19137 CCHR Pamphlet - Rest - Urantia-GAIA...hearings into psychiatric abuse, as well as working with...

PSYCHIATRY’S ‘THERAPEUTIC’ ASSAULT

A Public Service Report from Citizens Commission on Human Rights

DEADLY RESTRAINTS

CCIITTIIZZEENNSS CCOOMMMMIISSSSIIOONN OONN HHUUMMAANN RRIIGGHHTTSS

The Citizens Commission on HumanRights (CCHR) was established in 1969 bythe Church of Scientology to investigateand expose psychiatric violations of humanrights, and to clean up the field of mentalhealing. Its co-founder is Dr. ThomasSzasz, professor of psychiatry emeritus andan internationally renowned author. Today,CCHR has more than 130 chapters in over30 countries. Its board of advisors, calledCommissioners, includes doctors, lawyers,educators, artists, business professionals,and civil and human rights representatives.

CCHR has inspired and caused manyhundreds of reforms by testifying beforelegislative hearings and conducting publichearings into psychiatric abuse, as well asworking with media, law enforcement andpublic officials the world over.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:CCHR International

6616 Sunset Blvd.Los Angeles, CA, USA 90028

Telephone: (323) 467-4242(800) 869-2247 • Fax: (323) 467-3720

www.cchr.orge-mail: [email protected]

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19137 CCHR Pamphlet - Rest 10/28/04 5:33 PM Page 2

© 2004 CCHR. All Rights Reserved. CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, CCHR and the CCHRlogo are trademarks and service marks owned by Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Printed in the U.S.A.Item #FLO 19137

RECOMMENDATIONS

1 The use of physical and mechanical restraints shouldbe outlawed. Until this occurs, any psychiatric staffmember—and the psychiatrist who authorized theprocedure—should be criminally culpable in the eventthe restraint results in physical damage or death.

2 Anyone who has been abused, assaulted or falselyimprisoned by a psychiatrist or other mental healthpractitioner should file a complaint with the police,and send a copy of the complaint to CCHR.

3 If you or a relative or friend have been falsely impris-oned in a psychiatric facility, assaulted, abused or dam-aged by a mental health practitioner, seek attorneyadvice about filing a civil suit against any offendingpsychiatrist and his or her hospital, associations andteaching institutions for compensatory and punitivedamages. Let CCHR know about your situation.

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PHOTO CREDITS: Cover: Rick Messina/Hartford Courant; 2: Saba PressPhotos; 12: Corbis; 11: Reuters News Media Inc./Corbis.

1 Jonathan Osborne and Mike Ward, “Whendiscipline turns fatal,” Austin AmericanStatesman, 18 May 2003; “Across the Nation,”TCB Chronicles, Chronicle One, Apr./May 2000;Dave Reynolds, “Texas Panel Passes RestraintBill,” Inclusion Daily Express, 7 Apr. 2003.2 Victor Malarek, “The Killing of Stephanie,”The Globe and Mail (Canada), 23 Feb. 2003.3 Regulation No. 39, “The Standards RegardingStaff, Equipments and Management of theWelfare of the Elderly in Selected NursingInstitutions,” (translation), Health & WelfareMinistry, 31 Mar. 1999.4 “I did not plug (her) mouth,” YomiuriNewspaper (Japan), 1 Oct. 2003.5 “Seclusion and Restraints: A Failure, Not ATreatment, Protecting Mental Health Patients

from Abuses,” California Senate Research Office,Mar. 2002, p. 9.6 Ibid.7 Declaration of Ron Morrison, for Protectionand Advocacy, Inc., Brief of Amicus Curaie inSupport of Plaintiffs…, US Court of Appeals,No. 99-56953, 9 Mar. 2000.8 Donald Milliken, MD, “Death by Restraint,”Canadian Medical Association Journal, 16 June 1998.9 Robert Whitaker, Mad in America: Bad Science,Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of theMentally Ill (Perseus Publishing, Massachusetts,2002), p. 187.10 Ibid.11 “Introducing Thomas Dorman, M.D.,” Internetaddress: http://www.libertyconferences.com/dor-man.htm.

