A recent study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal examines physicians’ perspectives on procedures at Ontario-area university health centers for transferring students in psychiatric distress to hospital emergency departments.
The findings indicate that physicians commonly chose to involve police -who often use physical restraints- during mental health transfers for pragmatic reasons or due to liability concerns, despite their recognition of the potentially traumatic impact of doing so.
In the context of rising rates of self-harm and suicidal behavior amongst Canadian university students, the researchers, led by Juveria Zaheer at the University of Toronto, aimed to investigate the current approaches used by physicians at universities across Ontario for responding to students in acute distress.
Under the Ontario Mental Health Act, doctors who believe a student is at risk of harming themselves must complete a “Form 1 Application by Physician for Psychiatric Assessment” to mandate the student’s transfer to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation. Since 2014, the number of mandated mental health transfers from Ontario universities has increased substantially, but little is understood about what these transfers look like in practice. Zaheer and co-authors explain:
“The processes for such transfers are an under-researched topic, part of a larger gap in research surrounding the conveyance of people experiencing a mental health crisis to hospital from community-based points of care. There is substantial heterogeneity in transfer processes when a Form 1 is completed for students presenting at university health clinics in Ontario. In particular, the involvement of police and use of physical restraints for transfers vary between institutions, and have been the subject of media scrutiny.”
The use of law enforcement during involuntary hospitalizations has led to debate and concern. Some health professionals argue that it is necessary to ensure the safety of patients. However, mental health advocates widely criticized the practice, contending that police involvement and physical restraint use “are traumatizing and stigmatizing, and perpetuate the criminalization of people with mental illness.” Further, persistent police violence against racially marginalized individuals points to the urgent need to consider police involvement in involuntary transfers as a matter of racial injustice.
To better understand the current procedures in place at Ontario universities for implementing mental health transfers, the researchers integrated three sources of data collected from university-based physicians: qualitative interviews, questionnaires, and institutional policy documents.
Eleven doctors (9 family physicians and two psychiatrists) from 9 different university health clinics in Ontario participated in semi-structured interviews. Ten participants also completed questionnaires about their demographics, training and practice experiences, and general beliefs regarding crisis transfer processes. Additionally, institutional policy documents were provided by administrators at 5 of the participating clinics.
Interview transcripts were analyzed qualitatively via thematic analysis, and information gleaned from questionnaires and policy documents was summarized and used to clarify clinic procedures and substantiate themes. Three major themes emerged from this analysis.
Theme 1: Police and Restraints Cause Harm to Students
All physicians described harms related to police involvement in transfers. Many participants further described how police involvement broke students’ trust, ruptured the therapeutic relationship, and deterred students from returning to the clinic for future services. One physician said:
“People already have enough trouble being in the hospital, but to have to be taken in handcuffs … out of the building and loaded up in a police cruiser and taken half a block, it seems brutal and traumatic for the patient, and sends all the wrong messages about a caring, supportive environment.”
Theme 2: Police Involvement and Restraint use are Justified on the Basis of Patient Considerations
Physicians voiced a common opinion that there are rare circumstances when police involvement is deemed clinically “necessary” based on perceptions of risk, such as the likelihood that a student would act violently or attempt to escape hospitalization.
Theme 3: Transfer Processes are Often Informed by Extramedical Factors
Physicians from most clinics rationalized using police and restraints by citing limited workforce capacity and institutional policies. Multiple physicians reported reliance on police to escort students to the hospital due to staff shortages, workflow, and liability considerations. Additionally, at 6 of the 11 clinics, formal institutional policies mandated that physicians involve campus or municipal police. Once police were called, physicians no longer had control over the transfers, and police decided whether to use physical restraints, opting to do so in most cases. One participant said:
“They [police] mostly … 9 times out of 10, will apply handcuffs to a patient, which can be a very traumatic experience. And so discussions that we have had with the constables about whether or not that should be done are typically met with, ‘You know what, we have to cater to the highest potential risk.’”
The minority of clinics offered more flexible procedures, allowing physicians to choose not to contact the police and for clinic staff or mobile crisis teams to escort students to the hospital instead.
This qualitative study sheds light on how the use of law enforcement officers and physical restraints during mental health crisis intervention is normalized by healthcare providers. Limited resources and fears of being held liable for patient safety perpetuate physicians’ reliance on police. The researchers describe how this reliance contributes to a dangerous cycle of marginalization and violence:
“Police involvement and restraint use can be traumatic, with the death of people in crisis occurring in the worst-case scenarios. People may experience fear and stigmatization when police are involved, and handcuffs applied, which can engender mistrust and deter future help-seeking. The potential for adverse outcomes is magnified when police are engaged in crisis mental health care, particularly for patients with intersecting systemically marginalized identities.”
The authors conclude by noting the need for more research that is done in meaningful collaboration with individuals with lived experience to truly understand the harmful impact of involuntary hospital transfers and to imagine new strategies for responding to psychiatric crises without the police.
