Their not banning firearms so you don’t hurt yourself, they are banning them so you don’t hurt others.
We can bring our grandparents capitalism back, where it is centered on an honest days work for an honest days pay.
In that type of capitalism you can profit ethically from treating the mentally ill.
There is nothing wrong with having people involuntarily committed for posing a danger to themselves or others, as long as the person who is making the accusations is held accountable and helped as well.
Most of the time the people who have someone involuntarily committed have mental issues themselves, so this is a good way to get the whole family treated.
You want the website to deny my freedom of speech, because I speak out against the mentally ills freedom to remain in society when they present an immediate danger?
That is why this website and its advocates will never make progress in solving their problems.
There is no common sense or reason relating to the protection of liberty.
Here is a hint for everyone, when in doubt look at the order of America’s constitution for a guide.
The right to life comes before the right to liberty, and the right to life and liberty comes before the right to the pursuit of happiness.
When you deny someone’s freedom of speech in order to protect the mentally ill who are a danger to someone’s right to life, you are not guided by the right moral compass.
This is why America is the best country in the world.
The mentally ill do things that reasonable people think is a danger to the community, their freedom must be taken when they threaten another persons freedom to live.
There is mental illness, it is a sickness when you are not happy.
There is a disorder that needs to be treated, many mentally ill people have extreme forms where they can’t distinguish what is real from what is not.
You can’t deny these people help from a moral high ground.
You are a victim of Ronald Reagan, he stopped funding mental health in the eighties and you must have endured a lot of abuse as a result during your stays.
I must enlighten you to the fact that mental health can function properly if it was properly funded, and had the right motives like compassion instead of making money.
There is a place for making money, but it has to be done to lift others up not bring others down.
Whose going to pay for you to get treated for your mental illness when you become a danger to society?
Capitalism or socialism will get you the necessary care until you are able to function as a normal person in society, whether that is holding a job and supporting yourself or just not being a nuisance to society when you are off your medications and causing a scene in public.
Don’t step out of line, and the men won’t come and take you away
Oldhead for Christ sake you speak as if you are a slave because you were involuntarily committed for a few weeks?
There were actual slaves had much worse lives than you.
Then liberalism is your friend if you want to ban speech, and consider mentally illness has prejudiced speech.
To Alex force is okay when you use it, but not the state?
You don’t fight wrong with wrong, violence with violence, or hate with hate, that is why you’re mentally ill.
You are too easily insulted that is your problem, and you really harm serious mental patients with your sensitive views.
I am giving you the tools not to lose your freedom again to the mental hospital, if you learn to control your aggression society has no reason to see you as a risk to their safety.
Learn what kind of victim you are, a spoiled mental patient who is overly sensitive, or one that has real problems like no support system, love, money, shelter, etc…
Psychiatry sees people like you and judges everyone in the same light, which just causes more problems and perpetuates the very fears you have for others and yourself.
When you lose your mind in the process of believing dishonest delusions you created, people who aren’t offended by being forcibly helped aren’t able to be saved.
Again for all of you, choose the lesser evil until you able to choose the greater good, or you’ll be left with the greatest evil. This is evident by the mentally ill who don’t have your luxury of complaining from your arm chairs at the moment because they aren’t being helped.
Don’t be triggered into distress from the truth, emotional and psychological distress increases the odds of violence.
These drugs are societies quick fix to keeping the victims of society quiet until they can fix it. There are people on these medications since the 90’s, and they are still working to fix the problems.
My advice to the mentally ill is to be honest so the wait does not take longer.
Don’t fear the truth it will make your mental illness worse, embrace it.
The mentally ill are useless eaters to society, they depend on the government for money.
And its true the mentally ill are prone to violence, you guys are too politically correct to the point of dishonesty, and it is defeating your cause.
Accept that we are dependent, vulnerable, defenseless, and weak, or they will continue to euthanize the mentally ill as they do now with lack of compassion in the form of little social assistance, prisons, homelessness, and medical treatment based on greed rather than compassion.
They are aware of what Hitler did, but if you are not honest with yourselves and accept that you are a victim, they will not treat you like one and give you the help you are entitled too.
If proper help was given this fear and anxiety from losing liberty to the mental hospital will not exist to begin with.
Your inability to control your aggression is why you are a mental patient, you only give society a good excuse to put you away when you can’t control your anger and be civilized.
I suggest that you look at things with love and compassion, and practice unconditional forgiveness, showing compassion to receive compassion, and helping others without expecting anything in return from them.
You will be able to defend against those who you fear will steal your liberty through passive resistance, rather than active resistance which they will provoke you into.
None of us are perfect and we all are prone to lose our cool, but it is the weakest of us such as the mentally ill who must bare the biggest burden of this unfortunately, since they have the least amount of tolerance afforded to them as the rest of society in dealing with oppression.
I hope you learn to embrace your victim-hood as a mental patient which is how society labels you, so that your labors don’t enable your oppressors who label you that way and harm everyone like you.
No they don’t for capitalism to thrive it must profit, there are many people happy to be on medications.
We shouldn’t deny the ones who consent to medications to protect the ones who don’t consent to them.
It is our responsibility to tell people all the risks associated with medications, and let them make an informed free choice without biased information.
I have stated many times the medications are over prescribed, but we can’t generalize and be dishonest that medications don’t have a place.
You must have seen people who are too far away from reality, that medications would help them.
Mcrea those programs aren’t working because no one is funding them.
People will fund forced treatments because the insurers pay for it.
The mentally ill are already homeless and in prisons who aren’t being forcibly treated, so its not a logical fallacy to assume that abolishing forced treatment will not increase those numbers.
(“Help” that is forced isn’t “help”. I wouldn’t say this is necessarily true “100 % of the time, but it is true in the vast majority of cases. I know that mental health professionals often don’t work in their clients interests, but rather, in the interests of their family or the state. “Helping” the government put me away does not mean that I am being “helped” in the slightest.”)
There are really no statistics to back these claims, though forced treatment appears misused a small number of times in my opinion.
When it is misused it is a grave injustice to the patient, and I agree it needs to be revised and monitored for what is the worst case.
Many people are beneficiaries of forced treatment because the absence of treatment in American society is far more dangerous.
Where would you want them to be in prison or homeless, or forcibly treated?
Choose the lesser evil until you can choose the greater good.
How do you get consent from someone who can’t distinguish reality from fiction?
You have for forcibly treat some people, the problem is many are forcibly treated who don’t need to be for convenience to society.
Whose going to fund these respite houses? The psychiatric system is funded by capitalism, where the private or public insurance companies employs people to help those who are in distress.
You need practical solutions before you take away disability or welfare from the mentally ill, otherwise they go to prisons or the streets and die there.
Those medications are dangerous, but they are not as dangerous as starving or violence for people who can’t support themselves.
People do die on medications but it is not a mass genocide as you anti psychiatry people are over stating.
Also you offer no solutions to replace people who can’t pay their bills and need government handouts to live.
Someone mentioned a respite house, well get your charities to put more of them up because right now the majority of people need government welfare and forced treatment to survive their mental illnesses.
There was one really good Doctor who said only tell me you’re hearing and seeing things that aren’t there, and the patients were able to function without medications outside without anyone knowing.
Compassionate therapists are a minority in an industry that has been taken over by greed, just as all other industries.
I only recommend medications for the worse cases where people want to function outside of their social support systems.
For example if they want a part time job, a medication will help control seeing and hearing things that aren’t there so they can focus on interacting with the world on a different level than their accustomed.
Without forced treatment or the government paying their bills many people would die.
To help you accept help, even if it is forced.
You are indeed for freedom, but for the freedom of the strong to hurt the weak.
You refuse to see some people are too weak to help themselves and blinded from your own pride, or maybe anger from your own loss of liberty.
It is not your fault for holding this view, but you ought to forgive and recognize that not everyone is as strong as you are to survive on their own, and they need a helping hand even if it comes as an involuntary commitment.
It is when freedom is taken away not for helping you, but for helping someone else that this becomes harmful.
Americans are going hungry if you choose to open your eyes.
American’s are also being poisoned by their own foods and are dying from cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and everything else.
Forcibly removing them from their situations and showing them the truth will help them heal, whether in mental health or otherwise.
It appears like a losing battle, if we are all responsible they we may have been irresponsible for far too long for this to be corrected.
Many mental health professionals are doing it for the money rather than passion for helping others, but that is in every industry and it just very harmful to the mentally sick in this case.
Many authors and probably the people owning and running this website have some type of profession in the mental health industry.
We need more ethical mental health workers who come from a place of compassion to be advocates for the mentally ill, and less who come from a place of just doing their job as stated by the book.
They are mentally ill, it is a sickness not to be happy.
It is how we treat that sickness is how we will be judged by love for ourselves and others.
The right to life comes before the right to liberty, and the right to pursuing happiness comes after the right to life and the right to liberty.
Late edit:
When I say ‘force them to learn for their own good’ I mean a temporary loss of liberty until they can survive on their own.
I understand this is subjective, but it can be done compassionately with the goal of independence and freedom in an efficient amount of time.
That is misguided to say that everyone is capable of helping themselves. You would let someone starve who doesn’t know how to fish, or would you teach them how to fish?
If they don’t want to learn how to fish, you must force them to learn for their own good, for their own survival.
The problem with the involuntary commitments of the mental health community is that they are not done with love nor compassion, they are done to keep people from causing a disturbance due to their sadness and anger.
They must be done with more resources to address problems with family, money, or other conflicts with community.
The perspective like yours is mostly likely what perpetuates the harm and loss of liberty to the victims of mental illness that you and those like you so fear.
According to your own logic mentally people defending themselves from force treatment who become violent in that defense, are justified.
So how could you in good conscience call them criminals or try to separate criminals from the mentally ill?
I agree with you about working to abolish forced treatment, and try to use more compassionate approaches that don’t involve medications are electric shocks, but be genuine in your positions.
We should work to guarantee the freedom and independence of anyone experiencing emotional distress, or persistent and extreme mental illness that is literally biological in nature like schizophrenia.
That can be accomplished by finding someone’s self awareness and accurately pin pointing what is their desire in the pursuit of their happiness, and work towards that goal with them. If that includes medications let it be, but be objective in the prescription when looking at their needs and the needs of society.
The only rule in life is to do no harm, and that is how we should approach it.
I’ll just add some more thoughts, I think the ethics are who to involuntary commit or force help upon.
From the perspective of this anti mental health community, many people who don’t pose a threat to themselves or others are being involuntarily treated and I would believe that is true given the current state of the psychiatric system.
Though we need to be rational and recognize there are instances where forced treatment is necessary, and that removing someone from their toxic environment would help their emotional health until whatever problems they are experiencing that may cause them to break down are addressed.
