Gaming is becoming one of the biggest areas of human activity on the planet – bigger than movie-making, newspapers and most other media. Its power to shape the way we view things is clearly huge and likely to increase with Virtual Reality.
Some weeks ago, a group released a new Escape from the Asylum game. They ran into a furore of criticism – they were playing to stereotypes of mental illness, with patients tied to chairs. This is nothing like mental healthcare is now with croquet on the lawn followed by tea and sandwiches. See Livid of Leeds below.
In fact, mental healthcare is probably a lot worse than it ever was. Patients are routinely shipped hundreds of miles away from home. Mental health, as the rest of heathcare, has become a tick box exercise rather than one in which anyone engages with anyone.
We now detain three times more people than we did forty years ago. Children are pumped full of psychotropic drugs in a way that would never have happened even twenty years ago. Many of us who have never been on section or detained in hospital get risk assessments carried out on us not realizing we don’t have to accept this happening. The risk assessments aim at pinpointing risks to the local healthcare organization rather than risks to our freedom or the safety of the public.
An increasing number of other hearings and assessments happen off-stage that we may not be aware of, all of which builds a file against us. Its rather like the files the Stasi used to compile on East Germans before the Wall came down.
But the most pernicious of all is that The System appears to have an complete inability to appreciate when the treatments it gives become the problem that it then tries to treat by adding in more drugs and if need be detaining us in order to do so. The level of alienation between us and the services can be profound.
These topics were covered in a series of posts on Medical Kidnapping a year ago.
May be what’s needed is a good game to get the word out and get people engaged. We at RxISK would be happy to mark the card of any gamer interested to build something.
There is not nothing here that should be seen as stigmatizing of mental health – the problems are increasingly encroaching on all of healthcare.
The Oregon Trail
There are tons of games that could be set within healthcare. One that seems like it has possibilities would be a medical version of Oregon Trail. Anyone old enough to have had one of the first Apple computers will remember the Oregon Trail. This rather than anything else might have been the making of Apple – Microsoft had nothing like it.
The idea was to get your family across the American Mid-West in a covered wagon, avoiding rattle-snakes, Indians, flooded rivers and others hazards on the way. You could accumulate credits for tricky times etc.
Well a comparable game now might see you try to get you and your family to 100. While there are occasional good medical Indians who might help at tricky spots on the journey, for the most part you will face medical rattle-snakes whose bite is now probably the leading cause of death and disability in the world.
You would have to work out what to do if some X-Ray revealed some bone thinning in one of your party. Does she start getting more active, steering clear of pills, or do you put her in the wagon and encourage her to take the biphosphonates.
The key to making any game is to have the data on who dies from what at which age. We have all this worked up and are just waiting for someone who wants to make a fortune to come along.
Livid of Leeds
Well, life is never dull in mental health world. Another day, another fresh PR disaster, this time for Escape Game Leeds, who launched their “Asylum” game and found themselves facing a huge backlash.
The game is set in an old psychiatric asylum, which the company says is fictional, but in Leeds it has hit far too close to home. The old High Royds Hospital, about 10 miles out of the city, is still fresh in the collective memory of the mental health community around here because of historic abuse allegations and having been used by Jimmy Savile as a place to find victims to abuse who would a) not complain and b) not be believed if they did. There are many people here who survived High Royds, and for them, the old asylum system is no joke and certainly not a form of gruesome entertainment for morbidly curious young adults. “People bound to a chair, locked in straight[sic] jackets, fitted with mouth traps” as it says on the company’s website — well for people who survived the horrors of the old mental health regime, that may well have been their reality. In whose world exactly does this classify as a fun leisure activity?
Survivors and professionals alike have also criticised the game for stigmatising mental health, stating that it risks painting mental health patients as “tormented and dangerous individuals”, as Claire Woodham, governor for Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust, said when speaking to the BBC earlier this week. As a mental health survivor myself, I found the game quite insulting and was quite shocked that someone would even come up with this idea, given the increasing awareness around mental health and stigma. More worrying still is that The Great Escape Game’s primary audience is young adults, so what kind of messages are we giving young people about mental health and people who suffer with it? That people with mental health issues are scary and unpredictable and that it’s fine to use their suffering as entertainment?
