Radical US psychiatrist says mental illness is not a...
Rated • 1 review • activism, health, psychology • guardian.co.uk
"Daniel Fisher was a young, idealistic man in his mid-20s, enjoying life in a hippy commune, when he was hospitalised for four months in 1970 and diagnosed with schizophrenia. During that stay in hospital - his second of three on psychiatric wards - friends came to visit with a copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the bestselling Ken Kesey novel - later to become an Oscar-winning movie - about life on an Oregon psychiatric ward. He recalls fondly: "They said: 'Man, this is crazy. You gotta get out of here.' It was just a different era. We are in a much more conformist era." Fisher, a prominent psychiatrist who is advising the Obama administration on mental health issues, has been on a personal mission for two decades to change the way wider society understands and reacts to mental illness. An advocate of the "recovery model" - which posits that a diagnosis of mental illness is not for life, and that people can recover completely - Fisher is an outspoken and controversial figure in the US, campaigning vigorously for the rights of people diagnosed with a mental illness. Much of what he does is rooted in his own experience. "Human rights doesn't even begin to grasp it," he says. "It goes much deeper than that.""- RAPatton
"There is something unique, he suggests, about the individualism and self-help philosophy that permeates American culture, making it particularly conducive to advocacy of the rights of patients - or consumers, as they are commonly called in the US. "I know I shouldn't generalise, but it is a bit old world, new world," he says. "The culture we live in here that people [outside the US] don't understand is that we are very self-help and peer-support oriented." Despite all the progressive changes to mental health care in Britain over the years - from the closure of large asylums to moves toward a recovery model - Fisher contends that activists in the UK have been too "tame"." - RAPatton
"Not only does he reject the notion that people cannot recover from serious mental illnesses, he rejects the term mental illness. "We don't believe that description is helpful. In fact, we think it's harmful - not only in terms of stigma and discrimination, but also in terms of recovery, because it focuses the person's own attention and the people around them on the wrong issues. It focuses on: 'You take this pill and be compliant, and you listen to the doctors.'" What matters, he says, is the kind of support people get when they need it most. "It's unfortunate that the first message people hear when they are in acute distress is: 'You have incurable brain disease.' That takes a long time to undo. The first thing that people hear should be: 'Yeah, you're in distress, but other people have been in that [state] and there's hope, and you can heal.' If people heard that, many more would recover. Medicine is a tool, but it's not the primary tool."" - RAPatton
"There is something unique, he suggests, about the individualism and self-help philosophy that permeates American culture, making it particularly conducive to advocacy of the rights of patients - or consumers, as they are commonly called in the US. "I know I shouldn't generalise, but it is a bit old world, new world," he says. "The culture we live in here that people [outside the US] don't understand is that we are very self-help and peer-support oriented." Despite all the progressive changes to mental health care in Britain over the years - from the closure of large asylums to moves toward a recovery model - Fisher contends that activists in the UK have been too "tame"." - RAPatton
"Not only does he reject the notion that people cannot recover from serious mental illnesses, he rejects the term mental illness. "We don't believe that description is helpful. In fact, we think it's harmful - not only in terms of stigma and discrimination, but also in terms of recovery, because it focuses the person's own attention and the people around them on the wrong issues. It focuses on: 'You take this pill and be compliant, and you listen to the doctors.'" What matters, he says, is the kind of support people get when they need it most. "It's unfortunate that the first message people hear when they are in acute distress is: 'You have incurable brain disease.' That takes a long time to undo. The first thing that people hear should be: 'Yeah, you're in distress, but other people have been in that [state] and there's hope, and you can heal.' If people heard that, many more would recover. Medicine is a tool, but it's not the primary tool."" - RAPatton
