Suicidal Thoughts, Psychiatric Diagnosis, and What Really Helps: Part One

This piece is the first of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about suicide, diagnosis, and some of what fails to help.

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Portions of this essay are based on the Mad in America webinar, “Issues in Dealing with Suicidal People…and What Experience with Military Veterans Teaches about Nonpathologizing Approaches for All,” April 2, 2019.

The arena of psychiatric diagnosis, “depression,” and suicidal thoughts is a godawful…and dangerous…mess. And it just gets worse and worse.

Consider this development: On June 18 of this year, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) issued a news release that they were adding diagnostic codes and definitions for suicidal behavior and nonsuicidal self-injury to the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM).

It is already a serious problem that both having suicidal thoughts and killing oneself are, in a knee-jerk way, considered proof that the person has a “mental illness.” When someone kills themselves, if they had a psychiatric diagnosis, the suicide is attributed to that alleged mental illness. If they had no such diagnosis, it is claimed that they had an undiagnosed mental illness. The circular logic of this is astounding. And it could not be farther from scientific thinking.

This is illogical, absurd, and dangerous, if we want to find out what really leads to suicide and how to try to prevent it. In this two-part essay, I am recommending a) intensively and sincerely validating the suffering of people who are suicidal, b) avoiding mental illness diagnosis and psychiatric drugs, and c) a great many things one can do instead of the traditional ones.

Consider what the DSM conveys about grief, which is often called “depression.” When preparation started for DSM-5, the chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, Allen Frances, expressed alarm that what he called his edition’s “bereavement exclusion” would be eliminated in DSM-5. This implied that in DSM-IV, he had said that Major Depression should not be diagnosed in someone who was bereaved.

In fact, however, DSM-IV includes the statement that Major Depressive Episode (MDE) should not be diagnosed if someone has been bereaved within the past two months. That is alarming enough, because bereavement does not end or, often, even diminish very much after 60 days, nor should we expect it to do so. Thus, it is hard to see what would justify the intensity of Frances’ outrage about the DSM-5 authors diagnosing a depressive “disorder” immediately or after two weeks rather than two months.

But even in DSM-IV-TR, the instruction not to diagnose a disorder if the “symptoms” arose less than two months after loss of a loved one is followed by this: “unless they are associated with marked functional impairment or include morbid preoccupation with worthlessness, suicidal ideation, psychotic symptoms, or psychomotor retardation.”

Note especially the word “or” in the foregoing. One need meet only a single criterion in that list to qualify for MDE even as soon as the first day of bereavement. It is hard to think of anyone who has lost a loved one and not met at least one of those. It is clear that even Frances’ editions of the manual actually have no bereavement exclusion. To ignore that this was the case in DSM-IV is to render invisible the suffering and harm caused to grieving people whose bereavement was diagnosed as “mental illness” and often “treated” with psychiatric drugs.

What Causes Thoughts of Suicide?

The term “mental illness” is often assumed to indicate that the person isn’t thinking clearly, is out of touch with reality—otherwise, suicide would not enter their mind. Those who make that assumption would do well to listen to people who have been suicidal. Many such people say that death is the only way they can think of to end intolerable emotional or physical pain.

Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer prizewinning play ‘night, Mother is a brilliant example of this. In the play, a middle-aged daughter tells her mother she is going to kill herself that evening. Her mother tries every way she can think of to persuade her daughter to change her mind, but the daughter explains: “I’m feeling as good as I’ve ever felt in my whole life.” She recounts the many miseries of her life, saying she is worn out from trying to make her life better and never succeeding. She says she is “somebody I waited for who never came and never will. I didn’t make it.” She is at peace, because she finally feels there is something she can do that will end her misery. So, one kind of reason for wanting to kill oneself is to end what feels like unbearable suffering when there is no prospect of change.

Trauma of any kind can be a reason for wanting to die, in part because trauma by definition is a horrible experience, and sometimes suicide can feel like the only way to avoid another such experience or to escape from the effects of the trauma. In addition, trauma tends to be fragmenting and disorienting, which makes it that much harder to reach out and connect with others and with resources that can be helpful in dealing with the effects of trauma and avoiding further trauma. Trauma can come from violence, extreme poverty, and forms of oppression including sexism, racism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and looksism.

In more than a decade of working with veterans, I have met so many who have been told they have “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder” (“PTSD”), an alleged mental illness listed in the psychiatric handbook. Elsewhere, I have extensively critiqued this term, but a major relevant point here is that it consists of a list of effects of trauma. It is a dangerous pathologizing of people’s reactions to trauma.

What would be a “healthy” response to trauma, then? Not being affected at all by seeing a buddy blown to bits or being raped by one’s sergeant?! Veterans often tell me that therapists have said, “You have this mental illness called PTSD and will have it all your life.” Just being told that could easily lead to despair and thoughts of ending one’s life.

In contrast, listening to veterans and other traumatized people when they are devastated, rather than thinking about how to label them, reveals that they variously feel grief, terror, shame, disorientation, moral anguish, loss of innocence. Do we want to say that someone who feels despondent when intensely grieving or deeply ashamed is mentally ill…and should be labeled and drugged?

As for moral anguish—the reasons servicemembers experience it are well known, but non-military people can also experience it when, for instance, a mother learns that her children’s father is abusing the children, and she desperately wants to stop the abuse but is terrified that if she reports the abuse, the courts will consider her a lying troublemaker and give the children to him … as has been proven to happen 2/3 of the time in cases of child sexual abuse.

With regard to loss of innocence: Many people join the military when they are barely out of high school, maybe going from prom to basic training, and at that age to witness war or experience military sexual assault can clearly be overwhelming, causing despair and hopelessness from the shock of having such experiences while so young and unprepared (as if anyone could be prepared for war or military rape at any age).

This applies as well to nonmilitary people who experience trauma: Until the trauma, they have had a narrow view of what life is really like, and now a large proportion of their young life’s experience has been horrific. Do we want to call all of this “mental illness” rather than experiences and feelings that seem intolerable and lead to thoughts of suicide?

In our death-phobic society, it is little known that many people—perhaps even most—in the course of ordinary lives think about suicide at some time. As soon as one becomes aware of life itself and of the inevitability of death, what could be more natural, more human, than to consider the possibility of choosing the time and method of one’s death, whether in a philosophical way, or because one is afraid of how one might die if one doesn’t take it into one’s own hands, or because it makes one feel more in control? This is often common among adolescents and adults who are sensitive, artistic, and thoughtful. Then there are the people who either are desperately lonely and believe that will never change, or who have what feel like overwhelming burdens and problems for which they can see no escape.

Traditional Mental Health Approaches Don’t Help Anyway

Susan Stefan, in her brilliant book and in her lectures, urges that when we know someone is thinking of suicide, we offer to listen to whatever they want to say and ask them, “What would make your life worth living?” and then see if we can help with that. And of course, our offering to listen can help reduce their isolation. This could not be more different from traditional therapists’ approaches.

Stefan has comprehensively reviewed the approaches to dealing with people who have suicidal thoughts in the traditional mental health system and has reported that these approaches tend to exacerbate the problem. That is a powerful reason for refusing to classify suicidal behavior as signs of mental illness. It does not belong in the DSM.

Does it help that the DSM staff say they plan to list it in Section II, “Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention” so that it can have a numeric code? Of course that doesn’t help. The book after all has “mental disorders” in the title, and its authors have zero ability to warn the world NOT to classify suicidal behavior as a “psychiatric disorder” even though it is in their book. What reason is there to give it a code to put on medical files and send to insurance companies if not to help therapists expand their territory, power, and income?

Although the rest of this section is about military servicemembers and veterans, the principle points about how traditional approaches do not help apply to people who have not served in the military as well.

In my book about veterans, I raise the question: If traditional mental health approaches are effective, why are veterans’ suicide rates so high?

When the book first came out in 2011, I warned about the ineffectiveness and harm from psychiatric drugs. And in two chapters called “What the Military Is Doing and Why It’s Not Enough” and “What the VA Is Doing and Why It’s Not Enough,” primarily based on the Department of Defense and VA press releases, I found the following pattern: About every year, the DoD and the VA would issue press releases in which they expressed concern about high rates of suicide among active duty members and veterans, respectively. Each time, they would express mystification about these rates and mention ways they planned to reduce them. But that happened in each announcement, and in each subsequent one, the suicide rates had not declined.

Strikingly, they tended steadfastly to avoid considering the role of war trauma and rape trauma in leading to suicides.

Concerned about this, Col. (Ret.) David Sutherland and I wrote an essay about the four main reasons veterans kill themselves. These were:

  1. The vileness of war (and rape, sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and so on);
  2. The soul-crushing isolation most experience when they return home;
  3. Being labeled “mentally ill” instead of being told their reactions to trauma were deeply human responses…and the label often increasing the isolation; and
  4. Psychotropic drugs, which can increase suicidal thoughts and suicides and which often dampen people’s emotions, thus making it harder to form or maintain relationships.

Some years ago, I met with the two Army people (one a therapist, one an Army officer) charged with creating the Army’s whole suicide prevention plan. It consisted of two things:

  1. Persuading soldiers that the slogan “Army strong” can include “strong means asking for help”; and
  2. Setting up a suicide hotline.

But without massive changes in military culture, the first wouldn’t work. In fact, we need to look at toxic masculinity for men and the expectation for women to ask for nothing for themselves as barriers to decreasing disconnection and isolation. As for the hotline, more in a moment. But note that Jensen and Platoni (2018) have written:

The military and the civilian community have missed the mark on suicide intervention and prevention. The truly intervening and healing elements are not treatment programs, not piles of pills, not being encouraged time and again to reach out…but community itself, in the context of compassionate, educated, reciprocal, PROACTIVE social support.

