I only do all this thinking and writing to impress a girl

And so here is another attempt to impress her. It's really just me
repeating a lot of stuff I've written before about the movement for
change, the repeal of the medico-legal framework and stuff about how
there are alternatives if people are willing to think crazy enough. I've
tried to be a little bit more professional and positive in this last
email. I still can't quite hold back the unbridled need to be
inappropriate though. It's a serious character flaw....or perhaps it's
just character.

-----
You'll have to excuse me. It is Friday night and I'm sober. On my
personal measure of madness this is insanity for me. :-)

I consider myself a survivor. When I was first hospitalised I think I
asked "but what crime have I committed?" At the time the crime was en
during a paranoid delusion (possibly cannabis induced however there were
several other factors) and hypermania which lead to me threatening suicide.

In principle I am in favour of the repeal of mental health laws after
what has happened to me in my lifetime but were this to magically happen
the vacuum would be filled by something else. When I read the subject
title of this email I was briefly happy but I am also critical. It is
one of my failings but I hope it can be useful to the movement.

We speak a lot of disability in these conversations but this is a modern
reason to pathologise the mentally ill. Doctors use figures such as the
20 year reduced life expectancy of people with bipolar or schizophrenia
as a way to enforce treatment. It is their parental compassion. The very
high risk of completed suicide during the initial stages of
schizophrenia is a reason they use the medico-legal framework to
incarcerate and forcibly treat those who don't accept their dogma
perhaps more so than the risk of violence or homicide. Without the
powers of the medico-legal framework - specifically the deprivation of
liberty but also the power to enforce treatments on those who lack
'insight' - many lives would be lost without the free and not regretted
choice of the individual.

I'm not surprised to hear that the mentally ill as a whole are less
violent. Sadly the problem in the UK is a small number of the mentally
ill - I think specifically those treated for psychotic disorders rather
than common mental disorders - kill a lot of people, far more than the
average. The arguments given by psychiatrists are the risk factor to the
individual person is like the risk of being hit by lighting however it
is also easy to see that 1-2% of the population given specific labels
account for up to 10% of the homicides is...well...it is food for thought.

There is also this problem of pre-crime which is part of what the
medico-legal framework is shifting towards. I think this was one of the
reasons behind the introduction of the Community Treatment Order, a
legal instrument which (if I remember right) was over-used by
psychiatrist by about 900-1000% in the UK in the first year, as well as
the economic problem of repeated hospitalisations by patients who came
off their medication.

On the other hand those labelled "male" account for around 95% of the
homicides and, I would guess, do a lot of the physical harm. My kind can
do terrible things in the heat of the moment. We also start a lot of the
wars and global recessions.

Psychiatrists also killed 1,800 people with dementia every year in the
UK until the danger of antipsychotics in the elderly was discovered.
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1227240/Wrong-dementia-drugs-linked-1-800-deaths.html).
The drug clozapine killed 3% of patients within the first 6 months when
it was introduced through a blood disorder called agranulocytosis. The
manufacturers voluntarily withdrew it however psychiatrists got it back
and used blood monitoring to halve the number of deaths. The 6,000-7,000
people on the drug in the UK are dying significantly earlier than the
rest of the schizophrenic population. This drug is still the only option
for treatment resistant schizophrenia across the world and most of the
research I've read seems to be looking for more opportunities to use
this dangerous behavioural change chemical. I think i may have ended up
on the drug myself but the private psychiatrist who I was seeing opted
for high doses of antipsychotics, mood stabilisers and antidepressants
for treatment resistant depression instead. I think he was hoping to
replicate the neurobiological 'sawn off shotgun' effect of clozapine
using a combination of other drugs to hit a wide range of
neurotransmitter sites.

So there are many labels which can be associated with homicide and risk
of homicide. At the moment "psychiatrist" is the most dangerous group in
my opinion. Sadly there is no survivor-legal framework to protect the
public from them.

I agree with the idea that the principle of the right to mental
integrity would mean the medico-legal framework should be repealed. I
know, from personal experience, the coercion and loss of liberty can be
akin to torture so these could be argued as reasons to repeal the
medico-legal framework. The fundamental tenets of the justice system, in
my lay opinion, are reason enough to repeal them because the
medico-legal framework is not just but the punishments it enforces are
not far removed from the punishments handed out by the criminal justice
system. Often the distress of mental illness is punishment enough but
the medico-legal framework adds so much more harm.

I have personally had my human rights violated by the NHS. There is no
oversight in psychiatric wards because it is assumed doctors only do
good things. This is the privilege of the medical field and it allows so
much inhumanity and death to happen without raising public concern.
There was no public outcry when it was reported that so many old people
died unnecessarily. There was no punishment wrought upon the profession
who were responsible for this mass slaughter which happened because
doctors have an easy tool to control behaviour and the public were
willing to accept this supposed treatment. The antipsychotic should not
even be called an antipsychotic because, as far as I am aware, it isn't.
The active and desired effect is behavioural change and this is allowed
to be enforced using the medico-legal framework.It has not been proven
to nor has any attempt been made to show if the drug truly makes the
delusions and hallucinations stop. As far as I am aware there hasn't
been a retrospective meta-analysis of the effect of the chemical cosh
looking solely at the measures of delusions and hallucinations, two
factors which are included in PANSS and BPRS (two commonly used
psychiatric scales). This means no psychiatrists has the evidence base
to select the right drug for the patient who says, "doctor. Please make
these delusions and hallucinations stop." (I suspect that most
psychiatrists know that the drugs were never designed to be
antipsychotic. They used to be called major tranquilisers and the term
"chemical cosh" is a far more appropriate neologism. "Antipsychotic" is
a convenient lie in my opinion. I wonder if I am right and if this would
constitute false advertising or perhaps a greater crime? What is the
punishment for the institutional suppression of a valid human type?)

None of the treatments in mental health are genuine medical treatments
as far as I am aware. The only reason psychiatrists are doctors is
because of the biomedical model but the biomedical model of illness
means they should be attempting to heal the brain. The antipsychotic
may, in fact, damage the brain and does nothing to heal the supposed
brain deficits which, in my opinion, have not been scientifically
established even in schizophrenia but nonetheless are used by the
hegemony as reasons to pathologise this different type of human being.
The reason they are used is often immoral. They are clearly not used
judiciously and, to paraphrase a Harvard provost (a quote I remember
from www.criticalthinkrx.org), doctors are trading a behavioural
difference( or condition in his words) for a life long addiction which
causes real physical illnesses. (He was talking about the use of
psychiatric drugs in children.)

Tina, ENUSP, Mind Freedom International and the other contributors to
the survivor movement. I'd like to close my contribution to this
discussion thread with these final few paragraphs.

The work you are doing is an important step towards a significant and
vital change and one day the medico-legal framework will be repealed.
But while the masses excluded the unmedicated mentally ill, while
employment systems disadvantage them and communities exclude people for
their aberrant behaviour there exists a real problem. This problem is
the problem of social disability and, sadly, the only thing a few
centuries of psychiatry has come up with is drugs for kids, adults and
the elderly. Drugs to make them 'normal' when, in fact, they were never
abnormal. They use concepts like insight and capacity to force these
immoral and dangerous treatments on the mentally ill.

What happens in the UK is probably a lot better that what happens in
other countries. Cage beds are inhumane. Tethering children to a wall is
evil. Forced electroshock. The poor conditions of psychiatric wards in
other countries. The dehumanisation and degradation of our people
happens every where, and it is a lot worse in other countries as I'm
sure you are aware. Perhaps only prisoners of war know worse treatment
but they have organisations like Human Rights Watch ready to fight for
their rights. The privilege extended to the medical field means the
psychiatric patient can have unlimited punishments and tortures wrought
upon them with no oversight and no justice. The biomedical labels are
used for whatever purpose suits the hegemony of psychiatry in whatever
country at whatever time in history, irrespective of the concepts of
social disability.

In countries many of the mad end up homeless, poor, isolated, outcast
and worse. These were the conditions which lead to the creation of
psychiatry in the first place.

It is unfair of me to expect a solution to all this madness in society.
But without the solution the psychiatrists and other power holders will
never allow the repeal of the medico-legal framework, not without
replacing it with exactly the same thing or using our arguments made to
take even more rights and power away from the mentally ill.

The struggle we all fight for is a classic struggle of the oppressed
against their oppressors. We need to get it right. We need to think
better and harder because so many of the failures of the past and so
many of the injustices of the present are because people stopped when
they discovered easy solutions or never even bothered to seek a real
solution.

Tina you are correct that the idea of implants is a poor solution
however it is my belief and, perhaps, my bias which makes me hope that
technology can be applied to what I hope is the last struggle for human
equality. It is not just engineering technology, though engineering has
offered extraordinary advances for those with physical disabilities
(like the wheel chair that can go up stairs -
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4380/).

This new area of thought is perhaps a hope beyond what psychiatry could
ever offer. There is social technology too from organisational systems
to applied sociology.

I suppose that's all I have to say really. There is hope.

Fight the good fight

Why don't the mentally ill stop smoking?

I would guess that the last remaining smokers often have a diagnosis or
could get a diagnosis.

