Tag: schizophrenia

Homelessness. What to Do? by Art Smukler, MD, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Politics, Psychiatry, Self Examination, World events, a psychological view

Who said, “There is nothing compassionate about letting individuals live in filth and squalor, rather than getting them the help they need?”

Donald Trump and Art Smukler…

I’ve written dozens of posts criticizing Trump’s character flaws and behavior, but in this instance I can’t find fault. I’ve been saying the same thing for a long time.

When I lived in Santa Monica, CA, a fellow psychiatrist quipped, “Oh, you live in the home of the homeless.” He thought he was hysterical. Most of us who lived there didn’t find it at all funny. The homeless people living on the streets have turned a sweet beach town into a place of danger and fear. You never knew when you’d be screamed at or attacked. My daughter had to flee a bathroom near the promenade when a psychotic woman tried to snatch her son. After a late movie, my wife and I literally ran home. The streets, filled with psychotic homeless individuals, looked like something out of a horror movie. We were cursed at and followed.

Placing psychiatrically ill patients in housing before they are treated is, in my opinion, a waste of valuable resources. No matter where you are living, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoid thinking don’t go away. All we do is throw billions of dollars into a never-ending morass of psychological illness.

My next statement will probably bother ACLU supporters, but we need strict laws, like we used to have. Psychotic individuals need to be placed in psychiatric facilities, AGAINST THEIR WILL, if they won’t go voluntarily. You can’t reason with psychotic thinking. It won’t work!

Use the billions of dollars that we now have to build psychiatric facilities. Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, has a good heart, but placing psychiatrically ill people in little homes won’t work. Trump is again correct. If people won’t leave the streets voluntarily, let’s gently remove them and place them in well-run tent cities where physicians, social workers, and other helpers can do an evaluation and get them treatment. Those who are simply down on their luck will do well in state and federally supported housing.

Thanks, Art

#homelessness, #Psychosis, #psychiatrictreatment, #Trump, #Bass, #involuntaryhospitalization

Locking Up The Mentally Ill – Good or Bad? by Art Smukler, MD, author & psychiatrist

by artsmuklermd, posted in Writing

Back in the early seventies we still had plenty of homeless people bunking out over subway grates and sleeping in doorways. But, not nearly as many as we have today – all over the US.

Thousands and thousands of the homeless are mentally ill or suffering from an addiction.

As a first year psychiatric resident in Philadelphia, at PGH, Philadelphia General Hospital, the mentally ill were brought in for evaluation by the police. To place someone on a psychiatric hold, the law was clearcut, two psychiatrists needed to sign the admission papers. Once that was done, the patient was admitted to the inpatient unit and treated, most commonly for psychotic thinking secondary to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, paranoid disorder, addiction etc.

Then what happened?

After treatment, they were discharged to return to their families, homes, or given appointments to attend sessions at a community health center. Their psychotic thinking was under control.

Yes. You read that correctly. THEY WERE DISCHARGED.

Then we closed the state hospitals, lost funding for Community Mental Health Centers and ignored the problem.

Well, you see where that got us.

Liberals who think that placing someone who is overtly psychotic in a treatment center is unfair and wrong don’t sufficiently understand the problem. When a psychotic person is adequately treated, they are often no longer psychotic! They can return to being a productive member of our society.

If Prop 1 doesn’t pass, and it’s very, very close to whether it will or not, we’re back to watching our mentally ill sleep under freeways, yell obscenities, and even attack innocent people. Delusional thinking can’t be reasoned with. More about that in another post.

Thanks, Art

#Prop1, #Delusionalthinking, #homelessness, #mentallyill