Mental health
In the article on "Mental illness and transformation" in GLW #668, Patricia Deegan is quoted as saying: "In the Florida Self-Directed Care Project, 140 people with psychiatric disabilities were given control of the public dollars allocated for their mental health care. They developed individual budgets as part of their recovery plan, so the money was made accountable. Not only did these people's quality of life improve with less hospitalisations, less jail time and less symptoms, but they were also going back to school and work. People naturally gravitated away from the segregated mental health settings into integrated settings in the community."
In spite of its success, or perhaps because of it, and despite winning a national prize for innovation in mental health, the state of Florida killed the program. It has been dead for more than a year.
The term "consumer" is becoming the next encouraged label for people in public mental health programs who deal with a mental health issue. It has replaced "patient" and "client", equally false labels. Many of us however reject all such labels.
I am uncertain what Deegan means by "people with a mental illness". Single descriptors are not informative. We are a very large group of people, and like "people with brown eyes", we are extremely varied. We are legislators, judges, lawyers, teachers, professors, writers, artists, reporters and editors, even heads of state. And we all "access services" when we need them, generally private practitioners.
Harold Maio
former consulting editor
Boston University Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal
Fort Myers, Florida
Pagans
I read the letter by Zane Alcorn entitled "Pagans" in last week's GLW and agreed almost entirely with the points raised. However, I think some important points were overlooked.
Catholic archbishop George Pell mentioned that the Koran was a book that incited violence and then later accused pagan "cults" (which actually have a much longer history than Christianity) of animal and human sacrifices. What was not mentioned was that by the time the first Christian church of Rome was set up, pagan religions were practically wiped out through bloody massacres. During this time, traditions and symbols were acquired by the Christian faith from pagans in an effort to persuade more people to convert.
In Britain, all Celtic religions were pagan and what has now become known as neo-paganism is still relatively prominent, particularly in the UK, and much of the Hollywood and media portrayals of this modern paganism are wildly exaggerated.
At the end was where I found my main issue with Zane's letter. He accuses the businesspeople at the archbishop's address, and even Pell himself, of being empty and pagan! Although I am agnostic myself and find the idea of any religion offering divine help to businesspeople absurd, I think it's unfair and probably offensive to true pagans to link them with these people.
The pagan traditions embrace and respect the Earth. As far as I know, the sacrificial rituals are practically non-existent in modern pagan worship. Pagans probably do "demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions" and so they should. Their beliefs have been around thousands upon thousands of years longer than Christianity or capitalism, which have done nothing but destroy the world we live in. Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, whatever — we should all be embracing and protecting what we have and fighting those who are destroying it.
If you do need to accuse a religion of inciting violence, it's pretty easy to do. Just look at who has fought in the most wars, who has taken the most slaves, who has killed the most people and who is by far the richest in the world.
George Byrne
Britain
Via email [Abridged]
Snowy back-flip
Anybody hoping the federal government will reverse other unpopular policies following the Snowy Hydro back-flip should forget about it. PM John Howard only did a u-turn because he'd never had any strong feelings about privatising Snowy Hydro and because he saw an opportunity to embarrass state Labor. A change of mind on things like industrial relations, other planned privatisations and Iraq would constitute an abandonment of core Coalition beliefs and would be interpreted as a victory for Labor.
People who don't like the government's high-profile policies will have to vote against the Coalition, not wait for more road-to-Damascus conversions in light of public opinion.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
From Green Left Weekly, June 14, 2006.
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