The Danger of Marginalizing People

By
-
60
2019

There are frequent initiatives by the mental health system aimed at reducing stigma around psychological issues. It’s felt that people will ask for and accept help if there’s less stigma. However, the mental health system itself is responsible for much of the stigma. It’s responsible for highlighting our differences and labeling some as abnormal. Instead of increasing understanding of our differences, the mental health system contributes to the marginalization of people it classifies as mentally ill.

The marginalization of people has always been and continues to be a societal problem. People try to push aside others that they don’t understand, don’t agree with, or those who in some way bother them. They may try to isolate and ostracize. Sometimes they label. “That person” is crazy, manipulative, untrustworthy, etc.

What is the point of such labels? Do they not discredit? Are they not saying to people, “listen to me, discount what ‘that person’ says”? If such marginalization sticks and if others decide the labels are correct, what do we expect the impact to be? Unfortunately, it can lead to an automatic dismissal of information, viewpoints, and feelings expressed by the marginalized person.

Those who have given such labels have succeeded in isolating and ostracizing the targeted person. I’ve heard people say we should ostracize “that person” as punishment. Clearly, we know such treatment hurts people. So why do we have a mental health system (the stated goal of which is to improve people’s emotional wellbeing) labeling those who come to them as diseased or fundamentally and permanently flawed?

It’s hard to understand viewpoints that come from a place that you’ve never been in. It’s easier to label people as mentally ill and dismiss them. But such a practice adds to anger, increases conflict, and makes a path to recovery, already quite difficult, less possible.

I experienced a severe psychological problem because of a serious relationship conflict, which I’ve described in previous blogs on Mad in America. In my effort to recover from it, I dug deep into how my psychological problem developed. I used what I learned not just to understand myself, but to increase my understanding of others. For it was only through a greater understanding of why others’ viewpoints and interactions were different from my own that I could heal.

I looked at the many ways my psychological problem changed me. It didn’t just affect my mood, it affected how I view society, people, and relationships. It affected not just how I interacted, but how I could interact. Through it all, I discovered that how deep a psychological injury is, and the nature of the injury, creates viewpoints and behavior that differ, but in a way that is ultimately understandable.

Why do I think understanding these differences is important? Because I don’t think we can reduce conflict or help people struggling to heal without it. If what we do is support only those who are similar to ourselves in their emotional state and viewpoints, while pathologizing those who are different, then our differences and the conflicts around them will continue to grow.

What’s the harm in labeling?
  • First, labeling discredits people’s viewpoints and opens people up to dismissal.

I worked as a caseworker for 30 years in the area of child protection, adult protection, and domestic violence. In that capacity, I heard the way that clients’ expressions of the problems they were struggling with were mocked and dismissed as excuses. I have said, “I think your client is being honest about her struggle, as I experienced similar difficulty.” One response I received is, “If you have had similar problems, you aren’t credible either.”

When legitimate struggles are rebuffed as excuses, those struggling have no choice but to hold in their thoughts and feelings. Of course, doing so adds to and aggravates their emotional distress.

As part of my work, I needed to engage families in service plans designed to resolve issues the family was struggling with. Often there was one person in the family who was seen as the problem. I didn’t have a problem engaging the person who had been labeled as the problem and marginalized, as long as I kept the plan within the framework of what they agreed they could do. However, it was very hard to get the person who wasn’t seen as the primary problem to budge on the complete satisfaction of their demands. They wouldn’t accept that those labeled “the problem” might have any limitations.

Sometimes a person isn’t meeting a demand because a limitation of the psychological problem prevents it. Not consulting, and not taking seriously what can or can’t be done, makes resolution impossible. With children in particular, the goal tends to be to just make them behave as desired.

I hear people who are struggling say to their helpers that their “help” is making them worse, not better. I hear them get a response that they are “unappreciative,” along with a complete dismissal of the complaint.

The dismissal of the complaints of those who are struggling means actions that worsen the problem go unrectified. In addition, others see the person trying to help as the one deserving support. Plans are made on how to deal with the person labeled “the problem” without involving the labeled person. This isolates the person who is labeled, creates issues, and diminishes their options to vent issues in an appropriate way.

  • Second, labeling is dismissive of environmental factors.

I developed extreme social anxiety after I experienced my psychological problem. But it wasn’t because of the initial conflict. It developed afterwards because the people I had to be around attacked me because of the psychological problem itself. My strongest critics were a few people who seemed to have a deep wound of their own. A close second to them were people who didn’t understand the symptoms a severe psychological problem creates. People often label their opposites as the problem, encourage others to view them as the problem, discourage any understanding or accommodation, and criticize.

So how should one respond when the attacker is at work, school, and home? My response to such a problem at work was to request a transfer. However, the therapist I saw didn’t see that as necessary. Clearly, there are many who find themselves in such a situation. Frequently, the response by the mental health system is to give a psychiatric diagnosis and offer some medication instead of allowing the person to escape a harmful situation.

This practice is easier than understanding and addressing the problem. But it doesn’t allow for recovery and is dismissive of the stress such a situation creates.

  • Third, labeling fosters a belief that feelings aren’t legitimate but just a symptom of a psychiatric problem.