Apparently, this surprised the company and they really didn’t seem to see the problem. They refused to engage with people, including professionals, who contacted them on social media, giving only the instruction to email the marketing manager. To date, the company’s director, Hannah Duraid, who has won multiple awards for the Great Escape Game franchise, has not made any statements, instead choosing to leave the communications to more junior members of staff, fielding the marketing and business development managers instead, indicating that the company sees this as a marketing issue rather than one of fundamental values. The director’s silence on this speaks volumes about how much the company cares, and their apologies have thus far amounted to “we’re sorry if anyone was offended” rather than genuinely looking to understand and repair the harm done. Escape Game Leeds’s official statement seemed to be more worried about the distress caused to staff because of the Twitter comments than to people with mental health issues who have felt alienated, stigmatised, and targeted because of this insensitive, ill-considered ‘game’. Perhaps if the company had fielded a properly experienced staff member to deal with this issue rather than allowing junior staff to “turn negative tweets into a light-hearted conversation” as is the company’s social media policy, they wouldn’t have received such a strong response to their utter tone-deafness.
The good news is that at least they have agreed to attend a meeting today, hosted by Leeds City Council CEO Tom Riordan and attended by local charities and survivors. There are signs that the company is starting to comprehend the seriousness of this, with a company rep stating “I can see how stuff like this can create a negative stigma towards mental health”. They have said they will consult with mental health charities (although I wonder why they didn’t do this first) but they are at the moment still sticking by their decision not to cancel any bookings. The cynic in me says this is more about not wanting to lose money than actually genuinely wanting to engage with the issues.
My message to the company’s reps attending today is listen; don’t be defensive, understand that businesses do not exist in a vacuum and this has caused harm to vulnerable members of the community. The community might be angry right now, but if the response is genuine and heartfelt, forgiveness will follow — nobody wants to create a pariah out of this creative young entrepreneur’s business. This could be an opportunity to learn and grow and even for the company to demonstrate leadership through humility. Admit you got this wrong, pull the game, donate any profits made so far to mental health charities, and move forward. There are plenty of things to create games out of without co-opting the suffering of people with mental health problems for profit. This is no longer something the community will accept; make no mistake, we will make our voices heard, we are no longer afraid to speak out and advocate for ourselves and each other.
The old days of the ‘insane asylum’ are gone — let’s keep it that way.
annie says
This video is the result of many years of work, and it’s still just a glimpse of the kind of experience and terrors you’ll find inside the Hanwell Mental Institute.
We wanted to create something that makes you feel like you’re playing the game, with hints of the mysterious story that will haunt your nightmares for strange aeons to come.
We know it’s awfully delayed but we’re working hard every day to ensure Asylum meets your expectations.
Asylum Trailer
https://talk.senscape.io/t/massive-new-asylum-trailer-for-halloween/1023
As GlaxoSmithKline are Gaming with their Seroxat/Paroxetine/Paxil setting the ‘World on Fire’, what a great way to show ‘their results’ and it makes a change from ‘Monopoly’ with ‘Do not Pass Go’ and the ‘Chance’ Cards ..
“I’m confident there will be a clue, something to explain what is happening to me” ..
Spruce says
What console is this game coming out on? Playstation, PC, Xbox?
Dr. David Healy says
I have no idea
D
mary says
It seems it’s had a name change – now called ‘Abducted’ and all references to mental health are being removed following discussions resulting from objections raised! It doesn’t seem to be a ‘game’ in the sense of played on a console but more like ‘Quasar’ (am I showing my age?) or ‘Crystal Maze’ where you are physically a participant. I would imagine that the change ensures continued public support – in other words, keeps the money rolling in!
Anne-Marie says
That’s a brilliant game. I could make one myself if I knew how just from my own experience alone. I think its a great way to teach young people especially the effects of drugs and where it can lead you to. The escape route’s are the most important part but you wont know them unless someone shows you where they are. This is a good way in educating people about drug effects.
annie says
“The key to making any game is to have the data on who dies from what at which age.
We have all this worked up .. “
David Healy in Germany – Reconnaissance and “victims of networks”
The courageous psychiatrist David Healy has since 1991 published unfaithful truths
Zu den häufigsten Fragen, die ich bei Vorträgen erhalte, gehört: Woher wissen Sie das eigentlich alles ?
One of the most common questions I receive during lectures is: How do you know everything ?
Die Pharmafirmen haben Ihnen doch nicht freiwillig die interne Korrespondenz zur Verfügung gestellt?
The pharmaceutical companies have not made the internal correspondence available to you voluntarily?
Wieso können Sie aus firmeninternen E-Mails zitieren?
Why can you cite from internal e-mails?
