Michigan Anti-Stigma Trainings or 2009

From DCH:

Join one or both workshops, they are free! A training class is
scheduled at a location near you and here are the dates and locations:

1.      February 26, 2009 – Crowne Plaza Hotel, Novi

2.      March 23, 2009 – Lake Michigan College, Benton Harbor

3.      March 24, 2009 – Radisson Plaza Hotel, Kalamazoo

4.      June 2, 2009 – Best Western Franklin Square, Houghton

5.      June 3, 2009 – Quality Inn & Suites, Sault Ste. Marie

6.      June 29, 2009 – Residence Inn, Pontiac

7.      August 11, 2009 – Holiday Inn, Alpena

8.      August 12, 2009 – Best Western River Terrace, Cheboygan

9.      September 9, 2009 – Thomas Edison Inn, Port Huron



Time:   10:00 am to noon – Creating and Developing an Advance Directive

       1:00 pm to 3:00 pm – Overcoming Stigma and Developing Healthy Self-Esteem



Below is the link to download the brochure or to register online: http://www.macmhb.org/Description/AdvancedDirectivesAntiStigma.html



Who should attend: Primary consumers, staff and family members.



There is no fee for these trainings, space will be limited and
pre-registration is a requirement. If you would need to cancel once you
are registered, a written cancellation notice is requested. It will
assist us with meal counts and would allow others to be able to attend
if they were placed on a waiting list.



If you have any questions please contact Chris Smith.



We look forward to seeing you at one of the listed locations.



Chris Smith

Training & Meeting Planner

Phone: 517-374-6848

Email: csmith@macmhb.org

Christmas Eve Forced Schock for Ray Sandford

From Mind Freedom:

Ray Sandford phoned the MindFreedom office this morning, as he does

most days.



As you probably know, Ray has received about 35 involuntary

electroshocks. MindFreedom's Ray Campaign has activated hundreds of

people like you to support Ray. This won Ray national publicity and a

new hearing last week.



Ray gave me the bad news that the judge ruled against him. Again.



That means Ray is scheduled for another of his every-other-Wednesday

involuntary electroshocks tomorrow, 24 December 2008.



Christmas Eve.



Ray says, "I'm really disappointed in that." Ray thought that maybe

his family's holiday get togethers would delay this week's forced shock.



But Ray said that instead of the gathering, "I'll be having tacos

with my aunt tonight to celebrate Christmas."



So tomorrow morning Ray will be woken up early in his group home, and

escorted to a forced shock.



Ray told me this morning:



"It's a painful awful experience. Every time. It takes away memory

viciously. It is scary as hell every time I go."



Ray says he always objects.



"I say, 'I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this,' which

I've known since the first time. Everyone figures I'm totally nuts."



Ray is not giving up.



So we are not giving up.



We ask that you not give up.



Eye-witnesses at Ray's hearing, held in a dreary hospital basement,

knew he did not have much of a chance.



Ray's court-appointed attorney, Jon Duckstad, refused to call any

expert witness to testify for Ray's side. (See MFI Blog for more on

the hearing.) Mr. Duckstad has refused to respond to any offers of

help from MindFreedom, including a number of skilled attorneys we've

found who offered to assist for free.



Ray is keeping his spirits up.



Ray is so grateful to MindFreedom members and supporters for speaking

out. Ray is proud that even a relative in Alaska heard him oppose his

forced shock on National Public Radio (click on http://

www.mindfreedom.org/ray to hear that, and read more about Ray).



I am deeply impacted by Ray's ongoing psychiatric torture out in the

community.



All abuse is bad, but severe outpatient abuse is traumatizing to all

of us, like me, who have experienced mental health system human

rights violations. It means none of us are safe, even in our homes.



So this e-mail is not one more alert. We'll do another alert soon.



This is a brief note from the heart. This is a note of appreciation

to all who support MindFreedom's campaigns.



This is also encouragement for an end-of-the-year membership to

MindFreedom International, which is tax-deductible.



You may donate securely online, or find other ways to donate by

phone, fax or mail, by clicking here:



http://www.mindfreedom.org/join-donate



Your reading MFI public alerts is helpful. Please take the next step.



If you have not already a member, become one today. If you are a

current member, please renew early. Or if you are a lapsed member,

please renew now, for as generous amount as you can.



As an activist coalition, MindFreedom is independent of government

and mental health system funding. Especially during tough times,

every member is crucial.