During a social work training session, an instructor once told me that one of the symptoms of a borderline personality disorder is those who have it feel like no one cares about them.

If you experience an emotional injury from a traumatic event, if you’re critiqued, criticized, and attacked for it, if the mental health system pathologizes you based on your symptoms… If you are seen as the problem and as causing problems for others… if the precipitating traumatic event is dismissed as being irrelevant because it’s in the past… The belief that no one cares isn’t irrational. It makes sense when the focus of concern isn’t for the person suffering or what happened that placed them there, it’s about the difficulty the person’s symptoms cause others.

Consequences of labels that marginalize 

Those who are labeled become isolated and feel marginalized. The extreme hurt and anger the person is feeling can generalize, becoming anger towards humanity. Potentially, it can lead to a person who wants to hurt others. It can push them into groups of those who they sympathize with and protect while they attack others outside their circle. Groups that sometimes protect their members even when they commit crimes against others.

Of course, people are responsible for their actions. However, I think it’s important to look at the conditions in society and the mental health system that feed these problems.

People heal when they feel cared for and understood. They heal when the difficulty of their struggle is respected, and the effort they’re putting into recovery is supported. They heal when their viewpoint is listened to and the legitimacy in it is seen. They heal when they feel valued and of value. The current practice in the helping profession of pathologizing our differences, targeting some people as the problem, and attempting to force change takes away what’s needed for healing from people who are struggling.

The medical model has created an emphasis on medication and lessened the search for environmental causes and efforts to address them. Most therapies just focus on coping skills and mood regulation. Again, there is a failure to look for environmental causes and address them.

For this to change, people struggling with psychological problems need to be listened to. However, the mental health field has established a system of labeling people as mentally ill that sets them up for automatic dismissal of their feelings, viewpoints, and the information they can provide.

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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60 COMMENTS

  2. Thank you Christine for this often ignored psych 101 refresher. When I hear some of the idiotic things some mental health professionals say or believe, I get a little confused as to what, exactly, drew them to work with vulnerable or wounded people? Honestly., some of these mental health professionals would inflict less damage on others had they been a guard at Gitmo, if not chanced a better career fit. To wit:

    “one of the symptoms of a borderline personality disorder is those who have it feel like no one cares about them”.

    One of the consequences of being abused from the toddler stage though adolescence is to have never truly or adequately known what it is to be cared for-when it mattered most. But…its much easier to slap the borderline label than undertake a time consuming and arduous process of helping ones client dis-identify with their abuser- imago introjects (or the resulting compromised social life in tow), so as to bring about an individuated adult.

    Maybe one of the symptoms of a borderline mental health practitioner is someone who dispenses labels rather than the difficult work of love and care?

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  3. I really appreciate your articles and the experiences you have had being expressed through your writings. When I was in college, I was very much interested in how “labeling” affects students and their learning. I even created an “experiment” for an experimental psychology class that was never destined to be done; but did generate interest amongst my teacher and classmates. However, after actually living through the evils of “psych world” I, now, consider that the problem might very well be in our acceptance of these “labels” and deciding that they are true about us. And, in respectful disagreement with your article, I think this might very well about the acceptance of ourselves as being “marginalized”, another label. In my opinion, I think the best way out of “psych world” and maybe in confronting this world and its changeability is for each one of us to longer accept the labels given and to no longer consider ourselves, whoever we are, as “marginalized.” In modern times, this could be considered just giving away our power. Sadly, this is what happens in the office of a psychiatrist or therapist, and it needs to stop. Giving away our power will never heal us; from whatever real or imagined that caused us the trauma to seek out such help. Thank you.

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  5. An excellent article. I’d like to take it a step further. Christine, you mention that in solving your particular problem you “dug deep into how [your] psychological problem developed.” I think we should be asking what led us into this toxic system in the first place. It is high time that we look back and “dig deeper” because the current system cannot be repaired unless we understand exactly where the problem lies. Being concerned and even outraged as I see in so much outpouring (both on and off line) is NOT going to change the situation, except perhaps, in negligible ways. I agree with your statement that “it is important to look at the conditions in society and the mental health system that feed these problems.” But it is just as, perhaps more important to look at what caused those conditions–the root of the dilemma, in other words.

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    • I believe that a big component of the root of my problems was living in a home where, when I was 11, my eldest brother began to have psychotic episodes and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. That was an early lesson in hopelessness, fear, shame and a very powerful lesson that I was not okay. My brother was hospitalized and medicated multiple times as his situation and that of my family grew worse. It was terrifying. Some of the doctors blamed my parents for my brother’s condition but took no action in terms of the other children in the house. Then my other brother got sick and was hospitalized, with no positive outcome. By the time I reach my teens and became suicidally depressed my parents were completely checked out. My first suicide attempt, my stomach was pumped while my my mother told the ER doctor, she’s not depressed and there are no problems in the family. So the ER doctor ripped the tubes out of my nose and I was sent on my way. Not so much as a phone number to call. No conversation with a doctor.
      Decades later, when I was old enough to have my own insurance, I was told after electric shock treatments that I had borderline personality disorder. At that point my child was in his teens. Neither of us have recovered from anything that happened. Now I’m 55 and I feel like I’m in a nightmare.

