Changing the system from within

Gianna at Beyond Meds posted a great piece, including two videos, on Patricia Deegan earlier today, where she, among other things, mentions that she'd "wish she (Pat Deegan) would talk more about the importance of freeing oneself of meds".

About two years ago, I read the Norwegian psychologist Arnhild Lauveng's account I morgen var jeg alltid en løve (Tomorrow I always was a lion) about her experiences in the Norwegian mental health system as a "schizophrenic", her recovery, and her becoming a psychologist.

I recall being slightly disappointed about Lauveng's "somewhat laissez faire approach to suggesting others are often extremely over-medicated", as Gianna has it in her post in regard to Pat Deegan.

Lauveng's account was one of the first I came across by someone who'd recovered and had become a professional, working in the mental health system, and back then I thought, it was rather exceptional for a survivor/ex-user to enter the system as a professional. Which I later on found out it isn't. Dan Fisher and Rufus May are just a couple of others who chose to become professionals, determined to change the system from within.

The problems with this are the same as they often are with political activists who choose to try and change the system from within: before they've reached a position in the system, that really would let them change it, they've often become more or less spellbound by this very same system, while another, and maybe even more important, aspect is that if you take on the role of and identify as the fighting "guerilla", fighting an enemy who you feel, fights you, you'll inevitably keep on fighting, even though there might be a shift in power, even though you one day may be the one who holds the power: the revolution devours its own children. Black people in South Africa successfully fought Apartheid, the white oppressors. Now they fight each other.

So, in order to break the vicious circle of aggression, you'd have to stop fighting, stop creating enemies, stop objectifying others and thus turning them into your enemies.

Now, I don't suggest, that either Pat Deegan or Arnhild Lauveng are any more aggressive than most people. They certainly are not, they're rather less aggressive. Still, participating actively in a system, that is as characterized by aggression (with fear being the source of all aggression) as the mental health system is, requires that one is willing to compromize with a certain amount of aggression.

In the second video, which Gianna posted at her blog, and which I'll post below, too, Pat Deegan talks about her torments while witnessing others being subjected to the same dehumanizing "treatment", like being put in restraints, that she herself had been subjected to, while being an intern at a psychiatric hospital. If she didn't want to get into serious trouble with the system, putting her position, her future as a psychologist, at risk, she had to, at least, tolerate, tacitly accept, these human rights violations to take place, with very little, if any, possibility to stop them right here and now. This, to me, is a kind of "passive aggression". It is complicity. And it is selling your soul.

In his latest radio blog show, Larry Simon talks about why he left the ICSPP, and why he stopped his professional partnership with Dominick Riccio. Although the ICSPP as well as Dominick Riccio "in private" agree with a view of "mental illness" identical to Larry Simon's, i.e. that "mental illness" is not a biologically caused brain disease, not an illness, but rather a quite healthy reaction to traumatizing experiences, and as such shouldn't be diagnozed, they still, officially, label people with diagnoses of "mental illness" (because of insurance, i.e. payment, issues), thus tacitly agreeing to the mainstream mental health system's practise of discriminating people. For the sake of cash.

Some people will maybe say, that in leaving the ICSPP and terminating the professional partnership with Dominick Riccio, Larry Simon misses out on a possibility to bring change into the system. I think, in doing so, in resisting in a passive way rather than actively fighting, he actually makes use of a very wise tactic, that maybe won't bring about change tomorrow, but certainly over time. While at the same time it allows him to keep his integrity intact to a somewhat greater extent than any further attempt to change the system from within would have allowed him to do.

Whenever someone needs to compromize, to tacitly accept, to condone, doing so makes them accomplices. Which is more or less murderous to their soul. Making people witness others being tortured, without leaving them any possibility to step in and stop the torture, is a well-known means to train these people to become torturers themselves.

Of course, entering the system with the intention of changing it, also has its positive aspects. At least there are a few people inside the system who, how carefully ever they need to tread, advocate a less aggressive way of treating people in crisis. On the other hand, the fact that they accept the system, even if certain reservations are made, reassures the system of being acceptable on an overall scale, and that only minor and rather insignificant changes would have to be made.

There are several ways how to do non-violent activism: change whatever you can change, turn away from whatever you can't change (in order not to become an accomplice), and accept whatever you can't change and can't turn away from (because if you fight it in the only way possible in this situation, i.e. by repressing it, you sell your soul). To be applied in this order.

To me it seems rather impossible to change the mental health system from within. While, on the other hand, no one forces you to stay in it and become an accomplice. Turning away from it, and maybe engaging in the establishment of alternatives outside this system, like Loren Mosher or John Weir Perry did, is possible and, with all respect to Pat Deegan and everyone else who chooses to try and change this system from within, seems to me the best solution.

Make sure to read Gianna's post. It also has links to both Pat Deegan's website and a very interesting Madness Radio interview with her.