National Alliance on Mental Illness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (aka NAMI), founded in 1979, essentially by parents of mentally and emotionally disturbed offspring denying parental blame for their children's psychological state, as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, is an American non-profit national advocacy group speaking on behalf of people affected by mental illnesses and their families. NAMI supports biochemical claims as cause for patient's problems, and supports forced chemical and electroshock treatment and incarceration of mentally and emotionally distraught individuals (as opposed to empathetic and intellectual or psychotherapeutic treatment.). NAMI has advocated for the routine availability of "Evidence based medicine and practices", believes in and promotes coercive or forced treatment, and promotes "assertive community treatment".[1]
Contents |
[edit] Membership
NAMI claims a membership of over 200,0001 members, who are or were, mostly parents of disturbed offspring, gathering to reject parental or nurturing responsibility and treatments for mental patient children, in favor of biological and genetic causes and treatments for illness. NAMI has offices in all fifty states, and 1,200 affiliates across the United States. NAMI is perhaps the largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families in the United States.
[edit] Mission
NAMI's mission is to provide support, education, political advocacy in favor of less freedom and emotional treatment for patients, and research for people and their families living with mental illness through various public education and awareness activities, including:
- Internet websites for local chapters and nationwide programs
- A toll-free telephone HelpLine
- Mental Illness Awareness Week, held during the first week of each October, which is conducted for the stated purpose of dispelling the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, and to encourage early intervention and medical treatment
- In Our Own Voice, an educational speakers bureau available in certain communities across the US, presented by trained consumers living with mental illness.
- Family and consumer peer education, such as its Family-to-Family, Peer-to-Peer, Hearts and Minds, Provider Education and other state and local programs, conducted by trained family members and consumer teachers to help educate other families, consumers, and professionals
- Support groups, such as NAMI C.A.R.E.
- Advocacy
[edit] Contributors
NAMI gets unrestricted funding from many pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly.[2] NAMI received more than $6M from drug companies in 2006.[citation needed] NAMI also gets unrestricted funding from other sponsors, as well as from its membership.
NAMI is generally viewed as a grassroots organization, since it is run primarily by volunteers. However, NAMI regularly receives funding from the pharmaceutical industry, which also routinely dovetails its marketing messages with NAMI's in advocating for the destigmatization of mental illness and access to psychoactive medications for treatment. The industry trade group PhRMA, for instance, has collaborated with NAMI in promoting the movie A Beautiful Mind, "because the lines of communication were already established from previous initiatives,"[3] despite the fact that the real life hero of the story quit using all psychotropic drugs before his recovery from mental illness.
[edit] See also
- Biological psychiatry
- E. Fuller Torrey
- Involuntary treatment
- Laura's Law
- Outpatient commitment
- Psychiatric hospital
- Psychiatric survivors movement
- Treatment Advocacy Center
[edit] External links
- NAMI.org - Official NAMI website
-
- NAMI.org - NAMI state and local website
- http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/media/media-on-mfi/inquirer-on-drug-firms/ - 'Donations tie drug firms and nonprofits - Many patient groups reveal few, if any, details on relationships with pharmaceutical donors', Thomas Ginsberg, The Philadelphia Inquirer (May 28, 2006)
- PsychLaws.org - 'Testimony of Ron Honberg, JD, MEd, Legal Director, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), Arlington, Va., Hearing on New York State’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) Program' (April 21, 2005)
-
- PsychLaws.org - 'The case for caring coercion', Steve Sharfstein, MD, Sheppard Pratt Health System
- PsychiatryOnline.org - 'Family Advocacy', Sylvia Caras (October, 1998)
