Mental Health and Social Norms
Jonathan Rowe on Dec 28th 2005 06:57 pm |
The death of Charles Socarides has brought to mind a regrettable tendency (one that often borders on tyranny) of the mental health profession. Socarides, if you don’t know, was one of the godfathers of the “homosexuality is a mental illness” school of thought. And (Providentially, in my opinion) one of his sons turned out to be not just gay but one of the leading gay rights activists of the 90s.
The “regrettable tendency” to which I refer is the (mis)use of the concept of “mental illness” to enforce moral or social norms. Back in Socarides’s day, it was the 1950s style social conservative morality which was “medicalized.” Today it’s PC. Previously, homosexuality and other behaviors which violated “traditional morality” were “mental illnesses.” Today “racism” and “homophobia” are mental illnesses (or at least, some folks within the profession seriously advance this notion). As Pete Townsend put it: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
This problem within psychiatry doesn’t lead me to the extreme position advanced by Thomas Szasz or Michel Foucault that “mental illness” doesn’t exist. Psychiatric disorders do exist, some of them rather minor (a moderate anxiety disorder), some of them deadly serious (severe depression, which often results in suicide). But we should realize that underlying mental disorders have (or ought to have) nothing, absolutely nothing to do with social norms. They are “health” problems, not “moral” problems and as such are socially neutral and more analogous to concepts like “race” and “gender.” Indeed, mental disorders are protected civil rights categories under the ADA and other related disabilities legislation. To say that someone has a “psychiatric disorder” is to say that their health is impaired in the same way that someone with high cholesterol or hypertension has their health impaired.
[One thinks of the recent hubub on Lincoln and homosexuality. Though historians strive mightily in their battles over whether Lincoln suffered from the "mental disorder" of homosexuality, no one seriously disputes that Lincoln suffered from the true mental disorder of bipolar. Likewise Thomas Jefferson most likely suffered from a physiatric disorder -- depression, as did Madison, who, given that he was convinced he would die an early death (he actually lived into his 80s), most likely had an anxiety neurosis. These conditions don't raise controversy because we properly regard them as socially neutral. Finding out that Madison had an anxiety disorder really ought to be no different than finding out he had male pattern baldness (which I don't think he did; but who knows? they all wore wigs).]
Therefore, properly understood, categorizing something as a “mental disorder” cuts against the moral and social stigma of that condition, and cuts in favor of social neutrality and civil rights protection of the underlying “disorder.”
This isn’t to say that there is no intersection between behavior that results from “mental disorders” and behavior that is immoral or otherwise socially unacceptable. One thinks of conditions like kleptomania or alcoholism. But still, those who wish to maintain a social stigma on the underlying behavior of for instance, kleptomania (stealing) must do so with no reliance on such behavior resulting from a “psychiatric disorder.” Again, to rely on the mental health body of science to enforce your desired social norms is a fundamental misuse of the profession.
Even if tomorrow we discovered that kleptomania doesn’t really exist as a “mental disorder” that would not (or at least it shouldn’t) do one thing to “normalize” stealing if for no other reason than the vast majority of people who steal aren’t kleptomaniacs and had no “mental disorder” prompting them to steal to begin with. They are simply bad people who wanted to get something for nothing. Indeed, take a person with a moral conscience, who truly desires not to steal and does everything he can to pay for his items, but “just can’t help himself.” And then he feels terrible guilt after the act is done and seeks mental help. Such a person, in my opinion, is more moral than the lazy jerk who wants to get something for nothing. Thus, while the kleptomania doesn’t excuse the underlying stealing, it does indeed mitigate the behavior. Therefore, if kleptomania really doesn’t exist as a mental disorder, all the worse for thieves.
My personal opinion is that Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings were on the right side of not just history, but science in helping to get homosexuality removed from the DSM. To hear the social right tell the story, homosexuality was “removed” for “political,” not sound medical reasons. But this gets it exactly backwards. Homosexuality was put on the DSM list for “political,” not sound medical reasons, and it took some political action to reverse that mistake.
