Pete Earley

(7-13-20) Religious beliefs and mental illness can be a touchy subject.

Faith and spiritually often can provide comfort to those in crises. Sadly, some religious leaders encourage individuals to “pray away” a mental illness. Others explain that mental illnesses are the result of an individual not being faithful to God’s teachings. Ministers often are not trained in how to respond when someone in their church has a mental health crisis.

The federal government has issued a guide entitled: Compassion in Action: A Guide for Faith Communities Serving People Experiencing Mental Illness and Their Caregivers that is “designed as a resource to help faith leaders from all religious and spiritual traditions, as well as their congregants.”

The Center For Faith and Opportunity Initiatives (Partnership Center) at the federal Department of Health and Human Services, said the goal of its 42-page guide “is to increase awareness and build capacity to serve people in their midst experiencing mental illness, and to care well for their family or caregivers.”

One in four Americans seek help during a mental health crisis from a faith leader before they approach clinical professionals, the guide notes. To help faith leaders, the guide sets out “seven key principles that offer a way for leaders to address mental illness in their community and to identify the small steps they can take to put their compassion into action.”

“We recognize different faith traditions may approach matters of mental illness from different perspectives. Some faith communities may not believe that modern medicine of the sort described in this Guide can play a legitimate role in wellbeing. The purpose of this Guide is not to disregard such faiths or beliefs. Rather, for faith communities that accept the value of medicine, or those uncertain about how faith and medicine can interact, this Guide recommends an approach that offers the benefits of both faith and medicine.”

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BREAKING NEWS:

Leading Mental Health Organizations Call on Attorney General Barr to Stop 

July 15 Scheduled Execution of Wesley Purkey Who is Diagnosed with Schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease

 (Washington, D.C.) Pointing to the Trump Administration’s commitment to “addressing the needs of individuals with serious mental illnesses” and arguing that “proceeding with his execution would violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on executing people who are not competent to understand the reason for their execution,” three of the country’s leading mental health organizations today submitted a letter strongly urging the Trump Administration to withdraw the July 15 execution date of federal death row prisoner Wes Purkey, and to commute his sentence to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. 

The letter, signed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Mental Health America (MHA), and the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), cites Mr. Purkey’s childhood history of “horrific physical and sexual abuse” and of psychiatric problems including institutionalizations beginning at age 14. “His diagnoses included schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and brain damage. He experienced terrifying delusions and hallucinations, including the belief that people were spraying a poisonous mist into his room and that drug dealers had implanted a device in his chest that was intended to kill him.” 

The letter from the three organizations can be accessed here.

(7-8-20) Discussions about how to shift responsibility for persons with serious mental illnesses away from the police and back on social services and the medical community continue to be debated. I’ve received emails from those who support my views and those who don’t. 

Long-time mental health advocate, Harvey Rosenthal, chief executive of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services – one of the most influential organizations that represents the rights of individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses – used the Fourth of July weekend to write about freedom for those with mental illnesses.

Promoting Liberty and Freedom: The Pathway to Dignity and True Mental Health System Reform

By Harvey Rosenthal, guest post from a different point of view.

I have always viewed the service and support that we offer to each other as ultimately about promoting and protecting freedom and liberty, or better yet liberation. Liberation from the restrictions and limitations that told and still tell us that recovery ‘happens’ for just some people instead of being expected for everyone and that have been imposed at times on us by our field, our academic institutions, our families, friends, neighbors….and ourselves.

There are a number of freedoms to aspire and commit to and, in some instances, to celebrate today.

Freedom from discrimination, devaluation and ridicule from others and from the fear, shame and self-condemnation we impose on ourselves.

Freedom from attacks by some on choice, rights and privacy protections, especially around the right to choose or refuse treatment and where it’s delivered…and the freedom to have access to meaningful legal assistance and psychiatric advance directives.

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Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan taken from Wikipedia

(7-6-20) I received a slew of emails about last week’s blog that called for shifting responsibility of the seriously mentally ill from the police to social service agencies and the medical community.

One long-time reader chastised me for unintentionally spreading a “cheap stereotype” of American soldiers when I wrote:

“No one wants RAMBO answering a mental health call.”

In a separate email, Virgil Stucker, who became president emeritus of the CooperRiis Healing Community in 2017 after serving as founding Executive Director from 2003, took issue with this statement:

“We have never shut down longer term treatment facilities. We simply have made them only available to individuals who can afford the high costs of such excellent facilities as McLean Hospital or such healing communities as Gould Farm or CooperRiis.”

Here’s what both had to say:

Dear Mr. Earley,

I’ve been an avid follow of your blog for quite some time now.  Today I read your post: Defunding the Police and Serious Mental Illness: Opportunities, Hard Questions, Dangers.  In the section entitled “Training Will Not Fix The Problem,” I read a line that bothered me quite a bit.  You wrote “No one wants RAMBO answering a mental health call.”  This single sentence has several problems.

To begin, I think you need to go watch First Blood, the movie that introduced cinema-goers to the character of John Rambo.  In this film Rambo is a homeless veteran, depicted as suffering from what seems to be PTSD-like symptoms.  He is walking across the country seeking out friends that he served with.  The movie does end up becoming an 80’s action-fest, but only after Rambo is harassed, arrested, and brutalized by the local sheriff’s department.  Rambo is not my enemy, he is me.  Like me, he is a tortured soul suffering from mental illness.  When his liberty is abused by local law enforcement he snaps and falls back on his special forces training.  I am not trained as such, but I absolutely dread the idea of having an encounter with hostile law enforcement officers.

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(7-5-20) A Fourth of July weekend surprise!

A keen-eyed viewer noticed a copy of my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, behind Washington D.C. news anchor Doreen Gentzler, who is working remotely from her home because of the Covid 19 virus. (Fourth book from top.)

I was delighted and honored, but not surprised because the popular newscaster has been a champion in reporting stories about mental health in the Washington D.C. area. She is the station’s health reporter and played a pivotal role in developing NBC Channel 4’s long-running educational news series about mental illness called Changing Minds. In 2015, NBC reporter Mark Segraves interviewed my son, Kevin, and me about the importance of Crisis Intervention Team training as part of that series.

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(Editor’s note: this is the second in a series about restructuring mental health services.)

(7-3-20) The defund the police movement has sparked conversations about shifting responsibility for the seriously mentally ill away from law enforcement back where it belongs – on social services and the medical community.

This is a great opportunity for improving mental health care, but we must be realistic and answer some tough questions.

We cannot fully end all interactions between the police and courts with the seriously mentally ill. Americans with untreated serious mental illnesses can be dangerous. Involuntary commitment hearings are legal matters. I find talk about arming social workers or completely dismantling police departments counter productive. Our goal should be to create a mental health system that doesn’t rely on the police as first responders and minimizes court involvement.

Step One: If money is to be shifted from the police department budgets to mental health services, those funds should be spent directly on programs that will help reduce arrests, shootings and incarceration. While admirable, it is difficult to see how early education programs in schools about mental illnesses and community youth programs will reduce police engagement. Greater access to integrated health care, peer support, housing, Assertive Community Treatment teams, mobile crisis response teams, crisis care beds, adequately staffed drop off centers that are warm and welcoming – these are where siphoned funds should be spent.

Training Will Not Fix The Problem: I’ve always been a strong and vocal supporter of Crisis Intervention Team Training. CIT trained officers are heroic and what all police officers should aspire to be –compassionate problem solvers. No one wants RAMBO answering a mental health call. But we cannot train our way out of our mental health crisis and we can’t depend on the police to fix our patchwork system.Click to continue…