The Idea
I have an idea, and although it’s not really a new idea, I do think it’s potentially the shortest route to reach our goal, if we do it well. I’d like to get some feedback about creating a free, online, public service for parents where they can find a provider who offers chemical free treatment for their child. The long-term goal is to do this zip code by zip code. We would have to find the parents – the easier part – as well as the providers – the challenging part. This includes a few other services, as you will see, and hopefully, fashioned by your better ideas.
I would guess it to be a 12-24 month project, for a few people, to get it established. I also think there will be good deal of maintenance that will be ongoing. This is proposed as an addition to what ISEPP is already doing. A little background first.
Background
The net results from the more than half century of efforts of Szasz, Breggin, ISEPP, a hundred other websites and organizations, and tens of thousands of others in dozens of countries, has been miserable. Growth of these nasty chemicals has grown fourfold in 20 years, and is on the rise. And as everyone knows, unwittingly or on purpose, academia succumbed to the Medical Model en masse and has become advocates and partners with Big Pharma. Academia is teaching our psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, teachers, teacher’s aides, social workers – everyone in the helping professions. We’re outnumbered 10,000 to 1, minimum.
I acknowledge, admire and applaud our efforts to challenge the science at the College and Universities where all those bogus studies occur. It’s been the careers for some, and there are scores of well-written books, thousands of articles, and so on. In the long run, this will eventually be won in academia – it has to be – but not for years and years, and not, I believe, without a grassroots social awareness campaign.
Al sent me to MindFreedom International to look at their website. I didn’t realize the depth of the organization. I’m very impressed by what David Oaks and his membership has done and continues to do, even if he isn’t normal.
There they have the MFI Directory of Alternatives. They started this in 2009, presumably after a good deal of prep work. They have a list of providers in Canada, UK, and the US. It’s well done. And a number of our ISEPP members are on the list, bless you. That’s a good thing. Here’s the not so good thing. After two years there are a grand total of 64 individuals listed who do therapy without medication. There’s one listed in Canada, one in the UK, and 62 in the US. Why are there only 64 souls on earth who have signed up? Because, I think, the hard part is getting providers on the list.
And add this. We’ve had nearly no impact on parents, except individually, and anecdotal. More important, if a parent in Dayton or Phoenix or New York or Melbourne or London wants to find someone who will take his or her child off medication and treat him in some other way, how does he or she find that provider?
Why Parents?
Parents have the power over their child’s medical needs (I know even that’s being challenged in some places!). More important, and to our advantage, once you engage parents in a conversation about alternatives for their children, their overall dissatisfaction and often disdain for psychiatry is palpable.
This is what parents will tell someone they trust. A doctor told them a while ago their child was sick and needed medication. Then they learned early on the medication didn't work as well as hoped. So they're told their child needs another medication because, so far, he is not responsive, and they have a better diagnosis now. Still no real change, so maybe a third is in order to combat the side effects of one or both of the first two, and so on.
There's a long string of failed interventions and the child's condition is to blame, or the therapist who does the “talk” therapy, or the parents for not monitoring correctly or “enabling” their child. Parents also learn, it is never the psychiatrist and his chemicals. That’s part of the indoctrination. They’re treating a disease, others are doing the “other” treatment.
So, after awhile, most parents know, as a practical fact, that psychiatry hasn't really helped their child at all. It's two years later and instead of just Ritalin, he's talking this one and that one, and the other one. And he's still ADHD, or even more depressed - and so are his parents. (It's always amazing to watch how deftly professionals of all kinds explain in thorough psychiatric detail how much "worse" children in their care have become over time – somehow authenticating their depth of understanding by proclaiming this child is even more troubled than they originally thought. It’s perverse.)
It’s true, of course, a few parents are addicted – if you’ll excuse the term – to their child's medication, and his illness, for a lot of reasons that need attention by the right therapist, but not very many. Most parents are ripe for alternatives, if they can feel like they aren't harming their child, and if they sense advocacy and enthusiasm by their interventionist.
By the way, every teenager that has been given the option to reduce and eliminate their medication - in my experience - has opted for less, and then none, and found a new sense of self worth as they did. Who could blame them? They know better than anyone their "meds" don't help at all. Once encouraged, kids are quick to stop taking this stuff.
