Can our two years talk? Let’s use our imaginations.
The Iroquois Native Americans wisely advised us all to think ahead seven generations. As Hurricane Harvey attacks the Houston area in this year 2017, seven generations ahead (each generation is now about 25 years) would be the year 2192.
Wow, you in the year 2192, that is the 700th anniversary of the invasion of this continent by us Europeans. I hope someone is there to read this message? Perhaps if we here in the year 2017 are effective and ignite a global revolution, we can ensure there will be people alive in 2192. (more…)
I am a survivor of human rights violations in the mental health system. And even though this was a long time ago, back when I was a college student in the 1970’s, the issues are more relevant than ever. My friend, Patch Adams, MD, has connected the dots for me: Our society needs to be very agile right now, but has to overcome centuries of mental health oppression. But with compassion, we can have a global nonviolent revolution!
Recent events show that mental health human rights violations are important for everyone. MindFreedom International was my employer for 25 years before my accident in 2012. They are an independent, activist group, and we need that energy as never before.
The White House announced this past Friday, 21 April 2017, in the evening, that President Donald Trump has, for a pivotal mental health position, appointed a psychiatrist who openly speaks out for involuntary psychiatric drugging of people living outside of institutions, even in their own homes. This appointee criticizes our social change movement, especially our dedication to empowering peer support and our concerns about psychiatric drugs and labeling. It is important for everyone who supports human rights, especially in the social change movements for disability rights and those critical of mass incarceration, to speak up and oppose this approach.
Please phone your U.S. Senators to block this confirmation. This is a chance to raise these issues, now!
This “Assisted Outpatient Treatment” (as supporters call it) or “Involuntary Outpatient Commitment” (as it is known by many) has been quietly growing on the State level for decades, but is now being funded on the federal level, such as through the enormous 21st Century Cures Act that was passed by Congress at the end of last year. Whatever it is called — AOT or IOC — under these laws judges may order folks to have mental health care, which could be a range of approaches. In my experience, staffing a human rights phone and getting hundreds of contacts for decades, “mental healthcare” for the “seriously mentally ill” almost always includes psychiatric drugging, often with neuroleptics, or “antipsychotic medications” as prescribers often call this family of pharmaceuticals.
Neuroleptic drugs began in the 1950’s with such brands as Thorazine, Stelazine, Haldol, Mellaril, etc., all of which I have had. I personally experienced involuntary neuroleptic injections more than 40 years ago as a college student at Harvard. About five times I was placed in a psychiatric institution for emotional difficulties, and twice I experienced the sharp end of a needle, when in solitary confinement I was held down on the bare mattress and got forced drugging in my butt. I graduated anyway, in 1977, and our class is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
Now neuroleptics have dozens of more brands, but many of the hazards and risks are the same. For instance, in the long run there is the danger that many people can experience involuntary twitching that can apparently often be permanent. There is also the long term risk of brain damage and even death. Some folks choose these medications, but others do not. I choose to not take them, and I have not for these past four decades.
Takes One to Know One
President Trump has appointed Dr. Ellie McCance-Katz for a high-level position created by the 21st Century Cures Act. Dr. McCance-Katz would become the first Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse (SAMHSA) inside the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
In an essay published last year by the Psychiatric Times, Dr. McCance-Katz was highly critical of SAMHSA, especially its sub-agency Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), headed by Paolo Delvecchio, who has long-identified himself as an individual who has used psychiatric treatment. Many mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors know Paolo because of his work in this field for decades.
In her essay in Psychiatric Times, Dr. McCance-Katz:
Endorses federal funding of AOT (or IOC).
Criticizes SAMHSA for allegedly being critical of psychiatric drugs.
Challenges the support for “recovery” in mental health, a term used by many consumer/survivors as a rallying point for hope and empowerment.
Calls for mental health care, which appears to be led by psychiatric drugs, for more than three million Americans.
Are You One of the Many Targeted?
Dr. McCance-Katz wrote in the essay: “It is estimated that 10 million Americans (4.2%) are living with serious mental illness. However, only 68.5% of the most severely mentally ill will receive any type of mental health services.”
I wonder how many of these three million Americans would refuse psychiatric drugs? Of those who would refuse, I wonder how many this psychiatrist would like to see drugged against their will?
This professor challenges the great interest in using peer support as a humane, empowering alternative priority. She writes, “Workforce issues focus in large part on the development of a ‘peer workforce.’ This ideology purports that one can become a mental health professional by virtue of having a mental illness. Peer support can be an important resource for some, but it is not the answer to the treatment needs of the seriously mentally ill.”
There are only a few, small groups that focus on involuntary psychiatric drugging, such as the Treatment Advocacy Center. The topic actually divides a lot of folks, since the average American in my experience does not like the idea of the government forcing citizens to have involuntary psychiatric drugs, once the value of empowering alternatives are explained. IOC can even for a small group include involuntary outpatient court-ordered electroshock, or electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). For example, search the web for the names Ray Sandford and Elizabeth Ellis, with the word electroshock. These two Minnesotans who received such horrible involuntary procedures, but MindFreedom put out human rights alerts that stopped the series of electroshocks.
In my decades of work in the field of human rights and mental health, I have been impressed with the way concern about this issue crosses political lines. Yes, support for this field has often been among those who would be seen as on the left. However, some of the most effective organizing about psychiatric over-drugging of children has been done by activists that would be seen as on the right.
I have seen both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party both pass planks in their platform, years ago, expressing support for some of our goals. Today we are often seeing critics question the sanity of the President of the United States because of his support of untrue beliefs, such as his denial of climate crisis and his many years of championing the odd belief that President Obama was born in Africa.
Well, it takes one to know one, and I am also a White Aging Crazy Citizen (WACC). Actually, what I have found in my work is that 100% of all people struggle about their mental wellness, it is a universal challenge. The distinction is between negative, bigoted craziness and positive, constructive, creative craziness. In fact, I would argue that the new PC is Positively Crazy.
Perhaps at this time, we need a Positively Crazy dedication to the First Amendment, which not only includes free speech, but according to the US Supreme Court, the right to think unusual thoughts, even irrationally. There are more compassionate, effective, sustainable ways to help troubled people. Let us all break the silence about human rights violations in mental healthcare, including IOC. Centuries of abuse in this industry have helped silence the population on many outrages, including the threat of climate chaos.
