Wisdom is knowing how to use your wits, and is derived from an Old English word that means “to know;” as opposed to the construct “wiseacre” which is one who pretends to knowledge or cleverness.
Humanity has a long history of the pursuit of wisdom, which is called philosophy. The word “philosophy” comes from the Greek word sophos meaning wise.
There is also a long psychiatric history of trying to cast madness as a form of wisdom or of inexplicable insight. We suspect this might have arisen in a futile attempt to explain madness, since psychiatry has never been able to properly define it, defaulting instead to making up countless words for its multitude of symptoms. (Which is called “diagnosis.“)
The Resources of Wisdom
In the physical Universe there are four resources: matter, energy, space, and time. In the spiritual Universe, resources are whatever you consider a resource. Money for example, often considered as a resource, is a consideration — actually it is an idea backed with confidence; it represents an exchange of something of value for something else of value.
The common idea that one should use resources wisely, while a useful idea, comes from the situation that one has either forgotten how to create these resources or that one has too many blocks and barriers toward creating these resources. Thus, the basics of wise usage are really one’s abilities to effectively operate in the physical and spiritual Universes.
Rehabilitating one’s native abilities where they are blocked is ultimately the key to being wise.
Sanity and Insanity
The crux of the matter seems to be having proper definitions for sanity and insanity, as one alludes to wisdom and the other to madness. In this way we can adequately distinguish between the two.
Psychiatry has basically admitted to not knowing exactly what sanity and insanity are.
“We do not know the causes [of any mental illness]. We don’t have the methods of ‘curing’ these illnesses yet.” [Dr. Rex Cowdry, psychiatrist and director of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1995]
As with most English words, there are a number of definitions for each to fit various circumstances. We’ll go with these two useful definitions:
Sanity — The ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities. Insanity — The overt or covert but always complex and continuous determination to harm or destroy.
To make these two definitions real to you and see how they might apply to other things you know, perform the following two things repeatedly for each word: 1. Imagine a situation where this particular definition makes sense or applies. 2. Imagine a situation where this particular definition does not make sense or does not apply.
Do this until you have some realization about each word.
Books have been written on these two subjects, so we’re not going to examine all the ramifications in this one blog.
How Does This Apply to Psychiatry?
The inevitable conclusion seems to be that Wisdom and Sanity are related, and Madness and Insanity are related; and psychiatry is the Wiseacre bastard of the two.
We found a number of useful definitions for the phrase “common sense.”
– Sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. – An ability to reach intelligent conclusions. – A reliable ability to judge and decide with soundness, prudence, and intelligence. – The ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions. – Good sense and sound judgment in practical matters. – Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge. – The basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way. – Agreement with those perceptions, associations and judgments possessed of the generality of mankind. With respect to this definition, some have said that common sense implies something everyone knows; if that is the case, then what appears to be common sense is often common nonsense, given the level of disagreements showing up on current social media.
In Latin, sensus communis means “common feelings of humanity.”
Sometimes the phrase is found hyphenated: “common-sense” — something which reflects common sense, as in “a common-sense approach.”
Discussion
We wondered if it is possible to teach common sense, or if it is an innate (although not always evident) characteristic of humanity.
If anyone can have an instance or episode of common sense, perhaps we should also examine how this ability can be compromised.
In the past, some religious scholars have posited the negative influence of Satan as the mechanism of compromise. Others have attributed common sense, or lack of it, to one’s maturity level.
One place where common sense fails is in superstition. We have discussed superstition previously; it might be helpful to review it here.
We see many scholarly articles whose premise is that psychology and psychiatry are “scientific” and thus not matters of common sense. We tried reading a paper about psychiatry and common sense; frankly, making any sense of it without falling asleep was a challenge. It propagates the idea that “common sense rests on judgments of the probable rather than what we can directly ascertain as true” — which we think, from the definitions above, is directly contrary to the idea that common sense depends on the perception and observation of reality. Perhaps, though, that is precisely where common sense leaves off and superstition begins.
The True Basis For Common Sense
So we come to what we think is the true basis for common sense, which is “obnosis” — the observation of the obvious, on which all good judgment is based.