If getting homosexuality removed from the list of “disorders” helped “normalize” it in a “social” or “moral” sense, then that’s only because the social right improperly relied on psychiatry for maintaining the social and moral stigma on homosexuality. As with kleptomania, if homosexual behavior were truly “wrong,” then removing homosexuality from the list of “disorders” would only make things all the worse for homosexuals.
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Mental Health and Norms [Link]
Mental Health and Social Norms on Positive Liberty discusses a topic with considerable potential that should be pushed to the forefront of the debate on political correctness, rampant post-modernism and closet-Marxism.
Jon, there is a world of difference between a physical disease and a “mental disorder.” The mind (as opposed to the brain) is not a physical thing and therefore cannot be ill, except in a metaphorical sense. If someone has a brain disease, they should be treated by a neurologist. If they don’t have a brain disease they may have a problem, but it’s not a problem medical science can treat.
Frankly, a branch of medicine that votes on diseases is a joke.
Mark. I was waiting for someone to chime in with the Szasz point of view.
I don’t know. I think much of our difference here may be semantical (whether true mental disorders deserve to be grouped under the rubric of “disease” or “illness.”). Someone with severe depression, which in many folks is congenital and biologically based, does indeed have a “problem” and it is indeed one which medical science can treat. Ever hear of Prozac?
I am sending the following message to you in hopes that you will somehow be able to help in securing the much needed media coverage for the following very important — but also very politically and pharmaceutically incorrect diagnosis. I haven’t yet sent it to the governor of New York — but the same message to the governors of Michigan and California have not been met with any response. The pharmaceutical industry has, or would see the diagnosis as being “anti-drug,” The diagnosis does have implications regarding the overuse of antipsychotic drugs — which is related to the over-representation of their effectiveness. Pharmaceutical advertising money has great power in causing the media to avoid any media coverage for this important diagnosis. If this very newsworthy diagnosis could obtain adequate media coverage, it is very likely that this would result in public pressure “persuading” one or more medical schools to organize the much-needed research for it.
My name is Norman Jay Gersabeck MD, and I am a recently retired psychiatrist. I have had a special interest in substance dependency and related dual diagnoses — during most of my professional career. I have been on a 25 year quest to get a very important dual diagnosis-related diagnosis officially established. It is that of “Substance Dependency-Induced Psychosis (SDIP). It is a common schizophrenia-like mental illness — which is usually diagnosed as schizophrenia. In contacting you, I have decided to take make a request of you that, very likely, nobody has ever requested before of any state governor. I hope to convince you to use the power of your office to direct that a state-sponsored New York Medical School make a scientific and unprejudiced evaluation of the diagnosis. It would first be necessary that the school admit to the existence of the serious and unscientific problem of political correctness in the Psychiatric Establishment (PE). The large majority of mental health professionals are unaware of the serious problem of political/economic correctness within the PE. If it weren’t for the great power of pharmaceutical advertising money — the media would have long ago reported on this very newsworthy diagnosis. This would then have fairly soon likely resulted in at least one medical school “being persuaded” by the resulting public pressure to organize a much-needed clinical trial for the diagnosis. The combination of the diagnosis being seen by the drug industry as “anti-drug,” and by the PE, as being strongly opposed to its “biological theorizing” — has led to a very powerful political correctness opposition to it. (The diagnosis is not “anti-drug” — but rather has implications of being against the overuse and over-representation of the effectiveness of antipsychotic medications.) About five years ago, a Detroit Free Press medical writer had indicated her interest in reporting on the diagnosis — but she then mysteriously lost all interest in doing so. A bit later, a reporter at an Ann Arbor newspaper told me that they would first have to see a consensus by the Psychiatric Community on the diagnosis — before reporting on it. The addition of strong evidences for the validity of the diagnosis since then, has made no difference — and well over a hundred newspapers, TV stations, and magazines have refused to report on the diagnosis. It is very possible that establishing the diagnosis could represent the first of many “unscientific dominoes” of the PE to fall.
