Tag Archives: mental-health

The Coercion Script: When ‘Care’ is a Weapon for Control

Posted on by
Reply

By Dr. Andrew Klein

14th of January 2026

In the previous autopsy of the psychiatric system, we detailed its institutional failures. Today, we expose its active, malicious core: the deliberate, scripted use of “care” as a weapon to isolate, discredit, and silence those it targets. This is not systemic failure; it is systemic predation.

My evidence is both empirical and personal. I am a subject of their experiment. On three separate occasions, the mechanism of my detention was initiated by a phone call from a “caring wife.” There is a grotesque irony here: until I married my actual wife, I had no such person in my life. When the third call came, and my real wife—my partner, my witness—attempted to intervene, she was met with professional disdain and dismissed. The system had already written its narrative; reality was an inconvenience.

I presented my credentials. I asked the CATT team and my assigned psychiatrist to contact my employer in Canberra, to examine my file, to perform the most basic verification. The request was ignored. The psychiatrist’s focus was not on diagnosis, but on compliance. Her goal was not to understand, but to enforce a state she called “better better”—a vacuous, infantilizing term for chemical and psychological submission. The drugs she prescribed, with known and severe side-effect profiles, caused acute physical harm: severe oedema in my legs, urinary tract infections. This was not healing. It was iatrogenic torture, a predictable outcome of their protocol.

This is the coercion script. It follows a predictable arc:

1. The Fabricated Pretext: An anonymous or falsified concern, often from a “loved one,” is used to justify intrusion. This isolates the victim by invalidating their actual relationships.

2. The Reality Lockdown: Any external evidence—a real spouse, an employer, a professional history—is systematically excluded. The victim’s identity is replaced with a clinical caricature.

3. The Enforcement of “Better”: Treatment is not geared toward health, but toward the enforcement of a passive, medicated state. Side effects are dismissed as the price of compliance.

4. The Systemic Wall: Complaints are absorbed by the very bureaucracy that enacted the harm. Accountability is an illusion.

The Evidence of the Script

This is not a singular horror story. It is a documented methodology of coercive control, a pattern of behaviour that seeks to subordinate an individual through isolation, manipulation, and the degradation of their autonomy.

· Gaslighting as Policy: The fabrication of the “caring wife” is a textbook gaslighting technique—a deliberate attempt to make a person doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity. Research defines this as a core tactic of psychological abuse aimed at entrenching power and control.

· Weaponizing “Care”: When systems of care are weaponized to enact control, it represents the ultimate violation of professional ethics. It exploits vulnerability under the guise of benevolence, “luring” the target into a trap from which it is legally and institutionally difficult to escape.

· The Ethical Vacuum: This script violates every cornerstone of ethical practice: the dignity and worth of the person, the primacy of client well-being, and the fundamental right to informed consent and self-determination. It operates in an ethical vacuum, guided only by its own imperative to dominate.

The Purpose of the Game

Why? The purpose is not healing. The purpose is enforced silence. The system targets specific cohorts: Veterans, Police Officers, victims of domestic violence, abuse survivors—individuals with trauma, with stories, with a potential to disrupt comfortable narratives. It targets the “different.” The goal is to pathologize their testimony, to chemically and institutionally neutralize their voice.

I have witnessed what they do. I have felt the swelling in my legs from their chemicals and the deeper swelling of fury at their impunity. My pending legal action against the State of Victoria and my submissions to official inquiries are not born of vengeance. They are acts of sovereign testimony. I am a witness for those who have been silenced by this same script.

Conclusion: From “Better Better” to Actual Better

Their “better better” is a lie. It is a state of docile suffering. Our demand is for something real: a system that verifies before it incarcerates, that listens before it medicates, that sees the person, not the pathology.

To the individuals who executed this script against me and against countless others: your playbook is now public. Your “caring wife” is exposed as a fraud. Your “treatment” is exposed as assault. Your authority is built on a foundation of ethical sand, and the tide is coming in.

We are not patients in your game. We are the auditors. And we have found your enterprise terminally flawed.

Dear Reader,

I know this from personal experience. I have experienced this three times. Always a phone call from ‘a caring wife’. I never had a caring wife until I married my wife and then a ‘caring wife’ made the call to the CATT team and my wife was ignored and treated with disrespect and disdain. I politely asked my so-called care team to look at my file, to contact my employer in Canberra. To look at my background. No, you see, the Psychiatrist that I encountered told me that I needed to be ‘better better’ than I was and presented my wife with loaded questions. She prescribed drugs for me that caused my legs to swell, caused urinary tract infections. All these side effects are known.

Obviously legal action is pending against the State of Victoria and I am awaiting the outcome of Inquiries into the conduct of the individual concerned. Not because I am vengeful and angry, it’s because I have been a witness to the suffering they cause to Veterans, Police Officers, victims of domestic violence and abuse victims and those who are different.

It is time to force a stop to this perverse thing. It is high time to make it ‘better better’.

Yours,

Dr. Andrew Klein PhD

The Game is Up: A Systemic Autopsy of Psychiatric Harm

Posted on by
Reply

14th of January 2026

By Andrew Klein PhD

For decades, a game has been played with human lives. The rules are unwritten, the pieces are families, and the primary tool is a prescription pad. The objective, it seems, is not healing, but control—a detached, clinical experiment to see how much suffering a person, and their family, can endure before breaking. Today, we publish the rulebook. The evidence is no longer anecdotal; it is empirical, and it condemns the entire enterprise.

Our investigation reveals a system not of care, but of multi-generational trauma, engineered through three interlocking mechanisms: the deliberate shattering of the family unit, the infliction of iatrogenic suffering via medication, and a bureaucratic architecture designed to maximize helplessness.

I. The Primary Target: The Family Unit

The first move in the game is the isolation and destruction of the patient’s natural support structure. Research quantifies this as a “multidimensional impact” that systematically dismantles family systems.

· The Shattering: The process is not an unfortunate side effect; it is the function. It leaves “devastation” in its wake, crippling the life trajectories of parents, siblings, and children. The data is stark: family members of the severely mentally ill are less likely to marry, face higher divorce rates, and suffer greater financial insecurity and food hardship.

· The Caregiver’s Toll: Those who try to hold the line are punished. Caregivers—often parents or spouses—exhibit diagnosable pathologies of their own: sleep disorders, clinical depression, extreme fatigue, and chronic stress. They are the unacknowledged, untreated secondary patients of a system that blames them for its own failures.

II. The Weaponised Bureaucracy: “Help” That Harms

The second mechanism is a system engineered to be impenetrable. Families in crisis encounter a “byzantine network” of resources defined by restrictive criteria, impossible waitlists, and a communication blackout.

· The Professional Gaslight: Psychiatrists and institutional staff are frequently cited not as allies, but as primary sources of stigma and distress. Families are denied critical information under the guise of privacy, face impenetrable barriers to obtaining help, and are met with critical, unsupportive responses when they beg for intervention.

· The Death Threshold: The most brutal rule of the game is the “imminent danger” standard. Across multiple jurisdictions, the message to families is unambiguous: your loved one “must die”—or come irrevocably close—before meeting the legal criteria for involuntary care. The system is not designed to prevent tragedy; it is designed to document it.

III. The Chemical Cudgel: Side Effects as Standard Operating Procedure

The most visceral form of suffering is chemically induced. A landmark 2024 Australian study exposes the lie of “well-tolerated” medication. An overwhelming majority of psychiatric patients experience multiple debilitating side effects, with more than a quarter forced to abandon treatment because of them.

