David Oaks

Standing on a concrete island in downtown San Fancisco, David Oaks yells into a bullhorn the climactic line from the film "Network": "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore." The line would be a cliche if it weren't for one thing: Oaks means to be taken literally. On this sunny day, as thousands of mental-health professionals stream into the air-conditioned cool of the Moscone Center for the 156th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn.

Thank you to David Davis for his thoughtful and thought-provoking article on the use of drugs to treat mental illness ("Losing the Mind," Oct. 26). The comments made by David Oaks, executive director of MindFreedom Support Coalition International, and author Robert Whitaker raise disturbing questions about our reliance on and, in some cases, almost missionary zeal to embrace pharmaceuticals. People who are labeled mentally ill and who object to treatment with psychotropic medication are dismissed as lacking insight.

In "How Patients' Rights Can Harm Treatment" (June 24), the columnist--a psychiatrist--confidently describes a client who has been found facing oncoming traffic. She concludes, "Mr. X needs to start medication, to stabilize and to be discharged to a setting where his compliance can be monitored." How brisk. How efficient. And how wrong. Though some individuals choose to take psychiatric drugs as prescribed, there are many valid reasons why others might prefer other approaches. Unfortunately, many psychiatrists today are primarily trained to only prescribe pills, and have little else to offer.