The absence of the diagnosis has led to much unnecessary suffering for about a million SDIP victims in America. Establishing it would also lead to much better mental health care, and a decrease in costs to the state and its taxpayers. I have run out of other options to get the diagnosis established in the relatively near future. It is inevitable that it will eventually become established — but that could very possibly be ten, twenty, or more years away. I am quite sure that the response of many university psychiatrists would be that of being eager to do the necessary research for the diagnosis — if they could be shielded from the PE’s ostracism by an executive order.
There is a politically correct — but little used, and of little use — official diagnosis of “Substance-Induced Psychosis” (SIP). It was likely formulated in a politically correct manner to explain some of the well-known high association of the diagnoses of mental illnesses and substance dependencies. Despite its title, its criteria completely ignore the issue of substance abuse/dependency. Yet it almost always involves the use of addictive substances. It has two very arbitrary 30 day time limits, one of which conveniently avoids any threat to the “biological integrity” of the diagnosis of schizophrenia — much unlike the SDIP diagnosis. Most of the SIP diagnoses are actually brief cases of SDIP. Most cases of “full recovery from schizophrenia” are also actually cases of SDIP. It is also nearly as common as schizophrenia. Persons with SDIP are almost always less ill than schizophrenic persons — because of a much lesser, if any, genetic predisposition for a psychosis. In short, the very large majority of SDIP victims would never have developed any psychosis — without the “help” of a substance dependency. Abstinence from all addictive substances (except for tobacco) is vital to any significant improvement. In one-third of cases that I have treated, the result has been a complete remission of the psychosis (usually permanent). But as important as abstinence is — it alone doesn’t insure a remission — even if it is life-long. A combination of individual and group therapy (particularly 12 step programs) is important — though either one alone may sometimes be sufficient. Denial of a dependency is often a serious problem — and such greatly complicates therapy — especially if the person continues any addictive substance use. The four substances most often involved in the disorder are alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine. The disorder only rarely involves tobacco alone — but withdrawal from it can cause a relapse in a recovered SDIP person. The use of multiple substances and increased chronicity of the dependency all increase the risk of a SDIP complication. The role of individual and/or group therapy is important in establishing for the patient the existence of a substance dependency, its ability to cause a psychosis, and the general nature of a dependency. Of the two — individual therapy is usually more important. A serious problem for individual therapy — is the very small number of mental health professionals — especially psychiatrists — who presently have a sufficient understanding of substance dependency for this task.
The PE actually very much needs some external help to make its much-needed changes. Many psychiatrists would likely be grateful for some intervention to help extract them from the box they have imprisoned themselves in. I have given up trying to contact medical schools about the diagnosis. In addition to the ideological and financial factors standing in the way — the considerable resistance by the PE to having to even indirectly admit to its serious errors — only increases as time passes. The most noteworthy action in favor of the diagnosis by a group of psychiatrists took place about ten years ago. The California Mental Health Department took the courageous and public-spirited action of informing its psychiatrists about the diagnosis — with the realization that the lack of official approval for the SDIP diagnosis was merely symptomatic of its political incorrectness. I think it’s likely that this action led to the appropriate treatment for some SDIP patients in their system. Throughout the years, I have known that my spreading information about the diagnosis to psychiatrists — even when it had no effect in establishing the diagnosis — would still make the diagnosis available for a small number of their SDIP patients.