We need a nonviolent revolution throughout our society, in mental healthcare, in energy, in so many ways. There is no guarantee of results, but at least we can speak up about freedom!
My friend Patch Adams, MD has spoken out many time about the need for fun, creativity and peaceful rebellion. You may read a recent blog I wrote after chatting with him recently, which you may read here
End
Below, for the very interested, you will find an essay I have just submitted to be published in the Harvard Alumni Association publication that comes out every five years. In my essay, I appreciate that a Harvard volunteer group first placed me as an intern working for human rights in mental health. Unfortunately, the nonviolent revolution we have long called for in mental health has not quite happened yet. However, perhaps now this topic may get more attention.
My Essay to Harvard Alumni Association for My 40th Reunion
Mental health. Activism. Community organizing. Human rights. Disability. Nonviolent revolution! Thank you, Phillips Brooks House Association, for placing me as an intern in my senior year as a community organizer of people in the mental health system, because the above passions became my career. The incredible riches I have gained from working with some of the most powerless in our society are invaluable. After 25 years as Executive Director of the human rights nonprofit MindFreedom International, I had an extreme accident and broke my neck, and I now use a power chair. While it would be impossible to be totally prepared for this, my work in the disability movement managed to teach me a few principles. For example, I apply lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr.: What is my creative maladjustment?
Reflecting back on Harvard, the most memorable and influential class for me was about comparative religion. It would be fun to be in touch with any of you reading this. You can find me easily by directing your search engine to this phrase: david w oaks blog. When I summarized my passions above, I included “nonviolent revolution.” Yes, for decades I have raised this as a real choice. Now, with the climate chaos looming, I feel nonviolent revolution is an option we might want to choose. Scientists have estimated that the lag for carbon-induced impact is about 40 years. In other words, the pollution during our years at Harvard is only now changing the climate. I am very concerned that during the next lag, many more feedback effects can be triggered. For the current moment and for seven generations in the future, we truly need a nonviolent revolution. I estimate seven generations would extend to about the year 2192. May there be a healthy graduating class that year! The Butterfly Effect gives us a good chance, uncertain, but a good chance. Perhaps it is up to you?
It is important to create a dialogue to address the values we need today for excellent care. Therefore, I am copying the commentary that I very much disagree with. You may read the essay by the Trump appointee from Psychiatric Times below:
The Federal Government Ignores the Treatment Needs of Americans With Serious Mental Illness
By Dr. Ellie McCance-Katz
There she was again—a middle-aged woman, disheveled, crouching in the doorway of a closed store, grasping a notebook and pencil and scribbling. Intermittently, her eyes darted around and she would mumble, then go back to her notebook. Her eyes never met mine, but I wondered why she was not getting help with what was clearly a severe mental illness. I would see her in that same doorway several times a week for a couple of years before I left Berkeley, California, to become the first Chief Medical Officer of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). In doing so, I hoped to help people living in the grips of cruel disorders that affect one’s thinking, one’s reasoning, one’s ability to relate, and one’s ability to even understand that one suffers from a disorder that can be treated.
It is estimated that 10 million Americans (4.2%) are living with serious mental illness. However, only 68.5% of the most severely mentally ill will receive any type of mental health services. Whether those services are necessary and appropriate is not known. People with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and other severe mental illnesses often complicated by substance misuse need effective, safe, evidence-based treatments as well as community resources where their clinical service needs can be met. The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is composed of numerous agencies that address the health care needs of Americans, but only one agency within HHS is charged with addressing the needs of those with serious mental illness and that is SAMHSA.
SAMHSA is a small federal agency with a budget of roughly $3.7 billion per year; much of that is in the form of block grants to states that are the arbiters of how the funds will be spent in support of the treatment of substance use and mental disorders. SAMHSA does, however, have the ability to focus on areas and issues that would improve the lot of individuals affected by severe mental illness. Unfortunately, SAMHSA does not address the treatment needs of the most vulnerable in our society. Rather, the unit within SAMHSA charged with addressing these disorders, the Center for Mental Health Services, chooses to focus on its own definition of “recovery,” which generally ignores the treatment of mental disorders, and, as a major initiative under “recovery” services, focuses on the development of a “peer workforce.”
There is a perceptible hostility toward psychiatric medicine: a resistance to addressing the treatment needs of those with serious mental illness and a questioning by some at SAMHSA as to whether mental disorders even exist—for example, is psychosis just a “different way of thinking for some experiencing stress?”
SAMHSA’s approach includes a focus on activities that don’t directly assist those who have serious mental illness. These include programs such as Mental Health First Aid, which seeks to teach people about the warning signs of mental illness in an attempt to provide support to those who are experiencing symptoms. Significant dollars are spent on hot lines for callers who may be experiencing suicidal thinking or who know someone who may be—yet suicide rates continue to climb in the US. SAMHSA supports integrated care programs that would bring some aspects of primary care to mental health services programs—worthy programs, but which do not address the treatment of serious mental illness. Programs that undertake the “re-education” of mental health practitioners who are assumed to be abusers of “consumer” rights and who dictate treatment to patients have been funded in the Recovery to Practice initiative.
Workforce issues focus in large part on the development of a “peer workforce.” This ideology purports that one can become a mental health professional by virtue of having a mental illness. Peer support can be an important resource for some, but it is not the answer to the treatment needs of the seriously mentally ill.
Lost in all of this are the real and pressing treatment needs of some of the most vulnerable in our society—those living with serious mental illness. Nowhere in SAMHSA’s strategic initiatives is psychiatric treatment of mental illness a priority. The occasional vague reference to treatment is no substitute for the urgent need for programs that address these issues.
What’s needed?
What is needed is an agency soul-searching and a re-prioritization that places the treatment of serious mental disorders at the very top of the list of agency goals. SAMHSA needs leadership that acknowledges the importance of addressing serious mental illness. Initiatives that provide funding for new approaches to engaging the seriously mentally ill; for assisted outpatient treatment with enriched psychosocial services; and for additional psychiatric hospital beds, particularly for longer-term care given the severe shortage of such resources in the US, should be at the top of SAMHSA’s agenda.
Clinical education programs that address current, evidence-based treatment for serious mental illness, and new funding for the training of mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, advanced practice psychiatric nurses, and psychologists, should be a major focus. SAMHSA should develop closer ties with the National Institute of Mental Health, which is helping us to better understand the neurobiological underpinnings of mental illness every day. The real hope, change and ability to recover from these disorders, lies in their effective treatment. To ignore this is to leave a large segment of some of the most seriously ill in our society abandoned—indeed, discriminated against by the very agency charged with serving them.
