Drugs may not be the first choice in mental health care, some say

Not everyone believes that drugs should be the first alternative in managing mental health issues.

The organization "MindFreedom International" has sent out an "alert" to tell people they have six more days to e-mail the National Institute of Mental Health about its "Strategic Plan," which outlines the agency's research goals for the next five years.

The deadline is this Friday, Dec. 21. E-mail to: strategicplanning2@mail.nih.gov

What's needed? "Voices for Choices in Mental Health!" Mind Freedom has declared.

Mind Freedom wants the NIMH to research on more choices in mental health than "drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs and more drugs."

According to Mind Freedom:

• 98 - number of times NIMH draft uses any of words "drug, medication, biological, illness, disease, genetics"

• 38 - number of times NIMH draft uses word "brain"

• 16 - number of times NIMH draft uses word "recovery"

• 2 - number of times NIMH draft refers to the "mind"

• 0 [zero] - number of times NIMH draft uses any of the words "counseling, consumers, survivors, peer, mutual support, empowerment,self-determination, rights, employment, jobs, housing, psychosocial, wholistic, holistic, psychotherapy"
  

You may download a PDF (789 kb) draft of the NIMH strategic plan here: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/nimh-draft-
strategic-plan.pdf