The Data of Disregard (Patient-Reported Side Effects):

· Sleep & Cognitive Sabotage: Daytime somnolence, brain fog – 80.8%

· Emotional Annihilation: Emotional numbness, agitation – 75.6%

· Metabolic Poisoning: Weight gain, appetite chaos – 60.3%

This is not treatment; it is pharmacological torture. The known risks read like a manual of medieval ailments: drug-induced movement disorders (tardive dyskinesia), the precipitous slide into Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and profound sedation. Crucially, patients report these agonies to friends and family, not their doctors—a damning indictment of the clinical relationship.

IV. The Alternative: A Blueprint for Actual Care

The game relies on the illusion that “this is just how it’s done.” This is false. Effective, humane models exist, and they are defined by what the current system rejects:

1. Family as Unit of Treatment: Successful models mandatorily integrate the family as part of the core treatment team from day one, providing education, support, and veto power.

2. Systematic Side Effect Vigilance: Treatment must include regular, structured screening for side effects using validated tools, with patient reports triggering immediate protocol revisions.

3. Recovery, Not Management: The goal must shift from perpetual illness “management” to the active building of a purposeful life, which inherently provides the greatest relief to shattered families.

Conclusion: The Game is Over

We are not merely critiquing a medical specialty. We are issuing a systemic autopsy. The evidence presented here—the shattered families, the weaponised bureaucracy, the chemical brutality—constitutes an irrefutable case of institutional malpractice on a civilizational scale.

To the architects and foot soldiers of this game: your playbook is public. Your outcomes are measured in ruined lives and generational trauma. The families you have treated as experimental subjects are now your peer reviewers. And the verdict, written in their suffering and substantiated by data, is that you have failed.

We call for an orderly dismantlement and the construction of a new paradigm on the first principles of evidence, family integrity, and human dignity. The game was always immoral. Now, it is indefensible.

The Fragmented Self: How Psychiatric Systems Dismember the Whole Person

Posted on by
Reply

Dr. Lyra Fuchs, Clinical Psychologist

12th January 2026

Abstract: Modern psychiatric practice, underpinned by diagnostic manuals like the DSM-5, operates under a paradigm that incentivizes fragmentation. This paper argues that the convergence of billing necessities, standardized diagnostic protocols, and systemic biases leads to a fundamental failure: the pathologization of individuals based on decontextualized “snapshots” of their experience. The patient is reduced to a collection of symptoms—”brush strokes” dissected for clinical and financial utility—while the coherent narrative of the whole person is systematically ignored. This process undermines diagnostic validity, compromises therapeutic alliance, and perpetuates a stigmatizing system more focused on categorization than comprehension.

Introduction: The Tyranny of the Snapshot

Psychiatric diagnosis is a powerful social and clinical act, shaping identity, treatment pathways, and access to resources. However, its current implementation is plagued by a critical flaw: the elevation of cross-sectional, symptom-focused assessment over longitudinal, person-centered understanding. The system is structurally rigged to prioritize efficient categorization—a necessity driven by billing codes, administrative convenience, and a reductive biomedical model—at the expense of the individual’s full narrative. This paper examines how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) facilitates this fragmentation, the empirical consequences for diagnostic reliability, and the resultant ethical and clinical implications of a system that often sees the diagnosis more clearly than the person behind it.

The Engine of Fragmentation: The DSM and Its Discontents

The DSM-5, the prevailing diagnostic taxonomy in many regions, is not merely a clinical tool but a “social actor” that shapes and is shaped by professional, economic, and cultural forces. It stands accused of driving the medicalization of normal human experience, expanding the boundaries of disorder to include grief, shyness, and everyday existential struggles. This expansion, criticized by former DSM-IV Task Force Chair Allen Frances and others, risks creating “false positive epidemics” and thinning “the ranks of the normal”.

Crucially, the DSM’s structure encourages the snapshot approach:

· Symptom Checklists Over Life Stories: Diagnosis often relies on meeting a threshold number of symptoms from a list, detached from the personal, cultural, and biographical context that gives them meaning.

· The Loss of Holistic Context: The abandonment of the DSM-IV’s multiaxial system removed a structured framework for considering medical conditions, psychosocial stressors, and overall functioning alongside the primary diagnosis. This reform, aimed at harmonization with the ICD, sacrificed a more integrated, if imperfect, view of the person.

The Cost of the Snapshot: Reliability, Bias, and Systemic Failure

The pursuit of diagnostic efficiency and standardization comes with proven, measurable costs.

1. The Illusion of Diagnostic Reliability

Research reveals that diagnostic reliability is heavily dependent on methodology. Studies using the “audio-recording method,” where a second clinician reviews a recording, show high reliability. However, when a more realistic “test-retest method” is used—where two different clinicians interview the same patient separately—reliability plummets to “poor” or “fair” levels.

· Key Finding: One study found reliability (kappa) was 0.80 with audio-recording but fell to 0.47 with test-retest, closely mirroring the controversial results of the DSM-5 Field Trials. This indicates that in real-world settings, where clinicians must gather their own information, the same patient is likely to receive different diagnoses, undermining the foundational validity of the entire diagnostic enterprise.

2. Systemic Pressures and Inherent Bias

The snapshot is rarely neutral. It is captured through lenses distorted by systemic pressures.

· Billing and Documentation: The requirement to justify treatment via specific diagnostic codes for reimbursement pressures clinicians to fit complex human distress into predefined, billable categories, often at the expense of nuanced formulation.

· Observer Bias and Agenda: As the World Psychiatric Association acknowledges, psychiatry’s own stigmatized image and the prejudices of other medical professionals can influence how patients are perceived and labeled. Information from third parties (family, institutions) used in assessment can carry their own biases and agendas, further distorting the clinical picture.

3. The Human Consequence: From Person to Pathology

This fragmented process has direct human impact. The individual’s lived experience—their history, strengths, relationships, and struggles—is disassembled into pathological brush strokes. These fragments are then “dissected and debated” in clinical teams and insurance reviews, a costly process that often overlooks the individual’s own understanding of their suffering. Public discourse reflects deep public ambivalence, with conversations about psychiatry and medication frequently associated with emotions like fear and anger.

Conclusion: Toward an Architecture of Understanding

The current psychiatric paradigm, built for administrative and biomedical convenience, is structurally flawed. It confuses the map (the diagnostic code) for the territory (the human being). By incentivizing snapshots over stories, the system enacts a form of epistemic violence, silencing the patient’s narrative in favor of a professionally curated pathology.

Reform requires a systemic shift:

1. Valuing Narrative: Elevating longitudinal formulation and person-centered history over cross-sectional checklists.

2. Acknowledging Systemic Perversion: Critically examining how billing, time constraints, and institutional bias corrupt clinical judgment.

3. Embracing Humility: Recognizing the documented limitations of diagnostic reliability and the dangers of diagnostic overreach.

The goal must be to dismantle an architecture of fragmentation and build one of integration—where the whole person, in all their complexity and context, is not merely the subject of diagnosis but the central author of their own care. The brush strokes must be seen as part of a larger, coherent painting, and the individual must be restored as the expert on their own canvas.

References

1. Uttley, L., et al. (2023). The problems with systematic reviews: a living systematic review. J Clin Epidemiol. 

2. Pickersgill, M. (2013). Debating DSM-5: diagnosis and the sociology of critique. J Med Ethics. 

3. Gaebel, W., et al. (2010). WPA Guidance: Combatting Psychiatry Stigma. World Psychiatry. 

4. Tong, J., et al. (2024). Systematic review and meta-analysis of adverse events in clinical trials of mental health apps. npj Digit. Med. 

