| ||||
Katherine:As you know, I disagree with your overall view about what is the correct paradigm in mental health service delivery. Not to speak of the AB 1800 thing. :-(Nonetheless I have a lot of sympathy for how you feel & experience the advantages of medication. It just seems to me you are disconnected from experiences that many people endure. L.A. is like a ‘different country’ mental-health-wise and you are speaking a perspective from within a segment of that. Others e.g. Lyn Goldinger whom you know see much the same world and evaluate it differently. And people outside of L.A. are dealing with a whole slew of issues which are not on your ‘front burner’. Can’t say much folks — it’s getting to be “medication time.” Xxx, how I am profiting from taking medications except that I’m alive and have a fairly clear mind. I don’t get paid by anyone, collect disability When you live in a society, you have to follow some rules. On the other hand, we as a society have an obligation to help those who can’t help themselves. There is evidence that even Neanderthal man took care of disabled people in their society.This does not justify a Keynesian view of reality, and its consequence that ‘entitlements’ and ‘medications’ are a substitute for a fully human-centered & morally grounded raison d’etre. As far as NAMI is concerned, they are the least judgmental of any mental health group around. There are all shades of opinion in NAMI, and no one is ostracized because they don’t agree with the “party line.”This is flagrantly in conflict with most experience of mine. I can say that I’ve found a few cases where clients experienced their local NAMI’s on such a basis. Maxine [Hayden] for instance was able to raise money from her local NAMI in San Jacinto, even though Riverside NAMI was on a ‘hate trip’ agenda with her generically speaking. And hehehe it got her local NAMI group in hot water with NAMI, their decent attitude, that is. I have been persecuted by NAMI, especially Alameda County and Riverside County but also all over the state, and virtually driven to personal ruin. The reason was that I didn’t accept THEIR IDEOLOGICAL SLANT on ‘Neanderthals’ and the like. Finally the national leadership of NAMI is bought and paid for by the drug companies, denials notwithstanding. There are many activists in NAMI who have integrity, but they do not own NAMI. This last year, e.g., Sara Turner, who was one of the original founders of NAMI, led the NAMI-Humboldt and the Humboldt Co. MHB to oppose AB 1800. The direct reason apart from the wrongheadedness of this direction in policy was directly opposite to your claim. She felt that Thomson, Jacobs, et al. had pushed NAMI-California into a position *top-down* based on their [TAC] agenda, that support for AB 1800 and the like did not come from the families from the ground up. The democratic process that NAMI claims had been violated in a flagrant manner. Medication along with supportive therapy is what has demonstrated success. 
This is patent nostrum stuff. Your ‘Neanderthals’ could
argue for trepanning
the same way. [That’s a method of
cutting a hole out of the skull surgically so as to
allow the demons inside room to escape.]In the historical context of deinstitutionalization, a medication/entitlement regime has changed the face of things. That’s why yr. ‘patent nostrum’ sells as well as it does. But a slight investigation into humanism or science will reveal that both the values and technology here are most primitive. And many practitioners know that. My complaint with your argumentation is that you lose sight of the larger picture and focus on the person in the emergency for whom ‘triage’ of some kind is the survival issue. Those of us whose abuse/trauma issues are systematically dissed up and down the levels of the mental health practice, are being totally slighted by your argumentation FOR MORE OF THE SAME. Be well 
| ||||