"Webster's Dictionary" defines bigot as "a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion." Despite the success of alternative mental health treatments for many people, there still exists bigotry against these approaches.
For many self-defined "ex-mental health patients," "mental health treatment consumers," and "psychiatric survivors" who attended Alternatives 2010 Conference (September 29 through October 3 in Anaheim, California), D.J. Jaffe's September 30, 2010 The Huffington Post piece, "People with Mental Illness Shunned by Alternatives 2010 Conference in Anaheim" was insulting. Mr. Jaffe writes of the Alternatives 2010 Conference:
By failing to include 'people with mental illness' in the list of 'consumers' and 'survivors' who are invited, they are sending a not-so-subtle message: mentally ill not welcome.
Mr. Jaffe's statement can most politely be described as disingenuous. Mr. Jaffe knows full well that the Alternatives Conferences are attended by many people who have been in fact diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and other serious mental illnesses, but who have found that neither their diagnoses nor their standard treatments have been helpful. In other words, not only does the Alternative Conference welcome people who have been labeled as mentally ill, the conference celebrates them, and provides them an arena and a platform.
Why is there a need for alternatives to standard drug treatments? A long-term outcome study of schizophrenic patients who were treated with and without psychiatric drugs was published in 2007 in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, research psychologist Martin Harrow, at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, discovered that after 4.5 years, 39 percent of the non-medicated group were "in recovery" and 60 percent had jobs. In contrast, during that same time period, the condition of the medicated patients worsened, with only six percent in recovery and few holding jobs. At the fifteen-year follow-up, among the non-drug group, only 28 percent suffered from any psychotic symptoms; in contrast, among the medicated group, 64 were actively psychotic.
Mr. Jaffe states, "For the 'labeled' participants, there will be a workshop on how to go off medications. That could be a dangerous, if not deadly, 'alternative'." And Mr. Jaffee also implies that the keynote speaker is anti-medication. It is Mr. Jaffe who is dangerous here, dangerously misleading. Neither Will Hall who led a workshop called "Coming Off Medications" nor keynote speaker Robert Whitaker are "anti-medication." I know both of them, and they are proponents of people being able to make informed choices.
Whitaker, as a medical reporter for the Boston Globe, won a George Polk Award for medical writing, a National Association of Science Writers Award for best magazine article, and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. In the solutions section of Whitaker's recent book "Anatomy of an Epidemic" (Crown Publishers, 2010), he describes how doctors in northern Finland use antipsychotic drugs sparingly and in an extremely selective, cautious manner when treating first-episode psychotic patients; also, a variety of alternative therapies are provided, and treatment decisions are made jointly with patients and their families. The results? "The long-term outcomes are," Whitaker notes, "by far, the best in the Western World."
Mr. Jaffe is again misleading when he states that Alternatives 2010 did not include people like his sister-in-law, "who suffers from the most devastating and debilitating mental illness: schizophrenia." Mr. Jaffe, I assure you, that both you and your and sister-in-law are welcome to any and all Alternatives Conferences.
David Oaks is director of MindFreedom and an attendee of Alternatives 2010. Oaks, as a young man, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, for several decades now, with alternative solutions and without psychiatric drugs, Oaks has not relapsed, and he has been a highly effective advocate for the rights of those diagnosed with mental illness. Oaks, understandably, was more than annoyed with Mr. Jaffe's piece. Oaks responded:
For 25 years the United States federal government has done at least one thing really well in mental health: They've funded an annual gathering of mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors who lead innovative peer-run programs for mental health. You'd think a blog like The Huffington Post would be intrigued about how a marginalized population has been finding its own voice, creating its own groups providing effective peer-delivered services, and influencing Washington, D.C.
To David Oaks, I say, Mr. Jaffe doesn't speak for The Huffington Post or its many bloggers. Mr. Jaffe sure as heck doesn't speak for me.
Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing).
Michael Friedman, L.M.S.W.: Why There's 'No Health Without Mental Health'
You can see my latest post here on more proof that Assisted Outpatient Treatment helps people with mental illness. : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/largest-longest-study-new_b_777612.html
Thanks
Alternative medicine (actually, "integrative medicine") has shown to be enormously successful in treating serious "mental health disorders."
You say there is "value" in taking "medications?"
You first!
Duane Sherry, M.S.
discoverandrecover.wordpress.com
Mr. Jaffe clearly thought he could push an agenda with that piece. Luckily, we all spoke up and uttered our disdain for his tactic.
He didn't need to piggyback his agenda on a conference about alternatives therefore attempting to redirect the larger conversation. If the ideas are sound, they'll find their own voice and stand by themselves. If the idea doesn't stand on it's own, then maybe it's time for reflection.
Thanks Again!
D. J. Jaffe campaigns for more involuntary psychiatric drugging of us, even the nightmarish technique of using court orders to forcibly treat us in our own homes out in the community. Last year we actually had to fight for an individual - Ray Sandford - who was under this 'outpatient commitment,' and being escorted weekly from his group home to an institution for monthly involuntary electroshock (electroconvulsive therapy or ECT)! Just google -- Ray Sandford electroshock -- to read about that international victory.
But it's fascinating that what most bugs D. J. Jaffe is... words, words, words. This is the power of language. For centuries, psychiatry has used very 'medical model' language about us. There's no perfect language, but our community seeks words that are more inclusive of a diversity of perspectives. I have an essay on this, just google these words: let's stop saying mental illness. Mr. Jaffe pretends this inclusive language "shuns," but in reality this was the most welcoming group I've seen!
