[NYAPRS Enews] New Book Provides Testimony to Many 'Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry'

[Harvey Rosenthal]

NYAPRS Note: Here's some information about a book that's been highly recommended by several E News readers.

 

Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry 

Peter Stastny / Peter Lehmann 

http://www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com/books/without.htm 

 

The book highlights alternatives beyond psychiatry, current possibilities of self-help for individuals experiencing madness, and strategies toward implementing humane treatment. 61 authors-(ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry, therapists, psychiatrists, lawyers, social scientists and relatives from all five continents-report about their alternative work, their objectives and successes, their individual and collective experiences. 

 

What helps me if I go mad?     How can I find trustworthy help for a relative or a friend in need?     How can I protect myself from coercive treatment?     As a family member or friend, how can I help?     What should I do if I can no longer bear to work in the mental health field?     What are the alternatives to psychiatry?     How can I get involved in creating alternatives?     Assuming psychiatry would be abolished, what do you propose instead?

Those are some of the questions, which are addressed by the 61 authors-(ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry, medical practitioners, therapists, lawyers, social scientists, psychiatrists and relatives from all five continents. 

Contributions by Volkmar Aderhold, Laurie Ahern, Birgitta Alakare, Karyn Baker, Ulrich Bartmann, Agnes Beier, Regina Bellion, Wilma Boevink, Pat Bracken, Stefan Bräunling, Ludger Bruckmann, Giuseppe Bucalo, Dorothea S. Buck-Zerchin, Sarah Carr, Tina Coldham, Bhargavi Davar, Anne Marie DiGiacomo, Constance Dollwet, Jeanne Dumont, Merinda Epstein, Sandra Escher, Jim Gottstein, Chris Hansen, Geoff Hardy, Petra Hartmann, Alfred Hausotter, Michael Herrick, Guy Holmes, Andrew Hughes, Theodor Itten, Maths Jesperson, Kristine Jones, Hannelore Klafki, Miriam Krücke, Peter Lehmann, Bruce E. Levine, Harold A. Maio, Rufus May, Shery Mead, Kate Millett, Maryse Mitchell-Brody, David Oaks, Peter Rippmann, Marius Romme, Marc Rufer, Gisela Sartori, Erich Schützendorf, Jaakko Seikkula, Andy Smith, Zoran Solomun, Peter Stastny, Chris Stevenson, Dan Taylor, Philip Thomas, Jan Wallcraft, David Webb, Uta Wehde, Scott Welsch, Salma Yasmeen, Laura Ziegler and Ursula Zingler

Translations by Christine Holzhausen, Katy E. McNally and Mary Murphy

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Preface by Robert Whitaker

The first question raised by a book titled "Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry" is this: Why do we need alternatives? What is wrong with the "care" that mainstream psychiatry provides? While there are many answers to that question, first and foremost we can look at one startling statistic, and that is the rise in the number of people disabled by "mental illness" over the past 50 years.

The modern drug-based paradigm of psychiatric care dates back to 1954, when chlorpromazine was introduced as the first antipsychotic medication. This, or so psychiatry would like us to believe, kicked off a great leap forward in society's care of the "mentally ill." Psychiatric researchers are said to have made great strides in understanding the biological causes of mental disorders and that has led to the development of ever better drugs for treating them. Yet, here is what all this "progress" has wrought: in the United States, the rate of the "disabled mentally ill" has increased nearly six-fold in the past 50 years, from 3.38 people per 1,000 population in 1955 to 19.69 people per 1,000 population in 2003. Since the introduction of Prozac (1) in 1987-and this was the first of the second-generation psychiatric drugs said to be so better than the first-the number of so-called disabled mentally ill in the United States has been increasing at the rate of 150,000 people per year, or 410 people newly disabled by "mental illness" every day.

Other countries that have adopted a drug-based paradigm of care, such as the U.K. and Australia, have also reported a great surge in the number of people disabled by mental disorders in the past 50 years. This interesting fact leads to only one conclusion: mainstream psychiatry's paradigm of care has failed. It has not proven to be an approach that helps people struggling with mental distress of some kind-depression, anxiety, manic thoughts, psychosis, etc.-recover and get on with their lives. Instead, it has proven to be an approach that increases the likelihood that such people will become chronically ill.

