Supporting the Need for Psychiatric Involuntary Treatment

By Marvin Ross The Family Alliance on Severe Mental Illnesses (FASMI) believes that “the treatment and care of those living with psychotic illnesses can and must be improved”. This might, when necessary, involve brief periods of involuntary committal and treatment. But the current desperate calls to do something are often uninformed. We would like to […]

What about Caregiver Rights?

Our 34-year-old daughter is a bright, perceptive human being with a particular affinity for the downtrodden of the world.  She is also destroying her life and is at very real risk of losing her job, apartment and ending up in a shelter or on the streets.  She is one of the many people in Canada […]

Time to Allocate the Necessary Resources Efficiently

Note: this is the fourth of a series expanding on FASMI’s position statements. This blog post is concerned with our position statement called Allocating Resources for Effective Treatment. Mental health is often raised as something we, as a society, need to improve upon but we usually fail to focus on those who are the sickest […]

Accessible and Appropriate Treatment

Note: this is the third of a series expanding on FASMI’s position statements. This blog post is concerned with our position statement called Restoring the Distinction between Mental Illness and Addiction. More and more, it is becoming the new normal to see provincial governments combining budgets for the treatment of those with mental illness and […]

The Disappearing Disorder

Note: this is the second of a series expanding on FASMI’s position statements. This blog post is concerned with our position statement called Taking Mental Illness Seriously. There’s a lot of talk about mental health these days. In fact, there are whole days and weeks set aside to discuss many aspects of mental health and […]

A Voice for Families

You’re going through life like any other family. Children grow into their teens and adulthood; aging parents need more assistance; pressures at work keep increasing but you’re handling it with aplomb. Then suddenly, a family member starts behaving erratically – expressing strange thoughts and beliefs, perhaps preceded by a period of withdrawal and isolation. At […]