Another California example of a few years ago, is that the efforts for the diagnosis of Susan Gallagher, then the Executive Director of the California Mental Health Association. She had informed me that she was planning to contact Dr. Robert Hales, the Psychiatric Chairperson of the University of California at Davis, about organizing research for the SDIP diagnosis. She was optimistic about this, as he was also the Medical Director of her Association. But a couple of months passed without any results, and I tried to contact Dr. Hales myself. But he wouldn’t respond to any of my emails — and he actually left me waiting for ten minutes for him to come to the phone — before I finally hung up. When one is faced with trying to defend an unscientific, but politically correct position — the easiest and safest response — is usually that of no response. His lack of any response was actually an “indirect support” for the diagnosis. A few years ago, the Director of the Canadian Psychiatric Association invited me to write an article on the diagnosis for their newsletter. But then the reviewers for the article I wrote rejected it — as they felt that its very subject “was unscientific.”
Two medical schools have backed off from serious initial interest on doing research on the diagnosis. The second medical school was NYU — which was the only one whose Psychiatric Chairperson responded to my contacting every medical school in the country about the diagnosis. Of particular importance was the information that the NIMH Agency of Psychotic Disorder’s Research Program’s recent action of offering to assist in the application of federal research funds for the diagnosis. The Chairman wrote me that he would soon be holding a staff meeting on the matter of doing research on the diagnosis — and expressed the hope that there would be a practical result! But I then heard nothing — and was only able to get an email from the Addiction Chief stating that the diagnosis “was a valuable concept.” A few years ago, I learned that psychiatrist Burt Pepper — who has a well known expertise in dual diagnoses — was on the faculty of NYU. I then realized that he must have vetoed the research on the diagnosis. I had exchanged emails with him, and had one telephone call a couple of years earlier — after having initially contacted him. I soon learned that he was very interested in the diagnosis. About ten years earlier, I had read a newsletter of his — in which he described his brilliant treatment of a man already diagnosed as schizophrenic. Dr. Pepper only categorized the case as not being one of schizophrenia — but one of substance abuse (involving marijuana). I finally dared to ask him why he didn’t give his patient a formal diagnosis. But he wouldn’t answer me, and he then broke off our communication. I then realized that he had been well aware of the political incorrectness of the SDIP diagnosis — long before I realized that such a problem existed in the PE. His veto must have been very ambivalent for him. Interstingly, the NIMH Agency of SAMHSA (Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration) continued to refuse to respond to my emails about the diagnosis — even after its recognition by its fellow NIMH Agency.
The strongest evidence for the validity of the SDIP diagnosis — and its political incorrectness — comes from the EPPIC (Early Psychosis Prevention Intervention Centre) program of the University of Melbourne. I had long suspected that they were secretly treating cases of SDIP — and it was an unwise email to me from psychologist Warrick Brewer of that program, which confirmed my suspicions. I had sent him an email about the SDIP diagnosis — which included a mention that an important part of treatment was informing the patients of the role of their substance dependency in causing their psychosis. In his email response, he stated that they did treat cases of “chemical dependency-induced psychosis.” His reason for responding was to defend the quality of their treatment of the disorder (in young persons only). Of course, the Psychiatric Chairperson wouldn’t respond to my email about this leak — though a year earlier he had acknowledged that they shared some interest in my work on the diagnosis. The very name of the program is a good example of “antics with semantics” — meant to disguise their “heresy” from the rest of the PE — for having anything to do with such a politically incorrect diagnosis.
Unfortunately, associations like NAMI (National Alliance For The Mentally Ill) are effectively part of the PE — in their contradicting their principles of aiding the mentally ill, by adhering to its political correctness. Several years ago, its medical director responded to my informing him about the SDIP diagnosis, by telling me that he would get back with me after he had time to read my website on the diagnosis. But he never did — despite some additional emails on my part. Despite the national office’s refusal to respond, there were a few local AMI offices that did. Of particular significance was the Contra Costa AMI Chapter in California — whose Director responded in a personal way. He had realized that the diagnosis very likely applied to his son, who had committed suicide in his early thirties. He had me write a brief article on the diagnosis for the Chapter’s Newsletter. Understandably, he censored parts of the original article which mentioned some of the California support and opposition for the diagnosis, that I have already mentioned. Recently, I received an email from a mother who had read that article — and realized that the diagnosis likely applies to her son. Of course, I have responded to her message.
