, if it makes you feel less threatened by my ability and willingness to, literally, fight for Mad rights. Just don’t expect to use that label in order to keep me chained to a bed and chemically lobotomized with Risperdal. Psychiatrists are NOT above the law. Medical and economic freedoms are guaranteed to every consumer in a capitalist economy and to every citizen in a democracy. A baker can’t force dieters to buy their doughnuts. A hairdresser can’t force models and actors to shave their hair off. A high end department store can’t force environmentalists to buy their fur coats. Mad people, as well, can’t be forced to endure onerous, ineffective, irreversible, and dangerous “medical” procedures.

The trauma suffered by a victim of pro-force psychiatric treatment or pro-force psychiatric assault is not a “delusion” or a “hypersensitivity” to “necessary medical treatment”. Mental health clinicians are usually guaranteed to succeed in exonerating themselves from public accountability for caregiver abuse on the precept that “mental patients” cannot possibly be traumatized by a hostile environment. All of our problems are either blamed on us or bright-sided as a way we can “contribute” to our own “recovery”. Even in so-called biological psychiatry, the thoughts, choices, and personality traits of the Mad person are always identified as the areas of pathology which necessitate medical intervention. This pseudoscientific theory asserts that our “immaturity” and our “badness” force other people to dehumanize us. A Mad person’s investment in a life of “sanity” is measured by their ability and perceived willingness to subsist on a ration of humanity that shrinks slowly over time. Should we object to this victim-blaming, we’ll be promptly “treated” for our “projections” until we profess our agreement with these lies and behave in harmony with them by punishing ourselves with obedience to our victimizers. The state of our health will never improve to a level that allows us to be validated by society and feel whole within ourselves in a psychiatric system that satisfies the clinician’s desire to police Mad minds, but not the Mad person’s need to heal from trauma.

Thanks for an excellent article, Olga. A choice of forced treatment would be great. I would choose homeopathy, because it couldn’t possibly harm me and hey, there might even be a placebo benefit. It saddens me that we Europeans lazily copy the “healthcare” models that the Americans inherited from the Nazis. When we psychiatric survivors succeed in shutting Psychiatry’s ass down, we’ll go after its apologists, starting with the wannabe-shrink-psychologists.

Having said that, I have discovered (online) so many survivors, like yourself, who are working within the mental health”care” system to effect change for the better. I think something has to give, eventually. The system is broken and the general public are getting wind of it slowly but surely.

The DSM5 was a step too far. The public won’t be fooled into believing that everyone but a Psychiatrist, has a mental illness. I think there is hope for the future, but change won’t occur unless we educate the public and get them to wake up to the reality of what Psychiatry is about: pure unadulterated social control.

Take care,
David

If I was loosing it and say attacking people, I would rather the padded room over being disabled with a needle full of neurotoxins.

I assumed that the title was completely intended as sarcasm. To think that a serious article could start off with such a title is disturbing. I personally find the words “f0rced” and “treatment” very difficult to say in the same sentence. To give CHOICES of forced treatment is a ludicrous oxymoron.

— STeve

Olga – Thank you for speaking the truth in a bald faced way. Keep up the good work. Having had both my father and my son killed by psychiatry (one by ECT and the other by Zyprexa), I have had to work really hard to not let rage rule my life. It helps to know there are some within the helping professions who actually have hearts and who are taking stands, even if personally hounded and lambasted.

Bravo Dear Olga , for your promise as a psychologist . Maybe we all need to carry a copy of it on our person to show others on cards and T-shirts.
Operation Paperclip brought dedicated nazi war criminals to the USA their records were hidden from the people and they who posed as oppressed war victim scientists took over leading positions in universities across America in fields like biology ,chemistry, psychiatry etc. This was made possible by nazi sympathizers in high positions who facilitated this fascist super injection into our lives over here .They said we must bring these “brilliant people” over here or the Russians would get them as the cold war era started after World War ll . Certainly it was backed by the eugenic loving Rockefeller’s, Carnegie’s, Harriman’s and other robber baron pigs.
Operation Paperclip can be googled and the history of eugenics in the USA , month by month is throughly documented and can be read about in Edwin Black’s book “War Against The Weak .” In my opinion the course of history and psychiatry’s and medical and dental and agricultural arrogance cannot be understood without the information in Black’s book.
Saw an interesting picture of a bumper sticker on the net :” Better be nice to America or we’ll bring Democracy to your country.”
We are a land saturated with eugenic enterprises including in mainstream psychiatry,medicine,dentistry, chemical and biological and genetically (eugenically) engineered agriculture,food production and poisoning with countless deadly substances mostly all time released. There could be dozens of Robert Whitaker’s writing expose’s on all these areas and more. And all this shit seeking to expand across the planet . While what can help humanity freedom, justice, equality, including health freedom is at the same time suppressed as well as Traditional Naturopathy, Homeopathy, free use of Herbs, Natural Supplements, Unadulterated food, Energy Healing , Body Work , Friendship ,Shelter , Sanctuary, Peace, Clean Air and Clean Water and people determined not to oppress their fellow human beings or life sustaining eco systems .
Thank You, Fred