I would guess many people would ask why the mentally ill don't stop
smoking? It is, after all, going to reduce their life expectancy.

There is a simple reason. They're fucking cool. Those who so easily
stopped smoking only started because they wanted to be cool. They're the
sort of people easily swayed by peer pressure. When the peer pressure
changes they change with it.

The mentally ill on the other hand. They're just cool and that's why
they'll keep smoking when it's uncool to smoke.

What if a psychiatric patient went on hunger strike?

Let's assume the individual has no diagnosis related to eating disorders.

The Thud or Rosenbaum experiment shows how normal or sane behaviours can
become so easily deemed pathological in the setting of a psychiatric
ward. A hunger strike could be deemed pathological just like a
black-skinned slave who kept on running away might be judged
pathological when it was, in fact, sane behaviour.

What would be the decision or the factors which a person would use to
consider this risky behaviour pathological or not?

Ugh...I meant to write supersonic, not transonic in the post two posts below

I'm still in love with the most beautiful girl in the world

I am a whimpering wreck when I think of her. I am jelly. It hurts. It
really hurts. With distance my heart has grown ever fonder. The sight of
a photo of her makes me wince.

This sucks but it is a pain I can handle a year after my heart was torn
from my body and pummelled when I was outed for loving her and commanded
not to. Like the mad fool that I am I obeyed and turned inward on
myself. I suffered alone for so many days and nights. And I still hurt
even as I write this. There are times when I feel low and I still cry
about it all.

But that is love...it really, really, really fucking sucks.

Surviving psychiatric crisis (psychosis and mania) and the sound barrier

Back in the day they thought it wasn't possible to go faster than the
speed of sound. A plane getting close would break up.

I think doctors believe it is impossible to go through acute psychosis -
the really bad stuff - without mental healthcare. They would think it
impossible for a person to work during this period.

In a sense they're right about the latter. In any ordinary work place I
would not have been able t continue to work. My behaviour was erratic
and problematic. My work performance was poor. I should have been
disciplined or sacked while I went through it. I think many would think
I should have been incarcerated and forcibly treated for my own safety.

Most people kill themselves when they're going through what I was going
through. I wanted to back then and I tried different ways to die because
I thought the experience wouldn't end. It was a unique torture from the
non-corporeal entity in my reality.

Through a unique set of circumstances I managed to keep my job through
this living hell. Those who knew me would have seen a vibrant person
change into a silent slab of meat, rarely smiling or having fun. I
became isolated and deeply troubled. I would have ocassional outbursts -
the sort of thing which would have gotten me fired had I not worked at a
place which, I hope, is the sort of place which represents the future of
workplaces.

It was a place where people knew a little about mental health. Not
everyone was mentally ill. A lot were. It was a mental health charity so
people became familiarised with the concepts of mental health. They were
able to tolerate my outbursts and outlandish behaviour. This, I hope, is
part of the future.

Back in the day they thought the sound barrier couldn't be broken. Any
plane which tried disintegrated. It was Chuck Yeager flying one of the
American X-series experimental jets who is recognised as the person who
broke the sound barrier. Today all modern fighter jets can go faster
than the speed of sound and Concorde was the first and only commercial
plane which could travel transonic. It's even a challenge for
aeronautical engineers to design aeroplanes that travel faster than sound

The future will see madness in a similar way. With workplace cultures
and communities like what I was privileged to have around me at the time
the mad in the future will be able to go through their periods of
madness back in society. In fact it will become passe to see a mad
person in crisis. It will be normal.

Compassion and assisted suicide

Go on. You can finish this one off yourself.

Some stuff I've been writing today

Just to add a few more comments. Apologies in advance for the long reply.
- The medico-legal framework is the legal powers and instruments which
allow the subjugation of the mentally ill by psychiatry. The
medico-legal framework is not only influenced by psychiatry. The
politicians and law makers also influence the laws and so can the
public. The community Treatment Order was helped to be made a new legal
power by the work of an organisation called the Tito Trust. This
organisation was run by a woman whose son was murdered by a mental
health patient who I assume was off their medication. She promoted the
prejudice in the media and through this to the public and politicians. I
think some psychiatrists would have been against the amendments made to
the Mental Health Act 1983 because they'd historically considered
psychopathy and other personality disorders as non-classic mental
illnesses however the political need was to deal with this problem.

- In Accepting Voices by Romme and Escher (another fascinating book
which I got about half way through reading)
(http://www.mind.org.uk/shop/books/self-management_self-help/274) it
notes a diagnostic system for madness used by the Church. There were 4
categories: possession, witchcraft, heresy and canonisation. The first
three would result in terrible punishments and 'treatments' but when the
delusion/hallucination agreed with the Church's dogma the individual
could become a saint.

- it is also noteworthy that things like confession may be akin to
counselling. A person asking a priest "why do I feel like this?" may be
given a different but no less useful answer than what a psychiatrist
would offer.

- spirit possession is found in the index in DSM-IV-TR. The modern name
is Dissociative Trance Disorder. If I remember right 3% of people every
year in psychiatric wards in India have this diagnosis. Those same
people may be given other diagnoses in the UK or US. The treatments
include rubbing the body with special lotions or persuading the
force/entity to leave (an exorcism perhaps?).

- I spent most of my life as an atheist though was born to a strict
Hindu family. During times when I experienced psychosis and mania I had
quasi-religious experiences but this never broke my faith till a few
years ago. A few years ago I went through psychosis unaided. It may be
hard to believe but I do not need people to believe me. I searched for
ways to interpret it outside psychiatry. My sensory reality showed me
that there was a non-corporeal entity with influence over my internal
and external reality. It broke my faith but gave me a new one.
Antiehism. I know this non-corporeal entity exists (some call it god,
some call it spirits, some call it secret government agencies or
whatever else), and I hate it.

This is why I believe in the spirituobiopsychosocial model however I
tend to keep it to myself when I do any activism work because people
would think I am crazy. ;-)

- there is definitely the problem of the privilege of the invalid with
regards to the legal system. Defences such as Not Guilty by Reason of
Insanity or Diminished Responsibility can be ways for the mentally ill
to be treated differently from those without mental illness. They are
subjective judgements just as mental illness is a subjective judgement.
The criminal justice system would have to change if the medico-legal
framework were repealed.

Malingering as something different to depression was also another
concern of psychiatry and social systems. In the UK a person with
depression on medical welfare gets significantly more money than a
person without a diagnosis but who is unemployed for a long period of
time.The person unemployed for a long period of time without a diagnosis
of depression would essentially be considered lazy (though not by me. I
would consider them equal to a person with depression in their need for
support and that they would have a degree of social disability though it
would be lower than a person with depression.) A lazy worker can lose
their job far more easily than a depressed worker.

- I have been ruminating at length on the idea of changing society as an
objective for mental healthcare. If we consider Foucault's stuff to be
valid then the replacement to psychiatry must also aim at changing
society. It is already happening with the well being movement and moves
to build better communities in the developed world, anti-discrimination
laws and tools like the CRPD. In the UK there has been work to get soap
operas to realistically portray the mentally ill. The program "The
secret life of a manic depressive" outed one of the nation's beloved
media celebrities (Stephen Fry) as a manic depressive and was a touching
insight into this supposed illness. It lead some people to want to be
manic depressive and to see it as a valuable gift.

In the UK we have a national anti-stigma programme called Time to
Change. It had about £22 million from our National Lottery and a
fundraising activity called Comic Relief to deliver change on a series
of measures (developed by Graham Thornicroft at the Royal College of
Psychiatry) and objectives over a 4 year period. I believe it is a
landmark in developed world mental healthcare. It is, sadly, not driven
by an antipsychiatry model but I don't think the British public are
ready for this yet.
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/

This work may do little to help survivors of psychiatric abuse but it
helps the rest of the mentally ill. It helps with the self stigma. I
hope it helps with the isolation which can lead to so many negative
effects. It helps people have compassion and gain understanding,
understanding which is not offered by the mispathologisation of the
human condition. It is my belief that the lived experience psychiatrist,
a person who is a peer rather than someone who judges based only on
external observations, is perhaps the best hope. I think there is one
already. Kay Redfield jamieson. There may be others. Survivors are best
equipped because they know what is wrong with the system. They can see
what is wrong and with this insight they have the power to fix what is
wrong so in the future there will never be survivors of psychiatry's
tyranny.

--
Don't let justice be the privilege of the elite. Support the Justice for All campaign
http://www.justice-for-all.org.uk/

What's wrong with the treatment of schizophrenics in the UK?

One of my relatives is a GP who did a psychiatric rotation (there are
many doctors in my family). A black-skiinned schziophrenic was brought
in by the police. He'd been at risk to himself because he was trying to
align himself with lines of longditude and latitude (his delusion) but
this was putting him in the path of cars. He had come off his
medication. She did what any UK psychiatrist would do: detained him and
drugged him. This was because the risk was placed on her. The police
needed this person 'treated' which is why he was brought to a
psychiatric facility. His delusion alone was enough for her, based on
her psychiatric training, to incarcerate and forcibly drug this person.
She spoke to me shortly after this had happened. I told her I didn't
care about his delusion. It might be true and I didn't have the
knowledge to know whether his delusion was right or wrong. I asked her
if the man was ok, i.e. how was his well being (the new word for
positive mental health). She didn't know. That wasn't something she'd
been trained to ask or consider.