Psychologist and author Bruce Levine has for years 'connected the dots' between our social change movement, and other movements. I highly recommend his books which you can read about at his web site http://www.brucelevine.net
David Oaks, Director, MindFreedom
Equally egregious was how Mr. Jaffe got stuck on semantics. He ran with his skewed version of who was invited to attend the Alternatives Conference because it suited his mission. According to Jaffe’s interpretation, ‘consumers’ and ‘survivors’ excluded the “mentally ill”.
Was he just being obtuse or was there a more threatening message in his unwillingness to understand why the programmers avoided the use of the language of the psychiatric industry?
By misinterpreting the language which people who are seeking alternative healing use, he undermined one very important change which the Alternatives Conference attendees embrace: communication without the damning language which the psychiatric industry has foisted on people in mental distress.
The disparaging labels of “illness” and “disease” and the lists of symptoms defined people with mental health issues for too long. In Mr. Jaffe’s disquieting way, he rubbed the faces of those seeking alternative healing in the reality of how difficult a change this will be.
We write blogs and articles and convey without question the experiences and goals of people struggling and healing without resorting to the jargon of psychiatric industry. And, we are more adept at it because we have humanized the experiences, not tried to categorize or rate each event.
Thank you, Mr. Levine, for keeping this discussion going.
When my wife had the mental event it was a full psychotic mental break. Doctors refused to phone a Steelcase dealer in Birmingham to learn about it. They diagnosed her as seriously psychotically mentally ill. One psychiatrist lied to me so I would give her Alzheimer's medications. She had a severe reaction and began to decline mentally . The doctor resigned the case.
Although designers and engineers have used this information to prevent mental breaks in office situations for forty years, no one in mental health services is aware it exists. They do not screen patients for it before beginning treatment. There is no treatment for it except to find and remove the source of exposure. When that is done the victim will remit symptoms without treatment of any kind.
Spontaneous Remission has been known for about 200/300 years. But like mental illness no one in mental health services knows why it happens.
It is arguable that recoveries while under treatment are spontaneous remissions of Subliminal Distraction exposure. Unaware the problem exists doctors believe that their treatment effected the recovery.
There is no "testable objective evidence" that psychotropic drugs do anything.
VisionAndPsychosis_Net
Mr. Jaffe has given me a great education in how not to comment on something I don't understand. He obviously knew nothing about Alternatives. But perhaps not so obviously, he did his best to disempower hundreds of wonderful people who were bravely searching for needed information and support. He was the one who harmed folks, he was the one who needs to learn, to apologize, to attend Alternatives 2011. And I need to remember myself not to make the mistake that he made: Shooting from the hip without caring who gets hurt. By the way, I posted Bob Whitaker's talk on YouTube, so he can see for himself just how fair and science-based the talk was.
Hugh Massengill
This dilemma is exacerbated by the presentation of a false dichotomy (i.e., either-or fallacy of medication or no medication). It would seem that, as in other cases involving one's health, the choice should reside with the one in need of treatment; choice made in conjunction or collaboration with a highly qualified professional. But, there's the rub. What are the choices? Is there a clear consensus among experts in the field? How can one know that all meaningful options are being offered, what their comparative strengths and weaknesses are, and how that might bear on one's particular situation?
I, for one, am left with more questions than answers. One thing seems clear, we are in need of well-funded research that can bring clarity to this opaque issue.
What you say is a 'health issue', and 'treatment' issue, I would simply point to the fact no 'qualified professional' exists in the entire world who can prove anyone labeled 'mentally ill' has a diseased brain, why? because they don't examine their patients' brain, so what the hell would they know about my brain?
that carried out Alternatives 2010, I thank you Bruce Levine. Mr.
Jaffe's remarks were inaccurate and were attempts to stiffle dialogue
about how to reduce medications and find individualized journeys to
recovery. From our evaluations, our open mic where over 50 gave feedback
and informal interviews, the conference was informative and fulfilling.
The reason that "alternative" treatments are looked upon with suspicion is that too many people who put them forward do so without proper understanding or trials at best, and to exploit a vulnerable population for their own gain at worst. Testable hypotheses and usable data are what distinguish geniune alternative treatments from the snake oil.
Having a competent psychiatrist is paramount--- fortunately, mine is very much so. I know others whose symptoms are poorly managed by psychiatrists who are nothing more than hacks. I'm more than happy to travel 150 miles round-trip and pay cash than subject myself to incompetent treatment.
I continue to firmly believe this statement: The most effective treatment is the one that works for that particular individual. We do have to remember however that what works for us may not work for someone else.
Speaking from a personal perspective, several years ago I underwent an experience that would be called schizophrenia and/or psychosis in this culture. I didn't know to go to the hospital and I was living in a remote community at the time where psychiatrists were a rarity. As a result, I have never been hospitalized, medicated or receive any degree of formal therapy.
I did find Jungian based insights to be enormously helpful and did lean, for a period of time, very heavily upon friends and family. Meantime, my cognitive function is fine and my relationships are stable. I have also been working for several years, save a period of time I stepped away from the work force when one of my children underwent a similar experience. (I also have a birth father who was in and out of psychiatric hospitals.)
I don't assume that my experience will be typical of others although it is what worked for me.
Reference also: Trials of the Visionary Mind ~ John Weir Perry (Jungian Psychiatrist)