Torrey, E. Fuller

Autor: Torrey, E. Fuller
Rok: 1937-

Biogr./Hist. údaje: Americký psychiatr zaměřený na studium schizofrenie, autor prací z oboru.
Zdroj: Autoritní databáze Národní knihovny ČR

Edwin Fuller Torrey (born September 6, 1937), is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher. He is executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI) and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a nonprofit organization whose principal activity is promoting the passage and implementation of outpatient commitment laws and civil commitment laws and standards in individual states that allow people diagnosed with mental illness to be forcibly committed and medicated easily throughout the United States.Torrey has conducted numerous research studies, particularly on possible infectious causes of schizophrenia. He has become well known as an advocate of the idea that severe mental illness is due to biological factors and not social factors. He has appeared on national radio and television outlets and written for many newspapers. He has received two Commendation Medals by the U.S. Public Health Service and numerous other awards and tributes. He has been criticized by a range of people, including federal researchers and others for some of his attacks on de-institutionalization and his support for forced medication as a method of treatment.Torrey is on the board of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), which describes itself as being "a national nonprofit advocacy organization. TAC supports involuntary treatment when deemed appropriate by a judge (at the urging of the person's psychiatrist and family members). Torrey has written several best-selling books on mental illness, including Surviving Schizophrenia. He is also a distant relative of abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey and has written his biography.