The drugs she put him on are not proven to actively cease the delusions
and hallucinations. They are behavioural modification and suppression
and essentially chemical restraint. I would guess the drugs made him
unhappy which s why he stopped taking them. I know the drugs will cause
illness and unpleasant side effects and contribute to an early death. It
is, perhaps, better than leaving him to be run over or imprisoned by
the criminal justice system but enforcing the lesser of two evils is not
the job of doctors.

Sadly their profession has stopped thinking outside the box. They have
an easy solution: drugs. Just like I do. I and psychiatrist are both
fucking idiots in this respect.

Something fascinating about the rapid increase in psychiatric hospitalisation in Sweden + stuff about how the demise of the three tier family may be part of the problem of the rise of dominance of psychiatry

This is a snip from an excellent response to the discussion about the CRPD and the repeal of mental health laws

"
One common misbelief - also within the user/survivor movement - is that the big, prison-like, psychiatric institutions (asylums, madhouses) are something very old, and an expression of a very antiquated understanding of persons with psychosocial disabilities - but they are on the contrary a very modern phenomenon. Of course, madhouses have existed for a couple of centuries, but earlier they were very rare. It was only 50 years ago that they rose into a widespread phenomenon, with a huge number of mad persons incarcerated. Here are some approximate figures of how many psychiatric patients were incarcerated in mental hospitals in Sweden at various times: in 1850 there were about 800 psychiatric patients incarcerated in the whole country, in the year 1900 this had rised slowly to about 1.000, in the 1920's it was about 4.000, and at it's peak, in 1967, it was 37.000!
"

My initial response to reading this was "bloody hell!" because..well...what the fuck? In the space of about half a century the rate of detention in a psychiatric acility rose significantly.

I wonder why? And what happened in other countries. Perhaps it is the effect of the power of psychiatry and the public's acceptance of their power which allowed this? Or perhaps it was another factor? This period of time is also associated with the rapid advance of the model of the Industrial Age which affected the culture of many developed world nations.

Bloody hell. In 2 decades the rate of detention in psychiatric wards rose 4 fold. In half a century it rose 9 times in Sweden (a country which does a lot of measuring of the population).

I wonder what the reasons were for people to be hospitalised. I suspect they changed as psychiatry patholgoised ever larger swathes of the diverse human race, deeming extreme difference as a reason for incarceration and normalisation. Each generation of people and psychatrists pursued progress as the ever widening of the definition of mental disorder...then came the invention of psychiatric drugs. It was 1952 or 1954 when the FDA in America approved...chloromazapine or something...and this began the next Great Confinement of madness;;;;and allowed the patholgisation of human difference to spead ever-wider but also to be accepted more by the populous.

During this time there was also the breakdown of the 3-tier family unit which was replaced by the 2-tier "nuclear family. Elders were removed from the family during the latter 20th century. I wonder if this is cause, effect or irrelevant? They had the memory of the times before. They had the wisdom which their offspring were yet to learn. By removing them and their value within the family and within society perhaps this may have shifted the perceived value to psychiatry. What I mean is...well...our elders play an important role in our upbringing and without them the people turned to psychiatry to fulfil their role.

The elderly are also pretty mad. I think that's part of the reason dementia praecox had that term. Dementia looked like madness. By removing the elderly the people in 2-tier family units were not familiarised with madness or dementia.

This is sort of why social contact theory is relevant to healing the illness in society. Many effects and many processes meant madness (and other social disabilities) became deemed abhorrent because people stopped experiencing it in their daily lives. Evermore natural human behaviours became pathologised because people forgot what it is to be human. They became enamoured with the idea of being an automoton as progress in society.

Then electronic engineers built robots and computer scientists designed intelligent systems. The automoton is becoming less valuable and the mad (and other people with so-called disabilities) are becoming the new valued type of human being.

Lest we forget...

...the last great war, the Second World War.

Men and women cross the world sacrificed their lives. Men, women and
children died in their millions to stop Hitler and the Axis powers from
conquering the world.

Lest we forget their sacrifices we build monuments...

..but we have too easily forgotten their sacrifices and the continued
sacrifices of those who go to die so we have peace, freedom, justice and
democracy.

Those who live in the peace which they sacrificed for have failed. The
last of the generation who fought for us are dying and the generations
which came after them and enjoyed the fruits of their labour have
squandered it.

Each and every one of us is guilty of this failure. We forgot their
sacrifices and we forget to sacrifice our lives. We forgot to live by
their example and we forget to look after those who sacrifice their
lives for our peace.

Could the lack of disability be a disability?

This is great I think.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/disabilities-convention.htm

Could this be the step to utopia? Or is it still going to result in a
dystopia? Are the principles going to be ignored when convenient and the
ideals laid waste by pragmatists with small minds? Will the principles
be used for the gain of the selfish power-holding hegemonies just like
ideals have been misued in the past.

From the lives of the saints and prophets to the work of the heroes of
the Communist revolutions the beautiful principles laid down by those
with passion and vision have, historically, been misused. These ideals
and principles are what people fight and sacrifice their lives for in
those brief moments in history where humankind rises above its animal
nature. It is the ideals which caused the sailors on the battleship
Potemkin to revolt, but if those souls could see what Mother Russia had
become they might not have bothered. It is the stuff which Jesus died
for, but if he knew what became of his land and what had been done in
his name then he...he wouldn't be very happy.

I don't know what human process makes it possible for the ideals to be
discarded so easily and the suffering return so quickly. It is perhaps
well expressed in Orwell's book Animal Farm. After the animal revolution
the pigs declare themselves more equal than the others. Perhaps this is
the danger of the CRPD: those labelled disabled may see themselves as
superior or more powerful or to have more worth than those without the
label of disability.

I haev already alluded to the idea of poverty as a disability. It is
associated with a life less lived, a reduced life expectancy and loads
of other bad stuff which equates with the model of social disability
(from my very weak understanding of it).

But what of those born with wealth or who become wealthy? They would, in
the current paradigm, not be labelled as disabled. Their wealth offers
them opportunities and a longer life. They would have positive outcomes
on current measures of social disability. They may experience a life
with less pain, but be the poorer for it in a different way to financial
poverty.

I slate the non-disabled a lot. I label them as automotons - robot-like
humans, and conceptually I use this trickery to portray normality as
unhuman. Perhaps they could be labelled disabled using the concept of
normal disorder. This is probably alien to the thinking within
psychiatry but all I have done is turn a social judgement - a subjective
and temporal judgement - into a label related to illness. Those born
with a lack of uniqueness. Those born without the journey of suffering.
Those who have little heart and little vision. Those who easily fit into
a hierarchy. Those who do not think freely and with open minds. Those
who would be lead rather than lead. Those without courage to stand for
what they believe in or, even worse, those without beliefs.

Perhaps in the future those who do not suffer would be the poorest and
most disabled amongst us. They may live longer and prosper, but their
lifetimes are wasted and their true beauty never seen. This is the
beauty which comes from struggling with a unique disability, from never
having to overcome an obstacle, from never suffering too much nor
knowing what it is like to be subjugated.

This future would not be a state of equality.

My response to the surivior movement doing something I believe in

I know I'm being a cunt but I have to be sometimes. I want the
medico-legal framework repealled. it is....not just. But I know a small
amount about the risks the framework is there to protect against.

I ended up rewriting my response today from scratch as is my way.
There's a few bits which are pretty cheeky for what's meant to be a
professional list..but that's part of what I have to do. All this
professional bullshit is another thing which creates disability and is
part of the suppression of the mentally ill and our ways of expression
by the constructs of the post-Industrial Age. I can easily take out the
inappropriate stuff but it has to remain in. It may be inappropriate but
this is an irrelevant subjective judgment often used by automotons as a
way to devalue the core message and not listen to what the mentally ill
are saying. It is a way for automotons to feel superior because they
know what professionalism is and the mad...well the mad are just mad.

If I have to stand toe to toe against the people and organisations I
respect then so be it. I ain't got nothing to lose.

"

Bear with me. I'm in a bad mood this morning.

You pose an excellent question. My response will be in a few parts. Part
1 will be a facetious response. Skip past it if you don't want your time
wasted.

1) Those at risk of harming others?
- I would give them nice offices and good salaries and prestige. I would
make them take the Hippocratic Oath then ignore it. I could call them
psychiatrists. They could also work for Big Pharma too, the industry of
death and subjuagtion which sells drugs for behaviour which cause
illness and death.
- I would make them generals and give them medals. I would give them the
weapons to take life.
- I would give them huge salaries and massive bonuses, the finest
buildings and anything else money could buy. I would call them city
traders - because the result of their gambles and the current financial
crisis will lead to death, illness, disability and suicide across the world.
- I would give them the job of executing another human being. America
still uses capital punishment so I guess they'd have to move over to
your side of the pond.

