I recently read a non-fiction book about a boy with a mild condition - his dad (the author) says he was going to be locked up against his will, until a lawyer got involved. It resulted from the simple fact that they hadn't been told that a certain step they had taken in their visitation would 'commit' him to staying.

The argument for this requirement was one of legal responsibility - if a crazy person enters a place, and they let him leave, they can be legally accountable to harm done to or by the patient.

Listen.. 99% of people diagnosed that get help dont get a physical test re this.. and they are helped greatly.. your basicly against all help here.

People can independantly figure out which doc is a quack or not.

If people dont wanna accept their diagnosis... they have a choice not to continue on an outpatient basis.. i dont see a need for the hoopla conspiracy theory. YEAH the price of the pharma is rediclous.. yeah.. they are for sure screwing us there.. THAT argument I could see.. but this.. who are you really educating?

The majority of people are not kept in hospitals long at all.

My city has a city mental hospital. If an adult seems like they are going to harm others or themselves, they will be admitted and held for a 48 hour observation period.

They DO refuse individuals to call people on the outside in a harassing, or threatening manner.

I know of another situation too. When people are in detox, they aren't supposed to make outside calls. The rules vary with different institutions.

Detox is elective, unless in jail, and i dont know if in jail your not allowed the phone calls for a period of a day, or two days, or even at all.. but once an indivdual is processed in they for sure are allowed a phonecall.

I know I have gotten calls from people in detox in south Florida in jail.

ANYway.. Birds of prey are cool, and so are big cats.(as in your profile) Good luck to you.

Yes, you're right about detox. I was thinking about the place that I worked, where it was voluntary.

You know, i just remembered.. there is even a court that one can appeal to when in a hospital about taking medication, patient rights issues, and the factor of being held or kept.

There are also patient advocates appointed to each patient, and social worker.

Thanks Earthy. Always nice to hear from a fellow Taruean.

hee. awesome.. i dont know enough of them, for sure.

Ditto

While this is true the number of trained paid advocates in ratio to the literally thousands of people they are suppose to be overviewing is so out landish the patients are basiclly only going to be served in the most extream cases. Once a consumer is in residence the whole responsibility goes to licenseing. Which is an other totally imbalanced ratio.

I for sure agree on the patients served situation being far less than perfect.. in state institutions, people can wait longer for things than they should. Its can brink on the absurd.

I am glad however that the help is available.. in any govt agency people can be toal *****.. and it can be a hassle. In the end though, i see great lengths taken to get people where they need to be.. again, thank God for patient advocates, and the fact a lawyer can help along.

Thanks for the support message, but really, this is pretty much what I expected.

Of course there are people who have been helped by psychiatrists. My own mother is one of those. I cannot deny that people have been helped by other people who call themselves psychiatrists. Nor can I deny that there are people who enter the field with the prime objective of helping people. To those who actually do help, I salute them.

My concern is for the actual and potential abuses.

The actual abuses have been documented all over the world for a long time, starting from the original "mental hospital" in Bethlehem England (Bedlam), to the "Deep Sleep Therapy" in Australia, to the current silencing of political dissidents by committing them to mental institutions going on in China, to the numerous reports of abuse going on in mental hospitals right here in the U.S. to this very day.

There is also the propaganda going on in our living rooms during prime time. Who has not seen an ad urging them to "see your doctor to get this wonderful new drug"? These are not "Public Service Announcements" people. They are advertisements intended to bring in more customers, pure and simple. The drug companies don’t care if you actually have a “mental disorder” or not. What they care about is getting you to buy their drugs. Even some the chemists who develop those drugs have reservations about what they are doing for exactly those reasons. (http://www.cchrint.org/videos/experts/shane-ellison)

And the potential abuses are pretty staggering. But anyone with the desire to do a little research can easily find for themselves the political and economic ties between the APA, the psychopharmaceutical industry and the FDA.

Thank God for psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and Occupational Therapists too. They are all advocates for the patient, IMO. I sure hope that I didn't leave anybody out.