Caution: No one should stop taking any psychiatric drug without the advice and assistance of a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the United StatesInternational Association of Scientologists Members’ Trust.

IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONNPSYCHIATRIC

RESTRAINT — A KILLER

T o state the obvious, psychiatric “care”is not supposed to kill patients, andno one expects patients to die in psy-

chiatric hospitals. Yet this is what quietlyhappens under the watchful eye of psychia-trists every day, in psychiatric institutionsaround the world.

Nine-year-old Randy Steele didn’t feellike taking a bath in the psychiatric facilityto which he had been admitted. In the scuf-fle that ensued Randy vomited and thenstopped breathing, while staff forciblyrestrained him. After reviving him, he wasquickly transferred to another hospitalwhere he died the next day. Hospitalrecords later showed that Randy had been

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personality changes, dementia, depression,delusional thinking, sleep disorders (frequentor early morning awaking), poor concentration,changed speech patterns, tachycardia [rapidheartbeat], nocturia [excessive urination atnight], tremulousness and confusion.”

“No single psychiatric symptom exists that cannot at times be caused or aggravated by various physical illnesses,” researcher Erwin Koranyi reported in aCanadian study.

The psychiatrist blatantly and continuallychooses to ignore this evidence. Nevertheless, itis a well-established fact that undiagnosed anduntreated physical disease creates the verysame mental and physical symptoms that psy-chiatry chooses to define as symptoms ofuntreated psychiatric conditions.

There are humane alternatives to thepsychiatric industry’s monopoly. People indesperate circumstances must be providedproper and effective medical care. Soundmedical attention, good nutrition, a healthy,safe environment and activity that promotesconfidence, will do far more for a troubledperson than repeated drugging, shocks, violentrestraints and other psychiatric abuses. Thecritical difference is that correctly diagnosingand treating the physical condition cures thedisease, thereby automatically resolving themental and physical symptoms. By contrast,psychiatric diagnosis and treatment ofsupposed mental illness has never determinedthe cause, therefore never cures the “illness”and—because it is hit and miss at best—alwaysworsens the symptoms, providing the treatmentisn’t fatal.

Mental health facilities should have non-psychiatric physicians on their staff, and be equipped with a full complement ofdiagnostic equipment to locate underlying andundiagnosed physical conditions. Such correctdiagnosis would prevent an estimated 40% ofpsychiatric admissions.

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restrained 25 times in the 28 days prior to hisdeath. Despite the evidence of blood dischargingfrom his nose, mouth, eyes and anus, and bruises on his face and abdomen, no criminalcharges were filed. At state legislative hearingsin 2003, Randy’s mother, Holly, held up her son’sautopsy photos, pleading: “I hope that no otherchild has to die like this.”1

In 1998, psychiatric staff forced 13-year-oldCanadian Stephanie Jobin (already dosed with fivedifferent psychiatric drugs)to lie face down on thefloor, shoved a beanbagchair on top of her, sat onthe chair to pin her downand held her feet. Afterstruggling for 20 minutes,Stephanie stopped breath-ing. Her death was ruledan accident.2

Restraint “procedures”are the most visible evi-dence of the barbaricpractices that psychia-trists choose to call thera-py or treatment. And asthese examples clearlyshow, such psychiatricbrutality does not softenas human compassion would deem appropriate,even for the sake of youth.

Since 1969, the Citizens Commission onHuman Rights (CCHR) has investigated andexposed deaths resulting directly from a psychi-atrist’s “care.”

Working with legislators and media in 1999,CCHR helped expose the grisly truth that up to150 restraint deaths occur without accountabilityevery year, in the United States alone. At least 13 of the deaths, over a two year period, werechildren, some as young as six years old.

Steps taken to curb the death toll have had lit-tle effect. Despite the passage of restrictive federalregulations in the United States in 1999, anothernine children had died of suffocation or cardiacarrest from violent restraint procedures by 2002.

