People with severe IDD and those with Serious Mental Illness experience similar barriers to treatment and care

This is a talk by D.J. Jaffe from MentalIllnessPolicy.org on barriers to treatment for people with serious mental illness. It was presented to the National Conference for Behavioral Health in Washington, D.C. in April 2018. Jaffe is the brother-in-law of a woman with schizophrenia.

According to the Website, “Mental Illness Policy Org. was founded in 2011 to provide unbiased and easy-to-access information for the media and policy makers about the care and treatment of people with serious and persistent mental illness. The issues facing the seriously mentally ill differ from the problems that affect the much broader population of people who have issues like anxiety and mild depression. The needs of the seriously ill often get lost in the larger dialogue about mental health. Being honest about this population requires addressing difficult issues like violence and involuntary treatment, issues many organizations prefer to avoid.”

Of course there are differences between people with severe mental illness and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), but there are some striking similarities in the barriers to appropriate care and treatment for both populations. Those with severe and profound IDD also “get lost in the larger dialogue…” about people with disabilities. There is a reluctance to acknowledge the severity of these disabilities for fear of stigmatizing the entire population of people with disabilities, not to mention the profound effect these disabilities have on families and caregivers. To be sure, we are talking about a small but significant minority in both populations whose needs cannot be dismissed or swept away by ignoring reality or by wishful thinking.

Here are a few excerpts from Jaffe’s talk that caught my attention:

“We fail the seriously mentally ill when we try to convince government that it is stigma rather than lack of services that presents the major barrier to care for the seriously mentally ill”

“…when we mislead about violence, after incidents like Parkland, Virginia Tech, Aurora Colorado, we pull out our most popular claim: the mentally ill are no more violent than others. Nonsense. The untreated seriously mentally ill are more violent than others and …we know it… We fail the seriously mentally ill when we try to hide that because we prevent solutions. “

“If we really want to reduce stigma, we have to reduce the violence.”

“The police step in when one condition is met - the mental health system fails.”

“…We mislead officials into thinking we should spend more improving mental health and mental wellness in the masses rather than on treating the seriously ill. As a result of our advocacy the ability to get care has largely become inversely related to need. The least seriously ill are going to the head of the line and the most seriously ill are going to jails, they’re going to shelters, they’re going to prisons, and they are going to morgues.”

“Funds have been moving from state hospitals, which by definition serve the seriously ill, to community programs…but that’s not where patients are moving. Patients are moving from hospitals, which are going way down, to jails which are going way up. But we in the industry still claim that if we reduce hospitals we will reduce institutionalization. That has nothing to do with reality.”

“We have to make it easier for people to get treatment before they become a danger to self or others rather than preserving laws that require them to become a danger to self or others… We have to stand up against Bazelon, Protection and Advocacy, the ACLU…and others who believe being psychotic, delusional, hallucinating is a right to be protected rather than an illness to be treated…”

So-called evidence-based programs are “generated by the promoters of the treatments who want us to ignore their conflicts of interest…”

“The seriously mentally ill are being shunned and shut out of the engagement”

On stigma: “Any mom of somebody with serious mental illness, any social worker who works [with the seriously mentally ill]..knows that the biggest barrier to care is there’s no services available…”

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D.J. Jaffe's talk on Youtube

"Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Seriously Mentally Ill" by D.J. Jaffe

Review of "Insane Consequences" by Pete Earley