Jeffrey Michael Friedman - Trauma and Forced Psychiatric Treatment
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Mad in America
4.7 • 213 Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2018
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on MIA Radio, we interview Jeffrey Michael Friedman, a clinical social worker and an activist in the psychiatric survivor's movement. Jeffrey provides trauma-informed therapy to victims of various forms of abuse and violence, including those who have survived abuses within the mental health system.
In addition to his work in the mental health field, Jeffrey is actively involved in the harm reduction movement, which supports human rights and non-coercive services for people who actively use drugs.
In this interview, we discuss why forced psychiatric treatment is a form of trauma and its impact on victims and their families.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Jeffrey's early experience with the alternative school system led to being othered and ostracized, which influenced his later involvement with the psychiatric survivor's movement.
- How the trauma-informed perspective offers an alternative framework to the traditional medical model of mental health.
- Why forced psychiatric treatment meets the definition of trauma, and more specifically, betrayal trauma.
- The psychological effects of involuntary commitment forced drugging and outpatient commitment.
- That forced treatment reinforces the notion that distress or crisis results from individual pathology rather than familial mistreatment or trauma.
- That victims of forced treatment may be less likely to seek medical care for physical health issues or receive proper medical treatment.
- How survivors can heal from forced treatment.
- The parallels between the harm reduction movement and the psychiatric survivor's movement, and similarities between safe consumption sites and peer services.
- That the addiction treatment industry, including 12-step programs, can be coercive in similar ways to the mental health system.
Relevant Links:
Jeffrey Michael Friedman, LCSW
What is a Betrayal Trauma? What is Betrayal Trauma Theory?
The Power Thinker– a brief description of Michel Foucault's work on power and surveillance.
Thomas Szasz: The Right to Take Drugs
The Legal Industry for Kidnapping Teens – a description of the physically forceful transportation services that are sometimes utilized to transport teenagers to addiction treatment.
Jeffrey Michael Friedman on SoundCloud
Jeffrey can be followed on Twitter: @jmfriedman and Instagram: traumainformedpodcast
Mad In America's Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal course
To get in touch with us email: podcasts@madinamerica.com
© Mad in America 2018
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry and social justice. |
| 0:12.8 | Hello, this is James, and welcome to episode 38 of the Madden America podcast. |
| 0:18.5 | This week, Emily Shearer Cutler interviews clinical social worker and activist |
| 0:22.9 | Jeffrey Michael Friedman. So joining us this week is Jeffrey Michael Friedman, a licensed clinical |
| 0:29.3 | social worker and an activist in the psychiatric survivors movement. Jeffrey provides trauma-informed |
| 0:35.2 | therapy to victims of various forms of abuse and violence, including those who have survived abuses within the mental health system. |
| 0:42.7 | He is currently completing his Ph.D. and family therapy, where he's conducting research on recovery from adverse childhood experiences. |
| 0:51.5 | In addition to his work in the mental health field, Jeffrey is actively involved in the |
| 0:55.9 | harm reduction movement, which supports human rights and non-coercive services for people who actively |
| 1:01.6 | use drugs. Jeffrey, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Emily. Can you tell us a bit |
| 1:08.1 | more about how you became interested in the topic of forced psychiatric treatment? |
| 1:12.6 | Yeah, the starting place that I generally start from in terms of what led me to this is |
| 1:19.0 | my own experience in middle school at Welsh Valley Middle School in, it was in sixth grade after leaving elementary school. |
| 1:29.3 | And at the time, I was about, uh, around, I was about six foot, feet tall when I was in, uh, |
| 1:36.2 | in sixth grade. And, uh, I think particularly, it was at a time when I was growing up and, you know, my hormones were kicking in. |
| 1:46.1 | And I was so much shy and introverted. |
| 1:50.9 | And I didn't really, I just wanted to fit in, really. |
| 1:54.3 | It looked like everybody else. |
| 1:55.5 | But being that I was that tall, I really couldn't. |
| 1:57.8 | And one of the ways that I had a hard time really just being outgoing with my |
| 2:02.8 | peers, but I decided to take on this persona of a sort of class clown. And eventually, sort of the |
| 2:11.7 | authorities of the school starts with tracking you and whatnot. But then after the sixth grade year, they basically told my parents that if I wanted to stay in the public school, |
... |
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