Mental Health Freedom and Recovery Act -- contact your legislator

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The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP), an organization for the reform of psychiatry has published this call to action. Contact your members of Congress today -- links are at the bottom of this post.

 

Mental Health Freedom and Recovery Act

 

The mental health system in the United States is in need of major reform. The piece that follows is a is a vision for congressional legislation. Once passed and signed into law, it will serve as a beacon of hope for nations around the world.

 

Mental Health Freedom and Recovery Act

Protection of Constitutional Rights

 

• The Mental Health Freedom and Recovery Act will ensure that Constitutional rights are protected for individuals who have been diagnosed with severe mental health conditions.
• The act will uphold the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and ensure that least restrictive options are made available.
• The act will create a universal psychiatric advance directive to be respected in all fifty states that allows a person to refuse any/all conventional psychiatric treatment in lieu of safer, more effective means to address psychosis and/or trauma or the right to opt for a small amount of a psychiatric drug for a limited period of time until a psychosis has passed.

System Transformation

 

• The act will transform the mental health system from an illness-management model to one that offers hope and that promotes optimal mental health and recovery.

Recovery Model

 

• The act will place those who have been given psychiatric labels in the driver’s seat with the most successful model yet to be found; one that is self-directed.
• The act will promote consumer-run and peer-supported programs at every level of the mental health system.
• These groups will be involved in every aspect of this legislation, from beginning to end, to ensure it is drafted in a way that addresses the concerns of those who have survived the trauma of treatment from a broken system, with their involvement in all committee hearings until a final bill is passed in both houses of Congress and signed into law.

Informed Consent

 

• The act will establish a universal code for informed consent for all conventional psychiatric treatment; one that addresses the risks involved in hospitalization, the long-term use of psychiatric drugs of all kinds, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and psychosurgery.
• The act will protect children and youth in Medicaid, foster care and juvenile justice systems by providing treatment options other than drugs; especially drugs that have not been approved for these age groups.

Non-Profit, 501©(3) Organizations

 

• The act will make certain that non-profit groups that claim to operate in the best interest of consumers are held accountable to the highest standards of advocacy.
• In order to obtain and/or retain a non-profit status, agencies will be required to provide consumers with information on informed consent (above) along with resources for recovery support, psychotherapy and non-drug treatment options, nutrition/integrative medicine and psychiatric drug withdrawal centers.
• Any agency that does not address these requirements will not be eligible for a 501©(3) status by the federal government.

Treatment Options

 

• The act will provide treatment options, especially for children, postpartum women and older Americans.
• The act will ensure military service members and veterans are provided options that are safe and effective for combat-related stress disorders.
• The act will allow any person who has been diagnosed with a severe mental health condition the opportunity to have the psychiatric label removed once the root cause is addressed, with treatment for trauma or underlying physical condition(s); to include drug or alcohol-induced psychotic episode, sleep deprivation, blood sugar problems, hormonal imbalance, thyroid disorder, adrenal failure, nutritional deficiencies, absorption difficulties, toxic exposure and/or environmental (cerebral) allergies, lyme disease and twenty-nine medical causes of “schizophrenia.”

Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal Centers

 

• The act will promote private, non-profit involvement with psychiatric drug withdrawal.
• These centers will be funded by fines imposed on drugmakers involved in the illegal research and/or marketing of psychotropics.
• Drugmakers will also pay the costs of all psychiatric drugs used in outpatient care for anyone who is addicted and/or chooses to taper off due to the long-term risks of these drugs, regardless of the time it takes to withdraw slowly and safely.

 

Mental Health Recovery Centers

• The act will make certain that there are unlocked, non-drug (or less-drug) treatment centers that are residential, not institutional, such as Earth House and Soteria-Alaska in each of the states.
• The act will promote competition and allow these private recovery centers to serve the needs of citizens who opt for integrative approaches rather than the existing state hospital or conventional psychiatric system by establishing a voucher program whereby freedom of choice will be put into action by Medicaid and Medicare recipients.

