I don't know how I missed the controversy but the APA has vigorously criticized a billboard that sends a message about inadequate access to mental health services and inadequate gun control. I found out about it only through the APA listserv yesterday. The Psychiatric News alert can be viewed here. The billboard can be seen on major news services like NBC here. If anyone can spare a photo of this billboard please e-mail to me and I will post it in the body of this essay. The message basically states "Over 40 million Americans with mental illness - some can access care - all can access guns." It is signed by Kenneth Cole. He has a history of activist billboards and Twitter posts and is no stranger to controversy. He has also discussed raising his brand's profile through the social responsibility messages. In this case some APA members were outraged at what they perceived to be a stigmatizing message.
My perspective is that the message on the billboard is accurate. There is nothing to be gained by suggesting that Mr. Cole is trying to state that most people with mental illness are dangerous. But there is the issue of whether a professional organization should be commenting on what they perceive as a controversial billboard in the first place, especially when it may be used to promote a brand name. In this era of social media and the current trend for public shaming, I would suggest that scoring points in that landscape is the last thing any professional organization should be doing.
The fact is that most acute care psychiatrists are making these kinds of assessments every day in the United States and multiple times a day. The vast majority of people designated to have a mental illness on this billboard do not need to see psychiatrists. Acknowledging the fact that psychiatrists are actively engaged in violence prevention and that a small but significant number of people with mental illness are violent and aggressive and that it is a treatable problem is a very important message. The potential benefits include:
1. Less stigma for people who are violent and aggressive as a result of severe mental illness. The current bias is to see this behavior was willful and punish them based on a moralistic approach to mental illness. That is until the violent and aggressive person is a family member trying to harm other family members. At that point, there is no myth of mental illness and all of the talk about how the mentally ill are not aggressive is meaningless.
2. Clearly define the problem and develop centers of excellence for treating this problem. In every metro area in the U.S. there are a handful of acute care psychiatric units and even fewer who accept violent and aggressive patients. All of the violent and aggressive patients are typically brought to one or two hospitals that are set up to address the problem. Those hospitals have protocols in place to treat the problem and many of them do a lot of civil commitments. There is no funding source that is adequate to provide the level of treatment for these patients who must be hospitalized until they are no longer dangerous. They also require more intensive staffing patterns by staff who must have a much higher level of training than in less intensive situations.
3. A denial of the potential for violence and aggression is inconsistent with the recently released Practice Guidelines for the Psychiatric Evaluation of Adults, Third Edition. That document has explicit commentary about the psychiatrist’s role in addressing aggression. There are 41 references to aggression in the body of the paper including 13 bullet points on the Assessment of Risk For Aggressive Behavior (p 23). There are thirteen references to firearms.
In my opinion, the assessment of violence and aggression that is typically done in crisis situations by psychiatrists is more extensive than what is captured in the guideline. As an example there is no discussion of transference or countertransference issues and how they affect the treatment team and their approach to the safe treatment of violent and aggressive patients.
4. A more clearly defined role among advocacy organizations is a better role for professionals. The political use of the term “stigma” is at times all encompassing and it obscures the real source of the problem. For example, stigma is not the reason why there are no services available for psychiatric care. Managed care companies and the governments that subsidize them and sanctify their business tactics are the reason there are no services. The APA has been talking about stigma for years and it has done absolutely nothing to increase services or stop the rationing. The highly acclaimed parity legislation initiated by Senators Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici has done nothing to break the chokehold on mental health by businesses and governments. There is new legislation in the works to “enhance” the original parity legislation because it has no teeth and has not made a difference. Businesses do what they want with the blessing of state and federal governments.
5. In some cases advocacy organizations are at odds with clinical psychiatrists who are treating patients with severe mental illness and aggression. One of the positions taken by at least one of these organizations is that psychiatrists could be easily replaced by “prescribers” in state hospitals where aggressive patients are sent. The government in that case took the position that an administrator with no clinical experience could come into a state hospital setting and develop a program to treat patients with mental illness and violence and aggression. That plan failed.
These are a few of the problems associated with denying the correlation between severe mental illness and violence and aggression in a subset of patients with severe mental illness. The reality is that there are thousands of psychiatrists that face these problems every day. Their goal is to keep people safe and prevent violence. Acknowledging what they do on a daily basis, supporting that work and the importance of that work to patients, families and the community is a step in the right direction.
Suggesting that it is too stigmatizing to discuss that issue is not a step in the right direction.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Supplementary 1: I contacted Kenneth Cole (the company) through the web site and asked them to send me an image of their billboard for use in this post. I included a link to the post so the specifics could be read as well as the entire blog. I was advised that although they appreciate my interest, the image was proprietary and therefore they could not send it to me. I don't know if they are claiming that about every image or just the one I wanted them to send me. It made me wonder if they are aware of how widespread the image is used on the Internet.
Supplementary 2: I was graciously sent a photo of this billboard by a resident New Yorker. I contacted Kenneth Cole again and was told again that I could not even use an independent photograph of their billboard for this post. I really doubt that any place else displaying these billboard photos has gotten permission from them, but I am just a guy writing a blog and can't afford to get into it with them. So there you have it. Go to any one of the other hundreds of places on the Internet that have posted this picture to view it.