These are often family problems, money problems, and related social problems from the community which oppress them as victims.
Forced treatment like court ordered therapy is much better than jail for one thing, and two there is a fear of psychiatry that resulted from the Reagan era, where the hospitals to the mentally ill were under funded and real torture and neglect happened.
The solution is competent therapists who are not over burdened and driven by filling their days with many patients for more money.
The psychiatric model can be run for greed and money, or love and compassion since their first rule is to do no harm. You don’t need many years in college to teach you how to help someone solve their problems so they aren’t very sad or angry and can’t function.
The medications are reserved for the absolute hardest cases where you can literally see they can’t function because their seeing things or yelling uncontrollably, but even then there is a ethical line that shouldn’t be crossed between greed and compassion in the treatment.
We failed as a society due to this simple quote, “Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.” Arthur Schopenhauer
Their happiness is dependent on the unhappiness or mental illness of others. The pursuit of happiness should be shared not taken.
According to your perspective he was mentally sick, but was over medicated and over treated with electrical currents. You also mention that compassion and love is not enough to treat all mentally ill, and I would agree as I have seen really bad forms of it. Where do we draw the line and find a balance between the incredibly sick, and the ones who are not as sick but still need help.
The mentally ill as a whole are victims of society, some more than others. The ones really devastated by mental illness where they can’t function are the same as those poisoned by food and get heart attacks and cancer, it is just their form of illness from the toxic world created by excessive greed.
He is free now but has a warrant for his detention by the hospital ?
I don’t know how to reconcile this with what your ultimate point is, the taxpayers have a give and take relationship with the corporate industry. They pay the corporations to keep them employed as taxpayers, and the corporations profit from treating mentally ill people like Garth Daniels.
What is the solution that you are proposing? How do you convince a majority of people to correction a systemic failure this big?
Your resolutions don’t seem to fix a corrupt system, so even though they appear rational and practical it really is not practical at all. Can you implement your solutions within the psychiatric system?
To website please introduce an edit comment feature if financially possible, so I can correct my grammar after the post.
Involuntary treatment is good if it functioned as intended, you mention that voluntary psychotherapist is the answer but many people don’t voluntary help themselves or their situations.
This is dated back to when Ronald Reagan shut down the mental hospitals because they were under funded and mentally ill people were treated badly in them and literally tortured in the true sense of the word with neglect and abuse.
Your position is a quick fix to a broken system that medicates people involuntarily, but it is the wrong way to the solution.
We need to involuntarily commit people to introduce them to them competent therapists, the problem is that the therapists who work at hospitals are incompetent and abusive themselves at the sheer magnitude of the failure of society.
They don’t know how to provide quality psychotherapy that is based on compassion because they are more concerned with making money by over scheduling patients, rather than spending quality time with them which is the whole reason their profession exists since psychiatrists have left their original roles to focus on prescribing medications to quickly treat as many mentally ill people as they can to make money, instead of showing love to them by hearing their problems and offering rational solutions.
The whole system is a mess and you removing involuntary commitments is just going to make it worse, because the mentally ill will not even be able to begin their journey toward understanding how they want to be helped.
The ideal is a loving therapist who shows compassion and rational advice, and most would choose that. The problem is there aren’t many of those out there, so they need the medications and the incompetent therapists to function sanely in a sane society, or maybe insanely in an insane society depending on how you see it.
We must keep them under control with medications and involuntary treatments for their safety and our safety.
The majority of people are indeed happy and enjoying their lives, it is the minority of mentally ill people that are the problems of society.
The taxpayer will medicate them and force them to be happy with involuntary treatments, so they don’t bring them down with their sad faces.
Most people don’t have those reactions to psychiatric medications, only a small number.
Imagine the amount of violence if those medications did not exist, and this mentally ill segment of society was able to see what is really causing their problems?
You should learn to never be insulted by honesty no matter how hard it is to hear, much less lies. It will help you cope with your mental illness.
You are a victim of society, whatever it is that causes you to burn yourself is not your fault, but society chooses to take responsibility for you with forced treatments.
I am not encouraging that you lose your rights in society, I am stating what is reality and you need to accept it in order not to be delusional and further your mental illness.
You are equally as undesirable to this society as this guy that you write about, and when you try to position yourself above him by claiming you are not mentally ill, you harm the entire community that you profess you are helping in your position of power writing these articles.
I hope you reconsider because your voice is much louder than mine in a comment section of your article.
That is of course wrong, mentally ill people are violent either to themselves or others due to being oppressed in some way.
We see a lot of violence in poor communities, and it is rising in middle class communities and labeled mental illness to separate the two and make excuses.
In the past before medications were invented people were naturally violent in order to defend themselves from oppressors.
The only true way to suppress violence is forced treatment of the mentally ill whether they are violent to others or themselves, for their own safety or the safety of others.
This way the majority who are not self harming or at risk for harming others will be at peace not having to watch the mentally display their unhealthy dysfunctions to the world.
The mentally ill are casualties of a society that left them behind from success because they were too weak to compete, so they must lose their rights for the greater good.
I don’t agree with this logic because before anti depressants people were violent all throughout human history.
It is the governments way of suppressing violence through medications and possibly political dissidents as well, since people who are predisposed to violence are usually due to being oppressed in some way.
We see more violence in poor communities of color, and it is rising in middle class and labeled mental illness.
So yes if we can medicate them into non violence through forced treatment, that will be better for the majority of people who are non violent and privileged.
My prediction is not that they will abolish forced treatment, there will be much higher use of it especially with what happened in Orlando.
The violent people out there are untreated mentally ill people, whether they are violent with self harm or harm to others.
The government will start to profile these people and many people will become involuntarily committed or treated for their own good, for the safety of themselves and others.
Get ready if you thought it was bad before with the over prescribing of medications for people who are just sad or angry, it is going to get far worse when they profile anyone who is not happy or expresses opinions that are contrary to popular opinion and are not shared by the majority, who are groomed by those in power who influence them.
Society is structured to run on the functioning sick, and those who won’t or can’t function are taken care of with the side effects of these medications.
They used illegal drugs and alcohol in the past to function and still do which causes and caused this as well, now a lot of it is replaced with prescribed medications.
To add a different perspective from my first one mentioned above, the rights of the mentally deranged should be taken in some circumstances. Don’t focus on how you are losing your rights, focus on why you are losing them.
If you are that confused to not know that self harm is inward violence because of your emotional disturbances as the author is. then you are not capable of being competent to know if others are a danger to the public..
Yes we should ban guns from the mentally ill, and yes not all of them present a danger, but everyone who is violent is emotionally sick it is a fact of life that you ought to accept no matter their religion or prejudices.
I put the blame of those in positions of power that allow this to continue, for example this website allows an author that is enabling self harm by allowing her to write articles here. It obviously distorts her view of what is reality, and encourages others to accept this unhealthy logic as healthy.
People aren’t naturally violent, but just because they are not to blame when they are due to mental illness, does not mean they should not be protected for their own safety and the safety of others since they are victims.
Of course a pill isn’t going to provide love and compassion to those victims, but you can’t correct one wrong with another wrong such as allowing people to self harm or harm others. The failures of the psychiatric community is why I participate in this community, but I will not support unhealthy behavior only forgive it.
Do I support the loss of rights to anyone, such as the mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or deeply and chronically sad? No, but in some cases we have to do it until those in power who are responsible for the failures of society are held accountable for their sins, and for everyone’s safety until then. We have no choice but to be patient until the day everyone can responsibly enjoy their rights again. Yes this is an injustice to the ones who lose their rights, but it is for their own good and it will help them heal until their oppressors come to justice for their wrongs.
No one is perfect in the end, but maybe one day we can establish a system where those in positions of power aren’t able to abuse their power so much, because with great power comes great responsibility. To whom much is given, much is asked.
Putting aside the failures of psychiatry in its drive for greed over compassion, just common sense should tell you that self harm is not good.
If you guys choose to self harm by ‘burning yourself’ or cutting, or what have you, then it is my responsibility as a person of compassion to tell you it will never bring lasting happiness, only those temporary moments of gratification you get when you hurt yourself.
It is also a good example of the failure of our society which drives people to self harm, and tries to fix them quickly with a pill to get back to work instead of encouraging and promoting love both in psychiatry and in the rest of society.
I am off topic, but I have said my piece that violence is violence, whether from this guy or self harm. I wish you all the best, and hope you recover from your self harming impulses one day and find real happiness.
When I said someone responsible for your care, I meant someone who has compassion and love should explain to you that harming yourself is not healthy. If you don’t like therapists, one of your friends should have told you this, or family?
None of us are perfect, you are right we all engage in self harming activities from time to time, like eating unhealthy, or not exercising, but you are advocating that we embrace this?
I don’t know what you do to self harm, and hope its not cutting or something along those lines, but I do hope someday you are able to empathize with the mentally ill like yourself, and show us compassion.
In the bible it says we must show compassion in order to receive compassion, but that can be used by everyone whether or not they belong to a religion.
It is not my intention to insult you, but I am finished freely expressing myself and would have to agree to disagree with you on why this guy and you share the same mental illness, that leads to violence if not treated.
Thank you for your time in responding, good day.
The truth of love that we all share.
Self harm is an act of violence against one’s self, if you can’t see that I am sorry that someone who is responsible for your care has not explained that to you properly.
It is why you distinguish violence of people who are chronically sad, as the ones who do it outwardly are bad and the ones who do it inwardly are excused and good.
The people who are mentally ill are sometimes their own worst enemies because of ignorance, myself included.
I respectfully ask that you ignore the stigma of society in determining your position, you hold a position of power with your articles so please use it responsibly to show compassion.
I agree with you about the pitfalls of the current psychiatric establishment, the over prescribing of medications, the denial of the rights of the mentally ill, but that is no reason to be dishonest and it won’t improve the situation.
I also forgot to add this guy was confused about is sexual orientation from the recent reports, many gays who are mentally ill commit violence against themselves, this one turned it outward.
Keep it honest even though there is stigma against those who are chronically sad or mentally ill.
The truth will set us free.
I can’t agree, I know you are trying to distance those who are sad or mentally ill from violence but you are doing so disingenuously.
The fact is which you point out is that those who are diagnosed are less likely to be violent, because they are being treated.
He was mentally ill, it was just that he was not treated.
Now we can go over the most compassionate way to treat, like medications which have their own problems, or talk therapy which is effective but takes long, or involuntary stays at the hospital for long periods of time which can take away the rights of the mentally ill who are not violent.
But that is a different topic, and being dishonest is no way of helping the victims who are sad or mentally ill whether they are violent to themselves such as in self harm, or to others as this guy, or neither, and just need love, companionship, and someone to talk too.
He is not lazy he is a typical therapist in America.
