Psychiatric Services

Letter to the Editor

Dear Psychiatric Services

In the publication Psychiatric Services, and elsewhere, psychiatrist Fuller Torrey and others have stated that many "mentally ill" people have "no insight into their own condition." Torrey goes on to state that people who use the term "psychiatric survivor" are culpable for effects that have caused harm to the lives of others deemed mentally ill. Torrey even claims that no person responding to his positions has adequately dealt with the "lack of insight" as a forced treatment issue.

Ironically, it seems to me that Fuller Torrey has no insight into [nor empathy for] the extreme intrusive discomfort and unhealthy manipulation that the neuroleptic drugs cause. Unlike Torrey though, I am unwilling to see him incarcerated, forcibly stopped, stigmatized, or violated with drugs to insure his conformity to my "concern" for his well-being.

Fuller Torrey has failed to show insight into the way his forced commitment and drugging policies at AMI have made exceptional people into a class that is actually sub-criminal with respect to a loss of personal freedom and rights. Mental patients are denied even the rights of felons. Freedom of thought is an essential American constitutional liberty. If a law is actually broken, punish offenders as any other. To use the possibility of anti-social behavior based on subjective observation as an excuse to exercise an almost absolute control over people's lives is simply unjust and wrong. If a person does not wish to be treated, wishes to live outdoors, or in whatever way they choose, it is their right, no matter what the personal consequences, as long as they obey the laws of the society. If they don't obey the law, then the remedy should be dispensed within the rights of the criminal justice system.

Torrey and others, if truly interested in helping the homeless or untreated [as opposed to using them to make villains of AMI's opposition] could try to show a [non chemically induced] compassion that would make those homeless and untreated wish to trust his profession. This lack of trust is a greater aversion to treatment than any civil rights law or failure of insight. Better yet, Torrey could use his professional abilities to show the untreated how to gain this preemptive insight on their own, without toxic drug regimens. That he does not do this exposes the sadly authoritarian requirement of the professional demands upon him. I also doubt that he would feel comfortable if the untreated were able to gain a preemptive or preventative insight into the condition of the therapeutic state he is pushing for.

In the horrifying reality represented by Fuller Torrey's stated professional goals, he is, unfortunately, quite right. There are no "psychiatric survivors" Even though most dissidents are obviously able to coherently act on their own behalf, he would, "for their own benefit," chemically break their minds, spirits, and character. Indeed, if Torrey had his way, they, as individual exceptions, would not survive his version of genetic chemistry. Oddly, this shows that Torrey himself has no insight into the compassion or legality that would allow them their independent rights and lives. In terms of constitutionally recognized freedoms, Fuller Torrey's intrusive and incarcerative actions are quite real in their criminality, not merely a psychotic possibility. Do you think he would voluntarily accept responsibility and treatment for his aberration?

Sincerely,

Robert D Ewbank

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