Living with Schizophrenia and the Ethics of Involuntary Hospitalization | Amanpour and Company
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ธ.ค. 2022
- Professor Elyn Saks has dedicated her career to caring for people with mental illness, focusing on the ethical issues surrounding their treatment. Saks speaks with Michel Martin about these issues, her own struggles with schizophrenia, and how best to help others.
Originally aired on December 21, 2022.
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Amanpour and Company features wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports. Christiane Amanpour leads the conversation on global and domestic news from London with contributions by prominent journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center in New York City.
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Getting the police involved in this process is absolutely terrifying. They are not appropriately educated nor do most of them have the kind of personalities that we could even educate them to do this well.
They wouldn't have to be involved as much if more people were hospitalized longer before being thrust back into society without the full supports they need. For so many patients, being discharged from hospital is much like being thrown out of a plane in a free-fall without knowing how to open the parachute. Many police are compassionate, many are not. They are not meant to be both the police and psychiatrists. Bring back more beds in hospitals, plus truly professional supportive living spaces for people to live safely in the community. It all boils down to government funding.
Did not mean to watch this, I've had too many experiences of bad things happening to good people with treatable mental health disorders. But Elyn drew me in and the excellent questioning created a really informative narrative. Highly recommend.
Thank you Elyn and Michel! This is a very important interview on so many levels.
Thank you very enlightening . We need more public discussion on these issues.
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. A sane person living in the streets will go mad from malnutrition, lack of sleep, social connection with drugs, lack of resources, exposure to the elements, physical illness, wearing dirty clothes, no bathroom, no shower, no coffee- and I gotta look for a job that’s 4x’s the rent?
It is all so sad.
@@judyfoster9266 for how long would you say this has been going on and who can I marry fuck or kill to stop it?
Minus the coffee
In ICU I have experienced violence to the point of being kicked by a psychiatric patient in distress. I also have seen people in my immediate neighbourhood routinely crossing very busy streets and suffering from addictions and mental illness. What is the solution? It is cruel to see them wandering down a large city street naked and holding onto their pants. It's so sad.
It’s sadder leaving them on the streets like that then it is to hospitalized them.
@@livingintheforest3963 so true.
What an excellent interview - insightful questions - courageous conversation
A remarkable woman.
Very insightful. I work in the field with folks diagnoised with Schizophrenia. Some court mandated for treatment, and some not. They are, however, all referred to our ACT team. For those of you who don't know, ACT stands for assertive community treatment. We are the highest level of outpatient mental health care provided before hospitalization. Our number one goal after safety, is to empower independence. If we don't have hope and patience for the folks we work with, the outcomes sometimes are not great. Just to clarify, AOT does not mean someone has to be forced to take medicine. What it means is that if they have not taken their prescribed medication and they are deteriorating they will be sent to CPEP for an evaluation. Medication (based on the doctor's assessment) may or may not be administered. Again, it is about safey and emporment. Also, the idea behind court mandated treatment, AKA Kendra's law or AOT, is also meant to keep people out of the hospital or jails. The cost of the work we due pails to the cost of a hospital visit/admission, or being incarcerated.
In my city the police force too often ends up picking up the pieces of those very ill because not all psychiatric hospitals or ACT teams are what they should be. Ex: hands down those with serious mental illness and serious substance use are not treated well. They are definitely not welcome on the wards. Every year our streets have more and more homeless. Many of them need a hospital and not the horrendous lodging homes they are placed in.
@@InterestedCitizen Hi - it's really tough and tall ask for police departments to handle these difficult situations. It's true hospitals sometimes don't help either. This is an extremely challenging bubble to work within. There a so many factors that complicate the process of helping beyond medical and police interactions. At times it is a no win situation for all involved. There is not a perfect solution. Serious mental illness is horrible. I hate to use the work burnout for those who work in this field, but it does happen. If we really want to help properly, more money needs to be invested in the training and care of all these individuals, and that still won't be enough. So for myself, I never give up hope. This is all I can do to empower those I work with to be better and allow for continued work to happen. In the world of SMI I work in, the outcomes are not great.That being said, we sometimes are the only voice fighting and advocating to help those with a SMI diagnosis. The system sucks, but that won't stop me.
Wonderful and insightful discussion...thanks to you both! Amanpour always hits it out of the park!!
