Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Robert Sharpe, MD, Psych.D.

In the usage of my title today, "Psych.D." stands for Psychiatric Dictator. Three staff met together with Gus today, under the command of Dr. Sharpe. A couple individuals on Gus' treatment team, at one time or another, have considered that it's not safe to meet with him alone because he might later misrepresent something they say. So rather than any actual counseling or social worker interviews, rather than any therapeutic conversations, Gus just gets ganged up on.

He has protested this, because it enables a State's Attorney to say he's so dangerous that EMHC staff won't even be alone in a room with him for counseling sessions. That's pretty good (if trumped up) evidence that Gus has to be kept locked up at EMHC for the foreseeable future, right?

At the end of today's meeting, Gus asked the three staff in the room, "Do you guys feel safe?" I had suggested that he laugh with that question, but I don't know whether he did or not. The fact that these overseers think Gus is so dangerous that they must assign scarce mental health expertise to carefully witness every conversation with him and counter his "false" or "delusional" written reports of their abuse, is highly comical.

Beyond comedy, there are obvious questions that should be asked: "How come you guys can't offer your patient anything that he needs or appreciates? Why does he only complain that you abuse him and your attitude is insulting? If you have any 'treatment' plans that could help him, and if you understand his mental/emotional/behavioral problems as mental health experts, and given that you can totally monitor and have nearly absolute control over his life, why are you completely impotent to change his mind?"

I suspect that if those questions were asked, the overseers would respond, "Well, you know Gus is paranoid and delusional, he's mentally ill." They might add, "Plus his lawyer has too much influence over him, and uses it to poison the relationship with us, which would otherwise be therapeutic."

Nonsense! Gus meticulously documents his complaints about these people. They may have actually stolen his notebooks of evidence, in order to protect themselves. Ten people can write reports in Gus' chart every day; they can all back each other up, whereas Gus is just one mental patient, who will believe him? (Of course, this is exactly the situation that Dr. Sharpe repeatedly mentions, to bolster his explicit, illegal threat to keep Gus confined as long as possible.)

Robert Sharpe is a cruel psychiatric dictator ("Psych.D."). He has underlings and sycophants and stooges who follow his orders. He's a plantation overseer, not a doctor. He deserves zero respect as any kind of healer or helping professional. His only plan is to punish Gus into compliance and threaten him against complaining or publicly revealing the omnipresent, dehumanizing abuse at EMHC. It won't be successful, and the longer Sharpe tries, the worse the eventual result will be for him, and for whomever is telling him to do this. 

One little tiny example might be Sharpe's countermanding of a medical order from the real EMHC medical doctor (Dr. Nadia), who had prescribed a handheld urinal for Gus to keep in his room for incontinence. Sharpe told Nadia that Gus is perfectly capable of running down the hall to the bathroom. Nadia thought the whole treatment team, plus/including Gus, were in agreement that the urinal was no longer necessary. Nope. It was just Sharpe, Psych.D., contriving more punishment, demonstrating brutish control, backing up threats, dehumanizing his "patient" (slave).

Bad man, very bad. There aren't many like that.

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