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Falling Through The Cracks
A PACT Status Report from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). Here is an outline by NAMI that pretty much paints a rosy picture of US-based PACT programs, which involve mandatory treatment, forced medicating and the like. There is definitely a need for help for those who need it, but any forced mandatory treatment is not the answer, according to those who are opposed to the PACT paradigm.
National Institute of Mental Health
If you click on the 'Does this Sound Like You?' link, you can find any symptom you would like to guarantee that you can benefit from both drug therapy and psychotherapy. All of the government plans to "help" the mentally ill are here (or at least those they are most excitedly pitching to the public at the moment). Lots of 'Happy Happy, We're on Top of Things' rhetoric and propaganda here. A very creepy site.
Otto Whal's Homepage and Guide for Stigma-Busters
Otto Whal has assembled a site to enable those interested and in need to gain insight and help on combatting the stigma and discrimination that goes hand in hand with the label "mentally ill." Demonstrates the whys and wherefores behind the ease with which PACT-style programs and psychiatric healthcare paradigms have come into being in the last 10 to 15 years. When society is programmed to perceive a segment of the same population as lesser than the rest, not normal, then it is much easier to take away the rights of the marganalized, with nary a sound of protest from those who are not immediately affected.
The Prozac Survivor's Support Group Inc
Quite possibly not the most popular site now in New York City, and a few of the other big cities around the world where the Prozac people have a large market (as the truth hurts). In five more years, there will be a LOT more of these types of stories: horror-show tales of Prozac and other psychotropic bug-outs; rampant psychosis in the streets; crazed patients waving big sharp knives . . .all resulting from the so-called treatment.
Duncan Double: The Anti-Psychiatry Web Site
In the "What is Antipsychiatry?" section there is a great dissertation on the history of all aspects of the anti-psychiatry movement. Duncan examines its multi-faceted evolution: as a rallying point for those against ECT and drug treatment, and against involuntary hospitalization. A version of schizophrenia as a higher, superior vision of truth and reality, and the treatment of said "affliction" being society's "banal attempt to sterilize and contain revolution," is lovingly described in a quote from Professor Anthony Clare's book R. D. Laing: Creative Destroyer (Cassell Academic, 1997).
Successful Schizophrenia: Media Neglected Issues In Mental Health
Here is a list of questions to pose to your friendly neighborhood reporter next time you hear that he is writing a story in the local rag on Mental Health. Quite an interesting site for those interested in the kinds of problems faced by those diagnosed with mental illness.
Research Involving Persons With Mental Disorders That May Affect Decision-making Capacity
This site features the text of the December 1998 Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Committee. Be sure to check out Appendix 1 while perusing this site, the "History of Regulatory Efforts in This Area." It has been accepted in this country by certain individuals for one hell of a long time, that it is necessary to experiment on a few of the mentally incapacitated, to save the rest of them.
Mad Nation: People Working Together for Social Justice and Human Rights in Mental Health
An incredible array of articles on the Mental Health issue in terms of how it affects those diagnosed as mentally ill. Definitely read the 'Involuntary Outpatient Treatment' section. This is one of the problems, explained in easy to read English, by those who are apparently themselves struggling under the label of mentally ill. A must visit site, with really horrible, frightening, sickening information on the subject of forced treatment and drug testing on people, as well as the stigmatizing, and demonizing of those with different mental processes than the average Dick and Jane.
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Legal advocacy for the civil rights and human dignity of people with mental disability. Be sure to read their position on involuntary commitment. These folks do a lot of good work to try and protect those who may not be able to give themselves the kind of protection they need, especially in the courts, and within the mental health system itself. The two sides of this issue feel very strongly about their respective positions, but it really does boil down to civil rights and the freedom of these people to make decisions that will not harm themselves nor others. Psychiatric healthcare options and help should exist without mandating people into forms of treatment against their personal will, nor into inhuman experimentation for the sake of corporate profits.