“Restraint ‘procedures’are perhaps the mostvisible evidence of thebarbaric practices thatpsychiatrists choose tocall therapy or treat-ment. Such brutalitydoes not soften, ashuman compassionwould deem appropri-ate, even for the sake ofyouth.” — Jan Eastgate

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C harles B. Inlander, president of ThePeople’s Medical Society, and his col-leagues wrote in Medicine on Trial,

“People with real or alleged psychiatric orbehavioral disorders are being misdiagnosed—and harmed—to an astonishing degree. …Many of them do not have psychiatric problemsbut exhibit physical symptoms that may mimicmental conditions, and so they are misdiag-nosed, put on drugs, put in institutions, andsent into a limbo from which they may neverreturn.”

Researchers tell us: “The most commonmedically induced psychiatric symptoms areapathy, anxiety, visual hallucinations, mood and

CCHHAAPPTTEERR FFOOUURRRESTORING BASICHUMANITY

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In Japan, regulations were passed in 2000prohibiting the use of physical restraints on theelderly, after the discovery that private psychi-atric hospitals were forcibly incarcerating andillegally restraining elderly patients.3 Still theviolence continued. In 2003, Dr. Masami Houki,head of the Houki psychiatric clinic in Japan,was charged with manslaughter after heplugged the mouth of a 31-year-old femalepatient with tissue, put adhesive tape over hermouth, injected her with a tranquilizer, tied herhands and feet, and forced her to lay on the backseat of a car while transferring her to his clinic.She was dead on arrival.4

Houki is one of the few psychiatrists—indeed, any psychiatric staff—who has beencriminally charged due to deaths resulting fromviolent restraint procedures, euphemisticallycalled “humane restraint therapy.” Meanwhile,thousands of people of all ages continue to diefrom such callous, physical assault in psychiatricfacilities across the globe.

The reason for this is very simple. “Assault”is by definition an attempt or apparent attemptto inflict injury upon another by using unlawfulforce, along with the ability to injure that person.“Battery” is defined as any unlawful beating orother wrongful physical violence or constraintinflicted on a human being without his consent.

Psychiatric restraint procedures, and allother psychiatric procedures for that matter,qualify as “assault and battery” in every respectexcept one; they are lawful. Psychiatry hasplaced itself above the law; from there it canassault and batter its unfortunate victims with acomplete lack of accountability, all in the nameof “treatment.”

It is imperative that law enforcement andlawmakers take action to put a stop to theseatrocities.

Jan Eastgate, President, Citizens Commissionon Human Rights International

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called a disorder. “In psychiatry, all of its diagnosesare called disorders because none of them areestablished diseases,” says Dr. Joseph Glenmullenof Harvard Medical School. In fact, psychiatry has never advanced beyond theory, conjecture and opinion.

Dr. Rex Cowdry, director of the NationalInstitute for Mental Health (NIMH), testified beforethe U.S. Congress in 1995, saying: “Over fivedecades, research supported and conducted byNIMH has defined the core symptoms of the severe

mental illnesses.” How-ever, “we do not know thecauses. We don’t have themethods of ‘curing’ theseillnesses yet.” [Emphasisadded]

The definitions ofthese “core symptoms”constitute the AmericanPsychiatric Association’sDiagnostic and StatisticalManual of Mental Disorders(DSM). Decided upon by a

vote of American Psychiatric Association members,psychiatry and psychology’s “disorders” are notbased on science.

As Dr. Thomas Dorman, an internist andmember of the Royal College of Physicians of theUnited Kingdom and Canada, wrote, “In short, thewhole business of creating psychiatric categories of‘disease,’ formalizing them with consensus, andsubsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them,which in turn leads to their use for insurancebilling, is nothing but an extended racket furnish-ing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura. The perpe-trators are, of course, feeding at the publictrough.”11

However, the “bitter medicine” is much morethan just the failure of the DSM, and psychiatristsare much more than just frauds living high at thepublic’s expense. The harsh reality is that in theirhands, these “diagnostic” manuals have been usedto decide individuals’ fates, often leading to brutalassault and death.

The harsh reality is that thousands

die or are physically and mentally disabledeach year because of

psychiatry’s unscientificand fraudulent

diagnoses.

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CCHHAAPPTTEERR OONNEEBRUTAL TREATMENT FOR PROFIT

W ith billions in government appropria-tions allocated for mental health treat-ment to provide the “best possible

care,” why is it that psychiatrists rely on violenceto enforce their will and, as is frequently the case,risk killing their patients?