Observation is not passive, it is very much an active process, involving the closest possible study of what one is observing. Thus we see that the most important thing which hinders or gets in the way of one’s common sense is anything which blocks or hinders close observation. Truth or falsity, while relevant, is not even close in importance to the actual observation of what is there in front of you.
And yes, you can indeed teach someone to observe. You can also rehabilitate this ability in someone whose common sense has been compromised by a too heavy dependence on belief as a replacement for certainty.
One other thing that aids in the exercise of common sense would be the ability to imagine the consequences of one’s actions. This provides a predictive quality so important to good judgment.
How Does Psychiatry Compromise Common Sense?
Having an unobstructed view of the world, as we have just observed, is of paramount importance. This viewpoint, as far as the physical perceptions provided by one’s body goes, depends upon the proper functioning of one’s nerves and the nervous system. Yet the primary “treatments” of psychiatry are drug-based, with neuroleptic (“nerve-seizing”) drugs a chief offender. And lately there is a heavy psychiatric emphasis on psychedelic drugs, known primarily for their interference with such perceptions.
Need we even mention the harm that psychiatric Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) does — a direct attack on the brain, the center of the body’s nerve system.
Can you imagine how these might compromise one’s common sense? There are harmful consequences for psychiatric treatment.
The Bottom Line
A Truly Common Sense Approach would be banning ECT, banning psychiatric drugs, in fact defunding and banning psychiatry.
Contact your local, state, and federal officials and representatives and let them know what you think about this.
“He who takes offense when offense was not intended is a fool, yet he who takes offense when offense is intended is an even greater fool for he has succumbed to the will of his adversary.” –Brigham Young
Offense and Offend, two related words of wide contemporary usage. Here are a few different meanings (we take wide liberties with grammar):
– something that outrages – the act of displeasing or affronting – the state of being insulted or morally outraged – to transgress – to violate a law or rule – to cause difficulty, discomfort, or injury – to cause dislike, anger, or vexation
[Ultimately from Latin offendere “to strike against, displease” from of- “on account of” + -fendere “to hit”.]
We mention these words because we notice a large amount of social commentary and speculation about those taking or giving offense.
In particular, we notice an apparent spike in instances where someone has taken offense at another, or at another’s opinion, or at least remarking on such; whether such offense was intended or not.
We’ve noticed this tendency more and more frequently over the last few years, and wondered what possible relation this could have with psychiatric and psychological infiltration into society.
We’re not the only ones who have noticed this phenomenon. Psychology Today published various articles about it, although we don’t think they accurately attributed its cause.
Sensitivity Training Destroys Personal Responsibility
Psychiatry’s deliberate infiltration of religion and pastoral counseling provides some clues. Psychiatrists first sought to replace religion with their “soulless science” in the late 1800’s. In 1940, psychiatry openly declared its anti-religion plans when British psychiatrist John Rawling Rees, a co–founder of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH), spoke of psychiatry infiltrating the Church.
Another co–founder of the WFMH, Canadian psychiatrist G. Brock Chisholm, reinforced this master plan in 1945 when he spoke about freeing the race from crippling religious values.
As a result of psychiatry’s subversive plan for religion, the concepts of good and bad behavior, right and wrong conduct and personal responsibility have taken such a beating that people today have few or no guidelines for checking, judging or directing their behavior. The consequences have been devastating for both society and religion.
Sensitivity Training developed by psychologists in the 1950’s spread rapidly to religious leaders and churches, invalidating personal responsibility in favor of lowered moral standards, leaving a confused populace open to being morally outraged, i.e. offended, by nearly anything.
Since 1967, morals have been usurped through the education system with the implementation of “Values Clarification.” Part of the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) package of techniques, “Values Clarification” emerged from Germany and was introduced into the U.S. classroom under various names, including Sensitivity Training, Self-Esteem training, Anger Management and Conflict Resolution, to name a few. None are any more than mental techniques designed to modify behavior – or more bluntly, alter beliefs and lower personal responsibility.
Psychiatric Folly
If a person acts in ways that annoy, upset or offend psychiatrists, they may be diagnosed as mentally ill and treated against their will.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has an entry called “Intermittent explosive disorder”, which means repeated, sudden episodes of impulsive, aggressive, violent behavior or angry verbal outbursts which are out of proportion to the situation.
In other words, psychiatrists can call you mentally ill and prescribe harmful and addictive psychotropic drugs if you give or take offense. This should act as a warning not to call your psychiatrist names.