Suicide hotlines are often assumed to be important and effective, and that is a dangerous assumption. An Oscar-winning film about the VA’s hotline, “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” illustrated (no doubt unwittingly) the massive drawbacks. The general audience with whom I watched the film gasped in horror when they saw onscreen “22 veterans kill themselves every day.” (Note that that famous number is wildly inaccurate, because it was based on VA data from only 21 states, not including Texas and California, which have huge populations of veterans.)

But the audience probably wanted to believe that the hotline takes care of the problem. In the film, one sees no veterans but sees and hears what those who answer the hotline say. One of the most striking aspects was the almost total lack of warmth and connection displayed by the responders, who were described as having had “mental health training.”

Tremendous focus was on keeping the veteran on the phone until the police arrived or ensuring the veteran got to an Emergency Room. It’s frightening to be in a position of responsibility for people who are talking about killing themselves, so it’s understandable that the responders may have been relieved to serve as little more than way stations, directing the callers to the police or ER.

Another astonishing feature of the film was the extended conversation a responder was having with a Marine whom we could not hear. Based on the responder’s comments, the Marine was having flashbacks of seeing his buddy lying in a pool of blood. The responder said vigorously at one point (no doubt with good intentions, trying to forestall a suicide), “Your children NEED their Marine father!”

I would have hoped that whatever training the responders had had would have included the information that when someone is seriously suicidal, they deeply believe that the greatest favor they can do their loved ones is to kill themselves. I fear that that Marine may have felt that the responder utterly failed to understand them, perhaps increasing their sense of isolation and despair.

When I once called the VA hotline, because I had good reason to fear that a veteran I knew was going to try (again) to kill himself with the many psychiatric drugs VA personnel had prescribed, I asked the responder what they would do if I could persuade him to call them. The answer: “Get him to an ER to be committed to a psych ward where they could adjust his medications.” My pointing out that the drugs were a huge part of his problem completely failed to elicit any other response.

In July of this year, the FCC approved the use of the number 988 (as of this writing, that is not a working number) which anyone thinking of suicide would be urged to call, but all callers to that number would be directed to the existing National Suicide Prevention Line, which has many of the same problems as the VA one, as do other crisis hotlines.

I have critiqued these hotlines in Chapter 6 of the paperback version of my book, When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home, and have described the alternative: what are known as “warm lines” that are answered by people whose focus is to connect and be supportive.

Hopefully, it is now clear why it is so inappropriate to conclude that people who are considering suicide or have killed themselves are/were mentally ill. Traditional therapists’ approaches simply fail to help them. In Part 2 of this two-part article, I will address some barriers that tend to prevent suicidal people from seeking help—and ways that we truly can be of help.

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82 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Paula,
    as someone who has struggled with this most of my adult life (I’m 53) the loss of hope that things will get better is the biggest driver of the feelings of despair. I find myself desperately looking for hope, even false hope, that things will get better to keep me going when it’s worse. Sometimes the thought of death itself gives me hope that ‘if things get too bad, I have control, I have an escape…”

    The sad things is, I know how I could fix things pretty easily, but it goes against all I believe, and so I’m trapped in a double bind and going thru the problem is the only hope for things to get better, and yet, solving that problem isn’t within my control…it’s truly overwhelming…sigh…
    Sam

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    • Dear Mr. Ruck,
      Your message is heartbreaking. Since I know nothing about you except what you wrote here, I was trying to think of what kinds of things people who said similar things were feeling was preventing them from having hope for a better life…or a better life, and two that come to mind right away are people who were in miserable or even abusive marriages but whose religion forbid divorce and people whose sexual orientation or gender identity led their religions to cast them out and call them sinners. Many of the latter found a film called “For the Bible Tells Me So” to be immensely helpful. There are people in most religious denominations who are helpful for people who want to get a divorce or who have sexual orientations or gender identities that are condemned by the religion’s leadership. It may be that religion is not what is preventing you from doing what would make your life better. If you are inclined to say more, please do, and I will see if I can think of anything that might be of use to you.

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      • My former childhood religion is completely controlled by the DSM “bible” believers, because the DSM “bible” believers systemically cover up child abuse for my childhood religion, according to all my family’s medical records. And the criminal behavior of more than one Lutheran psychologist.

        This 2007 book touches on, in the Preface, the appall by an ELCA insider, who likely read my medical research and the evidence of the crimes committed against me and my child, by a child abuse covering up pastor. Information I gave to the ELCA synod offices in 2006.

        https://books.google.com/books?id=xI01AlxH1uAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

        The problem, I believe, is with “the dirty little secret of the two original educated professions.” As was confessed to me, was the basis of the crimes committed against my family, by an ethical pastor of a different religion.

        The partnership between the systemic child abuse covering paternalistic “mental health” workers, and the paternalistic mainstream religions, is the primary problem. Albeit, I do know the “mental health” workers and mainstream religions’ “dirty little secret,” primarily systemic child abuse covering up crimes, are a multibillion dollar industry today.

        https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo

        https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/

        I hope the decent “mental health” workers, which I hope and believe you are, Paula, will speak out against these systemic child abuse covering up crimes of the “two original educated professions.” And see to it that properly diagnosing child abuse survivors, and actually helping them, without systemically misdiagnosing them – or their concerned family members – with the “invalid” DSM disorders, is something that the decent psychologists may some day do. But to do so, this issue in the DSM needs to be corrected.

        https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1

        I agree, systemically covering up child abuse is something that both the psychologists and psychiatrists should get out of the business of doing. I also agree systemically drugging our veterans with the psych drugs is also egregiously appalling.

        And since my abused child, who I was able to protect from the overly intrusive, systemic child abuse covering up, “mental health” workers. He did largely heal, graduated from university Phi Beta Kappa, and he is now working for a VA hospital. If there’s any way we could work together to bring about a better reality for all trauma survivors, please ask MiA to help connect us.

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        • Dear “Someone Else”:
          You can contact me directly and send me your email address through paulajcaplan.net When I get some time, I am wanting to do a zoom call for people interested in this issue to see what kinds of action to take. Fiddling a bit with the DSM will do no good — the book must be thrown out, which begins with all of us making the truth about it known.
          Also, you might be interested in the annual “Battered Mothers Custody” conference, which you can learn about at https://www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org

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          • Thanks for the link, Paula, but the child abuse did not occur in our home. The abuser(s) was/were a board member of my child’s, very expensive, “school for gifted children,” and likely also his Russian Lutheran pastor. But at least I did scare that school into closing it’s doors forever, once the medical evidence of the abuse of my child was finally handed over. So hopefully I helped to protect other children, since the police refused to investigate.

            And the only people who “battered” me, were child abuse covering up psychologists and psychiatrists, who unfortunately did gaslight/delude my husband. But that means trusting “mental health” workers must be done with extreme caution, in my case. I do, however, thank those ethical people working within the “mental health” industry, who are speaking out against the psychiatric industry’s horrendous fraud and DSM based misinformation system.

            And I do agree, the DSM needs to be flushed. It’s “bullish-t,” as even eventually confessed by it’s unethical primary editor, our beloved Allen Frances. And both the psychologists and psychiatrists, not to mention my childhood religion – which bought into the DSM systemic child abuse covering up crimes of the psychologists and psychiatrists 100% – need to get out of the child abuse covering up business.

            It’s truly shameful the medical and religious industries entered into a faustian “dirty little secret of the two original educated professions.” And they created a paternalistic, multibillion dollar, primarily child abuse covering up, “mental health” system.

            I’ll try to reach you via email. Jim Gottstein has mentioned to me that you and I are quite like minded. But I’m best reached by phone or text, since I get so many BS emails, so I’ll leave you that contact info as well.

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  2. Interesting conversation I had with the grandmother of a Dr here last night. I am told that the waiting time for autopsies has blown out to three weeks plus due to the high numbers of suicides. (let me say, that’s a waiting time that no one seems to be complaining about, unlike the wait for hip replacements. I’ve suggested to the Minister for Health that we put them in the chapel with bingo cards in their hands till the numbers start coming down, though I’m sure that with their history of cover ups hiding the problem will not be a problem). I find myself wondering if these suicides are the result of COVID anxiety, or the extra money provided for treating COVID anxiety (eg “spellbinding”).

    I remember hearing one of the ‘advocates’ who has been appointed to deal with teenage suicides speaking about mental illness and suicide. His comment struck me as evasive when he said that while committing suicide wasn’t a mental illness, it also wasn’t a very healthy way of thinking. He suggested that there were methods available to help the situation such as taking Fish Oil capsules, and ……. well, he didn’t have time to go into the vicious assaults and ECTs as treatments. Though he did seem to find a lot of time to be pushing the need for more powers to ‘intervene’.

    “but is terrified that if she reports the abuse, the courts will consider her a lying troublemaker and give the children to him … as has been proven to happen 2/3 of the time in cases of child sexual abuse.”

    Have a reference for this Dr Caplan? I know that false allegations are the weapon of choice in my State given that the State will ‘fuking destroy’ anyone who dares question their authority, and so in my case (nothing to do with sexual abuse) it was, as my wife explained to me, simply a matter of “knowing what to tell them”. That was obtained from a psychologist who explained that if she returned home and ‘spiked’ me with benzodiazepines and then ‘planted’ a knife for police to find, they could conceal an arbitrary detention, torture me into speaking with a filthy verballing Community Nurse who could fabricate the “reasonable grounds” and have me dribbling in a cell within the hour with a ‘chemical restraint’. And once you have the wheels of the State crushing your victim, you can take off with your ‘new man’ for a tour of the wineries in the States South.

    I find people who will make false allegations a poison in our community, and the people who do the covering up for them even worse. But it would seem it is not in the public interest that the use of torture methods and arbitrary detentions by public officers be dealt with. Better they retrieve the proof, send fraudulent documents to legal representatives, and then unintentionally negatively outcome the victim in an E.D.

