“Our once great cities,” President Trump declared on his campaign trail, “have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares.” He campaigned on a promise to “relocate” tent cities to large parcels of government land. At a time when nearly 10,000 unhoused adults and more than 2,000 unhoused children lived in Washington, DC, Trump ordered Mayor Muriel Bowser to remove homeless people from public sight. His order began with the removal of encampments and most recently included a 24-hour notice to remove all people living in tents near the State Department and the Capitol before the June 14, 2025, military parade on the President’s birthday. Trump is not the first to order people who can’t afford housing to be removed from public spaces. Indeed, it seems to have been a requisite action for cities hosting the Olympics and a core component of “urban renewal.”
Society’s practice of physically segregating privileged people from those they deem to be “less than” has deep roots. The deliberate practice of social segregation first seems to have come into use regarding issues of madness. “If someone should be mad,” wrote Plato in The Laws, “he is not to appear openly in the city.” The relatives were to guard the person in their homes. If no relatives or neighbors assumed responsibility, the individual with strange and erratic behavior would have to be kept in a hut on the town common at public expense.
In 1811, when the wealthy gentlemen of Boston grew tired of stumbling over persons who were loitering or obstructing their errands, they collectively contributed private funds and built “The Asylum for the Insane” across the Charles River. The Asylum opened in 1816 as part of Massachusetts General Hospital, and then was renamed after John McLean, a merchant and benefactor. By 1916 the Asylum had 8,000 public-funded patients. In 1844 Luther V. Bell, MD, McLean superintendent, and 12 other asylum superintendents from the eastern U.S., founded the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane—now known as the American Psychiatric Association. The Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital was placed out of sight across the river from the thriving city of Philadelphia. New York located the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum in Morningside Heights in upper Manhattan in 1816. Further segregation was accomplished by “Ugly Laws” which were passed in the late 1800’s in San Francisco, Reno, Portland, Chicago, New Orleans, New York, Denver, Columbus, Omaha. These “unsightly beggar” ordinances targeted the poor and disabled, with jail time and fines (See Susan M. Schweik, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public.)
In Raleigh, NC, six prominent families donated 2,354 acres in 1850 for Dorothea Dix Hospital (Dix Hill) specializing in the care of insanity. On a hill overlooking downtown Raleigh, the property encompassed an epileptic colony and 2200 acres for farms, dairies, and timber. Dix was inspired by the Moral Treatment ideas of Samuel Tuke, Philippe Pinel, and later, Benjamin Rush. Asylums were self-sufficient towns, not requiring interaction with the outside, featuring railroads, post offices, grounds for gardening, farming, outdoor sketching, swimming, and strolling. Residents contributed labor to their community in a well-ordered environment with exercise, quiet and safety. Above all, Dix insisted, residents must be treated with respect and dignity.
The Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum in Milledgeville, GA, which opened in 1842, became the largest mental asylum in the world. Operating on “the institution as family” model, with a specification that no rope or chain restraints were allowed, by 1960 there were 12,000 patients on 1,750 acres in more than 200 buildings, one for sterilization.
In 1854 Dix campaigned for Congress to pass the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane. The bill proposed to sell over 12 million acres of federal land and use the proceeds to build asylums all over the country. President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill on the grounds that caring for the poor and mentally ill was the responsibility of individual states. Dix argued that the way the states were treating their most vulnerable was a sure sign of their moral failure.
By the 1870’s almost all states had asylums for the insane funded by state dollars, supplemented by some private revenues. By 1900 the public asylums occupied 300,000 acres. The establishment of asylums coincided with a eugenics movement and infamously warehoused people deemed to be intellectually, morally or physically undesirable. By contrast, the affluent paid to stay in a private home with a noted physician where servants ministered to all their needs.
Doctors of Psychiatry, called Alienists, attacked Dix’s moral treatments as unscientific; other more respected physicians could remove the infected tissue. Even the Greek Democritus was praised by Hippocrates for cutting open animals looking for madness and melancholy. Alienists, therefore, turned their attention from the mind to the body. Believing that the mentally ill, like those with black bodies, had a diminished sense of pain, psychiatrists enacted harsh treatments on them: chilling, burning, bleeding, shocking, twirling, purging, and lobotomizing. But their methods were not curative, and the growing populations of patients resulted in crowded custodial institutions and fear of treatments.
Although Ronald Reagan is usually credited or blamed with deinstitutionalization, 20 years earlier John F. Kennedy had signed the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA), calling for a national network of 1500 community mental health centers (CMHCs) to treat those discharged from state hospitals. Less than half the community centers were ever built. The community did not welcome released patients near their suburbs, gated communities, shopping malls, schools, or in their physicians’ waiting rooms.
