Honest Services Fraud

(On or about November 1, 2015, the following conversation took place between a patient and a psychologist at Elgin Mental Health Center. At the moment, I hesitate to publish the names. But I may do so in the future. I believe this is evidence of criminal fraud, not merely on the part of the particular clinician engaged in this conversation, but as a regular pattern of policy and practice by the Illinois Department of Human Services. Any "forensic mental health professional" knows full well that this sort of "explanation" for mental illness and the purpose or action of medications is pseudoscientific nonsense, meant only to further the coercion of patients who would not take psychiatric drugs if they had any effective right to fully informed consent.)

Patient:  There's a lot of talk about, like, chemical imbalances, or... like, what happens when you get depression?

Psych:  When you, when you take meds, in a general way, this is what meds do... So when you have symptoms, there's usually an excess of a chemical in the brain, or not enough of a certain chemical in the brain. Right? So each med, each class of medication, is supposed to regulate which ever one it's supposed to regulate, right? Some are really specific, some are not as specific. Umm, so the whole point is, like for antidepressants, it takes like, three months to effectively get in the body and change the receptors in the brain. Right? So once you go off of an antidepressant if you've been on it for a while, it takes that much longer to come out of, to come out of the system, right? So the brain then kind of reorganizes without the meds, cuz it's not producing it in, itself, naturally, right? 

Patient:  Mm-hmm.

Psych:  So what happens is, you have these little, like partic... like little... hands, like in, in the cells, right? 

Patient:  Okay...

Psych:  And they're supposed to be filled with the chemical they need. So what they say is, is either they have too much of this chemical floating around and it changes the person's behavior, or they don't have enough, and so...

Patient:  Like what chemical? 

Psych:  Well, it depends on the chemical. So it could be, the... there's nora... norepinephrine, there's seratonin, there's dopamine, etc., etc. So, each little finger is wanting one or the other. 

Patient:  Mm-hmm.

Psych:  And they might... you might need ten, but if there's no, none of that dopamine floating around, you might only have, like, one... and that usually has significant change on the body, because you need a ten.

Patient:  Mm-hmm...

Psych:  But there's no dopamine so it can catch, one little thing, flying around. 

Patient:  So, this is... before you take meds. that...?

Psych:  Right. 

Patient:  What causes depression?

Psych:  Well, there's many things that can cause depression. I know I'm not being specific cuz there is no specific, if we talk about the mic... micro, like molecular pieces, of what goes on in the brain, that's kind of how the medicine helps at the receptor level. Right? So pretty much, you want the chemicals that you want, in the little... spaces. 

Patient:  Mm-hmm...

Psych:  And if you don't have enough, you lose receptors, that's not good. If you have too much of the chemical, that's not good either. So you always want to be in the middle. 

Patient:  Okay.

Psych:  What happens is, is the meds regulate, so that you're supposed to have ten? You have ten... I'm just using that number.

Patient:  Yeah, like ten... receptors.

Psych:  Right. So, if you're supposed to have ten, the chemical makes sure, the meds, make sure you have ten. 

Patient:  Okay.

Psych:  It doesn't make sure you have one, or... fifty million, it makes sure you have ten. And that's why there's always, like, tweaking of the meds... Because everybody's body metabolizes that differently. So if you go off the meds, like for example, Xanax, has a high, high half life? That means it stays in the body without having to take it all the time. 

Patient:  For a longer period...

Psych:  Right. Depressive meds... that's a little bit longer, too, so it'll take a little bit longer for you to start getting way depressed.  Antipsychotics... you want to do that one? This is a, you know, we can do whichever, I'm here all the time, so... so... so...

Patient:  Are you saying that the medications would, like...

Psych:  When, when a person who's never had medications, and they're depressed...

Patient:  Mm-hmm...

Psych:  That means you're not getting enough of dopamine, seratonin, norepinephrine, of something, the body cannot, making enough for you? 

Patient:  So there's a chemical imbalance?

Psych:  Typically, yes. 

Patient:  Wow.

Psych:  So that means that your body's supposed to naturally be producing something... it's like, even like a vitamin D deficiency. Your body's supposed to have enough vitamin D, for whatever reason you're not. Some people can get enough of it from the sun, some people can't, so they have to take, additionally, whatever it is. Even like iron. So as women get older, even like women in general, we tend to have a low rates of iron. 

(Aside, to male voice nearby...) We're trying to do that right now, you're welcome to come and help us...

Um, so with iron...

(Aside again...) Ooohh! Come on, we got to do something uplifting, not gonna make us cry again.

So, uh...

Patient:  I've just realized my, I've got my phone time...

Psych: Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead...

Patient:  So let's talk about it...

Psych:  Yeah.

Patient:  But, um, cuz I'm trying to understand and I'm also ... I think I'm sick, building a sinus infection right now...

Psych:  Oh, yeah, so you're like, wah, wah, wah... Okay.

Patient:  Ya, I don't feel good.

Psych:  No problem. Remind me to bring up, the iron one back, cuz iron is a good example. Cuz everybody is supposed to have so much iron but women naturally do not have enough. 

Patient:  That's why we take iron supplements.

Psych:  Right.  And then that makes us constipated, right? 

Patient:  Yeah.

Psych:  But then, if we go off of the iron, we end up right back to where we started, meaning that the body's just not equipped to produce as much iron. So it never just naturally...

Patient:  So the same thing happens with the medication when it, when it comes...okay, when it goes out and you're back to the way you were before...

Psych:  Right, right, but there are some meds that make...

Patient:  But do they cause, do the meds cause a chemical imbalance?

Psych:  Well they're supposed to cause, like a... chemical neutralizing of the things that you're supposed to need. It's supposed to be balancing.

Patient:  Okay.

Psych:  So that's why, when they lower people's meds or they titrate meds... some of the meds need to slowly be titrated, like benzo's, cuz you can have high rates of seizures. So they try to slowly, on the ones that will be problematic, taper people off, even with the anti-depressants, right?