Key Activities for Mental Health Care Reform

New Life Health Ventures aims to address the over-simplified "market" approach to mental health that promotes generalized pharmaceutical oriented diagnoses that promote a chronic/lifetime illness approach with an over-reliance on medication as a solution and fails to address the very real ramifications of medication on the mind, body and senses and neglects to truly search and see if the problem may be more due to a crisis of environment, personal morality/sin or neurological or physiological in nature or even a complication from medication.

Specific steps include:

Focus on the Human Person:

• Take into consideration the patient and their immediate environment, namely their family and even nuclear family if an adult as the family is the core unit through which behaviors are learned and if there is a history of alcohol or drug abuse or divorce, remarriage or sexual abuse, these factors all impact the patient and how he/she sees the world. We contend that many problems that get pushed under the mental health umbrella are really more sociological in nature and that if this is lost from the beginning, there is the potential for great misunderstanding which harms all parties involved.
• Take into consideration early childhood and teen years to detect relevant sociological, developmental or trauma issues.
• Explicit consideration of neurological and physiological conditions when diagnosing and treating patients, including concussion history, glandular disorders and thyroid as well as impacts of current and past medications. Acknowledgment that SSRIs and neuroleptics can and do have permanent brain altering impacts and can also cause body damage which in some cases can be permanent.
• Eliminate the PHQ-9 and other similar fixed choice questionnaires that are inherently leading, vague, unscientific, unreliable and invalid and incomplete- thereby dangerous and have most inappropriately been used to claim improvement due to medication by pharmaceutical manufacturers. It was recently disclosed that the PHQ-9 was developed by a marketer of the SSRI Zoloft for general practice doctors to justify prescribing.  This has likely played a major role in the “depression” and suicide epidemic as it is highly prejudicial and self-serving and promotes a general misunderstanding and oversimplification of the realities as to why people may seek help.  It is reckless and dangerous and encouraged greater prescription of Zoloft while it is known to cause suicidal ideation and behavior.
• Through provider/patient dialog, providers should specifically call out sources of stress, unhappiness, failure, rejection, abuse and difficulty and any and all thoughts of self-harm or harm to others or inappropriate actions such as stalking or obsession with violent video games or social media or problematic websites  should be documented in a non-personalized manner and provided to the FDA and the game and social media industry or the website and if the patient is on medication, to all manufacturers of the drug and taken into consideration when prescribing courses of action.
• A recognition of the lack of science in diagnoses and the level of stigma and prejudicial behavior associated with diagnoses that involve antipsychotics.  Promoting and rethinking the use of the diagnoses of neurotic. History of Neurosis- “At its root, a neurotic behavior is an automatic, unconscious effort to manage deep anxiety. In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association removed the term neurosis from its diagnostic manual as part of a revamp to standardize the criteria for mental illnesses.”  The diagnoses of anxiety and depression which are internal in orientation have displaced the diagnoses of neurotic which is behavioral in orientation.  The schizo-affect disorder has become such a catch all diagnoses that it is even referred to as a waste basket by some psychiatrists.  In general the population receiving a diagnosis have variability in symptoms as great as the population as a whole, making the diagnoses in reality irrelevant yet they can have life altering consequences as they are used to justify medication, unsuitability for life insurance and even forced treatment and deprivation of freedom.
• Diagnoses should only come from psychiatrists and they should be clearly substantiated and explained to the patient and the patient should be able to voice if they agree or not.
• Untie the need for a diagnoses for insurance purposes with the access to care.
• A judgment may be impaired warning should accompany all antipsychotics.  Physical judgment impairment like driving is commonplace and their should be equal warning for decisions such as dating or employment or other important decisions involving others.  People on antipsychotics are vulnerable and the antipsychotic can increase that vulnerability.
• Promoting a greater understanding of personality and decision making approach through the use of Myers Briggs profiling to provide enhanced communication between patient and his/her family and community and patient and provider. A hyper-vigilant personality may be incorrectly diagnosed as paranoid or manic.
• Psychiatric/Mental Health records should not be digitalized and should be private. There are reporting laws in place should a patient pose danger.
• Dependence on therapists should be discouraged by insurance limiting the number of session it will pay for and therapists should actively promote integration into societal means of healing, including 12 step groups, community service groups or projects, exercise, the arts and music and the promotion and even intercession in restoring family or other relationships if appropriate or desired. The Veterans’ Administration has a working model for this, its Whole Health.