California led the way in establishing the legal basis for forcing mental health treatment on members of the public. In 1967 Governor Reagan signed the LPS Act establishing “Danger to Self” or “Danger to Others” as grounds for an involuntary 72-hour hold and evaluation, but it was Governor Gavin Newsom who signed an amended SB 43 to make it possible to also pick individuals up for being “Gravely Disabled.” Human Rights Watch posted a letter in opposition, saying “this bill expands the circumstances under which the State can deprive people of their autonomy and liberty, making it easier to remove both housed and unhoused people from society.” Being “Gravely Disabled” means not only the inability to provide food, clothing, and shelter for oneself, but also the inability to provide personal safety and medical care due to a mental health or substance use disorder, or both.
Dejà Vu
Removing people loitering and sleeping on public property from public view has a long history. What is unique in 2025 is a brutally transparent for-profit motive. First, the majority of the “homeless” are characterized as mentally ill— not as people who can’t afford housing. In the context of these policies aimed at erasing and containing unwanted populations, it is especially important to note that many people who can’t afford housing are full-time workers. In an article for The New York Times, April 8, 2025, Eliza Shapiro described 22 shelters on the outskirts of NYC for people who go to work every day. These Employment Shelters house librarians, Uber drivers, Amazon delivery staff, mental health counselors, home health aides, construction workers, line cooks, graduate student assistants, exterminators, police officers, cleaners, elementary teachers in public school.
Second, efforts to corral unhoused persons into forced treatment have been dramatically sharpened by weaponizing a diagnosis of anosognosia. The Treatment Advocacy Center defines Anosognosia, also called “lack of insight,” as “a biological condition that prevents some people with severe mental illness (SMI) from knowing they are experiencing symptoms of a brain disorder.” (In general medicine, being unaware of deficits is seen in hemiplegia after strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral palsy, and other motor impairments, all evident as brain lesions on neuroimaging.) If those living on the streets won’t accept treatment, a diagnosis of anosognosia enables states to arrest them for their own good. The primary disease the chronically homeless are unaware they have is Schizophrenia. NAMI’s spokesperson Dr. Xavier Amador claims that up to 98% of folks with true schizophrenia have anosognosia which could be called a “reality denial syndrome.” There is a potentially expansive market for treating schizophrenia. According to Mindsite News April 2024, research spending was $239 per person with Alzheimer’s, $109 for Autism, but only $64 for Schizophrenia.
In a similar drive to enforce medicalization of the houseless, California enacted the Community Assistance, Recovery & Empowerment (CARE) Act in 2022 to be phased in by all counties by December 2024. Under the CARE Act, the number of people forced into taking medication has been “massive” according to Conor Gallagher .(See www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/01/californias-plan-to-disappear-the-homeless.html) While those who voted for the CARE Act might have pictured nice social workers and certified peer support staff offering pills, juice, resource lists, and a smile to outpatients, what is actually delivered can be long-term decanoate injections of anti-psychotics that last up to 40 days.
The pharmaceutical industry continues to reap profits not only from the forced medication of poor people, but also from the development of expensive drugs and personalized care for the wealthy with addiction and mental health diagnoses. For example, Privé-Swiss on the Connecticut shore costs 20 thousand a week. In the same league are the Sylvia Brafman Mental Health Center and Tikvah Lake for executives in FL. While North Carolina’s public behavioral health program under Managed Care in the mid 2000’s tried to limit psychiatric hospital stays to three days, private residential time in luxury centers is frequently 365 days or longer.
Big Pharma is fast-tracking expensive drugs for treatment of the seriously mentally ill and all those who do not admit they are SMI. Bristol Myers Squibb’s KAR XT is projected to earn 7 billion by 2028. (KAR XT for schizophrenia had the highest patient discontinuation rate in clinical trials.) By successfully lobbying to remove so-called red tape from the approval process, Big Pharma has made it easier to obtain expensive psychiatric drugs. As of February 24, 2025 prescribers, pharmacies, and patients are not required to report weekly absolute neutrophil (white blood cell) count before dispensing Clozapine, thus increasing access and billing. New Jersey is leading the way in eliminating prior authorizations for the latest medicines, before trying older, cheaper ones.
As the federal government defunds suicide prevention at least 300 new drugs for depression are being developed with 163 in phase 1 trials, according to Datamonitor and Biomedtracker. The market is only expanding; there was already a 64% increase in use of anti-depressants since 2020 by adolescents and young adults according to Kao Chua, MD, PhD at the University of Michigan, reported by Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, November 21, 2024. Pfizer who makes the two most prescribed drugs for depression, bankrolled the PHQ9 used by Primary Care physicians as a depression scale. (See Dr. James Davies’ You Tube “Ethical Matters: Mental Health, Capitalism and the Sedation of a Nation.”)