Sadly, I still find many Americans just don't want to be bothered by this and other social issues.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Enlightening, and insightful interview. Thank you.
But it’s never out of sight it’s an all the big cities right in front of you.
@@livingintheforest3963 I live in the 7th largest city in the nation. Many residents' idea of dealing with the mentally ill and the homeless are to simply shuffle them away. The same thing our governor does with asylum seekers.
Many in this country seem to have lost their humanity. They understand these social ills exist, they simply don't want to be faced with them.
Thank you so much for the education.
Best conversation about mental illness and excepting people inflicted with the disease as part of our society in a very humane way. No, they don't need to be round up and send into a psychiatric hospital, they need to be treated individually as human beings with a disorder that doesn't diminish their human value.
Thank for having this conversation about mental illness. Educating the community and breaking the stigma is imperative in treating serious mental illness.
Great interview. Such a hot button topic. In many states, people can be court ordered to take antipsychotic medications, but ultimately the person can find allies to support them going off medication. I think the Roger's monitor is a reasonable solution to the issue, as long as it is being enforced and complied to. I wouldn't know all this but as the parent of an adult child who does not believe there is anything wrong with him, it is difficult. For years now I have watched him become more and more socially isolated, and he has lost many jobs. On top of that his behavior causes people to want to avoid him, or hiring him. There's one pill that would fix this, but so long as he refuses, his life is difficult. It is fair to say I have no life: that I myself have become isolated, as he acts in inappropriate ways that cause me to be unable to have guests, or to invite him to events. And so, his illness does not just impact him, it also has a emotional, financial impact on the family and our abilities to have a functional life.
My heart hoes out to you as mom of a daughter who wont take her meds and has a mental illness herself...
I'm so sorry that your son's mental illness had so negatively affected you,as his parent, in so many ways. Thank you for explaining the complexities of his mental illness.
Yes but if you listen to this lady she only thinks it’s up to the mentally ill person to make all the decisions and that they are not to be coerced in any way. Her situation is unique she was able to become a scholar she is one in 1 million and she’s able to have some grasp upon herself.
She acts as the one guy or person push someone into a moving train and this is just so rare. This isn’t so rare I have a friend back home he was driving down the street in her car and had a huge rock hurled into her windshield that almost hurt her and her daughter. These kind of things happen every day in LA. People are not safe.
My mother and father lived this caring for a loved one until they finally died. That's the only peace they finally came to know.
Thanks for helping me understand schizophrenia better.
Elyn's courageous Warrior Goddess spirit is paramount in finding solutions. Compassion, transparency, integrity and accountability for all!
Treat them with Respect
This lady is the extreme on all ends she is unique in that she was able to become a scholar with schizophrenia and other mental disorders. On the other hand she’s against any type of forced or strongly coerced hospitalization for those who are mentally ill are streets are full of homeless people who are very sick and need help we used to put them into institutions now we’ve let them congregate and have more and more children which is what we are seeing generations of children from mentally disordered and drug addicted adults. If it continues you just have more and more homelessness. She has the extreme point of view!
She was more worried about offending to mentally ill then taking care of the rest of society who is having to suffer through this.
Very interesting conversation. Almost through reading this lady's story. She has been through a lot. She's very resilient and courageous. Amazing story, with a bright outcome to that dark period of her life.
very enlightening and positive talk here about real world conditions / institutional responses / stigma associated with disclosing
BEST INTERVIEW EVER by Ms. Michel 🎉
Excellent interview!
That was fascinating.
excellent show
Housing first!!!
I ask often, how humane is it if the people on the street were to be too dehydrated and delirius to walk to the hospital to get hydration, and would we ignore them like we do mentally ill which are too sick to make a choice for treatment?
Homeless people need homes.
Unfortunately, mentally ill people obsessed with hoarding vast amounts of wealth are incapable of foregoing the enormous quantities of rent that can be extracted from the productive economy by driving the cost of housing beyond an ever-increasing number of people's reach.
Affordable workforce rental housing is not hard to build, but asserting democratic control over rent-seeking individuals and institutions in a financialized economy has so far shown itself to be too difficult for the American electorate to bring about.
Homeless people need houses-sanitary places of safety and privacy. A home is what they may create for themselves if they get the support they need to help them make the effort to become stable, productive participants of society.