It is a particular shame that persons being treated for substance dependency aren’t warned of the risk of a SDIP complication — if they return to any substance use. Another shame is that the public doesn’t know that cigarette smoking is very addictive, and greatly increases the risk of development of other dependencies. Many alcoholics wouldn’t have become alcoholic, without their also smoking. It has been reported that over half of persons with a diagnosis of schizophrenia in state hospitals, have an associated diagnosis of substance dependency. Psychiatrist Norman Miller was the author of the article which reported this. Being politically correct, he ignored the issue of the sequence of the two disorders — even though he had to interview many of these patients to make the diagnosis of a dependency. There are even state hospital mental illness/substance dependency wards, where it is particularly emphasized to the patients — that addictive substance use greatly interferes with the treatment of their mental illnesses. Of course that is true — but, deprived of the motivation of the diagnosis — the large majority still return to some substance use after discharge. A therapist at one of these wards reported to me that, in over half of these patients — it was obvious that the dependency came first. But any evidence for the mental illness coming first was not found. This well-known high degree of association between the two disorders has been conveniently explained away by the “biological spin” — that the association is due to the common genetic factors for both. This explanation was also used to explain the findings of a journal article that 70% of inner city ER patients, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia — also had urine tests that were positive for cocaine. To further protect the integrity of the schizophrenia diagnosis, the article also concluded that the mental illness had preceded the cocaine use — which a careful history would have easily been proved to be false.
The NCADD (National Council On Alcohol And Drug Dependency) has supported the idea of research for the diagnosis, as did Dr. Robert DuPont, a former White House Chief on Drugs. Psychiatrist Marc Shuckit, of one of the Universities of California, sent me a letter supporting the diagnosis — but later wouldn’t answer my emails. I was amazed to get an email of support from Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey (a former icon of biopsychiatry). I met Micheal Cartwright, the CEO of Foundations Associates, at their meeting on dual diagnoses in Las Vegas a few years ago. I had sent him information about the diagnosis a week earlier, and he surprised me by asking me to write an article on the SDIP diagnosis for their journal, and to give a lecture on it at their next convention. I readily agreed — but the weeks passed without any confirmation of those offers. He wouldn’t be candid with me — but I soon realized that his academic psychiatric speakers must have let him know that they didn’t like the politically incorrect nature of the diagnosis. Mr. Cartwright has no academic credentials — but he is a “recovering schizophrenic” patient, and had used addictive substances heavily for a few years before becoming mentally ill. He is almost certainly a good example of a recovered SDIP patient — and he probably recognized this. The New York City Voices is a mental health consumer advocacy organization, and they published an article on the diagnosis in their 06 Summer Journal. Unfortunately, the degree of relevance of the diagnosis for a group doesn’t at all rule out political correctness. Recently, the Dual Diagnosis Network (@treatment.org) refused to let me post a message about the SDIP on their list serve.
I gave a presentation at the ISPS (International Society for the Psychological treatment of Schizophrenia and other psychoses) at their Trauma and Psychosis conference in Santa Monica last October. It was entitled: “Substance Dependency-Induced Psychosis, A New Diagnosis With Strong ‘Antibiological Implications.’” Despite the diagnosis strongly supporting the principles of ISPS, it engendered little interest in the organization — partially because there is so little understanding of substance dependency among the great majority of mental health professionals. I probably would never have been selected for a presentation — if the President of the American Chapter, Dr. Ann-Louise Silver, hadn’t herself diagnosed and treated some cases of SDIP — as a result of my posting information about the diagnosis on their list serve. There was little general understanding of substance dependency among mental health professionals — even before the rise of “biopsychiatry” — and it has had a further negative influence on such. The elimination of any training in psychotherapy at psychiatric residency training programs is also the unfortunate result of this influence. American Psychiatric Association President Stephen Sharfstein wrote an interesting article for their Journal about a year ago. Its somewhat whimsical title, of “Big Phama And American Psychiatry: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly,” didn’t mask its serious message. Its main message was about the negative effects for psychiatry of its too close relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Not surprisingly, there has been virtually no reporting on the article. He spoke of the problem of the widespread practice of a “pill and an appointment.” He also referred to the tendency for psychosocialbiological research and understanding of mental disorders — to actually be mainly that of a a “bio-bio-bio” nature.