MAGA Ethics for “Those Who Matter”
On June 13, 2025, RFK. Jr. announced the appointment of Jim O’Neil, CEO of the Thiel Foundation, as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. Peter Andras Thiel, born in West Germany in 1967, who put the first outside money into Facebook, then PayPal, is now the chairman of Palantir with ICE and IRS contracts to perform data analytics and automate decisions. In his CS 183 class at Stanford on Startups, back in 2012, kept alive by the posting of student notes, Thiel divided humanity into those who are Outsiders (weak, disagreeable, dumb, and poor) and the Insiders (having strength, charisma, beauty, high intelligence, and wealth.) Thiel is said to have inspired J. D. Vance with a university lecture and then bankrolled Vance’s senate race. While the new administration signed orders, bills, and filed lawsuits, Elon Musk used chainsaw tactics on government agencies. He referred to faith leaders from Bishop Mariann Budde and Rev. Dr. William Barber to Popes Francis and Leo, who criticized DOGE’s abrupt cuts of people and safety net programs, as mere “NPC’s” or Non-Playing Characters. They do not interfere, he said, with “Those Who Matter.”
Profitable corporations matter. According to a report from JAMA-health-forum Network, more than three-fourths of physicians in 2024 were already employed by for profit health systems such as:
Acadia Healthcare Company, the leading for-profit provider in the US, operates 258 facilities in 38 states and Puerto Rico, headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee. Acadia Pharmaceuticals prompts consumers to “Elevate Life.”
UnitedHealth Group, whose CEO was assassinated in December 2024, by L.M., instantly becoming a folk hero, uses algorithms to cut off patient care. UnitedHealth has nationwide bought up surgery centers and specialty pharmacies and offered private for-profit Advantage Plans, heavily touted by the AARP which claims a membership of 110 million. Headquartered in Wisconsin, United Healthcare keeps exceeding Wall St. profit estimates.
Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) turned non-profit Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC, into a for-profit business largely by cutting staff, supplies, and services like delivering babies and wound care. Mission joined almost 300 HCA for profit hospitals around the country.
Can profits be generated from encampments on federal land? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., director of Health and Human Services, has said that he will open “Wellness Farms” with proper diet and exercise where the “damaged” will be put to full time work growing organic food. As we witness the development of internment camps for farmworkers and immigrants, it is important to ask if Wellness Farms of the urban houseless will be part of a forced labor project. The polio vaccine was tested at Letchworth Villages in NY (1911-1996). Certainly, private prison systems today regularly induce inmates to participate in drug trials. Might the internment camps beta-test Elon Musk’s products for brain injuries? Tesla’s innovative wheelchair? Could those cleared out to make America’s cities look more beautiful and prosperous be trained as servants for the tech innovators in the ten Freedom Cities? Without transparency and accountability for those “out of sight,” the possibilities are as terrifying as they are limitless.
The Age of Avarice and Acquisition, not Aquarius
While society has long been deeply flawed, it has been flawed despite collective efforts to care for and about each other. What would a government be like with freedom from all civic responsibility? The MAGA idea of monarchy is only big because there are billions of dollars behind it. “Might makes right” is an aphorism which asserts that those who hold power are the origin of morality; they control a society’s view of right and wrong. The Book of Wisdom (Apocrypha) written around the first century BC, describes the reasoning of the wicked: “Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.” Rooting out “weak members of society,” according to Sally Edelstein in “Down on the Farm,” February 2025, fascists and oligarchs usually target “minorities, queer people, feminists, liberals, and people with disabilities.”
“Might makes right” is the credo of totalitarianism. Back in May 2015, Pope Francis’ Encyclical letter said that “immense inequality, injustice and acts of violence” have arisen from adoption of the principle of “might is right.” He spoke about it again days before his death. Abraham Lincoln in his Cooper Union campaign address in 1860 addressed the Southern Democrats who wanted to preserve the economy of enslaving people: “Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please.…” Lincoln accused them of wanting to “rule or ruin” the government. He then reversed the phrase: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” America will never be Healthy—or Great Again—without Caring Again.
****
Disclaimer
To former colleagues and those I know from social media who have labored long as activists to get attention for the intersection of “the homeless” and the “mentally ill”: I acknowledge that a small percentage of those counted as “the homeless” choose a lifestyle without rules or financial burdens. And I have known homeless veterans who could not tolerate being enclosed in a room after they were imprisoned in cages in Cambodia or Vietnam. I also acknowledge the tragic cases of teens, adults and elderly refusing attention to their mental health who then kill themselves or inflict violence on others.