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      • Oh, my, how I wish we could talk in person! The one point that I most identified with was you saying how when you were in hospital with Mom, she claimed that “everything is ok” in the family, and the ER Doctor believed her. In my family, I was made into the “black sheep”, or “scapegoat”, as if *I* was the sole cause of the family’s problems. I knew better in high school, but couldn’t find a way out of it. Happy Valentines Day, LOL! I like your comments, “KateL”!

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          • LOL! The point I was TRYING to make is the MANY times I was a teenager, in some shrinks office, with either my Mom or Dad, or both. And they were always “pointing the finger” at me, like it was “all my fault”, and they were blameless “victims” of MY “mental illness”! I didn’t know what “gaslighting” was back then, at least by that word. But I did understand that the troubles in my Family was NOT ALL ME. I was shamed & humiliated as a “mental patient”. I was actively recruited by psychiatry. As a “career mental patient”. Really. Literally. Once, when he was filling out some form, a shrink put “mental patient”, in the blank for my career. Think about that. Career mental patient. Yup, that’s what I aspire to! LOL!
            When I read your comments, filtered through DECADES of experience in the toxic swamp known as the “mental health field”, I think I understand a lot of what you’re saying. You’ve given enough details of your story in your comments, for me to have SOME understanding here. And, feel free to click on my name, and read some of the many other comments I have written here. You’ll get where I’m coming from. I know I’m doing good, because I get CENSORED sometimes. Lies are never censored. Only the truth is ever censored. There was a lot of “we don’t talk about that”, in my family growing up…. Now, I can talk about ANYTHING! But people often wish I didn’t….

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    • Hi Louisa,
      I agree with you completely. Is not enough to just complain about the current systems although I think it is important to point out the problems it causes. I do want to discuss the issues in how society functions and how people in different psychological states clash. I learned through my experience that people are often in conflict because they’re in a different psychological place. These conflicts create psychological problems and make recovery difficult. I tried to put some of it in this blog but it didn’t work. So I’ll try to write a separate blog on it.

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  6. Thank you for this article, and for pointing out that the stigma against people labelled as mentally ill originates from the professionals who hand out the labels. The stigma, marginalization, exclusion, and all-around not taking the labelled person seriously then spreads to family, friends, employers, neighbors, etc.
    It’s almost like a silent conversation is happening. “Psychiatry said this person is less than us and we don’t have to treat them with respect. Psychiatry is scientific so they must be right about this person. We now have license to treat this person however we want.”
    I’m exaggerating a bit but this is how I experienced what happened to me after I received a borderline personality disorder label. I don’t think any of it was in my head, although people for years tried to convince me that it was.
    They are putting on a conference, “focused on themes of disruptive behaviors, such as substance use, aggression, suicide, and self-harm, in borderline personality disorder.”
    I wonder if they will look at causes like forced drugging, forced treatment in general, being mocked by treatment providers, never being believed, being seen as bad/dangerous/threatening. Will they look at akathisia as a cause? Will they consider what it feels like to be told by a doctor you put your trust in, “you have borderline personality disorder. That’s why the ECT didn’t work.”
    Or will they ignore all of these causes of “disruptive behavior” and instead reinforce the notion that the behavior of “borderlines” is always enigmatic/never warranted?

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    • I have heard that that “Conference” you mentioned has arranged for Santa’s Elves to bake some cookies for the reception. So-called “borderline personality disorder” is exactly as “real” as presents from Santa Claus, but NOT more real…. I know you know that, “KateL”. I have to laugh, to avoid crying, thinking about ANY so-called “Doctor” who actually believes that “BPD” is protective against Electro-Cution Torture(“ECT”)….. Today, my behavior is always only ruptive, & ordered. No dis in MY life! LOL! Thank-you for writing!

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  7. Hi Bradford,
    Dealing with conflicts by labeling someone in it as mentally ill and dismissing that person is ridiculous. It creates and exacerbates psychological problems. I know what it’s like.

    It’s promoted by the mental health field that psychological problems are lifelong. They don’t have to be, but behavior like that holds people down. I haven’t read your comments yet but I will.

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    • Thanks, Christine. Yes, “psychological problems”, more deceptive euphemisms! they sure do love their euphemisms! And their neologisms! That, to me, is proof enough that psychiatry is a fraud. When you think about it, don’t you agree, that so-called “mental illness” is something that, EITHER, ALL of us have, or else NONE OF US HAVE.

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      • I don’t think what is referred to a mental illness is a disease, genetic or biological. Therefore, in that sense no one has it. But in the sense of carrying around thoughts, perceptions and emotion from unresolved experiences, everyone has it. Since everyone’s life experience is different, what they are carrying is different in type and severity. To me it not some insignificant made up problem and it has to be referred to some way. In short, I would say it’s something everyone has on some level. Its not a disease that you have or you don’t.