Therapist shopping isn’t going to help, it takes a few months just to get comfortable and establish a good working relationship with one to begin with.
Everywhere you go you hear the story of therapists treating clients like cattle, rushing them in and out of the office for more money.
Look at the systemic failure of psychiatrists, who don’t even provide talk therapy anymore but just make a quick diagnosis and put you on medication.
The system is broken, self help or self therapy is how you help yourself in an unhelpful society.
After several years with one, I’ll move on to my second one because of my convictions against medications to treat natural emotional reactions to an unjust society.
The people who have to apply to social security disability for help with income have to be subjected to a medical diagnosis by a psychiatrist, and compelled to take medication for life to prove they are severely disabled and in need of help and can’t work.
They cannot say they are too sad to work either due to poor opportunity for employment, under employment, job loss, a bad economy, and social injustice that usually accompanies poverty.
These people are controlled with medications, who would naturally be political dissidents and voice their concerns respectfully and assertively in a civilized way. The medications are indeed dangerous because they repress anger, rather than allow it be expressed freely and openly in a safe way to the rich and those in power, who have a good excuse not to hear criticism otherwise.
It has to be a chemical imbalance not a natural reaction to government policies that send jobs to other countries, steals the wealth of the middle class, or a society that humiliates you for not taking personal responsibility like others who don’t share similar problems.
I am against medication, but my therapist is terrible. I have been seeing him for 7 years and he would see me for 10 minutes at a time, or not see me at all and still bill the government for services.
After I mentioned this to him and that I wanted him to see me the whole 40 minutes he bills for, he started to provoke me into anger which is part of his therapy where he makes people speak up for themselves by provocation, who are socially anxious and submissive.
It is terrible that I can’t even get proper therapy from a counselor, I am in the process of reporting him but it is a bigger problem, a systemic problem.
Therapists don’t take patients who are severely unhappy because it increases their workload, they see a lot of patients to make a lot more money since they don’t get paid as much as psychiatrists, who make more money from office visits of 10 minutes and prescribing medications.
The whole system is messed up, it is very hard to rely on self help alone as in this article but it is my saving grace. I try to manage diet, exercise, I’ve tried fasting which helps people who are sad, though a quality therapist who is there to always encourage you and make you feel good about yourself is so desperately needed.
Please America, fix your mental health system so its humane!
There is no way to profit from this type of society where people express their emotions, society is based on happiness being derived from working to make money in capitalism.
If you’re expressing your emotions and it affects the ability for you to profit off of others by not working, or others to profit off of you by not providing you with psychiatric medications and electrical stimulation, then you are not properly fitting into this society.
Their shameless, their phasing out therapists because they can’t make money really helping someone talking about their problems, and into medication for a lifetime worth of abuse and injustice.
It is sickening.
It is basically that non white patients have more mental problems that the system wants them to fix quickly with medications and get back to work, instead of using therapists to adequately find out whats going on after years of talking.
And they don’t want them because of the lower reimbursements from medicaid insurance, and can’t or won’t want to help them.
It’s so bad that the therapists are picking and choosing who they want to see based on how much work they have to do.
If it is someone with severe emotional problems they will pass them up and see the people with less severe problems.
The psychiatrists are busy pushing pills and playing God, it is not even a concern for them to do talk therapy.
“The Titanic was driven by professionals too”
That goes to my point, they need to be trained how to steer a ship. The Captain of the titanic wanted to impress others and save time.
Similar to mental health professionals, they want to save time rather than help others compassionately.
It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be trained on how to steer the ship, it is just that they should use their knowledge for good rather than bad.
Lets follow if he voluntarily admits himself into the psychiatric hospital, and if he does is it because he is brain washed by drugs or incompetent by electric shocks, or motivated by the need of social welfare assistance for survival.
There is no love and compassion until there is pain first, your utopia is an illusion.
We need human nature to reveal it’s primal animal instincts of capitalizing on others through capitalism, before society can have any sort of compassion with socialism.
No such thing as your perfect socialism, as we saw in Nazi Germany when resources are scarce people will eliminate the competition in that society as well to survive.
They aren’t trained out of compassion
completely, some therapists go out of their way not to be compassionate. In the case of psychiatrists though I would agree, since they don’t have the time to be compassionate as they are prescribing medication only.
The training enables them to be compassionate, because they would not know how to help someone otherwise.
The training is objective and centered around compassion, it is the therapist that interprets the training subjectively and without ‘common sense’.
I guess that is true although I would expect a universal standard for healers because of that fact, that not everyone responds to tough love.
I know many people need to feel the lash of the whip to get them functioning, and not feel as victims.
Though there others who respond to hand holding and coddling and embracing their victimization.
If healers could be trained to handle both types, and even allow the unhappy person to choose how they would like to pursue happiness it would be easier on the ‘client’.
We can’t have the unhappy who already are having a hard time going from healer to healer to find the right one, its not cost effective much less conducive to healing.
Societies biases can change the fundamentals that assist in determining its outcome in any given time.
It is human nature to capitalize on others just as in the animal kingdom with lions eating weaker animals.
It is in human nature to help each other for a mutual benefit, where trade built modern civilization and technology.
Finally it is in human nature to love and help selflessly, and not expect anything in return for good deeds.
I think even with those who have sheltered lives with good families who always loved them would not ordinarily be traumatized by someone’s problems.
In fact they would have a strong tolerance for the misery of people and the world, being removed from it all their lives they would be more likely to show compassion in its truest form as they know the standard.
Victim-hood is a good thing for those that want it, and I can only agree if you set a place aside for those people who want to be victims and respect their choice.
I understand there is a tendency to assume enabling people to see themselves as victims allows them to have an excuse not to work.
Some people want to embrace their victim-hood, and don’t want to work to get better for their own reasons.
As you said the pursuit of happiness is different for everyone, the healer should respect however the victim chooses to live, and not try to impose their beliefs on them as to what they ought to do in order to be happy.
The most basic function of any ethical healer would be to promote peace, sanity, and love in the troubled person and they will improve on their own.
We all can deal with sadness on or own, the only reason why some need help from others is when they lose the safety nets of tolerance that others enjoy from the privileges of a caring and loving family who are selfless instead of selfish with love, money, affection, self sacrifice, as these promote security from a spiritual, logical, peace of mind, confidence, or any other good perspective of decent and respectable people.
the mental health system should improve if the political system improves.
if the politics allows favoritism for greed, it will happen everywhere including mental health.
The Psychiatric industry began with talking, then it devolved into making a quick diagnosis to medicate after a 15 minute meeting.
It is incredible the depths of quick fixes has infected western society, that it would enable the death of a young patient.
I can’t blame the industry because at its creation it was ideal, a free market system that actually profits from showing those with severe problems in life mercy so that they can pursue happiness.
Ideally psychiatrists would talk to patients, listen to their problems without prejudice, and offer a place of peace, love, and sanity above all else.
Today the industry is corrupted to the point where they pass off the most important part of their responsibilities to lesser trained and underpaid therapists. Who usually most often restful or bitter that they are less respected in the mental health profession, and the quality of care for the patient plummets as a result.
Does this mean we do away with the industry? No way that is equally as disturbing, we have to fix the broken parts.
Make psychiatrists assume their original roles, and center therapy around a long term comprehensive approach of compassion, love, and encouragement. Not quick fixes of medications, and abusive talk therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy which is short term and provoking emotionally.
You can’t fix a lifetime of unhappiness and problems with a few months or even few years of listening to someone’s problems. It takes a lifetime to sort out everything, while trying to maintain a good quality of life in the pursuit of happiness.
I think a good healer should enable victim-hood.
Many victims don’t know their victims, it is only once they are aware of their victim-hood do they realize they want to continue the pursuit of happiness.
A mental health professional is trained to enable victim-hood, is only when the mental health professional adopts the cultural philosophy of tough love do they become poor healers.
This disease of logic pervades the systemic compassion created by a mental industry designed to show compassion and mercy first and foremost, that theories are developed to ruin the sanctity of the practice such as cognitive behavioral therapy.
This therapy focuses more on a quick short term solution, to a lifetime’s worth of problems which manifests into severe anxiety and unhappiness.
It provokes individuals as a shock to their system, to be less anxious and more happy intentionally, which is counter to the philosophy of ethical therapy.
Common sense would tell us that a life time of problems can only be cured by a life time of therapy, there are no quick fixes. If the social welfare system would grant life time payouts to the patients, and the medical industry would quit being proactively developing quick fixes in the form of therapy or medication, true healing and amazing potential would be achieved in the pursuit of happiness for the most unhappiest of individuals.
Be the love that you want to see in the world, leadership in the mental health industry has failed to help many patients in their pursuit of happiness ethically.
Keep the grassroots movements going for compassion, set better examples, look at the problem in the bigger picture as societal rather than just health.
There is no perfect solution, but there will be good attempts at one using this logic.
It is very true that those who have had sheltered lives with love and happiness are greater able to show mercy to those who have had hard lives with abuse.
I would agree only if the wounded emotionally are not still wounded, and also how did they survive those wounds?
If they came out the other end toughened up, without the ability to feel compassion then they would do an injustice to the one that needs help.
So we should hope that the ‘wounded healer’ has truly healed properly.
The culture believes in tough love, so there is no longing for empathy, compassion, and love by most people.
Maybe from your perspective they are desensitized to what you consider love, compassion, or empathy to be but they are not.
They believe it builds character not to complain about the problems in life that we all have, and to tough it out. They very well empathize with others, but they have had hard lives too so why do few complain?
Compassion to them is teaching someone to fish rather than handing them fish, meaning you don’t make them out to be victims and to embrace that victim-hood.
With all due respect society views what you believe is compassion, empathy, and love as coddling.
You know that the predictable response to your argument of their inability to function like a civilized person is not excused because their mom did not love them enough.
Unfortunately many people were not loved by their parents, but have had to make it without someone to hold their hand through life.
They had to survive by adjusting to the unjust society, they do not see a ‘dog eat dog world’ as a bad thing but one that makes the world go around.
Society sees those who can’t function without love as useless eaters, it is an unfortunate truth.
Good luck with helping others.
I think the best healers for the pursuit of happiness would be the ones that come from healthy families, and have good relationships where they are able to manage their own problems reasonably.
If the mental health professional is themselves depressed, or has broken relationships, or has problems of the past that they have not sorted out yet how can they help others do the same?
There is a shortage of care givers for mental health, and that has loosened the standard by giving out free scholarships and making it easier to have people who are in it for the money, or don’t have a passion for helping others, go to that profession and further its depreciation and criticism.
It is not really complicated, just have good people who are mentally healthy with the right intentions to help others who are persistently sad and anxious. The system will work if it is not structurally weakened for cost savings.