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Chittle, A., Neilson, S., Nicoll, G., & Zaheer, J. (2022). Physicians’ perspectives on processes for emergency mental health transfers from university health clinics to hospitals in Ontario, Canada: a qualitative analysis. Canadian Medical Association Open Access Journal, 10(2), E554-E562. (Link)
This is exactly what happened to my daughter at university in the U.S. She was deemed an imminent risk to herself, dragged away in a police car, strip searched, drug tested, and subjected to 6 hours of traumatizing treatment before she was released. Her crime? Being traumatically bereaved at the sudden, violent death of her boyfriend. She never trusted another health care professional, and six years later, when she was stigmatized and traumatized yet again, due to misdiagnosis by yet another bunch of “mental health” professionals, she fell into a genuine suicidal crisis . . . and never even tried to reach out for “help.” She knew no one would actually help her. Completely isolated, she killed herself. This shit has to stop. What’s wrong with the mental health systems in universities? Two things: (1) like the rest of society, they (like we) believe that we can somehow predict an imminent risk of harm (we can’t; tons of studies prove it, yet all of our laws have been framed around this complete lack of science), and (2) they (like the rest of society) believe the mental health providers should be held “liable” for a suicide on their watch, which is utter nonsense (see #1), a full circular argument that literally traps both student (patient) and practitioner into acting violently against those who are at their most vulnerable. The solution? We have to let people kill themselves, if they cannot be reasoned out of it. We cannot force them to live. And we must stop prosecuting anyone for “failure” to predict what science has proven cannot be predicted! Likelihood of implementation or societal change? Zero. Thus, even these studies will change nothing, because underneath, those two criteria for violent involuntary coercive intervention remain untouched . . . and unquestioned. As Socrates said, The unexamined life is not worth living. We will continue to traumatize our young people, if they seek “help.” And there is nothing we can do to stop it. My daughter is dead because of this bullshit. I’m not even trying to talk to my congressperson anymore. It’s hopeless. Amen. (Whew. so stressful.)
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My condolences on your daughter’s passing, jvalusek. Thank you for sharing your family’s story of extreme harm done by psychiatry. Forced treatment with the involvement of the police and/or paramedics is most definitely traumatic.
I literally went into shock, as five large paramedics pulled me out of the comfort of my own bed in the middle of the night, as the sixth paramedic was telling them that what they were doing was illegal, since I was neither a danger to myself nor anyone else.
I’d had a sleep walking/talking issue, once ever in my life, which most definitely did NOT require forced psychiatric treatment by the now FBI convicted V. R. Kuchipudi – an evil, evil, criminal doctor – and his psychiatric “snowing” partner in crime, Humaira Saiyed – an evil, evil, but still not arrested – criminal psychiatrist.
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Sorry to hear this jvalusek.
I spoke for some time to a woman whose daughter had committed suicide right in front of her after waving goodbye. Not an easy conversation to have, and I would have much preferred to have spoken to her legal representative about the hospital they had just left before she stepped into traffic. mainly the “editing” of legal narrative before providing documents to lawyers being my main concern. (the enabling of the use of electricity on young girls by the government a particular concern of mine, and the ability of a child to ‘consent’ to such ‘treatments’ particularly worrying)
I admire your comments regarding the effect that ‘intervention’ has on the psyche of people, and in fact I have been subjected to years of psychological abuse (gaslighting) as a direct result of attempting to access the protection of the law. Told by an Operations Manager after informing her of her mandatory duty to report suspected misconduct that they (the State) would “fuking destroy” me and my family. Your decision to not speak to your congressperson may be the best decision you have ever made. I know my approach to a Member of Parliament resulted in me being told he needed to work with police (as opposed to reporting misconduct and corruption) and thus against the public who elected him
I read a quote from a James Addison a few days ago that struck a chord with me;
“No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority”
The use of police as thugs for ‘medical practitioners’ no doubt does way more harm than any of the good they claim (try and separate out the issue of consent to ‘treatments’ when the consequence of refusing is met with the type of police thuggery I have posted below. Are you really going to refuse to have Electric Shock Treatments under such ‘coercive practices’? And as pointed out by Viktor Frankl, under such conditions does suicide not become a serious choice to be made? (see Bruce Levines article on Indian Farmers I think)
Not a lot of people actually examine what they define as being a success. I once asked a psychiatrist to walk the halls of the hospital with me and examine his success, those people wandering the halls dribbling from the mouth, and with virtually no hope of ever escaping left are his successes? And he can’t see why others might point out his failures? Lucky for him he can silence any complaints with his ‘treatments’ and some document “editing”.
The ‘good faith’ defense easily “edited” to ensure the proof of ‘bad faith’ is not possible. ie take the request for the use of known torture methods out of the documents, remove the facts surrounding the ‘spiking’ and slander the victim as a nutjob. Making claims you’ve been ‘spiked’ without the documents a great way of using the stigma of ‘mental illness’ against the victims. You know, ‘the “edited” version of reality. And the ease with which the Operations Manager knew she was authorised to fuking destroy anyone who had a complaint about human rights abuses speaks for itself.
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Well, this is Canada so there may be some differences. Where are the people being transferred to, the university’s psych ward or detention, or is it to the public facility?
