Posted by akc on September 10, 2001, at 21:14:28
In reply to Its time to merge Psychiatry into Neurology, posted by NLFAmerica on September 10, 2001, at 19:27:01
I just can't stand this -- I love my psychiatrist also -- she has done a damned good job diagnosing my illness and treating it. She has not treated it as a "problem" but as an illness. I'm offended on her behalf.
I guess I don't see the point of this post in the grand scheme of things. At least in its tone. I try to do my part to get parity for treatment of the mentally ill, to reduce stigma by those in the workforce or those I casually meet, to act as an advocate. In fact, it is my goal if I ever get out of the debt I put myself in when I was in the depths of my illness to work fulltime as an advocate.
This post makes me think we are suppose to go drive spikes in trees or burn down buildings. It also appears to slight many psychiatrists -- most I imagine who understand that it is an illness and work hard both in research and in practice to treat it as the brain disorder it is. Why not merge neurolgy into pyschiatry?
You want to act as an advocate to advance the treatment of the mentally ill, here is something much more immediate -- be writing your senators right now. There is legislation pending in the Senate that would bring parity under most insurance for payment for treatment of mental illnesses. If it passes the Senate, it still would then have to go to the House then the President. For more information, go to NAMI's home page. There is nothing radical about this. Just seeking to have medical insurance pay the same for mental health claims as they do for other claims. If this passes, it would have an immediate impact in helping people get treatment that they cannot afford. Now, not in some theoretical future. Plus, it puts an end to something that smacks of stigma.
And I don't even have some catchy name. Damn -- I'll work on that.
akc
> The National Liberation Front of the American mentally ill was created with one purpose. To free the oppressed mentally ill from the idea they have a "mental problem." If you have a so called mental illness what you really have is a physical brain function problem. It is the year 2001 and time for the world to recognize that severe mental illnesses are nothing but brain based physical illnesses. The term "mental illness" is a misnomer and is incorrect.
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> Mental illness should be diagnosed and treated by brain science medical experts. Psychiatrists and psychologists do not fit into this category. Neurologists however do. The NLF of America proposes that Psychiatry be formally merged into Neurology. This would improve the climate that surrounds the treatment of the mentally ill.
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> Specifically the NLF of America proposes the following:
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> 1) Formally combining the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). This new government research agency would then be called the National Institute for Brain Research. Biological research for severe mental illness would be given the same priority that research into other neurological illnesses gets.
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> 2) Formally merging all University teaching hospital Psychiatry departments with Neurology departments at the same school. Departments of psychiatry should not exist separately with departments of Neurology. They should be one and the same. Only this way will severe mental illness ever be recognized for what it really is. Brain function problems ie; neuropsychiatric diseases. Future psychiatrists would instead become Neurologists. Psychiatry as a separate branch of medicine would cease to exist.
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> Formally combining psychiatry into Neurology in the long run would lead to dramatically improved, high tech based methods of diagnosing and treating severe forms of mental illness. Current approaches in psychiatry are oftentimes ineffective at accurately diagnosing and successfully treating severe forms of mental illness. Much of the reason for this is psychiatry's strong residual base in psychology and not in real medical neuroscience.
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> I certify all of the above things are true,
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> National Liberation Front of the American Mentally Ill
poster:akc
thread:78515
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010907/msgs/78535.html