Yes we do, you need a framework to oversee and pay the healers.
This isn’t a tribal society it is civilized, there are not medicine men who offer communal service at their discretion with impunity. Many people who act independently impose a great liability on the patient, in other words picking up people off the street to talk to people about their problems is vulnerable to abusive practices by that individual, no matter how ‘compassionate’ you feel the individual is.
If you think the entire psychiatric industry is abusive as a community, think about the harm an individual with that same power can do to another individual even in counseling. The standard is visible for all to see a general view of whats going on and criticize it. Has the industry adopted abusive practices with the over prescribing of medication, and is driven by greed rather than providing an ethical service? Yes, but that is not just the medical industry, that is everywhere from banking to any other business as of late. Are there individuals within the psychiatric community who abuse their authority and even do illegal things to their vulnerable patients? Yes, but there is at least a way to police them and supervise the system the way it is set up.
We have to see it as capitalism pragmatically, that a service of compassion is being offered and fair market compensation must be valued for it to exist. Good service will follow from the resulting competition towards a cure in their pursuit of happiness, and the standard of the psychiatric community will be proved for all to see.
I will have to agree to disagree due to the article being poorly written.
“Oddly enough, the majority of his admissions were voluntary; he takes himself back to the hospital sometimes as little as a week after discharge. ”
This contradicts what you say, that he is institutionalized and inpatient who has to suffer from mandatory electric shocks and medication.
Though my point is similar to yours in that I agree he is being coerced to submit to treatment, but for different reasons like getting welfare payments or free long stays at the hospital to save on rent?
Good luck in helping him and others.
“Most of us have families and friends who freely share compassion with us and expect nothing in return but for us to return the same”
That is your sheltered world, but not the real world. If it were the real world this website would not exist, as there would not be a problem with psychiatry to criticize as it would not exist.
In the real world compassion is given, but something is expected in return for it. When patients don’t have the family and friends to freely share that compassion, they go to the psychiatric industry who is subsidized by the insurers who pay for the mentally ill.
When that compassion comes from the taxpayer publicly, or privately from the insurance contributor something must be returned to them, it is not freely given.
Even in your world, it is not free because you expected to show compassion in return when it is given to you, in capitalism that compassion takes the form of money.
Good luck helping others.
Steve the worldview you describe is the reality for most people, everyone has a tough life and many do jobs they don’t like, but it has to be done to put food on the table.
There are many abuse victims that don’t need someone to hold their hand to get through life, or ask for handouts from the government and other taxpayers who work to get by.
We don’t live in a society where you have the time to navel gaze in order to find meaning in life, or ‘sense of purpose’.
To oldhead, the idealistic view that you get compassion without expecting anything in return for it.
You need the psychiatric medical business to provide that compassion, and in return they make money for that service, we live in a capitalist country not a communist country.
It is pretty obvious, whatever the anti psychiatric movement offers with the mainstream psychiatric establishment medical business.
Slower psychiatry is a partnership between the two, neither side has the right cure or there would be no mental illness.
Every single welfare system in Western Society has regularly scheduled check ups in order to continue to receive welfare for a mental disability. They don’t get welfare if their able to work, so being treated is the how they prove their disabled.
He voluntarily goes to these ECT and medication treatments so that he can get his government money for survival like it or not.
This is how the socialist welfare states in Europe saves money, they don’t want to pay to help a young mentally ill person with life time payments from the government so they called it ‘Euthanasia’.
The capitalist states in America medicate them and make millions selling pharmaceuticals, to mask the abuse with chemicals.
Wouldn’t they simply use compassion, support them financially with safe and secure housing, access to healthy organic foods, access to simple recreation, and work through their problems with empathy even if it takes years to assist in their pursuit of happiness?
Slower psychiatry appears to be a good compromise, as the main problems are associated with treating rather than curing as with other medical professions.
You have to label a sad person who can’t work medically depressed in order for them to get government money.
This is also a practical solution because there are people who have been affected by abuse or war so severely that a competent medical professional with experience has the best position to offer compassion.
In the end the goal should be equipping the healers with the best tools to protect the sick, not do harm.
The oath goes first do no harm, so never do a surgery unless it will save a life.
“Oddly enough, the majority of his admissions were voluntary; he takes himself back to the hospital sometimes as little as a week after discharge. ”
If he’s consenting to being shocked/medicated it’s no one’s place to say what they believe is good for him.
He has an unhealthy codependent relationship with the government, where they pay for all his expenses with taxpayer money so long as he helps them make money participating in this treatment.
The anger here is misdirected, blame the society for allowing this relationship.
Let me address your attempt at solutions to the main problem.
People who are sad are not going to force themselves into a gym on a treadmill, much less stop eating the junk foods they are addicted too.
They aren’t going to look for social support when they are most likely anxious about social situations as part of their sadness.
Lastly ‘search for meaning in life’ or navel gazing, isn’t going to help if western society is going too fast for them to keep up, and does not offer any good examples for those without the privilege to see them.
My thoughts are critical psychiatry is too idealistic.
You have to accept losing some of your liberty or freedom to receive compassion at someones perceived expense. There will never be enough good people who want to stand up against bad people, because even the good people aren’t perfect.
It’s not barbaric if he’s walking into the Hospital every week to be shocked and medicated.
I think you’re missing that part of the article.
Look at it logically for a second, he is consenting to being ‘shackled’ or getting treatment with medication and ECT.
The author says he leaves for a week at a time and returns.
If he doesn’t get treatment they won’t pay him government benefits to survive.
I am not saying he is abusing welfare, just that its a codependent relationship between government and patient.
Sir the evidence is in plain view for all to see, western society is depreciated where many are becoming sad and need to be medicated.
You want to call it population control? I call it as I see it, and the medications are necessary for the numbers to be managed.
Without the buffer or safety net created by the profitable psychiatric industry, addiction rates to drugs and alcohol would be much higher than now, violence would be much higher than it is now, and welfare would be much more drained than it is now.
The obesity and diabetic epidemic are not because people love donuts, it is because they are sad and eating to fill a void. The psychiatric industry also treats eating addictions as ‘binge eating disorder’.
Now if you think there is a better way to treat sadness other than medications, that is a different discussion and one that probably not only the psychiatric industry can solve but greater society involvement.
The pursuit of one persons happiness should not come at the expense of another persons sadness.
It is not really mental disorder if he admits to sitting down and talking to them through their problems and refrains from medications, and that psychiatry is based on theory not science.
There are emotional disturbances or nervous breakdowns from experiencing really bad things from war or personal abuse. A veteran feeling threatened when there is no reasonable threat of danger is a natural fear from what they experienced, but it is not a disorder just a logical state of their mind that can be changed to reasonably manage risk once again as we all do. It takes time and patience, not quick fixes of medications and ECT that become long term anyway.
I think the main thing here is that this patient voluntarily admits himself to the hospital for ECT and medication treatment, and it would interesting to know if it was to keep his government benefits as that is often used to coerce one to give up their freedom.
You don’t get to enjoy the luxury of independence, housing, food, security, and the pursuit of happiness if you don’t do what we say. The profits from this industry in psychiatry that fund the careers of many, in this case millions over years for one man, is the trade off.
Prime-Thirteen you have that luxury to reject the compassion of liberals in the form of treatment, while others need those psychiatric medications to live and work, or the welfare income to eat.
To Mcrea you’re missing the context, and irresponsibly taking the high ground by saying ‘this is not a liberal/conservative thing’, when the topic of this article clearly holds liberals accountable for a specific problem.
If we’re generally speaking here then conservatives generally offer no compassion to those who are depressed or otherwise psychologically troubled, other than the church, tough love, or a simple phrase of quit whining everyone has problems.
Simply put you’re asking liberals who generally offer compassion to accept they are the oppressors,, when its the conservatives who generally don’t offer compassion who are truly behind the oppression.
A lot of these problems about forced treatment would easily be solved if more people would unite with liberals, and articulate the problems with their systems of compassion respectfully instead of with indictment.
I think its a necessary evil to have diagnostic labels for severe emotional troubles, as many people reject compassion for their own severe problems much less handing out compassion to others with their tax dollars.
Half of the country doesn’t want anyone to have any income or welfare when they are too sad or troubled psychologically to work, much less ‘citizenship pay’.
I do see a compromise that can be made where medicine isn’t incentivized to force treatment, but rather encourage it so at least the ones who have done their research can be spared.
The author being coerced to admit she overeats and needs to be medicated because she appears overweight is insulting and poor bedside manner.
Sera
My point concerning liberals and you needing them as an ally is that without liberals, there is no help for people who are sad.
The conservatives believe in tough love, not compassion.
They believe sadness is weakness, depression is a sin in the way they interpret the bible. Love whether it is interpreted in bible or not does not punish the sad.
What I’d like you and everyone here to understand is that we must unite among our petty differences, or divided our greatest fears become realized.
Those fears are forced treatment or no treatment, or forced help or the absence of compassion.
Well meaning liberals may be misguided but can be reached, while conservatives don’t want to be reached. While extending an olive branch for allies, try to make it appear more like constructive criticism as opposed to negative criticism..
This will accomplish everyone’s goal without leaving a bitter taste that the other side will capitalize on.
I wonder if they will diagnose half of the country who are overweight or obese as having eating disorders, and what medications they will make money prescribing for these people. Just another example of a system looking to treat illness to profit, rather than treat illness for fair and ethical compensation.
Though there is an obesity epidemic that is causing rising health care costs, they need to find more humane ways of treating it like more investments in therapists who can help people find out why they eat too much or too little, and work to resolve the problems or sadness associated with it.
One last thing I’d like to mention is that if you’re sad and can’t work, you won’t be able to survive without the help of liberal social programs.
The requirements of the social programs it that you are diagnosed with an illness called depression, that it is a chemical imbalance, and that you have a disability.
I understand the point of corruption within mental health, but be careful what moral high ground you stand on.
Some people can’t work without these medications, while others can’t work no matter what due to overwhelming sadness, and we shouldn’t question the victims without compassion in place to fix their problems during their pursuit of happiness.
Criticize liberals all you want, but they off them compassion medications and income assistance, when others offer them nothing but meditation, exercise, tough love, which is well and good for some but not a fix for everyone.
That is a good point that some of the worse things in the world have been done with the best of intentions, I heard that in a movie sometime ago.
I’d like to say that its very hard to put that into context with the mental health system, when they’re actually clearer more obvious examples like wars of nation building in the middle east that have yet to be fixed.
What I’m saying here you should try to understand that over half of the country is making no attempt at being your ally, so be nice to ones that are making that attempt.
The small number of Liberals, progressives, whatever you like to label them, would like to unite with you, while most everyone else would like to defeat your goals.
whats so bad about the legislation? or ‘toxic’
Their not banning firearms so you don’t hurt yourself, they are banning them so you don’t hurt others.