    And they want me to fight to protect our rights when the Chief Psychiatrist is disposing of them without Parliamentary approval? Authorising incarceration and forced drugging on nothing more than a ‘suspicion’ by a Community Nurse? That is if he really is allowed to rewrite the law and remove the “reasonable grounds” clause, and neglect his duty to protect “consumers, carers and the community” (care to see the letters?).

    Quite clever when they can take the truth (intoxication by deception, conspiring to stupefy and commit an indictable offence namely kidnapping, etc, etc) and by removing the documented proof turn the victim into a paranoid delusional claiming to have been ‘spiked’ without their knowledge. And the Chief psychiatrist looks at the proof and goes along with the ‘gaslighting’ of the victim despite knowing the truth, but believing the proof has been retrieved. That letter was designed to push someone they knew was the victim of serious public sector misconduct to suicide. But, public interest, sometimes we need to torture and kidnap, and then commit acts of fraud and well, unintentionally negatively outcome a few truth speakers. We have effective treatments for torture these days, it’s called make the victim into a “patient” and conceal it from public view with “inherent in or incidental to lawful sanction” while you rot their brains with damaging chemical cocktails.

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    • Boans, you can find the references you asked for in this article: Caplan, Paula J. (2005) Sex bias in psychiatric diagnosis and the courts. In Wendy Chan, Dorothy Chunn, & Robert Menzies (Eds.), Women, mental disorder, and the law. London: Cavendish, pp. 115-26. I don’t have the chapter in my computer, but your local library can no doubt order it via interlibrary loan if they don’t have the book itself.

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      • Thanks Paula.

        I find myself interested in the way “added protections” in the Mental Health Act have been provided for ‘shock docs’ where I live, and it appears they are targeting young females. One young girl (13 years old) stepping out into traffic after smiling at her mother, two months of ‘treatment’ by mental health services (I don’t know if she had received Electroshock or had been threatened with it but ….and given the levels of fraud being enabled by the State I know I never will). Amazing that this failure can be used to obtain more money to fail with more people. The ‘investigation’ will no doubt reveal a need for “earlier intervention” and thus a need to make changes to the law to allow 10 year olds to be ECT’d into submission, and ….. well, we need to get at them earlier….. amazing the amount of money on offer for that service too I note. 7 weeks of your time as a therapist (at 40 hours a week), or 6 hours plugging people into the wall socket for the same dough. I should have become an electrician instead of a bricklayer lol

        I wonder if it is ethical for a therapist to get what is called in the car sales industry a “spotters fee”? Ie you make a referral to a shock doc, and they slip you an envelope with a few bucks in it? Not suggesting you do it, but I have a sneaking suspicion it is being done where I live. Sell them the shonkiest car on the lot, and you have your means of ‘cooling out the mark’ (see Goffmans paper) already prepared should there be a complaint. Complaining about the treatment being a reason for more of the treatment (see the case of Garth Daniels on this site. At what point was Dr Katz going to actually stop? Maybe at $1M? Because this was not being measured in whether the “patient” was getting better or not, but in terms of how much could be bled from the “patient” in medicare money).

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  3. Psychiatric violence itself destroys the desire to live. But a special vile-ness is that they make it impossible to die. That is, they destroy human life so that death turns out to be salvation. But those who are subject to “treatment” are deprived and of such salvation. That is, they destroy both life and death. Only hell remains. And this is what psychiatrists find the preferred option!

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    • Well Lametamor, you realize psychiatrists would be very lonely, perhaps always were.
      If a shrink quits his job tomorrow, what can he possibly do for a living?
      Psychiatry is his prison. He punishes himself each time he metes out his garbage. It’s all really
      creepy. It is like molestation on a mental level. Stealing personalities is no small crime.
      And it WILL be recognized as such one day, because people will demand it. People will also demand to know why they are poor or homeless, and they won’t be happy to have a politician try to explain.

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      • I don’t think psychiatrists punish themselves. To provide such “medical assistance” one must be too soulless, cynical essence. And psychia-trists, basically by that and differ. They are not mistaken followers of the wrong science. First of all, they are extremely cynical, self-confident creatures, unable to regret what did.
        And I think it is a delusion to expect that the crime of “psychiatric help” will one day be recognized as a crime because “people will demand it.” No, it won’t happen by itself. Humanity, that is, the same people are indif-ferent to the suffering of others. And, sad as it is, they are not at all ready to save us. It remains for us to save each other. Only together, for eve-ryone, as for yourself we can achieve something. We can either be saved together or perish together.

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        • I think you’re right on that indifference is the big problem that underlies the ability of some “mental health professionals” to continue to do harm and feel OK about it, and that the public has unfortunately largely bought into this idea to a large extent.

          I do want to take a moment to remind everyone that psychiatrists are human beings, like everyone else, and they come in all varieties. I don’t think we can say that all of them are “soulless” and “cynical.” Certainly, there is an attraction to the soulless and the cynical to a profession that handles pain by repression and blaming, and makes lots of money for its followers while creating permanent clients. However, my experience of rank-and-file psychiatrists is that most are more “hypnotized” and think they are doing good works. They have been trained, as it were, in a cynical system of thought, and behave in accordance with that system. And there are a handful who see the foolishness of their training and are trying to do something better, some ow whom post on MIA.

          But in the end, you are correct in saying that it will require organization and resistance from the potential clients/victims of such a soulless system to bring it to an end. Connectedness is the cure to soulless cynicism, in my book.

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          • “my experience of rank-and-file psychiatrists is that most are more ‘hypnotized’ and think they are doing good works. They have been trained, as it were, in a [pharmaceutical misinformed and a] cynical system of thought, and behave in accordance with that system.”

            I agree, my psychiatrist was seemingly thrilled to declare me cured in his medical records. Until I pointed out the staggering number of his delusions, that he had gotten from a psychologist who I’d only seen twice. A child abuse covering Lutheran psychologist, who’d gotten all her misinformation about me, from a child abusing Russian pastor, who I also had just met me, thus he didn’t know me.

            And the “invalid” DSM believing “mental health” industry is primarily a child abuse covering up system, for the unethical and paternalistic “mainstream” religions, and a malpractice covering up system for the incompetent and criminal doctors.

            https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo
            https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
            https://books.google.com/books?id=xI01AlxH1uAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
            https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndil/pr/oak-brook-doctor-convicted-kickback-scheme-sacred-heart-hospital

            Thus we need to ask ourselves, does our society actually benefit from having a, scientifically fraud based, primarily child abuse covering up, malpractice covering up, faction of the medical industry? A “mental health” faction of the medical industry, whose primary functions are covering up child abuse for the unethical religions, and medical malpractice, for the incompetent and criminal doctors?

            My belief is no. But it’s not my belief to say most the psychiatrists have any insight into the systemic crimes they’ve been participating in. I think most psychiatrists are widely DSM deluded and pharmaceutically deluded, stupid people – the dumbest doctors who got into med school.

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          • In general, all people are different. And no wonder. After all, each per-son is a source of his own desires, sufferings, aspirations … It cannot be otherwise, because otherwise there would be no people.
            But you rightly noticed that psychiatry (in the state in which it is) attracts the soulless and cynical. It is very desirable for such scoundrels to do what psychiatry allows (and encourages) to do. Therefore, these are mainly used there.
            Yes, there are also people who have not completely lost the ability to compassion. To such in that psychiatric system is badly. The system drives them out or suppresses them. And those who remain do not think they are doing good deeds. Either their concepts of good and evil have moved.

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        • This petition https://goo.gl/sMnJ6y was signed by many more people than the counter indicates. Their signatures were simply not counted. Al-ready after the petition was closed, the number of signatures was re-duced by 15. By how many (How many times ?!) were they reduced dur-ing the petition? Perhaps, in reality, this petition was also signed by hundreds of thousands of people.

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          • enefit from having a, scientifically fraud based, primarily child abuse covering up, malpractice covering up, faction of the medical industry? A “mental health” faction of the medical industry, whose primary functions are covering up child abuse for the unethical religions, and medical malpractice, for the incompetent and criminal doctors?

            My belief is no. But it’s not my belief to say most the psychiatrists have any insight into the systemic crimes they’ve been participating in. I think most psychiatrists are widely DSM deluded and pharmaceutically deluded, stupid people – the dumbest doctors who got into med school.

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  4. CODA to my essay:
    The American Psychiatric Association issued a press release on Wednesday, in which they crowed about the House of Representatives’ Veterans Committee removing from its Veteran Suicide Prevention legislation the permission for psychologists at the VA to prescribe psychiatric drugs. They tried to make this seem like a good move on the grounds that so many veterans kill themselves and need excellent mental health care, which, they believe, comes from psychiatrists but not from psychologists being able to prescribe drugs. Though I personally am in favor of having the smallest number of people in ANY discipline prescribe psychiatric drugs — including because so many such drugs increase suicide rates — it is important to note that psychiatrists have no evidence that their drug prescriptions are any more responsible than those of psychologists, nor that they do more careful follow-up of patients they put on drugs than would psychologists.

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    • They just can’t make up their minds. I think it’s a good thing and hope psychologists do not refer their clients to psychiatrists in turn.
      Obviously this is a move by psychiatry to cash in on the scripts, since one does not need any drug knowledge obvious by psychiatry mishandling them and causing early deaths, suicides and ill health. Psychiatry should then also demand that MD’s cannot prescribe them either, Because MD’s did not take those many years of excellent “mental diagnosing experitise”

      But then of course big pharma will get upset because they want everyone to have the right to diagnose and prescribe.
      Pharma and psychiatry are making a laughing stock of everyone. I hope they continue their ill defined paths and the FDA is right there having drug sex with everyone.

