Woah, everyone who has never seen the cops (or mental illness professionals) out of control for no good reason whatsoever should watch this.
Yeah, this is like what happens to us when they don’t understand our altered states as well…things just start happening and it’s all out of your control. Next thing you know you’re in four point restraints and they’re shooting you up with drugs to shut you up and disable you. Literally. People have no idea unless it’s happened to them. It’s ugly, it’s violent, it’s traumatic
Truth is my “altered states” only look that way to those who cannot see truth & are threatened by it at this point. (relative) Clarity for me can be dangerous. Totally. I can only be what I am and I freak the shit out of some people. People in power are particularly dangerous for that reason. Pure vulnerability. When some of us innocents are confronted with hostile people in power we are simply at risk. This is not understood by most people. Simply not understood.
UPDATE: the cop was apparently fired and the woman released for having done nothing wrong. I want to point out that this woman is a white professional in a largely privileged and protected class. cops illegally arrest many more vulnerable people every day and those lives are ruined and traumatized permanently. the way it goes down is very much like in this video but there is no viral video to help show how hostile and ugly the cop was. Or in the case of many african american arrests and even murders perpetrated by cops there is a video and no one gives a shit. This sort of thing happens all the time and most of the time the innocent (like this woman) is permanently traumatized and often their lives are completely ruined.
This post includes a list of links to articles about forced treatment. Scroll down for the list.
Updated 4/2013 with info about this study from the Lancet:
This is a study that was published in the Lancet, a leading medical journal. I’m sharing the results as I already know that coercive psychiatric “care” not only doesn’t work, but it also causes graves harm routinely in many different ways. Below the excerpt from the study is more commentary and then links to additional information about forced treatment.
Community treatment orders for patients with psychosis (OCTET): a randomised controlled trial
Compulsory supervision outside hospital has been developed internationally for the treatment of mentally ill people following widespread deinstitutionalisation but its efficacy has not yet been proven. Community treatment orders (CTOs) for psychiatric patients became available in England and Wales in 2008. We tested whether CTOs reduce admissions compared with use of Section 17 leave when patients in both groups receive equivalent levels of clinical contact but different lengths of compulsory supervision….
Conclusion:
In well coordinated mental health services the imposition of compulsory supervision does not reduce the rate of readmission of psychotic patients. We found no support in terms of any reduction in overall hospital admission to justify the significant curtailment of patients’ personal liberty. (read the full report about the study from the Lancet)
Thanks to Mad in America for calling attention to this report…via an article in The Independent
Beneath this post is a listing of other articles on this blog that deal with involuntary treatment. Most importantly there is an update: UN report states that involuntary treatment of those with psychiatric labels is torture
Richard Bentall has a piece in the Guardian today questioning the routine use of coercion in psychiatric treatment. He points out most significantly that most people who are labeled with psychiatric diagnosis have trauma and abuse histories. Further coercion from the system are additional traumas perpetrated against already vulnerable people.
I’ve added a collection of posts from Beyond Meds on the topic of force at the end of the post. I will add this post to the navigation menu at the top of the page for those who want to explore the topic of force and coercion in psychiatric care. It will be updated as appropriate and remain there as a resource.
From the Guardian:
Many mental health professionals, especially psychiatrists, see coercion as an essential tool, so it is important to understand why it should be avoided if at all possible. Respect for autonomy – the right to make choices – is, for good reason, a widely recognised principle in medical ethics. Aside from the fact that autonomy is regarded as a virtue in its own right, its denial is usually distressing. Indeed, a compulsory admission to hospital is often experienced as traumatic, sometimes leading to the same kind of post-trauma symptoms experienced by victims of assault or life-threatening events. Of course, many psychiatric patients have previously experienced physical and sexual abuse, bullying and other kinds of victimisation – that is often why they develop psychiatric problems in the first place – so coercion by services adds to a burden of adversity that is already too great to bear. It also damages relationships between patients and services, often leading to greater reluctance to seek psychiatric help during future crises.