We can bring our grandparents capitalism back, where it is centered on an honest days work for an honest days pay.
In that type of capitalism you can profit ethically from treating the mentally ill.
There is nothing wrong with having people involuntarily committed for posing a danger to themselves or others, as long as the person who is making the accusations is held accountable and helped as well.
Most of the time the people who have someone involuntarily committed have mental issues themselves, so this is a good way to get the whole family treated.
You want the website to deny my freedom of speech, because I speak out against the mentally ills freedom to remain in society when they present an immediate danger?
That is why this website and its advocates will never make progress in solving their problems.
There is no common sense or reason relating to the protection of liberty.
Here is a hint for everyone, when in doubt look at the order of America’s constitution for a guide.
The right to life comes before the right to liberty, and the right to life and liberty comes before the right to the pursuit of happiness.
When you deny someone’s freedom of speech in order to protect the mentally ill who are a danger to someone’s right to life, you are not guided by the right moral compass.
This is why America is the best country in the world.
The mentally ill do things that reasonable people think is a danger to the community, their freedom must be taken when they threaten another persons freedom to live.
There is mental illness, it is a sickness when you are not happy.
There is a disorder that needs to be treated, many mentally ill people have extreme forms where they can’t distinguish what is real from what is not.
You can’t deny these people help from a moral high ground.
You are a victim of Ronald Reagan, he stopped funding mental health in the eighties and you must have endured a lot of abuse as a result during your stays.
I must enlighten you to the fact that mental health can function properly if it was properly funded, and had the right motives like compassion instead of making money.
There is a place for making money, but it has to be done to lift others up not bring others down.
Whose going to pay for you to get treated for your mental illness when you become a danger to society?
Capitalism or socialism will get you the necessary care until you are able to function as a normal person in society, whether that is holding a job and supporting yourself or just not being a nuisance to society when you are off your medications and causing a scene in public.
Don’t step out of line, and the men won’t come and take you away
Oldhead for Christ sake you speak as if you are a slave because you were involuntarily committed for a few weeks?
There were actual slaves had much worse lives than you.
Then liberalism is your friend if you want to ban speech, and consider mentally illness has prejudiced speech.
To Alex force is okay when you use it, but not the state?
You don’t fight wrong with wrong, violence with violence, or hate with hate, that is why you’re mentally ill.
You are too easily insulted that is your problem, and you really harm serious mental patients with your sensitive views.
I am giving you the tools not to lose your freedom again to the mental hospital, if you learn to control your aggression society has no reason to see you as a risk to their safety.
Learn what kind of victim you are, a spoiled mental patient who is overly sensitive, or one that has real problems like no support system, love, money, shelter, etc…
Psychiatry sees people like you and judges everyone in the same light, which just causes more problems and perpetuates the very fears you have for others and yourself.
When you lose your mind in the process of believing dishonest delusions you created, people who aren’t offended by being forcibly helped aren’t able to be saved.
Again for all of you, choose the lesser evil until you able to choose the greater good, or you’ll be left with the greatest evil. This is evident by the mentally ill who don’t have your luxury of complaining from your arm chairs at the moment because they aren’t being helped.
Don’t be triggered into distress from the truth, emotional and psychological distress increases the odds of violence.
These drugs are societies quick fix to keeping the victims of society quiet until they can fix it. There are people on these medications since the 90’s, and they are still working to fix the problems.
My advice to the mentally ill is to be honest so the wait does not take longer.
Don’t fear the truth it will make your mental illness worse, embrace it.
The mentally ill are useless eaters to society, they depend on the government for money.
And its true the mentally ill are prone to violence, you guys are too politically correct to the point of dishonesty, and it is defeating your cause.
Accept that we are dependent, vulnerable, defenseless, and weak, or they will continue to euthanize the mentally ill as they do now with lack of compassion in the form of little social assistance, prisons, homelessness, and medical treatment based on greed rather than compassion.
They are aware of what Hitler did, but if you are not honest with yourselves and accept that you are a victim, they will not treat you like one and give you the help you are entitled too.
If proper help was given this fear and anxiety from losing liberty to the mental hospital will not exist to begin with.
Your inability to control your aggression is why you are a mental patient, you only give society a good excuse to put you away when you can’t control your anger and be civilized.
I suggest that you look at things with love and compassion, and practice unconditional forgiveness, showing compassion to receive compassion, and helping others without expecting anything in return from them.
You will be able to defend against those who you fear will steal your liberty through passive resistance, rather than active resistance which they will provoke you into.
None of us are perfect and we all are prone to lose our cool, but it is the weakest of us such as the mentally ill who must bare the biggest burden of this unfortunately, since they have the least amount of tolerance afforded to them as the rest of society in dealing with oppression.
I hope you learn to embrace your victim-hood as a mental patient which is how society labels you, so that your labors don’t enable your oppressors who label you that way and harm everyone like you.
No they don’t for capitalism to thrive it must profit, there are many people happy to be on medications.
We shouldn’t deny the ones who consent to medications to protect the ones who don’t consent to them.
It is our responsibility to tell people all the risks associated with medications, and let them make an informed free choice without biased information.
I have stated many times the medications are over prescribed, but we can’t generalize and be dishonest that medications don’t have a place.
You must have seen people who are too far away from reality, that medications would help them.
Mcrea those programs aren’t working because no one is funding them.
People will fund forced treatments because the insurers pay for it.
The mentally ill are already homeless and in prisons who aren’t being forcibly treated, so its not a logical fallacy to assume that abolishing forced treatment will not increase those numbers.
(“Help” that is forced isn’t “help”. I wouldn’t say this is necessarily true “100 % of the time, but it is true in the vast majority of cases. I know that mental health professionals often don’t work in their clients interests, but rather, in the interests of their family or the state. “Helping” the government put me away does not mean that I am being “helped” in the slightest.”)
There are really no statistics to back these claims, though forced treatment appears misused a small number of times in my opinion.
When it is misused it is a grave injustice to the patient, and I agree it needs to be revised and monitored for what is the worst case.
Many people are beneficiaries of forced treatment because the absence of treatment in American society is far more dangerous.
Where would you want them to be in prison or homeless, or forcibly treated?
Choose the lesser evil until you can choose the greater good.
How do you get consent from someone who can’t distinguish reality from fiction?
You have for forcibly treat some people, the problem is many are forcibly treated who don’t need to be for convenience to society.
Whose going to fund these respite houses? The psychiatric system is funded by capitalism, where the private or public insurance companies employs people to help those who are in distress.
You need practical solutions before you take away disability or welfare from the mentally ill, otherwise they go to prisons or the streets and die there.
Those medications are dangerous, but they are not as dangerous as starving or violence for people who can’t support themselves.
People do die on medications but it is not a mass genocide as you anti psychiatry people are over stating.
Also you offer no solutions to replace people who can’t pay their bills and need government handouts to live.
Someone mentioned a respite house, well get your charities to put more of them up because right now the majority of people need government welfare and forced treatment to survive their mental illnesses.
There was one really good Doctor who said only tell me you’re hearing and seeing things that aren’t there, and the patients were able to function without medications outside without anyone knowing.
Compassionate therapists are a minority in an industry that has been taken over by greed, just as all other industries.
I only recommend medications for the worse cases where people want to function outside of their social support systems.
For example if they want a part time job, a medication will help control seeing and hearing things that aren’t there so they can focus on interacting with the world on a different level than their accustomed.
Without forced treatment or the government paying their bills many people would die.
To help you accept help, even if it is forced.
You are indeed for freedom, but for the freedom of the strong to hurt the weak.
You refuse to see some people are too weak to help themselves and blinded from your own pride, or maybe anger from your own loss of liberty.
It is not your fault for holding this view, but you ought to forgive and recognize that not everyone is as strong as you are to survive on their own, and they need a helping hand even if it comes as an involuntary commitment.
It is when freedom is taken away not for helping you, but for helping someone else that this becomes harmful.
Americans are going hungry if you choose to open your eyes.
American’s are also being poisoned by their own foods and are dying from cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and everything else.
Forcibly removing them from their situations and showing them the truth will help them heal, whether in mental health or otherwise.
It appears like a losing battle, if we are all responsible they we may have been irresponsible for far too long for this to be corrected.
Many mental health professionals are doing it for the money rather than passion for helping others, but that is in every industry and it just very harmful to the mentally sick in this case.
Many authors and probably the people owning and running this website have some type of profession in the mental health industry.
We need more ethical mental health workers who come from a place of compassion to be advocates for the mentally ill, and less who come from a place of just doing their job as stated by the book.
They are mentally ill, it is a sickness not to be happy.
It is how we treat that sickness is how we will be judged by love for ourselves and others.
The right to life comes before the right to liberty, and the right to pursuing happiness comes after the right to life and the right to liberty.
Late edit:
When I say ‘force them to learn for their own good’ I mean a temporary loss of liberty until they can survive on their own.
I understand this is subjective, but it can be done compassionately with the goal of independence and freedom in an efficient amount of time.
That is misguided to say that everyone is capable of helping themselves. You would let someone starve who doesn’t know how to fish, or would you teach them how to fish?
If they don’t want to learn how to fish, you must force them to learn for their own good, for their own survival.
The problem with the involuntary commitments of the mental health community is that they are not done with love nor compassion, they are done to keep people from causing a disturbance due to their sadness and anger.
They must be done with more resources to address problems with family, money, or other conflicts with community.
The perspective like yours is mostly likely what perpetuates the harm and loss of liberty to the victims of mental illness that you and those like you so fear.
According to your own logic mentally people defending themselves from force treatment who become violent in that defense, are justified.
So how could you in good conscience call them criminals or try to separate criminals from the mentally ill?
I agree with you about working to abolish forced treatment, and try to use more compassionate approaches that don’t involve medications are electric shocks, but be genuine in your positions.
We should work to guarantee the freedom and independence of anyone experiencing emotional distress, or persistent and extreme mental illness that is literally biological in nature like schizophrenia.
That can be accomplished by finding someone’s self awareness and accurately pin pointing what is their desire in the pursuit of their happiness, and work towards that goal with them. If that includes medications let it be, but be objective in the prescription when looking at their needs and the needs of society.
The only rule in life is to do no harm, and that is how we should approach it.
I’ll just add some more thoughts, I think the ethics are who to involuntary commit or force help upon.
From the perspective of this anti mental health community, many people who don’t pose a threat to themselves or others are being involuntarily treated and I would believe that is true given the current state of the psychiatric system.
Though we need to be rational and recognize there are instances where forced treatment is necessary, and that removing someone from their toxic environment would help their emotional health until whatever problems they are experiencing that may cause them to break down are addressed.