Regrettably, there is no social media list as large as NAMI’s or TAC’s to tell the equally tragic stories of mental health patients whose bodies became completely rigid, whose tongues involuntarily, constantly circled their lips, who could never have an erection, who could not remember their children’s names, whose faces lost all expression, who couldn’t get out of bed for water, who had metabolic syndrome, who became morbidly obese, who were unable to sit still day and night, disturbing others, in shelters and jails, being evicted from programs, dorms, and family homes. There is no sympathy list for those who have trusted mental health providers, only to receive a diagnosis, a label, that destroyed their lives by denying their credibility, their prospects of a future, and invalidating their personal and social relationships.
I grew up in Atlanta where “bad” children did not go to hell, but to Milledgeville. I was involved with the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement in both California and North Carolina. I have been a beneficiary of SAMHSA opportunities and grants. I have been certified as a Psycho-Social Rehabilitation Practitioner by Boston University and a Certified Peer Support Specialist. I persist in believing in human rights, mutuality, non-coercion, non-violence, and choice. I persist in this belief because I know how it feels to be treated with dignity and respect, to live with hope and purpose, for myself and others, and to find community in safe spaces created by others deemed maladjusted.
Bonnie J. Henderson Schell
July 16, 2025
Though this piece contains a lot of history, I take it basically as an opinion piece.
This problem has been with us for a very long time and is in fact the reason that Earth exists in its current form.
Here the homeless are characterized as “people who cannot afford housing.” Though that may be technically correct, it does not exactly represent the reality on the ground. Studies have shown that many if not most of these people are drug addicts or have similar problems. The expense of their addictions, as well as the effects the drugs have on them, are the reasons they cannot afford, or perhaps tolerate, to have a roof over their heads.
The real problem is the way modern life can break people, with no effective methods for putting them back together. Modern society tends to be careless about people; its willingness or responsibility to see to the general happiness and welfare of its members tends to be weak or absent. Everything is handled through bureaucratic systems that never seem to work well. A true sense of community has been lost.
The “mental health system,” if it existed in fact and not just in name, could be a major driver in correcting this problem. Its clients would include many leaders and members of “the elite,” as many of them are demonstrably emotionally or mentally disturbed and unable or unwilling to do their jobs. It would pass many “poor people” (victims of society’s lack of responsibility) over to a welfare system which would ideally actually take care of them properly. And we can imagine that these problems would eventually recede and become quite manageable.
Except for a few of us who live in Fairy Land, we all know that this in not how things are right now. But I don’t see complaining about it as all that helpful. The elites have reasons for behaving as they do; some might even be good reasons. They don’t share those with us, as they have a tradition of acting privately, if not secretly. Attempts to tear down that privacy – as evidenced by the recent Epstein affair – are usually successfully resisted. The elites have a lot of power, and they use it to protect themselves. They also use it – presumably – to protect us. They just can’t tell us about all that.
The ultimate resolution would be better mental health for all involved. And that’s what this website is all about. We all already know that our political and social systems are basically insane. The “mental health system” should be working to fix that, but it isn’t. That is our challenge.
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“The elites have a lot of power, and they use it to protect themselves.” And they utilize today’s “mental health” industries to do this for them.
“We all already know that our political and social systems are basically insane. The ‘mental health system’ should be working to fix that, but it isn’t. That is our challenge.”
I agree, we need to get rid of Western civilization’s “insane” “political and social systems” … today’s “insane” societal problems are basically the same problematic industries, as Jesus spoke out against over 2000 years ago … +psychiatry and psychology, et al.
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OK. But the West isn’t the only place where these things are crazy. The West is currently more powerful, but that could change.
I don’t see “getting rid” of the systems as an option. The West is not going to go away. And neither will the East or the Global South. We have to make these systems work – everywhere.
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I’ve never said the West is “the only place where these things are crazy.”
“I don’t see ‘getting rid’ of the systems as an option.” Why not? Have you ever really thought about it? Maybe, as I believe, the “systems” are too corrupted, and by design, to bother even trying to fix?
The psych industries are just one large instance. For example, by DSM design, no “mental health professional” to this day, may ever bill to help any child abuse survivor ever … since that is missing from their debunked DSM billing code “bible.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
Perhaps, some “systems” are too paternalistically designed, and for evil intent, like systemically covering up child abuse, to even bother trying to reform.
But, psychiatry would have to clean up the societal mess which they’ve created, which will take time. So a bad paternalistic “system,” like the “mental health system,” IMHO, should be weaned out of existence.
I’m not a believer in the concept God created “mental illness.” But as a psychopharmacology researcher, I do know the psychiatrists and other MDs do, with the psych drugs.
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If by “system” you mean “how the activity is organized now” then I can agree with you that many systems need to go. But they will be replaced, so we need good ideas about what that would look like.
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Oh, one other topic that I thought about recently, which I’ve not yet seen discussed here, but think it should be. Is the fact that the US is supposed to have separation of church and state.
But since both the religions and the state have social workers … that means we don’t have separation of church and state (not to the mention the 501c3 issue). But that is one other large systemic crime of the “mental health” industries, at least in the US.