Then again, some of these drugs have side effects which look to an outsider as if the person does have such a disorder. Aggressive or hostile behavior is a side effect of psychostimulants, newer antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety drugs. Of course, if you experience such side effects, you can also be diagnosed with the mental disorder “Other adverse effect of medication”, so psychiatrists can label you mentally ill whether you are taking their drugs or not.
If you know of any psychiatrist or psychologist who has committed a legal offense, a sexual offense, financial irregularity, malpractice, fraud or any other crime, report this to the police and to CCHR.
Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions. The word comes from the Greek word paranous “distracted”, ultimately from para- “irregular” + nous “mind”.
It’s a popular psychiatric designation, occurring in the fraudulent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as “Paranoid personality disorder”. As “paranoid schizophrenic” it can also come under one of the several DSM headings related to schizophrenia, meaning “delusions of persecution”.
It’s also the subject of various jokes such as:
“The mental-disease-of-the-month club is being disbanded because during paranoia month all the members moved and left no forwarding address.” “What does a paranoid have in common with the all-knowing master of time space and dimension that secretly controls all of our lives? … Right, like you don’t know.”
What is it really?
Paranoia is a dramatization, which is an irrational set of thoughts and actions coming about from the restimulation of past moments of pain and unconsciousness, often containing a phrase such as “You’re all against me.” Some drugs in particular can restimulate this type of behavior.
Various Other Restimulants of Paranoia
Newer antidepressants such as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) may have a side effect of paranoia. Smoking crack cocaine, marijuana, or taking LSD, methamphetamines or ecstasy (MDMA) can also cause paranoid behavior. The ADHD drugs Adderall, Concerta, Strattera, and Ritalin all have a potential side effect of paranoia. The psychedelic dimethyltryptamine (DMT) has a side effect of paranoia.
Being bullied may lead to a feeling that people plan to harm you, which can be misconstrued by a psychiatrist as a “mental illness” and considered a psychotic symptom for which psychotropic drugs can be prescribed, some of which then also have more paranoia as a side effect.
Addressing a person’s difficulties with getting a good night’s sleep, or with getting proper nutrition, may lead to improvements in psychotic symptoms such as paranoia.
Hypothyroidism, an insufficient production of thyroid hormone, can lead to paranoia.
A deficiency of vitamin B12 or folic acid (vitamin B9) can produce paranoia.
An allergic response to wheat, corn, cow’s milk, or tobacco can produce paranoia.
Undiagnosed and unhandled infections such as pneumonia, urinary tract infection, sepsis, malaria, Legionnaire’s disease, syphilis, typhoid, diphtheria, HIV, rheumatic fever and herpes can all cause such devastating mental symptoms.
Recommendations
One can plainly see that the symptom of paranoia has many possible triggers which are unrelated to any so-called psychiatric “mental disorder”.
Any medical doctor who takes the time to conduct a thorough physical examination of a person exhibiting signs of what a psychiatrist calls paranoia can find undiagnosed, untreated physical conditions. Any person labeled as paranoid needs to receive a thorough physical examination by a competent medical—not psychiatric—doctor to first determine what underlying physical condition is causing the manifestation.
The use of various psychiatric drugs, since they can themselves trigger a paranoid response, should be specifically avoided.
Any person falsely diagnosed as paranoid which results in treatment that harms them should file a complaint with the police and professional licensing bodies and have this investigated. They should seek legal advice about filing a civil suit against any offending psychiatrist and his or her hospital, associations and teaching institutions seeking compensation.
Reference: “What’s Wrong with U.S. Healthcare and how to Fix it: A Systematic Approach to Improved Healthcare at Lower Cost” by Les Ruthven, Ph.D. November 16, 2020 Available on Amazon
“Unfortunately one must be especially skeptical of all pharmaceutical industry sponsored health research for drugs and also for many medical devises, the latter especially mental health problems.”
Dr. Ruthven is a psychologist specializing in clinical neuropsychology and behavioral health management. He believes that a better quality of healthcare occurs when patients have information they can apply to resolving their own health problems. Much of this book is an examination of standard of care psychiatric practices that do not appear to meet necessary scientific standards of proof.