What can be done to change the current course? Stakeholder groups that seek to ensure psychiatric treatment for all who need it should band together and exert pressure on SAMHSA, on political administrations, and on congressional representatives to address the needs of the seriously mentally ill. Skilled behavioral health providers with patient care experience—psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors—should consider committing a period of service to SAMHSA and to other federal agencies to inform policy decisions related to substance use and mental disorders. This is especially important because too many in the government have education in behavioral health fields but have never worked with patients, or if they have, it was many years in the past. Being inside the Beltway also imbues an artificial perspective that may be informed by lobbyists if at all. This does not serve the American people.
Time for change
I left SAMHSA after 2 years. It became increasingly uncomfortable to be associated with an agency that, for the most part, refused to support evidence-based psychiatric treatment of mental disorders. It was also quite clear that the psychiatric perspective I brought—inclusive of assessment, diagnosis of mental disorders, utilization of evidence-based treatments, including psychotropic medication and psychosocial interventions as integral components of recovery—was a poor fit for the agency. SAMHSA needs a complete review and overhaul of its current mission, leadership, and funded programs. Congress should quickly address this through legislative mandate.
For too long the treatment needs of the seriously mentally ill have been ignored by SAMHSA, and this needs to change. In doing so, perhaps people like the woman in the doorway will be able to move out of the shadows to live full and productive lives in our communities.
Your tour guides: Slug Queen Mark Roberts (wearing Donald Trump mask), David Oaks, Michael Hejazi, Ian McTeague, R. Drake Ewbank and David Zupan.
1:30 pm: Intro & icebreaker start at Kesey Square.
2 pm: Tour walks east on Broadway to office of Rep. Peter DeFazio. Deliver humorous awards objecting to his co-sponsorship of bill that supports more outpatient involuntary psychiatry.
3 pm: Walk back to Kesey Square for open mic.
Modeled after the First Friday Art Walk, this totally independent amplified peaceful tour is for fun, but there is a serious side. Rep. Peter DeFazio has supported H.R. 2646, a huge mental health bill. The worst part is federal support for involuntary outpatient psychiatric care. Rep. DeFazio claims this will not emphasize forced drugging. But the tour guides know otherwise. In fact, David Oaks is running for Peter’s seat as a write in.
Free. Sponsored by International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment.
Organizer David Oaks (pictured on left) is a psychiatric survivor activist www.davidwoaks.comdavidwoaks@gmail.com Michael Hejazi is a mental health counselor in Eugene www.michaelhejazi.ca Ian McTeague is a local socialist organizer and IWW member. David Zupan is a community organizer media activist, a leader for the new Homegrown Community Radio, www.kepw.org. Mark Roberts is a long-time disability human rights activist and Old Slug Queen.
David W. Oaks Warns National Group: “Disability Movement Must Unite Against Rep. Tim Murphy’s Attack on Mental Health Human Rights! We Need Revolution!”
As the USA celebrates labor, leaders in the disability movement are gearing up to defend the most vulnerable of the labeled: people diagnosed with a “mental illness.”
For 42 years, David W. Oaks has worked as a psychiatric survivor human rights activist in mental health. This week he addressed a teleconference of a major US disability group. He reflected on a recent overwhelming vote in the US House of Representatives for HR 2646, known as the Tim Murphy (R-PA) Bill.
Oaks presented at the monthly meeting of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), Mental Health Civil Rights Subcommittee. Mike Bachhuber is Chair. Oaks said:
“Support One Another As We Resist This Psychiatric Assault On Our Human Rights!”
Two days after our nation celebrated freedom, 6 July 2016, the US House quietly passed the worst piece of mental health legislation I have seen in my 42 years of human rights activism. This Bill is mis-named the “Helping Families in Mental Crisis Act of 2016.” We hear over and over that the House is divided and paralyzed. The reality is that during this era when it comes to our people, the House showed by voting 422 to 2 that Democrats and Republicans, left and right, are apparently united in throwing us under the bus.
Let’s stop this frightening bill by contacting both US Senators via their website! We must phone these offices after Labor Day. Prevent these terrible ideas from being introduced as amendments in the Senate, into S 2680.
I just have seven points I would like to make because of this historic moment:
REACH YOUR SENATORS’ OFFICES NOW! Psychiatric survivors have overcome so much, I have met courageous humans who have continued to speak out following psychosurgery, electroshock, solitary confinement, discrimination, segregation, and more. They never give up! As every credible disability and mental health advocacy group recommends, please contact your US Senators today! For more info about this campaign: http://www.advocacymonitor.com/an-update-from-the-ncil-mental-health-civil-rights-subcommittee-3/
THE 422-2 VOTE FOR HR 2646 IS PROOF WE NEED REVOLUTION! In Eugene, Oregon we have been very disappointed Rep. Peter Defazio (D-OR) is a co-sponsor. This is why I am considering encouraging people to write my name in as an opponent to Peter in the November election. What do you think? Leave a comment with your opinion. I am following the strategy if Micah White, one of the organizers of Occupy.
MURPHY BILL IS RACIST AND KILLS! Forced outpatient drugging overwhelmingly targets people of color. Instead of addressing the crisis of mass incarceration, this is the newest form of chemical mass incarceration! For more on Murphy’s racism, see: https://www.davidwoaks.com/blacklivesmatter-race-mental-health The family of drugs that is typically used during coercion are the neuroleptics, also known as antipsychotics, such as Haldol and Abilify. During hot weather, these drugs can suppress the brain’s temperature self-regulation; when poor people, who seldom have air conditioning, are forced to have these drugs as the climate warms, there are many deaths. For more info see: http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/psychiatric-drugs/death/heat-wave-forced-neuroleptics-death
WE NEED GROUPS AND COALITIONS NOW! For example, thanks National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, you have been doing some great work: http://www.ncmhr.org/
SOCIAL MEDIA WARNING! In the big picture, what I am learning so far, we need to renew our solidarity and support for each other. For example I relied for years on a Facebook group for this campaign. But the admins suddenly shut down the group. We need organization and coalitions that are transparent, and accountable to each of us! Yvonne has a new Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/990352404357602/ or search FB for: “Legislation and Attacks on Survivor Community.”
