Behavioral Health Ward, Security Cameras, and Fear of spies

Hey everyone. I was in the behavioral health ward last week. Well, I chose a different place to go since my mental health clinic closed my chart. Anyway, I have this severe paranoia of being spied upon. I got into the mental health ward and there were security cameras in the rooms and such. I understand that these are for the safety of patients and staff but it was very difficult for me to sleep because of those cameras.

Anyway, considering the fact that I am certain I am not the only one with such a paranoia, why do behavioral health wards employ such cameras when it is only going to exacerbate the symptoms of people like me? I mean, I was there to get better, not to be spied upon.

When I was in I took a crayon from art and colored over the lenses and I guess no one ever looks at them cause they didn't notice I had done that and clean them.

Very good topic , every time I was in a behavioral health ward , nice new name they have for it, I saw many people who were very very upset about the cameras everywhere. I sure didn't like it myself.

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This problem with the cameras the psychiatrists should do something about if they care about there patients, would they treat arachnophobia by putting spiders in all the rooms as well ?

Do they realy need so many cameras when they pay those idiots with the clipboards to write down everys location every 15 minutes anyway ? No one ever looks at those reports , it just gets them to check on everyone.

In the wards I've been in that had cameras, I too found them triggering. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of it has to do with safety as you said. Not only safety of the patients, but of the staff as well. A lot of potentially hazardous situations come to mind. It's probably one of those situations where the hospital has had to weigh the risks vs benefits. You could always make a complaint to the hospital to at least let them know how detrimental it was to you.

"Safety"... there is a famous quote on that one.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

--Benjamin Franklin

"Critics argue that mental illness is an ideology used to protect the public against persons who are
judged to be dangerous or disturbing but who have not necessarily violated any law. As a covert
form of social control, psychiatry violates the principle of rule of law which prohibits depriving a
person of freedom without an accusatory indictment and a trial by jury governed by rules of evidence
which gives a verdict of guilt for violating a specific law. This critique of psychiatry is based on the
ethical and political respect for individual freedom under law which is the political foundations of
this republic. Medical-coercive psychiatry violates these fundamental values. These issues invite
debate in competent forums, yet they are ignored."


See: CRITIQUE OF MEDICAL-COERCIVE PSYCHIATRY http://www.szasz.com/leifercritic.pdf


To top it off, psychiatry calls everthing they do to people "help" no matter how much it hurts them

I see what you're saying copy_cat. I agree that there are definitely times when psychiatry uses so called "safety" to dehumanize a person and take away essential rights. That doesn't mean however that the opposite is also true, that there are times when people who are experiencing periods of extreme emotional distress can be harmful to not only themselves but others as well. I say that cautiously because I don't want to put a fear out there for people who read this. It is much more likely that a person with mental illness/extreme emotional distress will be a VICTIM vs a perpetrator.

This was one of the first instances that came to mind when the question was posed about the security cameras. A person who is having a difficult time, and is receiving inpatient level of care where they are supposed to be safe, let's say that suddenly they're in their bedroom alone with someone (could be a mental health worker or another patient), who knows what could happen between those 5 minute checks. (that is if they were of enough danger to themselves/others that they would be on 5 minute checks-it could be much more spaced out) someone could steal from them, physically or sexually abuse them etc.

I know that for me, I would feel much more safe knowing that at least someone caught what was going on on camera to back up my story. Any lawyer would immediately argue that the person who is reporting a crime that happened while they were in a mental institution was just paranoid, or delusional, or who knows what else.

i think it would be good if they voice record interveiws with psychiatrists to at least have evidence to back up subjective observations and where they get your label for other docs to reference you against. I think i did a pretty good job of explaining why I seemed like things were going $#%^ in my mind but they labeled my spirituality as I had studied different meditations, eastern philosophy in martial arts philosophy, taoism and inner alchemy and noted that I was really badly sleep deprive, the drugs they gave me messed with my mind.

I worked as a behavioral aide in a psych hospital, and we had cameras in the hallways and common areas, but not in the individual rooms. If a person was suicidal or violent, then we were assigned to watch them shower and keep an eye on them while they were in their rooms -- it was an actual person they could see who was assigned to watch them. I'm not even sure the cameras in the hallways worked, but they were there to protect the hospital from liabilities in case there were lawsuits.

However, anytime you leave your home, you are on video and/or being photographed. There is a camera on top of nearly every stop light in my city.....it's awful. And if you have a smartphone, as long as it's powered on, the cell company knows where you are at all times. This kind of sick behavior that society is trying to adapt as normal is one of the reasons I've been severely agorophobic for nearly 2 years now.

Razael wrote:i think it would be good if they voice record interveiws with psychiatrists to at least have evidence to back up subjective observations and where they get your label for other docs to reference you against.

I like this idea. Perhaps you could bring a tape recorder into your psych visits and request that you be able to record them? I'm not sure how they would react, but you could give it a shot.

Cheze2 wrote:

Razael wrote:i think it would be good if they voice record interveiws with psychiatrists to at least have evidence to back up subjective observations and where they get your label for other docs to reference you against.

I like this idea. Perhaps you could bring a tape recorder into your psych visits and request that you be able to record them? I'm not sure how they would react, but you could give it a shot.

yeah I've thought about that but hopefully I don't have any more

Paranoia is just overactivity of the natural system that protects us from danger. Before modern times that danger was lions tigers bears ect and today its mostly other human beings (criminals) but whatever, that system perceives being watched as danger and causes anxiety and distress. Cameras are the worst possibe thing in this state.

Also the people obsessed with installing cameras to look out are just as paranoid as those who don't like to be watched by them, right ?