Getting messages from the TV

Jeffrey Arenburg is in the news again; this time facing charges for punching an officer in the face.

Twelve years ago, Arenburg killed Ottawa sports broadcaster and former hockey pro, Brian Smith after he finished his 6 p.m. sports show. Police said Arenburg, who had worked as a fisherman, had made complaints in the past that TV stations were broadcasting messages into his head.

According to Canadian media reports, Arenburg was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was found by a judge to be “not criminally responsible” for the death of Smith.

In a terrible irony, after Arenburg killed Brian Smith, Ontario passed “Brian’s Law,” in his name – a bill that allows for court-ordered community treatment.

Unfortunately, threats to local TV and radio personnel by people with untreated mental illnesses are more common than many realize.

In a questionnaire answered by 259 radio and TV stations:

• 123 stations (47.5 percent) reported having at some time received a telephone call, letter, fax, or e-mail from an individual asking the station to stop talking about them or sending voices to their head.
• The stations had received a total of 3,155 such communications from 284 separate individuals in the past year, with one station reporting having received 1,500 communications.
• 43 stations reported that an individual had at some time personally come to their station to ask them to stop talking about them or to stop sending voices to their head. The stations reported having received a total of 150 such visits from 61 different individuals in the past year.

Different country, same problems

In an article in the Edmonton Sun, a man in Canada describes his family’s struggle with his daughter’s schizophrenia:

"I've been dealing with this for years," says Grant, whose sister is also schizophrenic. With his daughter, he's endured countless sleepless nights, desperately trying to figure out where Candice has disappeared to, and waiting on tenterhooks for the teary phone call and plea to come get her.

When Candice refuses to take her medication, Grant is powerless to do anything about it. She is an adult, so he can't force her. In fact, he can't even get doctors to discuss her case with him, because that would be a violation of her privacy.

…But the laws don't seem to be working for his family, which is struggling to keep Candice safe when she needs protection, while at same time trying to allow her as much freedom and autonomy as the situation permits.

Canadian police praise treatment act

Police officers in Nova Scotia praise the passage of the Involuntary Treatment Act in Canada:

Halifax police Supt. Bill Moore said the new law is useful, particularly since his officers come in contact with people with mental health problems on almost every shift.

"We have to understand a lot of people with mental illness are not going to voluntarily come to the system, so this is the system going back out to them," he said. "So from that point of view, I think it is a step in the right direction."

Psychiatric treatment in Canada

Nova Scotia’s new Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Act went into effect on Tuesday. The Halifax police department welcomed the new law stating, “in the past officers were powerless as they watched someone's condition slowly deteriorate over a day or week. If that person committed a crime, police would take him to an emergency room to try to have him forced into treatment.” Now police are able to intervene, without waiting for a crime to occur, if a person: (i) is threatening or attempting to cause serious harm to himself or herself or has recently done so, has recently caused serious harm to himself or herself, is seriously harming or is threatening serious harm towards another person or has recently done so, or (ii) as the result of the mental disorder, the person is likely to suffer serious physical impairment or serious mental deterioration; AND is likely to benefit from treatment.

Dispelling myths – Strongest support for AOT comes from people who could be saved by it

A commonly propagated myth in the mental health community is that people with severe mental illnesses oppose assisted treatment. In fact, some of the most articulate advocacy on this subject comes from people who have experienced the devastating consequences of untreated mental illness. Advocates like Jonathan Stanley, Valerie Fox, Donnie Buchanan, and Austin Mardon support interventions like assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) because they want to know that if they lose insight into their illness and begin to deteriorate, their families will be able to help them.

Mr. Mardon said it so well in his op-ed in the Edmonton Journal this week:

I live in constant fear of what will happen to me if I become extremely ill again. I am comforted knowing that if I become so ill that I can no longer understand the need for treatment, my wife and family will be able to legally get me the help I need.

Those who are against enforced treatment do not seem to understand that even those who turn their backs on the beneficial and appropriate treatment they could be receiving from their health providers, will receive some type of treatment.

The tragedy is that instead of receiving appropriate treatment from their physicians, they could receive inappropriate treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system; the rough, hopeless treatment of lives lived on the streets; or the finality of treatment at the hands of a mortician.

Deinstitutionalization knows no borders

“Canada is not alone in jailing the mentally ill. The United States, too, deinstitutionalized a large number of psychiatric patients. There, too, law-enforcement agencies increasingly are left to pick up the pieces.

In New York City, according to statistics compiled by the Treatment Advocacy Centre, the number of police responses to complaints about "emotionally disturbed persons" climbed from 20,843 in 1980 to 64,424 in 1998. In Florida, mentally ill people in crisis must be assessed under the state's mental-health treatment law. In 2000, there were 80,869 mental-health assessments, a figure that handily surpassed the 60,337 drunk driving arrests that year.”

More from the Montreal Gazette …

For more information on ensuring appropriate treatment for people with severe mental illnesses in Canada, visit: http://www.cfact.ca/

Overhyping a coercion controversy?

Two international studies recently examined consumers and other stakeholders’ experiences with AOT in long-standing programs in Canada and New Zealand.

Their findings echo what we hear over and over from families and consumers who’ve actually participated – AOT works and the controversy surrounding its use is much more attenuated than those who oppose it would have you believe.

As the Canadian researchers explain, “[O]ur findings were similar to those of researchers in New Zealand who noted that the actual experience of coercion by the majority of patients was much less than the strident policy debates… sometimes suggest.”

It is the mental health "system" that is stigmatized, and rightfully so

Reading through newspaper clips today sparked an epiphany. It is not the mentally ill that are stigmatized by the public as much as it is the mental health “system” that is responsible for their care.

Another revelation is that the mental health system’s apparent impotency is responsible for the virtual extinction of successful “not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGRI) pleas. In Canada, one observer lamented the “crazy system” that is responsible for 2 people found NRGI there. The writer gives the impression that he is not so much concerned that “[t]he system is willing to take a chance that the offender, with the right medication and therapy, can be released into the community without re-offending.” What he really found scary was “What if he goes off his meds?”

Such concerns are understandable considering a story from Florida in which a woman who was found NGRI for killing her parents was released after 17 years in a state psychiatric hospital. (By the way, so much for the theory that NGRI’s have short hospital stays). She was released on condition that she take her medication and be monitored by a Jacksonville mental health contractor. But the contractor apparently did nothing to ensure her success. In fact, they never even reported any problems to the court despite the fact that she stopped taking her medication, stopped going to her day program, and disappeared for a month before airport officers in Washington noticed her behaving bizarrely and took her for a psychiatric evaluation.

There are many mental health programs and providers that are very competent and committed to protecting and improving quality of life for their patients. They should be furious with their incompetent colleagues that stigmatize the whole system. And the system’s clients, the mentally ill, should be even more appalled by the injustice and stigma that has been wrought upon them under the guise of “protecting their rights.”

Canadian advocates

Issues surrounding lack of treatment are prevalent around the world.

If you are from Canada, visit the CFACT website. The Coalition for Appropriate Care and Treatment is a nonprofit organization working to ensure appropriate treatment for the seriously mentally ill.

And visitors from any country will find some of CFACT’s resources extraordinarily helpful. Take, for instance, their piece on the “Seven Deadly Sins of Mental Health Reform …”