NARPA
Responding to the Catastrophic Reduction of Psychiatric Patients' Life Expectancy
Responding to the Catastrophic Reduction of Psychiatric Patients' Life Expectancy
The life expectancy of psychiatric patients with serious psychiatric diagnoses is reduced by two to three decades, on average. Psychiatrists discuss whether this catastrophe is due to the toxic effects of psychiatric drugs or to the "bad life style" of their patients. If you assume the latter, that means that people are extremely vulnerable even before treatment, so doesn't it make it even worse to also administer drugs with potentially toxic effects? Mainstream psychiatry often does not inform patients about early warning signs of drug-related problems that can lead to serious or even deadly conditions, nor about useful physical health monitoring or the meaning of the symptoms which give a hint about developing disorders. To survive this type of psychiatric assault, it is existential to inform yourself, to start legal steps against reckless treatment, to protect yourself with non-psychiatric crisis plans and advance directives, to organize independently and non-dogmatically, and to build alliances with supportive experts and organizations.
Responding to the Catastrophic Reduction of Psychiatric Patients' Life Expectancy (PDF)
Link to brief presenter bio: Peter Lehmann