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    • “Psychiatric help” is a mockery in accordance with the goal itself. The essence of help in eliminating pain. This is what their efforts are aimed at. They fundamentally disregard the cause of the pain. Something causes hurts, therefore and hurts. But psychiatrists aim to destroy the ef-fect, ignoring the cause.
      Those servicemen must have endured something terrible. It is not for nothing that theirs ” carries from life.” And probably the main help here should be aimed at preventing those causes. This is, of course, more dif-ficult than “feed with miraculous drugs”. But this is the way out! Much more correct way out. While the pain-destroying “drugs” destroy and the person himself.

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  5. Dear Paula
    Thank you for this great essay. I am currently working on a phd which will center around the narratives of young adults who have tried to commit suicide or have thought about commiting suicide. You write in the beginning of your essay that, “On June 18 of this year, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) issued a news release that they were adding diagnostic codes and definitions for suicidal behavior and nonsuicidal self-injury to the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM)” – this is a crucial development but I haven’t been able to find the reference anywhere, so I was wondering if you could help with this? I will soon be doing some expert interviews and would love to hear more about this in a Danish context, so it would be very helpful.
    Best Regards
    Joanna Wisbech

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  6. This petition https://goo.gl/sMnJ6y was signed by many more people than the counter indicates. Their signatures were simply not counted. Al-ready after the petition was closed, the number of signatures was re-duced by 15. By how many (How many times ?!) were they reduced dur-ing the petition? Perhaps, in reality, this petition was also signed by hundreds of thousands of people.

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  7. Why of objectionable person need to destroy by “treatment”? If the whole problem is how to get rid of the disturbing person, there may be other options. For example can simply kill of unwanted person. Dead, he is guaranteed not to bother anyone. Why does this option not suit the haters of “psychos”? If a person not be allowed to live as his soul requires, then why not leave an opportunity the opportunity to die? If he himself prefers death to “treatment,” why should he be deprived of even such extreme salvation ?!

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    • You have been heard, and answered in my State Lametamor. Whilst doctors failed on eradicating the third generation of alcohol induced imbecility via sterilization, they succeeded in getting protections for “assisted suicide” (aka ‘wild’ or decentralized euthanasia). Now the public thinks this euthanasia has some protections via ‘informed consent’. Many of the people who have been subjected to this ‘informed consent’ here, know how that works, and why those protections are pretty much not worth the paper they are written on. You say no, we don’t care, we say yes. And keep in mind I have proof here that the State is authorising the distribution to the ‘protectors’ of “edited” (aka fraudulent) documents to conceal any public sector misconduct. And no possibility of anyone being punished for that crime. Asking about it is considered to be an illness requiring treatment. And not a soul prepared to even examine what I am saying to check if it is true or false, the State tells the tale.

      I like that the politicians who passed those laws are now trying to pass laws that would provide them with total immunity from criminal prosecution (and make any criticism of them a crime). I’m sure they are looking to the bright future they have and ensuring that any Nuremburg style trials will not interfere with the shopping in Paris. Trouble being that they have protected us so well from COVID (for now) that the public would let them do pretty much whatever they want. Drunk with power, stripping citizens of their possessions via ‘proceeds of crime legislation’ with confessions extracted via the use of torture, polie dragging people from their homes for ‘treatments’ against their will for no other reason than a Party member wants it done…… we’ve seen these people before i’m sure.

      “You can’t bill for drugs administered to a dead person.”

      The Banking Royal Commission recently found that there were people being charged for financial services provided to dead people.

      https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/banks-to-stop-charging-dead-support-grandfathering-ban-20181009-h16eyr

      I’m sure the way our ‘protections’ are being enforced (ie they’re not), we can find a way Steve. Which reminds me of the way “patients” valuable belongings are stolen during ECT ‘treatments’ and the claim of theft is concealed by referring to the loss of memory from the ‘treatment’. Careful if you have any gold teeth people.

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  8. It is possible together only to achieve something.
    There is not hearing of lonely people even if they talk most important and correct things in the World.

    A most useful way of acting together is addressing to deputies.* There are few reasons for it:
    1) Deputies are elected by all people including and victims of psychiatric atrocities. So, the deputies are dependent on us.
    Any other state structures (medics, lawers, judges, prosecutors, ministers…) are not dependent on people.

    2) They, the deputies, issue laws. According to these laws, any state law enforcement does including a compulsory psychiatric treatment.

    3) As legislators they have a right to compel judges to obey laws but not what a judge wishs.

    So, it is necessly to addressing to deputies, to legislators as to the people elected by us. We must demand that they protect us by a force of law.

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      • Hi again Paula, in the page linked is written

        “Radical honesty. The system should be changed so that insurance companies stop requiring a psychiatric diagnosis. Instead, anyone who is licensed to give labels should be told the following: describe the problem or the symptoms. . .not the label. Ask the client if the problem is subsiding. Tell the insurance company you expect you will need x number of sessions in order to help. If the client is not better after that number of sessions, don’t change the narrative, just tell what has been tried and ask for y (number of) more sessions.”

        I think back over what was done to me with a ‘label’ which was used by a psychiatrist in order to resolve my issues with my employer. They deliberately create a toxic environment for me, I start to get ill as a result and then I end up with a label (which was concealed from me with the intent of at least minimizing the harm that can be caused by the label), and the matter is settled out of court.

        My real problem came when a psychologist (whose husband makes good money from ECTs) didn’t like my response to her suggestion that I give them most of the money I had been given to rebuild my life. She saw an opportunity and released the slanderous label to the public system, had me ‘flagged’ by police and then arranged to have me tortured and kidnapped. Sounds crazy I know, but i’m sick of paying to have people call me crazy for speaking the truth ….. anyway.

        My problem becomes this. I actually agree with the way the matters were handled in the court system by the psychiatrists I spoke with. The matters were meant to remain confidential, and I would have been able to move forward with my life with very little effect as a result of the need to ‘label’ me, and find a path through the court system.

        The psychologist at the private clinic on the other hand recognizes the way in which these labels which are supposed to be strictly confidential can be weaponised, and then used to destroy people she simply doesn’t like for their political beliefs (especially Scientologists or anti psychiatrists, given her husband is a shock doc).

        So having access to medical records at the private clinic of one of the most eminent psychiatrists in the State, and by breaching the Privacy Act she is causing some issues for people. Had my right to privacy been respected, there would not have been a problem for me. But once the psychologist engaged in a conspiracy to kidnap with my wife, I was being severely disadvantaged by the police being used to commit serious offences because “patient” (which of course it became increasingly apparent I wasn’t, but too late once you have tortured and kidnapped a citizen, you simply have to snuff them lest your good reputation be harmed).

        This to me creates a dilemma for people in the public service (and no doubt the military). Talking to these people is like deliberately putting your foot in a bear trap and hoping it fails to trigger. The people who are acting in an ethical manner are not the ones who are the problem, but others are taking their work and weaponizing it, for their own purposes.

        Like a leech, this psychologist obtains ‘clients’ from a private clinic, and uses the information she has become privvy to in order to coerce and manipulate them into the hands of her husband. Plug them into the wall socket and lots of money follows.

        Another example is that many years ago I revealed some very personal information to a Social Worker which I felt was important for her to know in trying to help me get through a bad time in my life. 12 years pass, and then I get snatched from my bed (etc) and my lawyers request the documents relating to the day I was snatched out of my bed. They have a lawful right to examine the unredacted documents relating to the way I was treated (to protect the communities human rights). Instead of providing the documents relating to my ‘detention’ (it really was wronglful imprisonment but ..) the hospital administrators took the documents of the Social Worker (who was acting in good faith) and created the appearance that what I had said to her was actually true (it related to a false allegation), and handed this information to the lawyers representing me. I’ve no doubt this had a major effect on how they dealt with me, and well, the State calls this type of conduct “editing” of documents. Surely taking the documents proving I was ‘spiked’ with benzos out and replacing them was bad enough, but inserting such private information to slander the character of people into the mix ……. still, our Chief Psychiatrist and Minister are the ones supporting this type of conduct, so I assume it must be lawful, though the suffering which has been inflicted on me tells me otherwise (along with the letter from the Chief Psychiatrist deliberately muddying the water where he writes that despite all of the procedures being followed, and him being provided with copies of the applications, he forms an opinion that suits, rather than one based on the documented facts placed before him The application was made under the provisions of the Mental Health Act and NOT the FOI Act, and I dispute his suggestion that the FOI Act allows what IS criminal fraud to be relabeled “editing”. His response? Fuk off nut, you got no legal anymore, and police got the proof of the ‘spiking’ back so your now delusional for even speaking the truth. Ummmm would it make a difference if they didn’t? And are we going to put both sets into a Federal Court? And that little incident at the E.D. ……. are you sure you know what Dr “i’m the boss around here” was going to inject me with? Thanks for checking [Targeted review of E.D. admissions]. Shame a few had already been ‘processed’. Your a bit too trusting Doc, never ‘suspecting’ even on “reasonable grounds” if you knew how the law worked that is).

        So I wonder if people who serve in the military are being subjected to this “editing” of realities?

        There was a program on televsion a few nights ago and a mother of a sailor who had committed suicide asked, quite forcefully of our Minister for Veterans Affairs “what is it your hiding Minister?”, because they will not examine any of the suicides that occurred before a certain date. They surely are hiding information, I know this for a fact. But when they are being given permission to manufacture slander against people (who they also coerce into taking drugs they are fully aware cause suicide) they disagree with and deliberately push them to suicide, I think our trust (and votes) should be withdrawn, and we should start demanding some Radical Honesty.

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        • And one might consider what my disagreement with these people who “edited” these documents was.