Usually it is only police who are authorized to act on people against their will. And there is always a risk of violence.
Most of the times on private property, a person can be told to leave and without justification. If they don’t leave, then police can remove them. And they could be charged with a crime.
Off of private property, usually the lowest level of misdemeanor is Disorderly Conduct.
I’m not sure why what you are describing as happening at universities would be different from anywhere else.
There probably is room for improvement in how the police do this. It is not clear to me that you realistically could have anyone else doing this.
But then the question is, why do you want to place them in psychiatric hold, and are there better alternatives?
Joshua
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“Most of the times on private property, a person can be told to leave and without justification. If they don’t leave, then police can remove them. And they could be charged with a crime.”
Except when police are assisting the people trespassing, and refuse to perform their duty…. nay in fact beat the person requesting that their rights be observed.
Of course Police in that situation had been lied to by the Community Nurse and his ‘crew’ who were trespassing. He told them I was his “Outpatient” which meant that they could then do his bidding and enable his trespass into my home. Otherwise my demand that they “Get out of my home” might have been acted upon by police, instead of him nodding to them to give me a taste of the tazer for trying to exercise my right.
The “potential for damage to reputation and meaningful relationships” requiring such excessive powers to be provided to these corrupt public officers. Seemed to me that dragging me out of my bed and throwing me in the back of a Police van parked on my mother and father in laws front garden (while they watched) was a way of damaging my reputation and meaningful relationships, to ensure that my “potential” didn’t actuate.
Still, this is Australia where the “editing” of legal narratives by the State ensures a ‘good standing’ as far as human rights abuses go. Where police can say Muslims are drunks to enable the boot to ensure their compliance. Who cares what lies need to be sworn too? In a State where there is no avenue for complaint. Where your ‘legal representative’ is nothing more than an informant to ensure that such matters are concealed from public view. many not having the stomach for what needs to be done to protect the corrupt.
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Police are not going to assist private property trespassers.
They might decline to run people off of public property.
Joshua
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Joshua, This would depend on the state. California has many laws based on Spanish Law, as does Arizona and several other states that were Spanish before they were basically bought by America. The police in those states may be less likely to assist the property owner in regards to trespassing. In states on the East Coast which are Basically English law states, some being the original 13 colonies, the police are more likely to assist the property owners in regards to trespassers. Although, Americans are much more mobile now and move from state to state as they choose, there are still a multitude of variations in laws, etc. This can be important for some in choosing where to live. For instance, in most Spanish Law states, the police will not respond to an accident on private property unless there is a terrible injury or a death. In an English Law state, they will. Of course, unless there is a terrible injury or death, especially on private property it is usually up to those involved in the accident if they choose to call the police. Not every state in the Union is like California. Thank you.
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Police are not going to assist private property trespassers.
They might decline to run people off of public property.
Joshua
Police WILL assist a Community Nurse in gaining unlawful access to a property IF the Community Nurse tells them that he needs to speak to his “Outpatient”. Police ignorant of the fact that the citizen is actually not an “Outpatient”, and by the time they have kicked in the door and ‘restrained’ the “Outpatient”, the subject is now forced to speak to the Community Nurse at the point of a gun. Something which is frowned upon by police, that is putting a gun to someone’s head to have them answer questions. Not a problem with mental health because the response can be called a ‘mental illness’ and they can be treated for it. So using police in this manner, to create an ‘acute stress reaction’, a major benefit for these mental health professionals.
As far as running people off public property, we have what are called “Move on Orders”, which police complete with a ‘verbal’ (say the person is drunk, despite the fact he may be the Grand Mufti, and therefore doesn’t consume alcohol), and then arrest them for non compliance with the Order. And given that they are “hallucinating” you can now make an order for them to be ‘assessed’ by mental health ….. another ‘verbal’ and you may find yourself being ‘chemically restrained’ and incapable of responding to the questions put to you by your newly appointed psychiatrist. Dribbling grunts not a language even they can fully comprehend.
Police will do whatever the fuk they want in such an environment.
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I had a friend, who committed suicide 2007 https://www.lifestorynet.com/obituaries/lisbeth-lilly-lipke.29513#memories, and there were a whole gang of people working to get her committed. In the process they had scared her so badly, that she tried to get away from them and ripped her Achilles tendon on my bike, which was locked so you couldn’t take off on it. Then she just ran away trying to get away from the people that had threatened to have her committed. At that time she really wasn’t doing anything, although she was going through a florid period. The first thing her “friends” did, after she went running off, was make up an untrue story that she was running around naked, and then they trespassed into her house and called her case manager. When I called over there telling them that it was clear my friend didn’t want them in her house, and I would call the police, I got a sarcastic reply of: “would you!?” knowing they would tell the police more alarmist fabrications, and so I never called the police. And after awhile she was being arrested on her own property, with these “friends” filling the police with alarmist fabrications, I happened to come by on my bike and when my friend simply greeted me kindly, telling the police I was a really nice guy, a police man actually told me to move on or I would be arrested, when I asked if I could ask him why, he told me I would be interfering with an investigation. I then went to my parents house, and decided to call the non emergency police and inform them how her “friends” had trespassed into her house, and I actually was told by the police a completely lie, that she had been taking off her clothes in public, which she hadn’t. I only learned this after she got out of the asylum. I was interfering with an investigation!?