It is interesting to note that psychiatrists who practice “a pill and an appointment” make an average of three times the yearly income of those who also use psychotherapy. Dr. Bertam Karon is a psychologist at Michigan State University, and I learned that statistic from him during a two hour direct conversation that I had with him. He supports the diagnosis, and is a co-author of the excellent book: “The Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia: The Treatment Of Choice.” The two co-authors found that the randomly selected patients at a state hospital, for whom they added psychotherapeutic treatment to their medication treatment — did significantly better than the other patients. There was one anecdote from the book that really impressed me. A young female patient in a state hospital returned from a long weekend leave with her parents, in a very paranoid state. She was repeatedly complaining of the “government threatening to deport her.” It was a simple matter for the psychologist author treating her to learn that her parents had been upset by some of her behavior — and threatened to return her early to the hospital. He was then able to explain to her that the “government” represented her parents, and the threat of “deportation” — their threat of returning her early to the hospital. She easily accepted this interpretation — and asked: “Why don’t my other doctors talk to me like you do?” Such a sad question — with no reasonable answer! The biopsychiatric explanation for hallucinations and delusions is that they represent “meaningless neurological trash.” But the truth is that they are distorted abstractions — which an advanced case of an organic psychosis, like a person with Huntington’s psychosis, would be unable to create. The idea that genes provide a straightforward explanation for mental disorders ignores the fact that — on an average of only 50% of the time — will both identical twins develop schizophrenia. Environmental factors can strongly affect the expression of genes. Psychotherapy should play a very much bigger role in the treatment of schizophrenia than is currently the case — but its value in treating SDIP is much greater.
Perhaps the strongest evidence for the existence of the serious problem of political correctness is the PE’s ignoring of the World Health Organization’s report of about 25 years ago. It found that the schizophrenia case outcomes were better in undeveloped countries — than in developed countries. The inescapable reason for this very surprising finding was the much lesser use of antipsychotic medications in the former. This finding actually backed up the results of the earlier Soteria Project from the early seventies. It was a residential treatment of young single men, who were acutely ill with schizophrenia. They were treated without medication — but received compassionate mentoring by intelligent volunteers — who were not mental health professionals. The Project was designed by psychiatrist Leonard Mosher, the Director of the NIMH Agency of Schizophrenia Research. The results of the study were significantly better than that of the standard treatment with medications. But despite — and also because of these good results — the Project was gradually strangled by successive funding cuts by NIMH administrators. Sadly, these stunning findings were not contested — but simply completely ignored by the PE. Dr. Mosher later commented that he was aware of a “clubby relationship” between NIMH administrators and pharmaceutical representatives — who obviously didn’t like this “anti-drug study.” He also was quoted as saying that: “Today’s psychiatric science is largely wish, myth, and politics.” I probably would never have become aware of these two evidences — if I hadn’t read prize winning journalist Robert Whitaker’s very excellent book of about 5 years ago: “Mad In American: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, And The Enduring Mistreatment Of The Mentally Ill.” Of course, he had the aid of many psychiatrists in writing his book. He attempted to get some television newsmagazine type programs to report on the findings of the book — but, not surprisingly, was unsuccessful.