DepressionHeute, translated:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.depression-heute.de%2Fblog%2Fdavid-healy&edit-text=
Dr. Peter Ansari @DepressionHeute 2h2 hours ago
David Healy @DrDavidHealy kommt am 21. September nach Deutschland. Wer ist dieser mutige Psychiater? #Antidepressiva https://www.depression-heute.de/blog/david-healy …
https://twitter.com/DepressionHeute/status/879978898435473408
“May be what’s needed is a good game to get the word out ..
annie says
Marketing and Malpractice is the brand new expansion for Big Pharma!
You’ve created your wonder drug, now it is time to sell, sell, sell. The expansion offers new features and additional depth to the base game. Click the button below for more information and to check out the trailer.
The Big Pharma Game
http://bigpharmagame.com/
“No organisation should ever again be permitted to take credit for vague, superficial statements on transparency. No organisation should be allowed to make a promise without also committing to openly audit their compliance, sharing all their audit data as they go. But we can also revisit our existing commitments, to show that they are more than mere theatre. ICMJE, CONSORT, industry bodies, regulators, and every brand associated with a transparency initiative should revisit their wording, and require their adherents to openly audit their compliance; or, in a worst case scenario, they could publicly acknowledge that what others read as a firm commitment was, in reality, aspirational but unserious. When we give false reassurance that problems have been fixed, we hold back progress. That is not transparency. It is “transparency theatre.”
temporary special advisor
http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2816.full?ijkey=SDvMMYZfdO04E&keytype=ref&siteid=bmjjournals
New features and additional depth – play along with GlaxoSmithKline – for this company to be a – winner!
Heather says
On another tack, just wanted to say that Games like strategy ones, war winning etc, were one of the things our son found the most helpful when engulfed in unexplained chemically induced (ie from SSRIs except he didn’t realise) anxiety. They seemed to hold his concentration and lowered the anxiety, albeit temporarily. I don’t think the game mentioned in this post however would have had the same effect, quite the opposite in fact.
Spruce says
You should have an option in the game to either play as the inmate trying to escape/ get free from the psychiatric hospital, or as the person who runs the psychiatric hospital, getting money and kick backs from the pharmecutical companies for each patient you get hooked on their drugs.
Extra bonus points for any patients who commit suicide, lose their sexual abilities, or develop movement disorders from the drugs. You dont want the mentally ill experiencing pleasure, or god forbid, breeding.
Even more bonus points if after you yank the patients off the drugs cold turkey, (again bonus points if patient commits suicide because of withdrawal or has seizures) they still have the side effects after they are off the drugs.
Then some of the more assertive patients come to your office complaining the side effects haven’t gone, and you win if you manage to cover it all up, and sucessfully convince everyone in the hospital that the patient is deluded and the ongoing “side effects” are just a manifestation of their mental illness.
But its game over if it all leaks out to the wider public, and gets in the newspapers and national news.
annie says
Pharmaceutical War Games ..
Right ..
http://www.fireflymb.com/en/Extra/WhatsNew/BrandSuccessStories/Pharmaceutical_War_Games.aspx
Wrong:
RC of Psychiatrists @rcpsych Jun 28
Suicide isn’t a mental health issue, it is a human condition. It is something which is either impulsive or pre-meditated. #rcpsychIC
Or post-medicated ..
https://twitter.com/rcpsych/status/880065967488892928
“That sounds like a bit of a cop-out” ..
Pinned Tweet
RC of Psychiatrists @rcpsych 2h2 hours ago
Day 4 at #rcpsychIC: the 4th and final day of International Congress 2017. What a way to cap off a great week for psychiatry!
annie says
The hidden gorilla ..
One of the best examples of how we can be tricked can be seen in the Hidden Gorilla video where selective attention can lead to us missing a Gorilla walking right across screen in front of us.
https://davidhealy.org/the-hidden-gorilla/
Formal Ferret Games ..
Bad Medicine: A party game about pharmaceuticals
A party game where players are all pharmaceutical companies creating drugs with awful side effects.
Watch out for the gorilla ..