NO NORMALITY IN MY NAME! After centuries of the mental health industry jumping up and down, up and down on the free minds of millions, we now wonder why our society seems so conformist and like zombies in the face of climate crisis. We psychiatric survivors know about what is a kind of war against human spirit.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS MAY HAVE A SPECIAL SUPPORT FOR OUR MOVEMENT VALUES! We do not know either way for sure, but Bernie has an occasional contact with our movement issues over the decades. Let us all contact Bernie Sanders’ office. (202) 224-5141. The website to send your comments is: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/contact/comment The staffperson in the DC office of Bernie who works on disability is Lori Kearns, and her email address is: lori_kearns@sanders.senate.gov
I recently blogged about how we should all reach our US Senators now, and you can read this entry here.
This month, May 2016, the candidates for USA President compete in our usually-missed State of Oregon, so this is a very good time to ask the following question:
“How do you stand on the controversy of forced outpatient mental health drugs?”
This is my 40th year working as an advocate for people labeled “disabled,” and I know that the topic of involuntary psychiatry can be a little complicated for people. After all, if one of our beloved family members becomes irrationally self-destructive, we can become desperate for help. However, this is such an important topic that we need to go deeper than just a bumper-sticker answer.
So, let us find out where the candidates for President stand: Are you listening Hillary, Bernie, Donald, Ted, and John?
The past few years I have been working a bunch in disability advocacy, one of the biggest social change movements in human history. How we treat the most vulnerable people in a group can be very revealing.
Let me explain a little background in brief:
For many decades, almost all USA States have been quietly passing laws that allow court-ordered involuntary mental health care, that is, of people living out of institutions in the community, often in their own homes or group homes.
Sponsors of these “involuntary outpatient commitment” laws use a more euphemistic phrase: “assisted outpatient treatment” laws. “Assisted?” Sure, the way Donald Trump is “assisting” Muslims by seeking to ban them in a bigoted way. The way bigots in Bangladesh recently “assisted” a gay rights activist by killing him.
To put it very simply: This is court-ordered coerced drugging, using a variety of methods for enforcement, sometimes even a daily visit to the person’s home.
There is a Congressperson, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), who for years has been pushing a huge bill that has a section for national, federal incentives for more of this involuntary outpatient care. This Murphy Bill, HR 2646, is enormous, weighing in at 173 pages, but the worst part would be a national program for more forced outpatient psychiatry. If his bill — which he calls “Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act” — passes then thousands of more American citizens would have court-ordered psychiatric drugs administered to them, even though they are living out in the community, many even in their own homes!
Last year I asked one of the bill co-sponsors how many Americans they want to forcibly treat? After all, some of these zealots claim that 11 million Americans need but are not getting psychiatric care. Are you one of these 11 million? Unfortunately, the co-sponsor has stayed silent about how many citizens they are going after.
Every Person Ought to Oppose the Murphy Bill!
As far as I know, every group in the USA speaking for mental health consumers opposes increasing coerced care out in the community. There are far better ways to help people.
This Murphy bill is the worst I have seen in my 40 years of mental health advocacy. Many of us in this field are terrified and working hard for years to stop this type of care!
So where do the people running for Democratic and Republican nomination for President stand about this issue?
Note that a Republican congressperson is pushing this bill, even though Rep. Murphy claims he is for “small government.” A surprising number of congresspeople have co-sponsored this bill, even some who are considered progressive, such as my own Democratic congressperson, Rep. Peter Defazio.
Bernie and Friends: Where Do You Stand?
For more than a month, one of the main psychiatrists to publicly back Bernie Sanders for President has been asking one of the Bernie campaigners, Nick Carter, about Bernie’s position. You see, Bernie opposes certain regulations of firearms because Vermont, his home state, is so pro-gun. The National Rifle Association opposes gun regulation partly by claiming that better mental health care is the solution. So asking Bernie for his position is reasonable. Unfortunately, Bernie and Mr. Carter have apparently stayed silent.
The silence about this important topic is deafening. We need to insist on an answer from everyone. A few years ago, I saw something similar happen with Ralph Nader, who was referring mental health questions to his friend, Doctor Sidney M. Wolfe, who I know from personal experience has a terrible position about forced psychiatry. Let us stop throwing our folks under the bus, whether that is a Republican bus or a Democratic bus.
To show you how bad this can get, incredibly a few years ago when I directed the nonprofit MindFreedom International, we surfaced two people who received court-ordered involuntary outpatient ELECTROSHOCK. I would not blame you if you did not believe me. To provide evidence for this, you can google these phrases:
ray sandford electroshock
elizabeth ellis electroshock
When courts order forced drugging this can be very racist, because white doctors and white judges tend to disproportionately target African Americans and other minorities. You can read more about this here:
After exchanging one e-mail with Rep. Defazio, he has gone totally silent with me. I tried to email his health person on this, Brittany Lundberg, but she has not responded to me. Readers of this blog can try to reach her in a civil way by emailing to: brittany.lundberg@mail.house.gov
Many of us wonder why our society is not showing more passion and more creativity in the face of climate crisis. Centuries of targeting our people may be one of the reasons that the population is so conformist right now, when we should have a revolution.
In the wake of yet another national uproar about a mass shooting, much of the public once again turns its eye towards supposed mental health reform as the solution to the atrocity of acts of gun violence carried out in public spaces by primarily young, white men. The issue of gun control has soared back up to the top of concerns being addressed by presidential candidates, and national discourse has fallen back into its routine, polarized stances. The Republican leadership continues to suggest that gun control is not the solution — there must be something wrong with “those people’s” brains.
Leading Black mental health reform activists are warning us that the simplistic approach of more involuntary psychiatric drugging is inherently racist. To address the spiritual illness of violence in America we must confront the reality of racism in our media, institutions and lives.
Forced Psychiatric Drugging is Racist
Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) is proposing a huge and complex bill that would, among other disasters, expand what he calls “Assisted Outpatient Therapy.” Mental health rights advocates more accurately refer to these methods as Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC). IOC is court-ordered psychiatric drugging of people in their own homes, out in the community. Murphy’s bill has been widely criticized as an expansion of a system that forcibly drugs people and leaves them to their own devices with little or no meaningful support.