But no, in the mental health system it’s not so simple as that police only remove someone that’s trespassing, they don’t necessarily honor that you have any of your own territory that can be trespassed on. You also can’t do anything that other people do abundantly without a diagnosis. And when my friend was in the asylum, which is made out to be a medical establishment, they never looked at her tendon to see whether it was ripped, although it was swollen up to the knee, and so instead of her getting medical help, her leg was ruined.
This is just taking things lightly, actually. I could go on for pages. The amount of stuff people make up, thinking they are protecting someone from themselves or others, it’s really not the person who is having a crisis who is paranoid, when you look at the statistical, medical, and societal results of what the mental health system does. And none of how traumatizing it all is is even considered, let alone the medical damage done with “treatment,” the declining potential for recovery, the stigmatizing, the loss of civil liberties, the disenfranchisement and the discrimination and the dehumaniziation.
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We need to eradicate the entire mental health system.
Joshua
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Do yourself a favor and do not try to include me in such hardliner instructions. Other than your extremist responses are predictable and could be coming from a synthetic intelligence program, people do not come here to be yet again told how to think and how to behave and what to believe.
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Nijinsky, I might not agree with everything you write, but this I agree with one trillion million percent and I’m lousy at math, also. Thank you.
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Nijinsky, are you addressing me?
I want the mental health system eliminated, and I am doing what I can to make that so.
Do you want it to continue, why?
Joshua
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Saying the whole mental health system must be eradicated is EXACTLY giving the people pulling the stops the excuse to say: “look here, all these people need help and those radicals would stop it,” and then list all of the corrupt statistics of increasing mental illness, school shooting, loss of productivity, and fail to include how much psychiatric drugs are in collusion with that. Instead making such extremist remarks as that the whole mental health system must be eradicated gives the drug companies what they need to cover up what they have been covering up, because there are “those people” that would prevent us from helping and saying our system needs to be destroyed. With such statements about “the mental health system” you give the drug companies (and ANYONE not caring to understand that extreme expression of being human that the symptoms they judge express) EXACTLY what they are looking for to implement more fear mongering. It’s un-nuanced, it’s unintelligent, and it’s no different from what you say you are trying to change. Further more, there are people in “the mental health system,” that know what’s going on, and beyond that also know how to truly help people who are coming for help. Making extremist remarks, giving the drug companies again the ammunition to say that disabling the mind is healing, push to the side all the therapies and help that do show to promote healing, that’s highly counter productive. And it prevents the people in the “mental health system” who are making change, and can make change by showing what heals from doing that. Instead you have more duality, and you give those interested in making alarmist evaluations with all of their clout, and money and connections EXACTLY what they want to make out they and the rest of society is under attack. And it covers up what does help.
And I wrote this whole remark without even having to read the response. Again. It’s THAT predictable.
Brain washing is brainwashing, no matter which side of the alarmist duality both sides are spouting you’re being indoctrinated by.
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Nijinsky, You are “spot on.” You said what has been going on in my mind better than I could have. You say what I have been trying to say, but couldn’t put words to… You make so much sense. Thank you so very much.
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jvalusek, I am sorry what happened to your daughter. It is a tragedy beyond any words and I appreciate your ability to share it with us. It must have been difficult to do so. When I was in college, we had the university police that we called “kiddie cops.” Actually, they were more like the “keystone cops,” the want-to-be cops who basically who couldn’t qualify for either the local police force or the county sheriff’s department, but still wanted to be “law enforcement.” Once they harassed us on a weekend night, but it was off campus. They didn’t arrest us or anything and this was probably due to the questions of their jurisdiction, as they seem to be out of it. In the US, if you are on private property and the owner does not want you there, you can get arrested for “trespassing” however the owner must make the complaint, not the police—unless it a capital crime or felony. I am not sure about a misdemeanor. I don’t know about Canada, but in the States, jurisdictions carry a lot of weight. But University Police, in most cases, are rarely ever bona fide police officers. They should not have harrassed your daughter. What they did is unconscionable, if not maybe unconstitutional. Thank you.
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Honestly, I would rather take my chances with the Victoria City Police (who have always been lovely to me) over the uneducated, testosterone-filled thugs we hire as hospital security guards. I have *literally* been beaten by hospital security.
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I think that this ‘research’ has missed a significant point, that of the use of police as thugs.
My documents clearly show that the police were called to CAUSE an “acute stress reaction” given that I had refused to speak to A psychologist (not MY psychologist) when requested by my wife.
“Under the Ontario Mental Health Act, doctors who believe a student is at risk of harming themselves must complete a “Form 1 Application by Physician for Psychiatric Assessment” to mandate the student’s transfer to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.”