          (1) I do not believe that if I chose to not speak to a psychologist about a decision I have made regarding my safety (and the safety of others) that this opens up the right to assault me, or lie to police to obtain “lawful excuse” to kidnap and torture me. ‘Spiking’ with benzos is the act of a night club rapist not a Community Nurse ‘treating’ a person he considers will be his patient within an hour as a result of him completing a fraudulent statutory declaration. Though it is a position of trust that could be exploited in such a manner. Australia, stop pointing the finger at China and arbitrary detentions, you know for a fact you have enabled such acts to be lawful in the Mental Health Act. Any citizen can be snatched out of their bed by police at the point of a finger from an authorised mental health practitioner. calling it medicine doesn’t change the reality.

          (2) I do not believe that should I chose to make a complaint that this means the matters are ‘formally investigated’ to identify where the serious criminal offences occurred and how to “edit” documents and which witnesses to threaten to attempt to pervert the course of justice.

          (3) I do not believe that anyone who is charged with a duty to protect consumers, carers and the community should investigate such matters, ensure that the offences have been covered up, and then engage in a process of ‘gaslighting’ a person they know has been subjected to an act of torture and kidnapped, and then ‘fuking destroyed’ by an Operations Manager committing serious acts of misconduct. Nothing like putting the boots into someone on the ground eh Chief Psychiatrist?

          (4) I really do not believe that the State should be turning a blind eye to doctors dealing with their little problems with overdoses (commonly referred to as ‘hot shots’) in the Emergency Dept, and then claiming this is being done to protect the public interest.

          (5) I do not believe that people who claim to be ‘advocates’ who are prepared to accept fraudulent documents and then find ‘loopholes’ to excuse themselves from any responsibility should be considered ‘people of good standing’ in our community. The Mental Health Law Centre backing away and providing assistance to people engaging in acts of torture and kidnapping when requested by the Chief Psychiatrist/Minister. “You are not considered to be a “patient” under the MHA, and therefore we can not provide you any assistance”. And of course if they recognise I was NOT a “patient”? These are criminals acts. Though police will do nothing more than make referral to mental health or arrest you for having the documented proof of the crimes.

          (6) I can’t help but wonder about the person (or persons) who are aware of what I am saying being the truth, and watching as my mind is poisoned by State authorities refusing me my right to legal representation, and my own property so that I can leave this vile place. They did the same with the victims of the child raping priests, sat on their hands despite being fully aware of the damage that had been, and continued to be done. A lack of a conscience must be helpful in such positions.

          And the only help I have received in 9 years from these people has been to metaphorically take me down a dark alley and repeatedly assault me, while the public watches and lives in the hope that they’re not next. Cowards.

          I don’t believe they are within their right to do these things, and they obviously KNOW they are not within their rights to do these things, and so are prepared to commit serious criminal offences to conceal their conduct. And they have the support of ????? who in that conduct? Care to take a look anyone?

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      • Dear Paula, I have one, in my opinion, a very pertinent question. Who is trying to push the consideration of such important issues in Congress? Are you personally? Any other enthusiasts? How many interested peo-ple are trying to get such topics considered at a high legislative level?

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          • The trouble is that only a few are trying to appeal to legislators! They are not heard. They are ignored. Because members of Congress (legisla-tors) represent millions of citizens. They are guided by the interests of millions. Compared to millions, single citizens can be overlooked. But in reality there are many victims of psychiatry who are not satisfied with psychiatry! And therefore, it is imperative to direct the efforts of many to convince legislators. This is the only way to turn society’s attention to our terrible problems! I’ve been trying to convince victims to do this for a long time. Why no one responds to such a belief ?!

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          • I certainly agree that it will require mass numbers of complaints to the people who make our laws. Perhaps local or state governments might be an easier starting point, as they are representing fewer people at a time. Or perhaps a candidate can be put on the slate who already understands what is going on!

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          • “I certainly agree that it will require mass numbers of complaints to the people who make our laws.”

            The laws count for nothing when an Attorney General considers matters of law to be matters of mental health. Don’t like the question, send it to the Minister for Mental Health for “actioning”. The medicalizing of complaining will ensure that nothing is ever done, even if the ‘masses’ get together. It will only be seen as justification for more removal of legal protections and human rights abuses.

            “Perhaps local or state governments might be an easier starting point, as they are representing fewer people at a time.”

            New concept to me, elected representatives. The people we have ‘representing’ us are engaged in a process of removing protections for the public (called “added protections” they just don’t tell you who is being ‘protected’) and providing the environment for the community to be used for the extraction of wealth. Local and State government seems to be the point where the cancer is growing, at some point I assume the whole nation will begin to suffer from the growths.

            “Or perhaps a candidate can be put on the slate who already understands what is going on!”

            And who will be quickly dispatched along with any legislation they have managed to pass allowing for some accountability.

            Boom time again for ADHD industry as Minister weakens amphetamine prescribing controls. One doctor, 2075 ‘patients’ requiring ADHD drugs in a year and they want to conceal that fact rather than see it for what it is. What the public doesn’t know, they can’t complain about right? And less complaints means less mental illness in the community. What doctor wants, doctor gets where I live, and unfortunately at this point in time there seems to be no end to their greed. The things some people will do for money really astounds me at times.

            It says something to me when the State legislators are trying to pass laws that give them immunity from prosecution for criminal conduct. Are they doing something they are worried might be noticed somewhere down the track when Honest Joe takes over the reigns? I hope I’ll never know because I won’t be here, as Auntie said “all is lost” where I live.

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  9. TO EVERYONE,
    CAN YOU HELP? I had long ago posted two petitions on change.org I cannot find the links and want to post them here. One is called Call for Congressional Hearings about Psychiatric Diagnosis. The other is Boycott the DSM or Boycott Psychiatric Diagnosis. If anyone can find these and figure out why I cannot find them, please let me know! And if you can post the links here, I hope everyone will sign and share them!

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    • No one alone will help anyone. To help can, by joining forces. Online petitions are not effective. I myself have posted and watched the peti-tions of others. It is necessary to direct the joint demand directly to the legislators. And not just to parliament, but to a specific deputy. Every not indifferent person must personally send a letter of demand to a specific member of parliament. So and to write: “at the last elections I voted for you (for your party) and am addressing how is your voter”. Next, explain the essence of the appeal. Point out the evil and crime of psychiatry. Then demand that he, your chosen one at the session of the parliament, put up for discussion the content of this demand. That he would have defended the prohibition of compulsory psychiatry at the legislative level. Further must attribute a threat – if he does not fulfill your demand, will not defend the aspirations of victims of a psychiatric crime – You will re-fuse to trust him and you will not vote for him anymore, for his party. Such letters, with such a demand and with such a threat, should be sent as much as possible. And address them to as many lawmakers as possible.

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        • Steve, is there a way you can make that website as a clickable link in the comment section, or right under Paula’s comment? I can click on it in my notifications but not within Paula’s comment. Thinking about those that read but don’t get notifications.

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        • Paula, there at https://psychdiagnosis.weebly.com/ your judgments about psychiatric diagnostics, despotism and indifference of “servants of mental health”. Very serious, well thought-out judgments that deserve the most serious attention. In other matters not only yours. The opinions and evaluations of many other worthy opponents of psychiatry have been written and published many times. However, a dialogue leading to interaction is needed. Without this, nothing can change. The long history of the antipsychiatric movement makes this clear.

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          • Lametamor, I hope you will make happen what you say should happen. I have been working on this in a rather exhausting variety of ways since the late 1980s and am working on other things IN ADDITION now and have MAJOR family responsibilities. So I can only do so much, and that includes responding to comments.

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    • Certainly, state legislatures have done a ton of things that have forced the national government or national/international corporations to take notice. For instance, California set fuel emission standards that were higher than any other state. Because they wanted to sell cars in California, auto makers targeted making cars to meet those standards, even if other states didn’t require it.

      Laws governing “involuntary commitment” are made by the states and differ from state to state. Setting a different standard in a particular state and proving that it worked better is one very legitimate approach to handling the problem. The city of Berkeley, CA banned “electroshock therapy” for a while back in the 80s, and even though a judge overturned it, it got plenty of news coverage. It’s a legit strategy.

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        • Pretty much, yeah. They don’t have to agree with each other or with US law, though US law can supersede them depending on the issue. “State’s Rights” vs. centralized government control has been an issue since the first Continental Congress back in the 1700s. It continues to play out today, right in front of our eyes. The intensity of the conflict over “mask mandates” is a reflection of that ongoing conflict. “Let’s act together in everybody’s interests” vs. “Washington isn’t going to tell US what to do!” Our current “liberal-conservative” spectrum is closely related to that theme, IMHO. Unfortunately, I think it can blind us to bigger issues on different spectra.

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      • “Laws governing “involuntary commitment” are made by the states and differ from state to state. Setting a different standard in a particular state and proving that it worked better is one very legitimate approach to handling the problem.”

        I realise the differences in our systems Steve but

        The “standards” that have been set on our Mental Health Act for involuntary commitment are the s. 26 “Criteria”. They are (in brief);

        (a) The person MUST have a mental illness (defined in s.4 Terms of the MHA).
        (b) there must be a significant risk (the wife beater slander is enough, and then tell the victim that their own wife said they’re a wife beater lol. Quite a poisonous act really when you see what happens as a result)
        (c) the illness must be treatable
        (d) the least coercive method to get the person that treatment MUST be used.

        I did not meet that first ‘hurdle’ (I was not a “patient”) and so a police referral (s. 195 of the MHA) was procured by committing serious criminal offenses. “Spiked’, plant knife and cannabis to put in breach of s. 68 (e) of the Criminal Code and bring into police custody, and then lie to police and claim ‘mental patient’ to allow them to “suspect on reasonable grounds” that the person needs referral under s. 195 of the MHA. Simple, kidnapping and torture made easy. And as long as the public are too afraid to say anything, it will continue.

