Cover
Story
The Grief Police
Posted Jan. 7,
2002
By Kelly
Patricia O’Meara
Police
officers in Queens, N.Y., offer each other
support at a funeral for one of their colleagues
lost in the World Trade Center attacks.
| | | During the Oct. 20 Madison
Square Garden "Concert for New York City," a
tribute to New York City's finest, Michael Moran
of Ladder Company 3 stood before thousands of his
peers and tens of millions of TV viewers and left
no doubt as to what he thought about the deadly
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and about
the man responsible. "Osama bin Laden," the
hulking firefighter shouted, "you can kiss my wild
Irish ass!"
The arena went wild, erupting
into applause, laughter and chants of "U.S.A.,
U.S.A." Moran had lost his older brother and 12
other colleagues in the World Trade Center attacks
and simply said publicly what a great many
Americans were feeling.
Most mental-health
professionals would agree that Moran, saddened and
angered by his loss, was ensuring good mental
health — sharing his feelings with others, getting
out his anger. Given the positive reception, there
seems little doubt that those in the arena and the
millions watching the concert at home understood
perfectly. In fact, Moran's remarks directed at
the Saudi cave dweller were so well received that
they were not deleted from the broadcast and are
highlighted on the newly released CD of the
concert.
Slightly more than a month later,
however, New York City Police Commissioner Bernard
Kerik, apparently concerned about how his
55,000-member force was holding up, announced
mandatory mental-health counseling for every
member of the New York City Police Department
(NYPD), from administrative personnel all the way
up to the commissioner himself.
Although
the NYPD refused numerous requests by Insight for
an interview about the mandatory counseling, press
reports say the "mental-health" plan for the
nation's largest police force isn't a new one. A
similar plan was implemented following the 1995
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City, after which nearly 9,000
participated in some form of mental-health
counseling. In fact, the Oklahoma City bombing is
cited as precedent when questions are raised with
the NYPD about the mandatory counseling. Again and
again those asking why this is being done are told
by police, political and psychiatric spokesmen to
"remember all the rescue workers who committed
suicide after the bombing" in Oklahoma
City.
But there is little or no data about
either the form of counseling provided in the
aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing or the
extent to which rescue workers who allegedly
committed suicide there did so before or after
they had been subjected to the counseling
services. There is abundant data, however, about
the large amount of federal money made available
for mental health after the Oklahoma City tragedy.
According to the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, the federal government spent almost twice
as much on mental-health counseling as on relief —
a whopping $4.1 million, compared with just $1.7
million for housing assistance and $468,000 for
replacing personal property.
While the
level of care provided by mental-health
professionals after the Oklahoma City attack seems
impressive, Insight has learned from survivors of
the bombing that attending counseling sessions was
made a requisite to qualifying for financial
assistance. According to one survivor who asked
not to be identified, the authorities were careful
not to "say we had to go to counseling, but we
didn't get any financial assistance until we did.
They just kept suggesting that we go every time we
sat down to talk about the various benefits." She
tells Insight that after her first counseling
session she was put on two different mind-altering
drugs. Critics of the mental-health profession's
growing reliance on psychotropic remedies tell
Insight they fear this may be in store for New
York City's finest. Advocates say they see it as a
check against crazed officers running
amok.
The driving force behind the call for
mandatory counseling is concern that the tragic
events of Sept. 11 may linger well beyond mood
depression, a normal human response to horrific
events, and turn into a mental illness such as
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which may
show itself months or even years after the
event.
The subjective criteria for PTSD is
defined by the American Psychiatric Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders as: "1) the person experienced,
witnessed or was confronted with an event or
events that involved actual or threatened death or
serious injury, or a threat to the physical
integrity of self or others, and 2) the person's
response involved intense fear, helplessness or
horror." By that definition, it could be said, all
Americans who watched or saw even video footage of
the attacks on the World Trade Center or the
Pentagon could be "victims" of this so-called
mental illness.
