Video: Psychiatrist Discussing Problems With The Mental Health System

@chibam Dr Josef comes up on my feed too. I like that he wants to undertake causes of and care of mental health. He is Aussie who married an American.

yes , much of it is relevant here.

Thanks, @Appleblossom 🙂

I didn't do a deep dive into the guy's background, but I figured it would be something along those lines. He has a distinct Aussie accent, yet it's pretty obvious from the content that he's based in America and is primarily targeting an American audience.

@chibam Its just the old numbers game, in a number and stats mad world. There are more of them on the other side of the Pacific. Are we suffering a brain drain?

In Australia there are a few players:

Jon Jureidini or

Niall McLaren

Do you know any others?

Not many off the top of my head, @Appleblossom . Niall McLaren is the main name that comes to mind. There's also that Simon Katterl, who published that landmark "Not Before Time" report about the ills of the mental health system - supposedly against the wishes of the government.

I should probably start keeping a list of the interesting/impressive voices I encounter in the public mental health dialogue.

Yeah, it makes sense that there would be more voices coming out of America then here, doesn't it? I mean America has something like 10x-12x the population of Australia, doesn't it? So, in theory, you should find the American commentators on mental health outnumbering ours on that sort of scale.

There's a really interesting American speaker, whose lectures I encountered online a few years ago, named Paula Caplan, who really opened my eyes to the true depths of the rot in the mental health system.

You probably already know this, @Appleblossom , but another really interesting video from Dr. Josef popped up in my feed today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqMBqlRtsXk - '20 Brutally Honest Truths About Psychiatry'.

It mostly delves into the system's preoccupation with medication, but it also touches on the deeper flaws that are behind the mental health system's outward problems, including it's preoccupation with medication.

I wish we had a lot more voices out there like this guy's.

Yep @chibam re Paula Caplan. Mad in America and UK, and the European versions celebrating Mad Pride are worth looking at.

yep reKatterl. I keep trying to feed myself hopeful narratives that are actually realistic, and not PR that doesn’t address the issues around carceral psychiatry and chemical restraint.

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@Appleblossom wrote:

yep reKatterl. I keep trying to feed myself hopeful narratives that are actually realistic, and not PR that doesn’t address the issues around carceral psychiatry and chemical restraint.

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I'll be honest, @Appleblossom , I've been following the inquiry into last year's Bondi Junction incident pretty closely, and I can really see the government and the media buttoning down the whole thing to the very simple & neat explanation of 'an inept psychiatrist who unwisely took a schizophrenic off his meds.'

There's a hunger admits the government and general public for a quick and easy way to fix all the people who don't fit in. And this story is playing right into the hands of the people who want to believe that meds solve everything, and that problems only arise when the meds aren't being taken.

Nothing seems to be prompting these investigators to look any deeper into what was happening with this man. They have the perfect answer laid out right in front of them on a silver platter.

I think it'll probably take the patient community at least a decade to recover from this. It's just too convienient to see this as a vindication of the idea that "meds prevent tragedies", and because this is such a high-profile incident, it'll be right through the media as a leading headline, and therefore it'll become deeply settled in the minds of the general public.

Hearing you @chibam

I have avoided it. I figured it might go that way, with the general trends in the media. It’s all too tragic, including lives lost, and lack of good investigation and understanding which may negatively impact others. I do need to be realistic about tendencies in the system and how it impacts loved ones.

I tend towards alternative approaches. Eg.,

https://www.mindaustralia.org.au/news/stratford-scholarship-recipient-explore-new-responses-suicide

https://form.jotform.com/250557245529866?mc_cid=53e6712e12

@chibam in terms of consumer movement, this could be interesting.

Yet I am also mindful, that a system of poster celebrities, as a main discussion in recovery… could lead to hidden mental health problems for the many who fall through the cracks in what might have become a winners and losers game. Even though it had good intentions.

we need robust debate in our advocacy space.

@AuntGlow @Ru-bee @rav3n @Jynx @RachSANECEO @tyme @Tolly

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@Appleblossom wrote:

I tend towards alternative approaches. Eg.,

https://www.mindaustralia.org.au/news/stratford-scholarship-recipient-explore-new-responses-suicide

Seems interesting, @Appleblossom . I'll have to make time to watch the full speech video they link to. The article sounds nice enough, but it's the finer details of these sorts of initiatives that are crucial. Hopefully the video will have more clarification on those.

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@Appleblossom wrote:

we need robust debate in our advocacy space.

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Yup.

And free speech. That is essential.

Niall McLaren has mentioned in several of his writings the culture of suppression within the mental health industry - how sceptical therapists are warned in the harshest possible terms to keep their mouths shut about their misgivings about the industry's standard practices and ideologies, lest the industry elders destroy their careers.

But the suppression is all over the place.

Regardless of whether your a therapist, a patient, a carer, or anyone else, there are tons of important things you simply aren't aloud to say by the powers that be. Important things that need to be said out loud, in order for there to be any sort of meaningful and productive discussion about these matters.

But instead, it's like we're trying to have a crisis talk about what to do about the dozens of locals who have died and the hundred of houses that have disappeared within the past few days, while being forbidden by the authorities from mentioning the fact that there's a monster bushfire raging through the county.

How can we contemplate solutions when we can't even earnestly discuss the problem?

It boggles the mind... I swear, a lot of the time I feel like the whole mental health dialogue is something straight out of a George Orwell novel.