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Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 04:38:09 -0500
To: Matthew Gaylor <<a href="mailto:freematt@coil.com">freematt@coil.com</a>>
From: Matthew Gaylor <<a href="mailto:freematt@coil.com">freematt@coil.com</a>>
Subject: Psychological Trauma and Terrorism?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
<p>
[Note from Matthew Gaylor: Citizens Commission on Human Rights
International was established by the Church of Scientology. Although
they may have religious motivations for being against the therapeutic
state they raise a good point that $3 billion is being earmarked to
"treat" New Yorkers after the 9-11 attack. And that since the
September 11 attacks, new prescriptions for antidepressants in New
York alone jumped 17 percent and prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs
rose 25 percent.]
<p>
From: <a href="mailto:joseph.c.ballman@guidecorp.com">joseph.c.ballman@guidecorp.com</a>
X-Lotus-FromDomain: GUIDE CORP
To: <a href="mailto:freematt@coil.com">freematt@coil.com</a>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 11:58:09 -0500
Subject: Psychiatry Treating Trauma for Profit
<p>
Matt - good info . . . . . .
<p>
<p>
CCHR Exposes Psychiatry Treating Trauma for Profit
U.S. Newswire
1 Nov 9:30
<p>
<a href="http://www.psychassault.org/Funding/index.htm">http://www.psychassault.org/Funding/index.htm</a>
CCHR Exposes Psychiatry Treating Trauma for Profit
To: National Desk
Contact: Marla Filidei of the Citizens Commission on Human
Rights International, 800-869-2247
<p>
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- While Americans are busy
getting their lives back on track after the September 11 terrorist
attacks, some groups are specializing in pushing the idea that many
people will never get back to normal. The mental health lobby is
marketing trauma for profit, seeking billions of dollars to treat
a "mental illness crisis" it falsely says could arise from the
attacks, according to a new website by The Citizens Commission on
Human Rights International (CCHR).
<p>
In September, a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions hearing on "Psychological Trauma and Terrorism" was told,
"Seventy-one percent of Americans said that they have felt
depressed by the attacks." An alarming statistic, until it is
realized that the survey behind this was conducted just two to six
days after the attack, when Americans were still in a state of
shock, glued to their television sets and suffering perfectly
normal reactions to the horrific tragedy. Who needed a survey to
find out that Americans were suffering? Interestingly, the survey
sampled 1,200 people, which, by a quantum semantic leap, concluded
that an alarming 71 percent of Americans are depressed.
<p>
Using this "survey result," the hearing was told that The Mental
Health Equitable Treatment Act should be passed immediately so that
counseling could occur in volume. The bill is estimated to cost the
private health insurers alone $3 billion, with businesses bearing
the brunt for other costs associated with increased mandated mental
health insurance.
<p>
"Faced with a slowing economy, falling stock markets and a
soaring number of layoffs, this is not the time to be burdening
businesses with burgeoning mental health insurance costs," said Ms.
Jan Eastgate, international president of CCHR
<p>
Eastgate said that treatments offered by psychiatrists and
psychologists for trauma are not effective and some studies show
them to be harmful.
<p>
In fact, Richard Gist, a psychologist who assists the Kansas
City fire department, says: "Mental health professionals sometimes
undermine the traditional sources of support for those experiencing
grief: talking to friends, family, clergy and others....Maybe what
we need to do is give people tea and sympathy and let them talk to
their Aunt Tilly. But we should not try to dress Aunt Tilly in a
white lab coat and have her talk in psychobabble."
<p>
Professor Yvonne McEwan from Fife University, Scotland, who
advised the U.S. government after the Oklahoma bombing, said that
psychological trauma counseling, for example, is at best is useless
and at worst highly destructive to victims seeking help. "By
medicalizing what is a non-medical condition and introducing a
therapy subject matter that is vastly under-researched, over-used
and vastly abused, medicine is propping up a lot of dwindling
careers," she says.
<p>
A 1996 psychiatric study conducted on burn victims revealed that
those who received psychiatric trauma counseling were three times
more likely to suffer long-term problems. The British
Psychological Society concurs, finding that "psychological
debriefing" for trauma may harm rather than heal and that three
quarters of those experiencing trauma recover spontaneously within
four to six weeks.
<p>
Aside from the $3 billion mandated mental health will cost,
psychiatrists estimate that $3 billion is needed to "treat" New
Yorkers alone, prompting CCHR's website warning that the mental
health lobby is making victims a "paying proposition."
<p>
Eastgate said pushing mind-altering and potentially addictive
psychiatric drugs as a solution to "post traumatic stress disorder"
is also lucrative. International sales of antidepressants rose 19
percent between 1999 and 2000, reaching $13.4 billion. Since the
September 11 attacks, new prescriptions for antidepressants in New
York alone jumped 17 percent and prescriptions for anti-anxiety
drugs rose 25 percent.
<p>
According to psychiatrist Sydney Walker, III, author of A Dose
of Sanity, "We've been led to assume, by the psychiatric 'crisis
teams' sent almost immediately to any disaster scene, that people
suffer severe psychic wounds from experiencing such traumas-or even
from being in the general vicinity when they occur. DSM -IV
(Diagnostic & Statistical Manual for Mental Illness, Edition IV)
categorizes the symptoms most survivors experience following a
disaster as 'acute stress disorder,' suggesting that they are
pathological and require treatment. But are these people really
suffering from a 'disorder' requiring psychotherapy and the use of
potentially addictive medications? Are they really at great risk
of suffering long-term consequences from their trauma? The
answers, surprisingly, are 'No,' and 'No.'"
<p>
In fact, San Diego psychologist, Michael Mantell, reported that
following the Columbine High School shootings, "the kids were not
talking to counselors. They were talking to religious leaders and
among themselves. There were a lot more counselors there than
counseling going on."
<p>
Eastgate warns, "There is no comparison between the funded
mechanisms of a sterile and ineffective mental health system, and
the true compassion, understanding, support and spiritual boost
that comes from one's family, friends, the clergy and other
concerned citizens. These inherent and positive qualities in our
communities should be our main focus as we recover from recent
events, not the reinforcing and expanding of already incompetent
psychiatric or psychological systems."
<p>
CCHR was established by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to
investigate mental health abuse and expose psychiatric human rights
violations. Log onto <a href="http://www.psychassault.com/Funding">http://www.psychassault.com/Funding</a> for more
information or contact Marla Filidei at 800-869-2247
<p>
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