We desperately need to think of alternatives to that failed paradigm of care. That is a big challenge, and yet the contributions in this timely and much needed book all ultimately point to a common starting point: if we want to help those struggling with their minds, we can start by thinking of them-as the Quakers did when they rebelled against mainstream psychiatry in the late 1700s and early 1800s-as "brethren." Not as people with "broken brains," but simply as people who are suffering. From that conception, a whole world of "care" follows. What does everyone need to stay well? Shelter, food, friendship, and something meaningful to do with his or her time. Any society that provides such care and support, along with a message of hope-that people can recover from whatever mental distress they may be suffering-makes a good start at providing an effective alternative to psychiatry.

There are chapters in this book that tell of such programs. There are proven alternatives to psychiatry, programs that have a track record of helping people get better. And there are reports of ways of coping with madness on an individual level. This book hopefully will encourage many, many other such efforts to take root and flourish.

Robert Whitaker

Cambridge, MA

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Introduction from the Editors

"Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry" is a collection of reports and approaches from non-, anti- and post-psychiatric everyday life in different countries and provides an appraisal of individual and organized alternatives and measures that point to a need for structural change in the system. This is a book of practice and ideas, more personal than generalized. It offers suggestions, highlights contradictions and problems, and shows positive examples and models but does not provide easy answers.

Our alternatives beyond psychiatry are far removed from the academic remains of the '68 generation; nor are they a reform-oriented variant of Italian psychiatry, social psychiatry or community extensions of psychiatric institutions. Instead, alternatives beyond psychiatry are truly innovative, initiated and carried out by critical professionals and independent (ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry, the real experts in the psychiatric domain, dedicated to the right of self-determination, physical inviolability and social support.

Alternatives beyond psychiatry originate from an undogmatic and humanistic movement. Accordingly, the texts in this book are filled with a contrarian spirit and the fundamental conviction that (1) psychiatry, as a scientific discipline, cannot do justice to the expectation of solving mental problems that are largely of a social nature, (2) its propensity and practice to use force constitutes a threat, and (3) its diagnostic methods obstruct the view of the real problems of individuals.

Furthermore, the texts in this volume describe a commitment to (1) developing adequate and effective assistance for people in emotional difficulties, (2) safeguarding civil rights in treatment on a par with 'normal' patients, (3) joining forces in cooperation with other human rights and self-help groups, (4) use of alternative and less toxic psychotropic substances and a ban of electroshock, (5) new ways of living with madness and being different-with as much independence from institutions as possible, and (6) tolerance, respect and appreciation of diversity at all levels of life.

This book has been published without any financial support from sponsors. We have no connection to the pharmaceutical industry and to organizations that are dependent on them, nor to Scientology or other sects and dogmatists of whatever color. Beyond health, nothing is more valuable than freedom and independence.

Peter Stastny and Peter Lehmann 

 

About the Editors 

Peter Stastny was born in Vienna, Austria, where he graduated from medical school in 1976. Since 1978 he has been working and residing in New York City. He is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and has conducted several publically funded research projects in the area of vocational rehabilitation, social support and self-help, in collaboration with individuals who had survived personal crises and psychiatric interventions. Currently, Dr. Stastny is working on the development of alternative services that obviate psychiatric intervention and offer autonomous paths towards recovery and full integration. These activities have engendered a close collaboration with the user-survivor movement, as manifested by joint research projects, publications, service demonstrations, and community work. He is a founding member of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). 

 

Peter Lehmann  Born in Calw, Black Forest (Germany). Education as a social-pedagogist. Living in Berlin. Founder and editor, Peter Lehmann Publishing. From 1994 to 2000, board-member of the German organization of (ex-)Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. From 1997 to 2000, member of the Executive Committee of Mental Health Europe, the European section of the World Federation for Mental Health. From 1997 to 1999, Chair of the European Network of (ex-)Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP), since 2002-2004 Interim secretary of ENUSP, since 2004, ENUSP board member. 

 

 

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