First International Symposium on Internet and Psychiatry / Benefits - Risks - Perspectives
April, 5th till April, 6th 2001 / Department of Psychiatry Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich
Facts and Anti-Stigma-Campain
Dear ladies and gentlemen!
Only one mouse-click away from the magazines SPIEGEL or FOCUS, the newspapers TIMES or TAZ the Websites of numerous institutions, organizations and private persons are bustling about. Many of these sites offer diverse opportunities for enquiries and communication on topics scarcely noticed by the public up to now. It is above all about the "added value" of the contents. The field of psychiatry and self-help also belong to it. Some years ago, this one had the radiation strength of a firefly. Only few psychiatrists and social workers, relatives and psychologically disturbed people were ready to deal with psychiatric questions which were the focus of attention in public. Thanks to Internet that has changed.
The online-service LICHTBLICK ('Rays of Hope')-newsletter - "news from psychiatry & self-help" - shortly named "naps" - wants to brighten up life in the ivory-tower of psychiatry and bring everyday experience into it.
Since 1998 the honorary editorial staff that is under the aegis of the Mecklenbourg-Pomerania Association of relatives and friends of psychologically disturbed people (registered society) has been publishing news, reports, events, interviews, commentaries and readers'letters of psychiatry and self-help. They shall enliven the discussion between those concerned, the relatives and professional people and, furthermore, open up new fields of enquiries for journalists. Relatives of psychologically disturbed people, but also the concerned themselves are thus provided with help to cope with their everyday life. Descriptions, accommodation addresses and sorted Web-addresses are extremely useful while looking for some contacts. At least twice a month, the LICHTBLICK-newsletter informs what is new in the area of research, therapy and self-help via e-mail. Meanwhile, this circular is read by 460 subscribers.
Additionally, contributions on mental illnesses, possibilities of cure and initiatives of the self-help are ready to be downloaded on the Websites of LICHTBLICK-newsletter.de, emerged from "lichtblick99.de". Our magazine LICHTBLICK is especially in demand as digital edition. And those who would like to read the 80 pages strong original can order it from the editorial for a few marks in stamps.
There is now clearly more space for anti-stigma initiative matters because the concerned people and their relatives have to keep struggling above all with the phenomenons " stigma" and "notorious illness". A problem that is also recognized by the psychiatry. Mainly typical strategies for coping, but also special helps of psychiatry and self-help are in demand. Therefore, we are dependent on reliable information of concerned people, relatives and professionals. In that case, the Leipzig based Association "IRRSINNIG MENSCHLICH" ('Insanly Human') for Public Relations in the field of psychiatry has proved itself to be an important partner for us that has lately even started an anti-stigma-project at schools apart from its press work.
Nevertheless, psychiatrist and publicist Asmus Finzen warns us in his book "Psychosis and Stigma": Those who wants to destigmatize the mass media fights not only against the «Zeitgeist», the spirit of the times. He also fights against windmills." At the same time Finzen makes distinctions, shows where Public Relation is most useful: at the local editorial offices of daily newspapers and at local radio stations".
Whether it will be possibel to speek as freely abaout a mental illness as about diabetes, heart attack or cancer in the forseeable future, that will surely depend on how lay persons, professionals, teachers, journalists, businessmen and other "very important people" act in their community. The Internet is - of course - a community, too!
We see in the online forum "schizophrenia and stigma - effects and consequences" which we have established recently a chance to spread destigmatized opinions more widely.
At the same time, I would like to point out that the discourse on psychiatry, illness and stigma is held in an area of tension between reform discussion, justified criticism about bad states of affairs and radical abolition of psychiatry. An expedition via search machines right across the World Wide Web also brings it out into the open: a large ruthless smear campaign against the psychiatry. According to the search machine FIREBALL there are alone about 1000 German language entries for the term "anti-psychiatry". However, the word combination "psychiatry and self-help" appears only 62 times. In Germany, just 5 of the 15 country associations of relatives and friends of psychologically disturbed people have discovered the Internet as a kind of platform for exchanging information and for communication. This also makes one apprehensive: since quite a long time the opponents of psychiatry have already been able to talk fancy in the newsgroup de.sci.medizin.psychiatrie, for example: "We deny the existence of «psychic illness»", "refuse every medical operation against the openly declared intention of the concerned which would be a sanction equal to torture, refuse topay for compulsive psychiatry out of medical insurances ' fees" and demand the lifting of all drug controls for adults. This has not got anything to do with fair contact. Real alternatives are not offered - and that puts especially people seeking advice into a state of uncertainty.
LICHTBLICK-newsletter.de, however, takes place completely against the background of the share of the responsibility to the psychologically disturbed and the stepping up of the self-help powers of their families. How those concerned with the effects of a mental illness can better cope with everyday life, how a premature retiring and receiving a pension can be avoided and what relatives can do for their own healthy well-being and for their vocational safeguarding are important questions in the focus of attention related to our efforts in matters of enlightenment and anti-stigma. All in all, it is about the topic «psychiatry and self-help» and about giving people something to think about - being completely of the same mind as the French author André Gide: "You don't discover new continents without having the courage to lose sight of old coasts".
Thank you!
Informations to "Internet and Psychiatry under: http://www.psynet-congress.de
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