Dr. Schmidt's astounding statement (and Joe Pierre's glib freedom)

I recently heard a psychiatrist say something in a staffing that absolutely astounded me: "Part of my job is to not write anything down that will hurt you with the court."

First of all, I'm pretty sure she meant anything untrue... because of course, if she in fact perceives an EMHC "patient" to be suicidal or threatening, or symptomatic of psychosis, it would certainly be part of her job to write that down, even though it would probably convince the court to deny requests for privileges, or release.

My question is: Why didn't it occur to the "doctor" to specifically clarify this? As a forensic mental health professional, she may be in a peculiar category of "experts" who are occupationally disabled from knowing what is true or untrue. They pretend to be medical professionals; courts like to think their opinions are minimally scientific and objective. But in mental health, we certainly aren't talking about "medicine" in the same sense as that term applies to oncology or cardiology. "Diagnosis" of mental disorders is bullshit; and "treatment" (if that means psychiatric drugs or shock) is useless or worse.

Each and every one of Dr. Schmidt's "patients," as a slave on the Elgin plantation, has frequently had untrue statements written down about them which did hurt them with the court. I often sue EMHC clinicians for exactly that, when I think the untruth can be objectively proven. 

I could be very impressed by Dr. Schmidt's proclaimed intention to get people out of EMHC who can be gotten out. She almost sounds like a closet abolitionist, like she really believes the slaves should ultimately be freed! And I really want to believe her, but 20 years of experience warns me that maybe it's just a tactic.

What the slaves and their captors have in common is incessant lying, especially to themselves. The former say, "Sure, I believe I need the meds..." and the latter say, "He's sick, and I know best how to make him better." They all have short-sighted, cynical motives to lie.

I shouldn't mind. Lies are creative, they enable games. If we couldn't lie we'd all be bored as hell.

But most lies in "mental health" are too little. So the games suck.

Dr. Schmidt, I believe, is not an actual employee of the plantation. She's an outside, agency contracted psychiatrist. (There are more of them than in the past. The state can't keep people on the payroll, so many EMHC doctors are not the regular union guys now.) That status may enable a little more independence, especially if she has a substantial outside practice where her patients come willingly, or mostly so.

One interesting example of independence in psychiatric opinion might be my X (née Twitter) friend, Joe Pierre, a UCSF psychiatrist and author who recently penned an article in Psychology Today harping on the old comparison between mental illness and a broken bone. Joe seems to be so independent in fact, that he doesn't even need to consider an obvious and very practical contrast between these two "medical" situations: broken bones regularly and predictably get completely fixed; but mental illness (virtually by definition) is never cured.

My wife broke her arm long ago, and no disability remains. If she had been called schizophrenic by a psychiatrist, she would still be considered mentally ill, and all the implied social disability and oppression would continue to impact her life.

That's probably why all Dr. Schmidt's "patients" would prefer a broken bone to mental illness. For a broken bone, their doctors wouldn't be able to keep them locked up.

Writing down "broken bone" never hurts anyone with the court!