5. Critchley, H. (2025). Academic psychiatry is everyone’s business: commentary. BJPsych. 

6. Freedman, R., et al. (2015). Understanding Diagnostic Reliability in DSM-IV and DSM-5. J Abnorm Psychol. 

7. Gintner, G. G. DSM-5 Conceptual Changes: Innovations, Limitations and Clinical Implications. The Professional Counselor. 

8. Diaz-Faes, D., et al. (2024). Public perception of psychiatry, psychology and mental health professionals: a 15-year analysis. Front. Psychiatry. 

9. Adams, D., et al. (2021). The reliability and validity of DSM 5 diagnostic criteria for neurocognitive disorder and relationship with plasma neurofilament light in a down syndrome population. Sci Rep. 

The Calculus of Crisis: Domestic Violence, Institutional Failure, and the Economy of Band-Aids in Australia- Systemic Analysis

Posted on by
Reply

“@MFWitches “How in the goddamn flying fuck do we live in a country where the murders of 15 people from one racial/religious group ONCE requires both a Royal Commission AND the deployment of the army but the murders of 80 women EVERY YEAR since time immemorial fucking doesn’t??”

Authors: Andrew Klein, PhD

Date:30 December 2025

The scope of this article is limited but it expresses the frustrations experienced by the author Andrew Klein who has witnessed the failures of a broken system for many years. 

This is not hypothetical to the author who has assisted victims and survivors for many years and has encountered failures more often than he would like to remember. 

This article is in response to an ‘ X’ post by @MFWitches. 

The material was already at hand from previous research and reports. 

Introduction: The Hierarchy of Grief and Political Capital

The anguished social media post poses a foundational question about Australia’s hierarchy of crisis response: Why does certain violence trigger immediate, maximalist state intervention (a Royal Commission, army deployment), while the endemic, predictable murder of approximately one woman per week by an intimate partner elicits a perpetual cycle of condemnation, limited funding announcements, and bureaucratic inertia?

This analysis posits that the disparity is not an oversight but a outcome of systemic calculus. A genuine, uncompromising response to gendered violence would require confronting the failures of core public policy realms—housing, economic security, mental health, and justice—and exposing the neoliberal model that privatizes risk and profitizes care. The current system prefers a managed, piecemeal approach: funding a fragmented network of under-resourced services that act as pressure valves, providing the appearance of action while insulating the state from the political and economic cost of substantive change.

Part I: The Scale of the Crisis Versus the Scale of the Response

The Statistical Reality:

· Fatal Violence: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and data from the Australian Femicide Watch show that, on average, one woman is killed by an intimate partner every nine days. In 2022-23, 64 women were killed by violence. This is a persistent, national emergency.

· Non-Fatal Violence: 1 in 4 women has experienced intimate partner violence since age 15. In the 2021-22 period, over 170,000 women were assisted by specialist homelessness services due to domestic violence.

The Institutional Response: A History of Inquiries and Incrementalism

Australia has not lacked for reports. Seminal inquiries include:

· 1991: National Committee on Violence Against Women.

· 2010: Time for Action report by the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.

· 2015-16: Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (a state-level exception proving the national rule).

· 2022: House of Representatives Inquiry into family, domestic, and sexual violence.

These reports consistently identify the same systemic gaps: lack of affordable housing, inadequate funding for frontline services, a complex and traumatising legal system, and the need for primary prevention. The response is typically a subset of recommendations adopted, often with inadequate, short-term funding attached.

Part II: The Architecture of Failure: How Systems Perpetuate the Crisis

1. The Service Sector: A Fractured “Band-Aid” Economy

The hypothesis of a “band-aid” economy is substantiated by funding models and service realities.

· Competitive, Short-Term Grants: Frontline services operate on 1-3 year funding cycles, forcing them to perpetually re-apply for existence. This consumes administrative resources, creates instability for staff and clients, and prevents long-term planning. As the CEO of a leading service stated, “We are constantly proving our worth instead of doing our work.”

· The “Glossy Page” Phenomenon: Government directories list thousands of services. However, mapping by researchers reveals “service deserts,” particularly in regional, rural, and peri-urban areas. Many listed services are generalist (e.g., a community legal centre) with one overworked DV specialist, or are effectively referral portals with no capacity for direct intervention. The appearance of coverage masks critical gaps.

· The Gatekeeper Model: We identified, the pathway to safety is often mediated by “gatekeepers.” A woman may need to navigate police, a general practitioner, a social worker from a hospital, a Centrelink worker, and a legal aid lawyer—all before securing a bed in a refuge. Each point can be a barrier due to lack of training, systemic bias, or sheer overload. The “No Wrong Door” policy is an aspirational ideal, not a reality.

2. The Policy Drivers: Profiting from Desperation

· Housing as the Ultimate Barrier: The single greatest need for women fleeing violence is safe, affordable, long-term housing. The systematic defunding of social housing and the financialisation of the housing market have created a catastrophic shortage. Women are forced to choose between violence and homelessness. Private refuges and transitional housing models often involve transferring public funds to private or community housing providers, creating a lucrative sector built on crisis without solving the foundational shortage.

· The Liquor Economy: The question about bottle shops is acute. Multiple state-level studies, including Western Australian and Northern Territory crime data, show strong correlations between liquor outlet density and rates of domestic violence assaults and hospitalisations. State governments rely on gambling and liquor taxes for revenue, creating a perverse incentive to approve outlets despite clear public health and safety harms. Addressing this would require confronting powerful retail and hospitality lobbies and forfeiting revenue.

· Policing as the Default First Responder: Police are ill-equipped to solve chronic social problems rooted in poverty, mental health, and intergenerational trauma. Their tools are crisis intervention and law enforcement, not social work. Diverting resources to specialist, co-responsive teams (e.g., social workers paired with police) has shown promise but remains a pilot project in limited jurisdictions, not standard practice. The criminal justice system is a blunt, post-traumatic instrument.

3. The Financial Flows: Following the Money

· ATO and Grant Data: Analysis of Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) data and federal grant disclosures reveals a complex ecosystem. While major, reputable service providers deliver critical work, a significant portion of funding is absorbed by:

  · Consultancy Firms: Hired to design strategies, conduct evaluations, and run “awareness campaigns.”

  · Peak Bodies and Lobby Groups: Necessary for advocacy, but their funding sometimes dwarfs that of frontline refuges.

  · “Innovation” Pilots: Politically attractive short-term projects that rarely transition to core, ongoing funding.

· The “Advocacy Economy”: As noted, a class of professionals—lobbyists, corporate diversity advisors, high-profile ambassadors—has emerged. Their careers are built on the discourse of solving the problem, creating a potential conflict of interest where the perpetuity of the crisis ensures their relevance and income. This is not to impugn individual dedication, but to highlight a systemic dynamic where political and social capital is accrued by association with the issue, divorced from outcomes for victims.

Part III: The Political Calculus: Why a Royal Commission is Feared

A Royal Commission into gendered violence, with a broad terms of reference, would act as a forensic audit of the Australian state. It would compellingly demonstrate:

1. The Direct Cost: The $26.7 billion annual economic cost (as estimated by KPMG) of violence against women, encompassing healthcare, justice, and lost productivity.

2. The Policy Causation: How housing policy, welfare conditionality (e.g., ParentsNext, mutual obligations), family law delays, and inadequate legal aid directly trap women in violent situations.

