{"quotes":[{"text":"In 2006, there is no army of recovered memory therapists, and Dr McNally’s assumptions about patients with PTSD and those working in this field are troubling. Owing to past debates, those working in the PTSD field are perhaps more knowledgeable than others about malingered, factitious, and iatrogenic variants.Why, then, does Dr McNally attack PTSD as a valid diagnosis, demean those working in the field, and suggest that sufferers are mostly malingered or iatrogenic, while giving little or no consideration is given to such variants of other psychiatric conditions? Perhaps the trauma field has been “so often embroiled in serious controversy” (4, p 816) for the same reason Dr McNally and others have trouble imagining the traumatization of a Vietnam War cook or clerk. One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients.'Cameron, C., \u0026 Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402.","author":"Colin Cameron","tags":["denial","dissociation","iatrogenic","malingering","mental-health-stigma","mental-illness-discrimination","ptsd","recovered-memory-therapists","repression","society-denial","trauma-memory","trauma-survivors","traumatized"],"id":29843,"author_id":"Colin+Cameron"},{"text":"Mental illness is not something you misunderstand in this era. Get educated because bias is no different than racism.","author":"Shannon L. Alder","tags":["advocacy","autism-spectrum-disorder","bias","bringingchangetomind-com","civil-rights","discrimination","educate","education","end-discrimination","human-rights","mental-health-bias","mental-illness","mental-illness-discrimination","stand-up-for-what-is-right"],"id":52434,"author_id":"Shannon+L.+Alder"},{"text":"In his recent guest editorial, Richard McNally voices skepticism about the National Vietnam Veteran’s Readjustment Study (NVVRS) data reporting that over one-half of those who served in the Vietnam War have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or subclinical PTSD. Dr McNally is particularly skeptical because only 15% of soldiers served in combat units (1). He writes, “the mystery behind the discrepancy in numbers of those with the disease and of those in combat remains unsolved today” (4, p 815). He talks about bizarre facts and implies many, if not most, cases of PTSD are malingered or iatrogenic. Dr McNally ignores the obvious reality that when people are deployed to a war zone, exposure to trauma is not limited to members of combat units (2,3). At the Operational Trauma and Stress Support Centre of the Canadian Forces in Ottawa, we have assessed over 100 Canadian soldiers, many of whom have never been in combat units, who have experienced a range of horrific traumas and threats in places like Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. We must inform Dr McNally that, in real world practice, even cooks and clerks are affected when faced with death, genocide, ethnic cleansing, bombs, landmines, snipers, and suicide bombers ...One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients.' Cameron, C., \u0026 Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402.","author":"Colin Cameron","tags":["combat-ptsd","denial","iatrogenic","malingering","mental-illness-discrimination","mental-illness-stigma","posttraumatic-stress-disorder","ptsd","society-denial"],"id":75334,"author_id":"Colin+Cameron"},{"text":"The fatal weakness of most psychiatric historiographies lies in the historians' failure to give sufficient weight to the role of coercion in psychiatry and to acknowledge that mad-doctoring had nothing to do with healing.","author":"Thomas Szasz","tags":["coercion","historiography","mental-illness","mental-illness-discrimination"],"id":122999,"author_id":"Thomas+Szasz"},{"text":"A phenomenon that might seem only backwards or silly when expressed at a social level becomes madness at the individual level.","author":"Caitlín R. Kiernan","tags":["cultural-differences","mental-illness","mental-illness-discrimination","mental-illness-stigma"],"id":133808,"author_id":"Caitl%C3%ADn+R.+Kiernan"},{"text":"I cut myself up really badly with the lid of a tin can. They took me to the emergency room, but I couldn’t tell the doctor what I had done to cut myself—I didn’t have any memory of it. The ER doctor was convinced that dissociative identity disorder didn’t exist. . . . A lot of people involved in mental health tell you it doesn’t exist. Not that you don’t have it, but that it doesn’t exist.","author":"Bessel A. van der Kolk","tags":["denial","dissociative-amnesia","dissociative-disorders","dissociative-identity-disorder","invalidation","mental-health","mental-health-bias","mental-health-stigma","mental-illness-discrimination","mental-illness-stigma"],"id":147494,"author_id":"Bessel+A.+van+der+Kolk"},{"text":"Every time you feel like mocking a person you disagree with politically by implying that they are mentally ill, I want you to instead imagine you are talking to every single person who actually is mentally ill and telling them they are worthless. That's how it makes mentally ill people feel. Doesn't seem very progressive now does it?","author":"Ariel Howland","tags":["crazy","labelling","mental-disorder","mental-disorder-bias","mental-health-stigma","mental-illness-discrimination","mentally-disturbed","mocking","politics","prejudice","progressive","stigma","stigmatization","stigmatized","worthlessness"],"id":313440,"author_id":"Ariel+Howland"},{"text":"Schizo. It didn't matter how many times Dr. Gill compared it to a disease or physical disability, it wasn't the same thing. It just wasn't. I had schizophrenia. If I saw two guys on the sidewalk, one in a wheelchair and one talking talking to himself, which would I rush to open a door for, and which would I cross the road to avoid?","author":"Kelley Armstrong","tags":["invisible-illness","mental-disorder","mental-illness","mental-illness-discrimination","mental-illness-stigma","schizophrenia"],"id":322177,"author_id":"Kelley+Armstrong"},{"text":"Each of these patients counts on us to help them to the best of our abilities. We have an obligation to them. We shouldn’t turn our backs on them and give up. It’s not fair to them, nor is it fair to ourselves.","author":"Jason Medina","tags":["jason-medina","kings-park","kings-park-pscyhiatric-center","kings-park-state-hospital","mary-hatchet","mental-illness","mental-illness-discrimination","the-tale-of-mary-hatchet","the-tale-of-mary-hatchet","tribal-publications","tribal-publications-inc","xlibris"],"id":429406,"author_id":"Jason+Medina"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":9,"pages":1}}