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During the Enlightenment the idea arose that it might be better for governments to be strictly secular. The kings, pharaohs, and emperors of older times sought to maintain a popular impression that they had some connection with The Divine that gave them the right to rule.
Democracy, particularly in the U.S., was seen as a way to remove this (often quite deceptive) idea by giving the government the right to rule only by popular mandate. It then made sense to also stipulate that no laws could be passed regarding the establishment of religion.
Meanwhile, the “new” subject of “modern psychology” was taking shape and being used by its proponents to influence all sectors of society, including government and religion, as well as education. In some ways it could be seen as establishing a sort of secular religion whose proponents could then mingle with church people or government people as they chose, without being detected as proselytizers for a new faith. And thus modern psychology” won over the state, most of academia and many churches as well. Some of its most effective advocates are “social workers.” My father used to teach them.
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Interesting, but that history only points out a big – sin, crime, whatever you want to call it – of the US psychological community.
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I have trouble wrapping my mind around the behaviors and speech snippets of those in power who somehow escape being carted off stage in a straight jacket.
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Great documentation! I may have missed the reference! Where or when did you begin to think of yourself as a citizen? To the extent you were able to realize the legal to assist with the challenge? I tracked in a similar way, though the experience through Voc Rehab became an issue. To really understand the South or North, East or West, seems as if a whole bunch of people are enslaved. Having said this, am reminded of the song Glen Campbell would sing about Arkansas, the Land of Opportunity until the name was tagline was changed to “The Natural State”!!!
And in our age, recall how Faubus would meet Eisenhower and built the next generation of mental hospital, that emerged from Kennedy. When I would start the city planning program at OU in Norman, the social worker Wayne Chess would be having lunch with President Carter to expand the community mental health program. But I had yet to understand the nature of being labelled or accepting the aggregate name, “The Mentally Ill”. One has to travel into Hell and back and then explain many times the problems. Somehow, though in traveling back to Arkansas and advocating for Justice, there seems to be an expression from business and all levels of governance, of people as well as organizaitonal behavior to run away from the word and label imparted. We might take a bit longer or shorter, depending on what technologies we have experimented with or on! But as my 11 grade Teacher conveyed, perhaps the South will Rise Again, about like biscuits and gravey! When folks get the facts, the road and path will turn to hum like a bird and sting like a bee! Understand the conditions that made the South Mad, hot enough to fry the egg on the car seat!
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A good article about how social ‘mental health’ issues are being exploited by governments. Let me add something.
The hidden truths that mainstream psychopath psychiatry and mainstream psychopath psychiatrists hide from “patients, their families, governments, societies, the media, and the public.” These hidden truths… only a few people know.
Financial harms and fatal outcomes caused by psychiatric drugs..
————–
Psychiatric drugs (no medications –> psychiatric narcotics) =
1) = People taking psychiatric drugs can being catch from “chemically induced brain damage (Chemical Lobotomy).”
2) = The ‘natural psychological problems (mental illnesses)’ of people using psychiatric drugs can become PERMANENT and increase.
3) = People who use psychiatric drugs may become prone to violence, murder and suicide.
4) = People who use psychiatric drugs can develop a variety of permanent and fatal mental and physical illnesses.
5) = The fate of people who being catch a “chemical lobotomy” caused by psychiatric drugs may end up in mental health facilities such as ‘mental hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, care homes and rehabilitation centers’ “until they die.”
6) = Psychiatric drugs = DEATH — Probably… An ‘untold number’ of millions of people are maimed (injured) and KILLED by psychiatric drugs every year.
***
Material losses (damages /harms) of the states…
———
1) = States spend their financial resources… on “social, sociological, and health problems” such as “mental and physical illnesses and disorders, social and public disruptions, disruption of social peace, family disintegration,” etc., caused by toxic psychiatric drugs.
(In other words, state resources are being spent to compensate for and/or perpetuate the harms caused by psychiatric drugs; in other words, they are being wasted.)
2) = And governments they’re wasting their financial resources on psychiatric drug industries and existing, broken and dangerous mental health systems.
(In other words… States are wasting their financial resources on ‘maintaining the current ‘mental health system’ that creates socially dangerous problems, maims and kills people’; in other words, they are wasting state financial resources. (This is actually the biggest waste of money.)
There’s probably more, but these are the ones I know. Readers can write the rest. Best regards.
With my best wishes. 🙂 Y.E (Researcher blog wrieter (Blogger))
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I like the term “psychiatric narcotics” because that’s exactly what psychiatric “medications” amount to.
It’s time to put an end to the over-prescription of emotional anesthetics.