Following the clearly racially-motivated mass murder of nine members of an all-Black congregation in Charleston, North Carolina, Yvonne Smith, a leading Washington D.C. African American psychiatric reform activist commented, “One of the premises I hate about the Murphy bill is that all bad things can be explained by ‘mental illness.’ Racism is an act that hurts and destroys. More than five decades ago when four little girls were killed in a church no one questioned if it was a illness. Sometimes evil just occurs. Sometimes, actually, it’s fueled by the likes of a Murphy or a Rush Limbaugh. I doubt seriously if they will use last week’s tragedy to fuel their evil plans because it would then suggest that racism is in need of a remedy.”
Mass Shootings are a Racial Issue
When white men kill people some people decide there must be something wrong with their brain, because no normal white person would ever had reason to commit such acts. When Black men kill people, we often talk about Black-on-Black crime, gang violence, violence against white women, or mostly we just stay silent. When Arabs commit such acts they are labeled terrorists and no further questioning is needed about why someone would do such a thing. Historically, our mental institutions primarily served white people, who were considered able to reach higher levels of civilization than colonized and enslaved peoples. In other words, white minds are considered worth fixing.
Murphy’s Bill (Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, H.R. 2646) opens with the following statement: “Mental illness does not discriminate based on age, class or ethnicity.” While that may be true (though let us avoid use of the term mental illness), it cannot be denied that mental health care does in fact discriminate based on race. Within circles working in opposition to this destructive bill there is little discussion of its inherent racism. We need to bring to the light the realities of psychiatric racism and the potential for Murphy’s Bill to dramatically exacerbate this historically entrenched reality. Yvonne Smith expressed her distress at the predominantly white movement for psychiatric justice: “Just wondering, am I the only African American person against the Murphy Bill? Sure seems like it!”
There are other African American women speaking out against the Murphy Bill. Vanessa Jackson, an activist/soul doula/therapist working her magic in Atlanta, Georgia says, “It is very important to stress the way that these laws disproportionately impact people of color. Getting swooped up for behavior unbecoming Black people is a well-established tradition in the mental health field. It is another way to police black bodies without addressing the external factors — racism, economic inequity, violence, lack of affordable housing and continuous traumatic stress disorder — which contribute to our emotional distress.” (You can learn more about Vanessa’s work at www.healingcircles.org)
Celia Brown, President of the MindFreedom International Board of Directors says, “In Solidarity with #blacklivesmatter: African-Americans experience emotional distress, trauma and psychiatric oppression due to institutional racism. As a psychiatric survivor and African-American woman, I understand that African-Americans live daily with the threat or experience of psychiatric profiling, racial profiling, losing our lives due to police brutality, mass incarceration, poverty, involuntary psychiatric treatment, harmful mental health practices and psychiatric drugging. Racism chips away at the emotional well-being of the African-American community.”
In the United States, prisons are serving as de facto “treatment” facilities that warehouse and exploit the labor of a population that is disproportionately black and working class. Today, women are the fastest growing population of people being imprisoned. Historically, men have been incarcerated and women have been institutionalized in equally violent insane asylums. As the racist prison-industrial complex expands, so does the mistreatment of people experiencing mental and emotional duress. In fact, the system is designed to silence and invisibilize people that we, collectively, deem problems that we cannot solve.
Murphy suggests that his bill is a solution to the issue of people diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder or experiencing mental and emotional distress in prison, but we know that “Assisted Outpatient Treatment” is not a good solution. In reality, it is court-ordered Involuntary Outpatient Commitment. It’s just one more tactic of surveillance, control and domination — the newest manifestation of the insane asylum, the penitentiary, the private prison. In response to H.R. 3717, the original bill proposed, the Bazelon Center says, “Rep. Tim Murphy’s (R-PA) mental health legislation flies in the face of the federal government’s efforts to promote community integration, and would send mental health systems decades backward. H.R. 3717 would destroy the main system of legal representation for Americans with psychiatric disabilities, would strip away privacy rights, would incentivize needless hospitalization and civil rights violations, and would redirect federal funds from effective, voluntary community services to high-cost, forced treatment, including involuntary outpatient commitment.”
Murphy’s bill is part of the story of centuries of racism and psychiatry unfolding in the United States.
Here is a very, very, very incomplete history of racism, psychiatry, and the USA:
1792: Benjamin Rush, largely referred to as “the father of American psychiatry,” argued that the “color” and “figure” of African-Americans were derived from a form of leprosy, and he argued that with proper treatment, they could be cured and become white. Rush used the term “negritude,” popular at the time, to refer to the disease of blackness.
1851: Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright that caused black slaves to flee captivity.
1961: Black activist, musician and lawyer, Paul Robeson, is administered electroshock and excessive doses of multiple barbiturates with no psychotherapy.
1967: Mark, Sweet and Ervin argue that brain disease plays a role in African American political resistance and suggest that lobotomy may be a solution to rioting.
1984: Reagan admits to CIA involvement in the Introduction of crack cocaine to LA. (See the 2015 documentary Freeway: Crack in the System.)
Late 1980’s: Nina Simone is given the label “bipolar,” institutionalized and administered forced, unauthorized drugging.
1992: The Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration unleashed its “violence initiative,” which sought a genetic basis for criminal behavior. ADAMHA director Frederick Goodwin compared the “high-impact inner city” to a jungle and its youth to rhesus monkeys who only want to kill one another, have sex and reproduce. By focusing on “biologically vulnerable” youth for psychiatric interventions, including drug treatments, the initiative was essentially depoliticizing as it de-emphasized social explanations for crime.
1994: NAACP speaks out about the fact that minority boys are 11 times more likely than the general student population to be administered mind-altering drugs.
2005: One of the main statistical reports about involuntary psychiatric drugging using court orders for people living at home out living in the community was published this year by New York State. The data reveals that African Americans are far more likely be on the receiving end of such outpatient forced drugging. The report stated that, “The racial and ethnic composition of the population receiving court-ordered treatment is diverse: 42% of AOT recipients are Black, 34% are White and 21% are Hispanic.”
(For a more elaborate history, see page 5 of the report linked in the resource list below.)
So-called “mentally ill” people are not our greatest dangers
Once again, more gun violence is in the spotlight in the USA. At first, it would seem to make sense to think that mental health has the answer. But as Dan Fisher, MD, PhD, and Director of Emotional CPR at the National Empowerment Center points out, “Rep. Timothy Murphy has proposed legislation, HR 2646, which would increase forced psychiatric treatment in our own homes out in the community, and institutionalization of persons with mental health conditions. This legislation is based on the false premise that persons with mental health conditions are more likely to carry out gun violence than the general population. In fact, persons with mental health conditions only account for 4% of gun related homicides and yet account for 20% of the population.”