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gilhova/bad-medicine-a-party-game-about-pharmaceuticals
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, pointed out that the rise in prescriptions could reflect the fact that mental health conditions are being better identified and the stigma associated with them has been reduced .. Scottish Daily Mail June 30, 2017
mary says
Doesn’t she mean ‘that the rise in prescriptions could reflect that MH conditions’ “are being fabricated due to pharmaceutical greed”? However, I must admit that reducing stigma may well make people more accepting of a prescription for ‘mental health needs’ whereas, in the past, the thought of needing such a medication was a sure turn-off for many. Stigma does need to be removed from all health areas, that’s for sure, but with it will come an increase in the number of people seeking a better understanding of their own situation and possible ‘mental health needs’. Such numbers should, eventually, settle I would imagine but in the meantime doesn’t this increase show that the time is right to hammer home the true facts about psychiatric medications in the hope of bringing about a swifter reduction in prescription numbers and, even more importantly, in human suffering?
annie says
“being in a ‘Guerilla’ War” ..
Episode 1 Jim Gottstein talks about his own experiences with the psychiatric system, patient rights in mental healthcare and the recent trial involving the UK pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline.
To hear the episode, click the play button below. To view the show notes click here
https://www.madinamerica.com/mia-radio/mia-podcast/
Show Notes
https://jmshownotes.wordpress.com/2017/06/15/episode-1-jim-gottstein/
How GSK manipulated the science of the clinical trials to downplay the suicide risk
That Dr. Joseph Glenmullen and Dr. David Healy were key expert witnesses
That the jury unanimously found GSK guilty of withholding information
Bob Fiddaman’s blog of the Dolin vs GSK trial
“credibility challenged right from the beginning” ..
Malignant Alienation … ?
annie says
Thank you for calling GSK ..
http://www.gsk.com/en-gb/behind-the-science/patients-consumers/thank-you-for-calling-gsk-meet-paul-the-voice-at-the-end-of-the-line/
“That’s a typical day, but not all are typical. Our days are influenced by what happens in the news. I recall a recent day when our team handled over 2100 calls – the most calls we have ever received in one day. We know that when GSK or a GSK product is in the news, whether it affects a patient or not, it is our opportunity to engage and inform those who call”
Was this the day Panorama received 1400 calls ..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3005005.stm
It concluded that “their collective weight was profound” and that the value of a large amount of data coming in at once may be greater than continuing to examine a slow trickle of reports.
Seas the Day!
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/RCPsych_Insight_Magazine_June_2017.pdf
Not one word, not a hint, not a smidgeon; is #rcsych on the way oot … ?
Is Insight the new Non-Site … ?
Sally Macgregor says
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/08/antidepressant-effects-psychotherapy-mental-health-crisis-nhs?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=234115&subid=7520926&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
More people ‘coming out’ every day – this article from a Guardian columnist describes the effect of the first citalopram pill. Scary. But before everyone gets on their high horse and criticises her for talking about serotonin imbalance – read what she has to say about the woeful way the drug was prescribed (long distance) and the fact that the MH system has let her and millions of others down. We all focus so closely here on the harms of the drugs. The harms caused by the system are just as bad – try explaining when you have no words to describe how desperate you feel to a fairly dim, badly trained, and overworked nurse…that is if you ever get to see one in the first place. It seems to me that you cannot divorce the over-use of ADs from a system which has failed, and continues to fail on all fronts to give people the help they need. That’s why you can’t divorce ‘the state we’re in’ from its political, social and historical context. Mental illness treatment has never, ever been properly funded – when Blair pumped a bit more money in, back in the 1990s, it all got sopped up by daft initiatives around ‘service user led research’, more and more managers, psychologists and people whose job titles were frankly incomprehensible. And less and less frontline staff to help people in severe distress – as well as busily closing hospitals in the demented belief that people were best kept at home. The really criminal bit of all that was a refusal by the state to pay for decent hospital care.
It’s always money. Every time.
But – it has struck me that for all the time we spend on here thinking of ways of educating doctors to acknowledge the harm caused by sloppy careless prescribing – maybe it could be helpful to look at how young people communicate, disseminate information and make choices. It sure as hell isn’t through blogs and Facebook or Twitter. So, gaming is a great idea. I guess young people are much more savvy about many things than we oldies give them credit for – they negotiate new forms of information in a way that I can’t. In the meantime we either just watch help for people in distress evaporate completely or do what we can. Which is, like it or not, a political issue.
Heather says
Brilliantly written Sally.
Thanks for showing us the Guardian piece.
By the way, wasn’t it Citalopram that almost did for Katinka Blackford Newman?
Like you say, the way it was prescribed for the writer of the article beggars belief,
Heaven help the world’s so called sanity.
annie says
The ‘NEW’ SCIENTIST ..