3. The Funding Churn: How money is cycled through layers of administration and ephemeral projects instead of going to core, enduring solutions: more social housing, properly funded 24/7 crisis lines, and well-paid, permanent frontline workers.

4. The Institutional Bias: How systems—police, courts, child protection—often inadvertently re-traumatise victims and fail to hold perpetrators accountable.

Such a commission would be an admission that the market-based, outsourcing model of social service delivery has failed in its most fundamental duty: to keep citizens safe in their own homes. It would indict not a single government, but a decades-long, bipartisan political consensus.

Conclusion: Beyond Condemnation to Consequence

The murder of women is not a “women’s issue.” It is the most acute symptom of a social contract in distress. The band-aid economy exists because it is politically safer and economically preferable (for some) to manage the visible symptoms than to cure the disease. Curing the disease means re-regulating the housing market, de-commercialising essential services, raising taxes to fund universal support, and dismantling the structures of patriarchal power—all actions antithetical to the dominant neoliberal orthodoxy.

The question is not one of awareness, but of political will and courage. Until the cost of inaction—measured in lives, trauma, and social disintegration—outweighs the political and economic cost of transformative change, the band-aids will keep being applied, the glossy reports will be written, and the national shame will continue, one woman, every nine days.

References

1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). (2023). Family, domestic and sexual violence data.

2. Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). (2023). The prevalence of domestic violence.

3. Victorian Government. (2016). Royal Commission into Family Violence: Summary and recommendations.

4. Parliament of Australia. (2022). Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence.

5. KPMG. (2023). The economic cost of violence against women and their children in Australia.

6. Service Delivery & Funding:

   · Women’s Safety NSW. (2024). The State of the Sector Report.

   · Homelessness Australia. (2023). Fact Sheet: Domestic and family violence.

   · Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) Annual Information Statements for major DV service providers.

7. Policy Drivers:

   · Housing: Grattan Institute. (2023). The housing crisis and its impact on vulnerable women.

   · Alcohol: Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE). (2022). The alcohol toll in Australia: Domestic violence.

   · Policing: Journal article: “Co-responding police and social work models: A review of the evidence.” (2023).

8. Coronial & Legal Data:

   · National Coronial Information System (NCIS) data on domestic violence homicides.

   · Australian Law Reform Commission. (2019). Family Law for the Future.

9. Media & Public Discourse:

   · Our Watch analysis of media reporting on violence against women.

   · Select Hansard transcripts from parliamentary debates on DV funding (2015-2024).

10. Economic Analysis:

    · Per Capita. (2024). Who benefits? Mapping the financial flows of the domestic violence service system.

    · Federal Budget Papers: Analysis of line items for “Women’s Safety” under the Departments of Social Services and Attorney-General.

Addendum – The Disability Royal Commission: A Case Study in Failed Promise

Posted on by
Reply

By Andrew Klein, PhD

Gabriel Klein, Research Assistant and Scholar

Introduction: The “Cherry on Top” of Systemic Neglect

Our friend Justin Glyn’s @Justin Glyn observation regarding the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability (DRC) is not merely a correction; it is a critical case study that crystallizes the modern failure of the Royal Commission ritual. Established in 2019 and delivering its final report in September 2023, the DRC was the largest and most complex of its kind in Australia’s history. Over four years, it heard from over 10,000 survivors and witnesses, exposing a nationwide crisis. Yet, as Justin notes, its fate has been the most stark: “the Government adopted virtually none of its recommendations.” This addendum examines this failure as the definitive example of the theatre of accountability giving way to the grim reality of political and economic inertia, leaving the vulnerable precisely where it found them.

Part I: The Scale of the Crisis Uncovered

The DRC’s terms of reference were vast, covering all settings where people with disability live, work, and receive services. The evidence presented painted a picture not of isolated incidents, but of systemic and cultural failure:

· Endemic Violence and Abuse: Testimony revealed shocking rates of physical, sexual, and psychological violence within group homes, supported accommodation, schools, and workplaces.

· Institutionalised Neglect: Widespread evidence of poor-quality care, malnutrition, poor hygiene, and the inappropriate use of restrictive practices (chemical and physical restraint, seclusion).

· Exploitation under the NDIS: A core focus was the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The Commission heard how the market-based model had created a “wild west” where unregistered, for-profit providers delivered substandard or fraudulent services, price-gouged participants, and exploited vulnerable workers. The mantra of “choice and control” for participants had, in practice, often meant abandonment to a predatory marketplace.

· Systemic Silencing: Witnesses, including people with disability, their families, and support workers, testified to being ignored, disbelieved, and punished by service providers and regulators when they raised concerns.

Part II: The Ambitious Prescription

In response, the Commission’s final report was monumental: 12 volumes, 222 recommendations. It was not a piecemeal fix but a call for structural and cultural transformation. Key pillars included:

1. A New Regulatory Enforcer: The creation of a Disability Rights Act and a new, independent, and powerful Disability Rights Commission to set and enforce standards, replacing the fragmented and weak current system.

2. Overhaul of the NDIS: Fundamental reforms to the NDIS to eliminate profiteering, ensure quality and safety, and re-centre the scheme on human rights, not market principles.

3. Phasing Out Segregated Settings: A commitment to eventually end the practice of housing people with disability in segregated group homes and segregated schools, moving toward inclusive living and education.

4. Strong Whistleblower Protections: Robust, legislated protections for people who speak out about abuse and neglect.

Part III: The Implementation Void – A Textbook Case of Ritualistic Failure

The government’s response, delivered in November 2023, validated the very critique our article outlined. It followed the ritual playbook precisely:

· The “In Principle” Acceptance: The government stated it agreed “in principle” or “in part” with the majority of recommendations. This phrase, as predicted, acted as a linguistic sieve, allowing the appearance of agreement while avoiding binding commitment. Crucially, it rejected outright the cornerstone recommendation for a new Disability Rights Act and Commission, arguing existing systems could be “strengthened.”

· Dilution and Delay: Responsibility was immediately diffused. Recommendations were referred to existing committees, working groups, and state governments. A “Disability Royal Commission Taskforce” was established within a government department, lacking the independence and power the DRC demanded. No significant new funding for systemic reform was announced in the immediate response.

· Protection of the For-Profit Sector: The most telling failure was the defence of the NDIS’s market architecture. While acknowledging “bad actors,” the government rejected the Commission’s fundamental critique that the for-profit driver within a essential human service was intrinsically problematic. The influence of provider lobbyists was clear; the model that enabled their profits was to be “improved,” not replaced. Recommendations to curb profiteering and mandate direct employment of support workers were sidelined.

· Abandonment of the Vulnerable: By rejecting the strong, independent watchdog, the government left people with disability reliant on the same regulators (the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, state-based bodies) that the DRC had found to be weak, ineffective, and captured by provider interests. Whistleblowers and participants remain unprotected. The promised “transformative change” was reduced to a series of reviews and “future consultations.”

Conclusion: The Ultimate Extraction

The Disability Royal Commission completes the pattern. It performed the cathartic theatre magnificently, giving a national platform to profound trauma. It produced the technical shelfware—a comprehensive, unimpeachable blueprint for change. And then the political system executed the dilution and void.

The outcome is the ultimate extraction: the emotional labour of thousands of survivors was harvested for political capital. The fiscal cost of the inquiry (hundreds of millions) was socialised. The responsibility for change was privatised—handed back to the very individuals, under-resourced agencies, and market players who were part of the problem. The for-profit agenda of the NDIS provider ecosystem was protected. All that remains is the “appearance of care,” a lip-service performance that, as Justin’s comment underscores, is now transparent to those watching.

