We had a letter about a patient.
Nothing too unusual about that.
The patient was on a ward, having been there for a goodly length of time, detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 for treatment of delusions and hallucinations and passivity. It was the patient's first psychotic episode, the delusions had been managed in the community with the patient's family providing rich support, but the effects on work and relationships and health and risk to self resulted in police bringing him to hospital for assessment and care.
The patient felt that a secret military experiment with satellites was affecting her. She wrote to civil servants, her Member of Parliament and the Prime Minister. She was convinced that her experiences were through technological processes the military were developing and she wanted the experiment on her to stop.
We had a letter from FTAC.
Have you heard of them? I hadn't. The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) was apparently set up in October 2006, according to The Times, and consists of police and mental health workers who "identify suspects." Our patient came to light from their 2 or 3 letters to politicians.
Did you know police screened mail to "identify suspects" and then direct mental health services to intervene? Parliamentary questions have been posed, apparently Mr McNulty had "security, counter terrorism and police" within his portfolio, yet he was the chap explaining FTAC to parliament.
Hmmm. It seems that Big Brother is indeed watching us. And Big Brother's mate is a mental health worker . . .
9 comments:
Yes, I heard about this organisation recently. Doesn't it stink?
Have you heard of this chap? http://kirkflyingvet.com/
fyi: my blog's gone private... if you'd like an invite, just drop me an email.
hmmm. Is this screening letters to parliament (which, well, *shrug*), or at the post office (which is yeah, scary)?
Waht a lot of ignorant nonsense.
Try: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2007/aug/26/features.magazine67
for some accurate information on this great new FTAC psychiatric diversion scheme.
Hi there Doc, just thought that, given your general aversion to talk of 'sectioning' people, this article'd interest you:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/09/day-mental-health-professionals
Whether it's accurate or not I wouldn't be able to say, but there's a fair deal of dragging off to hospital, although thankfully without the straitjackets and Men In White Coats!
*Prods Gently and politely in hope of waking The Shrink*
Any chance of a Christmas Special? We miss you.
Lola x
Ah indeed, much expense and much frustration.
Was taken by the article, Chris, which sounded uncharacteristically sensible!
Lola, thank you kindly . . . I shall endeavour to be more active once again!
I know a blogger that suffers with similar delusions. She thinks blogpost titles are subliminal messages meant to rape her mind and control and influence the world.
She also believes a celebrity was in love with her and also loves her back.
And she links everything with bloggers to anything happening in real life. So, if I write about spiders, she thinks I'm plotting something evil.
She also believes she's psychic and can predict the future, has evolution/God figured out and is the'chosen one 'but cant tell anyone because her life is at risk knowing such info.
She's a lovely girl underneath all of this, and i've gradually watched her deteriorate over the years. Quite sad. I'm not exempt from her attacks though.
Keep up the good work.
That is funny.
And not in an entirely ha-ha way....
Post a Comment