        When I questioned my torture and kidnapping with the Chief Psychiatrist he effectively removed the “Criteria” from the MHA by claiming that all that is required by a Community Nurse is a ‘suspicion’, and that the “reasonable grounds” protection from arbitrary detentions (aka Criteria) do not even exist in our law.

        Of course he was pretending that he hadn’t seen certain documents because well…… if he had seen them, and police hadn’t retrieved them he would know what was done to make an act of torture and kidnapping appear to be lawful. Trick the coppers into thinking the citizen is you patient and they will beat them up for you and kidnap them. Then when you get the victim back to your hospital tell your colleagues that you were asked by the coppers to do an assessment of the wife beater.

        Awww that old one, the ‘man in the middle’ con. Police wouldn’t fall for that surely? Any 8 year old kid on a housing estate would tell you how to do this, so the idea of highly trained police falling for it…….

        So I get tortured and kidnapped, the Chief Psychiatrist knows it, but pretends coz he thinks police got the proof back, and he goes along with the threat to ‘fuking destroy’ me, and our legislators (the Minister) tells us that he is NOT misrepresenting the MHA by removing the legal protection of “reasonable grounds”.

        Where your legislators won’t even recognise the ‘standards’ they themselves enacted, turning to them for “added protections” might be a big waste of time. Passing laws that are totally ignored by the persons charged with enforcing them (eg Chief Psychiatrist or Police who can’t find their copy of the Criminal Code) is a waste of taxpayers money. It’d be cheaper to send them to Bali to eat magic mushrooms while the carte blanche and zero accountability model we have is seen for what it is. Lets stop pretending we value a rule of law, and let citizens be tortured, maimed and killed when the good people in our public service ‘suspect’ it should be done.

        “They will take their oaths as a cover” an then neglect their duty and commit acts of fraud to manipulate legal narrative and conceal their own wrongdoing. The law means nothing when you are ruled by hypocrites. The good news is that the people who have said this was all “reasonable” will not be heard when it is done to them.

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        • I totally get that these laws are often ignored or treated in a lackadaisical manner. Your situation clearly screams criminal prosecution. But once you’re labeled “mentally ill,” anything you say can be ignored or attributed to “your illness.” It’s a crazy catch-22.

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          • As long as the public is aware that our legislators are using this type of slanderous hate speech to conceal their criminal conduct. It shouldn’t take too long before they recognise what they are.

            Of course there will be ‘illness’ as a result of being tortured. The two are separate entities. Still, these are the same people who saw child rape as being a “character flaw” rather than something to be dealt with by the law. And now tutt tutt over the conduct of people who behaved exactly how they now find themselves behaving. Slandering the victims as ‘mental patients’ to ensure their negligence went unnoticed. At least Mullah Omar had an excuse for turning a blind eye.

            “But once you’re labeled “mentally ill,” anything you say can be ignored or attributed to “your illness.””

            So where are the ‘advocates’ who speak for those being abused with impunity? Take a look at the fraudulent documents used to conceal this abuse, and how these ‘advocates’ respond to these crimes against the community (because these are no longer crime’s against a person, but against the administration of justice [the whole community]. There should be at least some concerns about that, while you may wish to look the other way over matters you don’t have the stomach for [eg fuking destroying people who complain about public sector misconduct, and their families], these are crimes poisoning YOUR community.) Happy with State sanctioned fraud? “editing” legal narratives to conceal torture, kidnapping and convenience killings? No problem, i’ll be seeing ya.

            Call me what you will, but the facts speak for themselves. Our Minister for Mental Health used the same method regarding the large numbers of sexual assaults against women in our hospitals. “You can’t listen to them, they’re mental patients”. That’s 20% of her electorate not being heard. So who do we listen to?

            And people are walking into these places expecting to be ‘cared’ for? My, aren’t they in for a surprise.

            Point being in my case is that they have tried to conceal the criminal matters AFTER they occurred using the Mental Health Act. Doing so is also a criminal offense, and like murder it is not up to the victim of those offenses to bring action against the criminals, it’s the duty of the community.

            A catch 22? A dead person makes no complaint, but we still prosecute murderers. It is not up to the victims, but the duty of the community to see that this is done. Our ‘protectors’ are negligent in their duty otherwise, and should be removed.

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          • It is important for us who has the decisive power to model laws. As I understand this the US Congress. Therefore, it is necessary to be guided by it. And this means that all opponents of psychiatry in the Unit-ed States must address their demands to members of Congress.

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          • I was pointing out that state legislators also have that power, and in fact it is state legislatures that are in charge of civil commitment laws. So both need to be addressed, and wherever one gets access is the best place to start.

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          • I agree. If it is easier to put pressure on legislators in individual states, then you need to start with that. It is necessary to find victims who are not satisfied with psychiatry, living in a certain state and convince them to present a written demand to the deputies of the state.

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  10. Boans, exactly so terrible everything and takes place. In recognition of this terrible circumstance, we are in complete agreement. But we disagree in conclusions. You resolutely “prove” that everything is abso-lutely hopeless, nothing can be fixed. You broadcast it like that, as if this terrible state of affairs suits you. I draw the opposite conclusion. Precisely because everything is so creepy, not right, it is illegal to do everything that would not be so.
    Laws mean everything because declaratively everything happens in ac-cordance with the law. The state is ruled by law. Declaratively, it looks like this. And this is a clue, something to which one can appeal.
    The prosecutor cannot substitute psychiatry for law. In sense, he has no right to do this. By carrying out such a substitution, he himself commits a crime. And it is very easy to prove this crime. To do this, it is enough to appeal to the very foundations of the law.
    Powers of officials (of same prosecutor) are also determined by law. Legislators give them such powers. And if the prosecutor can use psy-chiatry instead of the law, then the legislators allowed him to do it. Legis-lators are guilty of the crime committed by the prosecutor.
    We can make claims to them, the legislators. We have some formal jus-tification for this. (Formal only. But this is not too little) – Legislators, they are also parliamentarians, congressmen – are elected by all citizens. And by victims of psychiatry as well. This circumstance, at least formally, makes it possible to present demands to them, as to their chosen ones. Not complaints, but demands. And I am not writing this out of excessive confidence. An absolutely desperate situation forces you to demand. Not great opportunities, weak perspective? – I agree. However, this is still a better prospect than demanding something from the same prose-cutor or judge, doctor, minister… Because all those companions are not elected and do not have any, even formal dependence on us. Every-thing is known in compared. And they, the legislators, we have some-thing to show. So why should we be silent? And of course, the more we are not kept silent, the more likely it is to achieve something. Pay atten-tion – someone is trying to achieve something – they achieve it exclusive-ly by quantity. Alone, no one achieves anything.

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    • I appreciate your comment Lametamor, and sorry my comment doesn’t consist of one or two lines. Criminal do tend to complicate matters deliberately, and of course this provide a means of them not being held to account by people who ‘don’t have the time’ to unravel the truth, and prefer the short form lies.

      “Laws mean everything because declaratively everything happens in ac-cordance with the law. The state is ruled by law.”

      Our Prime Minister has said “Australians are a people who value a Rule of Law” and yet we have the mental Health Acts which have been declared a “violation of human rights”. I assume you can see the contradiction that creates. Everything that happened in national Socialist Germany was “in accordance with the laws” (the defense put forward by those on trial at Nueremburg)

      “The prosecutor cannot substitute psychiatry for law. In sense, he has no right to do this. By carrying out such a substitution, he himself commits a crime. And it is very easy to prove this crime. To do this, it is enough to appeal to the very foundations of the law.”

      The Attorney general can do whatever he likes if they manage to pass laws that provide immunity from prosecution for criminal acts. I have asked the same question of a large number of people regarding where I make a complaint about an act of torture by public officers. I do not believe that there is any question that I was subjected to an act of torture (if there was, then surely a simple explaination as to why it was not torture to interrogate me whilst under the influence of a date rape drug without my knowledge would suffice. Problem being Australia has made formal complaints about this method of torture being used by other Nations, so how can they claim it is not known?) The Convention states

      Article 4

      1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

      2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

      Okay, so they made the torturers resign their positions. I don’t consider that “taking into account the grave nature” of the acts.

      Article 12

      Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.

      9 years and I am still asking where it is I can make my complaint? Prompt and impartial? they sent fraudulent documents to the mental health Law Centre and that makes what were acts of torture lawful because I have been made into a ‘mental patient’ via the changing of legal narrative? (aka criminal fraud by the Clinical Director of a State run hospital?)

      Article 13

      Each State Party shall ensure that any individual who alleges he has been subjected to torture in any territory under its jurisdiction has the right to complain to, and to have his case promptly and impartially examined by, its competent authorities. Steps shall be taken to ensure that the complainant and witnesses are protected against all ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of his complaint or any evidence given.

      This becomes laughable at this point. I have made the allegation, have been threatened and intimidated with mock execution, my family has been threatened, witnesses including public officers who were present while I was being tortured remain silent, police have attempted to retrieve documented proof of the offences and refuse to accept what one lawyer has called the “proof”, returning the complaint as having “insufficient evidence” while they try and make referrals to mental health for “treatment” of my “hallucinations” (it is not a hallucination when I have the documents they failed to retreive), and once again 9 years and I am being denied access to legal representation or the right to complain while they have an ‘accident’ with a chemical cocktail in an Emergency Dept.