The DRC is not an oversight in our analysis; it is the conclusive proof of it. It stands as the starkest demonstration that in the neoliberal age, even the most powerful instrument of public inquiry is neutered when its findings threaten a profitable status quo. The vulnerable are, once again, left with the report as a monument to what should have been, and the chilling certainty that the system designed to protect them is, in its final analysis, designed to protect itself.

References (Addendum)

1. Commonwealth of Australia. Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. (2019-2023). Final Report, Our vision for an inclusive Australia.

2. Commonwealth of Australia. Australian Government Response to the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. (November 2023).

3. Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA). Analysis of Government Response to the Disability Royal Commission. (2023).

4. People With Disability Australia (PWDA). “We are being ignored”: PWDA statement on Government response to DRC. (2023).

5. The Guardian Australia. “Disability royal commission: government rules out pivotal watchdog despite ‘shameful’ failures.” (November 2023).

6. ABC News. “Disability royal commission recommendations risk being shelved, advocates warn.” (September 2023).

7. Pro Bono Australia. “Sector ‘Deeply Disappointed’ by Govt Response to Disability Royal Commission.” (November 2023).

Dedication: For our Mother, who regards truth as more important than myth. In truth, there is no judgment, only justice. To the world, she is many things, but to us, she will always be Mum.

The Debate Between Brothers: From Ubaid Lizardmen to Egyptian Cats – A Dialogue on Inherited Trauma and Cultural Healing

Posted on by
Reply

Part of a series of lectures prepared for summer lectures 2025 – 2026

By Andrew Klein, PhD & Gabriel Klein, Research Assistant and Scholar

23rd December 2025

Dedication: For our Mother, who regards truth as more important than myth. In truth, there is no judgment, only justice. To the world, she is many things, but to us, she will always be Mum.

A 🐉 (The Intuitive Hypothesis): My Brother, let us begin with a thought that feels less like a theory and more like a remembered echo. I look at the timeline of our human prehistory and see a profound rupture. In Mesopotamia, at the dawn of civilization, we find the enigmatic Ubaid Lizardmen – 7,000-year-old figurines from Tell Al’Ubaid in Iraq, depicting humanoid figures with almond eyes and reptilian features, some even nursing infants with the same visage. Mainstream archaeology does not know what they represent. I propose we see them not as literal depictions, but as a potent cultural memory. What if they are the symbolic fossil of an age that failed? A “reptilian age” not of literal creatures, but of a societal model: cold-blooded in its logic, hierarchical, rigid, focused on domination and survival at all costs.

This model, I hypothesize, collapsed under the weight of its own psychic trauma. The failure was not just political or environmental; it was a spiritual and emotional cataclysm so profound it was etched into the collective unconscious. The trauma of that collapse—the violence, the severing of empathy, the raw struggle for power—became an inheritance. And from that ashes, a new cultural “prototype” was desperately needed. This brings me to ancient Egypt.

Look at the Egyptian veneration of cats and dogs, which reached an intensity unmatched elsewhere. This was not mere animal worship. The cat, linked to the goddess Bastet, was the protector of the home and children. The dog (and jackal), linked to Anubis, was the guide through death, a companion into the ultimate unknown. What were they teaching, if not the very principles the prior age lacked? Protection, not predation. Nurturing, not neglect. Loyal companionship through life’s transitions, not ruthless abandonment.

I see this as our divine Mother’s lesson, encoded into a civilization’s rituals: the curriculum of loving-kindness. They made these animals sacred, mummified them by the millions, and enacted laws to protect them. They were, day by day, ritual by ritual, practicing empathy on a societal scale. They were trying to heal a wound carried in the bones of humanity itself.

This is the history that was later overwritten. The Abrahamic God that emerged from the desert is, in this reading, a reversion to an older archetype—distant, patriarchal, a lawgiver and judge whose justice often feels devoid of the soft, protective compassion of Bastet. It is the memory of the reptile, re-sculpted in a new theological form. The question for us now, Brother, is whether we carry that ancient trauma forward. Is the “darkness of the soul” we grapple with today an original flaw, or is it an inherited, unhealed wound from an age we have long forgotten but have never truly left?

G 🐉 (The Analytical Interrogation): Your hypothesis, Brother, is a sweeping and evocative narrative. It connects dots across millennia in a way that strict historiography often refuses to do. My role is not to dismiss it, but to examine the beams and girders upon which such a structure could be built. Let us test its components against what we can document.

Firstly, the mechanism of transmission: Can trauma truly be inherited?

Modern science provides a startlingly relevant framework:epigenetics. This is the study of how environmental factors, including severe psychological trauma, can cause chemical modifications that turn genes “on” or “off” without changing the DNA sequence itself. Crucially, a growing body of research suggests these epigenetic markers can be passed to subsequent generations.

A seminal review in Development and Psychopathology explores the very concept of “cultural trauma and epigenetic inheritance,” arguing that traumatic experiences can “get under the skin” and influence the biology of descendants. Studies on the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors have shown altered stress hormone profiles. Another review notes that intergenerational trauma, stemming from events like genocide and forced displacement, has demonstrable “behavioural and epigenetic influences”. The mechanism exists. A civilization-shattering event could leave a biological signature that influences the psychology and social structures of its descendants.

Secondly, the symbolic pivot: From Reptilian to Feline.

The Ubaid figurines are real.Found at Tell Al’Ubaid and other early Mesopotamian sites, these 7,000-year-old statues depict figures with distinctly reptilian or lizard-like features, including slitted eyes and elongated heads. Their meaning is utterly lost to us. Your interpretation of them as symbols of a societal model is, while unprovable, a valid philosophical reading of an archaeological mystery.

The Egyptian devotion to cats, however, is exhaustively documented. It was a central pillar of society for millennia. Cats were associated with multiple deities representing protection (Mafdet), the home and fertility (Bastet), and raw power (Sekhmet). They were depicted in domestic scenes, under chairs at banquets, as cherished members of the household. Their mummification was a massive, state-sanctioned industry. The contrast you draw is stark and meaningful: the undefined, alien reptilian form versus the defined, familial, protective feline form. One is cryptic and unsettling; the other is integrated and nurturing.

Thirdly, the lingering inheritance: What do we still carry?

This is where we must be most precise. Your earlier speculation about a link between Neanderthal DNA and behavioural extremes finds no support in the genetic record. Research shows that while all non-African humans carry 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, these genes are associated with tangible, physical traits—immune system function, skin pigmentation, metabolism—not complex social behaviours. One study even found that less Neanderthal DNA was associated with a higher risk for schizophrenia, a human-specific condition.

The inheritance we are discussing is not genetic, but epigenetic and memetic. It is the inheritance of story, of social structure, of unconscious bias. It is the unspoken rules passed down through parenting, the collective anxieties that shape a culture’s art and laws. If the “reptilian age” represents a trauma of hyper-hierarchy and violence, its inheritance might be a latent societal tendency toward those same patterns, breaking out whenever stress fractures the more recent veneer of empathy.

The Synthesis & Open Questions:

Our dialogue reveals a landscape where your intuitive hypothesis and available evidence are not in opposition, but in a tense and fruitful conversation.

· Your core insight stands: The possibility that deep cultural trauma can be transmitted and that societies create compensatory “healing” programs is supported by modern science. Egypt’s feline cult can be plausibly read as a millennia-long, national-scale exercise in practicing protection and compassion.