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    • I would say to the above question—probably “all of the above.” But I add another “kicker.” I read recently that many rivers on many continents in developed areas and even in areas not so developed have varying levels of pharmaceuticals in them. When you consider that many psychiatric drugs are usually at the top of the list of drugs prescribed each year, how can it not be that there are not these psychiatric drugs in rivers all over the world. Therefore, it is vert probable that these drugs have seeped into the groundwater and probably into our water system, if not our food system. I think this might explain for the way some people are acting these days and also might explain why those of us have walked away from psychiatry and given up the psych drugs still have trouble at odd or stressful times or even just of the ordinary when we least expect it. Thank you.

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      • At one point, about 3 or 4 years ago, I had a caseworker who supervised my medication regimen. She and my prescriber had agreed to lower my dose of Zoloft because I had been losing control of my bowels on a regular basis on the high dose that they had me on.
        So we had to get rid of some pills. My case worker came over to my apartment to oversee the disposal of the pills. She went through some weird process where she filled the prescription bottle, with the pills inside, with vinegar (if I remember correctly). Then she shook up the bottle and put it into a plastic bag, which she knotted and threw in the trash. As an aside, while she was doing this, she said “we used to just flush the pills down the toilet but apparently they were interfering with fishes’ reproductive systems.”
        I have no doubt that the water that fish and other creatures live in and that most of us end up drinking is filled with psych drugs and other pharmaceuticals. And I’m sure researchers know this, the same way they know how much covid is in wastewater. It’s an easy enough thing to test for. I would bet that the reason this is not front page news is the same reason that nothing we read on this website about the harm of psych drugs becomes front page news.

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        • Actually, I did just read an article where they said the rivers in almost every continent were polluted with pharmaceuticals. Considering that Psychiatric drugs are some of the most prescribed, one can only think our rivers must be swimming in these drugs. It hurts the fish, yes, but it hurts us, too. I know that we did use to flush all our unused drugs down the toilet, but now, in some places they have drug pick up days where you can drive by and deliver your drugs to someone who would dispose of them for you. This was very common until covid, when they, I guess, had to use the same people for testing and such. I think the fact that these drugs are in our water systems now might explain all the weird, and even rageful behavior that some people are exhibiting these days amongst other things, too. As usual, some people are more vulnerable to one thing, while others to another. That is what baffles medicine, psychiatry, even government and education all the etc. that each one of us is a unique individual. Thank you.

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        • I agree that I don’t see anything in the news about the harm psychotropic can do. It’s all how treatment will help.
          In my job as a caseworker, I wouldn’t have anything to do with medication or therapy. But I know there are caseworkers who work as part of a mental health program.

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    • Hi,
      I read the article. I thought it brought up a lot of issues needing discussion. There has been a lot of changes to society and I do think some of the changes could result in more, and more severe psychological issues. I noticed a statement, by Jones, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic at one point. She has a relative who was severely disabled by “Mental illness”. The statement “I’m angered that those critical of diagnosis and medication do not consider the most intractable cases”. It does appear to me sometimes that mental health issues are minimized. I consider those cases because I’m very familiar with them. It was my job to assist adult who weren’t able to get their basic needs of food, housing, income without help. Usually the adult needed help because of a severe psychological problem. I’ve seen the difference in functioning in some of those cases when on and off medication. It can be pretty dramatic. I seen people in a constant state of psychosis (people are coming through the walls and snakes are coming into my body) go to, not 100 percent, but a pretty reasonable conversation about their life and needs when on medication. There are people who will say when you see me acting funny get me back on my medication. I don’t think psychotropic medication will be discontinued because there are many people who say they are helped by them. But I will say that the fact that there are people helped by psychotropic medication is not proof that the problem is a biological abnormality. The impact of environmental factors are way underestimated. I believe that the emotion from life events effect the brain’s chemistry. I think the brain’s chemistry changes when under distress and changes again upon healing from the distress.

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      • Hi, Christine,
        I appreciate your perspective. I do understand that people can at times suffer from debilitating mental states and at those times they need acknowledgement and support. Because of my own history with diagnosis and treatment, I’m biased in the other direction:. I have seen first hand the terrible effects treatment can have.
        I was the youngest of four siblings. Both of my brothers were diagnosed with and hospitalized for severe mental illness by age 20. My oldest brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on Haldol and the like. Every intervention by the system seemed to make things worse for both Michael and the rest of the family. He escaped from more than one institution, and eventually left the state and wound up in Puerto Rico, where he spent the rest of his life. He didn’t want to be put on psych drugs. He was homeless off and on for the remainder of his life, but he was never institutionalized again.
        As I aged, I had my own terrible experiences with treatment. I’ve been disabled, physically ill and extremely isolated for many years. I blame the experiences I had in the mental health system for a lot of the pain I’ve experienced.
        I don’t know what the answer is. Just that what is happening now isn’t working.

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        • Also, the thing that made me feel psychiatry is useless and sometimes worse, after the ECT and the borderline diagnosis it was clear I’m sure to everyone around me (in fact people often said as much to me) that I was in dire need of basic services because I had severe cognitive deficits, short-term memory loss, and I lived alone and they were drugging me with so many different drugs that I couldn’t even keep straight. I didn’t have a nurse or a social worker or a case worker or a family member or a friend helping me with any of it. Just a lot of people sitting in judgment telling me that my coping skills were poor and I needed to work harder in DBT. For that I will never forgive psychiatry. To me that was the ultimate cruelty. If they had just left me alone I would have continued to be sad and angry and functional. They took away my ability to function knowing that I was completely alone in the world.