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Exactly. Psychiatric drugs (are not medications /medicines); are versions made pill of illegal street drugs like marijuana, heroin and cocaine. They are narcotics. They are sold in pharmacies. But they are viewed as “medicines.” Patients, their families, individuals, societies, governments, and the public (media) are deceived. Patients are disabled and die from these psychiatric narcotics. This is the “raison d’être” of the psychiatric drug industry and mainstream psychiatry. Thanks Birdsong.
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Thanks Yildirim 🙂
The only reason psychiatry stays afloat is its ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Its “thought leaders” were smart enough to plan for that back in the late seventies, early eighties, just before the rollout of Prozac on the market.
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Bill, you are quite right that we do not kjnow or understand the Community Mental Health movement and its power dynamics and true motivation. Do you think it began with Carter?
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“In 1955, Congress passed the Mental Health Study Act, leading to the establishment of the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Mental Health. That Commission issued a report in 1961, which would become the basis of the 1963 Act.” This is from Wikipedia.
The report provided by the Joint Commission in 1961 was 384 pages long. As I understand, it was written mostly by doctors. Psychiatrist Kenneth E. Appel was the principle author.
A bill was passed and signed by JFK to fund the construction of community mental health clinics. Historically, this was the beginning of psychiatry coming out of the shadows of state hospitals and private practices and into communities, with the help of public funds.
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Larry, your findings are so interesting. There was almost legislatyive movement into the community before th e public heard about cvlosing down Asyhlums.Your 1955 date is critical because 1954-55 was introduction of first psychoactiv/neuroleptic drug: Thorazine.choloropromazine.
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“Emotional anesthetics”–the pursuit of deadening the pain from/of our feelings. Is that what you mean?
Do you think this pursuit is greater in teens and adults than it was in the past? Any ideas as to why?
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Clearly, it is much greater. And I think largely because of the drive by the pharmaceutical companies and psychiatry to see
ll the idea that drugs are the answer to mental/emotional suffering. Many don’t even know there are other options!
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Other options don’t push their product on television. Feeling your life has no purpose? Ask your doctor about prescribing ________.
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YE, there is testimony from users and research backing up all your points on the negative effects of psych drugs, but psychiatry is in a bind, isn’t it? What else does it offer? I’ve read that students are not entering the field. Some young psychiatrists are choosing to do something else. To say essentially “I will not serve.”
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The first thing that comes to mind is how awful it is to be indoors too much even when you are well. How coercive will the housing arrangements be?
But, even before the ailing homeless people can be housed they have to be medically cleared. When they have hepatitis, infectious diseases, boils, etc. they need to be treated. I think it would be more merciful to set up fresh air medical clinics. Allow them to sleep in the fresh air under tents or canopies with enough staff support that they don’t have to fear for their safety. For some, it might be the turning point toward hope.
Psychiatric Coercion is Known For Being Cruel. If we put ourselves in the place of the homeless , we could imagine how some forms of coercion might not be so bad IF It Actually Made Us FEEL BETTER, if IT DIDN’T GIVE US TORTUROUS SIDE EFFECTS, ETC.
As for Housing:
I recall the young man with an MH diagnosis who posted on social media in recent years that the activity in the hallway of his high rise , subsidized building was chaotic and unsafe and he wanted out. Studies in Environmental Psychology of the 1970s reported that apartment buildings higher than three floors had predictably more crime and social problems. It’s been at least fifty years and the same factors for misery persist, yet I have hope for change .
Psychiatry’s conflicts of interest usurp the ethical duty to be up-to-date and to embrace the best science of the Foundations of Health which points to our holistic nature and needs. Psychiatry’s toxic paradigm engenders perpetuation of social decay, hopelessness, and addictions.
I don’t want to succumb to feeling that “telling our stories” doesn’t work as impetus for change. Everything changes. I think we need to double down to expose how the Mental Health system COVERS UP the dynamics of the harm it causes; there is still a lot to unpack and boldly expose.
We have science and forensics on our side. Science includes that Evidence-Based natural and safer therapies exist and they are neglected in Translational Lag , i.e, the failure to apply those new alternatives to clinical practice. The harm from Translational Lag dovetails with the Forensics; the toxic injuries have been routinely forced on patients in context of Translational Lag . To this we add the testimonies of families and survivors re: falsification of records, the misuse of the courts, etc, etc. I think we all need to do more to keep the abuses in the news and to educate and confront elected officials.
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What a “breath of fresh air” comes with your observations, C arol. I wonder how many psychiatrists have ever physically even visited a high rise Adult Care facility? Or tried to sleep in a city homeless shelter unafraid? I had a dear friend, indigenous person whose father played the Big Silent Indian in many HOllywood movies. She had been taught to sleep under the stars when facing a decision. And she lost her public housing spot everytime she did!
My relatives on the farm in GA always had a “sleeping porch” where young people and anyone who was sick or had wounds slept in the fresh air.
