Saturday May 30, 2009.  I watched the tv show Mental last night. Chris Vance is Dr. Jack Gallagher, an unorthodox psychiatrist who becomes Director of Mental Health at an L.A. hospital. He takes on patients battling unknown, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed psychiatric conditions.  Gallagher has developed an ability to get into the minds of his patients and see the way they see reality, allowing him to uncover what might be the keys to their long-term recoveries. This perspective leads him to offer alternative treatments for his patient.  I wondered why I was led to turn the show on, but then I saw the doctor and staff around a table discussing treatment plans.  Since one patient had already gone off his medication, Gallagher suggested they keep him unmedicated, let all the chemicals get out of his system, and use counseling, acupuncture, visualization and other forms of alternative therapy.  Then after the patient had a period of no medication, re-evaluate him in light of new technologies. You can imagine that not everyone at the table was in agreement.  One responded “You don’t treat schizophrenia with aromatherapy.” This might be a very good show.

Later in the show, Gallagher is approached by an authority at the hospital who asks for his cooperation in keeping the funding in place from the major pharmaceutical companies who use the hospital to run their drug trials.  This should play out nicely as a story line.  And also educate some people; especially the elderly who are over-medicated and sit in front of the tv all day.  I hope they watch this show.

I spent about 10 years with the tv off, and it’s just recently come back on.  That’s a good thing to do to gain perspective.  Now I see programming is slowly making some changes for the better.  It’s encouraging.