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  10. I feel the marginalization is throughout society. But psychiatry is in a position to really create a problem. I stayed away from any treatment through psychiatry. However, I still had a severe problem that I had a lot of difficulty making it through. I stayed away from psychiatry because it operates on falsehoods and I do believe its practices make psychological problems worse. However, I can’t say that psychological problems wouldn’t exist or they wouldn’t be serious if we didn’t have psychiatry. I did use some of what I learn through reading self-help books to help me understand my situation. Some of what I read was helpful. People are getting others beliefs about mental health imposed on them. That’s a problem. I didn’t tell anyone about the problem I was having, that I didn’t have to tell, for that reason. Psychological problems are very tricky and I’m very hesitant to give any advice. When I write a blog I see it as, if its helpful to someone great but I’m not trying to impose. If I knew of a fast, easy solution, I would give it, but I don’t.

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  11. The Mental Health system targets marginalized people.

    Today California Governor Gavin Newsom wants to make the homeless subject to compulsory Mental Health procedures!

    People need to be taught how to protect themselves, otherwise they will be shredded.

    But some people will be coned into going along with it, believing that the therapist in the arm chair across from them is on their side, and believing that the neurotoxins are good for them.

    https://www.madinamerica.com/comment-history/?user_id=153969

    Joshua

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    • Joshua, Thanks for your comment. I wasn’t aware of the plan in California. This plan is part of why I says we have a societal problem. It’s a societal problem that the mental health system has contributed to but its throughout society. Politician tend to follow public pressure more than drive policy. There’s a view in the public that people who are struggling are responsible for their situation, that they have behavior problems that require correction and accountability, and/or they are too mentally confused/delusional to have control or even input on their treatment. These viewpoints and policies the stems from them creates a self fulling prophecy. By denying people who are homeless self determination, validation of their struggle, help in area of expressed need, or showing any value in their viewpoints or information they bring to a problem, this policy is pushing down those they are supposedly trying to help. Then the stress of being further marginalized makes the ability to function well, or get back on ones feet, harder. If they want to help people who are homeless, they need people who are homeless recommending policy changes that would help. It’s those who are struggling with the problem who know the most about what would alleviate it.

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  12. I agree with you fully and thanks for your reply.

    In this case it is also just Governor Gavin Newsom who seems to think this way. He first voiced these views after Trump came to San Francisco.

    And then his COVID reply was the beginnings. He seemed to want to make all of California into a 40 million bed psychiatric hospital.

    I want to spread the word so that Newsom can be retired. And best if the Democratic Party can just come up with someone else.

    Joshua

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    • It’s always easy to go after marginalized groups with a mental health interpretation.

      Some people will go along with it. They want to show that they are better than their compatriots, because they listen to authority and accept their interpretations.

      And then some believe that the therapist sitting in the arm chair across from them is on their side.

      And then the Psychiatric Neurotoxins have exactly the same appeal that street drugs and alcohol do.

      Without political consciousness training, most will not have any basis to resist.

      And then with Newsom, it does represent his view that everyone should be living like a patient in a psychiatric hospital.

      His daily COVID press conferences, where he would make a big deal about taking off his rear velcro closure mask, and where he would scold us because there were still more cases.

      I was telling people then, unless you are seeking medical treatment, refuse COVID testing. All the test data does is fuel Gavin’s Grandstanding and Gaslighting.

      Joshua

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    • I share your thoughts and feelings about the California Governors anti-homeless person plan, but I doubt “Mindfreedom” has the resources to take on Ca. State Government in Court….
      And the ACLU is mostly hype and publicity stunts. ACLU is best known for all the cases & persons they COULD help, but don’t…. IMHO, ACLU does NOT deserve the reputation most lefties have of them….

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  14. Usually you can’t email the ACLU. Not sure what their history is in this arena either. Looked at Mind Freedom, not sure if they have a forum.

    Newsom tried to make a Medical Police State over COVID. But COVID hysteria is running out.

    So now he is turning to the homeless.

    It is easy to target marginalized groups.

    A lot of people will just say, “I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, I have been stubborn and unwilling to admit that I have a Brain Chemical Imbalance, and I have resisted my therapist, and I have not always taken my meds.”

    Gavin wants to turn California into a 40 million bed psychiatric hospital.

    Joshua

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  15. People try to defend Gavin, saying that he was prioritizing people over profits.

    Well it is people who were being harmed by Gavin’s COVID precautions. And the profits are just people going about their affairs.

    People want to be able to pay their rents and their mortgages, and they want to maintain their employment and their standing and skills in their occupations.

    But this becomes impossible when Gavin shuts down most of the economy. And then bail out money does not necessarily keep people above water, and it doesn’t let them maintain their skills and occupational standing.

    Now someone living in a Mental Hospital would not care about such things. So long as staff brings them food and changes their bed pan, and brings them their meds, they are happy as a clam.