And I would assume that as a protection to citizens that there would be a ‘time limit’ placed on these physicians as to when they can make such referrals. In my State it is 48 hours of personally examining the person being referred. Unless of course a doctor who examined you at school, now finds someone willing to pay them to refer you as a 40 year old?
So a Community Nurse who needs someone to open their mouth so he/she can put words into it (and complete the statutory declaration with their “reasonable grounds” verballed), and who has arranged for their ‘victim’ (sometimes called their “outpatient” before they leave the hospital to detain them) can be forced into speaking by police at the point of a weapon, or the heel of a boot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ9UQKBUrsg&t=3s
See the “concerning aspects” of this mental health ‘referral’ which would no doubt be quite a useful tool to a mental health professional finding it difficult to have their potential patient speak to them (due to the known corrupt practices of ‘verballing’ they tend to use).
Now imagine this being able to be used against people who have been ‘spiked’ with date rape drugs and who were NOT ‘patients’ but who the Community Nurse wanted to be? he calls Police and tells them he needs ‘assistance’ with his knife wielding/drug abusing “Outpatient” (the knife and the drugs planted after the target has collapsed from the ‘spiking’ with benzos. Creates the appearance of a Police referral for his colleagues, when what is actually occurring is torture and kidnapping…. but they have methods of ensuring you are denied access to the protection of the law).
And note that the man who had his head stomped and run over by police would now be more than willing to speak to anyone putting questions to him. The haze of coming out of the induced coma no doubt a time when he would be a little more willing to confess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUOoRiI8HVU&t=106s
Or this one who refused to speak to his ‘concerned doctor’, and who chose to try and withdraw from the addictive drugs he had been prescribed without the help of his ‘pusher’. Not too many ‘dealers’ can have someone beaten and pepper sprayed for not taking their ‘medicine’.
The two DO NOTS of “acute stress reaction”
DO NOT force the person to talk.
DO NOT administer benzodiazepines.
‘Spike’ them with benzos, and then have police ‘detain’ (ie cause an ‘acute stress reaction’) with a little ‘coercive treatment’ and then conceal the ‘spiking’ and call it an illness. The physical assault concealed and the use of psychological torture (gaslighting) virtually never pursued. Easier to label the complainant nutjob and ‘treat’ them with a chemical kosh.
We have ways of making you talk.
These researchers should wake up to the possible intent of such ‘treatment’ by police. They are being used as thugs by mental health services KNOWING the effect it has on their intended victims. Torture concealed under the “inherent in or incidental to lawful sanction” clause in the Convention.
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Nijinsky and Rebel,
We must not capitulate to the mental health system, ever make accommodations for them. We must look for situations where we can lawfully escalate conflict with them and vanquish them.
Joshua
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Unfortunately a lot of people do capitulate to the mental health system and they do discuss their affairs with Psychotherapists. They think they get something from this, some benefit.
We must give strength to those who resist will under attack. We must provide legal resistance, because refusing to talk will always be your strongest position, and we must set up safe houses and an underground railroad.
And then we must find lawful ways to instigate and escalate conflict with all tentacles of the mental health system.
Joshua
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Joshua, You can do what you think is right. I shall do what I think is right and I shall NOT be forced to do what I do NOT feel comfortable doing. Otherwise, I will be in the same boat as I was when in involved in psychiatry, etc. And, boats make sick and nauseous, etc. You may have good intentions, but, I full well, know that you can not force others to think or do like you think or do in anything. It can be quite repulsive to someone else. Each person is a unique being with unique needs, etc. In my personal opinion, if something is not good for the world, only SPIRIT can judge and take care of it. Humans just don’t have that capability. We are put on the earth to do other things. Also, in my personal, unique opinion and with all due respect, this post. along with many of the other posts, are doing the VERY EXACT SAME THING PSYCHIATRY, ETC. IS DOING AND HAS BEEN DOING. Sadly, “when you fight fire with fire you are liable to get burned.” Thank you.
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I want to take down the entire mental health system.
Joshua
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Joshua, With all due respect, if that is what you want to do, who is to stop you? However, before you take on such an tremendous feat, of which at the present moment, I doubt if all the armies in the world can do, I suggest you watch the old 1954 movie, “The Caine Mutiny.” Yes, I know Humphrey Bogart masterfully plays the ship’s commander “going insane” (which must be impossible, according to you) but then war does do strange things to people. But the important thing is the part played by Fred MacMurray. His character was the one who began the whole process which ended up in the court marshall. It was his character who basically agitated the whole thing to conclusion. However, at the end, at the celebration party, Fred MacMurray’s character was shunned. and the naval lawyer inquired of MacMurray’s character, “Was it worth it?” As pivotal as the court marshall scene was with Bogart, this scene may be even more pivotal. In my opinion, this shows that if we choose to “bring someone or something down” even it is deserved, we may suffer and the suffering may be worse than what happens to those we try to take down. So, that means in my opinion, it is better to think before choosing such an action and even more importantly, it is better to let nature take its course, rather us mere humans as they always ends up in disaster for many people, including and especially the person who began the process. In my opinion, “Only fools go where Angels fear to tread.” I have been a fool too many times in my life and despite everything that happened to me, I am going to defer to the Angels and let them take care of all issues with the Mental Health System or any system, etc. Thank you.