David Kaiser is a psychiatrist who wrote a very excellent article in the late nineties entitled: “Not By Chemicals Alone: A Hard Look At Psychiatric Medicine” It is unfortunate that there aren’t more whistleblowing psychiatrists like him. Here are its first two paragraphs:
“As a practicing psychiatrist, I have watched with growing dismay and outrage the rise and triumph of the hegemony known as biologic. Within the general field of modern psychiatry, biologism now completely dominates the discourse on the causes and treatment of mental illness, and in my view this has been a catastrophe with far-reaching effects on individual patients and the cultural psyche at large. It has occurred to me with forcible irony that psychiatry has quite literally lost its mind, and along with it the minds of the patients they are presumably supposed to take care for. Even a cursory glance at any major psychiatric journal is enough to convince me that the field has gone far down the road into a kind of delusion, whose main tenets consist of a particularly pernicious biologic determinism and a pseudoscientific understanding of human nature and mental illness….The purpose of this piece is not to attempt a full critique or history of this occurrence, but merely to present some of the glaring problems of this movement. I believe significant harm is being done to patients under the guise of modern psychiatric treatment. I am a psychiatrist trained in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and I use both psychotherapy and medication in my approach to patients. I state these facts to make it clear that this is not an anti-psychiatry tract, and am speaking from within the field of psychiatry, although I find it increasingly impossible to identify with this profession, for reasons which will become clear below.”
I recently received a message from a woman who had recovered from her case of SDIP — which had been very incapacitating for her. She is currently taking a course on “co-occurring disorders” (or dual dual diagnoses) at a University, where she is employed. She had accessed a web article on the diagnosis, and almost immediately realized that she finally had found the answer to what she had suffered severely from, for about 10 years of her life. Her illness included many hospitalizations, many different drugs, and many electroconvulsive treatments. It was only when she became active in AA — that she quickly recovered. She now has enjoyed a medication and addictive substance-free life of high quality for 30 years. I was able to easily confirm her opinion that she has this diagnosis. She is strongly motivated to do what she can to help establish the diagnosis. I am hoping that she will be able to help me convince a 23 year old woman that she has the SDIP illness, and that I can then guide her to effective treatment. Her mother contacted me after also reading a web article. The mother is a nurse, and realizes that her daughter’s best hopes rest on the diagnosis — and not with psychiatrists simply “throwing more drugs at her” at a state hospital, where she has been for the past several months.
I would like to have the opportunity to talk with you, or somebody to represent you. I actually am hoping that somebody with some influence on this matter will be additionally motivated by knowing somebody who likely has the SDIP disorder. I am including with this message a copy of the email from the EPPIC psychologist, and the combination of two messages from the woman who has 30 years of recovery. The first message is that of her initial email, and the second is what she wrote at my request to aid in the establishment of the diagnosis. My email address is ngersabeck@wideopenwest.com. My website on the diagnosis is http://home.wideopenwest.com/~ngersabeck/index2.html My telephone number is 586-2935489
Sincerely trying to improve the quality of mental health care,
Norman Jay Gersabeck MD
Dr. Gersabeck,
I must say that we are not nearly so well-connected as you may believe. I doubt we could apply any influence at all to any state governors — no more, at any rate, than the average citizen who doesn’t have a blog. We’re pretty small, as blogs go. Moreover, we are not doctors, so I don’t think that our opinion on a matter of medical technique will count for very much. Sorry, but I doubt we can help you at all.
[...] As I noted before, Madison, Jefferson and Lincoln all likely suffered from moderate to serious mental illnesses of the depression and anxiety variety. Finding this out about them should be like discovering that some founding father had male pattern baldness under his whig. Contrast that with finding out that Lincoln might have been homosexual. Whatever we think of the morality of homosexuality, such ought to nothing to do with whether homosexuality is a mental illness which would presumptively make that condition more like having high cholesterol, or an even closer analogy — tourettes — and demand its inclusion in various disabilities related civil rights legislation and “reasonable accommodations” for the underyling conduct which results from the illness. Trackback URL: http://positiveliberty.com/2007/03/brad-delps-suicide-and-the-reality-of-mental-illness.html/trackback/ [...]