2) To truly attempt to try and answer you question:
- I would need data. Off the top of my head there are about 1,000
homicides in the UK every year (and 6,000 suicides) of which (in a very
bad year) about 100 are by persons with a pre-existing diagnosis or have
been in contact with UK mental health services in the last year. Roughly
95% of homicides are by men (75% of completed suicides are by men
however women attempt suicide a lot more than men across the developed
world). I would seek to understand what circumstances lead those people
to the point where they took someone else's life as ell as the things
which happened in their life such that their type became pathologised by
psychiatry as "at serious risk of harm to another."

I would probably break own the thinking to answer your question into a
few areas. I am focusing the the risk of violence and homicide rather
than the risk of suicide however the thought process may be similar.
- prevention of states of being where risk of violence and murder is
high. I would guess a lot of violence and murder is done in the heat of
the moment rather than through pre-mediation. Both are relevant when
thinking about prevention. Ask the question why are 95% of homocides by
men and it is my guess that some of them are due to loss of social
status or circumstances (or risk of) and some are due to the inequities
of their (often female) partners and others are a result of the
unwritten systems of justice in the criminal underworld. There may be
other reasons which are common in the developing world.

There is the problem of the risk of harm to another during a period of
acute psychosis. This is another of the reasons for coercive psychiatry
and prophylatic medication strategies. I went through acute psychosis
unaided and unmedicated. I know the dangers and the dangers are very
high. They're the dangers which Abraham/Ibrahim faced in the bible
story: he came close to killing his son during an experience which today
would be called psychosis. I have no good solution to this other than
training people to handle psychosis. This means inducing psychosis under
controlled conditions using enthogens (specifically to recreate the bad
experiences rather than the pleasant experience of psychosis which
enthogens usually create). Obviously paradigms such as Soteria are other
options (I think there are better ones detailed in John bola's review in
2009 -
http://psychrights.org/research/Digest/Effective/PsychoSocialMoreEffective2009Psychosis.pdf
- because the Soteria data showed a high rate of suicide compared to the
other paradigms).

Relating to this I think there's a dire need for a total revision of the
psychopathology and treatment of schizophrenia. I mean a fundamental
shift in the paradigm. However this is not relevant to the current question.

I'm talking about prevention and this an come in a number of forms. It
can be by identifying at risk people or it can understand that everyone
is at risk of harming another if pushed far enough. It is ensuring
society's structures are designed to ensure people do not suffer too
much. The statistic is 1 in 6 people in the UK suffer depression,
anxiety or stress every year at work (I guess this figure is from the
Adult Psychiatry Morbidity Survey but I'm not sure). These are some of
the precusors to emotional and physical trauma wrought upon another; a
parent has a bad day and takes it out on their child or partner. 1 in 4
people every year suffer common mental disorders in the UK (and if I
remember right it's about 1 in 5 every year and 1 in 2 in a lifetime in
the US) whereas developing world nations have significantly lower
incidence rates. These states if taken too far or for too long can push
people over the edge and that's what I believe can cause at risk states
in all people.

I would guess a lot of the deaths in the UK are because of
action/revenge for perceived or real emotional harm. I would guess that
people forget that what they do can hurt another person emotionally
because we're all so self-involved. The emotional pain can result in
violence and death. Alternatively it can be the emotional harm caused by
the systems in society, systems which forget that people are human
beings. Be it the work structures which no longer give people safety and
stability to the harms which happen on the playground. These can often
be the precursors to 'at risk' states in individuals. Suicides are often
associated with downward changes and i guess this is something which is
a factor in homicide too. It is not lonely people but people who become
lonely who are at higher risk of suicide. It is not people who are poor
but become poor. It is not people who are unemployed but people who
become unemployed. This is where prevention and monitoring can happen
such that people's liberty and choice can be preserved.

I have already offered an example from my personal life where I struck a
girl I loved. I left out the things she did to me to lead up to my
actions. Her actions do not excuse what I did however if we are willing
to understand cause and effect then consider these when thinking about
legislation (or better means) to protect people from physical violence
and homicide then I hope better solutions can be offered. It is worth
being aware of the chain of events which leads people to kill and harm
one another. No laws protect sensitive people from emotional harm, harm
which can hurt a hell of a lot more than a slap in the face. The systems
in society can often hurt and harm just as much.

There is also perhaps the option of training people to handle those
crisis moments which can result in harm to another. People who are
trained in martial arts are also taught to use those skills wisely or
not at all. They are trained in techniques of violence and harm but a
good teacher would also show them how to manage their anger and never
use their power in the heat of the moment. Training people in martial
arts also means they have self-defence skills. It's this sort of
alternative thinking which I hope would provide the alternatives to the
medico-legal framework's protections and power.

There is also the problem of those who become created by life to be at
high risk of harm to another. Specifically it would be people who are
psychopaths (broadly antisocial personality disorder or perhaps the
sociopolitical term "persons with a dangerous personality disorder" is
more appropriate) and understand how they become. Too many centuries of
psychiatry seems to have made little headway into understanding these
poor souls. These people become through what happens to them in life and
I would guess most of them had a hellish life. This is where
understanding the biopsychosocial model of cause and relating it to
prevention strategies may be a better alternative than coercive
psychiatry. People with a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder
are at high risk of harming law enforcement officers in the US, but this
may be because of what law enforcement officers have done to them or how
they perceive what law enforcement officers have done to them. If,
perhaps, police officers changed how they dealt with perpetrators of
crimes there may be a hope that fewer of them will be killed later on by
people with ASPD.

- what to do now, i.e. what to do with those who at high risk of harm to
another person now? I assume many of the people on this list have been
incarcerated in a psychiatric ward but I would guess very few, including
myself, have ever stayed in a high security psychiatric ward? These
really are prisons for those deemed to be at risk of violence but run by
doctors and nurses rather than by the criminal justice system. I dare
not imagine what tortures are wrought upon those patients. They are
incacerated in higher security facilities because they are judged to be
at significant risk to other patients and to staff in standard
psychiatric wards. Repealing the medico-legal framework which immorally
incarcerates them without an alternative solution may result in many deaths.

This is a very difficult question as to what could be the alternative to
coercive psychiatry in these circumstances, at least from my
perspective. From what little I know of the homicides in the UK
(irrespective of mental disorder) I would guess that most of the risk is
of harm to a specific person or small number of indiviudals. It could be
a partner, a sibling or a child. This set of individual/s at risk of
harm could be protected and the individual at risk of harm given high
levels of monitoring with rapid response services available to swoop in
if the risk turns to action. (Admittedly this is easier in richer
nations with surveillance technology and vehicles such as helicopters.
it may be far harder in rural communities). The objective would be to
preserve as much liberty without risking anyone's life.

A friend of mine was worried about a violent ex-partner. The police gave
her a panic system which would be impossible for him to notice or notice
if she activated. Once activated the police would be sent to her aid.
Her ex-partner had his freedom and, in the end, she never had to use the
system as far as I am aware. I assume she was also taught basic self
defence; again, martial arts training can teach people how to keep
themselves safe long enough to escape. His liberty and her life were
protected.

In the future bioelectronic technology may also be able to allow those
who have problems with violence and harm to exist freely in the
community without coercive psychiatry and prophylatic medication. One
thing I came across which shows an insight into the possibilities is the
research into detecting psychosis through galvanic skin response: a
mobile phone, set of keys or other device with a GSR sensor could detect
psychosis or perhaps other heightened mental states. There are many
physical responses which happen alongside the emotion which is
associated with violence and homicide. Implanted sensors and drug
delivery systems could ameliorate the risks significantly while
preserving a person's freedom as much as possible. (The technology to do
this is advancing fast. It sounds like science fiction but I've spent a
little time working in the area of advanced technology and there's a lot
of things which seem like science fiction but are soon to be realised,
for example bionic eyes to restore sight to the blind or neurochips
which can increase a monkey's IQ to 180. Artificial pacemakers are
already a mature product. Technological innovations are usually focused
on fuelling material consumerism or advancing the power of the military
however advances may also provide a hope for greater liberty and equality.)

The far greater challenge is those who are at risk to anyone or the risk
can not be accurately reduced to a small set of people. I would guess
these are the people who end up in high security psychiatric wards for
extended periods of time. I would guess these individuals are offered
little true behavioural modification other than drugs. (The UK
medico-legal framework was amended to remove a requirement for a
treatment to be available because those with dangerous personality
disorders may not get high levels of recovery from current behavioural
modification techniques. )Their daily lives are meaningless and futile,
aimed only at filling time till they die. They would have little quality
of life, no freedom and nothing to lose. They just have the institution
as their life. This is what is wrong with the current system, be it
prison or high security psychiatric facilities.

I don't have good solutions but perhaps these options might offer some
food for thought, thought which could lead to alternatives which
preserve as much liberty for the individuals at risk but also protect
the public from harm.

Since the armed forces train killers why not shift these people into
this sort of role. It is, perhaps, better than living their life in the
confines of a high security psychiatric ward. They would be surrounded
by people who have the capability to protect themselves. Their
behvaioural modification would serve the needs of a country to have a
standing army of people ready to kill. The danger they pose could be
seen as something valuable and while this option isn't true liberty it
is a better option than the current practices of coercive psychiatry.

