I posted a comment about this, but I think it's worthy of a post. I will summarize very briefly.
In 1973, David Rosenhan, a psychologist, published a study of mental institutions that basically went viral. In "On Being Sane in Insane Places" Rosenhan claimed to have sent 12 average people to voluntarily be assessed by different mental institutions. He catalogued the diagnoses they received and how long they spent institutionalized. This study was shocking in purporting to show how poorly diagnoses work and in exposing flaws in treatment. His claims, followed in 1975 by the famous movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest essentially killed off institutionalization in the United States and around the world. Those who supported chemically treatments, as opposed to psychotherapy and hospitalization, won a resounding victory, and that's the world we live in today.
The only problem is, Rosenhan's paper was a complete work of fiction, and he lied repeatedly about the experiment, about the results of the experiment, even about the people in the experiment. Rosenhan, himself was one of the participants, and the alleged experimental protocols that participants were supposed to follow simply did not exist. When experiences didn't match what he was looking for, he simply dismissed and ignored them, and made up 'alternative facts' instead.
Investigative reporter Susannah Calahan and history of psychiatry professor Andrew Scull have thoroughly destroyed Rosenhan's paper and results, and yet it is still the most formative and influential piece of work in the field in at least the last 75 years.
Andrew Scull's lengthy article. I highly recommend reading it all:
https://gwern.net/doc/psychiatry/schizophrenia/rosenhan/2023-scull.pdf
Archive: https://archive.is/fqt8z
This needs to be more widely known. Along with the perverted Kinsey (enough said) and the fraudster Ancel Keys, of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, whose work lead directly to the false belief that "all fat is bad" and who is personally responsible for the high-carb low-fat diet trends of the 1960s on that have killed hundreds of millions, it shows the power that corrupt, fraudulent, and narrative-driven activist scientists can have on reshaping society around us.
No, we should NOT "trust the science," and to say otherwise is distinctly anti-scientific.
I would go further:
This is the norm now. I have regularly heard of people attempting to document the conditions in mental health facilities being effectively trapped in them and kept from contact with the outside world, even when the doctors are aware you are sane.
That's because an imprisoned sane person is much more cost effective than an genuine mental patient who needs constant care.
Adyn Paladin did good work on this as well.
Upvote. I genuinely don't understand how anyone who lived through COVID can still not only defend, but trust the medical industry. The medical kidnapping and gaslighting are real. We should be all be grateful that Reagan shut down the state institutions because the weaponized government and complicit medical industry would be using them to institutionalize "conspiracy theorists" and political opponents like the Soviets used to.
It's honestly at that point where you have to treat doctors like mechanics.
yeah, okay, 'expert'.
But you don't just trust the dealership. You trust your mechanic, the one you have a relationship with, and the one you know his limitations on. You don't go to "a specialist" you go to the specialist that your mechanic recommends because you trust him, and he trusts that guy.
Effectively, hospitals are like Wal-mart mechanics. They're just whomever can fill the void to do the procedure that's been laid out. They don't really know anything about cars.
The insurance mechanism is what is keeping the system alive. There's no price feedback to the consumer, because of 'walmart mechanic' mentality the hospital administrators are now the pre-eminent doctors, surgeons, and anesthesiologists; and their recommendations for additional treatment are usually so bad even the insurance companies are desperate to not get fucked by them.
We need to desperately privatize and personalize healthcare.
But as for mental health facilities. The prisons might do a better job. Bulldoze the Mental health facilities, and re-open the state asylums.
A friend of mine's wife is a doctor - brain surgeon, basically, though I've never got to nag her about the particulars of her job(invasive as opposed to non).
And from the stuff I've heard her ranting about re: the people she's worked with, my attitude toward the medical community can basically be summed up as 'Whelp, better make sure I never get sick!' Or else go to a really well-vetted doctor I can trust.
Funny enough, I also know a nurse... who retired rather than get a covid shot. I wasn't planning on getting one regardless(and never did), but man did that make me raise an eyebrow or three.
Supposedly nurses are the most difficult group to get to take vaccines, and I don't blame them.
That was a hell of a switch: "Nurses are heroes whom you should worship. If this nurse says get the vaccine, then you fucking do it!"
Then suddenly, "If they don't get injections, they are not nurses, they are terrorists, and we don't negotiate with terrorists."
Except most of the people who were institutionalized are now either in prison or voting democrat. So no, shutting down the loony bins was not a good thing.
You can visit people in different locations, and see the difference. I visited two people in different places, one was like a fucking spa. One looked, and treated them like they were in jail.
What's odd is that I've wondered if the prisons are actually better at taking care of mental health patients over the mental health hospitals because there's more accountability in the prisons.
Prisons play games with human lives. Doctors are choosing to go there for higher pay, and better hours currently.
If the prisoner doesn't have their primary doctor do paperwork making the prison doctor responsible for the prisoner, it won't negatively effect the prison doctors license in any way. The prisoner can be ignored, bullied with non compliance, including with allergies, and serious diseases.
I've shared here before my lil bro lost his eye, and had a cornea replacement. That is something thy requires anti rejection meds. Those meds are cheap, and can't get anyone high. After being told my lil brother wasn't getting that, I called about it. I had to get all, " Spell your name" to get the instructions on how to make sure lil bro got those meds. It was too late, his eye was foggy when he ws found not guilty.
I'm sorry to hear that, and I don't doubt that it happened. My question is, "would a mental health hospital even taken your call?". From the stories I've heard from the people who audited them, even spouses couldn't reach people inside, and no other medical information was being accepted from outside unless asked for.