The Goal
Here’s the goal. A year from now, Mrs. Smith is referred to our website by the school counselor (or therapist or teacher or aide or other advocates or a private non-profit community program, etc.) as a place to go to find chemical free treatment provider in her city. The school counselor got a copy of our e-flyer emailed to her by a colleague, or therapist, or aide, or another parent, or by surfing the web. By then, I would hope our numbers would be in the thousands - meaning thousands of providers and thousands of parents – and on the rise as word began to spread. Maybe two years is more realistic.
Last week on our listserve we were collecting names of organizations that we want to impact. They have email lists of their own. We have teachers and therapists and social workers in our membership and I’m sure some of them are members of teacher, therapist and social worker organizations, and they all have email lists. There are PTA’s everywhere. I’m confident other members can come up with dozens of other ideas that we could develop to reach parents. When one of our flyers finds it’s way to the school counselor’s office as an option for parents who are considering medicating their child, well, we arrived. If we can get them to our website, the rest is easy – if we’re prepared.
The harder chore, I think, is the same one that MindFreedom must have come up against. How do we get providers in every zip code in the country – and other countries – to sign up? The reason I think the number is so low at MindFreedom is that this is a labor-intensive task. Time, persistence, dedication, along with fresh ideas, is the only way this is going to happen. And they both need to happen to make this beneficial – for parents and providers.
I do think there are tens of thousands of like-minded providers out there in the universe – at least I’m hopeful. So, how do we find them?
Summary
In my opinion, in the long run, it’s going to take a social movement for much to change – a grassroots, word of mouth, old fashioned, tech-savvy, social awareness campaign that impacts demand. Parents talk to other parents about their children. Right now, given the direction they get from schools and the vast majority of therapists and counselors of all kinds when it comes to troubling behavior and what to do about it, not to mention the nationwide ad campaign by pharma, they’re comparing notes about this old chemical versus the brand new chemical. This proposal is about introducing on a major scale, alternatives as part of the conversation. (Anyone else besides me irritated that all non-medicinal approaches are referred to as “alternatives?” When did that happen?)
While academia may find us challenging and an irritant, and although we will continue to win the intellectual battle, until actual curriculum changes occur, nothing is going to happen. And that’s not going to happen for a very long, long time. Way too much money involved, and way too many reputations to protect. And Big Pharma, as you know, will never change - it’s their business.
If we gain the trust of parents and provide them with real alternatives, we’ll have a friend for life and, most important, an advocate. And nothing is better than parent advocates. They are vocal and undeterred. When parents demand alternatives from the professionals – out loud and with fervor – our society will be impacted. We have a huge advantage going into this. Alternatives work, chemicals don’t.
This could be a free ISEPP App in the app store some day - a State-by-State referral resource for therapists – and other providers - that work to reduce and eliminate psychotropic medications for children, and adults. We could develop a parent newsletter, write success stories, and so on.
I’ve fished around on the net. I know others are doing some of this. I’d just like to do it better, and condense it to one site, and really expand the horizons. It would take some R&D, along with others committed to get this going. And patience. Also, I’m techie enough to know that apps and eBooks can get the word out a lot more quickly - and that’s true for all of the gifted members and contributors at ISEPP.
Last thought. I’m not proposing this as a way to recruit membership, though it’s sure OK with me if people want to join. Instead, I’d like to see this as a service for the masses that who turn to this public directory to find alternatives in their town. MFI refers to their list as “MindFreedom Service Providers” and they have a thorough screening process for their providers, including a set of principles each provider must agree to if they want to be listed on their site. However, it’s also limiting. As you know, there are traditional and not-so-traditional alternatives. That’s why what I propose is a little trickier. The numbers of non-chemical provider purists like us are few, so how do we find them? And how do we attract providers who are “on the cusp,” and how do we attract other providers who are a little bit OK with chemicals? Or do we? Lots to talk about.
Ideas need implementation to become good ideas, and good ideas need the ideas of others to become great ideas. Got any ideas?
Thanks.
Randy Cima
951-830-8712
randycima@yahoo.com
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 02:43PM 