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It is my great honor to be invited to the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. I never signed up for what used to be called in Boston “the full disaster,” psychoanalytic training. But I was psychoanalyzed by a (former) president of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; when I needed a tune up about 12 years ago I saw the past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association (my first analyst had died).
I feel privileged and delighted to join you fellow New Yorkers and professionals interested in the same kinds of things that drive my work and my mission as medical director of the New York State Office of Mental Health.
There will be three parts to what I am going to speak about. The first part will be derived from an op-ed piece I had in the Wall Street Journal about a year ago (online.wsj.com). The second part pertains to several personal stories; lest you think what I said in the Wall Street Journal depicts me as occupying some sort of definitive position (). I will then, in conclusion, talk about an important alliance of organizations that was formed in the past year called Opening Closed Doors ().
About a year ago, I submitted an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal, and to my surprise, the editorial board wrote back asking me to expand it. They titled it, I think accurately, “The Tragedy of Mental-Health Law” and the subtitle was “Patient Protections Have Become Rigid Rules
Excluding Families from Patient Care and Exceeding Common Sense.” You will remember that about that time we all were still reeling from the events in Newtown, Connecticut—and those on top of a spate of other violent incidents. Both in my last job as city mental health commissioner and now in my role