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There are “psychotherapists” in and out of the “mental health system” who actually DO help people. Inside it, and outside of it. Whether you want to discriminate against all of them or not. I’m not even saying that it can’t be highly dangerous to talk to quite a lot of therapists, ones that only think along the bio chemical line and look for chances to force people into treatment. And then there are those that have no understanding of what the label as “depression” or “non reality based thinking.” And would think they have the right to diagnose stuff they have no ability to relate to for why it occurs. That certainly is something to avoid. however, you’re doing the same thing. Anyone looking for someone to talk to has something wrong with their thinking, and if they think they get anything out of it, that’s further a fallacy. And then anyone not stereotyping all “psychotherapists” isn’t in their right mind. And anyone that goes to a “psychotherapist” is capitulating to whatever it is you want to eradicate, and so where does it stop where YOU think you have the right to force them to do your will, and use the “mental health system” as a excuse. Neither of you interested in freedom. Or “will.”
But the therapists that actually help people, and the programs like Soteria Project, Healing Homes of Finland, people like Eleanor Longdon and others, because they actually help people, people that are looking for help, that does something completely different then your militant inflexibility. That shows what heals, what heals people, what people are looking for and whether it escalates conflict with the “Mental Health System” or not (which it does) it HELPS the people rather than endangering vulnerable people stuck in the mental health system, by demanding they take on extremist views which would be used against them, would label them non compliant, would take away their civil liberties, and could and would end their lives. THAT actually is changing the mental health system. Whether you think something more militant needs to be done or not. The present “mental health system” also started with what the Quakers did with their asylums, although that’s highly corrupted. What you go on with is like saying that all of Europe should have been destroyed, all the buildings, all the museums, everything, when Hitler took over. The model the Quakers had worked, so does what a lot of other people do, to destroy all of that in order to take down some evil you feel everyone is supposed to be pundits in your just war against, that’s again highly counter productive. And I don’t see it’s working, when what other people do is helping has helped and will help, people who simply are interested in helping people rather than drafting them into wars and escalations. You might consider you are endangering lives the same as the “mental health system.” Both of you are.
Nothing really has changed with such militant behavior, it just goes round in circles. And what I already said, people don’t come here to once again be told what to do, how to think, what to believe, and harassed with insinuations that they “must.” They hear that enough regarding propaganda from the drug companies.
And I’m through going on about this, and having to read responses, which I didn’t have to read to begin with, knowing what the predictable “reaction” would be, to find that yet again, that’s that…..
Is the world really going to end if everyone doesn’t take part in your ideological war? You or the other side you’re trying to “eradicate.”
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I say there is no such thing as a good psychotherapist.
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Joshua
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I’m afraid I can’t agree with you. I had a very good psychotherapist. I would not be who I am today without her support and intervention. Sure, most of them these days are dogs, but it’s not right that there is no such thing. I think that is a bias you hold, but the evidence speaks to the contrary. I’m sure others here will agree with me that such people DO exist, however rare they may be today.
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Well I say that no good ever comes from contact with the mental health system, including talking to a psychotherapist.
People think good has come from it, but that does not make it so.
What the psychotherapist does is make you afraid of your feelings and instincts. It is very much like the religious doctrine of original sin. You are to believe that there is something innately wrong with you. And it is not you personally, as it is everyone. And this is what makes a lot of people go along with it, being told that it is true of everyone, not just of them.
”
We’d all be lost without Jesus. If it wasn’t for Jesus I’d still be crashing cars.
”
But who is it that is without Jesus, and how could there be a Not Jesus?
So yes, some people believe that this is good, they become like the psychotherapist. It is exactly like the religious concept of Salvation.
So when Freud was in his native Vienna, he saw troops mobilizing for WWI and he lamented about the blackness which must reside of men’s souls.
He did not think that the problem is in monarchy and capitalism. And he did not consider that there is nothing wrong with fighting to defend your country.
And so when Lenin would lead workers to overturn the Czar and his bureaucracy and to pull out of the war, Freud would not be standing with them.
And when German Social Democrats rose up and forced the Kaiser to abdicate and brought an end to the war, Freud and his followers would not be standing with them either.
And as there remains great injustice in our society, psychotherapists are never those on the front lines. Their job is to talk people down. People who believe that they suffer from an innate moral defect will not fight for honor, they only backstab.
About the most a psychotherapist can do is denounce a psychiatrist.
Joshua
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Your answer is disrespectful and invalidative of my personal experience, and that of anyone else who has had a positive experience. How is it possible for you to know if my therapy experience was or was not helpful to me? You have decided what you believe to be true and insist that the world conform to your belief, even if the evidence suggests a more nuanced approach would be closer to the truth.