Under cover of getting help
to those in the NYPD who may suffer breakdowns, a
three-step approach has been taken to evaluate the
entire force. The first is a kind of group-therapy
session to encourage members of the force to
discuss the events of Sept. 11 and learn about
mental-health programs available to them. Step two
is access to an "anonymous hot line" so those who
want additional counseling can be given
"confidential" appointments. And step three is a
"mental-health fair" for members of the NYPD and
their families who may want to discuss the events
of Sept. 11.
All the mental-health
professionals running this program are
"volunteers" from Columbia University who will
bill the New York City Police Foundation, a
nonprofit organization providing $10 million for
this mental-health counseling. Columbia is to keep
no records on the officers who seek counseling
beyond the introductory session.
Critics
of this mandatory mental-health counseling tell
Insight they wonder whether forcing such
counseling may, in fact, be harmful. Elliot
Valenstein, professor emeritus of psychology at
the University of Michigan, says: "I'm quite
skeptical of any plan that would require mandatory
counseling for all 55,000 New York City police
officers. I have no doubt that there are some
police officers who are emotionally unstable,
overly aggressive, prejudiced, under too much
stress and so forth, and some of them might
benefit from counseling. But if a massive
mandatory counseling program is undertaken, I view
it as highly unlikely that it would attract the
caliber of competent counselors who would be able
to help those who need help."
Valenstein
continues: "I recognize that there may be problems
dealing with the events of Sept. 11, but I think
mandatory counseling is not the solution. There is
the possibility that a mandatory counseling
program would lead to a lot of perfunctory
prescriptions of medication that would not be
followed up adequately for adverse side effects.
For example, SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors] tend to make some people more
impulsive. This may be a good thing for depressed
people, but there are obvious dangers of making
people carrying weapons impulsive, and there are
many other side effects of these drugs."
If
NYPD officers are prescribed antidepressants, must
they take them? Bill Genet, a spokesman for the
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, tells Insight,
"It's a very involved process, but the
department's policy is that they'll decide
individual cases."
On the other hand, if
the mandatory counseling really is anonymous, as
the program has been described, how will the
department know which of its officers are taking
or have refused to take mind-altering drugs? While
Genet makes it clear that he was not speaking for
the NYPD, he says he understands and supports the
decision for counseling. "This is," he says,
"about anybody dealing with a traumatic event
having a reaction. Trauma is a shock, and it's a
shock to all the body's systems. The thing with
these emergency workers is that they shut down the
bodily shock because they have to get their job
done, and that's why it's called post-traumatic
stress. This accumulates, and there comes a time
at which it all shuts down and stops."
Tana
Dineen, a licensed psychologist and author of
Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology
Industry Is Doing to People, tells Insight, "I
don't know why the NYPD is doing this. Other than
appearing to be a civil-rights violation, it
sounds like an introductory advertising session to
lure in potential client/patients. The police will
be told they're suffering from mental illness, and
they'll be encouraged to come forward and get the
help they need. There are absolutely no data to
support the idea that talking about tragic events
helps, but there are data that show some people
are harmed by talking about it. The idea will get
presented, however, that if their feelings go
untreated for too long they might need help or may
be developing PTSD or some other mental illness.
Counselors will tell them that they can help but,
in reality, people can end up ruminating more
about the negative things, worrying if they have
some psychological illness, and become more
debilitated."
Dineen says she tends "to
look at psychology as a business that needs
clients and patients. The going formula is 'trauma
equals victims equals patients equals profits.'
These [NYPD] guys are going into a promotional
session, which will lure them into the idea that
they're victims, turn them into patients and
create profits for the psychiatric industry.
That's one of the problems with my profession — we
have all the pat answers. I say don't trust the
experts."
