Posted by Gretta Fahey on October 26, 2022 at 6:01am
Fear of Psychiatry:
It’s Not Irrational
Lee Coleman, MD
Recently a story in the I-G took up the suicide of RJ. The clear message was
this: RJ would probably be alive today if he could have been committed to a
mental hospital and treated involuntarily.
I want to point out, by discussing what the article did not say, precisely the
opposite. RJ might be alive today if he could not have been involuntarily put
on a mental ward and subjected to things he did not want. Coercive
psychiatry, I maintain, causes more suicides than it prevents, and the sad
death of this man seems to be an example of this.
His obvious fear of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization and treatment was
presented as irrational — part of his pathology. This is a routine argument
used by the psychiatric establishment.
After he was locked up at Herrick, we read that he “responded with a kind of
panic after he was released. He said the doctors at Herrick Hospital had
concealed drugs in his food. He developed an irrational fear that people were
trying to drug him . . .”
Readers, unfortunately, were not told that such secret drugging is
commonplace on the mental wards of America. Drug ads in psychiatric
journals even boast of this. They speak of the fact that these powerful
tranquilizers are available in liquid form which is “colorless, odorless and
tasteless,” for “ease of administration” when dealing with “The resistant
patient.”
This example is not the only one I have seen where fear of such secret
drugging is labeled as “sick.” Even if he were not being secretly tranquilized
in this way, he seems to have heard or seen that it could happen. This, I
believe, would only have added to the serious problems he already had.
Most of the time, however, such drugs need not be given secretly. The patient
is given little choice, knowing that if he or she
will not swallow the pills, an injection can be given. With available
technology, one such injection may last for weeks or months at a time.
RJ, it seems, wasn’t sure if he liked these drugs. But considering that they
can have devastating “side effects,” and sometimes cause permanent brain
damage, his hesitations may not have been merely the result of his
“pathology.”
One more deception about this admission to Herrick. We read that “Together
they (RJ’s mother and doctor) decided — with his agreement — that he
would be checked into the psychiatric ward at Herrick Hospital for 72 hours
observation.” If RJ had truly agreed, why the mention of “72 hours”? This is
the maximum period of the first stage of involuntary treatment, a period
which is easily extended by the psychiatrist. With a truly voluntary patient,
admission would have been open-ended, to be terminated when the patient
and the therapist mutually decided such help was no longer necessary.
The article not only lamented our current commitment laws, arguing that it
should be easier to invoke involuntary treatment and for longer periods of
time, but in so doing created a false impression of' their actual enforcement.
For while California changed its laws in 1967, these laws are routinely
violated every day by psychiatrists and mental hospitals.
How does this happen? First, patients are routinely treated involuntarily,
despite their not being a danger to self, danger to others, or gravely disabled
(unable, due to mental disorder, to provide food, clothing, or shelter). No one
is there to take the patient’s side, and the family and the doctor are relieved to
have the person in a psychiatric ward.
The article gave the impression that with public defenders, patients’ rights
advocates, writs of habeas corpus, and “repeated hearings,” the patient is well
protected against abuse. This is simply not true. Public defenders have
neither the time nor the budget to take on such cases in a serious way. Many
patient advocates are part of the same bureaucracy they are supposed to
oversee. Writs are extremely difficult to win, even if the patient, while
involuntarily drugged, can get it together enough to insist on one. The
“repeated hearings” are a farce in which one doctor simply joins another in
signing a 14-day certification.
In other words, the article made the mistake of equating the laws as written
with their day-to-day enforcement. But RJ himself was facing the reality of
the system, not the rhetoric, and what he saw apparently made him want to
run away from it. We will never know, but he may also have been afraid of
something else — shock treatment. Since this is still used regularly at
psychiatric facilities across the country, RJ would have learned of other
patients receiving it while he was hospitalized against his will.
Thus, when his mother and doctor “made repeated efforts to get help for
Jordan” (tried to get him committed), he may well have become frightened of
them. Is this way, families and doctors are doing what they have been taught
is best, while the RJ’s of this world are only driven further away from real
help. Psychiatry becomes something to fear.
If all psychiatric institutions had no locked doors, no forced drugging , no
shock machines, RJ and those like him would go to such places for help, free
of fear. Psychiatry would become, finally, part of the solution, instead of
being part of the problem. We would have, I believe, less suicide.
RJ might even be alive today.
(an editor
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