... and then there's another, (more sinister, side of the matter):
declaring somebody as "Mentally Unstble" has become a vehical for generating yet another source of revenue -- all of the meds, produced by the Pharma companies, represent a loss of income unless they're sold!

I don't mean to trash all of the good and honest psychiatrists out there, but most of the top ones receive huge bonuses from the Pharmecuetical companies for prescribing their meds to the patients...
I bet, even a 100% healthy person would be prescribed something, if s/he would voluntarily visit the doctor for a check-up...

Certainly, mental disorders are on the rise -- due to the better diagfnostic facilities and changing environmental conditionss. On the other hand, such a declaration has become a part of the arsenal in fighting he "enemies of the state"!

Another reason for the increase of "Mental Ilnesses" appears to be the need to curb the deviant behaviour:
In the middle ages, such people have been declared "Heretics" and butned at a stake. Nowadays. the situation is somewhat simplified: they;re simply declared "Mentslly Unstable (and hidden away in the Mrnts; Institutiond...

Here in California(maybe all over)you can sit on your ever-lovin' rear end and collect a check from the state if you can get a doctor to say you are bi-polar or some other affliction. Of course, there are the medical whores out there that will accommodate these scammers. People are worried about the Swine Flu when they should be worried about the spread of bi-polarism.

As a R.N. I have worked in Psychiatric Intensive Care Units and until you have this type of experience with the severely mentally ill than it is hard to understand.
Somewhere you referred to patients not being allowed phone calls, sometimes that patient might even be in 4 point restraints for attempting to kill another patient or a staff member. Sorry no phone calls at that time.

Some patients could also be in jail but if the courts determine that they are not criminals but have a severe disorder like schizophrenia they are admitted to a psychiatric facility.
All psychiatric units are highly regulated by law and the patients have many rights and everything is done by policy.
Psychiatric units can be highly stressful for the employee and there are many cases of staff members being seriously injured you just do NOT hear about that part.
If a patient becomes too out of control and they are tearing up walls, ceilings, throwing furniture and beating up on people then the police may be called as the patient can no be longer handled at that level of care. At this point they go to jail.
I could go on and on about this subject but believe me these patients have rights!!!!!! If there is a patient rights that is violated the facility would be heavily fined or completely shut down.

My experience...for what it's worth.

I've never heard of anyone being jailed for not taking their meds. What has happened in the cases I've seen is generally the patient is too psychotic to even carry out their basic ADLs, let alone make proper decisions about their healthcare, thus they are danger to themselves and others. A medication hearing is held before a judge where not just the opinion of one psychiatrist, but the patient's complete history and opinions of all health officials involved with that patient and the family members are presented and a decision is rendered.

I can't speak too much about the case of the mother in Florida as I am not familiar with it, but I'm willing to bet the child has a long history of mental disorder and the complications from it and it has been deemed that the child needs medication in order to function. Frankly, I don't get why the mother would refuse to give the medication. If a child had diabetes, surely one would see to it they get their insulin...no difference here, IMO.

In certain situations, patient's are refused privileges as an incentive to take meds and attend therapy. They are in a program and if they do not follow it, it's doing them little good. Again, patients off their meds are not making the best choices for themselves, so some steps/incentives need to be in place to encourage them to do so.

In others cases, doctors need to see a patient in a controlled environment, without outside influences to assess them on and off meds, sometimes trials of meds, in order to determine which treatment is effective for them. So yeah, sometimes they are refused phone calls and visitations, but not as a punishment or threat, but rather as part of the assessment process.

Psychiatric meds have already been determined effective, but how they effect each individual is determined with assessment and medications trials to see what med or combination of meds will be effective in that particular individual. I don't think it's just luck that these medication trials have been proven successful time and time again.

When patients are on their medicines and following treatment, they can tell you as much about their condition as their physician. They are educated on the meds/treatment, side effects and the need for them. I've seen time and again where a patient KNOWS he needs his meds and comes in for treatment voluntarily and those are the greater number of cases that I've seen. Involuntary admissions are necessary often only after someone has been shown to be psychotic, delusional, not in contact with reality and they've threatened suicide or homicide.