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Conditions Of Danish Psychiatry
When you actively "help" extinction it's called extermination - or "cleansing".Regardless of what you call your political system.
The phrase "as promised" refer to the fact that this article was written partly in response to the harassment that someone was applying through using my stat-counter to point to particular pages on my old website that I asume whomeever was doing it didn't like. In particular the topic of psychiatric practice appeared to be unpopular, so my response was - of course - to write more of that kind. Resulting, among other things, in this article. - In the context of psychiatric use and abuse; see also my addition at the bottom of this page
As promised I present here another text on the practices of danish psychiatry. Let it thus be said once and for all that I have no intention to give in to treats or preassure, however suttle. I write whatever the fuck I want whenever the fuck I want. Get used to it.
Danish psychiatric practices have long been under international criticism. Already in september 2002, for example, when CPT; the Torture Committe Of The European Council, described long-term belt-fixation in danish psychiatric institutions as cruelty, and strongly encouraged danish politicians to improve the conditions as soon as possible. A criticism supported by the Danish Institute For Human Rights, who likewise have long been calling for strong restrictions on the excessive use of force in danish psychiatry. Especially in such cases as forced medication or electroshock treatment, which involves a risk of damaging the personality or memory of the victims. (src: Elma Lindberg: "International kritik af dansk psykiatri")
Danish politicians chose, as usual, to ignore the criticism. Their reply, as The National Organization Of Present And Former users Of Psychiatry (LAP) comments to the danish government's reply; mostly gave the impression "that they generally have no wish of meeting the criticism of the CPT..." They comment on behalf of the users:
"...Furthermore we find it problematic that the danish domestic- and health ministry in writing its contribution to the reply to CPT, have entirely avoided involving representatives of the patients who are the victims of the use of force in psychiatric practice. \ In our experience it is not uncommon ... without the conditions of paragraph 5 of the law of psychiatry are met. At the following processing of complaints, at the Objection Council for Patients or at the courts it turns out that ... in parts of the objection processing system is a lack of will to take the complaints seriously. \ ...it appear rather arbitrary when [forceful fixation] is used. In our estimation forceful fixation is often used as a punishment. We find it interesting that it, in the indication on p.52, is never mentioned as the reason that the patient has had a conflict with the staff. The entire problematic around fixation has been wrapped in a misleading rethoric..."(Comment on the danish government's reply to the CPT report of 2002)
Forceful fixation and medication is the typicalt offset for most criticism against danish psychiatry, and typically the outcome is at best the end conclution that the psychiatric institutions needs to be granted more funding. The very mentioning, at the end of this quote, of the misleading rethorics in and surrounding danish psychiatry, is a rare exception.
Partly because they can be difficult to address to people who do not have the sufficient insight into linguistics. And those who do tend to adhere to fashionable theoretic positions; the vocabularies of which are not exactly made to be accessible to the "common masses" at the foot of the ivory tower. And partly because such criticism, when it is sounded, is typically incomplete and thus, as Jacob A. Cornett points out, tend to end up at the claim that the diagnosis does not refer to anything "real", and is easily dismissed as "antipsychiatric" and "nihilistic" (isn't it convenient to have labels like that handy).
In his essay of common psychology: "Mental illnes and psychiatric practice", however, he describes how "mental illness" is constructed and sustained as a language phenomenon in the more complex relations between people in different settings defining the conceptual models within which not only the "mentally ill" him- or her-self; but the whole situation, is defined around a context of "mental illness".
This, Cornett points out, does not mean that "mental illness" is not a "real" phenomenon. Quite the contrary; once it has been established as a parameter of the language model used by the people surrounding the "mentally ill", and (provided that he/she accept this mode of language) internalized by him or her, the "illness" has indeed become something very "real" to him and anyone else agreeing on the language model constructed around the concept of "mental illenss".
Though before I go into depth with this, let me first recapitulate the usual argument, as posed by the so-called "antipsychiatric" position; as it criticise the way the diagnosis tend to create the illusion that there is some kind of actual "thing" underlying the diagnosis, when the diagnosis is in fact merely a category under which "symptoms" are bundled together under the same word. Note here that "symptoms" too are of course also a choice of a way of perceiving observed behaviour of the "patient" (again a way of perceiving another person).
One important point here is that the concepts by which we conceive of our surrondings is not simply determined by-, but do in important ways themselves determine our perception. (Eg. Thomas Kuhn: "The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions" or Franz From: "On The Experience Of The Behaviour Of Others" are particularly recommendable reading on this topic). And once the diagnosis has been attached this fact in itself tend to dictate the conceptual and perceptual frame of reference of interaction with the person in question. Jeppe Berg Sandvej has deliverd a very much to the point, and in this context particularly relevant description of what this means to the patient in concrete terms:
"The psychiatrist's possible decition to forcefully hold a patient at the ward may as mentioned be tried at a court. But how does one prove - here and now, or later in court - that one is not insane, if the psychiatrist says something else? - In light of the fact that one of the primary symptoms of a psychosis is said to be "lacking realization of illness", ie. denying that there is something wrong with one, this problem becomes even more striking.
...
As an explanatory caricature of this problem one could imagine the following scene:
Psychiatrist: We better keep you for awhile. You are not ill!
Patient: No I am not!
Psych.: (smiles) It is not always one can feel it oneself ... (To his dictaphone) Lacking realization of his illness.
