SHAME on you, Vik Gill!

My guy Gus has supposedly been offered "a deal" by his treatment team a EMHC. Nobody is really sure what the "deal" is because they are unwilling to write it down, or to let Gus write it down. Nevertheless, they insist that Gus must formally accept the invisible, unwritten, undefined "deal" by a date certain, lest he will never get a conditional release, even if he qualifies for one under the law.

The psychiatrist in charge of this nonsense is Vikramjit Gill. Vik repeatedly admonishes Gus that he'd "better accept the deal" soon, or he'll lose his chance and he'll "never get out" of EMHC. Vik further insists that the "deal" will remain unwritten because, "We don't do that here at EMHC, and we don't have to put anything in writing." He further claims that no one else has any authority: not Dr. Corcoran, the Statewide Supreme Forensic Medical Director who plainly stated in the presence of a handful of witnesses (including me), that Gus doesn't belong at EMHC anymore; nor will any judge or any prosecutor decide. Only Vik himself will determine whether Gus can ever leave EMHC.

This is all ridiculous and despicable gaslighting, of course. There isn't any "deal." Gus can say he accepts it or he doesn't accept it, and it will make no difference whatsoever. The truth is, the overseers on the slave plantation simply think they can crack some patently silly, rhetorical whip, to get Gus worried enough to say, "Oh, gee, I'm so sorry if I have ever entertained bad opinions about any of you wonderful, all-knowing and all-beneficent mental health professionals. I will never again say a critical word or think a critical thought about you, I will only praise you, even if I have to lie!"

They probably want Gus to bow and scrape when he says that, too. Or kiss Michelle Evans' ring, or suck somebody's....

And now that I think about it, I don't believe this weird new attitude or faux "treatment plan" point for Gus came from Vik at all. He's a rational treating psychiatrist, maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but decent. He's clearly not over-enthusiastic (like, e.g., Malis-with-malice or Syed Hussain) about forcing "medicine" on human beings, and he seems reluctant to consider that his patients are less than human. The problem is, he's a wimp. He tends to believe whatever was said by the last person he spoke to, so his true point of view is unstable and too amenable to any momentary influence. 

Somebody probably told Vik that he can prove something by subduing Gus. He may believe that he needs to prove something to protect his career or his state-employee benefits, too, because his competence has been directly questioned in court, by none other than Dr. Corcoran, the Statewide Supreme Forensic Medical Director (testifying under oath; I have the transcript of that hearing).

It's remarkable that Vik has stated several times to Gus that "Dr. Corcoran has nothing to say about this, it doesn't matter what he thinks." It raises the possibility that either Corcoran is on his way out, or the Statewide Supreme Forensic Medical Director himself concocted this whole strategy for some purpose of his own. Fascinating..!

The only other explanation could be that Gus is just flat-out lying to me about what people have said to him. Nothing is impossible, but I've known him a long time, and I doubt that he's lying. As far as I know, he doesn't have any clandestine voice recordings, like Marci Weber and Ben Hurt were able to get. Gus is almost obsessed with staying legal, following the rules. It's arguably neurotic of him. (Neurotic is of course a concept that's ironically out of favor in orthodox psychiatry, which is why I can use the word, even as a fanatical anti-psychiatry crusader.) 

Gus' attention to correct behavior is exactly what gets him in trouble with people who have to constantly worry that their own incorrect behavior will be discovered. He won't stop, though.

A sure tip-off here is the question: Who writes things down, and who forbids writing things down?