From: unk...@googlegroups.com   
      
   UNJUSTIFIED PSYCHIATRIC   
   COMMITMENT in the U.S.A.   
      
   by Lawrence Stevens, J.D.   
      
      
   In 1992, U.S. Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado held   
   hearings investigating the practices of psychiatric hospitals in the   
   United States. Rep. Schroeder summarized her committee's findings as   
   follows: "Our investigation has found that thousands of adolescents,   
   children, and adults have been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment   
   they didn't need; that hospitals hire bounty hunters to kidnap   
   patients with mental health insurance; that patients are kept against   
   their will until their insurance benefits run out; that psychiatrists   
   are being pressured by the hospitals to increase profit; that   
   hospitals 'infiltrate' schools by paying kickbacks to school   
   counselors who deliver students; that bonuses are paid to hospital   
   employees, including psychiatrists, for keeping the hospital beds   
   filled; and that military dependents are being targeted for their   
   generous mental health benefits.  I could go on, but you get the   
   picture" (quoted in: Lynn Payer, Disease- Mongers: How Doctors, Drug   
   Companies, and Insurers Are Making You Feel Sick, John Wiley & Sons,   
   Inc., 1992, pp. 234-235).   
      
      
   A headline on the front page of the July 6, 1986 Oakland,   
   California Tribune reads: "Adolescents are packing private mental   
   hospitals  But do most of them belong there?"  The newspaper article   
   says: "...mental patients advocates say many adolescents in private   
   hospitals are not seriously mentally ill, but merely rebellious.  By   
   holding the adolescents, who often dislike hospitalization, advocates   
   say private hospitals reap profits and please parents.  ... Some   
   county mental health officials and psychiatrists at private hospitals   
   acknowledge there are hospitalized adolescents who, ideally, shouldn't   
   be there. ... 'It distresses me to see kids in these facilities; it   
   distressesme to see the profits going on,' Jay Mahler, of Patients   
   Rights Advocacy and Training, said two weeks ago at a Concord Public   
   forum.  'It's a hot business,' Tim Goolsby, a Contra Costa County   
   Probation Department adolescent placement supervisor, later agreed.   
   'If your kids like sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, that's the place to   
   put them.  I'm not sure insurance companies know what's going on, but   
   they're being ripped off.'  Goolsby estimated 80 percent of   
   adolescents in Contra Costa private psychiatric hospitals are not   
   mentally ill... University of Southern California sociologists   
   Patricia Guttridge and Carol Warren say these adolescents have been   
   transformed from delinquents to emotionally disturbed children. After   
   studying 1,119 adolescents in four Los Angeles-area psychiatric   
   hospitals, they found that less than a fifth were admitted for serious   
   mental illnesses" (Susan Stern, The Tribune (Oakland, California),   
   Sunday, July 6, 1986, p. A-1 & A-2).   
      
      
   In the February 1988 Stanford Law Journal Lois A.   
   Weithorn, Ph.D., a former University of Virginia psychology professor,   
   said "adolescent admission rates to psychiatric units of private   
   hospitals have jumped dramatically, increasing over four-fold between   
   1980 and 1984. ... I contend that the rising rates of psychiatric   
   admission of children and adolescents reflect an increasing use of   
   hospitalization to manage a population for whom such intervention is   
   typically inappropriate: 'troublesome' youth who do not suffer from   
   severe mental disorders" (40 Stanford Law Review 773 at 773-774).   
      
      
   Psychiatric and psychological "diagnosis" is arbitrary and   
   unreliable.  Furthermore, the supposed experts responsible for these   
   "diagnoses" are usually biased in favor of commitment because of their   
   personal economic concerns or their affiliation with the psychiatric   
   "hospital" where the "patient" is or will be confined. Psychiatric   
   "hospitals", like all businesses, need customers.  In the case of   
   psychiatric "hospitals", they need patients.  They not only want   
   patients, they need them to stay in business.  Similarly, individual   
   psychiatrists and psychologists need patients to make money and earn a   
   living.  A magazine article published in 1992 criticizing the trend   
   towards locking up troublesome teenagers alleged that teenagers are   
   locked up in psychiatric hospitals today more than in the past because   
   "busy parents are less willing to deal with their behavior and because   
   inpatient psychiatric business represents a profitable market in the   
   health-care field."  The result has been an increase in the number of   
   psychiatric hospitals in recent years, "from 220 in 1984 to 341 in   
   1988".  This increase in the number of psychiatric hospitals has   
   resulted in keen competition between hospitals and psychiatrists for   
   patients. "Keeping all those psychiatric beds filled is critical, and   
   administrators are aggressively ensuring that they will be.  Hard-sell   
   TV, radio, and magazine ads (up to tenfold in the past few years,   
   according to Metz) are ubiquitous ... Some facilities even resort to   
   paying employees and others bonuses of $500 to $1,000 per   
   referral.  ... Rebellious teenagers used to be grounded.  New they're   
   being committed.  Increasingly, parents are locking up their unruly   
   kids in the psychiatric wards of private hospitals for engaging in   
   what many therapists call normal adolescent behavior. Adolescent   
   psychiatric admissions have gone up 250 or 400 percent since 1980,   
   reports Holly Metz in The Progressive (Dec. 1991), but it's not   
   because teens are suddenly so much crazier than they were a decade   
   ago.  Indeed, the Children's Defense Fund suggests that at least 40   
   percent of these juvenile admissions are inappropriate, while a Family   
   Therapy Networker (July/Aug. 1990) youth expert puts that figure at 75   
   percent" (Lynette Lamb, "Kids in the Cuckoo's Nest  Why are we locking   
   up America's troublesome teens?", Utne Reader, March/April pp. 38,   
   40).   
      
      
   In her book And They Call It Help - The Psychiatric   
   Policing of America's Children, published in 1993, Louise Armstrong   
   laments "the 65 percent of kids in private, for-profit psych hospitals   
   who simply do not need to be there but are given severe-sounding   
   labels nonetheless" (Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., p. 167 - italics in   
   original).   
      
      
   Unjustified involuntary commitment to psychiatric   
   hospitals has become so blatant Reader's Digest published an article   
   in the July 1992 issue exposing the unethical practice:   
      
      
   "Similar storm clouds are appearing over the mental -   
   health field.  Alarmed by exploding costs, insurance companies began   
      
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