In a 2002 California Senate Research Officereport, expert testimony stated, “The attempt toimpose ‘treatment’ by force is always counterpro-ductive—creating humiliation, resentment andresistance to further treatment that might be morehelpful.”5 The Pennsylvania Office of Mental Healthand Substance Abuse Services reported that seclu-sion and restraint “do not alleviate human sufferingor psychiatric symptoms, do not alter behavior andhave frequently resulted in patient and staff injury,emotional trauma and patient death.”6

From the patient’s perspective, if they don’t die,they certainly never forget a restraint experience.

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CCHHAAPPTTEERR TTHHRREEEEDIAGNOSTIC FRAUD

I n medicine, strict criteria exist for calling a con-dition a disease. In addition to a predictable groupof symptoms, the cause of the symptoms or

some understanding of their physiology (func-tions) must be established. Malaria is a diseasecaused by a parasite that is transmitted from aninfected to an uninfected individual by the bite ofa particular mosquito. Malaria’s symptoms includeperiodic chills and fever.

In the absence of a known cause or physiology,a group of symptoms, presumed to be related, is

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In a statement for a 2002 Californiacourt case related to restraints, RonMorrison, a regis-tered psychiatricnurse, said, “…anindividual who isrestrained feels vul-nerable , inade-quate, humiliatedand unprotected.This may result inmental deteriora-

tion and exaggerated resentment or contempt forthose responsible for the restraint procedure, andmay actually aggravate a potentially violent situa-tion, or create the potential for continued violence inthe future.” Morrison also reported that patientscan become so exhausted fighting against restraints,they risk cardiac and respiratory collapse.7

In response to the overwhelming evidence oflife-threatening dangers and degradation associ-ated with restraints, psychiatrists simply tellbald-faced lies or devalue death. DonaldMilliken, chief of the Department of Psychiatry inthe Capital Health Region in Canada for example,declared, “[R]estraint is not itself harmless; someproportion of those who are restrained may die.We do not know what this proportion is or howmany others will come near death and will needto be revived. As clinicians we need to accept thatrestraint procedures are potentially lethal and tobe judicious with their use.”8

Restraint use is not motivated by concern forthe patient. A lawsuit in Denmark revealed thathospitals received additional funding for treatingviolent patients. Harvard psychiatrist KennethClark reported that in America, patients are oftenprovoked to justify placing them in restraints,which also results in higher insurance reimburse-ments—at least $1,000 a day. The more violent apatient becomes—or is made—the more moneythe psychiatrist makes.

Slammed face down on the floor, Roshelle’s arms

were yanked across herchest, her wrists grippedfrom behind by a mental

health aide. She was forciblydrugged; blood trickled from

the corner of her mouth. Her limp body was rolled

into a blanket and dumped ina seclusion room. No one

watched her die.

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other psychotropic drugs, described another prob-lem: “Neuroleptics temporarily dimmed psy-chosis but over the long run made patients morebiologically prone to it. A second paradoxicaleffect … was a side effect called akathisia” [a, with-out; kathisia … an inability to keep still]. This condition triggers extreme inner anxiety and rest-lessness. “Patients would endlessly pace, fidget intheir chairs, and wring their hands—actions thatreflected an inner torment. This side effect wasalso linked to assaultive, violent behavior.”

When investigators finally studied akathisia,“patients gave them an earful.” They experiencedpain so great that they wanted to “jump out of theirskins,” of “anxiety of annihilating proportions.”One woman banged her head against the wall andcried, “I just want to get rid of this whole body!”9

Case studies have detailed how patients suf-fering from drug-induced akathisia, sought toescape from this misery by jumping from build-ings and hanging or stabbing themselves. In onestudy, 79% of “mental patients” who had tried tokill themselves suffered from akathisia.10

Various investigators found that this sideeffect regularly made patients more prone to vio-lence and dubbed the effect, “behavioral toxicity.”

Even the latest Selective Serotonin ReuptakeInhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants can causeakathisia, and have been linked to a series of schoolshootings in the United States and elsewhere.