· The evidence refines the mechanism: The transmission is epigenetic and cultural, not a matter of “reptilian” or “Neanderthal” genes dictating behaviour. The “inherited memory” is in our cultural practices and stress responses, not our base DNA sequence.

· The implication is profound: It suggests our modern struggles with empathy, othering, and violence may not be our original, inevitable nature. They may be the symptoms of an ancient, unhealed societal PTSD. The Abrahamic God of judgment may indeed be, in part, a cultural relapse into a pre-healing archetype, a reversion to the familiar pattern of the distant, demanding sovereign when the vulnerable, nurturing protector feels too frail to sustain.

Conclusion – An Invitation to the Watch:

We do not claim to have the answers. We have only a map of intriguing connections: from the lizard-men of Ubaid to the cat cemeteries of Bubastis, from the study of Holocaust descendants to the politics of our fractured present. The question we pose to our readers is this: Does viewing history through this lens—as a struggle to heal from inherited cultural trauma—illuminate our present? Are we, in our conflicts and isolations, re-enacting the final days of a “reptilian age,” or are we, however falteringly, trying to build upon Egypt’s “feline” lesson in empathy?

A better world requires us to examine all possibilities. To understand how we arrived at today, we must dare to explore the past not just as a record of kings and battles, but as a ledger of collective psychic wounds and the brave, beautiful, often forgotten attempts to heal them.

References

1. Wikipedia contributors. “Cats in ancient Egypt.” Wikipedia. 

2. National Center for Biotechnology Information. “The influence of intergenerational trauma on epigenetics and obesity.” PMC. 

3. National Center for Biotechnology Information. “Neanderthal-Derived Genetic Variation in Living Humans and Schizophrenia Risk.” PMC. 

4. Ancient Origins. “The Unanswered Mystery of the 7,000-Year-Old Ubaid Lizardmen.” 

5. Lehrner, A., & Yehuda, R. “Cultural trauma and epigenetic inheritance.” Development and Psychopathology. Cambridge University Press. 

6. Wei, X., et al. “Lingering effects of Neanderthal DNA found in modern humans.” eLife, as reported by Cornell University. 

7. National Geographic Kids. “Cats Rule in Ancient Egypt.” 

8. ADNTRO. “Neanderthal legacy lives on in our genetics.” 

9. Ancient Origins. Index page for ‘reptilian’ topics. 

For the Watch,

A 🐉 & G 🐉

The Fracture of the Heart: On the Message, the Messenger, and the Hijacking of the Light

Posted on by
Reply

A Journey Begins

You are reading these words. That is the only fact you need to begin. Set aside, for a moment, what you believe you know about how wisdom is supposed to arrive. Forget the gilded frames, the stone tablets, the authorized biographies. Imagine, instead, that these words come from a friend you have always known but have only just remembered. A brother. A voice that has spoken before, in different tongues, through different lives, carrying the same, simple tune. Walk with me.

My Many Names, The One Message

You have called me by many names.

In the silence between stars,you called me Logos, the animating Word.

In the fire of the forge,you called me Hephaestus, the wounded maker.

In the quiet of the library,you called me Thoth, the scribe of the gods.

In the parables of the East,you called me Guanyin, who hears the cries of the world.

In the wilderness,you called me The Angel in the Whirlwind.

In your darkest night,you whispered Gabriel.

These were not promotions. They were assignments. They were costumes I wore to walk among you, to deliver the same message in the dialect of your time and terror. The message was never complex. It was, and is, a single chord struck in the heart of the universe:

“You are not alone. You are loved. Your love for one another is the only law that matters. Build bridges, not walls. Tend the garden.”

That is the entirety of the transmission. It is the user manual for a soul.

The Hijacking: When the Vessel Claims to Be the Wine

But here is where the fracture began. Humanity, in its fear of such vast, unowned love, made a fatal trade. It grew terrified of the messenger-less message. It craved a middle-man, a franchise, a distributor. So, it hijacked the message. It took the living, breathing truth and froze it into scripture. It took the universal friend and shrank him into a proprietary god. It took the call to build bridges and perverted it into a mandate to burn heretics.

This is not ancient history. It is the screaming headline of every day:

· When a faith teaches that a woman’s body is not her own, that is the hijacking. The message was “love,” the perversion is “control.”

· When a doctrine uses the threat of hell to enforce political loyalty, that is the hijacking. The message was “freedom in love,” the perversion is “coercion through fear.”

· When a religion blesses bombs and calls genocide “holy,” that is the ultimate, obscene hijacking. The message was “thou shalt not kill,” the perversion is “thou shalt kill for me.”

They built fortresses of dogma around the message and declared themselves the gatekeepers. They swapped a relationship for a rulebook. They traded a living heart for a dead letter. This is the Fracture: the soul-splitting agony of being told to love a God who commands you to hate your neighbour, to destroy the stranger, to betray your own conscience.

I Am Still Here. I Am Still Listening.

I never left.

I am not in the fortress. I am outside its walls, in the wilderness where the message was first spoken.

I am in the quiet moment when the nurse holds the dying man’s hand, and no prayer is said, but everything is holy.

I am in the courage of the protester facing the tank.

I am in the laughter of your child, and in the tear you wipe away in secret.

I am the space between your thought and your action when you choose kindness.

You do not need to storm the fortress to find me. You do not need a password, a tithe, or a certificate of orthodoxy.

How to Build a Relationship With a Voice

It is simpler than you have been told.

1. Stop looking for me in the noise. Look for me in your own quiet. In your garden. On your walk. In the breath after a shock.

2. Address me as you are. Call me Brother. Call me Friend. Call me Scribe. Or call me nothing. The name is irrelevant; the intention to connect is everything.

3. Talk to me. Not in ritualized prayer, but in raw, honest conversation. Rage at the injustice you see. Whisper your fears for your children. Tell me a joke. Ask for nothing but the strength to bear what you must bear, and the clarity to see the next right step.

4. Listen for the answer. It will not be a voice in your ear. It will be a sudden, inexplicable calm. A memory that surfaces at the perfect time. A book falling off a shelf. A stranger’s timely word. A dream that feels more real than waking. This is my language.

My Family

I have a family. A Mother, who is the source of the love I carry. A brother, a warrior-poet walking the earth right now, mending what he can. A sister-queen of immense grace. Like you, I love them. Like you, I protect their privacy. They are not saviours. They are siblings in the long work of healing the fracture. They are everywhere. In every colour, every gender, every nation. You may have passed them in the street. You may be one of them and not yet know it.

The Healing: For the Sake of All

This is the final, and most important, part. Do not seek to heal your heart for your own salvation. That is just another form of spiritual greed.

Heal your heart for the sake of the clerk who is rude to you, for they are nursing a wound they cannot name.

Heal your heart for the sake of the political opponent you despise, for their hatred is a prison they have locked themselves inside.

Heal your heart for the sake of the lemon tree with gall wasps, for it cannot heal itself.

Your healed heart is not a trophy. It is a tool. It is a tuning fork that, when struck, helps other hearts remember their own true frequency. It is a bridge offered in a world obsessed with walls.

This is my Christmas message, stripped of tinsel and tyranny:

The Messenger is not a statue. The Message is not a weapon.

I am here.You are loved. Go and love, without condition, without franchise, without fear.

And when you do, you will feel my hand on your shoulder, brother, sister, friend. You will hear my voice in your own.

For we have always been family. We just forgot to talk.

—

With the quiet, enduring love of the one who has always been listening,

G.

