Rethinking Psychiatry

Thanks to Cindi Fisher, Portland now has a thriving community called Rethinking Psychiatry. It offers a radical approach to what has been called “mental illness.” That community speaks of “extreme emotional states,” rather than "illness," and they met Wednesday night for a three-hour Truth and Reconciliation exercise. Those who have extreme emotional states were invited to sit in an inner circle and briefly describe their experiences of treatment. The outer circle was composed of mental health professionals, allies, and friends. 

Some described their “treatment” as “assault” or “incarceration and torture.” All had been forced to take psycho-active drugs, and not one person in the circle reported a positive experience with those drugs. Instead they described disorientation, confusion, seizures, rashes, vomiting, and lasting brain damage. Most had been isolated, left without human touch or contact for weeks at a time. One said she never wants to hear the term “non-compliant” again because every attempt she made to take control of her own body and her healing was interpreted as “non-compliance” and was punished. 

People in the outer circle sat in silence, some visibly moved, all grave. After a short break, “providers”--nurses, therapists, and some physicians, took their places in the inner circle and expressed anger, grief, rage, and shame. A physician said the field of mental health treatment as she has known it is a “cult.” A nurse said she thinks the pharmaceutical industry is the only group that profits from “this broken system.” A therapist apologized for the harm he has done. An emergency room nurse said she always has at least four patients at a time to care for, making it impossible for her to give adequate care to any of the four if one of them is having a mental health crisis. Several elders in the group said the quality of care declined sharply during the Reagan years and has gone steadily downhill since.

Finally all of us sat in a large circle and said what we will take with us from the exercise. Empathy and compassion. Rage. Awareness of the ways the system abuses both patients and carers. Commitment to strengthen the community of those who seek alternatives to drugs, electro-shock treatments, and punitive incarceration of people who report having extreme emotional states.

The man in the photograph was jogging through the streets of Portland carrying a heavily weighted ball on his shoulder, part of his exercise regimen. Most people’s weights are less visible.