Alternatively get them into sports like rugby, American football, boxing
or something else. Their aggressive tendencies could be used and worn
out by the training. Their lives could gain value and they may even get
the chance to feel better about themselves. They may get the chance to
feel those positive emotions and have those positive experiences which
they didn't have in earlier life. I believe these people at risk of harm
to others are still fundamentally human and are a creation of their
circumstances and life events. Leaving them to rot in a secure
psychiatric facility does little to ameliorate the risks they pose. I
know there are better options but without these options the medico-legal
framework stands to protect the public from harm. The protection of the
public and the individuals themselves will be the argument used to stop
any repeal of the mental health laws, as well as concepts like capacity
and stuff but that's all a load of male cow excrement which is typical
of the techniques of suppression and tyranny used by psychiatry over the
years and accepted by the public and politicians.

Alternatively they could live free in the community but always have a
person with them to protect others from harm. These people could be
drawn from people trained to be elite armed forces or the sort of people
involved in protecting royalty and government officials. Alternatively
they could be protected by peers who have recovered, i.e those who were
once deemed at high risk of harm but had successful behavioural
modification, who are trained in physical comabt. I would guess someone
with SAS training (the UK's elite commandos) would have the speed and
the strength to stop a person at high risk of harming another. The
person deemed at risk of harming but who has not harmed could remain
free and the public would be protected. (I have seen this in action. I
worked in a call centre many years ago. One day a fight came close to
breaking out because someone got a promotion and someone else didn't
like it. The person denied a promotion was so angry he flipped out and
tried to attack the one who did. He ran past a friend of mine who was a
nightclub bouncer in one of the most dangerous areas in the UK
(Hillfields in Coventry which at one point had one of the highest rates
of violent crime in Europe) when not working in a call centre. With the
fluidity of motion and speed of reaction of a panther my friend
intervened. While the rest of us were aghast and stunned into inaction
by the events we saw happening he stepped up and pinned down the person
who was denied promotion. He de-escalated the situation and not one
punch was thrown. My friend had no formal training but being a street
fighter.)

The fact is the incarceration of the mentally ill is immoral and the
enforcement of treatments which kill and are fundamentally not treatment
but a form of enforcement of social norms is one of the great injustices
left to fix. The medico-legal framework is the sort of twisting of the
truth to suit sociopolitical and economic purposes which Stalin and
Hitler would be proud of. Many black men, as well as others, have died
unnecessarily as a result. But 1,000 homicides every year in the UK is
too much as is 100 homicides by a person with a pre-existing
diagnosis/who is in touch with mental health services in the previous
year. Obviously the unnecessary deaths of 1,800 old people every year
when antipsychotics were used to 'treat' (suppress unwanted behaviour)
the symptoms of dementia is also too many deaths. Discarding the
medico-legal framework without suitable alternatives will only lead to
more deaths.

This is why I would not endorse the repeal of the current medico-legal
framework without a solution to ensure that NO ONE DIES unless they want
to. Without intelligent, compassionate and wise solutions to the
problems of harm and homicide the people must remain protected. Liberty
for the mentally ill is equally important and the subjugation made
possible by current medico-legal frameworks must end as well. But before
the survivor movement attempts to tear down the establishment which has
subjugated, oppressed, tortured and killed so many of our kin we need to
have the alternatives ready. I'm sure there are people in universities
and think tanks and wherever else seeking solutions to maintain the
basic rights of humankind, protect the innocent and preserve human life.
The solutions I have offered may be unrealistic but I'm sure there are
people who can think of realistic ones relevant to each country such
that the repeal of the medico-legal framework would sail through rather
than be met with the resistance I am offering here.

Psychiatric and survivor rights are important as is the end of the
subjugation and tyranny but I will not be responsbile for any deaths in
this shit of a life.
"

--
Don't let justice be the privilege of the elite. Support the Justice for All campaign
http://www.justice-for-all.org.uk/

A draft of a response to an important question about the repeal of the medico-legal framework

There is an international movement which is trying to bring about
progress. Many are survivors of the tyranny of psychiatry and compassion.

They've set me a question: what would you do (or imagine could be done)
in a situation where someone seemed to be at high risk of harming
him/herself or harming another person, if forced psychiatry were not an
option?

I've scribbled together a draft over the last couple of days. I need to
go away and think about it more. Here's what I've written thus far. As
usual it's a ramble and there are lots of times I wander off the point.
There's still more thought to put in. Some of this may need to be cut
out too because it is off topic.

Here's what I have so far.
"

You pose an excellent question. Informed choice for self harm, self
destructive behaviour or self termination are things the current mental
healthcare system would attempt to stop. For example a person who self
mutilates to survive psychosis and fight against god's influence (my
personal experience) would ordinarily be the sort of person who'd end up
being incarcerated and forcibly treated, and yet the same person could
have a tattoo done if they were psychotic or manic. It's a judgement
call which a parent might make to stop their child being harmed
but...well...therein lies the problem of compassion, parents and free
will. My self-harm scars are a reminder to me of a dark period in my
life but they also cause sexual disability. (I can't have spontaneous
casual sex and it can still be difficult within a loving relationship
for my partner to accept my scars. There are lacerations upon
lacerations, large gashes and burns from cigars and cigarettes covering
one forearm. I also have a small tattoo on the shoulder of my other
arm.) I do not regret the self harm though. I just wish it wouldn't have
to happen to anyone else. While going through this spiritual crisis I
was forced to stay away from healthcare services because of fear of
coercion. I couldn't even feel safe going to casualty to have a large
gash sewn up because of fear of coercion and forced treatment. I would
have liked physical healthcare but I knew it was not safe to access. I
survived and managed to keep a part time job at a mental health charity.
The experience rapidly dimished after a few months of living hell.
Things got better quickly and I feel I was a lot wiser because of the
experience. I also came to know god and hate god.

Had the CRPD been in force I would have been able to access the
treatment I needed without fear from healthcare services. If, at any
point, I wanted to remove those scars it is possible using cosmetic
surgery however it is something I do not want removed. Is this a
sufficient response to half of your question? I am well aware of the
potential risks and harms to self of a non-coercive mental healthcare
system. For those experiencing their first crisis I think the Soteria or
other advanced paradigm of treatment is far better than the current
system which causes trauma. Evidence-based medicine commissioning rules
require these new options to be cost effective but...true progress is
never cheap.

What is a far harder question is the problem of risk of harm to another
person...but I need to go and have a drink now to help me think about it
and will complete my email tomorrow when I wake up again.

right. I'm back. Primarily there is the risk of physical harm and this
is what the sociopolitical forces will use to continue the coercive
practices of the medico-legal framework. There is also the far more
difficult problem of mental harm, which may often be the causal factor
in homicide and suicide. This is not considered a problem for the
medico-legal framework but in my interpretation of the biopsychosocial
model of how people become and applying this to why people physically
harm others this is important.

I have a background in electronics and computing so I can proffer a few
ideas. Please understand that these are just ideas which are food for
thought rather than ideas I agree should happen. Some of these ideas
infringe on what I perceive is inalienable human rights but these are
ideas psychiatrists may be thinking about. Some of these ideas may seem
nonsensical or be too far out of the box of conventional. Some of these
ideas may be totally crazy but it is my belief that if we can't think
crazy then we'll never solve the problems the medico-legal framework
attempts to solve using coercive methods of incarceration and 'treatment'.
- tracking at risk people. In London there is a high level of electronic
surveillance and this could be made even higher were military
technologies applies. If a person at risk of harming another is
monitored rather than incacerated or coerced into accepting the chemical
cosh and there are rapid response police or mental health teams
available to protect the person at known risk of harm this may provide a
partial alternative to incarceration.

A friend of mine was at risk from a violent ex-partner who had
threatened her. The police installed a panic button and if it were
activated they would rapidly respond (the panic device was designed to
be inconspicuous and did not make a sound when activated). She still
lived in fear of reprisals from him but he had not committed a serious
crime and was not diagnosed with a mental disorder as far as I am aware
so this simple bit of technology. I assume she was also taught basic
self defence. Kick a man in the balls and most men will be stunned long
enough for a second blow to be made then the person at risk can run away
as fast as they can.

Much of our communication is now done electronically. Digital voice
calls, email, social network platforms and other new technologies as
well as the advancement of the automated capability to interpret all
this information may provide an opportunity for a reduction of the risk
of harm. When I worked in children's social services there was someone
experimenting with a piece of commercial software called Autonomy. The
purpose was to prevent the deaths of children in care or at risk. A
child called Victoria Climbe died needlessly. She was beaten and
tortured to death by her carers. People reported what was happening to
her but the systems didn't communicate with each other so the danger was
not flagged up to the right services. This software was capable of
monitoring police, school, social services and hospital electronic
communication systems, understanding the information and getting the
important stuff out to the right people. It could also be applied to the
[rpblem of life events and experiences which trigger people into
dangerous emotional states which cause harm. (boviously there are
privacy concerns related to this but..as I said...this is just food for
thought.) Let's say a person loses their job then the next week their
partner divorces them then the week after their dog dies because they
can't afford the medication to keep them alive. All of this informatiopn
is recorded electronically however their employer, their partner and the
vet may not know each other and what is happening to this one
individual. Any person going through all this life events may end up in
a highly distressed state. In this state the person could be at risk of
harm to themselves or someone else. They are also going through a
terrible experience. A computer system similar to the Autonomy software
could detect the high risk precursors and flag this up to appropriate
services. These services could actively respond by providing comfort and
help to this poor individual who is going through a hell no one should
have to go through or they could take a passive, watchful role ready to
respond only if there was risk of harm to the individual or another. The
latter option sounds uncompassionate but such high levels of pain can
also be useful as long as a person can handle it. I think many of us
could reflect on our negative life experiences which were terrible to
experience at the time but may be seen as useful with hindsight.

