Description

An Insight into Mental Illness and the Dangers of Current Psychiatric Practice
By Victoria Musgrave

ISBN: 9781849910057
Published: 2009
Pages: 122
Key Themes: schizoaffective disorder, mental health system, spirituality, anti-psychiatry,

Description

The Seen But Forgotten has been written based on nearly twenty years of personal experience of mental illness, schizoaffective disorder, as well as on many of my observations and other ideas, and related research on mental illness. It is based also on my observations of many of my friends and associates with mental illness, over the years, and their stories and experiences relayed to me. It describes some insights into some of the thoughts and feelings one can experience in certain states of mental illness. It also offers an overview of both known and other hypothetical considerations of some of the possible causes of mental illness, and includes some consideration of the medical model of the more current psychiatric practice of chemical drug therapy. The dangers and error of this practice is emphasized, and exposed are some of the serious and early death inducing side effects of most anti psychotic medications, the dangers associated with the misuse of benzodiazepines, and why there is a need for more research in new directions in order for psychiatrists, researchers and drug companies to come up with safer treatments.

Also discussed within my book are some suggestions for mental health consumers, carers and mental health workers about ways for one who is suffering from mental distress or illness to try to help oneself and relieve some of their suffering, apart from relying solely on medication. It also includes a section about recovery, entitled, The Hope for Recovery as well as the topic of recovery being discussed throughout other sections of the book, including suggestions made in the section entitled. Conclusion. Particular references are made here to some ideas related to recovery and schizophrenia, and which have helped me tremendously in my journey of getting well and more highly functioning again, as I was prior to the onset of my condition.

The topic of Spirituality as the missing link in psychiatry is introduced briefly in a summary way in an Appendix and makes reference to some of the work of other people, including Jeremy Griffith and the Dalai Lama. The topic introduced in this section is considered as a whole part in itself of too broad a scope to be discussed in too much detail, given our differing ideas and spiritual beliefs or leanings and is not the main argument or purpose of my book. Thus, it has been introduced in this way, as well as by suggestions in the sections. The Hope for Recovery and Conclusion in the hope of encouraging further thought and consideration by the reader.

There is also at the end of my book a list of references from where the technical, scientific, medical, and psychoanalytic theories, information and terminology, has been derived to support the arguments and messages contained in my book.

About the Author

Victoria Musgrave is a Graduate Architect in Australia, and was born in 1966. She has suffered from mental illness now for nearly twenty years and wants to contribute to others, and try to help others, by sharing what she has learned as she continues to recover. As Victoria continually grows as a person, she would like to show others who may be struggling with a mental health condition, how she managed to get much better, in the hope of maybe reducing the suffering of another. Victoria graduated from the Queensland University of Technology in 1993, after seven years of study, with two Bachelor degrees in Architecture. This was despite being diagnosed with a serious mental illness in 1992.

Victoria was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1992, at twenty five years of age, after suffering a nervous breakdown from having been through some life stressors, and then a broken engagement to her then fiance. And, she admits, she was off her head. Victoria told her psychiatrist that she was chosen to save the world. By 1993, as her life was spiraling out of control, and she suffered from her first manic episode, her initial diagnosis was then changed to schizoaffective disorder. Victoria had been in and out of hospitals ever since, both in the public and private mental health systems. It has taken her many years since then to learn about and work on her own personal journey of recovery, in order to be more successful today, at fortytwo years old.

In writing The Seen But Forgotten, Victoria found the process to be extremely therapeutic and cathartic, and would like interested people to read her book because she wants to help others who have mental illness, their families and carers as well as let know researchers working on the medical treatments of mental illness, and mental health nurses and psychiatrists where she feels they are failing in certain areas. The arguments and opinions put forward in her book are confronting and controversial, and upsetting to the status quo of current psychiatric practice. However, this has been done decidedly in an attempt to encourage more wide spread awareness about the dangers of current psychiatric practice, and to also encourage more debate. The way Victoria was treated and over medicated for too long over the past ten years, nearly, on so many occasions, killed her. And, she witnessed this happen to so many other people too. Victoria even lost friends to suicide along the way.

Victoria is very much better today, now that she has taken some control back of her life, and has been in recovery for around three years. This has been mainly due to her own efforts, by slowly pulling away from psychiatry, and by getting counseling from a psychologist, rather than a psychiatrist. In addition, Victoria has been on a spiritual journey, which, for her, has provided a great deal of comfort, strength, hope and personal advancement. At present, and for the last six years as well as writing The Seen But Forgotten Victoria has been involved with a few non-government organizations doing volunteer work designing proposals for supported accommodation in Queensland, with the aim of these organizations obtaining funding to build more of this type of much needed housing, to help house adults with mental illness who may be vulnerable to homelessness, as their ageing parents may be unable to continue to care for them.