David Healy, a psychiatrist in Bangor in the UK, says people’s experiences of withdrawing from antidepressants can vary a lot. He helps those with severe symptoms by prescribing liquid formulations of their medicine, which they can measure out in small amounts. These formulations aren’t as widely stocked as their pill equivalents.
Moore has just started a liquid version and has found that his symptoms are less severe. But Healy says most GPs refuse to prescribe such liquids because they are more expensive than the standard pills.
People are hacking ..
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140106-people-are-hacking-antidepressant-doses-to-avoid-withdrawal/
“I felt like I had been run over by a bus,” says James Moore, a 46-year-old stay-at-home dad from Rogiet in the UK.
A double-decker?
The blood levels were swinging along with one every other day from the GP; dose is doubled to 40 mg.; by a psychiatrist; Paroxetine Liquid and reduction of tablets has to drop over 12 months and the last dose .. back to the drawing board of negligent and ad hoc, random, play games with the patient and watch her sink or swim .. triple deck her …
“What they had done seemed more like an experiment in a chemical laboratory than the wilful inflicting of pain on a fellow human being…But then another voice told him not to be so stupid and sensitive; he was under orders, on a mission and the knowledge he had gained by his clever, robust and admittedly brutal action had been vital for the war effort and could conceivably save countless lives. Of course it could. He had been told in no uncertain terms – do your duty as a soldier – and he had.”
William Boyd Waiting for Sunrise ..
Everywhere you go, we come back ..
annie says
And Lo, a new-shoot was born ..
42 or Thereabouts
May, 18, 2015 | 49 Comments
https://davidhealy.org/42-or-thereabouts/
Ove says:
May 29, 2015 at 8:18 am
But I really dislike this “boomerang-effect”, that we Always turn our attention
to research that was false from the start.
Caroline says:
May 28, 2015 at 7:20 pm
A public challenge by a prominent person or persons is in order.It doesn’t have to be a doctor; probably shouldn’t be. It could start with a hashtag on Twitter.
And Lo, the new shoot:
#Chemical Imbalance Myth
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChemicalImbalanceMyth?src=hash
BOB FIDDAMAN ? @Fiddaman 16h16 hours ago
Journalist who claimed mental illness was caused by chemical imbalance responds on Twitter (Scroll to bottom)… http://fb.me/3T0Pgb6mZ
annie says
The All Singing, All Dancing Faith in the deliverers of SSRI prescriptions and how successful is ‘Reporting Immediately’ … ?
Simon Wessely @WesselyS 18h18 hours ago
Clearly @wendyburn is a chip off the old block. I doff my cap and bow low
wendyburn Jul 10
Most SSRIs are prescribed for uncomplicated depression. Any side effect (don’t always occur) must be reported immediately to the prescriber.
https://twitter.com/wendyburn/status/884661494843146240
This makes a change from the usual self-congratulation which pervades and at least the New President brought up the subject which usually suffers from ‘Writer’s Block’ ..
MHRA News CentreVerified account @MHRApress Jul 14
Dr Ian Hudson says “one of the real wins” is MHRA, NICE, NHS & patient groups working together for best health outcomes #biamhraconference
https://twitter.com/MHRApress/status/885794244455223296
One of the real wins is how Very Senior Personnel in All Realms have zilch responsibility for the increasing death rates of children and adults handed an SSRI without knowing if they will live to see another day.
It’s hard work trying to find a category such as Fit for Purpose … ?
annie says
Why did the MHRA not prosecute?
The MHRA report gives a number of reasons for its decision not to prosecute:
THE MHRA INVESTIGATION INTO GSK’S REPORTING OF ADVERSE EVENTS IN SEROXAT PAEDIATRIC CLINICAL TRIALS
By Tim Worden and Loretta Pugh
https://united-kingdom.taylorwessing.com/uploads/tx_siruplawyermanagement/MHRA_Investigation.pdf
Carla says
Those who collude with the wrong doers are no better than them.
I would want to completely alienate myself from those who have NO RESPECT for those who have some common sense.
If we do not start taking responsibility for our mental health, we are giving permission to many, to ruin some of us.
Give people the tools that we never had and they will make better informed decisions.
There are too many excuses being made up, as to why some professionals don’t have all the information.
You do, from clinical trials even if the information is not out there for you to see.
So, please inform your patients before you mentally castrate them.
What happened to me, can happen to anyone.
Some professionals have to stop hiding behind their white cloaks and advise patients of negative side/adverse reactions.
If patients know all the facts and they don’t feel comfortable taking them, they can explore other options regarding mental health because once the damage is done, it is too late!
CB