He says, “I can think of no better way to achieve affordable healthcare than by insisting that a particular drug or therapy is only reimbursable if the treatment has been proven to be substantially effective (and safe) by sound research and not just because practitioners believe the treatment is effective or that the treatment is FDA approved.”
Of course, CCHR has been documenting the facts about psychiatry, psychiatric drugs and other harmful psychiatric treatments for over 50 years, and can state with certainty that:
1. psychiatric “disorders” are not medical diseases; 2. psychiatrists deal exclusively with mental “disorders,” not proven diseases; 3. psychiatry has never established the cause of any “mental disorders”; 4. the theory that mental disorders derive from a “chemical imbalance” in the brain is unproven opinion, not fact; 5. the brain is not the real cause of life’s problems.
CCHR’s work will only be complete when psychiatry’s fraudulent practices are eliminated and it is held accountable for its harmful treatments and human rights violations.
As an English word, “attention” can mean one of many definitions:
applying the mind to something
selective focusing one’s perception or awareness
consideration with a view to action
an act of civility or courtesy
sympathetic consideration of someone’s needs and wants
a position assumed by a soldier
considering or taking notice
dealing with or taking special care
focusing interest
[From Latin attendere, from ad- ‘to’ + tendere ‘stretch’.]
Attention is a built-in attribute of living beings. For people (and some animals), it’s generally the ability to self-determinedly focus awareness (to greater or lesser degree); for plants, one might observe a more physical characteristic such as motion toward a light source.
There are two extremes of attention. Introversion is looking inward. Extroversion is looking outward. Attention can be aberrated such that it becomes too fixed and unable to sweep, or too dispersed and unable to focus. Somewhere in between these extremes is an optimum level for a given situation.
A simple remedy for excessive introversion is extroversion — a good look at and communication with the wider external environment; Take A Walk and Look At Things! A simple remedy for excessive extroversion, which is sometimes called “being buttered all over the universe”, could be “mindfulness” — which is just being in Present Time.
Attention is actually a flow of energy; it can flow outward, inward, or appear relatively motionless. As long as you can keep someone’s attention fixated or confused they can be controlled; this is how hypnotism works.
In the current environment of society, especially in psychiatric mental health “care”, it is all too common for attention to be manipulated by drugs, shock or impact. Picture being slapped in the face: got your attention, did it? Unfortunately such an impact can have two entirely opposite outcomes. On the one hand it might cause one to focus fixedly on the source of the impact. On the other hand it might cause one to lose consciousness and be unable to focus attention at all. Which way it goes depends on the suddenness and strength of the force. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or shock treatment, is an extreme but prevalent example of psychiatric brutality.
Another often unsuspected cause of attention issues is illiteracy or study problems. The many side effects of reading and comprehension difficulties are a main barrier to one’s ability to focus attention. For example, the July 2002 George W. Bush President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education revealed the source of a deeply troubled Special Education system: 40 percent of kids are being labeled with “learning disorders” simply because they have not been taught to read.
ADHD actually represents the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, inconsistent discipline at home, reading difficulty, tiredness, street drugs, nutritional deficiency, toxic overload, and many kinds of underlying physical illness.
The main “treatments” for so-called ADHD are psychotropic drugs which have known side effects of violence and suicide. Some of these drugs are no more than amphetamine-like stimulants, designed to shock one into focusing attention. Aside from the physical impact, there are also severe emotional conditions caused by even short-term use of such drugs. Hallucinations and psychotic behavior are not uncommon.
Due to the hazards of these drugs, in order to receive federal funds under the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act), the “Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment” (H.R.1350) was signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 3, 2004 and requires schools to implement policies that prohibit schoolchildren being forced onto psychiatric drugs as a requisite for their education. The law states, “The psychological/psychiatric system should not be able to abuse Special Education by diagnosing childhood and educational problems and failure as ‘mental disorders.'”
Recommendations
People do not have a deficiency of attention, nor do they have a deficiency of attention drugs. They may have barriers that prevent or inhibit effective use of attention, but these have non-psychiatric-drug solutions.
1. Support legislative measures that will protect children from psychiatric and psychological interference and which will remove their destructive influence from our schools.
2. Ultimately, psychiatry and psychology must be eliminated from all education systems and their coercive and unworkable methods should never be funded by the State.