Mental patients isolated for years despite laws

From Washington Post:

Mental patients sprinkled throughout the nation's psychiatric
hospitals are being locked up alone for years despite laws aimed at
preventing the practice, because medical workers say they're too
dangerous to handle any other way.

Health officials call them outliers _ rare, unpredictably violent
people who don't respond to medication or other treatment. Advocates
call them victims of a system that has lost patience and creativity in
caring for those who are most difficult to treat....

The laws and court rulings don't cap the consecutive days a patient can
be isolated or restrained, though, so hospitals can hold a patient
indefinitely by simply signing off on it every 24 hours....

For More....

Hi, and WELCOME to Florid!

from florid.org.uk:

FLORID is a website run by mental health service users for people who
have experienced mental health difficulties. It’s a website which aims
to bring together information relating to mental health in a way that
is user-friendly and simple.



Our mission is to provide a place where anyone who has ever been
affected by mental health issues can feel safe, and can share
experiences and opinions without fear of judgement or criticism.

For More...

Day to Day covers Ray Sandford's ect

From Minn. NPR:

St. Paul, Minn. -- Ray Sandford has been getting electro-convulsive

treatment, also known as electroshock and ECT, since the end of May.

For Ray, the process works like this. Every week or two he is taken

to a hospital, where a medical technician attaches electrodes to his

head and delivers electrical current into his brain. The current

causes a seizure.



For reasons that doctors still don't quite understand, some patients

with severe depression or mania get better after having ECT.



But the potential benefits don't matter to Ray. He says he dreads the

shocks and wants them to stop.



"It's scary as hell," he said.



Ray is 54 years old, with a receding hairline and a salt-and-pepper

beard. He walks with a cane and his hands shake slightly, a side

effect from some of the medication he's taking, he says.

For More:

Locked Wards ‘Harm Patients’

From Charlottesville Prejudice and Civil Rights Watch:

The
locking of mental health patients into their wards in NHS hospitals
makes them more likely to be violent, harm themselves and refuse
medication, new research shows.

Treating
people with depression, schizophrenia or manic moods as if they were
prisoners is designed to promote safety, but increases the risk of them
attacking nurses or fellow patients, according to the study by London’s
City University....

For More....

Brilliant, thoughtful critique of psychiatry

From Beyond Meds:

I have excerpted from a very long article from the Psychiatric Times,
the below paragraphs. I strongly urge people to read the whole thing,
but if you need a taste of what David Kaiser MD is saying read the
below paragraphs. This is the best critique of psychiatry I’ve read
from a practicing psychiatrist. It was written over a decade ago but
the reality on the ground remains disturbingly exactly the same:.....

For the Excerpt....

Recovery Is An Individual Process: Mental Health Services From A Consumer Perspective - Podcast

from Medical news Today:

Talking about the effectiveness of mental health services from the
consumer's perspective, Michael Bouwman spoke to Prof Brenda Happell.
Participants noted that personal improvement was not always the result
of medical intervention: support and social connectedness was seen as
most important, as well as medication, spirituality and in some cases,
cigarettes.


The development of individually tailored crisis management plans, which
incorporate a broad range of therapies that assist an individual
through the recovery process, was noted as! beneficial.


Visit Podcast page with transcription and additional details


Listen to Podcast

For More...

Coerced Medication Used In Psychiatric Care Despite Lack Of Clinical Evidence

from Medical news Today:

Researchers are calling for more studies into the practice of forcing psychiatric
patients to take medication, after a research review showed that there have been
very few rigorous investigations of the procedure.

For More....

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy very effective for depression

From Beyond Meds:

I’m a big believer in meditation to treat any psychiatric disturbance
and have a couple of recovery stories of people who just used
meditation in order to heal from deeply entrenched mental illness.....

For the stories and More....

Expert or Shill?

from NY Times:

More evidence has emerged of appalling conflicts of interest that throw
into doubt the advice rendered and the research performed by two
prominent psychiatrists who have received substantial funding from the
pharmaceutical industry......

Earlier this year, Congressional investigators discovered that Dr.
Joseph Biederman, a world-renowned child psychiatrist at Harvard
Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, had failed to report
to Harvard at least $1.4 million in income from drug companies, in
violation of the university’s conflict-of-interest guidelines.

Now,
internal drug company e-mail and documents that surfaced in a lawsuit
have sketched out what looks like an unsavory collaboration between Dr.
Biederman and Johnson & Johnson to generate and disseminate data
that would support use of an antipsychotic drug, Risperdal, in
children, a controversial target group.

For More.....