The mental health system’s standard treatments are colossally counter-productive and harmful, often forced on unwilling patients.  The overreliance on psychiatric drugs is reducing the recovery rate of people diagnosed with serious mental illness from a possible 80% to 5% and reducing their life spans by 20 years or so.  Psychiatric incarceration, euphemistically called “involuntary commitment,” is similarly counterproductive and harmful, adding to patients’ trauma and massively associated with suicides.  Harmful psychiatric interventions are being imposed on people without consideration of the facts about treatments and their harms, and are a violation of International Law.

 

The most important elements for improving patients’ lives are People, Place and Purpose.  People—even psychiatric patients—need to have relation-ships (People), a safe place to live (Place), and activity that is meaningful to them, usually school or work (Purpose).  People need to be given hope these are possible.  Voluntary approaches that improve people’s lives should be made broadly available instead of the currently prevailing counterproductive and harmful psychiatric drugs for everyone, forever, regime often forced on people.  These approaches include Peer Respites, Soteria Houses, Open Dialogue, Drug-Free Hospitals, Housing First, Employment, Warm Lines, Hearing Voices Network, Non-Police Community Response Teams, and emotional CPR (eCPR).

 

By implementing these approaches, mental health systems can move towards, and even achieve, the 80% possible recovery rate.

 

As bad as it is for adults, the psychiatric incarceration and psychiatric drugging of children and youth is even more tragic and should cease.  Instead, children and youth should be helped to manage their emotions and become successful, and their parents should be given support and assistance to achieve this.

 

The Report has a tremendous number of citations to support it with a bibliography that runs 13 pages.  The substantive sections are:

     
The Current Mental Health System is Extremely Counterproductive and Harmful 

 

In the 20 years since starting the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) I can't think of a time when such a report has been more needed, especially in the United States where there are growing efforts to make it even easier to lock people up and drug them against their will, such as the new Orwellian named C.A.R.E. Court statute in California, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams' similar plan, purporting to use existing law.   

 

You may know I am no longer litigating the violation of people's rights, now focusing on direct advocacy for the creation and sustainment of the voluntary, effective, safe and humane approaches identified in the Report, much of it through the International Peer Respite/Soteria Summit (Summit).   

 

Your financial support will be greatly appreciated to further the Summit's important work.  To donate, click here.

 

This e-mail was sent to both the Summit's and PsychRights' e-mail lists to avoid duplication.