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A frightening wake-up call for what looks impossible to stop.
It’s horrifying the ease with which a eugenicized worldview flourishes in times of extreme economic disparity.
But no one lives forever, not even the wicked.
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My conclusion about why these problems are so intransigent is that it is precisely because people DO live forever. And that very much includes the wicked.
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Not sure I understand what you mean.
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to birdsong and Larry: have you seen the constant investment ad on LinkedIn for anti-aging clinics promoting Serotonin. Ever heard of this treatment? I only know about SSRI’s.
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I’ve never seen that.
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I have no data on this.
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I believe in reincarnation and the immortality of the basic personality. When a personality becomes sufficiently contaminated, it may turn to evil, and this habit may continue for many lifetimes.
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Interesting. Sounds kind of like intergenerational trauma or epigenetics.
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“Wellness Farms”. “Care courts”.
All the euphemisms in the world won’t change the fact that bad things happen to the most vulnerable when mental health care is profit driven.
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“All the euphemisms in the world won’t change the fact that bad things happen to the most vulnerable when mental health care is profit driven.”–So True.
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Thank you for the work you do. What you wrote was very humbling to read.
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One thing not mentioned in this thread of conversation and touched on in the article but only topically is the use of the medical differential diagnosis. The protocol for medical doctors and others is suppose to be a list of different diagnosis. A long time ago in the community mental health field one as a clinician had three visits at one hour to come up with a dx. No longer as far as I know.
Any human group or population has many many issues that are seen externally in behavior or speech that are not the result of a leap or push into an altered mental state. I do not think there has ever been a comprehensive look at external and internal factors for altered states or homelessness.
In the news the issue of CTE has come up again. TBI another issue and environmental concerns like the miliinary workers in felt factories. England like with Dr Snow and his water sanitation research got onto this far earlier than the United States.
Lead is an issue. And psychiatry has done so much damage with its one or three types of diagnosis fits all.
And in regards to today’s discussion on Open Dialogue I would like to see how they use differential diagnosis as a tool.
One would think a history of sports playing, falls, car accidents would be standard. Just as standard as a family general and life review would be standard. Who are you as a human being in this world?
The females in this world on both sides are usually removed from discussion. As are children of parents in any sort of crisis.
Obviously many folks in and around healthcare today don’t care. The profit based thinking and the idea of using billable hours in healthcare and the helping professionals has strangled people literally and figuratively.
The old adage of church is gone when you are in the parking lot leaving is just as true in therapy. The Western European standard of more than a century ago I think has never changed except for psychoanalysis and its daily or thrice weekly meetings. No 15 minute med checks for that crowd!
The old settlement houses and other thinking some utopian and many many attempts and failures but the concept of life 24/7 is also part of the external understanding of humans and also part of a support network seen in Settlement Houses or Friendship houses or old medical and sometimes now abbeys and monasteries or retreat centers. But if in a major crisis the crisis that breaks the camels back ( see Always the film and the discussion of one only so many allotted saves in life and then the risk becomes real) there needs to be more than what is available in the community or integrated into the community.
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Mary, you give us so much to think about! A differential medical diagnosis? Three total face to face hours to know the patient’s life and history? A doctor who actually feels your thyroid gland? My experience is that if you have insurance and make a doctor’s appointment due to concern over a symptom/pain/change in your functioning and thinking, every imaging and lab test your insurance covers will be ordered. If there is an expensive treatment for a diagnosis, you will get it. If not, you may never discuss tests and labs with anybody at all. There are check sheets which may not ask the right questions particular to you. Algorhythems (sp?). Go to an oncologist, you will be treated for cancer, never inflammation, infection, fungus. or an auto-immune disorder. I don’t think we are dealing with medical doctors any longer. We are dealing with insurance middle persons and doctors who march to the beat of he who helps them pay off their student loans.
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Well Bonnie there is not a big rush to go into any healthcare profession and the use of students from other countries used to help fill the gaps but with the current administration less help because of fear issues. Lots of retirements as well.
There used to be a significant presence of activism in healthcare and some people in psychiatry( not just the usual names in speaking out against psychiatry) in the sixties. Robert Coles, Benjamin Spock and at least two others who were part of the Freedom Rides in the early sixties Civil Rights work. But the use of chemistry not only compromised folks but also put a stomp on activism by docs. Robert Coles wrote books and I don’t think the APA or the companies wanted that because it hurt the bottom line. The Lomax Family three generations went into prisons, the hollers, everywhere to gather song and music. Ethnography. Kind of what Robert Coles did. Home visits were once a thing and then not.I was in a short lived program.
And lots of issues with psychiatry in the sixties but least a bit of awareness and a bit of vim and vigor. We need something new but folks still in dire straights now.