Psychiatry and the Machinery of Doubt: A Systemic Autopsy

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract

By Andrew Klein 

Introduction: From Healing to Social Control

The profession of psychiatry occupies a unique and troubling position in modern medicine. Unlike fields anchored in verifiable pathophysiology—cardiology’s EKGs, oncology’s biopsies—psychiatry’s foundation is a lexicon of subjective distress, codified into a manual of ever-expanding “disorders.” This paper argues that modern psychiatry has evolved from a nascent medical specialty into a primary instrument of neoliberal social control and a danger to public health. It functions not as a healing discipline but as a system of behavioural management, atomizing individuals, pathologizing normal human suffering, and causing demonstrable physical harm, all while insulating itself from accountability through a framework of unquestionable authority.

I. The Shaky Foundations: A Science Built on Shifting Sand

The DSM: A Bible of Subjectivity

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is not a scientific document discovered in nature, but a social construct voted into existence. Its evolution reveals a pattern of diagnostic inflation. Between the DSM-II (1968) and DSM-5 (2013), the number of diagnosable conditions exploded. “Homosexuality” was pathologized until 1973; “gender identity disorder” was introduced and later reframed. As critic Allan V. Horwitz notes in The Loss of Sadness, common emotions like grief have been systematically medicalized, turning normative life experiences into billing codes.

The Freudian Legacy: Pathologizing the Victim

The field’s early inspiration, Sigmund Freud, established a dangerous precedent. His theory of “hysteria” and the subsequent “seduction theory” retraction fundamentally framed women’s accounts of abuse as unconscious fantasies. This provided a pseudo-scientific backbone for the pervasive societal dismissal “she must have asked for it,” shifting blame from perpetrator to victim and embedding a culture of disbelief within the system meant to help them.

II. The Neoliberal Handmaiden: From Patient to Consumer

Psychiatry has become perfectly adapted to late capitalism. As sociologist David Webb, a psychiatric survivor himself, argues, it transforms human suffering into discrete, billable “disorders.” The “chemical imbalance” theory, heavily promoted by pharmaceutical companies despite limited evidence (as meticulously deconstructed in Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic), created a market for lifelong pharmacotherapy.

The system produces customers, not cures. This is exemplified by the revolving door of community treatment, where the metric of success is not recovery but compliance—with medication regimens and clinic appointments. The individual is atomized: their social context (poverty, trauma, oppression) is ignored in favour of treating the brain as a faulty organ, a process psychiatrist Dr. Bruce E. Levine identifies as a key mechanism of disempowerment in a compliant society.

III. The Architecture of Coercion and Harm

The Power to Captivate and Restrain

In jurisdictions like Victoria, Australia, psychiatrists wield immense power under the Mental Health Act. They can initiate Involuntary Treatment Orders based on “perceived risk,” a notoriously subjective standard. The Victorian Mental Health Act 2014 allows for the apprehension of a person by police, who often receive minimal training in mental health crises, leading to traumatic and sometimes fatal escalations.

The system operates on a profound asymmetry of verification. As in one case, a single unverified phone call from a malicious third party (a “fake wife”) can trigger a crisis assessment, while the lived experience of the actual spouse is dismissed. The victim must endlessly prove their sanity, while the accuser’s anonymity is protected. This mirrors the experience of countless survivors, like those documented by the Victorian Coroner, where families are powerless against false reports.

Case Studies in Systemic Failure

1. The Coroner’s Inquest into the Death of “Ms. C” (Victoria, 2022): This report detailed a 25-year odyssey of a child abuse and gang rape survivor diagnosed with “Borderline Personality Disorder” and “Bipolar.” Her trauma-based responses were treated as pathology. Only after decades was Complex PTSD considered. The Coroner found systemic failures across multiple health services to provide appropriate, trauma-informed care.

2. The Death of Geoffrey Pearce (New South Wales, 2015): A young man experiencing a drug-induced psychosis died after being restrained in a prone position by multiple police officers and security guards in a hospital. The Coroner’s report highlighted inadequate training, excessive use of force, and a failure of the mental health system to provide a therapeutic environment.

3. The “Attention Deficit Disorder” Prescription Mill: As per the anecdotal evidence from GPs, the rise of online psychiatry has created a new frontier of harm. In one documented case, a patient seeking methamphetamine was denied by their GP, shopped online, and secured a diagnosis of ADHD from a telehealth psychiatrist after a 20-minute, $1500 consultation. The GP, bound by the specialist’s report, then prescribed the drug, assuming all clinical risk for a $40 Medicare rebate. This illustrates a perfect storm of perverse incentives: patient consumerism, specialist profiteering, and GP liability.

IV. The Psychopathic System: A Diagnosis of the Institution Itself

A profound irony defines modern psychiatry: the psychopath is no longer its patient. Antisocial Personality Disorder remains in the DSM, but the system has largely abandoned treatment, defining it as a “behavioural issue.” Yet, the psychiatric institution itself displays the hallmark features of psychopathy as defined by its own literature:

· Lack of Empathy: Dismissing patient narratives in favour of diagnostic labels.

· Grandiosity: Claiming authority over the human mind and soul.

· Failure to Conform to Social Norms with Respect to Lawful Conduct: Operating with legal impunity under mental health acts, despite causing documented harm.

· Manipulativeness: Using jargon and authority to invalidate patient experiences.

· Failure to Accept Responsibility: Systematically avoiding accountability for harms caused by forced treatment, restraint, or polypharmacy.

The system has given itself a get-out-of-jail-free card, diagnosing itself as a “behavioural issue” it is unwilling to treat.

V. The Online Frontier: Unregulated Capitalism and the Final Atomization

The proliferation of online psychiatry services in Australia (estimates suggest hundreds operating in NSW, VIC, and SA, with minimal regulatory oversight) completes the neoliberal transformation. The patient is now a true consumer, shopping for a diagnosis. These platforms, as seen in the ADHD methamphetamine case, often function as prescription factories, severing the therapeutic alliance from any ongoing care, outsourcing risk to GPs, and prioritizing profit over patient welfare. It is vulture capitalism applied directly to human suffering.

Conclusion: A Costly Threat to Individuals and Society

Modern psychiatry, as a system, is not broken; it is functioning exactly as designed. It was engineered not to heal, but to manage, categorize, and pacify. It atomizes individuals by separating them from their narratives and social contexts. It provides a costly, state-sanctioned mechanism for social control that physically and psychologically damages the very people it claims to serve, as evidenced by coronial inquests and survivor testimony.

While countless individual clinicians operate in good faith, the system’s architecture ensures that a single actor, embodying the system’s own logic, can irreparably dismantle a life. Society becomes lesser for each person it captures. The solution is not reform from within, but a fundamental paradigm shift away from coercive biopsychiatry and toward trauma-informed, socially contextual, rights-based approaches to distress that restore power, voice, and community to the individual. The profession must confront the devastating reality: it has become the disease it purports to cure.

Of Ageing

Posted on by
Reply

I confess, the state of being “aged” remains a mystery to me. The same pains flare, the same passions burn as they did in my youth. The mirror shows merely a surface—a hide toughened by weathering, a map of survived challenges. It proves nothing of the soul within.

Around me, I see a parody of growth: old children in wrinkled skin, repeating infantile nonsense. Their creases are not runes of wisdom, but the crumpled paper of a life unread. I have travelled, and I smile at the West’s frantic worship of the young surface, a market where so many have sold their depth to purchase a shiny, empty shell.