    So this is what Gavin wants, to turn all of California into a 40 million bed Mental Hospital. This was clear in his daily press conferences in 2020, when he fueled the hysteria by making people believe that the precautions were insulating people from COVID. And then his 2021 anti-recall campaign was shameless, showing someone on a ventilator.

    We stopped putting people on ventilators for COVID in June 2020. The ventilators had been killing people.

    The recall had silenced Gavin for a while, but then at the end of 2021 he again started his Grandstanding, bragging about the first “vaccine” mandate for school children.

    Well someone living in a Mental Hospital would probably not care if they and their children were being needled with a radical new kind of so called “vaccine”, which by the available evidence causes more harm than good, is totally unnecessary, and is far more dangerous than COVID.

    But the entire reason Gavin cared about COVID was to try and embarrass the Trump Administration, and then to embarrass some Red State Governors.

    Gavin never told people that they should calm down. Instead he kept trying to fuel the hysteria. And he talked about “Targeted Testing Into Marginalized Population Groups” and an “Army of 10,000 Contact Tracers”.

    And it was working people who suffered the most from Gavin’s reckless and hysterical precautions. Financializers might have seen some portfolio shrinkage, but their livelihoods do not depend upon daily retail contact with people. And then it is only a few quite select workers who can shift their work to home, the so called “Laptop Class”

    What Happened: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on 19 Months of COVID
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG7XZ2JXZqY

    And so now that the national mood has shifted away from COVID, Gavin has unveiled his plan to target the homeless and to set up mental health courts in each county, and to subject the homeless to involuntary mental health procedures.

    The homeless make for a good scapegoat. And this is why Gavin first started talking about this stuff after Donald Trump had come to San Francisco.

    A Special Tribute to Thomas Szasz
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZgsxI3ZouU

    If you subject people to Mental Hospital conditions and deprive them of the chance to maintain a livelihood, then they will be receptive to that therapist sitting in the arm chair across from them, and they will likely be receptive to the doctor’s prescription pad.

    And then they might just start prescribing for themselves:

    Have Nots
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idXpvk_TFz0

    Joshua

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    • Posting as moderator:

      We are now getting off the topic pretty far. I will allow this statement, but I do not want to deteriorate into a hostile exchange about COVID or about Gavin Newsome, and I see this as a very real possibility, based on past experience. The article is on “The Danger of Marginalizing People,” and comments need to be focused on that topic, specifically as it regards the “mental health” system. If we get into political discussions of other topics, I will intervene to keep the discussion on topic.

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    • In my experience, I could say that I need others to work with me and I had that request abruptly dismissed. I feel that many would recover if there was a willingness to work with the person struggling instead of imposing theoretical beliefs and services that can harm. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get people not to impose when they have the ability to do so. It’s hard to mobilize a fight against it when the victims are struggling to get through the day.

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  16. You know how this compulsory mental health procedures and Mental Health Courts will work. And it is because they are dealing with a marginalized population segment. And that marginalization is the subject of this article.

    The way it will go is that if someone does not cooperate, meaning disclose their affairs to a social worker, and then to a therapist, then they will be subject to the law and deemed in need of mental health procedures. So it will either be more attempts to break them down with therapists, or just neurotoxins.

    This would never work unless they were dealing with people who are already marginalized. Other people would just tell the authorities to mind their own business. They could not be intimidated. But when targeting a marginalized group it is entirely different.

    And then this so called “help” really just consists of breaking people down, breaking down their privacy, taking from them what is likely the only thing they still have in this world.

    And of course it is a con. The more the authorities hear about how a party is thinking, the more easy it is to construct a narrative which makes that party defective in their thinking. And so the concept of “mental health” is really just a way to delegitimate someone morally.

    And as it is already, the authorities try to further delegitimate marginalized groups. As Bertram P. Karon explained, the drugs make it easier for when the authorities have to deal with someone, but otherwise nothing is accomplished.

    And we had someone who was running for Mayor of a large city, and she said that they were going to offer help to the homeless. But then she said that “If you will not accept our help, then you have to leave.”

    So this is how it works, the help just amounts to trying to break people down, to take away their privacy. And this is extremely destructive, psychic annihilation, because these are people who are living marginalized lives, who are already survivors of all sorts of things. So they are already delegitimated by status.

    And then there is already a foundation for this in the Work Ethic, and in the Salvation Ministries. So the only thing worse is the Mental Health System, and when it is backed up by cops.

    So this is MindFreedom
    https://mindfreedom.org/about-mfi/mfi-faq/alt/now/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIw-7x26PB9gIVbh-tBh05fQygEAAYASAAEgKxJPD_BwE

    And I know they are fighting a similar Coercive Mental Health thing from the Governor of Washington already.

    Their Contact:
    https://mindfreedom.org/about-mfi/contact-info/

    I cannot see that they have any forum.

    Most of the time the members of a marginalized group are easy pickings for the mental health system. They will follow along with its logic and compromise themselves, rather than remaining silent and resisting in every way possible. And then some may already have developed a taste for the prescription neuro toxins.