These are often family problems, money problems, and related social problems from the community which oppress them as victims.
Forced treatment like court ordered therapy is much better than jail for one thing, and two there is a fear of psychiatry that resulted from the Reagan era, where the hospitals to the mentally ill were under funded and real torture and neglect happened.
The solution is competent therapists who are not over burdened and driven by filling their days with many patients for more money.
The psychiatric model can be run for greed and money, or love and compassion since their first rule is to do no harm. You don’t need many years in college to teach you how to help someone solve their problems so they aren’t very sad or angry and can’t function.
The medications are reserved for the absolute hardest cases where you can literally see they can’t function because their seeing things or yelling uncontrollably, but even then there is a ethical line that shouldn’t be crossed between greed and compassion in the treatment.
We failed as a society due to this simple quote, “Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.” Arthur Schopenhauer
Their happiness is dependent on the unhappiness or mental illness of others. The pursuit of happiness should be shared not taken.
According to your perspective he was mentally sick, but was over medicated and over treated with electrical currents. You also mention that compassion and love is not enough to treat all mentally ill, and I would agree as I have seen really bad forms of it. Where do we draw the line and find a balance between the incredibly sick, and the ones who are not as sick but still need help.
The mentally ill as a whole are victims of society, some more than others. The ones really devastated by mental illness where they can’t function are the same as those poisoned by food and get heart attacks and cancer, it is just their form of illness from the toxic world created by excessive greed.
He is free now but has a warrant for his detention by the hospital ?
I don’t know how to reconcile this with what your ultimate point is, the taxpayers have a give and take relationship with the corporate industry. They pay the corporations to keep them employed as taxpayers, and the corporations profit from treating mentally ill people like Garth Daniels.
What is the solution that you are proposing? How do you convince a majority of people to correction a systemic failure this big?
Your resolutions don’t seem to fix a corrupt system, so even though they appear rational and practical it really is not practical at all. Can you implement your solutions within the psychiatric system?
To website please introduce an edit comment feature if financially possible, so I can correct my grammar after the post.
Involuntary treatment is good if it functioned as intended, you mention that voluntary psychotherapist is the answer but many people don’t voluntary help themselves or their situations.
This is dated back to when Ronald Reagan shut down the mental hospitals because they were under funded and mentally ill people were treated badly in them and literally tortured in the true sense of the word with neglect and abuse.
Your position is a quick fix to a broken system that medicates people involuntarily, but it is the wrong way to the solution.
We need to involuntarily commit people to introduce them to them competent therapists, the problem is that the therapists who work at hospitals are incompetent and abusive themselves at the sheer magnitude of the failure of society.
They don’t know how to provide quality psychotherapy that is based on compassion because they are more concerned with making money by over scheduling patients, rather than spending quality time with them which is the whole reason their profession exists since psychiatrists have left their original roles to focus on prescribing medications to quickly treat as many mentally ill people as they can to make money, instead of showing love to them by hearing their problems and offering rational solutions.
The whole system is a mess and you removing involuntary commitments is just going to make it worse, because the mentally ill will not even be able to begin their journey toward understanding how they want to be helped.
The ideal is a loving therapist who shows compassion and rational advice, and most would choose that. The problem is there aren’t many of those out there, so they need the medications and the incompetent therapists to function sanely in a sane society, or maybe insanely in an insane society depending on how you see it.
We must keep them under control with medications and involuntary treatments for their safety and our safety.
The majority of people are indeed happy and enjoying their lives, it is the minority of mentally ill people that are the problems of society.
The taxpayer will medicate them and force them to be happy with involuntary treatments, so they don’t bring them down with their sad faces.
Most people don’t have those reactions to psychiatric medications, only a small number.
Imagine the amount of violence if those medications did not exist, and this mentally ill segment of society was able to see what is really causing their problems?
You should learn to never be insulted by honesty no matter how hard it is to hear, much less lies. It will help you cope with your mental illness.
You are a victim of society, whatever it is that causes you to burn yourself is not your fault, but society chooses to take responsibility for you with forced treatments.
I am not encouraging that you lose your rights in society, I am stating what is reality and you need to accept it in order not to be delusional and further your mental illness.
You are equally as undesirable to this society as this guy that you write about, and when you try to position yourself above him by claiming you are not mentally ill, you harm the entire community that you profess you are helping in your position of power writing these articles.
I hope you reconsider because your voice is much louder than mine in a comment section of your article.
That is of course wrong, mentally ill people are violent either to themselves or others due to being oppressed in some way.
We see a lot of violence in poor communities, and it is rising in middle class communities and labeled mental illness to separate the two and make excuses.
In the past before medications were invented people were naturally violent in order to defend themselves from oppressors.
The only true way to suppress violence is forced treatment of the mentally ill whether they are violent to others or themselves, for their own safety or the safety of others.
This way the majority who are not self harming or at risk for harming others will be at peace not having to watch the mentally display their unhealthy dysfunctions to the world.
The mentally ill are casualties of a society that left them behind from success because they were too weak to compete, so they must lose their rights for the greater good.
I don’t agree with this logic because before anti depressants people were violent all throughout human history.
It is the governments way of suppressing violence through medications and possibly political dissidents as well, since people who are predisposed to violence are usually due to being oppressed in some way.
We see more violence in poor communities of color, and it is rising in middle class and labeled mental illness.
So yes if we can medicate them into non violence through forced treatment, that will be better for the majority of people who are non violent and privileged.
My prediction is not that they will abolish forced treatment, there will be much higher use of it especially with what happened in Orlando.
The violent people out there are untreated mentally ill people, whether they are violent with self harm or harm to others.
The government will start to profile these people and many people will become involuntarily committed or treated for their own good, for the safety of themselves and others.
Get ready if you thought it was bad before with the over prescribing of medications for people who are just sad or angry, it is going to get far worse when they profile anyone who is not happy or expresses opinions that are contrary to popular opinion and are not shared by the majority, who are groomed by those in power who influence them.
Society is structured to run on the functioning sick, and those who won’t or can’t function are taken care of with the side effects of these medications.
They used illegal drugs and alcohol in the past to function and still do which causes and caused this as well, now a lot of it is replaced with prescribed medications.
To add a different perspective from my first one mentioned above, the rights of the mentally deranged should be taken in some circumstances. Don’t focus on how you are losing your rights, focus on why you are losing them.
If you are that confused to not know that self harm is inward violence because of your emotional disturbances as the author is. then you are not capable of being competent to know if others are a danger to the public..
Yes we should ban guns from the mentally ill, and yes not all of them present a danger, but everyone who is violent is emotionally sick it is a fact of life that you ought to accept no matter their religion or prejudices.
I put the blame of those in positions of power that allow this to continue, for example this website allows an author that is enabling self harm by allowing her to write articles here. It obviously distorts her view of what is reality, and encourages others to accept this unhealthy logic as healthy.
People aren’t naturally violent, but just because they are not to blame when they are due to mental illness, does not mean they should not be protected for their own safety and the safety of others since they are victims.
Of course a pill isn’t going to provide love and compassion to those victims, but you can’t correct one wrong with another wrong such as allowing people to self harm or harm others. The failures of the psychiatric community is why I participate in this community, but I will not support unhealthy behavior only forgive it.
Do I support the loss of rights to anyone, such as the mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or deeply and chronically sad? No, but in some cases we have to do it until those in power who are responsible for the failures of society are held accountable for their sins, and for everyone’s safety until then. We have no choice but to be patient until the day everyone can responsibly enjoy their rights again. Yes this is an injustice to the ones who lose their rights, but it is for their own good and it will help them heal until their oppressors come to justice for their wrongs.
No one is perfect in the end, but maybe one day we can establish a system where those in positions of power aren’t able to abuse their power so much, because with great power comes great responsibility. To whom much is given, much is asked.
Putting aside the failures of psychiatry in its drive for greed over compassion, just common sense should tell you that self harm is not good.
If you guys choose to self harm by ‘burning yourself’ or cutting, or what have you, then it is my responsibility as a person of compassion to tell you it will never bring lasting happiness, only those temporary moments of gratification you get when you hurt yourself.
It is also a good example of the failure of our society which drives people to self harm, and tries to fix them quickly with a pill to get back to work instead of encouraging and promoting love both in psychiatry and in the rest of society.
I am off topic, but I have said my piece that violence is violence, whether from this guy or self harm. I wish you all the best, and hope you recover from your self harming impulses one day and find real happiness.
When I said someone responsible for your care, I meant someone who has compassion and love should explain to you that harming yourself is not healthy. If you don’t like therapists, one of your friends should have told you this, or family?
None of us are perfect, you are right we all engage in self harming activities from time to time, like eating unhealthy, or not exercising, but you are advocating that we embrace this?
I don’t know what you do to self harm, and hope its not cutting or something along those lines, but I do hope someday you are able to empathize with the mentally ill like yourself, and show us compassion.
In the bible it says we must show compassion in order to receive compassion, but that can be used by everyone whether or not they belong to a religion.
It is not my intention to insult you, but I am finished freely expressing myself and would have to agree to disagree with you on why this guy and you share the same mental illness, that leads to violence if not treated.
Thank you for your time in responding, good day.
The truth of love that we all share.
Self harm is an act of violence against one’s self, if you can’t see that I am sorry that someone who is responsible for your care has not explained that to you properly.
It is why you distinguish violence of people who are chronically sad, as the ones who do it outwardly are bad and the ones who do it inwardly are excused and good.
The people who are mentally ill are sometimes their own worst enemies because of ignorance, myself included.
I respectfully ask that you ignore the stigma of society in determining your position, you hold a position of power with your articles so please use it responsibly to show compassion.
I agree with you about the pitfalls of the current psychiatric establishment, the over prescribing of medications, the denial of the rights of the mentally ill, but that is no reason to be dishonest and it won’t improve the situation.
I also forgot to add this guy was confused about is sexual orientation from the recent reports, many gays who are mentally ill commit violence against themselves, this one turned it outward.
Keep it honest even though there is stigma against those who are chronically sad or mentally ill.
The truth will set us free.
I can’t agree, I know you are trying to distance those who are sad or mentally ill from violence but you are doing so disingenuously.
The fact is which you point out is that those who are diagnosed are less likely to be violent, because they are being treated.
He was mentally ill, it was just that he was not treated.
Now we can go over the most compassionate way to treat, like medications which have their own problems, or talk therapy which is effective but takes long, or involuntary stays at the hospital for long periods of time which can take away the rights of the mentally ill who are not violent.
But that is a different topic, and being dishonest is no way of helping the victims who are sad or mentally ill whether they are violent to themselves such as in self harm, or to others as this guy, or neither, and just need love, companionship, and someone to talk too.