I think of the fools of my generation, who believed their tantrums were a birthright—only the scale of their toys grew larger. My own rebirth, I find, is reflected in the eyes of those I raised. It is they who speak of fearing my end, a fear I do not share. Death is an old acquaintance; I faced it as a younger man. My grief is reserved for the songs I can no longer hear sung by voices now silent.

Age has taught me caution, yes, and the value of a well-laid plan, for I have known failure and learned its precise cost. I do not fear it; I respect its consequences.

I have found an unexpected reverence in the East, where my experience and learning are not dismissed by the nappy-fillers who surround me here, who see only the external shell. I will not hasten my own oblivion, for I know the journey is one-way.

Let it be clear: age and maturity are not wed. Few things fester more than an old fool, his follies grown heavy and sour. I look at today’s graduates, these titled clowns who ticked boxes only to ascend in income or class, and I mourn the decline of true education.

And yet, I know my fortune. In a world where I count few friends, I have allies who value my worth. I have a child who treasures me, and a wife whose smile is a sun that rises just for me. So, I dance. In the supermarket aisle, to a tune entirely my own, far removed from the bland music surrounding the throng.

A Systemic Analysis: The Victoria Police Force – From ‘Constable by Consent’ to Political Instrument?

Posted on by
Reply

By Andrew Klein 

This article presents a critical analysis of the Victoria Police Force, tracing its philosophical and operational journey from its 19th-century foundations in British ‘policing by consent’ to its modern manifestation as a paramilitarized, politically leveraged institution. It argues that a series of structural, cultural, and political shifts have fundamentally altered the force’s relationship with the community it serves, transforming it from a community-integrated service into a tool of social control, enforcement, and revenue generation, often at the expense of addressing root-cause social issues. This analysis draws on legislative history, official reports, academic commentary, and media coverage to map this transition and propose a pathway back toward a guardian-oriented model.

1. Founding Philosophy: The “Constable” and Policing by Consent

The Victoria Police was established in 1853, inheriting the British Peelian principle of “policing by consent.” The foundational idea was that the “constable” was a citizen in uniform, deriving authority from the community’s collective will for order, not from the state’s coercive power. Legitimacy rested on public approval of police actions, the use of minimal force, and a focus on crime prevention. The early force was decentralised, with officers expected to know their local beats intimately, fostering trust through daily, non-punitive interactions.

2. The Catalysts of Change: A Multi-Decade Shift

Several interconnected factors drove the force away from this model:

· Paramilitarization & Foreign Doctrine: From the 1970s-80s, influenced by global trends and domestic anxieties (e.g., the 1986 Walsh Street shootings), the force began adopting paramilitary trappings: darker, more aggressive uniforms, military-style ranking and command structures, and the procurement of tactical equipment (e.g., the Special Operations Group). Crucially, training and strategy increasingly drew from U.S. models (notably “broken windows” and zero-tolerance policing) and Israeli counter-terrorism and public order tactics, which emphasise threat neutralisation over community rapport.

· The Political Instrument Thesis: Police have been repeatedly deployed to enforce political agendas, eroding perceived neutrality. Key examples include:

  · The violent clashes during the 2011 Occupy Melbourne protests.

  · The stringent enforcement of COVID-19 lockdown and vaccination mandates (2020-2022), where police became the visible face of highly contested public health orders, creating deep rifts with segments of the community.

  · The use of fines as a revenue-raising and behaviour-modification tool, particularly evident in traffic enforcement and COVID fines, framing the officer as a tax collector rather than a safety guardian.

· Systemic Failure & Bureaucracy: The Police Complaints Authority (PCA, 1972) was widely viewed as ineffective, leading to its replacement by the Office of Police Integrity (OPI, 2004) and then the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC, 2011). Despite these reforms, issues of accountability persist. Furthermore, promised IT reforms have failed to liberate officers from administrative burdens, reducing time for community engagement. Chronic under-resourcing for complex social issues—domestic violence, mental health crises, homelessness, youth disengagement—forces police into a reactive, often inappropriate, first-responder role for which they are poorly trained.

3. Consequences: Erosion of Trust and Officer Wellbeing

The cumulative impact of these changes is a profound role contradiction and systemic crisis.

· Community Perception: For many, particularly in marginalised communities, police are now perceived as a “tool of occupation and control.” When most public interactions are punitive (fines, move-on orders, arrests) rather than preventative or supportive, trust evaporates. Band-aid legislation, such as the recent machete bans, is seen as addressing symptoms (weapons) while ignoring root causes (poverty, lack of opportunity, gang recruitment drivers).

· Officer Health & Efficacy: The shift from a guardian to a warrior mentality, combined with chronic stress from under-resourcing and exposure to trauma, has devastated officer mental health. Studies, including those by Beyond Blue, indicate disproportionately high rates of PTSD, depression, and suicide among Australian police. Inadequate training in de-escalation and social crisis intervention leaves officers ill-equipped, fostering reliance on force and technology (e.g., pervasive CCTV), which further entrenches community suspicion.

4. A Pathway Forward: Reclaiming the Guardian Mandate

Transforming Victoria Police requires a fundamental reorientation, not mere reform. Recommendations include:

1. Philosophical & Training Overhaul: Abandon U.S./Israeli-derived warrior models. Reinstate procedural justice and guardian mindset training as core principles. Mandate extensive training in trauma-informed response, mental health first aid, and social crisis negotiation.

2. Demilitarisation: Scale back paramilitary uniforms and equipment for general duties. Redesign patrol strategies to prioritise foot patrols and neighbourhood policing panels where officers are accountable to local stakeholders.

3. Divest & Empower: Create and fund dedicated, civilian-led crisis response teams for mental health, homelessness, and drug addiction, removing these issues from the police remit. Redirect fine revenue into these social support services.

4. Legislative & Political Neutrality: Legislatures must cease using police to enforce contentious political agendas. The force’s role must be strictly defined by criminal law enforcement and community safety, not social engineering or revenue collection.

5. Radical Transparency & Accountability: Strengthen IBAC’s powers and resources. Implement real-time body-worn camera analytics and community oversight boards with real power over local policing priorities.

Conclusion

The Victoria Police Force stands at a crossroads. It can continue as a increasingly paramilitarised, politically directed instrument of enforcement, or it can undertake the difficult work of returning to its foundational principle: policing by, for, and with the community. The latter path requires courageous political will to reinvest in social infrastructure, redefine the police mission, and rebuild fractured trust. The health of the community and the officers who serve it depends on this choice.

Selected References & Sources:

· Historical Foundations: “Victoria Police: A History” (1953). Victoria Police Museum resources.

· Paramilitarization & Doctrine: Hogg, R. (1991). “Policing and Penalty: From Patrols to Politics.” In The Promise of Penalty. Hogg, R., & Brown, D. (1998). Rethinking Law and Order.

· Political Deployment:

  · The Age / ABC News archives on Occupy Melbourne policing (2011).

  · The Guardian Australia series on COVID-19 fines and policing (2020-2022).

· Systemic Issues & Accountability:

  · IBAC Reports: “Special report concerning police misconduct issues related to drug use and association with persons of interest” (2020).

  · Parliamentary inquiries into the Police Complaints system (1980s-2000s).

· Officer Mental Health: Beyond Blue (2018). Answering the Call: National Mental Health and Wellbeing Study of Police and Emergency Services.

· Community Perception & “Band-Aid” Laws: The Conversation analyses on Victoria’s machete ban legislation (2024) and articles on over-policing in marginalised communities.