Health Services Research
This site features 'Planning the Future of Clinical Research in the Intramural Research Program Report' courtesy of the National Institute of Mental Health Office of the Scientific Director. Make sure to read the panel recommendations for the Bethesda, Maryland Division of Intramural Research Program's collaboration with industry to test "novel compounds, but not large scale efficacy studies," in the clinical studies part of the report. Outright terrifying how these people think about those in their care: commodities in a consumer society.
Support Coalition International: Psychiatric Survivors and Allies Unite!
Flashy opening page, with links to over 70 grass roots organizations all over the world dedicated to protecting the human rights of patients and the mentally ill. Reams of information on electroshock treatment and forced drugging. Another brilliant site, and one more place to be aghast.
Pushing Back The Pushers: Stopping Forced Outpatient Psychiatric Drugging
One article at the last noted site on involuntary outpatient commitment. A Must-Read, but you will find a lot more of this kind of information at the 'Support Coalition International' site. In this piece the authors examine how the government is pushing, with the help of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and their subordinate organization Treatment Action Center (TAC), to get an estimated 2.2 million Americans into forced psychiatric drug treatment. NAMI has one hell of a lot of corporate sponsors in the pharmaceutical trade, according to reports at this site, which is one of the speculated reasons behind the heavy push toward mandated treatment for so many Americans. Find out why we are all told all the time about how we need prescription drugs, but can still be locked up for taking homeopathic natural forms that Mother Nature supplied us from the beginning of time.
Psychotherapists & FDA Standards
According to the notice at the top of this page, this article was rejected as "too controversial" for publication in The American Psychologist. Strong argument for tighter controls for the practitioners, rather than for the "mentally ill."
Psychiatry's Inhuman Crimes Exposed!
This site has to be seen to be believed. One heck of a long list of supposed crimes against the poor, the sick, the slightly different people than the norm. If you want stomach churning stories of greed and torture, this is the place.
A Hill And A Tip Trip
This 'Insight' magazine article (June 12th, 2000) by Kelly Patricia O'Meara unravels the latest ideas from the establishment controllers. Let's just give all the unruly children in America pharmaceutical drugs, for every problem and every annoyance they cause. Forget about discipline, moral upbringing, treating neighbors as one's self, throw all that old fashioned stuff right out the window. Now, our government is trying to tell us they can 'see' mental illness with a brainscan, or at least Steven Hyman of the 'National Institute of Mental Health', Tipper Gore, and Hillary Clinton think so. But meanwhile, let's continue to lock people up for self-medicating their own preferred substances!
Of Two Minds: A Book Review
This 'Salon' review (May 25th, 2000) by Laura Miller, examines 'Of Two Minds' by T.M. Luhrmann, which discusses the differences between those who want to treat mental illness with 'talk therapy', and those who want to treat it with prescription drugs. The drugs are winning, which is ironic as we are in the midst of one hell of a 'War Against Some Drugs'. This schizophrenic attitude is tearing the US apart in less subtle ways all the time, and the US managed care providers are helping lead the way to ruin.
Who Will Care For The Crazy?
This 'Salon' magazine article (May 25th, 2000) by J. B. Orenstein is a harrowing look at the state of the psychiatric profession, now that the US Managed Care System has managed to close off a huge percent of the available hospital beds to the mentally ill, necessitating their going to the emergency room for treatment. A source actually said that to me recently, that if someone is sick in the US, they can "just go to the emergency room, so why should I pay taxes for National Health Care?" This is a well written, disturbing look at what really happens to those who go to get care at the emergency room with mental problems.
Spying On The Psychiatrists
This Guardian newspaper article (September 20th, 2000) by Adam James details the recovery, after forced treatment and medicating, of diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic Rufus May. May is now a clinical psychologist, using his own horrible, terrible, life-long nightmare inducing experiences with forced treatment to help treat others who may find themselves in similar situations. May is an inspiration to us all.
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