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The other issue is what I call the Nothern Expisure issue. Since WWII medical schools and hospitals with internships and residencies drew from in part other countries. Fine and we live in a post global world so yes no problem . However by doing so the schools and hospitals surpressed the ability of indigenous people and African Americans and the Latino folks to gain entry. Howard Mecical School was the main one and I know of no equivalent for the indigenous or Hispanic population.
So in the tv show we have a lovey show but the premise and true is why are you sending a New Yorker and where is the newly graduated doc from Alaska? This happened all over with the lovely idea of having newly graduated docs to work in underserved populations. Not many folks asked well why are they underserved?
The other issue with not having folks from the localities is that at times it helps to come from the area. One knows. Other times a new perspective is helpful. There never was a lot of looking at who you are as a helper in training and how to let the people help you. Not only an Aescoplian sp? contract but also at the same time a team contract.
This lack created many problems. So one would get a doctor from another country from an elite patriarchal family interacting with say a sharecropper in Misssissippi. Only if the new doc was a innate healer would this work well because our culture despite all our diversity never had tools for this. And add on in psychiatry the overwhelming pill as only solution you get today. So a wide and deep range of folks and systems and institutions responsible and not many willing to admit and make amends which is completely and utterly tragic for all of us as stress and traumatic events continue to rise. We need courageous people academics and others in all healthcare roles to stand up and if necessary walk away til something changes.
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you wrote: “So one would get a doctor from another country from an elite patriarchal family interacting with say a sharecropper in Misssissippi. Only if the new doc was a innate healer would this work well because our culture despite all our diversity never had tools for this.” Great point I have never considered. Many acquaintances actually like “foreign” doctors in all specialties because they seem to listen, share more information, practice partnership in decision making. On the other hand most Americans are disappointed in a physician visit if they do not get a prescription. Have you seen this?
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Well for awhile and thanks it all depends on the humans involved Julie. Yes the better living through chemistry tag line of Madison Ave was common. Also though there was a big push for antidepressants and anti anxiety and Ivwas st the tale end of the community mental health center was kind of cutting edge no medical based and then medicine took over.
Some people are inate healers though a medical degree or any degree does not guarantee this.
I hear about in underserved rural areas and there was in the hollers a fear about anybody coming in regardless. One one adds to that accents on both sides it becomes problematic. And zI knew doctors who went into those underserved areas and it was a clash of cultures abd not many tools.
I did not understand my Appalachia clients until I visited and also saw a commonality with some out of country relatives who lived in a rural area. There is a framework and if one is unaware one can easily put their own framework on to folks in terms of many things such as rational thinking. Sometimes two Englishbdoedkers need an interpreter for both the gap is so wide. This goes for other disabilities such as deafness.
To heal one needs to know the territory.
One Boring Old Man okdcwebdite talked of this from a retired academic psychiatrist treating rural people in retirement. He was gobsmacked and tried hard to reverse the course of only medicine can help viewpoint. The website still may be available or archived. Dr DiNardo from Georgia.
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Thank you Bonnie for the article. I read statistics haldol when brought in caused 2 million deaths in first year . You covered so much i want to finish it with psychiatry in ww2 bought in the death camps eugenics in Germany and all over the world were perpetrating as now crimes against humanity. When as in depression after ww2 much money was made on the backs of the poor many got rich oppressing them in commerce etc. The culture of death as pope John Paul spoke of and more.we are moving into a global holocaust especially USA and advent of Ai that has no conscience, when we have serious problem with unemployment Ai makes 3 jobs capable of one employee to do the job and humanely…Ai controlled. Profiles have no conscience much like the group delusions of psychiatry with mass disabling mass sterilization mass torture is compassionate and an art form of the theatre noire snuff films by psychiatrists of those you have blamed for their victimization those you are prejudiced against and discriminate against…those free and with human rights in history have advanced society and given much to humanity now lay dead again as in my heroes of ww2 antiproganda is important so is the united nations to get the funding to stop this tirade against humanity and the dignity resilience of the human mind and human being. The rich are getting richer and more vocal tyrannical against the impoverished voiceless and weak ever easily oppressed and subjugated to the will of the majority the poor and disimpowered are not your meal ticket. These are the points i wanted to make. That’s the royal we as in the royal you lol thanks for your information Satan knows his time is short thus the last grab at his Tyranny of the world
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Rebecca, you raise so many points in your comment. Way back in the 70s psychiatric liberation activists were carryingsigns at protests which read “Housing not Haldol. World War II left many victims whom we called Shell shocked. I read that part of the increase in some areas in California of the homeless who seem to be also insane was a result of the gold rush. Many people went to California for a new life and lost everything, even the ability to go home. Rebecca, if there is a global holocaust coming or already here, who or what is directing it? Like to know your thoughts.
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The “mentally ill” are among the first to be disappeared as a rule.
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