Trump’s Pick to Run Mental Health

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From STAT: President Trump has nominated Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, a proponent of increased psychiatric treatment for those diagnosed with serious mental illness, to run the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“The proposal has some psychiatrists — a generally liberal bunch — cheering despite their distrust of the Trump administration.

But it’s also sparked concern among other health professionals, who worry that the administration will put too much emphasis on medicating and hospitalizing patients, and remove supports that might help them integrate successfully into society.”

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  2. This nomination looks like a coup for the TAC (E. Fuller Torrey, D. J. Jaffe and company). It goes along with their party line, we should focus on treating “serious mental illness” (even if it doesn’t wish to be treated), and it is very “medical model”. The article states that McCance-Katz thinks “SAMSHA has a perceivable hostility to psychiatric medicine”. All in all, ominous. I’m not sure where she will go with the “peer support” system, but her nomination comes out of Murphy’s wish to shake up SAMHSA. You can imagine that if SAMHSA is perceived as being hostile towards “psychiatric medicine”, she’s not going to be a friend of MIA either. There’s a lot of talk of “evidence based” research, but should outcomes worsen, as I’d expect with an emphasis on drugging they must, eventually, such a nomination might lead to a further reassessment.

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