The fact is that most acute care psychiatrists are making these kinds of assessments every day in the United States and multiple times a day. The vast majority of people designated to have a mental illness on this billboard do not need to see psychiatrists. Acknowledging the fact that psychiatrists are actively engaged in violence prevention and that a small but significant number of people with mental illness are violent and aggressive and that it is a treatable problem is a very important message. The potential benefits include:
1. Less stigma for people who are violent and aggressive as a result of severe mental illness. The current bias is to see this behavior was willful and punish them based on a moralistic approach to mental illness. That is until the violent and aggressive person is a family member trying to harm other family members. At that point, there is no myth of mental illness and all of the talk about how the mentally ill are not aggressive is meaningless.
2. Clearly define the problem and develop centers of excellence for treating this problem. In every metro area in the U.S. there are a handful of acute care psychiatric units and even fewer who accept violent and aggressive patients. All of the violent and aggressive patients are typically brought to one or two hospitals that are set up to address the problem. Those hospitals have protocols in place to treat the problem and many of them do a lot of civil commitments. There is no funding source that is adequate to provide the level of treatment for these patients who must be hospitalized until they are no longer dangerous. They also require more intensive staffing patterns by staff who must have a much higher level of training than in less intensive situations.
3. A denial of the potential for violence and aggression is inconsistent with the recently released Practice Guidelines for the Psychiatric Evaluation of Adults, Third Edition. That document has explicit commentary about the psychiatrist’s role in addressing aggression. There are 41 references to aggression in the body of the paper including 13 bullet points on the Assessment of Risk For Aggressive Behavior (p 23). There are thirteen references to firearms.
In my opinion, the assessment of violence and aggression that is typically done in crisis situations by psychiatrists is more extensive than what is captured in the guideline. As an example there is no discussion of transference or countertransference issues and how they affect the treatment team and their approach to the safe treatment of violent and aggressive patients.
4. A more clearly defined role among advocacy organizations is a better role for professionals. The political use of the term “stigma” is at times all encompassing and it obscures the real source of the problem. For example, stigma is not the reason why there are no services available for psychiatric care. Managed care companies and the governments that subsidize them and sanctify their business tactics are the reason there are no services. The APA has been talking about stigma for years and it has done absolutely nothing to increase services or stop the rationing. The highly acclaimed parity legislation initiated by Senators Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici has done nothing to break the chokehold on mental health by businesses and governments. There is new legislation in the works to “enhance” the original parity legislation because it has no teeth and has not made a difference. Businesses do what they want with the blessing of state and federal governments.
5. In some cases advocacy organizations are at odds with clinical psychiatrists who are treating patients with severe mental illness and aggression. One of the positions taken by at least one of these organizations is that psychiatrists could be easily replaced by “prescribers” in state hospitals where aggressive patients are sent. The government in that case took the position that an administrator with no clinical experience could come into a state hospital setting and develop a program to treat patients with mental illness and violence and aggression. That plan failed.
These are a few of the problems associated with denying the correlation between severe mental illness and violence and aggression in a subset of patients with severe mental illness. The reality is that there are thousands of psychiatrists that face these problems every day. Their goal is to keep people safe and prevent violence. Acknowledging what they do on a daily basis, supporting that work and the importance of that work to patients, families and the community is a step in the right direction.
Suggesting that it is too stigmatizing to discuss that issue is not a step in the right direction.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Supplementary 1: I contacted Kenneth Cole (the company) through the web site and asked them to send me an image of their billboard for use in this post. I included a link to the post so the specifics could be read as well as the entire blog. I was advised that although they appreciate my interest, the image was proprietary and therefore they could not send it to me. I don't know if they are claiming that about every image or just the one I wanted them to send me. It made me wonder if they are aware of how widespread the image is used on the Internet.
Supplementary 2: I was graciously sent a photo of this billboard by a resident New Yorker. I contacted Kenneth Cole again and was told again that I could not even use an independent photograph of their billboard for this post. I really doubt that any place else displaying these billboard photos has gotten permission from them, but I am just a guy writing a blog and can't afford to get into it with them. So there you have it. Go to any one of the other hundreds of places on the Internet that have posted this picture to view it.
I thought the APA took it in a bad direction, too. They should have either shut up, or talked about gun control for everyone, not just those with "mental illness". I'll try to get onto the West Side Highway to get a picture, if I can.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteThe APA again on the wrong side of history and public opinion in light of the Holmes verdict and the Roanoke shooting.
ReplyDeleteWhen Donald Trump has a more measured and sensible opinion than your mental health organization, maybe it's time to reassess the reflexive anti-stigma fetish. And realize there is nothing that perpetuates stigma against the mentally ill than the James Holmeses of the world packing heat.
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/08/405209-donald-trump-just-said-gun-control-roanoke-shooting-caused-internet-implosion/
Magical thinking and stigma obsession should not be the foundation of policy in the real world.