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Born
and raised in California, Dr. Mosher received his
B.A. from Stanford University and M.D., with
honors, from Harvard Medical School in 1961, where
he also subsequently took his psychiatric training.
He was Clinical Director of Mental Health Services
for San Diego, California from 7/96 to 11/98 and
remains a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the
School of Medicine, University of California at San
Diego. One of his principal tasks in San Diego was
the implementation of a managed care system for
public sector adult clients. From 1988-96 he was
Chief Medical Director of Montgomery County
Marylands Department of Addiction, Victim and
Mental Health Services and a Clinical Professor of
Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of
the Health Sciences, F. Edward Herbert School of
Medicine. In his role in Montgomery County, he
helped establish a number of innovative programs,
including a consumer owned and operated computer
company and a new residential alternative to
psychiatric hospitalization for persons in
crisis.
His
professional training and experience is both
extensive and wide-ranging. He received research
training at the National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH) Intramural Research Program in Bethesda,
Maryland and at the Tavistock Clinic in London.
From 1968-80 he was the first Chief of NIMH's
Center for Studies of Schizophrenia. While with the
NIMH he founded and served as first Editor-in-Chief
of the Schizophrenia Bulletin.
From
1970 to 1992 he was a collaborating investigator,
then Research Director, of the Soteria Project -
Community Alternatives for the Treatment of
Schizophrenia. In this role, he was instrumental in
developing and researching an innovative, non-drug,
non-hospital, home-like, residential treatment
facility for acutely psychotic persons. The many
publications from this experiment demonstrate both
the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of its
non-traditional approach to the treatment of
persons newly identified as having schizophrenia.
Continuing his career long interest in clinical
research Dr. Mosher more recently (1990 - 1996) has
been the Principal Investigator of a Center for
Mental Health Services(CMHS) research/demonstration
grant for the first study to compare clinical
outcomes and costs of long term seriously mentally
ill public-sector clients ("frequent flyers"
randomly assigned (with no psychopathology based
exclusion criteria) to a residential alternative to
hospitalization or the psychiatric ward of a local
general hospital (the McPath project). Its
findings, comparable clinical effectiveness with a
40% cost saving favoring the alternative, have
important acute care implications.
In
1980, while based at the University of Verona
Medical School, Dr. Mosher conducted an in-depth
study of Italy's revolutionary new mental health
system. He documented that a new National Health
Service supported system of catchmented community
care could stop admissions to large state hospitals
enabling them to be phased down and eventually
closed. He also showed that where the mandated
community system was implemented properly there
were no adverse consequences for patients or the
community.
In
his legal/psychiatric work Dr. Mosher was expert
witness for the plaintiffs in two successful class
action suites related to forced medication of
psychiatric patients (N.J.; Renie vs. Klein, 1978;
CA; Jamison vs. Farribee 1983). He is currently
expert witness for the plaintiffs in four class
action suits (MD, VA, DC &AZ) against
Psychiatric Institutes of America (PIA) and
National Medical Enterprises (NME) for medical
malpractice and insurance fraud
(1994-present).
As
a clinician, Dr. Mosher specializes in family and
adolescent treatment, community psychiatry program
consultation, and staff training. As a teacher, he
is an acknowledged expert at conveying the
essential and critical aspects of the interviewing
process to students at levels.
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Books
Community
Mental Health: Principles and Practice, with
Dr. Lorenzo Burti
W.W. Norton in 1989.
Community
Mental Health: A Practical Guide
Revised, abridged, pb: 1994.
translated into five languages.
Articles
[MS]
link
will take you to the article online at
moshersoteria.com
Soteria
and Other Alternatives...[MS]
The Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease.
Shows that 85-90% of "severely mentally ill" --
acute as well as chronic -- persons can be treated
in humane non-hospital settings at least as
effectively and more economically than in
psychiatric wards.
I
Want No Part of It Anymore
[MS]
Feature article in Psychology Today V 32,
No. 5 September/October 1999.
Throws light on the unholy alliance between
psychiatry and Big Pharma that results in
unnecessary, dangerous, destructive drugging of
millions.
Two
Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest
Article drawn from a speech given in Sacramento at
a rally against AB1421, allowing preventive
involuntary outpatient psychiatric commitment.
Letter
of Resignation from the American Psychiatric
Association [MS]
Critiques the obsession of today's psychiatry with
molecules and drugs that results in the disregard
of patients in their social contexts.
Response
to Practical Questions: What can you do about
neuroleptic/ antipsychotic
drugs?
[MS]
Guidelines for dealing with severe
emotional/psychological crises.
The
Biopsychiatric Model of "Mental Illness": A
Critical Bibliography [MS]
Review of the literature. Debunks the notion that
"serious mental illness" is a "brain disease." In
addition, documents how the drugs used to treat
these presumed "brain diseases" instead cause real
brain disease.
Still
Crazy After All These Years: Local Shrink Assails
the Schizophrenia Racket
San Diego Weekly Reader, vol. 32 no. 2, Jan.
9, 2003
A thorough, and thoroughly enjoyable article by
Jeannette De Wyze reflecting on Loren Mosher's
decades of resistence to the collusive, oppressive
treatment of the mentally ill.
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