He is not lazy he is a typical therapist in America.
Therapist shopping isn’t going to help, it takes a few months just to get comfortable and establish a good working relationship with one to begin with.
Everywhere you go you hear the story of therapists treating clients like cattle, rushing them in and out of the office for more money.
Look at the systemic failure of psychiatrists, who don’t even provide talk therapy anymore but just make a quick diagnosis and put you on medication.
The system is broken, self help or self therapy is how you help yourself in an unhelpful society.
After several years with one, I’ll move on to my second one because of my convictions against medications to treat natural emotional reactions to an unjust society.
The people who have to apply to social security disability for help with income have to be subjected to a medical diagnosis by a psychiatrist, and compelled to take medication for life to prove they are severely disabled and in need of help and can’t work.
They cannot say they are too sad to work either due to poor opportunity for employment, under employment, job loss, a bad economy, and social injustice that usually accompanies poverty.
These people are controlled with medications, who would naturally be political dissidents and voice their concerns respectfully and assertively in a civilized way. The medications are indeed dangerous because they repress anger, rather than allow it be expressed freely and openly in a safe way to the rich and those in power, who have a good excuse not to hear criticism otherwise.
It has to be a chemical imbalance not a natural reaction to government policies that send jobs to other countries, steals the wealth of the middle class, or a society that humiliates you for not taking personal responsibility like others who don’t share similar problems.
I am against medication, but my therapist is terrible. I have been seeing him for 7 years and he would see me for 10 minutes at a time, or not see me at all and still bill the government for services.
After I mentioned this to him and that I wanted him to see me the whole 40 minutes he bills for, he started to provoke me into anger which is part of his therapy where he makes people speak up for themselves by provocation, who are socially anxious and submissive.
It is terrible that I can’t even get proper therapy from a counselor, I am in the process of reporting him but it is a bigger problem, a systemic problem.
Therapists don’t take patients who are severely unhappy because it increases their workload, they see a lot of patients to make a lot more money since they don’t get paid as much as psychiatrists, who make more money from office visits of 10 minutes and prescribing medications.
The whole system is messed up, it is very hard to rely on self help alone as in this article but it is my saving grace. I try to manage diet, exercise, I’ve tried fasting which helps people who are sad, though a quality therapist who is there to always encourage you and make you feel good about yourself is so desperately needed.
Please America, fix your mental health system so its humane!
There is no way to profit from this type of society where people express their emotions, society is based on happiness being derived from working to make money in capitalism.
If you’re expressing your emotions and it affects the ability for you to profit off of others by not working, or others to profit off of you by not providing you with psychiatric medications and electrical stimulation, then you are not properly fitting into this society.
Their shameless, their phasing out therapists because they can’t make money really helping someone talking about their problems, and into medication for a lifetime worth of abuse and injustice.
It is sickening.
It is basically that non white patients have more mental problems that the system wants them to fix quickly with medications and get back to work, instead of using therapists to adequately find out whats going on after years of talking.
And they don’t want them because of the lower reimbursements from medicaid insurance, and can’t or won’t want to help them.
It’s so bad that the therapists are picking and choosing who they want to see based on how much work they have to do.
If it is someone with severe emotional problems they will pass them up and see the people with less severe problems.
The psychiatrists are busy pushing pills and playing God, it is not even a concern for them to do talk therapy.
“The Titanic was driven by professionals too”
That goes to my point, they need to be trained how to steer a ship. The Captain of the titanic wanted to impress others and save time.
Similar to mental health professionals, they want to save time rather than help others compassionately.
It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be trained on how to steer the ship, it is just that they should use their knowledge for good rather than bad.
Lets follow if he voluntarily admits himself into the psychiatric hospital, and if he does is it because he is brain washed by drugs or incompetent by electric shocks, or motivated by the need of social welfare assistance for survival.
There is no love and compassion until there is pain first, your utopia is an illusion.
We need human nature to reveal it’s primal animal instincts of capitalizing on others through capitalism, before society can have any sort of compassion with socialism.
No such thing as your perfect socialism, as we saw in Nazi Germany when resources are scarce people will eliminate the competition in that society as well to survive.
They aren’t trained out of compassion
completely, some therapists go out of their way not to be compassionate. In the case of psychiatrists though I would agree, since they don’t have the time to be compassionate as they are prescribing medication only.
The training enables them to be compassionate, because they would not know how to help someone otherwise.
The training is objective and centered around compassion, it is the therapist that interprets the training subjectively and without ‘common sense’.
I guess that is true although I would expect a universal standard for healers because of that fact, that not everyone responds to tough love.
I know many people need to feel the lash of the whip to get them functioning, and not feel as victims.
Though there others who respond to hand holding and coddling and embracing their victimization.
If healers could be trained to handle both types, and even allow the unhappy person to choose how they would like to pursue happiness it would be easier on the ‘client’.
We can’t have the unhappy who already are having a hard time going from healer to healer to find the right one, its not cost effective much less conducive to healing.
Societies biases can change the fundamentals that assist in determining its outcome in any given time.
It is human nature to capitalize on others just as in the animal kingdom with lions eating weaker animals.
It is in human nature to help each other for a mutual benefit, where trade built modern civilization and technology.
Finally it is in human nature to love and help selflessly, and not expect anything in return for good deeds.
I think even with those who have sheltered lives with good families who always loved them would not ordinarily be traumatized by someone’s problems.
In fact they would have a strong tolerance for the misery of people and the world, being removed from it all their lives they would be more likely to show compassion in its truest form as they know the standard.
Victim-hood is a good thing for those that want it, and I can only agree if you set a place aside for those people who want to be victims and respect their choice.
I understand there is a tendency to assume enabling people to see themselves as victims allows them to have an excuse not to work.
Some people want to embrace their victim-hood, and don’t want to work to get better for their own reasons.
As you said the pursuit of happiness is different for everyone, the healer should respect however the victim chooses to live, and not try to impose their beliefs on them as to what they ought to do in order to be happy.
The most basic function of any ethical healer would be to promote peace, sanity, and love in the troubled person and they will improve on their own.
We all can deal with sadness on or own, the only reason why some need help from others is when they lose the safety nets of tolerance that others enjoy from the privileges of a caring and loving family who are selfless instead of selfish with love, money, affection, self sacrifice, as these promote security from a spiritual, logical, peace of mind, confidence, or any other good perspective of decent and respectable people.
the mental health system should improve if the political system improves.
if the politics allows favoritism for greed, it will happen everywhere including mental health.
The Psychiatric industry began with talking, then it devolved into making a quick diagnosis to medicate after a 15 minute meeting.
It is incredible the depths of quick fixes has infected western society, that it would enable the death of a young patient.
I can’t blame the industry because at its creation it was ideal, a free market system that actually profits from showing those with severe problems in life mercy so that they can pursue happiness.
Ideally psychiatrists would talk to patients, listen to their problems without prejudice, and offer a place of peace, love, and sanity above all else.
Today the industry is corrupted to the point where they pass off the most important part of their responsibilities to lesser trained and underpaid therapists. Who usually most often restful or bitter that they are less respected in the mental health profession, and the quality of care for the patient plummets as a result.
Does this mean we do away with the industry? No way that is equally as disturbing, we have to fix the broken parts.
Make psychiatrists assume their original roles, and center therapy around a long term comprehensive approach of compassion, love, and encouragement. Not quick fixes of medications, and abusive talk therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy which is short term and provoking emotionally.
You can’t fix a lifetime of unhappiness and problems with a few months or even few years of listening to someone’s problems. It takes a lifetime to sort out everything, while trying to maintain a good quality of life in the pursuit of happiness.
I think a good healer should enable victim-hood.
Many victims don’t know their victims, it is only once they are aware of their victim-hood do they realize they want to continue the pursuit of happiness.
A mental health professional is trained to enable victim-hood, is only when the mental health professional adopts the cultural philosophy of tough love do they become poor healers.
This disease of logic pervades the systemic compassion created by a mental industry designed to show compassion and mercy first and foremost, that theories are developed to ruin the sanctity of the practice such as cognitive behavioral therapy.
This therapy focuses more on a quick short term solution, to a lifetime’s worth of problems which manifests into severe anxiety and unhappiness.
It provokes individuals as a shock to their system, to be less anxious and more happy intentionally, which is counter to the philosophy of ethical therapy.
Common sense would tell us that a life time of problems can only be cured by a life time of therapy, there are no quick fixes. If the social welfare system would grant life time payouts to the patients, and the medical industry would quit being proactively developing quick fixes in the form of therapy or medication, true healing and amazing potential would be achieved in the pursuit of happiness for the most unhappiest of individuals.
Be the love that you want to see in the world, leadership in the mental health industry has failed to help many patients in their pursuit of happiness ethically.
Keep the grassroots movements going for compassion, set better examples, look at the problem in the bigger picture as societal rather than just health.
There is no perfect solution, but there will be good attempts at one using this logic.
It is very true that those who have had sheltered lives with love and happiness are greater able to show mercy to those who have had hard lives with abuse.
I would agree only if the wounded emotionally are not still wounded, and also how did they survive those wounds?
If they came out the other end toughened up, without the ability to feel compassion then they would do an injustice to the one that needs help.
So we should hope that the ‘wounded healer’ has truly healed properly.
The culture believes in tough love, so there is no longing for empathy, compassion, and love by most people.
Maybe from your perspective they are desensitized to what you consider love, compassion, or empathy to be but they are not.
They believe it builds character not to complain about the problems in life that we all have, and to tough it out. They very well empathize with others, but they have had hard lives too so why do few complain?
Compassion to them is teaching someone to fish rather than handing them fish, meaning you don’t make them out to be victims and to embrace that victim-hood.
With all due respect society views what you believe is compassion, empathy, and love as coddling.
You know that the predictable response to your argument of their inability to function like a civilized person is not excused because their mom did not love them enough.
Unfortunately many people were not loved by their parents, but have had to make it without someone to hold their hand through life.
They had to survive by adjusting to the unjust society, they do not see a ‘dog eat dog world’ as a bad thing but one that makes the world go around.
Society sees those who can’t function without love as useless eaters, it is an unfortunate truth.
Good luck with helping others.
I think the best healers for the pursuit of happiness would be the ones that come from healthy families, and have good relationships where they are able to manage their own problems reasonably.
If the mental health professional is themselves depressed, or has broken relationships, or has problems of the past that they have not sorted out yet how can they help others do the same?
There is a shortage of care givers for mental health, and that has loosened the standard by giving out free scholarships and making it easier to have people who are in it for the money, or don’t have a passion for helping others, go to that profession and further its depreciation and criticism.
It is not really complicated, just have good people who are mentally healthy with the right intentions to help others who are persistently sad and anxious. The system will work if it is not structurally weakened for cost savings.