According to Dineen, "What you
hear from my profession is what might go wrong if
people don't get their help. We live in a
therapeutic society, and we're told that
everything can be fixed or cured. One of the costs
to our society is that people have lost the breath
of human experience — we've been convinced that
we're not supposed to feel bad things. All of
these feelings these people have are natural and
necessary, not mental illness. I think my
profession is selling some pretty dangerous
answers, and people need to be warned about the
dangers of some of the theories and bogus
therapies that are being sold."
Ira
Warheit, a Manhattan periodontist, can attest to
the abuses that can occur when overzealous
psychiatrists want to "help." Warheit spent three
days volunteering at ground zero wherever he was
needed — giving medical advice, passing out food
and working on the bucket brigade. While taking a
rest break at one of the staging centers around
ground zero, he was confronted by a psychiatrist,
Antonio Abad. They began talking, but within
minutes the psychiatrist excused himself. He
returned with a NYPD officer to have Warheit
removed to Bellevue Hospital. "I tried to
explain," Warheit says, "that there was nothing
wrong with me, that I was a doctor volunteering,
but the cop physically restrained me and I was
transported to the psychiatric hospital." Once at
Bellevue, Warheit continues, "a female doctor
comes up to me and says she has some questions. I
told her I'd be happy to answer her questions, but
I wasn't going into the hospital. So she calls
over two goons and they forcibly put me in
restraints and shoot me full of
Haldol."
This drugging of Warheit went on
for days until he was required by law to be taken
before a judge to decide if he was to be committed
to the hospital. Within minutes of hearing
Warheit's story, the judge released him. The
respected doctor now is suing the state for
wrongfully seizing and incarcerating him at
Bellevue. According to Stuart Shaw, Warheit's
attorney, "A claim has been filed for Ira for
false arrest and false imprisonment. There is a
great deal of investigating that has to be done,
but it seems strange to me that a man like this
would be physically restrained and injured. He
committed no crime, was not trespassing and in
fact was volunteering his services. It just seems
to me that before a reasonable man can put another
man in a straitjacket you have to really see
something strange, and it just isn't so in this
case."
Shaw continues: "What I'm afraid of
is that Ira's case is just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm afraid there may be a lot of little people —
police and firemen and others that also were put
in Bellevue by this guy and others like him. It
could be years before we know how many were sent
there, and it will be difficult to get the data
because many won't want to talk about what
happened, and the hospital will claim privacy
rights. I've handled a lot of commitments but none
of the stature of Ira. His civil rights have been
violated, and my intention is to sue in federal
court."
Ayal Lindeman, a volunteer
emergency medical technician from Rockland County,
N.Y., already had witnessed the seizure of another
volunteer at ground zero when he met Warheit and
learned his story. Lindeman tells Insight,
"There's this doctor who was being told that he's
going to the hospital, and he's saying 'I don't
want to go,' and this psychiatrist gets the cops
and they handcuff the poor guy and off he goes to
Bellevue. This is a doctor who has been
volunteering at ground zero — and this
psychiatrist, Abad, is having him committed and
pumped full of Haldol. It was just insanity what
was happening. I was livid."
Lindeman
recalls how the emergency workers felt about the
presence of so many psychiatrists at ground zero.
"I was sitting with these firemen and police who
were on break," he says, "and this woman walks up
and is handing out pamphlets for counseling
services. One of the police officers stood up and
told her 'Hey, we don't need you giving us these
things,' and he pulled out a handful of cards he
said he had been given in just a 12-hour period.
These guys were glaring at this woman. They all
heard about the incarceration incidents with
Warheit, and another guy pipes up and says, 'If he
pulls that crap with me I'll cap his
ass.'"
Lindeman concludes in his heavy New
York accent, "The thing is, these guys did great,
they did their job. I'm sure the commissioner is
doing this mandatory counseling because he loves
his guys and is trying to help them. But don't do
anything to harm them; don't force them into
anything they don't want. Sure, there are some
guys who are really hurting, but they don't have
mental illnesses. They aren't crazy."
Kelly Patricia O'Meara is an
investigative reporter for Insight.
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