      The Chief Psychiatrist has had to rewrite the law to make what was torture and kidnapping fall within the provisions of the Mental health Act (though he does look a little silly given a first year law student wouldn’t fall for ‘suss laws’ being passed to allow citizens to be snatched from their beds and incarcerated and force drugged/ECT’d because a nurse ‘suspected’ it needed to be done. He is PRETENDING to be asleep at the wheel in his duty to protect our human rights. care to see his letter of response to the complaint by the Mental Health Law Centre? It would make a great resource for law students to see how acts of torture are being enabled by the authorities charged with protecting “consumers, carers and the community” with their “expert legal advice”)

      Don’t misunderstand me. Our legislators are “getting tough on crime” so having them enable acts of torture through the provisions of the Mental Health Act may be the perfect way of achieving that. But surely the community should be informed of HOW they are achieving that, and not simply told about the “added protections” that actually remove their human right not be be subjected to torture by police and mental health, who are the real beneficiaries of those “added protections”.

      So my question of law to the Attorney General was, Where is it that I make my allegation of being tortured? Hios response was to send the matter to the Minister for Mental Health for “actioning”. The Minister for MH has already stated that he sorry that I am still concerned about my “referral” and “assessment” and I should get some therapy. Of course I do not accept his slanderous hate speech, and nor do I accept that if he has examined the documents that relate to these matters that he can simply call acts of torture and kidnapping “referral” and “detention”. he would be uttering with the fraudulent documents in order to make such a statement.

      I was NOT a “patient” by definition of the MH Act, and this makes these matters criminal. (Intoxication by deception, Stupefying with intent, conspire to kidnap, attempt to pervert, procuring the apprehension or detention of a person not suffering from a mental illness …. lets start there) Applying the provisions of the Mental Health Act to them and tampering with the documented evidence/proof and witnesses is of course not appropriate for criminal matters.

      It’s ugly, and of course if others who have been victims of these organised criminals operating with immunity in our hospitals were to get wind of their own victim status. Oh that’s right, they’ve been ‘unintentionally negatively outcoming’ them in the E.D. so they won’t be ‘demanding’ their human rights anytime soon. Kind of difficult when your heart has had it’s ability to function reduced to a level beyond which the citizen can be given the right to complain.

      But I appreciate what your saying. I have had enough of being slandered by these people for their convenience in concealing their acts of torture and kidnapping. And denying me access to an ‘effective’ legal representative with threats and intimidation has worked, and well, when a State government is openly telling victims of torture and kidnapping that they will “fuking destroy” them for complaining, all really is lost.

      I’d like to leave and go somewhere that is at least trying to provide protections from public sector misconduct such as acts of torture. I’m sure I am not alone in wanting to live in such a place, policing by consent NOT by terrorism. Health care for people in need, not beatings for anyone who steps outside a moral code of people who don’t meet their own standards. The right to silence removed by ‘treating’ a refusal to answer police questions with akathisia and ECT until you DO answer their questions and provide a confession to whatever it is they wish to accuse you of. Slandered as wife beater to create a risk, and then tortured until you start to believe that their false allegation against you it true. I defy anyone to ask my wife if what they said was true. I realise it became quite a weapon once they began assaulting me for complaining, but …… she, and I, know the truth. And that bearing of false witness will be used to harm others, and those who have neglected their duty will have that blood on their hands, one more reason to maintain the fraud, utter with the lies, and ensure their negligence is not seen by the public who trust them unfortunately.

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      • Article 14

        1. Each State Party shall ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible. In the event of the death of the victim as a result of an act of torture, his dependants shall be entitled to compensation.

        The denial of any wrongdoing, in spite of the documented facts that I was tortured, the State is ensuring that no legal representation is available. Not only can you be denied access to your right to “fair and adequate compensation”, you can be denied access to your own property which would allow you to escape the state sanctioned torturers.

        Full rehabilitation? This is done by referring you to mental health services for what everyone here understands as ‘treatment.’ They simply do not care about this document which they agreed to, and ratified. I have sent a copy to one of our politicians (in case it has been lost along with the copy of the criminal Code) and asked that he stand on the steps of Parliament and tear it up for the media to show the public how they feel about having signed it.

        They may as well. Because once they breach Article 1, the rest goes out the window because the document is a weapon to use against other governments, and not to be applied to ours. The Alinsky tactics of making your enemy work to unreasonable standards, while you break the rules constantly and deny any responsibility.

        Australia complains about Ghana ‘spiking’ “patients” without their knowledge, while I have here a prescription by a doctor for a ‘spiking’ of a “citizen” to enable an act of torture and aid in the kidnapping (arbitrary detention) of that person. But we don’t like that truth, so have “edited” the documents to make it appear lawful, move along nothing to see here……. any complaints take the line on the left, one cross each.

        Sure we don’t want to be seen as a Nation that abuses human rights, so to maintain our good reputation we kill the complainants in the Emergency Dept where police will say “it might be better we don’t know about that”, and the public will remain silent because, like the psychologist who heard my complaint and saw the documents before police realised their “error”, they are afraid for their families..

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      • «Don’t misunderstand me. Our legislators are “getting tough on crime” so having them enable acts of torture through the provisions of the Mental Health Act may be the perfect way of achieving that.»

        The fact is that the so-called “mental health law” is an absolute violation of all the fundamental principles of the law! This is an absolute crime! Exactly so him should be evaluated. – As a crime that has been given the status of law. He has nothing to do with the Law itself!

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  11. I get it, in my instance the Chief Psychiatrist and the Police thought they had retrieved the proof of the crimes, and the criminals could be excused a little bit of torture and kidnapping. That didn’t occur, though when presented with the documented proof, they now need to conceal their misconduct in not acting when they had a duty to.

    What’s the best way to stop a snowball? When it is small. These people chose to make it larger, and then use that to justify their inaction. great, and it works…..and in the meantime a whole bunch of other people are harmed as a result of that negligence and cover up.

    So I assume that given the trauma which comes about as a result of being raped does not mean police then go about ensuring the DNA evidence is lost and they can write “Insufficient evidence”? Then why should they be allowed to do this with acts of torture and kidnapping? And they did, and continue to do so, despite the proof being available and viewed by a number of people.

    The juggernaut of justice will take its path, and I have faith that at some point these criminals will be held to account, and the disgraceful hypocrites who concealed their vile conduct for them will be dragged past the corpses left in their wake. I hope the suicides they are causing come back to haunt them in the night. Swallow your own poisons to block your chemically imbalanced conscience, if you have one.

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    • Boans, I fully support your indignation, your protest. Everything you write about demonstrates one common, creepy evil.- In reality, legalized law-lessness is carried out everywhere instead of law. This was the case in Germany. The destruction and mutilation of people took place in full ac-cordance with the then laws of Germany. And for this the German lead-ers, doctors, judges were tried in Nuremberg. That is, they were tried for following the laws! It would seem a complete nonsense, one should judge for violation of laws. However, those defendants were charged with distorting the essence of the law. That they have given legal form to actions that are absolutely contrary to the basic principles of the law. That is, they were tried for that very legalized lawlessness. But it is this (for which the Nazi criminals were convicted) everywhere and uncere-moniously carried out by the present democratic, civilized and any other “guardians of law and order.” The use of compulsory psychiatry is an egregious example of this.

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      • Thanks Lametamor.

        I find the refusal to respond to a complaint worse than the criminal fraud used to conceal the torture and kidnapping.

        I mean there is no denying that this is what was done. Or they would simply say, ‘sorry but…. it’s not torture because …..’. What they are doing is simply refusing to respond as a result of knowing they have no defense, and that the conduct of their representatives has been beyond disgraceful. So they simply refuse to act according to what they swore they would do (ie the Articles of the Convention).

        I mean the idea that I have a right to have my complaint “promptly and impartially examined”? 9 years because they thought they had covered it up, and well, best we don’t let anyone see what we actually do regarding complaints of torture, too many bodies.

        And the notion that you can be rehabilitated by the same organisation that tortured you? Sure it wasn’t all of them but I just don’t know that I really want to walk into the clutches of these people who have a reputation for vicious assaults on people who disagree with their world view.

        So consider it has taken me 9 years of asking who I make my complaint to regarding what is KNOWN to be an act of torture. No doubt about it, documents, witnesses,….. all there. And I am expected to pay to speak to a psychologist about being subjected to State sanctioned torture, while to Attorney General who assisted a victim of police torture can’t tell me where it is I make my complaint (minus any legal representation. I will do it myself due to the gutless hypocrites who turn and run in fear, or actually assist the State in the concealment of acts of torture like the Mental Health Law Centre.)

        The good news in that word gets around about such matters. If they had behaved in an honorable manner, then there would have been no need for continued psychological abuse of the victim. But they didn’t, and thus they must attempt to maintain the falsehoods through acts of uttering and fraud.

        And once again I ask for assistance in these matters. Sure let them maintain the silence and allow the criminals to go on torturing (I can see why they might need such services given what they are doing requires a method to conceal their abuses). I really do not care anymore. They have shown themselves for what they are, and that is enough in the end.

        I simply want out before they start to ramp up their sterilizations and euthanasia programs. And believe me, they are going to ramp them up. They have closed off any avenue for remedy, and can now push forward knowing that they will not have any issues with complaints. Even the human rights lawyers are in cahoots, gathering information from victims for the State before throwing them under a bus.

        Got some really bad news for these people though. No worries as far as I’m concerned but

        Thou shalt not kill.

        Thou shalt not bear false witness

        I can’t wait to see how my government is going to get around those laws. Oh wait, they already have. Euthanasia Act and the “editing” of legal narrative. I can’t help but wonder about how many peoples documents have been “edited” before being sent to their lawyers. And of course no one prepared to speak about that issue either. Consider this fact alone, that they removed the documents showing the ‘spiking’ and that police were of the false belief that I was a ‘mental patient’ before jumping me in my bed? Would you (or anyone for that matter) consider that to be “editing” documents? Never mind the misleading ones they inserted (without my consent to do so I might add, the Law Centre had permission to access documents relating to my detention on the 30th Sept only)

        What good are human rights protections when the State is going to identify their human rights abuses, edit the legal narrative and then kill the complainant? It’s the same argument I put to police regarding them getting together with the criminals operating in the hospital. If they knew police weren’t going to do anything about their kidnapping and torture, then they wouldn’t feel the need to use the ED as their own personal slaughterhouse.