Pt.: Oh, shut! What the heck do you mean "lacking realization of his illness"? I am not ill!
Psych.: ... Latently aggressive ...
Pt: (Weary) Are you crazy, let me go, I want out of here ...
Psych.: (kindly acusing) We just want to help you!
Pt.: (Angry) No thanx. I don't want your "help". I will not be made a zombie by your pills ...
Psych.: (To his dictaphone) ... Paranoia and anxiety; obvious indication for treatment ...
Pt.: (Afraid) No, you can't do that ... ? This is not real. This is simply not happening ...
Psych.: ... Lacking sense of reality, possibly skizophrenic ...
Pt.: (Screaming) Noooo! Stop it!
Psych.: ... Pt. is suffering; Ordination of Trilafon, 4 mg. increasing to 48 mg., or until achieved effect ...
Pt.: (Very uneasy) No, no, no ...
Psych.: ... May be nescesary to give as forced store injection ... Akineton against side effects ...
Pt.: (Pushing the psychiatrist away) Dammit I don't want your medication and your injections! (He is overpowered by the staff).
Psych.: ... For the force protocol: Pt. becomes aggressive, violent and threatening; the staff has to use fixation; he becomes easy in the belt after injection of 10 ml. Apozepam ...
...
Of course this is an absurd caricature [in fact this description is not nearly as far fetched as Sandvej seems to think; describing it as a charicature. I have seen very similar scenes play out in real life myself - R.N.]. But we can not just reject the problem. The juridical position remains principially problematic simply by the incapability that comes with getting "insane" stamped in ones papers: One becomes unpredictable and unreliable by definition (sic the psychotic primary symptoms disrupted sence of reality and lacking realization of own illnes), just one is also subject under a special law, where the total infringement on ones integrity in the form of being robbed of ones freedom and subject to forceful treatment is present as a constantly impending possibility, the possible realization of which in the end depend solely on the psychiatric consultant's assessment." (Src: Jeppe Berg Sandvej: The Insanity Of Psychiatry)
Cornett points out that once the patient has been labelled "mentally ill" - or at least once an agreement has been established of conceiving of him/her in this way - certain situations and contexts are, as a result, automatically redefined: The patients everyday problems are now, by those who agree to using this language model, viewed in light of his/her "illnes". And, as mentioned, that as a result of this it becomes "real" as a parameter of this language model, at least to those who agree to use it.
In light of this one may ask if it is not then only reasonable that the patient should submit to the majority and agree to refer to his every day problems within the conceptual framework centered around the "illness" that a good part of the rest of society agrees to accept labelling him/her with? Is it not a simple question of a basic need to be on the same page as the rest of the language users he/she has to communicate with?
But when the language model used on him or her implies that he/she is being downgraded to a kind of "second rank citicen" - whome other citicens does not want to be asociated with - who can no longer get work, or at least will have to accept working for way below what would otherwise be minimum wages - whose juridical position is severely reduced - and, perhaps most importantly; whose prospects of romance, and hence of reproduction, even more so ... Then one really need to think carefully about it an extra time. Would the integrity of your language society be a sufficient argument for you to accept it if someone said that you were not allowed to make money or have children?
Such negative impacts on the victim's situation makes the language model defined by the "mental illness" parameter reminiscent of the kind of language models used for school yard bullying: In either case the function of the language model can be viewed as an atempt to destabilize the victim by enforcing a particular role on him/her which exclude him/her from the main social and communicative group. And both with regard to schoolyard or workplace bullying, as with regard to the stigmata of a "mental illness" the applying of such a language model also have similar effects:
To the degree that the destabilization is effective the victim may develop what is known as post traumatic stress symptoms similar to those described by war veterans. Though in the latter case these symptoms will of course be interpreted in light of the general "mental illness" model, and may thus serve as a further "justification" of the validity of the diagnosis. - Secondly, and more generally; as a result of the exclusion of the main language community the ousted indiviuals have to adapt to new language communities sanctioned by the particular "outsider" identity enforced on them by the main group. As Cornett shows with regard to the construct of "illness" the very presence in such a group does by itself function to uphold the label, since it functions as a "criterion of inclusion" to the group. He examplifies with a quote from the anual plan for the activities of a café for mental patients:
"The target group is characterized by being mentally ill with a low social integration ability [...] The effort is for the mentally ill who is visibly isolated. Drug adicts and actively drinking are not included in the target group. [...] The specific purpose of 'Værestedet' is as the word says to be a place to be where it is initially acceptable just to appear, as long as one can be included under the target group." Cornett comments: "As Værestedet thus choose to exclude those who can not be ascribed the status of mentally ill, it at the same time defines the included as mentally ill. Thus the very definition of the users of the place helps organizing practice around the construction of mental illness... "(Src: Jacob A. Cornett: Mental illnes and psychiatric practice)
Thus the victims themselves are at times - and with some right - criticised for themselves implicitly accepting and justifying the role which has been forced on them, by thus becomming "professional patients" as they reinterpret themselves within the conceptual framework centered around their "illness". One must though remember that they feel they have to do so out of financial and social necesity, as the alternative would be isolation, and as the sparce financial handouts by which the "welfare" may be supplemented are typically conditioned by their submission.
In the context of self fulfilling stigmatization and nazi style persecution see this example