Who does the structure serve?

Who does the structure serve?

The only people to benefit from using Personality Disorder as an excuse to withhold treatment are

• Insurance companies wanting to save money
• Psychiatrists who would rather label patients awkward and untreatable rather than deal with an above averagely difficult condition.
• Psychiatrists, who have in good faith followed the diagnosis of untreatable Personality Disorder, and now that new evidence contradicting that diagnosis has come to light exposing it as a form of institutionalised abuse, do not have the moral courage to admit that they unwittingly played a part in that.  Thus they prefer to continue perpetuating it.
• Health providers who want to save money  

Whoever is in charge of the budget needs to do their sums again.  This policy has been a false economy and just stored up more costly problems for the future.   

Our over reliance on bio pyschiatry places the source of the problem in the patients mind – not where the source of the prolem actually rests i.e in society and the perpetrators beahviour.

An over reliance in pyschotherapy on behavioural modification invalidates the legitmate emotions of victims and denies the source of their pain.

The inordinate respect that is given to the field of pyschiatry which is still grappling and debating issues such as how to diagnose victims of abuse – especially in fields such as dissociation and PTSD II, means that the power of pyschiatry and the failings caused by intellectual indecision and intransigence on abuse specific diagnosis permeates in to mechanism of state and society , including access to welfare benefits, access to treatment, criminal justice system and employment.  This leaves the individual utterly powerless within a system fuelled by pyschiatry that affects state and society, and which are too powerful for the already overpowered and exhausted individual to contend with.

We must remember that some female survivors have died as a result of such policies, and will continue to do so unless things change.

So much pain.  And the irony is it is pain that stems not necessarily from the abuse itself.  It’s a pain born from the way society and psychiatry have dealt with the abuse subsequently.  A paper “ Lifting the lid on incest”concludes that it is the “response to, not the effects of, sexual abuse that have the most detrimental impact on victims.”

We have to ask ourselves who does this structure serve?  There is the issue of financial gain.  The pharmaceutical companies make a fortune on prescribing as many pills as possible.  Insurance companies and health care trusts think that by withholding treatment they are saving money (This is a false economy as we have seen).  But I think the issue goes further than money.  I think psychiatry has a societal function, and that function, is to “delete” the individuals affected by child abuse through mental health labels in order to shield society from dealing with the true scale of its own sickness: child abuse.  It reminds me of Holocaust denial.  A strong statement perhaps, but I believe there are parallels.  Furthermore, the subsequent treatment of victims of childhood trauma could even be decribed as a western form of genocide.  There are the “un dead” who are “deleted” through horrendous mental health labels.  But then there are those who turn to self-harm, alcoholism or crime etc to escape the pain and emotional consequences of what has happened to them.  Many face a lifetime of isolation and unemployment and very low status.  By not intervening appropriately and with compassion society is in fact allowing these people to “disappear” from the radar.  And ultimately many die from such maladaptive coping strategies – and many die from suicide. 

And at the inquest what is normally ruled as the cause of death, the so called “mental illness” – not the true cause: child abuse.  And these people can be forgotten by society as tragic victims of mental illness, instead of tragic victims of a sick society that has let them down using the powerful tools of psychiatry and the state.

This is not only psychiatric gross negligence on a huge scale- but a human rights abuse.  It is morally disgusting that our society allows this situation to continue.

(Copyright 2007)   If anyone would like to reproduce or quote any of my writing I would ask them to seek my permission first!  E-mail me at traumablogger@hotmail.com  Many Thanks

2 Comments

• Bob Johnson
  May 27, 2008 at 9:20 pm

  Rock on

  Bob Johnson

• Bob Johnson
  May 27, 2008 at 9:21 pm

  Oh and have a look at ECT - convulsive therapy - giving one disease -epilepsy, to treat another ‘depression’. Barbaric - like throwing the TV downstairs to start it working again.

  Grrrrrrrrrrrrr