The use of chemical restraints by psychiatriststoday is unworkable and potentially lethal. Theirdrugs actually worsen existing mental problemsand create new ones for the individual.

The major tranquilizers (antipsychotics) damage the extrapyramidalsystem, the extensive complex network of nerve fibers that moderatesmotor control, resulting in muscle rigidity, spasms, various involuntarymovements which draw the face and body into bizarre contortions.

Restraint methods involve a degree of forcethat is especially deadly for the young, who donot have the ability to expand their chests againstthe weight of an adult; this factor accounts for themany restraint deaths each year—including thoseof Roshelle Clayborne, aged 16; Tristan Sovern,aged 12 and Randy Steele, aged 9 (below).

But the restraint devices and holds in wide-spread use within mental health facilities cancause a patient of any age to asphyxiate, even ifthe mouth and nose are not blocked. The restraint

is more dangerous when cou-pled with mouth coverings ordrugs that suppress respiration.

Those responsible for killingpatients are rarely criminallycharged, as such holds areaccepted psychiatric procedure.

Randy Steele, 9

Roshelle Clayborne, 16

Tristan Sovern, 12

DDEEAATTHH BBYY RREESSTTRRAAIINNTT

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There is no real mystery here.Unbelievable as it may be, and as KennethClark admits, psychiatrists intend to degradetheir patients’ behavior for the sake of greaterprofit. The money is why thousands ofpatients each year are subjected to “four-point restraints,” after being subjected toknown violence-inducing drugs—drugs thatare the favored treatment of the psychiatrist.

THE ASSAULT ON CHILDRENThe following cases illustrate the dan-

gers of a “profession” that has no under-standing of, or answers to, mental healthproblems. The fact that such heart-wrench-ing tragedy is regularly repeated under psychiatric childcare, in spite of governmentefforts to prevent it, reflects the viciousnessof individual psychiatrists. They not only condone such criminal brutality, butdare call it “treatment” or “humane restrainttherapy.”

❚ 2002: 17-year-old Charles ChaseMoody of Texas was suffocated to deathduring a restraint procedure in a Texasbehavioral treatment facility.

❚ 2001: 11-year-old Tanner Wilson diedfrom a heart attack while being restrained inan Iowa mental health facility.

❚ 2000: 12-year-old Michael Wiltsei diedof asphyxiation while being restrained at aFlorida Youth Center.

❚ 1998: Within two weeks of beingadmitted to Desert Hills psychiatric hospitalin Tucson, Arizona, 15-year-old EdithCampos was sent home to her parents in acoffin. She had died of asphyxiation, herchest compressed when she was held to theground by hospital staff for at least 10 min-utes, after reportedly raising her fist duringa confrontation with staff members.

❚ 1996: Jimmy Kanda, age 6, died afterbeing strapped to a wheelchair and left unat-tended in a psychiatric Family Care Home inCalifornia. He died from strangulation, try-ing to free himself from the straps.

S amuel Rangle, 29, was admitted to Patton StatePsychiatric Hospital in San Bernardino,California on June 1, 1999. Knowing from pre-

vious experience that he would suffer severe reac-tions, he refused to take the powerful psychotropicdrug Haldol, which is often used to serve as a “chem-ical restraint.” He fled into a room where severalorderlies cornered him. Nine staff jumped on himafter a blanket was thrown over his head. Elevenmore stood by and watched as he was handcuffedand sat on. Within two hours, Samuel was dead.

Samuel’s mother later stated, “My son wastaken down like a dog, sat on and crushed to thefloor until he took his last breath. Samuel could beheard yelling, ‘I can’t breathe’ over and over, butunfortunately his cry for help fell upon deaf ears.”

Samuel had good reason to fear Haldol, theneuroleptic (nerve-seizing) drug. Neuroleptics fre-quently cause difficulty in thinking, poor concentra-tion, nightmares, emotional dullness, depression,despair and sexual dysfunction.

Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America, acompelling book covering the history of these and

CCHHAAPPTTEERR TTWWOOCHEMICAL STRAITJACKETS

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19137 CCHR Pamphlet - Rest - Urantia-GAIA...hearings into psychiatric abuse, as well as working with...

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