3. No person should be given psychiatric or psychological treatment against their will.
4. Government funding should never be used for mental health screening or treatment programs and should be allocated, instead, to better educational facilities, teachers and tutoring to improve the literacy and educational standards of students.
Hope is the desire that sometime in the future, one will cease to have something which is no longer wanted but one can’t seem to get rid of (like a chronic pain), or that one will acquire something wanted.
“Going On Hoping” is the condition where one continues to hope in spite of no possibility of realizing one’s goal, particularly when one is not actively involved in realizing the goal.
Giving something a lick and a promise and hoping it will somehow be all right stems from laziness and stupidity. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone.
The better alternative is to control one’s environment by doing things well and thoroughly, leading to one’s goals.
The Psychiatric Way
Psychiatrists speak about “adaptation to one’s environment” as the way to handle Life. One of the primary ways psychiatric treatment attempts to adapt one to one’s environment is with drugs, which reduce or block restimulative stimuli by deadening the perceptive abilities of the central nervous system.
Many psychiatric studies on the topic emphasize how one’s environment, over which one apparently has little control, influences or controls one’s troubles. Toxins and contaminants in the environment; stress in the environment; one’s genes; one’s community and its social factors; the climate; PTSD; crime and other violent or dangerous situations in the environment; endemic systemic pandemic polemics.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychiatry’s billing bible, promotes these environmental factors against which one supposedly cannot fight back as the diagnostic criteria showing the presence of a “mental disorder”. One such is the diagnosis of “Victim of crime.”
Of course, one can certainly find situations where it is helpful to adapt to an environment. Think of wearing a protective suit in a hostile environment such as outer space or under water.
We don’t minimize these environmental factors, which have been found to be major contributors to mental stress and trauma. Rather, we point out that the common psychiatric point of view is to only find ways a person can adapt to such stress, when there might also be ways to exert more control over the environmental factors and adapt the environment to oneself. There are even terms to describe this psychiatric viewpoint, such as “stress-adapted children”; meaning that they have learned how to adapt to stress in their environments.
In fact, the data indicate that drug treatment is not usually necessary if a proper interpersonal environment and social context is provided as alternatives to psychiatry.
The Better Alternative
It has also been found that if one knows the technology of how to do something and can do it, and uses it, he cannot be the adverse effect of it. So for example in the matters under discussion here, the more one knows about something in the environment, and the more one can handle and control that, the less bad effects it can cause one. This leads to the insight that the more one can adapt the environment to oneself, instead of only adapting oneself to the environment, then the less the environment can harm one.
One may exclaim all kinds of ifs, ands and buts in the matter. But the fact remains that it behooves one to find out more about whatever the trouble is, and search diligently for ways to influence or control that.
Recommendations
CCHR recommends various strategies to proactively cope with psychiatric fraud or abuse, an environmental stress to which one may be subjected. For example:
Don’t suddenly stop taking a psychiatric drug as it may have withdrawal side effects; consult a competent non-psychiatric health care provider and find out how to withdraw safely.
Are you feeling unreal? Are you a stranger to yourself? You may have “Depersonalization Disorder”!
ROFL, forgive me. Like we don’t already have a surfeit of fake diseases in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)! Oh, wait! It’s already in the DSM-5, as “Depersonalization/derealization disorder” (DDD).
There is increasing evidence that psychotropic drugs evoke an unbearable state of mind, such as feeling unreal, feeling detached, feeling like a stranger to oneself, not having sensations, or feeling like a walking cadaver — so much so that the person opts for suicide or violence as a means of relief.
Oh, wait again! This sounds just like some of the side effects, or adverse reactions, of various psychiatric drugs! Note that derealization means that the perception of the world and of external reality are altered. Sounds like a hallucination or delusion, which are known side effects of antidepressants.
For example, newer antidepressants have reported side effects of: abnormal thoughts; agitation; akathisia (severe restlessness); anxiety; confusion; delusions; emotional numbing; hallucinations; mood swings; panic attacks; paranoia; suicidal thoughts or behavior; violent behavior; withdrawal symptoms including deeper depression.
Psychiatrists do not know what causes these symptoms or how to cure it, and there are no clinical tests which can diagnose it. Diagnosis is based solely on opinion. Treatment is generally an antidepressant or anti-anxiety drug, often in combination with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) which is basically telling the patient what is wrong with them (evaluating for them).
