Posted by NLFAmerica on September 10, 2001, at 19:27:01
The National Liberation Front of the American mentally ill was created with one purpose. To free the oppressed mentally ill from the idea they have a "mental problem." If you have a so called mental illness what you really have is a physical brain function problem. It is the year 2001 and time for the world to recognize that severe mental illnesses are nothing but brain based physical illnesses. The term "mental illness" is a misnomer and is incorrect.
Mental illness should be diagnosed and treated by brain science medical experts. Psychiatrists and psychologists do not fit into this category. Neurologists however do. The NLF of America proposes that Psychiatry be formally merged into Neurology. This would improve the climate that surrounds the treatment of the mentally ill.
Specifically the NLF of America proposes the following:
1) Formally combining the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). This new government research agency would then be called the National Institute for Brain Research. Biological research for severe mental illness would be given the same priority that research into other neurological illnesses gets.
2) Formally merging all University teaching hospital Psychiatry departments with Neurology departments at the same school. Departments of psychiatry should not exist separately with departments of Neurology. They should be one and the same. Only this way will severe mental illness ever be recognized for what it really is. Brain function problems ie; neuropsychiatric diseases. Future psychiatrists would instead become Neurologists. Psychiatry as a separate branch of medicine would cease to exist.
Formally combining psychiatry into Neurology in the long run would lead to dramatically improved, high tech based methods of diagnosing and treating severe forms of mental illness. Current approaches in psychiatry are oftentimes ineffective at accurately diagnosing and successfully treating severe forms of mental illness. Much of the reason for this is psychiatry's strong residual base in psychology and not in real medical neuroscience.
I certify all of the above things are true,
National Liberation Front of the American Mentally Ill
poster:NLFAmerica
thread:78515
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010907/msgs/78515.html