The solution to gun violence that we are hearing is often from people who call for small government. However, forcing people in their own homes to take powerful psychiatric may be one of the worst examples of government gone out of control. Incredibly, there are two examples from Minnesota where court orders for psychiatric care have meant that individuals living at home have been required to report to a nearby hospital to receive forced outpatient electroshock against their wills: Ray Sandford and Elizabeth Ellis.
Murphy’s Bill would make people’s bedrooms into cells and would make their homes into wards. Can you imagine turning psychiatrists into parole officers?
This debate about mental health may seem theoretical, but it can have real life consequences in families’ lives that can lead to a great deal of suffering. One of the mothers of a psychiatric survivor to speak out is an African American woman, Cindi Fisher.
She described having her son receive forced psychiatric drugging for almost two decades, rather than real help: “Following the overdosing, within eight months, after stopping and starting the psychotic drug, over and over again in an attempt to relieve his torment and agony, he experienced a medical crisis and made a desperate attempt to get someone to call 9-1-1. This act was criminalized and was the beginning of a 19-year vicious cycle of being drugged and criminalized, jailed or forced hospitalized, released into the community without real treatment, and criminalized and drugged again. These treatments have caused a significant decline in his cognitive functioning; a loss of his love of music, and dancing, as well as made him an insulin dependent diabetic; dependent on high blood pressure medication and caused a critically enlarged growth on his thyroid gland.”
Take action to stop the racist Murphy bill!
We ought to all take action against the Murphy bill, which is getting many sponsors in Congress. Please ask US Representatives to send some questions to Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA) about his bill H.R. 2646. This is called a “constituent inquiry” and is done frequently; the other congressperson often feels like they need to respond. Here are some questions you can ask:
How many Americans do you feel should be court ordered to receive psychiatric care?
How many more Americans would receive involuntary psychiatric procedures under your bill?
Would involuntary psychiatric drugs, and even occasional electroshock, be court ordered to Americans living in their own home out in the community under your bill?
Have you engaged in dialogue with the major groups representing USA mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors that are all opposed to your bill?
How will you address the disproportionate impact that your bill will have on People of Color?
In addition to talking to your representative, we also encourage you to check out and contribute to the conversation happening on Twitter at #BlackLivesMatter
We say, #BlackLivesMatter! Spread the word.
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Resources to Stop the Murphy Bill and Connect with the Mad Movement:
One of the main groups to fight Murphy’s bill is an alliance of groups run by mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors, the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery. You may see their website for links about the bill and how to reach USA Congresspeople: http://www.ncmhr.org/
MLK said that the world is in dire need of an International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment. Here is a Facebook group for the IAACM: https://www.facebook.com/IAACM
Whether you live inside or outside the USA, the Murphy bill raises international human rights issues. Please ask the World Health Organization to oppose and investigate this threat: http://www.who.int/about/contact_form/en/
This note is to provide acknowledge and thanks to Adrienne Bovee who worked so hard on this entry for months. Adrienne is truly a powerful, young, courageous worker for justice in prison, psychiatric, race and many other issues!
* Also, the editors helpfully added this: Many photos and videos were posted on the Stop Shock Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/stopshocknow/media.
* The original blog entry by me is as follows:
Last month almost 30 grassroot protests of electroshock were held in nine countries around the world. I had the great honor of organizing the protest here in Eugene, Oregon, USA, even though I am a survivor of psychiatric drugs and not electroshock. Electroshock is the psychiatric procedure in which electricity is run through people’s brains. Below are eight lessons that this historic event taught me.
First, here is a two-minute video of our local protest by my good friend and long-time activist David Zupan. This brief documentary shows Chuck Areford, a mental health worker, publicly apologizing to protester Fred Abbe and other shock survivors.
Eight Lessons I Learned from Our International Protest of Electroshock
1. Thank You Debra Schwartzkopff and Other Shock Survivor Organizers!
You proved once more that passion and unity are the main qualities required for resistance. Too often, people in our society mistakenly think that scientists, attorneys, professors and other esteemed professionals are the only ones who are credible. However, even though some of you shock survivors were fairly new to activism, and some of you even wrestle with cognitive disabilities caused by the shock, the true grassroots victory of International Day of Protest Against Electroshock on May 16, 2015 is undeniable.
It may be difficult for some to believe, but in a few weeks time earlier this Spring, these activists used their wits, Facebook, email lists and solidarity with one another to create an event about this very-challenging topic in many different countries at the same time. My friend and recently-deceased activist Leonard Roy Frank would have been very proud of the way the human spirit once again showed itself as unconquerable.
2. Your Protests Were A Pebble in the Pond that Continues to Reach Thousands
Here in Eugene, we had our protest in the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza across from our popular Saturday Market. While we had to compete with enthusiastic drummers who gather each warm Saturday, we had a good sound system thanks to musician/activist David Rogers who played some tunes. Because this free speech area is well-used, we were guaranteed to have a crowd.
Some protests that day mobilized a few dozen people, others were as small as one person, but all reached many people both online and face-to-face. That is the seeming-magic of taking action. Science has shown that the flap of a butterfly wing can influence the landing of a storm thousands of miles away. Protests, life, the mind and in fact all of reality, apparently emerge from feedback loops far from equilibrium on the edge of chaos! Shock survivors show us that we must be sure to flap your butterfly wings even if we cannot control or predict the exact outcome.
3. Activism is the Alternative that Some Will Not Name
You shock survivors and supporters pulled off these protests with your dedication even though you did not have a lot of money.
Let me give an example of an event I like that uses a lot of taxpayer money, but tends to exclude such real activism. Every year, for the past 28 years, the US federal government funds a major gathering called the Alternatives Conference, bringing together about 900 Americans with psychiatric diagnoses to discuss their local projects such as community centers, peer support groups, respite, advocacy and arts organizations, etc. I have enjoyed about ten of these meetings. However, because this event is funded by taxes there is one alternative that tends to be avoided: Activism.
Sure we all can talk about anything at the Alternatives Conferences, but if we do any significant community organizing, participants have to maintain their independence, such as going across the street and renting space from some other hotel, because the government funders are afraid of bad publicity. While understandable, it is ironic that the main way I have personally found recovery after a psychiatric diagnosis has been my four decades of activism, yet that topic is taboo at this great meeting.