Yes we do, you need a framework to oversee and pay the healers.
This isn’t a tribal society it is civilized, there are not medicine men who offer communal service at their discretion with impunity. Many people who act independently impose a great liability on the patient, in other words picking up people off the street to talk to people about their problems is vulnerable to abusive practices by that individual, no matter how ‘compassionate’ you feel the individual is.
If you think the entire psychiatric industry is abusive as a community, think about the harm an individual with that same power can do to another individual even in counseling. The standard is visible for all to see a general view of whats going on and criticize it. Has the industry adopted abusive practices with the over prescribing of medication, and is driven by greed rather than providing an ethical service? Yes, but that is not just the medical industry, that is everywhere from banking to any other business as of late. Are there individuals within the psychiatric community who abuse their authority and even do illegal things to their vulnerable patients? Yes, but there is at least a way to police them and supervise the system the way it is set up.
We have to see it as capitalism pragmatically, that a service of compassion is being offered and fair market compensation must be valued for it to exist. Good service will follow from the resulting competition towards a cure in their pursuit of happiness, and the standard of the psychiatric community will be proved for all to see.
I will have to agree to disagree due to the article being poorly written.
“Oddly enough, the majority of his admissions were voluntary; he takes himself back to the hospital sometimes as little as a week after discharge. ”
This contradicts what you say, that he is institutionalized and inpatient who has to suffer from mandatory electric shocks and medication.
Though my point is similar to yours in that I agree he is being coerced to submit to treatment, but for different reasons like getting welfare payments or free long stays at the hospital to save on rent?
Good luck in helping him and others.
“Most of us have families and friends who freely share compassion with us and expect nothing in return but for us to return the same”
That is your sheltered world, but not the real world. If it were the real world this website would not exist, as there would not be a problem with psychiatry to criticize as it would not exist.
In the real world compassion is given, but something is expected in return for it. When patients don’t have the family and friends to freely share that compassion, they go to the psychiatric industry who is subsidized by the insurers who pay for the mentally ill.
When that compassion comes from the taxpayer publicly, or privately from the insurance contributor something must be returned to them, it is not freely given.
Even in your world, it is not free because you expected to show compassion in return when it is given to you, in capitalism that compassion takes the form of money.
Good luck helping others.
Steve the worldview you describe is the reality for most people, everyone has a tough life and many do jobs they don’t like, but it has to be done to put food on the table.
There are many abuse victims that don’t need someone to hold their hand to get through life, or ask for handouts from the government and other taxpayers who work to get by.
We don’t live in a society where you have the time to navel gaze in order to find meaning in life, or ‘sense of purpose’.
To oldhead, the idealistic view that you get compassion without expecting anything in return for it.
You need the psychiatric medical business to provide that compassion, and in return they make money for that service, we live in a capitalist country not a communist country.
It is pretty obvious, whatever the anti psychiatric movement offers with the mainstream psychiatric establishment medical business.
Slower psychiatry is a partnership between the two, neither side has the right cure or there would be no mental illness.
Every single welfare system in Western Society has regularly scheduled check ups in order to continue to receive welfare for a mental disability. They don’t get welfare if their able to work, so being treated is the how they prove their disabled.
He voluntarily goes to these ECT and medication treatments so that he can get his government money for survival like it or not.
This is how the socialist welfare states in Europe saves money, they don’t want to pay to help a young mentally ill person with life time payments from the government so they called it ‘Euthanasia’.
The capitalist states in America medicate them and make millions selling pharmaceuticals, to mask the abuse with chemicals.
Wouldn’t they simply use compassion, support them financially with safe and secure housing, access to healthy organic foods, access to simple recreation, and work through their problems with empathy even if it takes years to assist in their pursuit of happiness?
Slower psychiatry appears to be a good compromise, as the main problems are associated with treating rather than curing as with other medical professions.
You have to label a sad person who can’t work medically depressed in order for them to get government money.
This is also a practical solution because there are people who have been affected by abuse or war so severely that a competent medical professional with experience has the best position to offer compassion.
In the end the goal should be equipping the healers with the best tools to protect the sick, not do harm.
The oath goes first do no harm, so never do a surgery unless it will save a life.
“Oddly enough, the majority of his admissions were voluntary; he takes himself back to the hospital sometimes as little as a week after discharge. ”
If he’s consenting to being shocked/medicated it’s no one’s place to say what they believe is good for him.
He has an unhealthy codependent relationship with the government, where they pay for all his expenses with taxpayer money so long as he helps them make money participating in this treatment.
The anger here is misdirected, blame the society for allowing this relationship.
Let me address your attempt at solutions to the main problem.
People who are sad are not going to force themselves into a gym on a treadmill, much less stop eating the junk foods they are addicted too.
They aren’t going to look for social support when they are most likely anxious about social situations as part of their sadness.
Lastly ‘search for meaning in life’ or navel gazing, isn’t going to help if western society is going too fast for them to keep up, and does not offer any good examples for those without the privilege to see them.
My thoughts are critical psychiatry is too idealistic.
You have to accept losing some of your liberty or freedom to receive compassion at someones perceived expense. There will never be enough good people who want to stand up against bad people, because even the good people aren’t perfect.
It’s not barbaric if he’s walking into the Hospital every week to be shocked and medicated.
I think you’re missing that part of the article.
Look at it logically for a second, he is consenting to being ‘shackled’ or getting treatment with medication and ECT.
The author says he leaves for a week at a time and returns.
If he doesn’t get treatment they won’t pay him government benefits to survive.
I am not saying he is abusing welfare, just that its a codependent relationship between government and patient.
Sir the evidence is in plain view for all to see, western society is depreciated where many are becoming sad and need to be medicated.
You want to call it population control? I call it as I see it, and the medications are necessary for the numbers to be managed.
Without the buffer or safety net created by the profitable psychiatric industry, addiction rates to drugs and alcohol would be much higher than now, violence would be much higher than it is now, and welfare would be much more drained than it is now.
The obesity and diabetic epidemic are not because people love donuts, it is because they are sad and eating to fill a void. The psychiatric industry also treats eating addictions as ‘binge eating disorder’.
Now if you think there is a better way to treat sadness other than medications, that is a different discussion and one that probably not only the psychiatric industry can solve but greater society involvement.
The pursuit of one persons happiness should not come at the expense of another persons sadness.
It is not really mental disorder if he admits to sitting down and talking to them through their problems and refrains from medications, and that psychiatry is based on theory not science.
There are emotional disturbances or nervous breakdowns from experiencing really bad things from war or personal abuse. A veteran feeling threatened when there is no reasonable threat of danger is a natural fear from what they experienced, but it is not a disorder just a logical state of their mind that can be changed to reasonably manage risk once again as we all do. It takes time and patience, not quick fixes of medications and ECT that become long term anyway.
I think the main thing here is that this patient voluntarily admits himself to the hospital for ECT and medication treatment, and it would interesting to know if it was to keep his government benefits as that is often used to coerce one to give up their freedom.
You don’t get to enjoy the luxury of independence, housing, food, security, and the pursuit of happiness if you don’t do what we say. The profits from this industry in psychiatry that fund the careers of many, in this case millions over years for one man, is the trade off.
Prime-Thirteen you have that luxury to reject the compassion of liberals in the form of treatment, while others need those psychiatric medications to live and work, or the welfare income to eat.
To Mcrea you’re missing the context, and irresponsibly taking the high ground by saying ‘this is not a liberal/conservative thing’, when the topic of this article clearly holds liberals accountable for a specific problem.
If we’re generally speaking here then conservatives generally offer no compassion to those who are depressed or otherwise psychologically troubled, other than the church, tough love, or a simple phrase of quit whining everyone has problems.
Simply put you’re asking liberals who generally offer compassion to accept they are the oppressors,, when its the conservatives who generally don’t offer compassion who are truly behind the oppression.
A lot of these problems about forced treatment would easily be solved if more people would unite with liberals, and articulate the problems with their systems of compassion respectfully instead of with indictment.
I think its a necessary evil to have diagnostic labels for severe emotional troubles, as many people reject compassion for their own severe problems much less handing out compassion to others with their tax dollars.
Half of the country doesn’t want anyone to have any income or welfare when they are too sad or troubled psychologically to work, much less ‘citizenship pay’.
I do see a compromise that can be made where medicine isn’t incentivized to force treatment, but rather encourage it so at least the ones who have done their research can be spared.
The author being coerced to admit she overeats and needs to be medicated because she appears overweight is insulting and poor bedside manner.
Sera
My point concerning liberals and you needing them as an ally is that without liberals, there is no help for people who are sad.
The conservatives believe in tough love, not compassion.
They believe sadness is weakness, depression is a sin in the way they interpret the bible. Love whether it is interpreted in bible or not does not punish the sad.
What I’d like you and everyone here to understand is that we must unite among our petty differences, or divided our greatest fears become realized.
Those fears are forced treatment or no treatment, or forced help or the absence of compassion.
Well meaning liberals may be misguided but can be reached, while conservatives don’t want to be reached. While extending an olive branch for allies, try to make it appear more like constructive criticism as opposed to negative criticism..
This will accomplish everyone’s goal without leaving a bitter taste that the other side will capitalize on.
I wonder if they will diagnose half of the country who are overweight or obese as having eating disorders, and what medications they will make money prescribing for these people. Just another example of a system looking to treat illness to profit, rather than treat illness for fair and ethical compensation.
Though there is an obesity epidemic that is causing rising health care costs, they need to find more humane ways of treating it like more investments in therapists who can help people find out why they eat too much or too little, and work to resolve the problems or sadness associated with it.
One last thing I’d like to mention is that if you’re sad and can’t work, you won’t be able to survive without the help of liberal social programs.
The requirements of the social programs it that you are diagnosed with an illness called depression, that it is a chemical imbalance, and that you have a disability.
I understand the point of corruption within mental health, but be careful what moral high ground you stand on.
Some people can’t work without these medications, while others can’t work no matter what due to overwhelming sadness, and we shouldn’t question the victims without compassion in place to fix their problems during their pursuit of happiness.
Criticize liberals all you want, but they off them compassion medications and income assistance, when others offer them nothing but meditation, exercise, tough love, which is well and good for some but not a fix for everyone.
That is a good point that some of the worse things in the world have been done with the best of intentions, I heard that in a movie sometime ago.
I’d like to say that its very hard to put that into context with the mental health system, when they’re actually clearer more obvious examples like wars of nation building in the middle east that have yet to be fixed.
What I’m saying here you should try to understand that over half of the country is making no attempt at being your ally, so be nice to ones that are making that attempt.
The small number of Liberals, progressives, whatever you like to label them, would like to unite with you, while most everyone else would like to defeat your goals.