Focus on Truth, Science and Building a Body of Knowledge

• Promoting a greater understanding of the integral relationship of the gut, heart, brain, and reproductive organs to assure proper and safe treatment and not minimize the complications when they interfere with bodily functions and contribute to metabolic disorder, diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, aggression, hallucinations and insomnia. The recent (over the last 20 years) significant findings of the peptide relaxin, a peptide in the insulin family previously thought to be a protein,  suggest and show an integrated and dynamic relationship and suggests new safer biochemical treatments and the realities of the danger and destruction of many commonly prescribed medications as exemplified by the drug Abilify.
• Encouragement of a public easy to access and easy to navigate central repository of data and information on: the human body, disease, pharmaceuticals, biologics, supplements and even foods and their ingredients and all known impacts on the human body, that is documented with links to all studies and reported at both a conceptual and technical level and promoted for universal awareness- in essence a library.
• Promoting safe therapies as remedies, including supplements like 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP ),  Gamma Aminobutric acid (GABA) , L-Theanine ,  Berberine and tools like compression bands /shapeware.  All FDA Black Box Drugs should be compared for safety and efficacy with these known to be effective and safe remedies and taking known to be harmful pharmaceuticals such as Zoloft other SSRIs and Abilify off the market should be a strong consideration depending upon the results.  Companies that knowingly push dangerous pharmaceuticals through the FDA should lose the privillage of the FDA process for a period of ten years.
• Promote a greater understanding of complications from medications that can cause mood disorders, aggression, suicidal thought and suicidal ideation and capture this information is a systematic format to promote societal safety.
  1. Start a dialog about the safety of pharmaceuticals and drugs that break the blood brain barrier in the name of treatment through the inclusion of analgesics. The blood-brain barrier is a network of blood vessels and tissue that is made up of closely spaced cells and helps keep harmful substances from reaching the brain. The blood-brain barrier lets some substances, such as water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and general anesthetics, pass into the brain. At present very little is known about the ramifications of breaking the blood-brain barrier which may vary from individual to individual and drug to drug.  Variance does not mean insignificant.  Variance implies a need for greater understanding or acknowledgement of the very real possibility.
  2. New Life Health Ventures will promote proper data and information collection regarding psychiatric pharmaceuticals, most of which carry the FDA Black Box warning and will promote a re-examination of allowing these pharmaceuticals to be advertised.
     1. New Life Health Ventures will design and promote the usage of a standardized intent or actual self harm  suicidal attempt and ideation form that will capture method, result, generalized environmental conditions (on-line bullying, divorce, etc…) current and historic medications and changes, therein for the sake of promoting directed treatment and greater safety. A formal and even required reporting to the drug manufacturer and FDA should be required and made available to the general public.
     2. New Life Health Ventures will design and promote the usage of a standardized harm to others /homicide completion or ideation form that will capture method, result, generalized environmental conditions (on-line bullying, divorce, etc…) current and historic medications and changes, therein for the sake of promoting directed treatment and greater safety. A formal and even required reporting to the drug manufacturer and FDA should be required and made available to the general public.
  3. Draw attention to the artificially inflated costs of new pharmaceuticals due to the dysfunctional nature of FDA approval and the dysfunctional patent process and prolific nature of generic drugs that most typically lose cautionary information in their distribution to the point that non-medical oriented firms like Amazon are striving to be large drug distributors in an artificial intelligence type manor, whether or not the drugs are safe or without complication or whether or not there are natural supplements or remedies that are as effective and safer. Alphabet/Google's Verily healthcare organization is clinical testing the Japanese pharmaceutical company  Otsuka's new fast acting antidepressant.  Otsuka is the company behind Bristol Myers Squibbs known to be dangerous Abilify.
• The promotion of a 90-99% reduction in Federal Grant money for healthcare research and the disallowing of Federal Research Monies and FDA Testing to entities that have been Fined by the FTC or other government branches or have actively buried information regarding their existing medications for a significant period of time such as 10 years so as to promote a culture of truth, learning, knowledge, humanity and reverence for God’s creation not found in the United States today.

Focus on Interpersonal Needs- “Building a Kinder, Gentler Nation”

• Promotion of "grandmother" approach to mental health found to be successful in impoverished nations where trained volunteers sit on park benches or other public locations wearing a designated garment to identify them as someone that can be approached to listen to and/or pray with/for those with concerns.
• Encourage the development of Catholic or other faith based “Rec Centers” initially targeted for Veterans and their families and others that benefit from a greater sense of community and the capacity to participate in art, music, sports and even work together on community service activities and researching and developing recommendations for societal issues in order to promote fraternity and a more just society.
• The promulgation of a more balanced and respectful approach to sexuality that serves as a crusade for the dream of sacramental marriage and vocations for youth, parents, and adults that have succumbed to the highly sexualized and divorce acceptance culture due to poor choices, faulty perspective and ignorance. Promotion of the reality that abstinence promotes stability and that sexuality is a powerful force worthy of respect and understanding.
• Baseline hormonal testing and pharmaceutical inventory of all those struggling with sexual dysmorphia and the non personalized information is to be shared with Federal Health Officials and available to the public.
• The elimination of social media- which is inherently predatory, a violation of privacy which is a component of human dignity and in its own instability as a form of media promotes a culture of instability and harms traditional mediums such as newspapers, radio and television the latter two of which, when developed and assimilated into society benefited from government involvement assuring the greater good.
• The acknowledgement that society in the United States is in turmoil and desperate need of reform and that factors such as  illicit corporate behavior, debt, divorce ,alcoholism and recreational drug use and pornography impact individuals and family systems and offer encouragement to repent, forgive, pray, read the Bible, do good works and go to church when this is the case, instead of medicating the individual that may be feeling the most pain.