Mental Health

Witness 2016’s heartless transgressions by Congressman Timothy Murphy as he worked to promote his heinous Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act through Congress. Congressman Murphy didn’t miss a beat each time there was another tragedy involving guns somewhere.

After reading Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, I was sworn to the burgeoning masses of mental patients rejoicing in a newfound salvation. Here, finally, was someone who was on our side in the fight to elicit contentment out of a surrounding cauldron of contempt.

Not long ago, journalist Robert Whitaker uncovered evidence that the drug companies’ long-standing narrative of chemical imbalances in the brain being the explanation for mental illnesses, was a fraud.

In almost any venue in which these activists air their grievances, there is an aggregate atmosphere of nostalgia and bitterness. The perceived loss of vitality of this movement of the 1970’s is mourned.

The cosmic circumstance of mental patients is akin to a solar system of drifting elements. Stultification, drudgery of the status quo, vulnerability and victimization.

The drug companies made every effort they could to convince people that mental patients had to be medicated, whether they wanted to be or not.

Robert Whitaker’s investigative work has been a beacon of clarity in the often-murky world of psychiatric treatment. His meticulous research and compelling narratives have shed light on the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on mental health care.

Ted Chabasinski is one of the few surviving founders of the mental patients’ movement in the 1970’s. The following is a letter I wrote to him.

The following article was originally written in 1987. Immediately before the start of the Alternatives ’87 Conference, a Constitutional Convention was held for the National Mental Health Consumers’ Association.

The following article was originally written in 1991. Since then Judi Chamberlin has died of cancer, and both national patients’ organizations have fallen apart due to constant infighting.