    Joshua

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    • Yes, I understand the position people are place in when they are struggling and others decide they’re a problem. People are put in an impossible positions. They’re not in an environment that allows for healing and are told they won’t be treated any differently until they show they’re healed.
      We need many voices on the problems because it’s hard to change such established institutions.

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  17. Exclusive: Gavin Newsom has a bold new mental health plan, inspired by the misery on S.F. streets. Will it work?
    https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Gavin-Newsom-Care-Court-mental-health-16973070.php

    Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes court-ordered mental health treatment for homeless people
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/gov-gavin-newsom-proposes-court-ordered-mental-health-treatment-for-homeless-people#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20the%20Legislature%20approved,and%20other%20behavioral%20health%20disorders.

    This means that some of those who are the most marginalized already will now be faced with this attack. And the main criterion for being subject to the law and the court will of course be refusal to cooperate.

    Newsom is doing this in response to Donald Trump’s visit to San Francisco.

    And when Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, his first act was his “Care Not Cash Initiative” Supervisors never would have done this. But Newsom decided that while money is good for most people, it is not good for poor people, not good for the homeless. So he cut way down the amount of GA that homeless people could get.

    He is calling this new compulsory mental health law the “Care Initiative”

    https://calmatters.org/health/2022/03/newsom-california-mental-illness-treatment/

    And of course the very definition of mental illness is an unwillingness to cooperate, bolstered by the fact that you have individuals who are living lives which are already considered illegitimate. So you are going to take from them the only thing they have left, their privacy.

    Joshua

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  18. I read the articles. Wow I noticed that the Psychiatric Physicians Alliance of California called it “really welcome”. It seems that they believe their own lies that they know how to cure psychological problems. So, they think, why not impose treatment on whoever they deem to have a mental illness?
    In general, it sounds like there is more support for this proposal than any questioning or push back. Of course the majority of the public supports the medical model or it seems that way to me.

    It is a difficult problem when thinking get very delusional. However, it needs to be understood that mental stress will cause that; specifically, the stress from unresolved trauma and treatment received once labelled mentally ill. Add the constant stress of not having basic needs met (housing, food, heat etc.), along with the lack of support, understanding or say in one’s life, all combined, they can push people into a psychotic state.

    Mental health services are hardly a substitute for genuine support, affordable housing and income.

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    • That “really welcome” ONLY means the psychs are seeing $DOLLAR $IGN$….
      We have the extensive problems with so-called “mental illness”, and homeless people BECAUSE OF psychiatry, not in spite of it….
      Psychiatry in general, and MOST psychiatrists, do NOT care about people at all, despite their LIES to the contrary….
      That’s the sad truth which the inherent anosognosia of the psychs prevents them from seeing….

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      • Bradford,
        Exactly, and they keep widening their net to scoop up as many new patients/victims as possible. They’ve just added “prolonged grief disorder”, a brand new mental illness, to their DSM.
        When will society wake up? “Next, they came for the people they said were grieving to long,…”

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        • KateL, YES!
          Dr. Alan Frances was Chair of the Committee which wrote the DSM-IV, but when he saw what was going to be in the DSM-5, he objected and wrote the book “Saving Normal”. I think his objection was a case of “too little, too late”, but he showed that the so-called “mental illnesses” are ALL based on subjective opinions, and not objective scientific facts. Being so vague, and so numerous, and arbitrary, literally ANYBODY can be “diagnosed” with one of the 100’s of imaginary DSM “diagnoses”. Lucky for me, I studied high energy particle physics, and string theory, and discovered that a pi meson, a quark, and a neutrino walked into a bar, but a quasar tesseract constructoid walked out. Oh, I just love sounding all science-ish! Laboratory studies also proved recently that psychiatrists only ever reincarnate as worms, slugs, ticks, leeches, etc., thus PROVING SCIENTIFICALLY that psychiatrists are gross blood-sucking parasites….
          LOL!….
          You gotta laugh, but akathisia & tardive dyskinesia are no laughing matter….

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  20. I agree, if their goal is to help, this proposal is the wrong way to go about it. It will put people under additional stress, alienate more, and further drop their faith in humanity. It’s mind boggling how much money is spent on programs that harm. It seems to me that food and housing could be provided without all the involuntary services (legal, drugs, locked wards in hospitals). Any services should be designed to help people gain control over their lives not take it away.

    I see this proposal as the result of the chemical imbalance theory
    and looking at symptoms of trauma as behavior problems.

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  21. Even the idea of “help” will be a negative because it makes marginalized people targets for scorn, contempt, and pity. And this opens the door to further stigmatizing.

    We need to get away from needs tested programs and instead get to Universal Basic Income and to a strong public housing offering for all who want it.

    As far as these compulsory mental health courts that Gavin Newsom wants, that has to be blocked using any means necessary.

    Joshua

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  22. Usually the worst of this stuff is not being done by government. It is being done by government sponsored and religious charities, which are publicly endorsed by local government. And then money is raised from the business community.

    Now Gavin’s plan is different, that will use massive amounts of tax payer money.

