Monday, January 19, 2009
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About Me
- John McManamy
- I am an award-winning author and mental health journalist. I have been writing about mood disorders since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1999, ranging from a website, an email newsletter, a book, articles for HealthCentral, and this blog. More recently, I have been producing videos. Writing about my illness has played a very strong role in my healing and recovery. Writing allows me to come to terms with my past, gives meaning to my present, and gives me the courage to face the future with hope.
While my brain was slowly being squeezed apart on Geodon, only noone (including me) knew that yet, I was sitting waiting for my talk therapy appointment. Then into the waiting room which was full of loud kids (one of the doctors treats kids with epilepsy and it was med adjustment day) and preoccupied adults; came a man in a downright spiffy buisiness suit. Conspicuious as all get out. He also had a small black box and some kind of device he was talking into and typing on. When my therapist came to get me I told her I was worried about this conspicous individual. I have a very, very GOOD talk therapist. She did not laugh at me---she actually went and checked on said individual. He was, of course, a drug rep. My therapist then showed me the other waiting room, the quiet room where they didn't allow suits or kids.
ReplyDeleteJohn, you're too experienced in the business world to have made the mistake of identifying Big Pharma's customers as us, the patients. Their customers are: #1) their shareholders; #2) the health-insurance/managed care/pick your term industry; and #3) various medical specialties. Psychiatry is the only medical specialty that can't/doesn't study & measure the very organ it attempts to treat. Thank goodness for neuroscience, & new brain-imaging technologies. These can revolutionize the treatment of all brain disorders, as soon as we get lazy psychiatrists out of the way.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there are a number of good points raised, it seems that the author identifies the anti-psychiatry movement as being essentially based on an opposition to the claim that there are neurological, biochemical or hereditary contributions to the development of psychological disorders. This is a fallacy. Most of the anti-psychiatrists, including those who carry signs like "psychiatry kills" are opposed to the use of force and coercion in clinical practice not necessarily the described etiology of these disorders. The author fails to make this distinction lumping all anti-psychiatrists together.
ReplyDeleteOMG, your proposed punishment for the bastard who invented the word "consumer" made me laugh. It would be the ultimate justice. Unless, of course (and this would not surprise me) the person in question had such poor taste as to actually *enjoy* this ... *shudder*
ReplyDeleteAlso ... I propose the word "client". I feel like it implies more collaboration, and also that the service provider is acting on the client's behalf, rather than telling them what to do and calling them "non-compliant" if they don't do it.
ReplyDeleteKendra's law makes me jumpy because it can be used to force people into treatment who have not endangered themselves or others. I still believe a version of this law is valuable if it were directed at those who are a danger. But labeling all mentally ill as "dangerous" when most of them haven't done anything is a clear violation of their civil rights. I believe those who have presented themselves as a danger to the health and well-being of themselves and others *should* be put on a medication regimen, or incarceration. Their choice. Don't feel like taking your meds, go to jail. Simple as that. There have been many crimes committed by the mentally ill over the last few years, including mass shootings. We need to reduce the easy availability of firearms, and we need to commit the dangerous mentally ill. This would NOT have caught Adam Lanza, but it WOULD have caught John Holmes and probably Jared Loughner as well. If we can prevent some of these incidents, this would be for the common good.
ReplyDelete