Federal Government

 

• Due to the risks involved in conventional psychiatric treatment, no person will be required to show “compliance” in order to be eligible to apply for and/or to continue to receive SSI/Medicaid, SSDI/Medicare by opting for safer and more effective treatment.
• The act will ensure that psychiatric drugs that were illegally researched and/or marketed by will no longer be paid for in Medicaid, Medicare and Veterans Affairs programs.
• The act will require the Medicaid, Medicare and Veterans Affairs programs to pay for the costs of integrative approaches for children and adults who are disabled, rather than forcing institutionalization and/or psychiatric drugs.
• Independent living councils will be required to provide information on informed consent, recovery support, integrative approaches for mental wellness and psychiatric drug withdrawal centers.
• Any college or university that receives federal funding will be required to provide information in these four areas to its students in counseling, social work, psychology or related areas of study.
• Any medical school that receives federal funding will be required to provide the same.
• Federal grant priority will be given to those schools that expand curriculum in these areas.

Federal Research

 

• A higher portion of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget will be used through the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) to study integrative approaches for severe mental health conditions.
• These areas will include safe and effective means to address an acute psychosis, along with treatment for trauma; to include study in the areas of meditation, neurofeedback, cranial osteopathy, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT); along with Chinese meridian-based therapies, to include eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), emotional freedom techniques (EFT) and neuro emotional technique (NET).
• The act will expand on the work of Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.; who treated five thousand individuals who had been newly diagnosed with schizophrenia over the span of six decades and achieved a ninety percent success rate in recovery.
• The act will incorporate Orthomolecular Medicine and other forms of integrative medicine into mainstream treatment for severe mental health conditions.
• The act will provide for the study nutrients and herbs; not only in single-form, but in combinations to determine their benefits.
• The act will allow us to begin to scratch the surface into the scientific phenomenon of the human brain and the spiritual mystery of the human mind with research into neuroplasticity and epigenetics; two areas that offer enormous potential for hope.

States

 

• The state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies will be required to provide information on informed consent, recovery support, integrative approaches for mental wellness and psychiatric drug withdrawal centers.
• Each state will be required to form a Governor’s Committee or other agency to disseminate information to city, county and state agencies about the risks of psychiatric drugs; to include their use in nursing homes and Medicaid, foster care and juvenile justice systems.
• Each state will be required to restore the cemeteries of state psychiatric hospitals and/or allow private groups access to these sites for this purpose
• Each state will be required to allow for the study of integrative medicine and nutrition, along with non-drug approaches for recovery from trauma in a juvenile correctional facility.
• Each state will be required to allow consumer choice for its citizens who have been diagnosed with severe mental health conditions, to include safe places to overcome a psychosis, withdrawal from psychiatric drugs and centers to learn more about recovery and integrative approaches to achieve mental wellness.
• Each state will allow professionals who are well-versed in their respective arts and sciences to practice individualized medicine without fear of reprisal from state medical boards.
• These topics are due top priority at the annual meeting of Governors.

Parental Authority

 

• The act will preserve the rights of parents to seek and find the safest and most effective treatments available for their children, including those who suffer from symptoms of autism without threat from the government.
• The act will require Medicaid programs to pay for the costs of integrative approaches for children who are disabled, rather than forcing institutionalization and/or psychiatric drugs.

Spiritual Component

 

• The act will respect freedom of religion as it pertains to the spiritual component of recovery.
• The act will respect the right of people who have been diagnosed with severe mental health conditions to achieve sobriety – to pursue withdrawal and abstinence from mind-altering drugs of all kinds, including prescription forms.
• The act will respect the predicament of those who are addicted to psychiatric drugs; who have been on large amounts, for long periods of time, and/or in cocktail forms; who may choose to simply reduce harm or not take part in any aspect of psychotropic withdrawal.
• The Vatican Pontifical Council for the Family has made a strong statement in regard to mental health conditions having as their root cause nutritional deficiency and/or immunological reactions to foods or the environment.
• Other faith groups have made resolutions on the need for inclusion, least restrictive and most therapeutic approaches for those who suffer from mental and emotional difficulties that are worthy of this nation’s recognition.

Take Action

 

• Please feel free to copy, distribute or post; especially to psychiatric consumer/survivor groups, mental health professionals and integrative practitioners who have a desire to reform the current system. Encourage their involvement in making sure this vision comes to fruition.

Contact

 

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

 

Yours in liberty and wellness,

Duane Sherry, M.S.

 

https://isepp.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/mental-health-freedom-and-recovery-act/