Treatment Advocacy Center President E. Fuller Torrey announced the appointment of Dr. Alan Stone, Touroff-Glueck professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard University School of Law and former head of the American Psychiatric Association, to the Treatment Advocacy Center advisory board. The Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illnesses. TAC promotes laws, policies and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care and supports the development of innovative treatments for and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. “We are pleased to welcome Dr. Stone as a steward for this unique advocacy organization,” said Torrey. “I have known Dr. Stone for more than 35 years. He has been a leader in all aspects of law and psychiatry and has been one of the few psychiatrists who have spoken out for the rights of patients to be treated. ... “The Treatment Advocacy Center is taking a forceful stand to help people with severe mental illnesses in a way no other organization will do,” said Dr. Stone. “For too long, society has chosen to ignore the severely mentally ill in the name of civil rights. I am proud to be part of an organization that is stepping up to advocate for real, long-term treatment for this underserved population.” full press release

Just how close is the relationship between the American Psychiatric Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center? Giving each other awards and now swapping leadership. It's unseemly at best, but I have a suspicion it's not at best. Their message seems clear at least: civil rights are annoying anyway, it'd be silly to let something so petty get in the way of forcibly drugging people.

The Treatment Advocacy Center has won the American Psychiatric Association's Presidential Commendation for "sustained extraordinary advocacy on behalf of the most vulnerable mentally ill patients who lack the insight to seek and continue effective care and benefit from assisted outpatient treatment." full press release

If there was ever any doubt that the American Psychiatric Association is completely in bed with TAC and its agenda of forced psychiatric "treatments" and drugging, it should be gone now.

I am against psychiatry because psychiatrists are now giving hard-core antipsychotics to kindergarteners and Prozac to toddlers. I'm against psychiatry because much of their drugs have nasty permanent debilitating side effects such as tardive dyskinesia, and deadly side effects such as significantly increased diabetes risk and neuroleptic malignant syndrome. I'm against psychiatry because no psychiatrist can adequately explain what a "chemical imbalance" looks like or what a proper "chemical balance" would be. I am against psychiatry because there are no objective tests for mental "illnesses", all diagnoses are made subjectively based on the opinions of individual psychiatrists who regularly come to differing conclusions regarding the same patient. I am against psychiatry because if mental "illness" actually is biological in origin, neurologists should be handling it on a medical basis. I am against psychiatry because psych drugs simply mask the symptoms and don't actually help patients get better. I am against psychiatry because a friend of mine was told that her son could no longer attend school unless he took addictive amphetamines. I am against psychiatry because of the ongoing campaigns to force dangerous drugs and electroconvulsive therapy on adults that have committed no crime. I am against psychiatry because the psychiatry has become more about selling drugs than helping patients.