Presentation by Maths Jesperson (European Network of (ex)Users and Survivors of Psychiatry) on the occasion of the EESC SOC hearing on the European Year of Mental Health – Better Work, Better Quality of Life in Brussels on 30 October 2012

1. Maths Jesperson
Description of the Situation
Presentation at the public hearing on the
European Year of Mental Health – Better Work, Better Quality of Life
European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Brussels 30 October 2012
We, users and survivors of psychiatry, welcome the initiative to make 2014 a European Year
of Mental Health. I have been asked to give some comments on the EESC Working
Document concerning this.
But before going into this, first a few remarks on terminology. I will in this presentation never
use the concept “mental illness”. This is a false concept, because what we talk about here is
not an illness. There is no scientific proof of the illness model, although this is still the main
hypothesis within main stream psychiatry.
In our movement we instead use the concept “psychosocial disability”, which also is the
terminology used for example by the United Nations. But if you don’t like that, I advise you
to use the concept “mental disorder” instead of ”mental illness”, because “mental disorder” is
not biased towards the medical model, but do encompass also the social model and the
psychological model.
Coming back to the Working Document, I must first say that there is almost nothing in the
text that I object. I find many parts excellent, but there are also some parts which I think are a
bit too vague and general in their descriptions and recommendations.
When describing the current situation, the starting point of the Working Document is the
observation that mental health problems are increasing all over Europe - and that this in some
way is related to the development of our modern time. Some distressing elements in the
modern society are identified. All this is true, but the description is still too vague and general,
and it’s hard to see how those distressing elements are concretely linked to the increase of
mental health problems.
During the last 30 years I have talked with thousands of psychiatric patients, and according to
this experience as well as to an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, it is very clear that
the starting point is a traumatic experience in childhood or early youth. Of course childhood
traumas don’t always develop into severe mental health problems later in life. Some
additional causes must occur as well.
The starting point is a trauma. From this emerge an emotional conflict, which pops up over
and over again. To be able to go on living, the individual develops a coping strategy to keep
the conflict at bay. This could work quite well for many years, but when the individual
encounters a new crisis later in life, the old emotional conflict bursts forth once again, and
much worse than ever before. The emotional conflict is now so huge that the individual
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2. cannot bear it anymore. It becomes overwhelming. The coping strategies don’t work any
longer. What the general public call madness or mental illness, is actually a non-functional
coping strategy.
The first new crisis a person with childhood trauma encounters is usually puberty. This is the
reason why psychotic problems often start at the age of 16-18. Crisis later in life, that trigger
old traumas and old reactions to burst forth, can be mobbing in the working place,
unemployment, bankruptcy, poverty, death of a dear one, divorce and so on. This leads to
exclusion and isolation, and all these elements strengthen each other in a vicious circle. In my
opinion it is in this way – as additional or secondary causes – that social and economic
problems influence the increase of mental health problems in modern society.
But there is one major cause behind the rapid increase of mental health problems in Europe,
which isn’t mentioned at all in this Working Document, and that is psychiatry itself. This is
the blind spot in almost all discussions around mental health problems. It is taken for granted
that psychiatry is an instrument to combat mental health problems. When psychiatry fails to
solve these problems – and psychiatry fails all the time – it is not seen as a problem inherent
in psychiatry itself, in its theories and methods. The diagnosis is instead that psychiatry hasn’t
enough money. Consequently the politicians allocate more and more money to psychiatry,
become frustrated that this doesn’t solve anything at all – and still think that the problem is a
lack of money.
But lack of money is not the real problem. The failure of psychiatry has its roots in psychiatry
itself - in its antiquated and ineffective theories and methods. Now, this is a too big issue to
expound more in detail here. And it’s also a very hot issue, so I understand why the politicians
beat about the bush. But if those in power continue to evade this main issue, they will never
get anywhere. It doesn’t matter how many millions they spend on social projects or huge anti-
stigma campaigns. The problems with increasing mental health problems in Europe will just
continue.
To illustrate what I just said, I will give you two concrete examples to ponder on:
1. One of the hottest discussions within the psychiatric field right now, is the fact that the lives
of psychiatric patients are shorter and shorter. And it is a dramatic reduction of the average
length of life, which is well captured in a headline from the newspaper USA Today:
“Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, on average” 1 The article refers to a study carried out in a
number of states in the US. The study looks at life expectancy of psychiatric patients in the
early 90’s compared with today, and the result is shocking! In the early 90’s psychiatric
patients lived 10-15 years shorter than the ordinary population. Now they live 25 years
shorter! In these figures suicides are not included, so it’s not about a rise in suicide rates.
A similar study was carried out in the UK a few years ago, by a team from the National
Institute for Health Research. The researchers made the following conclusion: ”Premature
1
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007‐05‐03‐mental‐illness_N.htm
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3. mortality among people with mental disorders most likely arises from a combination of
factors including social disadvantage, long-term antipsychotic drug use and higher-risk
lifestyles.” 2
Psychiatric medicines are one of the main causes for psychiatric patients living 25 years
shorter than the ordinary population. This is a bomb under mainstream psychiatry, because it
cannot be denied. There is already a denomination for this cause. It’s called “metabolic
syndrome”. The psychiatric drugs harm the metabolic process in the patient. This leads to
diabetes, overweight and a series of other injuries, which end with the person dying by a heart
disease or a stroke at the age of 40.
Why are the politicians ignoring this terrible catastrophe, which is increasing more and more
every year? Why isn’t there a European emergency plan for stopping this? Aren’t the lives of
psychiatric patients just as valuable as other citizens’? Do we still have the idea of
“Untermensch” lurking in the back of the heads of the politicians? If I would be cynical, I
might think the politicians secretly think it’s good that psychiatric patients die 25 years
earlier, because it saves a lot of money for society…
Anyway, this urgent problem with premature death among psychiatric patients – caused by
psychiatry – must be addressed in this Working Document!
2. In the August issue of the British Journal of Medicine is an amazing editorial. The starting-
point is the fact that psychiatric medicines are not much more effective than placebo. When
this fact is combined with the knowledge that the same medicines entail severe risks for the
persons physical health and even life, the authors make the conclusion that there is no
scientific or ethic ground for forced psychiatric treatment with medicines.3
But this is not the conclusion made by European politicians. On the contrary - since ten years
forced psychiatric treatment is increasing in every European country through new legislation.
Before these laws on “community treatment orders” – as the euphemism goes – were
implemented, forced psychiatric treatment could only be carried out in hospitals. Now you
could be forcibly treated in your own home - more or less for the rest of your life. And the
tendency is continuing. In Sweden, for example, we have a new law proposal, which will
make it even more easy to subject people to forced psychiatric treatment.
There is no scientific ground for this increase of forced psychiatric treatment in Europe, and it
is clearly against the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities, which the
same European politicians have ratified in their parliaments.
2
http://www.kingshealthpartners.org/news/serious‐mental‐illness (the full scientific report is available at
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0019590). Another British study with similar
results was presented in the journal BMC Psychiatry in 2011, see http://www.physorg.com/news/2011‐03‐life‐
severely‐mentally‐ill‐due.html (the full scientific report at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471‐244X/11/46).
3
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/201/2/83.full
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4. In the next session I will give some concrete examples on what has to be done.
But before concluding, I will just mention that there is one paragraph in the Working
Document that I find really excellent. It’s paragraph 2.4 about “spiritual experiences of people
with mental health problems”. There is not enough time for going deeper into this subject
now, but here you really come into a field, which is at the very heart of our movement of
users and survivors of psychiatry. Excellent!
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