Comments: 11-26-2007 Media Madness
Thank you for the link collection. The OP-Ed piece in Boston Globe about schizophrenia disturbed me. First, the context in which it was described -- a fictional conversation between a kindly and patient psychiatrist and a 10-year old girl who had absolutely no idea about schizophrenia -- was tacky at best, and insulting at worst. Note the use of DSM as the "blue book" of psychiatrists -- the writer didn't want to use the world bible -- suggesting that psychiatrists like used car salesmen assigned value to our condition. Second and substantively, the psychiatrist's description of schizophrenia strongly suggested that it required hospitalization in most cases, that these people could never get better, that they were like mentally retarded and didn't bring any value to society, with an unstated premise that they were better off dead. I don't believe that is the outcome in all cases of schizophrenia, I think the psychiatrist's statement is empirically wrong, although I have no statistics at my disposal to disprove her.
Posted by Red Rover at November 25, 2007 06:25 PM
maybe you could write a letter to the editor. i was troubled by the piece myself.
Posted by Philip Dawdy at November 25, 2007 06:27 PM
Some of the "stories" that she told (particularly the Santa Claus one), reminded me of a conversation I had with a guy I bumped into in a hotel, where I was a delegate on a course.
Following a slightly confused exchange, he said, as he left "I've been to the moon, you know." I still think that this chap probably has the greatest mind that I've ever met, because, for once in my life, I couldn't think of anything to say, immediately (that's not the same as thinking of something entirely apposite, but declining to say it, on the ground that it's not socially acceptable!).
After a second or two's pause I said "I believe you," on the ground that I didn't know for sure that he hadn't been to the moon (indeed, The Moon might well have been a pub, just up the road!).
Matt
Posted by Matthew Holford at November 25, 2007 07:44 PM
Kansas is a angel! She has written wonderfully about her experience with meds. Thanks Kansas!
Posted by Marc at November 26, 2007 06:59 AM
The worst thing about the article is the presumption that schizophrenia is a lifetime sentence. This is horseshit. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 80s. The symptoms later disappeared (on their own, without the benefit of drugs) and the label was retired. It's heartbreaking for a patient to be slapped with a label like that. And it's unethical and unprofessional of doctors to do it to them.
Why is it only psychiatrists that feel a need to say over and over again that they treat
"biological" illnesses? Do we hear dermatologists claiming and re-claiming that psoriasis is a biological disease? Psychiatrists are a very insecure lot, with good reason. Perhaps that's why they're most comfortable bullying those who they label.
Posted by Francesca Allan at November 26, 2007 07:49 AM
The psychiatrist did a fine job teaching a 10 year old mental health stigma!
Posted by Stephany at November 26, 2007 12:53 PM
The presumptions in the Boston Globe article are very self-serving for the author and for her entire profession, which nowadays is based so much on just the dispensing of medications. I too have found that the symptoms of mental distress that may lead to a psychiatric diagnosis such as schizophrenia can diminish with time. (I'm not sure about exactly what diagnoses I was given, but I believe that one of the drugs that was most frequently prescribed for me many years ago usually goes with a diagnosis of "Schizo-Affective Disorder".) Humane, non-drug alternatives have been proven to be more effective for improving the lives of most people with diagnoses such as this, and for re-integrating them back into "normal" society, but time after time these alternatives have been gotten rid of for political reasons. A case in point is Loren Mosher's Soteria House, which operated in California during the 1970's and early 1980s with encouraging results, but was ultimately defunded by the powers that be - as was described in an article in the San Diego Reader a few years ago:
Soteria Article .
I think mainstream psychiatry probably always has and always will do whatever it can to end successful alternatives like this one because their existence threatens the established order, which is the basis of their wealth and power. The current system depends on people having few alternatives, and on the violence of forced medication and other kinds of forced treatment. Otherwise, many mental health professionals would not have their lucrative and prestigeous jobs, because many of them are just not very good at helping people. All they are good at is stigmatizing and labelling people - not anything really useful to people in the throes of extreme mental distress.
Posted by Kent at November 27, 2007 10:35 AM
I read the Boston GLOBE often. Elissa Ely is their pet psychiatrist. I can't stand her. She always comes off just as patronizing and self serving as she does in this piece.
I can't tell you how healing it is to be amongst people who see through her thin facade. Your blog is a breath of fresh air in my life.
Posted by Sherry at November 28, 2007 05:49 AM
Ms. Ely's contributions are horsedroppings. Orthomolecular psychiatry reverses 85% of all cases of "schizophrenias."
Posted by Fred at December 1, 2007 03:14 PM