    Joshua

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    • The government contracts for services through private agencies and religious charities. It provides grants and often pays per case. The government contracts with shelter, residences and outreach services not to mention all the money from Medicaid/ Medicare that goes to hospitals and mental health services. It’s not a little bit of money. It’s a lot of tax payers money. I don’t know how much money flows from the business community but it seems that their giving is often to the arts and sports. Not that I have anything against the arts or sports, I think participating in both can be beneficial.

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  23. Thank-you, Christine! You’ve shown us the dots, but not connected them up into a pretty picture. All those “private agencies” and “religious charities” are ALL 501(c)3, “non-profits”. They bill as high as the market allows. And, with the deep pockets of the taxpayer, those payments can be surprisingly high. 15 or 20 years ago, I read a detailed article about “mental health care”, and the whole scam of “community mental health centers”. To a CMHC, the average “out-patient”, “walk-in”, “mental patient” represents AT LEAST $100,000/year in billing for salaries ALONE. That figure didn’t include costs of “services”, “fees”, etc. Only employee salaries. And that’s what those 501(c)3 CMHC’s are TRULY intended to be: EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES. They employ usually college-educated persons who would otherwise have high-level and high-paying jobs in the industries that have been off-shored to mostly China in recent decades. It’s the Globalist Puppet Masters Show, and WE are all their puppets. That’s how they see it.
    What we HAVE now is a “system-centered-system”, and a “process-centered-process”….
    What we NEED is a “SERVICES-CENTERED-SYSTEM”, and a “PERSON-CENTERED-PROCESS”….
    The current mental health system is failing, EXACTLY AS IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO!….
    The more mental illness we have, the more demand for services, and the more psych drugs are sold.
    Now wonder psychiatrists are drooling over this coming windfall of taxpayer$$$$$, from the leftist liberal Democrat party of Newsome & Californicate….
    Sorry, Steve, but sometimes the political IS personal….
    We need a services-centered-system, and a person-centered-process….

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  25. The business community money is there for programs that go beyond what the government could get away with. It is stuff that serves no point except to make the homeless into a public spectacle. It is these charities and religious outreaches which would never exist without the public endorsement of politicians on their web sites, like San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.

    So it is things like “Work Readiness Programs”, like climbing down steep creek embankments, so steep that one really would need mountain climbing type gear. And then picking up litter. And for $20 a day.

    Of course they could hire properly equipped and able people do do this safely. The city already employs such people. But they are unionized. They would have to be paid fair wages and get benefits.

    The city outsources as much stuff as possible, like park maintenance and street maintenance, so that they can weaken the unions. And political candidates talk about “competitive bidding” for doing park maintenance and for everything. And of course this means union busting.

    And then the city unilaterally abrogates union contracts by hiring all the new people as Temporary As Needed. This means that they get zero health care or retirement benefits and they are not part of the union. The union contract allows this, but only for people that really are for some special temporary need. It is not supposed to be used as a general entry level category.

    And then getting the homeless, often not really physically able to be walking along these steep slopes and having no special equipment, serves to maintain workplace and labor discipline and discourage those who want the unions to enforce their contracts, or who want to demand living wages.

    Joshua

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    • Excellent comment from Joshua, above. He details some of the ways that so-called “homeless mental patients” are used as PAWNS, BARGAINING CHIPS, & CASH COWS by government, industry, finance, and those pernicious “non-profit agencies”. Too many of these manipulators a “good liberal Democrats”. The Republicans are almost as diabolocal, but at least Repubs use the rhetoric of personal rights, responsibilities, and freedoms. The MPLF, – Mental Patient Liberation Front, failed because they were too Marxist, not because they were wrong. If you disagree, then where is the MPLF in 2022? So it goes….

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  26. Hi, Joshua, It sound like you’re speaking of local programs. I’m not in California. But I think it goes back to the believe in a chemical imbalance or looking at it as inappropriate behavior without understanding the problem or struggle. They don’t think they’re being cruel. They think they’re doing right thing in correcting the chemical imbalance and holding people accountable. They’ll continue the current practices until those views are corrected.

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  27. Bradford, absolutely “homeless mental patients” are used as Pawns and Bargaining Chips and Cash Cows by government non-profits and by churches. And none doing this more so that CA Governor Gavin Newsom, wanting to set up mental health courts and impose compulsory mental heath procedures.

    And so the main purpose of these ministries is to train the homeless to say, “I am a Christian” on queue.

    And where is this MPLF today, is there anything like that?

    Christine, yes I am talking about local programs, but these are regional trends. This church pastor that operatives of San Jose Re-Development brought in all the way from Nebraska, she shut down a very good meals program, mostly because it was very visible as the church’s parking lot backs up against City Hall.

    This pastor said, “We’re starting a Recovery Cafe”, something modeled after something in Seattle. The main idea seems to be to get the homeless to submit to case management, and that is like mental health lite.

    It is because of this belief in a chemical imbalance. But that idea comes from something deeper, the belief that those who live beyond the pale are guilty of original sin, and so they didn’t listen to their parents, and so now they need to be broken all over again. It is based on the idea that people are obliged to live for the approval of the heard. We have people in the homeless department of county social services who are very close to evangelical churches.

    Joshua

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