There are whole organizations devoted just to DDD, providing a base for requesting research funds, getting articles published, and of course “treating” victims with more psychiatric drugs — when the actual treatment should include getting off the psychiatric drugs which are causing these side effects in the first place.
What about the person who experiences symptoms of so-called DDD without being on any drugs? Well, yes, Life can certainly include trauma needing some kind of relief; but it shouldn’t include drugs which can continue to cause these same symptoms, making the person a patient for life.
So What Actually Is The Condition Known As Depersonalization or Derealization?
A person’s inability to feel the reality of things stems directly from the introduction of some arbitrary consideration — something which has no basis in natural law or fact. This is often called “superstition.” For example, some person is feeling under the weather, and someone tells them “it’s all due to the lack of Prozac in your diet.” The person’s acceptance of this “solution” to their problem causes some unreality, since it is arbitrary and false. The introduction of any arbitrary thing into a problem or a solution invites further arbitraries to help “explain” it away. Eventually, one’s life becomes one exception after another, all arbitraries trying to correct the original misconception and on down the line.
One resolution is to trace back these arbitraries throughout one’s life and get the original one corrected. Obviously, psychiatric drugs cannot do this, as they merely deaden the nervous system to suppress symptoms and can never actually correct any arbitrary.
Recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior as “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.
Contact your public officials and tell them what you think about this.
Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.
The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site: http://revisor.mo.gov/.
The 101st General Assembly Regular Session convened on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, and will end on Friday, May 14, 2021.
This time we’d like to discuss a bill about which we’d like you to contact your legislators. Please write, call or visit to express from your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get. The full text of each bill can be found on the House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking site. Just put the bill number into the search box (e.g. SB551).
If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.
Very Bad Bill
This is a bill that furthers psychiatric abuses of human rights, and is moving swiftly toward becoming law. Please express your opposition and opinions about this to your legislators and copy the sponsor.
SB551 – Senate Bill 551 – sponsored by Senator Karla May (Democrat, District 04 – Parts of St. Louis City & St. Louis County). Related to SB26.
“This act establishes the “Critical Incident Stress Management Program” within the Department of Public Safety. The program shall provide services for peace officers to assist in coping with stress and potential psychological trauma resulting from a response to a critical incident or emotionally difficult event.
“This act provides that all peace officers shall be required to meet with a program service provider once every three to five years for a mental health check-in. The program service provider shall send a notification to the peace officer’s commanding officer that he or she completed such check-in.
“This act creates the “988 Public Safety Fund” within the state treasury and shall be used by the Department of Public Safety for the purposes of providing services for peace officers to assist in coping with stress and potential psychological trauma resulting from a response to a critical incident or emotionally difficult event. Such services may include consultation, risk assessment, education, intervention, and other crisis intervention services.”
This act is substantially similar to provisions in SB 26.
Why is this bill bad?
This bill coerces police officers into the psychiatric mental health system, where they can be prescribed harmful and addictive psychotropic drugs which have known side effects of violence and suicide.
The estimated net financial effect is to cost the State of Missouri $7,243,500 over the next four years for servicing roughly 24,145 police officers. This does not include the costs for full-time personnel to implement the program, nor does it include the additional costs for the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
When we speak of “coercive psychiatry” we mean that psychiatry is used as a means of social control against which one has no recourse and cannot fight back. This bill is a prime example of enforced treatment.
Disguising social control as medical treatment is a deceit which conceals an abuse. This is a de facto abuse of power, as it seeks to limit and control the individual instead of helping the individual to get better and improve their conditions in life.
Coercive psychiatry is not intended to cure anything. On the contrary, psychiatry is the science of control and entrapment, and having power over distressed and vulnerable individuals. Wherever men have advocated and advanced totalitarianism, they have used psychiatric principles to control society, to put limits on individual freedom, to suppress and punish dissent, and to trap people into worsening conditions. It is actually a mis-use of power, since its intentions are to make less of a person’s self-determinism and give more power to others and the state.
Download and read the full CCHR report “Community Ruin — Psychiatry’s Coercive ‘Care’ — Report and recommendations on the failure of community mental health and other coercive psychiatric programs.“
We speak and write often about mental trauma, and how and why psychiatry is not the answer to good mental health care. But we rarely address exactly what mental health is. There are continuous loads of social commentary about mental health without even clearly defining what is good mental health.
