Episode 09: Lawyer Jim Gottstein from Anchorage has a personal brief experience as a patient with acute psychosis. He has won important lawsuits at the Alaska Supreme Court to prevent forced drugging, thereby defending the basic human rights of psychiatric patients. Peter C Gøtzsche interviews Jim Gottstein about these issues.
Documentation:
Gottstein J. The Zyprexa papers. Anchorage: Jim Gottstein; 2020.
Gøtzsche PC, Sørensen A. Systematic violations of patients’ rights and safety: Forced medication of a cohort of 30 patients. Ind J Med Ethics 2020;Oct-Dec;5(4) NS:312-8.
Tasch G, Gøtzsche PC. Systematic violations of patients’ rights and safety: forced medication of a cohort of 30 patients in Alaska. Psychosis 2023;15:145-54.
Gøtzsche PC. Critical psychiatry textbook. Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom; 2022. Freely available.
Gøtzsche PC. Mental health survival kit and withdrawal from psychiatric drugs. Ann Arbor: L H Press; 2022.
Gøtzsche PC. Deadly psychiatry and organised denial. Copenhagen: People’s Press; 2015.
Gøtzsche PC. Is psychiatry a crime against humanity? Copenhagen: Institute for Scientific Freedom; 2024. Freely available.
Thank you! This was an excellent informative interview! Appreciate the work you are both doing. It’s so important
Thanks Elianna.
Very compelling interview! It’s astounding psychiatry gets to keep harming so many people. Thank you both for your work to expose this harm. My brother had temporary sadness over his marriage ending and young sons moving 2 hrs away whereby he could not see them everyday. After he began to see a psychiatrist instead of getting better I was shocked to see his physical and mental health go downhill. One day we found him dead in his bed at 40 years old. He had previously been very physically active, an electrical engineer and musician. The fan was still running in the bedroom. He was on all fours and appeared to have been trying to get up out of bed when he died. His autopsy indicated his body had not been properly metabolizing one of the drugs and a fatal level had built up in his liver. His psychiatrist had remained totally oblivious to his decline. It’s clear some psychiatrists don’t really care what happens to patients or believe their concerns about the effects of the drugs. As a side note, the video did play until 27:26 but then froze up and would not play until the end.
Thank you for each of you contributing so well to express your individual perspectives on such an indescribable issue as psychiatry exposed- the shame it tries so intensely hard to deflect anywhere else but onto themselves, almost all the time.
The situations which Jim describes that happen during the ordeal of being a psych patient are true- (You will be discharged tomorrow – and then you are not—whatever you do it is a diagnosable mental illness symptom.)
From the standpoint of a scientific researcher who reads between the lines of statistical data and is able to relate how numbers are in fact representative of actual people, Peter speaks with his own type of authority on his views.
Together, on this video, the dialogue captures something truly meaningful.
I similarly have been on a journey endeavouring to find the real truths buried in the subterfuge, the manipulative secrecy, the devaluing of you as a person for being non-compliant- how does it happen, why does it happen?
The freedom in knowing it’s not you!
The lines of reality can get so blurred when Mental Illness is mentioned. The fear that it generates even when all is most adequately well and good.
I hope this video teaches many people who watch it to be resourceful and search out causes for encouraging growth beyond what you feel capable of.
One thing I do know is that no-one can overcome without encouragement.
If it happens to be a closer frightening reality than you would like, being a psych patient- it is not easy to be entangled within the system without a “life-line” such as this video, and the cumulative works and strengths there-in are great for when the dark edge beckons.
All good things come from above.