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  12. Also Paula,
    I forwarded your video to my two grown kids.
    My son works in a small “special school system”, for a few kids that do not do well
    in a regular school. Of course most wind up there “diagnosed” and most likely
    on speed. I have mostly successfully made a large enough case, so that my kids
    are now going to be more hesitant to believe the “science”.
    I think it is so important to educate the young, because really it is THEY who love “science”,
    but are very ill informed about real science, what that actually is.
    We are breeding more and more uneducated young. It is as if we are back in the age of religion
    and moving backwards faster than ever. The interest in labs and technology is stopping thought and analyses.
    So thank you for speaking the sense we need and I really hope your information reaches those
    who are willing to think.
    I am still informing my daughter in law who is of the non thinking camp and happens to be a teacher who
    gets frustrated with her diverse collection of students.

    The one threat that has made a bit of an impact is this. I tell them, if you are going to use the ADH word in front of me, you better hope to god you never produce or turn your child into receiving such a diagnosis because I will never let my grandchild think they have “ADHD” and that “what” or “who” they are has letters or words written by idiots who make money off the backs of parents and their children.

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  13. I have gotten rather lost in the extremely lengthy comments about who makes laws, and I have no expertise about laws outside the U.S. But a major reason I have been pushing for Congressional Hearing about psych diagnosis for decades is that that would help expose why FEDERAL legislation for oversight is needed.

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    • Okay I’ll do my best to keep it brief.

      In my State there are laws which provide protections for the public and which have been fairly well drafted. The problem being the people charged with fulfilling the role of the watchdogs simply neglect that role, and this ensures that abuses can run rampant and the systemic failures can be used as a call for more funds to fix what they are breaking.

      Our Chief Psychiatrist who provides “expert legal advice to the Minister” and who is charged with the “protection of consumers, carers and the community” doesn’t even know what a burden of proof in law is (“suspect on reasonable grounds”). My question to the Minister was, how could he possibly be protecting “consumers, carers and the community” when he isn’t even aware of what the protections of the law are?

      So I wrote to one of the other “pillars of protection” (there are 3. Council of Official Visitors) and provided his letter to them, along with an explanation of why he was enabling arbitrary detention and torture, and they wrote back saying they would take the issue up with him at their weekly meeting. They then returned my letters and made the claim they had unread them and sorry your not a “patient” so we can’t provide you with any assistance. Basically we will look the other way while they kick you to death.

      Okay, so I get snatched from my bed by police and then have a mental health worker (Community Nurse) fill out a fraudulent statutory declaration and am then delivered to a locked ward, and interrogated for 7 hours and not informed I have been ‘spiked’ with benzos without my knowledge. I consider myself to have a right to complain. Not so the people who provide protections against this sort of thing say, they tell me they will “fucking destroy” me for complaining, and believe me, that they did, with the full assistance of the people who are supposed to be protecting me and my family.

      So what would having rules/laws by Federal authorities change about this situation? Just another layer of negligence to ensure that the victims of these people are fuking destroyed? I felt ‘protected’ by the laws we have, and when I tried to speak to the Community Nurse about his vile conduct and said I would have something done about it, he laughed. he finds it funny that someone might have something done about his torture sessions and kidnappings. And he is right to find it funny, because the ‘protections’ are a joke.

      I understand that my comments about the law must seem confusing, that has been done deliberately. I have had human rights lawyers psychologically attack me in their assisting the State to conceal their acts of torture and kidnapping. They simply deny that the law even exists and have left me trying to explain the protections of the MHA to the people who wrote it.

      Seems simple to me now.

      If a public officer “suspects on reasonable grounds” that a person should be an “involuntary patient” then they can make a referral to a psychiatrist for an examination.

      Who should be an “involuntary patient”? That is set out in s. 26 of the Act and called Criteria. If the person meets the Criteria [there are 4] then a referral can be made, if not your kidnapping that person. I did not meet the Criteria, but they refuse to examine the details of the fraudulent documents used to create the appearance that I did. Criteria 1 is that the person “must have a mental illness” (defined in the Act). I did not meet that definition, I was not a “patient” but ….. who cares, someone went to the trouble of ‘spiking’ me, and planting a knife on me for police to find, who then provide a referral to mental health services. All very …. criminal but police tell me they can’t find their copy of the Criminal Code and thus I will be arrested for having the documents proving what I am saying.

      Of course the Chief Psychiatrist has rewritten the burden to “need only ‘suspect’ on grounds he believes to be reasonable that a person requires an assessment by a psychiatrist”. These are commonly called “suss laws” and are a violation of human rights, but don’t usually involve incarceration and forced drugging as a consequence, it’s usually the area of ‘stop and search’ which only results in brain damage from the boots of police and not being ‘spiked’ with drugs.

      I’m sure that you would know someone at Harvard who knows what burden of proof in law is? You know, like a first year law student? I mean it really shouldn’t be that difficult for our Chief Psychiatrist but …. hey maybe he was just trying to psychologically harm me with his letter? How nasty would that be? Lets see if anyone dares to tell the Emperor that he has no clothes. Big fail from the psychiatric sycophants’ who tell me that my complaining about being tortured, kidnapped and having my family destroyed is an illness that I need treatment for.

      Yes, it’s complicated, criminals tend to do that when they are concealing their crimes. And claiming no time to examine the details an even better method of ensuring they continue to harm others. And I assume my claim that these people deliberately tried to psychological harm me and push me to suicide is my issue, and not theirs? Not examining my claim may be resulting in deaths, though what would be done if they DID examine my claim and realised what their negligence had resulted in? More cover ups. They spend more time concealing the truth than they do in pursuit of it.

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      • The “edited” documents provided to the Mental Health Law Centre make the protections really easy to understand. I mean the hospital wasn’t exactly going to provide the unredacted documents showing that I had been tortured and kidnapped to people who have a good understanding of mental health law. Even if it meant calling an act of criminal fraud “editing”.

        A ‘citizen’ ‘spiked’ with benzos is jumped by police in his bed as a result of a Community Nurse lying to them and falsely claiming he requires assistance with his “patient”. Police conveniently find the knife and cannabis that has been ‘planted’ for them to find and make it lawful to take the ‘citizen’ into custody and then make immediate referral to the waiting Community Nurse. Kind of clever really because the Community Nurse couldn’t just turn up at my home and start interrogating me because he wanted to, he would need a reason. And the Stooge Police provided him with that reason.

        Though the documents that my legal representatives had a right to view were of course not provided. Instead they got a set showing a “patient” of ten years who is obviously a paranoid delusional complaining about being drugged without his knowledge is making false claims about a highly trained and ethical Community Nurse who did his duty to the community and put this dangerous drug abusing wife beating nut job behind bars (amazing what can be achieved with a ‘verbal’ eh? A life of service to my community destroyed by some criminal who has been in the country no time at all and is setting up criminal links from his public sector position).

        So the Law Centre makes a complaint to the Chief Psychiatrist based on those fraudulent documents, and the Chief Psychiatrist responds. Though the Law Centre doesn’t have time to read the response of the Chief Psychiatrist which is really lucky because they would certainly recognise that he was negligent in his duty, and had rewritten the protections of the Act, wouldn’t they?

        I have a suspicion that the Chief Psychiatrist didn’t write that letter at all but …… it was written as a poison pen letter by my very own human rights legal representative seeking favor with the Minister. That would certainly explain why the “third pillar” unread the letter and ran away. They have been pretending to be the Chief Psychiatrist and running a fixed game to throw anyone who complains about being tortured and kidnapped under a bus.

        Lure with bait, strike with chaos.

        People go to the Law Centre thinking they will be assisted when they have been the victims of public sector misconduct. The Law Centre finds out “what they got” and then works with the State to ensure that their client is denied any right to remedy. They then hand over a letter they prepare themselves and psychologically gaslight the victims with poison. The Minister then ensures that the matter is referred to her office and ensures the fraud is not unearthed ( “I got this one C.P. A real problem when police failed to retrieve the documents I have and I start turning up in a police station with proof I was tortured and kidnapped. Knee jerk referral of victims of crimes to the criminals for ‘treatments’) And in the process they start slandering their now ex client (sorry we can’t help you, hope the knife in the back doesn’t hurt too much. Like my new BMW?) with the “edited” documents that have been provided by their co conspirators (the hospital concerned).

        Of course I’m mad and they would do no such thing right?

        Care to look at the documents just in case?

        Gee I’d be angry if I were the Chief Psychiatrist and people were sending out letters like that and putting my name to them. He might even start having “thoughts of harming others” and be a candidate for the Community Nurse to ‘spike’ him and obtain a police referral. “yeah sure your the Chief Psychiatrist, and I’m Prince Charming, now shaddup and drop your drawers, we going to give you a little medicine now”. Your the one that said it was fine lol

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  14. I have gotten rather lost in the extremely lengthy comments about who makes laws, and I have no expertise about laws outside the U.S. But a major reason I have been pushing for Congressional Hearing about psych diagnosis for decades is that that would help expose why FEDERAL legislation for oversight is needed.

    Please everyone go to this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qIQqRl94_Y&t=21s and sign and share the petition calling for Congressional hearings about psych diagnosis.

    Then please everyone go to this link https://www.change.org/p/boycott-the-dsm-a-human-rights-issue/dashboard?source_location=user_profile_started and sign and share the petition calling for a boycott of the DSM.

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