@@allencraig02 Financial predators who make the effort to become stable, productive participants of society will not feel the need to extract economic rent from the productive economy, thus freeing the resources necessary to house everyone.
Reminds me of the movie, A Beautiful Mind.
Great vid. I started my social work career right as Bruce Ennis was heading up the NY ACLU mental health civil liberties project and was a true believer in ending institutional care until I took a break in my career and joined a police department. I spent the next 16 years as a street cop interacting in a wide set of circumstances with mentally ill neighbors. If you want to have a serious discussion about the issue it should include those with illness, caregivers, treatment personnel and those like the police with “social control” responsibility. Anything less is misleading. BTW, using force when intervening in emergency mental health calls is the exception not the rule. The problem is too few cops and too little treatment.
No the problem is dumb cops, who have no reasoning nor empathic touch. You sound like one of them.
7:42 how about not letting anymore people deteriorate to the point of homelessness? Forced mental health imprisonment businesses- how much is that going to cost? Sure as shit doesn’t sound therapeutic.
I was involved in the care of three elders who passed. I knew them and they were sane, practical people. At some point before they died they all lost contact with reality and one had to be restrained.
Trauma can cause insanity in anyone.
People respond to stress in different ways. There are probably plenty of people who should be homeless who have the "social capital" to find shelter until the crisis is over ( like a friend with an
empty couch), others have some sort of
steady income that is not large enough to purchase shelter in today's market.
Others stay out of sight. The ones who cause distress To Us are the people being
discussed here. It is likely that as they say they simply need mere shelter and protection from predators
(human and other) .Perhaps that is truly what is needed while they recover from
life on the street. Forcing people to accept what you call "care" will not work, just as forcing
teens under 16 to attend school will not, by itself, make them literate or numerate. I have read that
homelessness is surprisingly rare (even with poverty and little housing) on Indian reservations,
because relatives will take in people, at least for the night.
Don't think you understand that a loss of contact with reality severe enough to damage the ability to care for yourself is part of the definition of insanity. They are not taking traumatized people who can care for themselves into care. They are taking people who CANNOT care for their basic needs into care. Feed themselves, dress themselves, toilet themselves.
@@Cathy-xi8cb not true
I think it should be illegal to force people to take drugs.
Agree
Where I live mental health care is being denied to many people. Insurance isn't the issue.
What about convicting and sentencing skitzophrenics of crimes/sending them to prison when they need hospital treatment or something more appropriate? I think it’s high time for forcing treatment sometimes because civil rights may require subjugating some people who are a danger to themselves and dont know it. A tough call but one that needs making.
Im glad Im not either.
Ive wondered how we can involuntarily jail people who are mentally ill but not provide treatment.
The houses do look like faces and stuff in fact lots of things look like faces staring you down. I also worry that I’m hurting people all the time and they say I’m not. Can’t shake it. I feel like a demonic entity sometimes. I could punch those people who restrained her. That’s messed up on so many levels. It’s very toxic to anyone, but also very toxic to people who have experiment SA. They don’t think these things through. I’m glad things have somewhat improved since then. Mental health facilities still have a long way to go. We need HUGE reform. It will take a lot of intelligent and compassionate people, like Elyn to help. I hope to get better and be one of those people. Police made things worse for me at times, but there have been really lovely ones too. I wish we had special police units appointed for mental illness that are accompanied by a mental health professional so things don’t escalate. As a paranoid person, police can be very scary. As someone who thinks they are a murderer for existing it’s scary.✨
After working at a hospital, I adamantly propose NOBODY should be sent to a hospital for care involuntarily. Unless a person or their family convinces them to go, I am against it.
my brother is delusional. he thinks the Hell’s Angels are following him.
Stand on a subway platform and watch someone shouting and gesticulating into the air, then tell me how safe you feel. I was taught at an early age to get as far away from folks like these as you can, particularly on the platform. Be late for school, miss your doctor's appointment. But do not put yourself in the path of an agitated person for ANY reason. Get off at the next stop if they are on your subway car and either change cars or trains. Move as far away from them inside the car as you can. Shield yourself, using a few big guys between you and the agitated person who is speaking to the air.
Finally an alternative letting them roam the streets screaming.
God bless you both for bringing this to the public consciousness. My sister suffered from a similar thought disorder. It's a living HELL!
Michelle Martin, you rule!