Perhaps it would be better if the surveillance technology could be used
to prevent such trauma happening to one person in such a short space of
time...but it would mean the people would have to give up their privacy
rights to computer technology for the reudction of the risk of physical
and mental harm.

- there are people detained in high security mental health facilities. I
assume these people are judged to be at risk of perpetrating violence
towards anyone and without predictability. For some this risk may be due
to uncontrollable action caused by intense emotion. Intense emotion
usually has a biological factor behind it and I would guess the emotion
preceding the harmful action is anger. One way to detect this may be
galvanic skin response. I have seen one paper which looks at the
detection of psychosis by measuring GSR however I'm not sure this
provided a reliable method to detect psychosis yet; if it is possible
people who are going through psychosis could be detected when they pick
up their mobile phone, keys or other object used daily to which a GSR
sensor could be attached. There are other biological parameters like
heart rate, pulse, pupil dilation, body temperature or sweat which are
associated with intense emotions and, of course, there are
neurobiological responses though measuring these outside a laboratory is
a lot harder than measuring the physicals signs of the strong emotions
which precede violent harm.

Bioelectronics is still in its infancy however it may surprise you just
how far developments have come. A (poor) solution for these high risk
individuals may be implanting a system of sensors and micro- or
nanoprocessors to monitor for the intense emotions which may precede a
violent attack. It is a poor solution because it will steal away
emotions from these individuals. This sort of system would need to
release behavioural change chemicals to tranquilise the individual (and
the levels of these tranquilising chemicals would need to be kept topped
up). In a rage some people can also be impervious to the effect of
current tranquiliser chemicals at safe levels; I remember a fellow
psychiatric patient who was "acute tranquilised" (forcibly injected with
haliperidol with the express intention of forcing unconsciousness) twice
but still managed to punch through the safety glass of the seclusion
room he was put in, break out of the psychiatric ward and make a run for
it (he was caught by the police and placed in a high security
psychiatric ward but he never harmed anyone even in this intense rage.
He was a kind and gentle man but he was pushed beyond his limits by the
injustices of the psychiatric ward.)

- Doctors have already returned to cutting out parts of the brain.
Psychosurgery or neurosurgery for mental disorder is being trialled in
the UK. I'm sure other countries are doing this too. This is essentially
a return to the lobotomy and leucotomy but with a much higher degree of
precision. It is very high risk and experimental at the moment. A person
who would otherwise be hospitalised for life in a high security ward may
one day be given the option to continue their indefinite incarceration
or make the Hobson's choice of liberty after psychosurgery.

There may be people who can be violent and dangerous without any
biological or emotional precursor. I assume these people are very rare.
They may be the fictionalised demon of the psychopath which is portrayed
in films like Natural Born Killers. If we took the assumption that these
people were 100% likely to kill someone were they released from a high
security psychiatric ward then would it be ethical to release them and
let them commit a serious crime?

My opinion is these people came to be who they are through their life
experiences. There may be a genotype which provides a basis for this
phenotype however it is the psychosocial part of the model of cause
which society and individuals have control over. Prevention of the
expression of this phenotype may be the better option but this also
means preventing a disability and a human type from existing. We do not
have the social technology to achieve this yet but society has to deal
with the problem of those who are detained in psychiatric wards who are
100% likely to kill someone were they released. The laws in the UK were
modified when the Mental Health Act 1983 was amended in 2007 to included
psychopathy as a mental disorder and remove the need for a treatment to
be available because, at the time, there were no evidence-based
treatments available but there was the risk of homicide from persons
with a "dangerous personality disorder." (Unfortunately this legal power
was probably used by individual psychiatrists to achieve whatever they
felt like and it also broke the fundamental tenets of the criminal
justice system but the medico-legal framework has always been a law unto
itself.)

Personally I believe these dangerous people are also still human. This
means they have basic human desires. To belong. to be loved. To be
appreciated and valued. Someone once told me psychopaths can make good
entrepreneurs or good campaigners. If they had the option to become
useful, to be reconditioned to live amongst people again and steer away
from violence then perhaps these poor souls could have their lives back
and be at no risk to themselves or other people. It may take time and
love and patience and, of course, money, and perhaps there's not enough
of this to go around.

Alternatively perhaps those who are still at risk of harming others
could get a job harming people. What I mean is they could be recruited
to the armed forces. The army takes in young men and women then trains
them to be cold blooded killers. They train people to see through the
sight of a sniper rifle and rather than see a human being's head they
see a target. People have to be conditioned into this and I would guess
that many regret their first kill but the ones after that are easier.
Rather than condition people to be killers why not use those who are
already wiling to kill and see human life as a commodity to be taken
away at the whim of their commanding officer. It is not quite liberty
for those at highest risk of harm were they released into the community
however it is an option for a semblance of a life. It also means people
who aren't accused of psychopathy don't need to be turned into cold
blooded killers.

- psychosis and mania training. Enthogens, or illegal drugs as they are
usually known, offer the opportunity to make people psychotic. In fact
dru-induced psychosis or mania is often a pleasant experience and has an
end point so it is not the same as the sort of psychosis I went through
a few years ago however these drugs may offer an opportunity.

What I remember of this dark period was my sensory reality and
experience of consciousness shifted significantly. There is a theory of
the mind called the Bayesian theory where new inputs are interpreted
based on previous inputs. (I don't know a lot about this Bayesian theory
but it sort of fits with my experiences.) What happens in psychosis is a
truly frightening experience for the initiated. The distorsion of
internal and external reality is pure hell. It can be this alone which
drives people to suicide as I desired when I went through acute
psychosis. The distorsions can also cause people to kill themselves or
harm someone. Take the biblical story or Abraham/Ibrahim. If I remember
it right god commanded him to kill his son and he was ready to do it.
Therein lies a reason psychiatrists would use to incarcerate and
forcibly treat people, and it's a bloody good reason because Abraham
didn't want to kill his son and his son didn't want to die. The
'delusion' caused the risk of harm. Thankfully the delusion also stopped
him killing his son but other people who experience psychosis are not so
blessed. A story from my own culture is the story of Arjuna and his
desire not to fight a war but, if I remember right, his delusion/vision
and conversation with the god Krishna persuaded him to go to war.

Anyway, the risk of homicide and suicide during psychiatric/spiritual
crisis may be able to be reduced if people are prepared for it. By using
enthogens to stimulate psychosis or mania in at risk individuals in a
controlled setting in may be possible to make real psychosis less
dangerous and painful. Creating and controlling psychosis may be able to
create the previous inputs which may make the shift in reality easier to
handle such that a person's consciousness can remain intact and the
individual be kept safe from harm or doing harm while experiencing a
shifted reality. For example a combination of cocaine and delta-9=THC
could be used to make a person experience psychosis in a safe setting.
Trained practitioners would be there to help the person through the
experience. This training would perhaps allow them to have the insight
to recognise the symptoms when real psychosis happens and train their
mind to survive without healthcare if they chose. The goal would always
be for them to attach whatever significance the individual choses so if
the person choses to perceive the experience of thought broadcast as
control by aliens or secret government agencies then this is their right
just as it would be their right to experience it as god. The purpose of
this is to prevent the harms associated with acute psychosis, especially
the risks associated with first episode. A significant proportion of the
suicides associated with schizophrenia happen during the early stages
(the lifetime suicide rate is about 10% but was recalcualted to 5-6% by
a psychiatrist because the other 4-5%.happen in the initial stages).

The other suicides in schizophrenia (and bipolar) are also important. I
think these are due to the hell of a life schizophrenics have to lead.
Shunned, poor, little valued, stigmatised, misunderstood and often very,
very lonely. The medication makes life terrible for many ad suppresses
the qualities of the schizophrenic type, qualities which post-Industrial
age developed world nations, wrongly, see little value for. But i digress.

- There may be better ways to prepare people for the experience of
psychosis but I can't think what they are. It can be a very dangerous
experience and I'm afraid I can't think of a better idea than this sort
of 'vaccination' such that when the real thing happens a person is
prepared and can handle it without harm or harming.

- perhaps the best commandments should be taught. Thou shalt not kill or
first, do no harm. Or something like that. The problem is that these
commandments have been shown not to work. The Crusades are one example
where people of the same god killed each other. Psychiatry is an example
of a flagrant breach of first, do no harm.