Your contention is: “What the psychotherapist does is make you afraid of your feelings and instincts. It is very much like the religious doctrine of original sin. You are to believe that there is something innately wrong with you.” My therapist did none of those things. In fact, she encouraged me to believe in and respect my own experience and emotions and instincts, and to discard all kinds of crappy ideas I’d amassed to protect myself from those emotions and instincts. So she actually did the exact opposite of what you claim “the psychotherapist” does. By the end of our association, I felt a lot more “right” about myself than I ever had. It was the adults around me who wanted me to believe there was something innately wrong with me, and my psychotherapist who supported me in discovering that there was nothing “wrong” with me at all.
And ironically, with these comments, you are the one telling me there is something “wrong” with me for following my own instincts in evaluating my own experience, telling me that I should disrespect my own feelings and instincts.
I don’t think we help anyone by being as rigid and judgmental and bigoted as those we are criticizing. If we are going to defeat psychiatry as you say you want to, we can’t dismiss the experiences of its users as “you can’t have benefited, because it ruins my thesis.”
As I like to say, “Generalizations are always wrong.”
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Joshua, dear man, what are you going on about?
That joining Lenin and his fascist mob is better than going to a therapist?
Or that no one is allowed to despair when things turn to death destruction and militarization, or there is something wrong with them?
Like some “necessary” war against a mythological creature (the devil) which Jesus by the way never taught, it was the Romans when they corrupted Christianity that introduced original sin as a mind control method. Same As Hitler with his Reichstag (or what goes on with strategists in any war). When you make people think they are under attack you gain control over them because you can brainwash them what they need to do in response.
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“Generalizations are always wrong.”
Not all the time.
there are two kinds of people in this world, those that think there are two kinds of people, and those that don’t.
lol
I heard a Dr Ibrahim on the radio today talking about a bi yearly injection of a drug for ‘schizophrenia’. Has anyone heard anything about this new ‘wonder drug’ for this non existent ‘disease’? And will it have the same effect as the pills it is replacing? That is, killing people 20 years before their time?
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You clearly get what I’m saying. Irony is a lost art.
Obviously, the only people benefitting from the most recent ‘improvement’ in ‘schizophrenia’ injections are the ones who save their monthly trip to have to visit their clients and inject them and only have to do it twice a year.
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I think the correct generalization is that when you’re not fighting against it, you’re not starting a war. In this case against the very miracles of genetics, chemistry, and physiology that allow for thought.
And that generalization works for so much. Where did the body come from, all matter “for that matter,” is there any harmony there beyond our ability to control (to see, to police, to regulate, to harness) other then allowing it space to do what it does, when we are given the blessing to experience it?
The one time I was made out to be “because of non reality based thinking” supposedly someone who might become violent (for no other reason than I communicated things others didn’t understand, in reality because it was spiritual, and in the end cleared up the understanding with what would even metaphysically be called a miracle), this diagnosed “non reality based thinking” which was supposed to be a symptoms of a “disease” turned out to be nothing but yet unprocessed material (of thought) that lead to understanding beyond linear time, even why time exists. Or that we’re not separate from it. What is when we try to understand each other, rather than invest in alarmist propaganda that makes us believe we’re “safe” what if we instead try to understand each other that then time doesn’t have to repeat itself showing us we’re the ones causing this “danger.” (!?) The very essence of how the human spirit responds to, and actually transcends trauma, can heal from impossible trauma even, this is some danger? What if we could heal what trauma does rather than CONSTANTLY using it as a means of population control, reinvesting in it rather than exposing what it really does. What if a society was possible without all of the of militarism, jails, educational institutions with grades, economies run on who gets money and who doesn’t, societies giving out rewards for anyone complying to their compromises, all built on “sin” that can only be eradicated by traumatizing the guilty.
Seriously, I touched upon a whole matrix of themes that went beyond time going round in circles, was cognitively in touch with what was being let go of to all for miracles, and then being stubborn enough to believe in one, and invest in it, when the physical healing took place, all of this stuff that was labeled as symptoms of “schizophrenia” became clear for what really the thought behind it was. But the investment wasn’t in fear. In fact to say “crazy” things, you have to already have shed that….
right?
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If anyone would read that book, they would see a very good take down of how Freud and Jung both covered up trauma, particularly sexual trauma, and made up bizarre psychotherapeutical methods like Freud did with his penis envy or mythological complexes, and Jung did this with his mental abstract constructs involving symbolism making up spooky mental almost superstitious like symbolism, while he actually thought Africans were inferior and a woman’s place was in the kitchen. That’s during the time when sexual abuse wasn’t talked about, it was taboo, and racial and gender discrimination were rampant. THAT however is not about current therapy trends that acknowledge trauma. Things have changed. And there are some very good therapists that use trauma based approaches, and mindfulness etc.