Defenders of coercion typically argue that it is a necessary evil, because patients do not know what is in their best interests. This argument, of course, assumes that patients are irrational in rejecting psychiatric care, that psychiatric treatments such as antipsychotic medication are always beneficial, and that patients compelled to receive treatment do better in the long-run.
Each of these propositions is dubious. (read more to find out why)
If you’re not aware of just how brutal and coercive psychiatry can be, it’s well worth understanding. Some of it is so extreme it’s hard for those uninitiated to conceive of but, sadly, it’s very common. The bottom line is psychiatry, in general, at best, is subtly coercive. Drugs are generally presented as necessary rather than one, often far less than ideal, possibility for treatment. This means one is made to believe through somewhat more subtle coercion that they have no choice but to take drugs with very dangerous adverse effects that include disabling physical illness and very early death.
A book by Richard Bentall — Doctoring the Mind: Is Our Current Treatment of Mental Illness Really Any Good?
● UN report states that involuntary treatment of those with psychiatric labels is torture
● In honor of the woman I witnessed being tortured in a psych ward
● That’s crazy: powerful documentary on the coercive nature of psychiatry — If you’re not aware of just how brutal and coercive psychiatry can be, you should really watch this. This may seem extreme to those who’ve not seen it happening but it’s very common and the bottom line is psychiatry, in general, at best, is subtly coercive. Drugs are generally presented as necessary rather than one, often far less than ideal, possibility for treatment. This means one is made to believe through what amounts to subtle coercion that they have no choice but to take drugs with very dangerous side effects.
● Forced treatment isn’t the answer
● Forced Psychotropic Drugs, Assertive Community Treatment, (in-home forced treatment)
● WNUSP statement on the Implications of the CRPD on Forced Treatment
● The chill of forced incarceration and psychiatric “care” (otherwise known as gun control??)
● Demands that it be easier to involuntarily commit the mentally ill are knee-jerk and irrational
● Robert Whitaker’s response to E. Fuller Torrey. About the rationale for forced psychiatric treatment
● My Forced Psychiatric “Treatment”
See also: Healing trauma links
Do people recover and thrive after being told they cannot by psychiatry? Yes we do. All the time.
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Drug free healing from depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc…
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Healing psychosis: stories, information and resources
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that is so out of the bounds or ridiculous….he should lose his job….
Thanks so very much to those of you who have been brutalized by “the system” and are now telling your stories. It was because of people like you that I myself was forewarned and knew enough to avoid it at all costs when I had my own developmental crisis years ago. Please keep on doing what you are doing. It can save lives and sanity and help bring about the day when these practices join the Hall of Fame in Hell that holds the tortures of the Inquisition, Auschwitz and Guantanamo. Mary Newton
I never thought police would do this to me, a law abiding citizen who worked in the justice system herself for years. After a brutal physical assault, the assaulters both lied to the police, I became more desperate and frantic when the police believed their lies despite the kick to my bladder that lost my water and left me bleeding, my jeans were drenched. I was ordered by police to hospital by ambulance where the doctor in charge spoke with me for ten minutes and said he saw no reason to keep me there. Because of the liars the charges were dropped. I think the police were old boys club thinkers from the way they treated me, saw it many times in my years working with victims of violence and I told them so right at the time. One of the assaulters phoned me two years later to say yes, the other one admitted to kicking me. Still, neither will correct the police and legal files on this matter. Go figure. You just never know what can happen to you no matter who you trust. Good article.
That is how I feel now, too. No trust because those in positions of authority and trust meant to help us proved unsafe and untrustworthy of our trust when we really needed them. It still shocks me to think of how blatantly abusive they were to me. I even said, before you arrived I felt abused by two people, now I feel abused by four. They wouldn’t even hear a single word I said. Just sided with the criminals. If I ever get strong enough to write the book, it will likely outdo Fatal Attraction at the box office. Glad you are sharing these experiences, we need more information on what to do when it happens to us.