Interview with Dj Jaffe - Focusing on Reforms for Untreated Serious Mentally Ill People

It's time to get real about serious mental illness and Dj Jaffe does just that in this interview with WTUL News and Views DJ Under The Bus. Dj explains why, despite billions of federal dollars spent on mental illness every year, outcomes have been increases in incarceration, homelessness and death for seriously mentally ill people.

The mental health industry has abdicated it's responsibility to treat and care for mentally ill people with the most intensive needs who refuse treatment or who lack insight that they are ill. A condition known as anosognosia. Consequently, the mental health industry relies on the criminal justice system to keep patients safe from themselves and others. Problems arise when law enforcement and the Courts lack the psychiatric and mental health expertise needed to care for patients resulting in further decompensation and damage to people whose only crime is that they got sick.

Barriers to treatment and care are identified and solutions are proposed.

Dj Jaffe will be in Baton Rouge of March 24th for the Louisiana Health Equity Summit and in New Orleans for a Healing Minds NOLA fundraiser on March 26th. Details and contact information for Dj Jaffe below:

2017 Health Summit: Advancing Policy for a Healthy Louisiana
by Louisiana Center for Health Equity
Fri, March 24, 2017
8:00 AM – 5:30 PM CDT
C.B. PENNINGTON, JR. BUILDING CONFERENCE CENTER
6400 Perkins Rd
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2017-health-summit-advancing-policy-for-a-healthy-louisiana-tickets-30497313285

Healing Minds NOLA fundraiser brunch
Sunday March 26th, 2017
Handsome Willy's Bar and Cafe - 218 S Robertson St, (Next to Big Charity)
11am - 2pm
Suggested Donation $10.00

Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill Hardcover – April 11, 2017

"This well-researched and highly critical examination of the state of our mental health system by the industry's most relentless critic presents a new and controversial explanation as to why--in spite of spending $147 billion annually--140,000 seriously mentally ill are homeless, 390,000 are incarcerated, and even educated, tenacious, and caring people can't get treatment for their mentally ill loved ones. DJ Jaffe blames the mental health industry and the government for shunning the 10 million adults who are the most seriously mentally ill--mainly those who suffer from schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder--and, instead, working to improve "mental wellness" in 43 million others, many of whom are barely symptomatic. Using industry and government documents, scientific journals, and anecdotes from his thirty years of advocacy, Jaffe documents the insane consequences of these industry-driven policies: psychiatric hospitals for the seriously ill are still being closed; involuntary commitment criteria are being narrowed to the point where laws now require violence rather than prevent it; the public is endangered; and the mentally ill and their families are forced to suffer.

Insane Consequences proposes smart, compassionate, affordable, and sweeping reforms designed to send the most seriously ill to the head of the line for services rather than to jails, shelters, prisons, and morgues. It lays out a road map to spend less on mental "health" and more on mental "illness"--replace mission creep with mission control and return the mental health system to a focus on the most seriously ill. It is not money that is lacking; it's leadership.

This book is a must-read for anyone who works in the mental health industry or cares about the mentally ill, violence, homelessness, incarceration, or public policy."

https://www.facebook.com/HealingMindsNOLA/

DJ Jaffe
Executive Director
Mental Illness Policy Org.
Author, Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill
50 East 129 St., PH7
New York, NY 10035
NY Site: http://kendras-law.org
CA Site: http://lauras-law.org
djjaffe [at] mentalillnesspolicy.org
Follow us on Twitter: @MentalIllPolicy
Join us on Facebook: Mental Illness Policy Org.