What does it express to share one book, take it out of context, and then say this proves all psychotherapists are bad? One can also share a book regarding the use of mercury as a medical treatment from the past, and then say all doctors are bad. Or one can share a book about Bambi, and say that this proves that the deer in the forest talk out of their mouth just like we do, as if that’s what it was about…
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Njinsky, What if deers talked in the forest like Bambi? That would be nice, but maybe they do. We just stop listening to them or hearing them. Once, at SeaWorld, I talked to a dolphin and we had a wonderful conversation. I talk to my cat everyday… And, if someone does believe in original sin, is that wrong, if it helps them to be a better person and conversely, if not believing in original sin, helps them to a better person. And, whether we like it or not, each person has the right to discuss their personal affairs with whomever they wis. Some people talk to barstenders. Others talk to their hair stylists. Some people talk to trees. I try not to judge others, but I am only human. And there is the paradox that is soon as I choose not to judge, I am judging myself or others. I really like the idea of “Live and Let Be.” Even I know all psychiatrists or psychotherapists are not bad or even evil, even though for me personally, it is not in my best interest for me avail myself of their services. However, I can only speak for myself. I can not speak for another. If it works for them, what can I say? I only ask that all viewpoints be respected. Personally, I prefer to share my secrets with cats or dolphins. “Animals” do not condemn others for their decisions, no matter what we silly humans think and try to impose on others. Thank you.
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Of course deer talk, they just use a different language that doesn’t involve the highly corrupt mental constructs humans have, where if you put something into words that can come out another’s mouth and make it sound good enough propped up with fabricated logic then it’s the truth.
Dolphins (and whales and primates) have as much of an experience of life as we do, Whales and Dolphins have been listed as non-human persons https://www.giveindia.org/blog/four-reasons-why-india-recognises-dolphins-as-non-human-persons/. Yes that’s very true that one can communicate telepathically with dolphins.
I don’t believe in original sin though, same as I don’t believe that it’s impossible to give without suffering loss, or that suffering is necessary for gain; nor that it’s unrealistic to forgive, nor that investing in those things don’t have a tangible effect that’s positive when you pay attention. No matter how much people think that’s crazy.
I think you can give without suffering loss, that’s where the word forgive comes from, I also think we’re meant to enjoy life, and that includes not taking part in all the stuff we’re supposed to with the no pain no gain ideology. Letting go of something to allow what’s beyond it that our ego can’t see, that’s no loss, either.
And back to the topic. The police are used all of the time in order to “police” it when someone is “mentally ill,” and a lot of that is because of someone having been coerced, advised or forced into taking medications that mess them up with side effect, or that have withdrawal symptoms; in fact Robert Whitaker points out such correlations real clearly. And it’s mostly starting when people are programmed to be alarmist about stuff they wouldn’t get points for being more tolerant or even interested in. What they really are doing is distracting themselves from what’s going on deeper in their “society,” and evading seeing what their compromises to fit in have done.
Even miracles now. I really discovered that what was called a mental illness was in ways my conscious mind learning how to integrate spiritual things. Only in trying to express so much you come across really scary phobic responses, which can make you so anxious you start disassociating from your real thoughts. So I had to even forgive myself for not being able to “fit in.”
So please, talk to dolphins, and the rest of nature…..
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Nijinsky, You state very important points again of which I have been trying to say. But you have said much better than I can or could. If my words have endangered anyone inside or outside the mental health system, it was not my intention. I do have my own personal opinions, of which are based on my experience with the system. I do not expect everyone to agree with everything I write because each person’s experience may be not the same. But, I do know one thing, the point you made about “militant inflexibility” is correct. “Militant inflexibility” or “Militant Radicalism” only tragically means that there will be many innocent casualties, such as the children of those who work in mental health. Children are and should be unable to dictate to their parents where to work. Actually, it does not do anyone any good to dictate or force your will upon another for any reason. It only causes heartbreak, resentment and worse for all concerned. Thank you, Njinisky for you thoughtful, intelligent response. Thank you.
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Rebel, I don’t see how what you say could have endangered anyone. i simply think that you don’t heal trauma by investing in looking at traumatizing others. And I think people have that much of an ability to create what they experience, what comes their way: if you invest in judging others to such a degree that you look for ways to hurt them, to traumatize them, no matter how just you think you’re acting, you’re causing the very thing you’re trying to prevent, and not just causing it, you’re perpetuating it. It’s like one kingdom, one empire after the other, each one with their propaganda as to why the prior one had to be destroyed, and it’s investing in being able to do that that causes the vicious cycle: it creates the ideology, it creates the weapons of war and societal resources, it glamorizes hatred and self righteous judgement. As you said, you don’t fight fire with fire, then you get burned. You also start the whole process quite blind seeing only what will perpetuate what you’re trying to stop, because that perpetuates it rather than it stops it.
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Removed for moderation.
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Thanks for this important story! Sending people ‘away’ for the comfort of others is always a bad idea. Sure short breaks and violent people may be a different situation – but very few hospitals are actually appropriately equipped to deal with crises or suicide attempts – and very few ‘ psychiatric wards’ holding people for the state mandatory amounts do not have appropriate staffing and more to make anything work at all. Certainly, we don’t want to leave those in emotional distress just on their own – but in the US and elsewhere we just don’t have adequate care and supports for people — and so we just send them away to facilities that we might not trust at all if we knew more about them – and places that are very willing to ‘practice’ the ever-emerging field of psychiatric medicine that is far too deeply connected to Pharmaceutical development and their lobbyists.
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