Just before I fell and broke my neck in the Fall of 2012, I helped organize a protest about electroshock during the Alternatives Conference that was held that year in Portland, Oregon. The organizers of the Alternatives Conference 2012 were my friends, but became very nervous that our ferment would endanger their future government funding. My friends prevented us activists from publicly announcing our protest, and even came with hotel administrators to ask me to sign a legal disclaimer, though our protest was across the street from the conference, in a public park. You may see the 22-min. video of our 2012 protest here, it is one of the last times I spoke before my broken back impaired my voice.
On May 16, 2015 electroshock survivors showed us that even though they might not have the same millions as the US government, they made up for that with determination. Sometimes I wonder why USA federal employees are so frightened by activism when the President got his start doing community organizing in Chicago (see Barack Obama’s great book, Dreams from My Father).
You may email the head of the half-billion USA agency that funds the Alternatives Conference, Paolo del Vecchio, and ask why the US taxpayer coughs up money for much of the electroshock in this country, even though our Food and Drug Administration has never approved the device, which remains Class III, experimental with no proof of safety and efficacy. For decades, I have known Paolo, who identifies as someone who has been a mental health consumer. I wonder if Paolo remembers our time in Kentucky years ago when we both keynoted an event, and I introduced him to a bunch of shock survivors who had all experienced human rights violations related to their shock.
Five years ago this July 14, Paolo, who then had a lower federal rank, invited me and more than two dozen other Americans with psychiatric labels to be in a focus group about mental health. We were able to put out a great statement about the undue influence of corporations on our mental health systems, and you may read about that action here. Paolo mainly made sure that our statement did not speak for the feds. Since our historic statement was issued, I have not heard from Paolo and he has gotten promoted!
Please email a strong but civil inquiry to Paolo and his agency:
I have emailed Paolo personally today, and said the following among other things:
“Will federal agencies look into the subject of human rights and electroshock now? This is more than forced electroshock, which occasionally happens in the USA even through outpatient commitment, and includes the fact that every informed consent process I have viewed has been flawed. Perhaps the worst and most subtle violation is that adequate non-drug alternatives are often not researched and provided, even though the scientific evidence shows that such alternatives are often more effective especially in the long run.”
4. Activism as a Healing Alternative
Now I can hear some of you readers blaming taxpayer funding of our movement as the main reason activism is excluded at events like the Alternatives Conference (see number 3 above). However, I have seen the same problem at an independent, grassroots event. Just before I fell and broke my neck in 2012, I was generously invited to be one of the participants in an historic gathering on the coast of California in the beautiful Esalen Institute, which was co-founded by an electroshock survivor, the late Dick Price. Because Dick had been a Lithuanian-heritage Chicago-area psychiatric-survivor resident who experienced Harvard, like me, I felt some resonance.
The purpose of the Esalen gathering was to re-ignite Dick’s grand vision for creating humane alternatives to the current mental health system. Near the end of my stay, we held a support group, and I revealed how lonely I felt there because my main alternative remains activism, and while many other alternatives were discussed, it felt like activism was marginalized. This is not in anyway to disparage the activism by these amazing leaders for alternatives who gathered at Esalen. But the fact remains that too often we see a separation between activism and alternatives. For the shock survivors who organized last month’s protests, speaking up and mobilizing seemed to be a healing alternative.
5. Let Us Get Tougher With Electroshock!
Over the decades, I am proud that I have helped mobilize many people about the issue of involuntary electroshock, that is, when the procedure is given over and against the clearly explicit instructions of the recipient. Incredibly, forced electroshock is growing in parts of the world, according to Disability Rights International. Involuntary electroshock is done now and again even in the USA.
Using special court orders, some Americans living out in the community even have to report to hospitals for electroshock. That is correct, outpatient commitment can include court-ordered electroshock of Americans living in their own homes. I do not fault people if they are skeptical that such extreme violations occur in the USA, but we have the records, media coverage, witnesses, court appearances, etc. to absolutely prove this. Please just use your favorite search engine, adding the words forced electroshock, to read about two people in Minnesota who MindFreedom campaigned for who were receiving the involuntary procedure on an outpatient basis, even though they live out in the community:
I continue to be outraged that involuntary electroshock exists anywhere in the world! Just about the only organized supporters of this violation are industry groups of psychiatrists. Congressperson Tim Murphy (R-PA) has a bill that would vastly expand forced outpatient procedures, an attorney has confirmed with me that this could include involuntary electroshock.
When I worked for MindFreedom, we even got the World Health Organization to oppose forced electroshock, in writing.
Human rights violations involving electroshock extend far beyond forced electroshock. For many years, I have asked to view the informed consent process for electroshock, and in all instances I discovered incorrect facts and outright distortions. But even more than force and fraud, there is a third “f” word, fear, that is a widespread human rights violation related to electroshock. Over and over I have seen people with mental and emotional difficulties prescribed a big variety of psychiatric drugs, and then when these fail they are offered electroshock. However, there are many more humane approaches which are often not provided. The fear of troubled people that the only approach is biomedical, such as drugs and shock, is a growing human rights problem.
While publicizing the protests about electroshock, I noticed that several readers said positive things about these procedures. However, the shock survivors that helped initiate these protests helped get a discussion going about this suppressed topic and that is a great public service. Breaking the silence about all electroshock is a great first step. Having a civil discussion is a start! Exactly how the human rights violations related to electroshock will be addressed remains an important topic, but we must speak out now about this brain-damaging approach and the need to offer alternatives.
7. Linking Electroshock To Global Peaceful Revolution!!!
Today, Pope Francis issued a proclamation that we need a revolution to stop global warming, or climate catastrophe as I have heard it called. Pope Francis called for everybody of all faiths, or of no faith at all, to defend Earth and unite with the cries of the poor. How does the topic of environmental collapse connect to electroshock? There are many real reasons to feel sadness and even despair, especially when climate catastrophe threatens our dear planet. When people feel upset, our society can do much better than running electricity through their brains. Unfortunately, modern medicine is now exploring high-tech super-powerful electrical magnets as an alternative to electroshock, and you may read about such Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation here. Brain damage seems to be a factor here, again; after head trauma there can be personality changes that some psychiatrists interpret as improvement.
