Books By Bridgeross

By Marvin Ross Are here and we’ve decided to take some time off. We’ve been writing this blog weekley at least and often more than weekly since October 2014. When we begain, we had no idea how long we could keep going but the mental health system is so bad that we’ve not run out of topics to explore. In fact, we’ve generated 933 blogs since the beginning with an unbelievable 242,530 views from…

By Marvin Ross Families have long complained of the failure by many in the mental health field to talk to and include family in the care of their ill relatives. This is a problem that has been noted not only in Canada but in other countries as well. The European Federation of Families of People with Mental Illness EUFAMI) conducted an international survey on the impact of serious mental illness…

By Dr . David Laing Dawson A young man in the throes of a schizophrenic psychosis broke down the backdoor of his father’s home and then proceeded to destroy the kitchen. He was apprehended by police, brought to the hospital and placed on a form 1 and admitted. He refused treatment and contested his involuntary admission. At the hearing his psychiatrist presented ample evidence that the boy was…

By Marvin Ross This is a true story that is happening now although I will keep the identity of the family and the hospital confidential. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Kafkaesque is “a nightmarish, surreal situation where an individual is trapped by senseless, bewildering, and overwhelmingly complex bureaucratic systems. It implies a loss of personal control, deep alienation, and a…

Marvin Ross Investigative journalism is supposed to serve as the watchdog of society researching hidden problems, crimes, and corruption. It demands accountability from the powerful, exposes societal injustices, and provides citizens with the verified facts needed to make informed decisions and trigger institutional reform. But not always in the case of a recent investigation by the…

By Marvin Ross Next to involuntary treatment in the minds of the anti-psychiatry crowd comes ECT as an example of the cruelty and barbarism of modern psychiatry. ECT, of course, has been demonstrated to be quite effective for intractable depression. As long ago as 2004, a meta analysis concluded that ECT shows a significant superiority compared to simulated ECT, placebo and…

By Dr. David Laing Dawson As a typical multi-generation Canadian I have always been ambivalent about the USA. Some feelings of admiration, a willing consumer of American entertainment and innovation, coupled with a fair amount of disdain, and some disappointment in the extent to which we copy their trends, fancies, and fetishes. And about my own country? Some pride, some self-deprecation,…

By Dr. David Laing Dawson Can AI do air quotes? At about 3 months the human infant laughs, or smiles, giggles a little. Mother smiles or laughs back. And a cycle of learning and communication continues, months before words are spoken. And when the first words are spoken they come as simple utterances signifying social connection. Estimates of the percentage of human communication that is…

Members of the Family Alliance on Severe Mental Illnesses (FASMI) read this blog in our regular newsletter but I decided to reprint it here because it covers an important issue – one of politicians not providing the services that are actually needed or even listening to those most impacted by the need for services. FASMI president Kathy Mochnacki does an excellent job of describing what…

By Dr. David Laing Dawson Who knew there was a mild controversy about using referenda or referendums as the plural for referendum? As a fan of Wayne and Shuster’s martinus joke (see video at end), I will stick with referenda. A referendum is a very faulty way of making a major decision, especially a decision with ramifications far beyond the imagination of the average voter. I can picture a…

By Marvin Ross In a landmark ruling in The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Named Respondents and Persons Unknown, the Court engaged sections 7 and 15 of the Charter. These sections guarantee two foundational pillars of justice: life, liberty, and personal security (legal rights) and the right to equal treatment under the law (equality rights) The Court emphasized that unhoused people are…

In his many trips to Switzerland to visit in-laws, my good friend and fellow advocate, Steve Liddycoat, often remarked that you rarely see the mentally ill on the streets. A few years ago when he asked, he was told the reason was that the mentally ill were getting treatment in hospitals. On his most recent trip earlier this summer with all the talk of growing homeless encampments in Canada (and…

By Dr. David Laing Dawson Acquired from Fcebook with Apoligies to the Cartoonist My sister was a pianist, quite accomplished. And there was a time, many years ago, while I was still living at home, when an unusual piano tuner came to tune our piano. He had recently served 28 months in jail for accepting bribes as the Minister for Forestry in the Social Credit BC government. On record, he…

Dr. David Laing Dawson Forty-five years ago the number of seriously addicted in our cities was relatively small. They could be excluded from the institutions serving the mentally ill without too many questions of conscience. I well remember a phone call from a government official. She wanted me to involuntarily admit a young man who was sniffing glue. He wasn’t at immediate risk. He was not…

By Marvin Ross The media is full of news reports on the growing homeless problem in Canada and the equally growing outrage at the existence of street encampments and residents fighting against shelter housing. Lost in all this noise are those with severe mental illnesses (SMI) many of whom live with aging parents. The homeless are a diverse group of people with addictions, with untreated mental…

By Dr. David Laing Dawson In March of this year Russia suffered 35,351 troops killed or wounded in the war with Ukraine. The estimated total Russian casualties in this war now exceeds 1.3 million. Kim Jong Un is erecting a monument to the North Korean soldiers killed fighting with the Russian soldiers. Trump threatens to annihilate a civilization. War is a human activity in which old men send…

By Karen Scott Booth In late October 2024, the Mayor of the City of Cambridge, Jan Liggett, received a letter from a constituent, a mother desperate to find support and safety for her adult son who is suffering from a severe mental illness. An all too familiar story, an adult son diagnosed in his early twenties (2012) with schizoaffective disorder and, although on a Community Treatment Order…