Two more blogs you should check out. Go now - these guys may be rogues in their fields. Somehow I'm picturing Jack Sparrow right now, and you can't beat a mental picture of that! First up, The Last Psychiatrist. He doesn't name himself, but does say he's an academic who specializes in forensics. Hmm. He doesn't seem to be the "typical" psychiatrist and says things like this: Psychiatry is politics, it is politics in the way that running for office is politics. It is not a science, it is not even close to science, it is much closer to politics. No wonder he doesn't seem to use him name. That kind of statement isn't likely to ... (more...)

Added: Feb 16, 2007 1:30 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Washington Post Saturday, September 30, 2006; A01 In Russia, Psychiatry Is Again a Tool Against Dissent By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service DUBNA, Russia -- On March 23, police and emergency medical personnel stormed Marina Trutko's home, breaking down her apartment door and quickly subduing her with an injection of haloperidol, a powerful tranquilizer. One policeman put her 78-year-old mother, Valentina, in a storage closet while Trutko, 42, was carried out to a waiting ambulance. It took her to the nearby Psychiatric Hospital No. 14. The former nuclear scientist, a vocal activist and public defender for several years in this city 70 miles north of Moscow, spent the next six weeks undergoing a daily regimen of injections and drugs to treat what was diagnosed as ... (more...)

Added: Oct 5, 2006 5:59 pm | 5 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Apparently the Pope has gone mentally ill due to his recent call for peace. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013138.php  So far, no indications that he might be forcibly shocked, though there have been calls for him to be forcibly shot.

Added: Sep 17, 2006 11:57 am | 4 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

An absolutely fantastic response to the June report on the consumer/survivor movement in Psychiatric Services. Well done, my friends. Psychiatr Serv 57:1212, August 2006 David Oaks To the Editor: The essay "Evolution of the Antipsychiatry Movement Into Mental Health Consumerism" (1) in the June issue attempts to impose false labels and a skewed history on activists for human rights in mental health, including the nonprofit organization that I direct, MindFreedom International. The origin of our social change movement cannot be traced to a few antipsychiatry theoreticians and campus intellectuals. Many of us actually credit the civil rights movement and our own experiences of psychiatric abuse as the original sources of our inspiration. We can and do organize on our own. ... (more...)

Added: Aug 12, 2006 9:13 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Psychiatric Services August 2006 David Oaks Letter to the Editor To the Editor: The essay "Evolution of the Antipsychiatry Movement Into Mental Health Consumerism" (1) in the June issue attempts to impose false labels and a skewed history on activists for human rights in mental health, including the nonprofit organization that I direct, MindFreedom International. The origin of our social change movement cannot be traced to a few antipsychiatry theoreticians and campus intellectuals. Many of us actually credit the civil rights movement and our own experiences of psychiatric abuse as the original sources of our inspiration. We can and do organize on our own. The authors use the undefined term "antipsychiatry" 34 times in their essay, applying that label to many of us who do ... (more...)

Added: Aug 12, 2006 4:30 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Psychiatric Services June 2006 Rissmiller DJ, Rissmiller JH. Department of Psychiatry, School of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Cherry Hill, New Jersey 08002, USA. rissmidj@umdnj.edu This essay reviews the history and evolution of the antipsychiatry movement. Radical antipsychiatry over several decades has changed from an antiestablishment campus-based movement to a patient-based consumerist movement. The antecedents of the movement are traced to a crisis in self-conception between biological and psychoanalytic psychiatry occurring during a decade characterized by other radical movements. It was promoted through the efforts of its four seminal thinkers: Michel Foucault in France, R. D. Laing in Great Britain, Thomas Szasz in the United States, and Franco Basaglia in Italy. They championed the concept that personal ... (more...)

Added: Aug 12, 2006 4:29 pm | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

The Make-Believe World of User Participation, Rights and Voice Michael McCubbin, Ph.D. McCubbin, M. (2000). Sweet words that hurt: The make-believe world of user participation, rights and voice. The Rights Tenet (quarterly newsletter of the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy), Spring/Summer 2000, pp. 5, 8. Posted with permission of the editor of The Rights Tenet, Dr. Ronald Bassman. Many persons exercising or seeking coercive power in the name of mental health care justify their actions by the supposed "lack of self-insight caused by mental illness". This is a circular argument because lack of self-insight is often the psychiatrist's explanation for treatment refusal, and then used to support the diagnosis of mental illness and the proposed treatment. Inability of health professionals to recognize ... (more...)

Added: Jul 22, 2006 3:10 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Chinese Activist in Mental Hospital The Associated Press 2/13/2001 Thursday, February 8, 2001; 12:51 PM SHANGHAI, China-- A doctor confirmed Thursday that a Chinese labor activist is being held in a mental hospital, but insisted he was ill and downplayed reports that he was being forced to receive electric shock treatments. Cao Maobing, an electrician, was forcibly committed in mid-December for trying to form an independent labor union at a silk factory in eastern China, according to human rights groups. The New York-based Human Rights in China said Thursday that Cao was being force-fed psychiatric drugs and given electric shock treatment after going on a hunger strike in January. But a doctor at the Yancheng No. 4 Psychiatric Hospital in the eastern city of Yancheng said the ... (more...)

Added: Jul 22, 2006 12:24 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

This is an article I wrote for a feminist publication. I'm going to have to hunt down its name and when published. Psychiatry's roots in paternalism: why the field has not kept up with contemporary thinking By Juli Lawrence ect.org At its core, the field of medicine has always been paternalistic: doctor knows best. Even the Hippocratic Oath included a line that encouraged physicians to perpetuate the imbalance of power between doctor and patient: "I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment." But while patients' rights activists have provoked change in this power struggle, the field of psychiatry maintains roots deeply planted in paternalism and patriarchy. This imbalance of power is evident in ... (more...)

Added: Jul 17, 2006 2:14 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

by Linda Andre Director of CTIP Have you ever wondered how psychiatrists make a decision to shock a person against his or her will? Who's a candidate for forced shock, and why? These questions were publicly answered by the two psychiatrists who signed the papers seeking a court order for involuntary shock of Paul Henri Thomas. In some but not all states---New York is one of them---a person must be found to be legally incompetent before he or she can be shocked against her will. The general public, upon hearing this, sighs in relief: of course; that's as it should be; that could never happen to me; of course there must be safeguards in place, and standards as to what constitutes competence; a person must ... (more...)

Added: Jul 17, 2006 12:01 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

All the recommendations in this report emphasize the basic principle that people with psychiatric disabilities are, first and foremost, citizens who have the right to expect that they will be treated according to the principles of law that apply to all other citizens. All laws and policies that restrict the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities simply because of their disabilities are inharmonious with basic principles of law and justice, as well as with such landmark civil rights laws as the Americans with Disabilities Act. "...public policy should move toward the elimination of electro-convulsive therapy and psycho surgery as unproven and inherently inhumane procedures. Effective humane alternatives to these techniques exist now and should be promoted." Download full report (pdf: 380k) ... (more...)

Added: Jul 14, 2006 5:32 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print