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Freeing Your Mind
May / June 2006
By Keith Goetzman,
Utne magazine
Rights advocacy groups have helped minorities beat back
discrimination, women gain the right to vote, and the
handicapped win
access to public spaces. Now a group called MindFreedom
International
is working to preserve perhaps one of the most fundamental
human
rights: the right to think for oneself.
A coalition of more than 100 groups in 14 countries,
MindFreedom was
formed in 1988 to speak out against human rights violations
in the
mental health system, such as restraints, involuntary
electroshock
therapy, and forced medication. Many of its founders and
members call
themselves survivors of the system, and their experiences
show that,
for some, "treatment" isn't a road to recovery
but a highway to hell.
At one rally in Washington, D.C., a supporter toted a banner
that
read, "Bet your ass we're paranoid."
Now, as scientists refine ways to alter the human brain --
and,
concomitantly, thoughts and behavior -- MindFreedom is
poised to
enter a new skirmish in the struggle to uphold personal
freedom.
Lately, the group has been campaigning against drug implants
that are
surgically inserted under the skin to release antipsychotic
medicine
slowly, over weeks or months. It's still good old drug
therapy, not
an electronic implant, but the method takes control away
from the
patient and gives it to the doctors. In this way,
MindFreedom
contends, it's another step toward curtailing the rights of
some of
society's most marginal members, the mentally ill. And as
far as
MindFreedom director David Oaks is concerned, it will also
result in
more invasive and heavy-handed methods such as electronic
implants
controlled by doctors.
"We're opposed to all these techniques because
they're inherently
intrusive and irreversible, and they give doctors a lot of
control,"
says Oaks. "It's like throwing gas on a fire."
Apart from the rights implications of the new brain science,
Oaks
contends that many of the most touted treatment methods are
based on
what is still a crude understanding of the brain.
"The most complex thing on earth is the human mind,
and we're using
monkey wrenches and throwing switches to see what
happens," he
says. "All of these newer techniques, which are really
extensions of
the old psychosurgery, are based on an inaccurate view of
the mind, a
mechanistic, reductionist paradigm. They reduce the brain to
a
machine -- and that ain't how it works."
Oaks, who was diagnosed as psychotic and forced to take
medication in
the 1970s, contends that a more holistic model encompassing
mind,
body, spirit, and environment can lead to better treatment
results
and even full recovery for psychiatric patients.
"Major change is
often what's needed, and you can't buy and sell that
stuff," he says.
In the United States, discussion of the ethical aspects of
brain
science has largely been relegated to groups like
MindFreedom and the
occasional academic or professional conference. But Europe
is having
a broader dialogue. Last year 126 citizens from nine
countries were
tapped to participate in a series of conversations, dubbed
"Meeting
of the Minds," that studied the issue with the help of
researchers,
ethicists, stakeholders, and policy makers. It was
considered to be
the largest public consultation on science, and the first
such Europe-
wide effort.
The panel, which was coordinated by the Belgium-based King
Baudouin
Foundation, presented its recommendations to the European
parliament
in January. Many of them focused on the potential misuses of
brain
science innovations and encouraged safeguards against rights
abuses.
Oaks hopes the United States has a similarly wide-ranging
public
discussion, and that it includes those who have been harmed
by the
mental health system. "That's whose voice is often
not at the table,
and we need to get it out there," he says.
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