Universal Mental Health Screening - Are We Repeating Ourselves?
Universal Mental Health Screening
Are We Repeating Ourselves?
If you’re thinking that Universal Mental Health Screening, as proposed by the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, is a new concept, think again.
The first standardized mental health screening instrument in the US was developed in 1905 by psychologist Robert Yerkes at Harvard University. Rapidly, the screening movement caught on, and perhaps the greatest coup for supporters of this movement was when they persuaded the Army to screen 1.7 million inductees during World War I. The screening instrument used (believe it or not) became known as the IQ test.
Screening was used on Ellis Island, where it was “discovered” that 80% of Jewish, Hungarian, Polish, Italian, and Russian immigrants were “mentally defective", or "feebleminded.” Psychologist, Henry H. Goddard who delivered the tests at Ellis Island, believed that such mental defects were transmitted generation to generation as a genetic trait. Of course no one questioned that the instrument was flawed or that these immigrants, mostly non-English speakers, were being screened in English. In spite of these obvious flaws, mental health screenings, including IQ testing, became a standard part of the psychiatric arsenal.
What became known as the Eugenics movement spread rapidly through the US, and included breeding programs that offered financial incentives for families of good stock to marry and have children, as well as the institutionalization and sterilization of those who were considered “feeble minded.” These theories were actually included in many high school biology textbooks. In 1907, Indiana passed the first forced sterilization law, and by 1940, similar laws had been passed in over 30 states. By 1941, over 60,000 Americans had been surgically sterilized. These laws would not be repealed until after the 1960’s. This figure does not include untold numbers of people who became research subjects, who were lobotomized, or who were given drugs or electric shock.
Today, psychiatry prefers to use dangerous drugs. Farms and institutions for the feeble minded have been replaced by group homes and sheltered workshops. Community mental health treatment is preferred over inpatient commitment, although psychiatrists still manage to detain hundreds of thousands of patients per year.
The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health seeks to forward universal mental health screening, make mental illness a common and accepted part of the school curriculum, and intrude on every aspect of American life, from parental rights to the doctor-patient relationship. Obviously the commission will want to treat its victims, most likely with heavy drugs. It even throws in housing, and employment. One has to wonder, though, if housing and employment will be contingent on medication compliance.
Once upon a time, mental health professionals were trusted with the betterment of our society. They managed to justify all of the above, using something as simple and benign as an IQ test.
Are we doomed to repeat the same mistake?
Lee Spiller
CCHR Texas Presented as a Public Service by Gary Konigsberg of http://www.totalitarian-pseudoscience.org