After our protest in Eugene, several of us carried our signs and marched a couple of blocks. We stopped for a moment at the nearby Summit Bank which was closed that day, because the hours are weekdays. The reason we stopped there, is that the leader of Summit Bank is the newly-elected leader of our local Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce. I have been helping to mobilize a peaceful effort for five years to have our local chamber speak up and say that the US Chamber in Washington, D.C. does not speak for them about global warming. The well-respected climate group, 350, has had a campaign for about five years to ask local chambers to distance themselves from the US Chamber about this climate catastrophe.
I call the worst-case scenarios for run-away climate catastrophe, in which feedback loops such as methane release amplify global warming to such a chaotic extent that we risk eliminating all human existence, and perhaps all multi-cellular life on Earth, “normalgeddon” and you may read a special landing page I have created for this topic here:
Surprisingly, after my many blog posts about climate catastrophe, I have read some push-back from several skeptics who do not seem very worried about the risk of human-caused global warming, even the well-researched high-certainty of sea level rise, etc. that can be read in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change here, which convenes more scientists than any other project in human history.
While the IPCC focuses on problems from global warming that are highly-certain, I am more worried about the real risk, even if it is uncertain, of a Venus-like climate catastrophe that may end all life here as we know it, and future generations. Hey, Never Again is a slogan that really means never again! However, normalgeddon would wipe out all humanity so mathematically that would be many “agains”! Even an uncertain risk of such a normalgeddon deserves more discussion today, because sweeping upsetting topics under the table is not good for mental wellness!
At the end of our protest here in Eugene, a few of us posed around a statue of the author Ken Kesey that is in the center of our town. Ken wrote the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and he told me before he died that he had a friend splice some electrical extension cord wire so that while Ken lay on the floor, the friend touched Ken’s temples with the bare wires and Ken experienced electroshock in a very crude way. Ken had seen medical electroshock when he worked for a while in a psychiatric institution. Ken said he believed in experiencing at least once and he wanted to research electroshock for his novel. When his friend touched Ken’s temples, Ken later reported that every cell in his body cried out “No!” After that, Ken told me that he no longer believed in experiencing everything once! Ken opposed electroshock, and the image of his protagonist receiving shock remains an icon of this procedure today, even though some details are changed; the brain and electricity are still the same as when Ken wrote this.
We protesters gathered around the statue of Ken reading to his grandchildren because we wanted to thank Ken for bravely writing about electroshock. Yes, I realize that in my opinion and in the opinion of many others that Ken wrestled with substance problems. However, Ken’s rebellious prankster spirit in this book, where he calls normality the Combine, should inspire us all. After I fell I deal with paralysis of all four my limbs and even one vocal cord, but I see that the wider society, what is mistakenly called “normal,” is far more paralyzed than me and had better wake up soon!
Thanks electroshock survivors for taking action and showing all of our society how to shake off this moral paralysis, now!
8. We Are Our Own Media!
I received a photo album from activist Graeme Bacque that has dozens of photos from the protest of electroshock that was held in Toronto. A special thing about this protest is that by coincidence the American Psychiatric Association was having their huge Annual Meeting nearby.
We can learn from other activists, many of them young, that after a protest we must cover our own events. We can upload still-photos, a brief paragraph description and for those who are able, videos.
In order for us to keep on complaining about corporate media, we first need to report on our own events and with 21st century technology, we can do that. For example, way to go Graeme, whose photo from Toronto is on the right, and you can view his album on Flickr here: Graeme’s Photo Album of Toronto 2015 Electroshock Protest
My friend and psychiatric survivor/attorney Jim Gottstein, from his group in Alaska, PsychRights, helpfully compiled this online list of protests about electroshock last month, and you are invited to click around, see the photos, play any videos, and enjoy:
My late friend Leonard Roy Frank would have had a birthday on July 15. In case you have not already started a Global Peaceful Revolution already, and you would like a day to start a GPR, please join with me this July 15th and start! This would be a great gift to a shock survivor, studier of nonviolent revolution, editor of quotes and a leader with a great sense of humor.
Hey, if Americans celebrate revolution on July 4, and French celebrate July 14, then how about we start a Global Peaceful Revolution on July 15?
Thanks all shock survivors, organizers of last month’s protests, and everybody who continues to break the silence about electroshock, and helps to lead a Global Peaceful Revolution.
Reviving the spirit of Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
Today, Saturday, 16 May 2015, a protest was held in Eugene against human rights violations caused by the use of electroshock, a psychiatric procedure involving the running of electricity through the brain. The protest today was one of about two dozen held in about eight countries. The speakers included:
Fred Abbe, 68, of Reedsport, OR personally experienced electroshock as a teenager. He said, “I survived 40 years of psychiatric oppression, including 15 bilateral electroshock ‘treatments’ totally forced against my will, every other day within a 30 day period in 1964, before I reached the age of 18, in Jackson Park Memorial Hospital in Miami Beach, Florida.”
Chuck Areford of Eugene, a long-time mental health worker who once gave electroshock, spoke movingly about how he is full of regret.
Adrienne Bovee, a young-adult psychiatric survivor from Eugene and student at the University of Oregon who said, “I feel lucky to have narrowly escaped brutal psychiatric treatment like electroshock.”
Chrissy Piersol of Eugene, a young-adult psychiatric survivor who works as a peer mental health counselor, called for more humane alternatives.
David Rogers of Eugene, folk singer and songwriter, sung about empowerment and disability. He works as a mental health peer supporter. Find his music via his website www.sasquatchguitar.com
David Oaks of Eugene, psychiatric survivor who has worked as an activist for human rights in mental health for 40 years. He said, “The world today can cause a lot of despair, such as through global warming that threatens life as we know it. We can do better than just responding with jolting people’s brains!” Oaks called for a nonviolent revolution, and several of the listeners took up his chant of “Now, Now, Now!”
A speakout was then held and we heard from a facilitator of integrative natural healing, Sid, who called for better approaches. We also heard from another psychiatric survivor.
At the end of the Eugene protest, activists walked to the statue of Ken Kesey in the middle of downtown to remember his literary resistance to electroshock.
Co-sponsors of the peaceful protest in Eugene included MindFreedom Lane County, International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment, Network Against Psychiatric Assault, Rethinking Psychiatry, and ectjustice.com, which has more about the protests including a list of planned events. More info can be found on the facebook pages of MindFreedom Lane County and Network Against Psychiatric Assault. May is the annual “National Mental Health Month.”
For more information about the day of protest against electroshock, see www.ectjustice.com. For info about the Eugene protest, see www.davidwoaks.com. Find on facebook Network Against Psychiatric Assault and MindFreedom Lane County.