However there are lessons from religion which might be useful. Science
does not offer the wisdom which comes from religion. Perhaps it is this
sort of thing which needs to be taught to children so when they grow to
be adults they will not harm or kill.
"

--
Don't let justice be the privilege of the elite. Support the Justice for All campaign
http://www.justice-for-all.org.uk/

Could reintroduction of national service be an option to fees for higher education?

I took a year out before I went to university and it was a very useful
life learning experience. In fact it made it harder for me to accept my
university education but I learned a lot outside the lecture halls.

What if there was the option...or even something mandated...such that 18
year olds have to work and contribute before university but their
education would be free. As during my year out before university
learning could be combined with working life.

I believe this would make for better students. I believe it may,
perhaps, be cost effective too.

First and foremost, education is a right not a privilege but modern
governments have forgotten the ideals which we, the anti-fees
campaigners from a decade ago, fought for. We were promised fees would
never go higher than £1,000 a year but even this amount is too high when
there is an ideal at stake: education is a right, not a privilege.

There are probably enough long term economics and health arguments for
guaranteeing education as a right, not a privilege but we live in times
where short sightedness seems to be valued by politicians. Perhaps this
idea of national service before or during university education as an
alternative to the rape of the ideal of free education might be an
option which makes sense in the current economic climate.

Frankly I think it's a fucking shit idea. Education is a right, not a
privilege. Anything less sucks balls.

What of the systems which create illness and disability?

.There is an international financial crisis. The result of this is many
people will experience mental illness through going through the problems
of bad debt and face exclusion through bankruptcy. Many people will
become poorer and this is associated with reduced life expectancy,
reduced opportunities and other disadvantages. Recessions are associated
with an increase in the suicide rate through the mediating factor of
unemployment. Governments are forced to cut spending which also
contributes to a poorer quality of life for those on state welfare or
medical welfare (the UK has two systems of support, one for those
without established disabilities and one for those with established
disabilities). The effect of a recession is usually to increase the
amount of suffering and reduce life expectancy and make peoplementally
ill and poorer. (Yes, I reckon poverty is a disability).

Coercive laws in mental health are justified by the risk of homicide,
however there are people who have big salaries and nice offices who do
more harm to people. It's not just psychiatrists. It's bankers and
politicans too. The economy affects people's lives and livelihoods, and
when it fucks up it creates disability - poorer outcomes during the
period of recession which, for some, affect them negatively for life -
for many. Recessions also cause reduced life expectancy and death.

The bankers are not a subjugated people though. They do not have
centuries of stigma attached to their type. They hold power while the
mentally ill have little.

A conversation last night reminded me of something

People really don't understand what it's like to be suicidal.

There's always that unspoken thought, "why don't you just stop being
suicidal?" to which I would like to retort, "why don't you stop being so
lacking in any real life experience or understanding of the human
condition?"

Each person's life and consciousness is unqiue. My 'gift' and curse is
to want to die more than anything else in this life. The reasons don't
matter. It's certainly not over a fucking girl. sheesh. I got over that
sort of shit a long time ago. That just hurts but I have learned to live
with that sort of pain, a pain which if others felt I know it would
break them..but I think most people don't feel the way I can feel about
another person. Docile, loveless automoton twats.

The reasons are irrelevant. What is a constant is my desire to die,
sooner rather than later. This is not an illness. This is not a crime.
This is my fucking life...

The right to exist as we are and want to be but without that being a detriment to our opportunities in life in any way

This is something I would want for everyone. There are extremes which
might not make it realistic, for example a person who has one hand but
wants to be a guitarist....hmm....or perhaps someone could design a
guitar they could play with one hand or using their feet and one hand.

There are probably better examples of where this right would be a
problem but I have a lot of faith in humanity...for all that bad stuff
which has happened to me...

The thing is...if we're going to create heaven on Earth and it not be a
hell it's going to take some heavy thinking about stuff. This succinct
principle is aligned with the ideas of the disability and equality
movement...but I wonder how it could become an unintentional harm?

Rights of the disabled to exist and healing the illness in society

Take blindness. I would guess this could be reasonably easy to do
reliable embryonic screening. Medical technology allows the potential
for this human type to be made extinct. Most parents would not want
their child to be born blind. Should this be allowed?

In the UK the bionic eye is being trialled. This technology can offer
the blind a basic level of sight and with time the resolution of the
electronics will get higher. Should this treatment be forced upon a
blind person? Should this technology be allowed to be used?

Given the new technology to restore a basic level of visual capability
could it be possible to ban genetic screening for disabilities then
allow the individual to chose who they want to be when they reach
maturity? Or should they be counselled against this change like a person
with Sexual Identity Disorder is counselled out of their desire to be
heteronormal?

The reason is because those born blind have one of the most important
jobs: they have to live to maintain the diversity of the human race and
heal the illness in society which values homogeneous humans instead of
our beautiful diversity.

The problem is only a cunt would think like this. For many living with
blindness when sight is an option would be a terrible curse. After all,
a guide dog is also a technology which reduces the disability of the
blind. Why not just remove the problem of blindness entirely using
genetic and bioelectronic technology?

Because the blind and blindness are valuable and offer a unique value t
the human race. It is the responsibility of those with sight to ensure
the blind suffer the least amount possible and are not disadvantaged.
Their uniqueness is worth so much more to the human race than the
normality of sight.

Rectifying the problems of disability and missing a dear friend

Let's take the example of a person with depression. Though highly
capable they are disadvantaged because their depression stopped them
completing their degree. They had high academic performance but a severe
bout of depression meant they dropped out in their first year of
university and didn't return.

Ten years later their peers all have professional roles which are well
paid. Their peers work hard and are well rewarded. The person with
depression isn't. They've had to work their way up from the bottom and
are excluded from professional roles and many other roles because of
their lack of a degree.

Their capability to learn and their potential is undiminished. The
constructs of society mean that their capability is underused and their
potential unfulfilled. They may be happy with the life they had but on
the relative measure of where their peer group ended up they may feel as
though they are undervalued in relation to those who never suffered
depression.

This example is taken from a dear friend of mine who I've not seen in
too long. I'm not sure if she was a schizophrenic or a depressive but
she dropped out of university in the first year and never came back. I
think of her even to this day. She was bright, talented and attractive.
I'm sure she still is. I don't know where she is or what she's doing
right now but I guess without a degree she's been significantly
disadvantaged in employment.

The times are changing. IBM have dropped the requirement of a degree for
their graduate program. They still use testing and these tests may be
discriminatory, for example a depressive going through depression may
have cognitive problems which means they may score worse than their
optimum performance. The tests may also be weighted against the
qualities which come from mental illness.

Tests are generally less open to discrimination than people. A depressed
person may come off very badly in an interview. But tests are still
written by people. For example the IQ test has been accused of
discriminating against black-skinned people who often have a different
for of intelligence.

If, perhaps, employers understood that most people have the capability
to the job required of them and if they don't they'll learn with time
and support then that would be a step forward but this is pretty
unrealistic. Most workplaces need a person who can quickly get to an
optimum level of productivity, fit in with their colleagues and the
hierarchy, follow the rules and all the crap which comes with working at
a corporation/post-Industrial Age factory work setting. Employers still
want robots rather than humans.

Right now I don't care. I miss my friend. She was an amazing
photographer and I can't see any of her work online. The loss of her
artistic and creative talent is a loss to the world if she's stopped
taking photographs. The loss of her in my life is like a black hole in
my heart, but there are many of those and I've learned to live with
those wounds.

What is schizophrenia?

Someone asked me this on my Facebook profile and I don't have a good
answer. It is not something which is a succinct answer or one which may
make sense to the lay person or those without an in-depth understanding
of the nature of psychiatry.

First and foremost it is not an illness. This is bullshit. The use of
the paradigm of illness and the label of schizophrenia has enabled a
broad range of types of people to be subjugated by psychiatrists from
black campaigners to communists to what might be considered a true
schizophrenic.

A true schizophrenic (and I really mean dementia praecox so that
includes schizoaffective and bipolar) is a different type of human being
to the automoton type, the one which is like a robot. This, in fact, is
probably not accurate enough.

I would guess many schizophrenics are artists, philosophers or monks.
They may also take on other roles in life. I believe schizophrenics are
passionate and caring people so they may end up working for charities or
churches. They may be more prevalent in universities than in corporate
environments which require automoton behaviour and performance.

In general they may have a more inward facing experience of reality, by
which I mean they're more in their head than other people. Jung typified
schizophrenics at one end of a spectrum and hysterics at the other.
Hysterics were concerned with the external world and schizophrenics were
concerned with the internal world.

Delusions and hallucinations are what people often associate with
schizophrenics. This may not always be present but I would guess that it
is common. I think what would be more common is the internal focus of
consciousness and reality, which can sometimes be at the cost of
external reality and the demands of modern developed world society. For
example in Inida there are Sadus who can perform amazing feats of
strength and offer wisdom to the community but they are often unwashed,
live poor and have little concern for the trappings and constructs of
modern Indian city life. They also smoke a lot of weed...much like true
Rastas.

