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 What is happening now
in the California clients movement is
an intense struggle between two points of view, regarding how
to move forward past the AB 1800 experience of last year. NAMI
has essentially chosen to import involuntary outpatient commitment
by way of a ‘pilot project’
suggested by the RAND study. One
group of clients, including the leadership of the Network among
others, argues that we should fight this the way we fought AB
1800 last year. Another group, myself included, argues that we
should get involved in the state political process in a different
way, one that is assertive regarding the fundamental questions
about how mental health is provided in California.
The differences among us are
sharpened by the fact that NAMI
has shifted its strategy. They have considered carefully the
elements of what for lack of a better term we could call the
‘forced treatment future’
they want for us/everybody, and chosen
to attack on a broad front. No longer is it the (to them)
‘heroics’ of
Helen Thomson that leads the way, where she’s
getting bashed while the membership wiggles uncomfortably in
their seats and ventriloquates, “Right on!”
Now it’s PACT and
Mental Health Courts and an entire world-view of behavior
management DURESS systems
that they are asking the legislature
to buy and the clients to pay for with their blood.
The argue
that we can’t have any real impact
politically in this time frame, except maybe if we are lucky
or skillful as we were last year, we can block the ‘pilot’. The
however have the
Vision that it is possible for us to
learn to do politics like other groups (women, gays, ethnic
minorities, the physically disabled) do politics, by arguing for
a sea change
in the system towards ‘quality services’. They
claim this will resonate more with the body politic and start
them on the road to changing how they think about mental health
IN A WAY WE FIND SYMPATHETIC.
In this perspective, blocking this
toxic ‘pilot project’ will fall out
of this larger campaign, and
will tend to happen despite that likely the prospect for the
‘reform’ campaign in the short run
can’t be for more than some
kind of slowdown of the process of NAMI consolidation of control
of DMH, the legislature, etc.
Another way to put this
is that the clients movement has precious
little experience in politics, apart from an intense involvement
in DMH and the politics of the mental health system itself. We
have (typically) low self-esteem issues and are doubtful about
trying something ‘new’: “Better
the Devil we know.” This puts
DMH in the driver’s seat, and us dependent on the conversations of
Gray Davis with Steve Mayberg. Are we going to be able to act
independently and have our own voice, or are we going to continue
to be (politically speaking) echoes of the mental health system’s
way of being involved with politics?
My own opinion is that
the ‘heroic patience’ that will give us
minor or ‘token’ accommodations while the ‘big
show’ goes on w/o
us, FOR DECADES MORE, is a
miserable choice. I think it’s based on
(1) lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, speaking of attitudes,
and (2) reluctance to DREAM, as
Martin Luther King Jr. would have
chided us. The M.H. system is seeking to buy us, to suck us into
their ‘jobs first, service second’
world, so that they don’t have
to change, and so that we will
accept the deal they must cut with
NAMI. When are we going to stop ‘consuming’
the system’s plans for
‘recovering’ their careers, and start to earn the respect of
society for being worthwhile advocates in our own right?
What I’m advocating is that the prevailing view
— that we can accommodate NAMI’s plans
and the systems’ sell-out — is nothing
less than a breakdown in, and abandonment of our hopes and visions.
I mean, “Whose thinking is illusory here, ours, that we have to
consume the handout proferred by DMH/NAMI, or theirs, that society
won’t ever seriously face
the need to deal in a real way with the
madness issue?” I know where I stand on this
and what work I do
and I ‘have a dream’ and I’m seeing it
start to take hold and .. I
believe history is on our side. Enough cynicism, enough compliance
— let’s take the road
that will empower us, not to make our games
work better, but in reality, to make who we are a valid element of
society.
Respectfully
Andrew Phelps
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