It is also quite possible that some of the professional and nonprofessional resistance to the diagnosis might be subtly related to a concern about the implied risk of later mental illness for some users of addictive substances- such as alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine. In contrast to the official (and “politically/academically correct”) diagnosis of “substance-induced psychosis” (SIP), the SDIP diagnosis has no (arbitrary) 30 day time limit for its duration. The SIP diagnosis also completely ignores the issue of substance dependency- yet it almost always involves addictive substances. Its use should have been restricted to nonaddictive substances. The mere existence of the SIP diagnosis is actually a potent, though rather “indirect support” for the SDIP diagnosis. 

I have been frequently frustrated not to be able to refer the relatives and loved ones of probable SDIP- afflicted persons that contact me to a program that can treat them. These persons had first accessed this web site, or my own web site on the diagnosis. But the only treatment program for SDIP cases I know of is in Australia. Regardless of my efforts, the diagnosis will eventually become established. I would very much like to see this happen sooner, rather than later. This is because there are so many mentally ill persons with SDIP illnesses who are currently suffering needlessly- all for the want of the availability of the diagnosis. 

Currently, it is essentially only this web site which offers the general public (and the great majority of mental health professionals) any information about the SDIP diagnosis, and I am very appreciative of this. Let me again comment on the action that the California Mental Health Department took regarding this diagnosis. I very much wish that other persons and organizations would follow its example in seeing the value of the diagnosis, and the need for direct, open-minded and public-spirited action to help further its establishment- however “politically incorrect” it might be. 

At this point, it seems lamentable, but true, that sufficient media exposure is what is most likely to motivate the psychiatric community to be sufficiently scientific-minded to take a good look at the existing solid empirical evidence for the SDIP diagnosis. (Of course, there is also the matter of the significant support that it has already earned.) I definitely think that the general psychiatric community and the American public do not need to “be protected” from the controversy over the SDIP diagnosis. The media needs to take a more enlightened view of the matter than its current attitude that: “The problem of the diagnosis should be handled strictly within the medical community.” Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world! The SDIP diagnosis very much needs help in gaining its freedom from its “unnatural and regressive prison of silence.” The practice of “true journalism” could easily end this silence!