The diagnosis of schizophrenia is used for many purposes. In practice it
has been used for social control since its inception. It still is. Black
men are overdiagnosed with schizophrenia by psychiatrists in the UK and
US but not those in the West Indies. The reason, in my opinion, is
related tot he change in the diagnosis during the 1960s and 70s. The
chemical cosh or major tranquiliser was advertised to the American
public for its power to suppress angry black men. The drug is used for
this reason today. This may be the underlying reason as well as
sociopolitical pressures which mean the diagnosis is used to suppress
black men.

While it is a false construct there are some parts which are real. On
measures of disability schizophrenia scores very highly. The live
shorter, worse lives. 10% kill themselves and a large number of these
suicides happen in the early stages. The transition period from
automoton to schizophrenic type can be hell on Earth. But once a
schziophrenic type expresses the hell of life and mental healthcare can
be equally damaging to their life such that many kill themselves and I
guess many more would like to rather than live another day.

The pathologisation - by which I mean the stuff which psychiatrists
judged as illness because they observed it from the outside rather than
knowing what the experience was like - is, perhaps, an understanding of
the deepest miseries a human being can go through. I was reading
DSM-IV-TR yesterday in the park and reflecting on my own experiences of
acute psychosis. What ends up being pathologised are natural human
reactions to an intense pain, a pain so deep and so different to what
normal people experience that no one but a person who's been through
could understand what it is like. The suffering is often caused by the
internal 'delusions' and 'hallucinations' (the experiences are very
real, as real as reality itself) though some of it is also caused by
other people, psychiatry and society.

The patholgisation doesn't offer the right answers though. Their only
solution seems to be drugging schizophrenics and treating them as
subhuman. Many end up institutionalised or incarcerated long term in
psychiatric hospitals. Many more end up excluded from mainstream life by
being forced to live on state welfare. Though many want to work the work
systems and workplaces are not set up to accommodate and value this
different human type.

It is my opinion that the schizophrenic type is an essential part of the
human race and a valuable type. The suppression and subjugation of this
type has lead to many of the problems of the modern age. In my opinion
the schizophrenic type are deep and thoughtful, caring and
compassionate, sensitive and loving in ways which automotons could never
understand. In the cold, harsh capitalist reality of modern life there
skills are valued less whereas people who are heartless, greedy, selfish
and shallow are advantaged and rewarded. Schizophrenics can think "out
of the box" whereas automotons are stuck thinking how they've been told
to think. Schziophrenics have high levels of creativity (often
suppressed by the drugs) and this has little value in Industrial age
factory-type work settings but as society evolves to the next level, The
Third Wave as predicted by Alvin Toffler, this quality will become more
valuable than the ability to do the same thing the same way day after day.

But it is definitely not an illness. The negative symptoms are normal
human reactions to a shit of a life. The positive symptoms have been
part of the human condition since human beings evolved different from
apes. The problem is society, teaching, conditioning, and all that other
stuff of the psychosocial model of cause which creates the worse
outcomes in developed world nations. Schizophrenics often do better in
developing world nations.

Why does "mad" in America mean angry whereas it means severely mentally ill in the UK?

Why do literature reviews of schizophrenia and creativity often show little association?

Possibly because the measures of creativity aren't very good...or
perhaps because the drugs used to suppress the expression of this
valuable human type work on the dopamine channel. One of the sites (D2)
has been associated with schizotypal traits such as creativity, so if
reviews included trials of schizophrenics who have been suppressed by
the 'medication' (they don't heal like true medication) then of course
they won't find a fucking association.

For the last 2 days I've been feeling a little better

I'm not sure why.

Things feel less painful inside thought there is still a lot of pain.

I worry about the recession. I'm still annoyed at ,my current state of
reality. But I feel less....shitty.

Television as a tool for behavioural modification, social control and society therapy

I've just skim read a paper on something or other and it's prompted a line of thought which is already being explored.

In the UK Steven Fry's TV programs have significantly shifted the public perception of biplor disorder. his touching documentary The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive shed a small light into the human type. It didn't quite convey the sheer living hell of bipolar but it helpe people to see a value to the human type. I think it may have lead to people wanting to be bipolar which is a significant shift in perceptions to how bipolar was perceived 30 years ago.

His series QI helped redouble the desire to be like Stephen Fry. He is an admired man by the nation. The program Eastenders, a well watched soap opera, also had a story line about bipolar. I assume it was more realistic and portrayed the living hell.

These programs help to shift perceptions. They are ways to accelerate the demedicalisation of psychopathology labels like manic depression. They help redress the imbalance and illness in society such that valuable human types are deemed subhuman using the label of mental illness. As a broad category they are part of the new movement in mental health and healthcare: anti-stigma.

There are still many examples of media which reinforces the stigma. The (great) fil Natural Born Killers is the antihesis of the series Dexter (which I've not really gotten into yet). The two main characters in NBK are total psychos but they were lucky enough to find each other. Sadly their love ended up with many deaths. In the series Dexter the premise is a serial killer who helps hunt down serial killers but I guess that the main character has some sort of admirable quality and there are examples of humanity in the 'evil' type of the psychopath.

In the paper I just read on TV and attitudes to therapist it suggests that careful portrayal of help seeking and of mental health professionals in comedies and dramas may both help and hinder. It may help people be more willing to seek help from therapists and be less self-stigmaitsing and stigmatising, however the danger is the expectations that a therapist has an answer for the client or that therapy is guaranteed to be a pleasant process.

It is fairly well established that television as a medium can be a significant factor in mental illness. The characters - both physically and mentally - are often perfect and beautiful. They are exaggerations of real people but the influence of the close-to-reality representation of modern television electronics mean people are significantly influenced. There is the illness in society caused by advertising too, advertising which often creates desire for products and uses images of perfect people to sell their wares.

Clearly a lot of image-based eating disorders are based upon the problem of the slim models in the media. The rise in plastic surgery is often surgery to make people look like the perfect people they see on TV or in print. Some people eschew the mainstream TV programs but find anti-heroes to want to be instead of the perfect people in mainstream TV.

The negative impact of TV on mental disorder is probably quite high but I fear there is a greater risk from the control of TV to rectify mental disorder. Once control over these images is established this becomes an inorganic process akin to social control. Even if done with the best of intentions the risks are the risks of any good action: that harm will ensue.

How a social control expert can gain competence to make what is truly the right decision when it comes to the control of television is a challenging question. There are so many variables and it feels like there's not a lot of science to offer reliability or predictability. The risks are as much as the risks of The Great Confinement (where, out of compassion, the mad and the fools and others were housed and helped but removed from human view for generations thereby causing a significant illness in society).

It is a significant risk. During the period of the Time to Change antistigma campaign in the UK the number of homicides by persons with a mental health diagnosis shot up significantly in one year. I think it's either year 2 or 3 of the campaign. The risk is a psychopath going on a killing spree and excusing themselves because they're psychopaths...or the risk of people trying to manage bipolar without medication or training. Alternatively it is the risk of people blindly accepting doctors' instructions about handling their condition because the media portayal of doctors is they're omnipotent and omniscient.

I'm sure there are many, many other risks however this practice of controlling the media in the name of mental health and antistigma is already becoming common in the UK. It is often governed by people who don't understand the risks involved nor try to understand the risks...because they believe they're doing a good thing.

Ethical principles of American psychologists

These are meant to be their guiding principles outlined on page 3.
http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx

It makes interesting reading. They're good but they still fall somewhat short and, in my personal experience, many mental health professionals fall on the wrong side of the judgement call.

I'm probably guilty of this myself. I do harm. I have lied at many points in my life. I have withheld truths. I have breached confidences of trust.

I think I'm immoral, filled with vengeance and have a bitter, black heart. There may be reasons for this and this may be effect rather than cause though I'm sure this darkness within me causes many effects too.

I take easy routes far too often.

What does real psychosis feel like?

I don't think anyone has a proper description which conveys what it
feels like. The dickheads who talk about hearing voices as the sole
expeience of psychosis are describing the tip of the iceberg but also
not understanding that this is also a common experience (in the way they
talk about it).

Many don't realise the inner dualogue or dialogue as a conversation. It
is a thought conversation but it could easily be interpreted as a voice
conversation. The thoughts may sound like voices more than thoughts, or
not. Since we have little language available to describe our experience
of consciousness in a way which is communicable there's many misperceptions.

An auditory hallucination to me sounds like it is something which is
heard. This is the specific sense I would attribute to the term auditory
hallucination. This is very different to how the term is used.

Psychosis itself...the stuff which totally freaks people out...is a
mixed experience. There is a significant shift in internal reality then
there are the interpretations which people give it. For example thought
control. This is a very real experience to the person going through it.
It can be deeply confusing and painful. Then there are the
interpretations which people use to try to understand this new
experience which doesn't fit in with previous experiences (Bayesian
theory of the mind?). Some perceive it as alien control, others perceive
it as the control of secret organisations, others perceive it as the
influence god and there are lots of other interpretations of the core
experience. The biomedial model considers it a malfunctioning brain.

I still lack the ability to communicate the experiences which I had.
Currently I a going through...not real psychosis. Or perhaps it is real
psychosis but I can handle it most of the time. Not sure. To have
learned to handle acute psychosis and continue to work as I did a few
years ago sounds impossible but..well...I know what I went through.
"hell on Earth" does not convey what I went through.