Wednesday, July 26, 2017

The Terror?

Here's something I know from personal experience.

When a group is subjected to certain simultaneous pressures, or when its leaders choose to take it down a certain road, that group and even some individuals in it will become actively psychotic. The most deadly combination is:

1.  the loyalties of the group and within the group suddenly become uncertain or indistinct;
2.  the group or some members are suddenly subject to unusual emotion and confused morality; and
3.  the group suddenly places a very high value on secrecy.

At the moment there appears to be a bit of group psychosis at Elgin Mental Health Center. Patients are being subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures with no explanations. Restrictions of rights are arbitrary and undocumented, contrary to all rules and policy. Capable and well-intended clinicians are overruled by the administration even on the minutiae of treatment plans. Those who actually deal with the court system are given false information and thereby embarrassed.

In short, the place is freaking out. There's an atmosphere of insecurity. People tell each other, "Well gee, things look bad. Some huge change is happening, what exactly it is can't be revealed, but it's not good for you." (This is almost an exact quote, by the way, from statements by a psychiatrist to a patient today!) The Program Director and Medical Director both resigned recently. These were guys who had been in charge at Elgin for many years. One very capable person who was offered the Program Director job flatly refused to take it. The temporary Medical Director is a slightly shadowy administrator-without-portfolio, whose title and real state job no one is sure of.

No one knows who's responsible. No one knows who's dangerous. No one knows when anything can get done or when some really big shoe might drop.

Somebody is desperately trying to hide something, but in deathly fear that it will be discovered at any moment. That's the source of the terror.

Maybe I'm over-dramatizing this, or believing crazy people who are lying to me. Or maybe it's no acute, new situation, but just a chronic condition in forensic mental health.

2 comments:

  1. Looking forward to a post updating the situation. I've been reading posts here for several months now; this is my first comment. I'd like to comment more, but a lot of information and I've been spending time learning more as I can find the time. One thing I want to say is "thank you". Most of my knowledge of law and attorneys has come from divorce and I'm not too impressed by most "professionals" (many fields, having formerly been a nurse and interested and involved in mental health), particularly those purporting those that (supposedly) champion rights and "rule of law" and those purporting to be based in valid science. Too few given license and authority exercise it humbly, wisely and (as I now understand) courageously.

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  2. Thank you for the complement of your interest. I will update when I get additional reliable information.

    Divorce, btw, is the worst possible context for gaining any appreciation for law and attorneys, just as mental health is the worst possible context for gaining any appreciation of medicine.

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