We’ll try to remedy that. There are a number of useful approaches to defining good mental health. As usual with most English terms, there are multiple definitions; but we can certainly isolate some common attributes and characteristics. One can delineate both positive and negative characteristics; one can list contributing factors toward good mental health, and alternatively one can list contributing factors toward bad mental health.
WHO Says What is Mental Health
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes mental health as: “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
For a practical approach, this is a good start.
Additional Approaches to What is Mental Health
We might also call good mental health an absence of psychoses, neuroses, compulsions, repressions, and psychosomatic ills; leading to a state of mental well-being.
The Wales Mental Health in Primary Care Network has an interesting viewpoint of good mental health: “The central role of relationships in health and wellbeing suggests that relationships set the initial conditions and the simple values that lead to the emergence of health and wellbeing outcomes. Relationships that are positive between people and within organisations are the simple small inputs that lead to the much bigger output of improved outcomes and health gain. … The gold standard for mental health and wellbeing is the gold standard for caring relationships.”
Green Mental Health Care
“Green Mental Health Care is based on the preservation and treatment of the mind and body (for they are not separate functions) using non-toxic, non-addictive, and non-invasive strategies that produces good mental health. Green Mental Health Care has not only proven to be superior in patient outcomes than any other treatment method, including the use of psychiatric drugs, but it achieves the patient’s health goals at a fraction of the cost while saving them from the life-threatening health risks associated with psychiatric drugs.”
What is a Cure?
We generally take cure to mean the elimination of some unwanted condition with some effective treatment. The primary purpose of any mental health treatment must be the therapeutic care and treatment of individuals who are suffering emotional disturbance, leading to a cure. The only effective measure of this treatment must be “patients recovering and being sent, sane, back into society as productive individuals.” This, we would call a cure. Psychiatry produces no cures, which they readily admit.
“We do not know the causes [of any mental illness]. We don’t have the methods of ‘curing’ these illnesses yet.” [Dr. Rex Cowdry, psychiatrist and director of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1995] “The time when psychiatrists considered that they could cure the mentally ill is gone. In the future the mentally ill have to learn to live with their illness.” [Norman Satorius, president of the World Psychiatric Association in 1994]
The Effects of Stress
According to top experts, the majority of people having mental problems are actually suffering from non-psychiatric disorders, which can cause emotional stress. We might characterize mental stress as inorganic or organic. Organic conditions are characterized by physical and biochemical indicators, while inorganic conditions manifest only as distressing experiences or undesirable behavior. In either case, an underlying cause would be some form of stress.
An individual’s health level, sanity level, activity level and ambition level are all monitored by their own concept of the dangerousness of their environment. You are as successful as you adjust your environment to yourself, rather than the environment enforcing itself on you which produces stress.
Human Rights and Mental Health
Mental health refers to psychological, social, behavioral, and emotional aspects of health.
“The right to health contains both freedoms and entitlements. Freedoms include the right to control one’s health, including the right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment and experimentation. Entitlements include the right to a system of health protection (i.e. health care and the underlying social determinants of health) that provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health.”
The highest attainable standard of mental health care “includes the provision of equal and timely access to basic preventive, curative, rehabilitative health services and health education; regular screening programmes; appropriate treatment of prevalent diseases, illnesses, injuries and disabilities, preferably at community level; the provision of essential drugs; and appropriate mental health treatment and care.”
What is a Good Patient Outcome?
When we think about the outcomes of mental health care, we can think in terms that are important to the patient, or alternatively in terms that are important to others such as family, teachers, insurance companies, or the attending medical professionals.
A good patient outcome is one that leads toward optimum survival for the patient and all their associations.
The Highest Attainable Standard of Mental Health
It should be obvious by now that the term “mental health” has multiple effective meanings. It should also be obvious that psychiatry is not engaged in good mental health care, so the highest attainable standard of mental health would certainly eliminate psychiatric involvement.
The Bottom Line? Pick one or more of the above standards for good mental health and apply it to your own situations and interests; use them to guide your activities toward a higher standard. After all, good mental health is not a fixed state; one can always aspire and work toward a better state.
