Aurora VA’s Suicide Prevention Center Rife with “emotional, mental and psychological abuse”

[DynamicDidactic]

In case anyone interested

Aurora VA’s suicide prevention center rife with “emotional, mental and psychological abuse”

Aurora VA hospital employees struggle with their own mental health under Dr. Lisa Brenner, who is known for retaliation, intimidation and, they say, unequal treatment of people of color.

www.denverpost.com

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[JustNoticing]

Goddam, sounds like a nightmare. God bless the whistleblowers...looks like the union did good on this one too, forcing the investigation.

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

The topic of 'suicide prevention' has been so politicized, overly-engineered (to an iatrogenic degree) and cynically exploited by Machiavellian power-hungry bureaucratic types at VA...a story like this, though disturbing, isn't surprising in the least.

Check out the most recent VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines on Suicide Prevention for a bit of refreshing honesty regarding the utter lack of to very slim empirical support underlying the vast majority (with limited exceptions) of the catechism of The Church of Suicide Prevention at VA.

But the mental health leadership typically just ignores these publications (or very selectively picks and chooses what not to ignore in them). In medieval Europe, there was a lot of power associated with The Catholic Church. At VA in 2023, same goes with The Church of Suicide Prevention. Corruption is to be expected.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

Psychopaths gonna psychopath. Even in the field of suicide research/prevention apparently.

 

[Sanman]

This doesn't surprise me. I have trained with some nationally recognized folks and most of those experiences rank toward the bottom in my career . Though my worst supervisor ever was rather anonymous VA employee.

 

[summerbabe]

This doesn't surprise me. I have trained with some nationally recognized folks and most of those experiences rank toward the bottom in my career . Though my worst supervisor ever was rather anonymous VA employee.

When think back to the tenured profs in my grad program:

50%: totally/mostly normal, nerdy, maybe a little bit of extra type A-ness than the average human being

25%: don’t get on their wrong side and you’ll mostly be OK

25%: I strongly suspect their MMPI would match profiles with varying clinical/forensic populations

Which lines up with what I hear from trusted peers about negative and inappropriate experiences they have had with some ‘leaders’ in our field since our academic systems turn a blind eye to bad behavior and even enable it in many cases.

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

When think back to the tenured profs in my grad program:

50%: totally/mostly normal, nerdy, maybe a little bit of extra type A-ness than the average human being

25%: don’t get on their wrong side and you’ll mostly be OK

25%: I strongly suspect their MMPI would match profiles with varying clinical/forensic populations

Which lines up with what I hear from trusted peers about negative and inappropriate experiences they have had with some ‘leaders’ in our field since our academic systems turn a blind eye to bad behavior and even enable it in many cases.

Your typology is spot-on and should be borne in mind when, as a clinician, you may have to question the application of certain research findings in clinical practice. Don't think for a second that some narcissistic "big names" in a particular research area are above unethical practices when it comes to their pet theories or lines of research.

It's often subtle, but the most frequent modus operandi is for the "head honcho" to reward/punish based on favorable results so that they don't even have to get their hands 'dirty' (directly) by committing explicit fraud...nah...they have 'plausible deniability.' They just create a work/educational environment that strongly encourages bias/fraud/selective reporting. We need more checks/balances in academia. The reforms instituted after the 'replication crisis' were steps in the right direction but there's a lot of institution level corruption, as well...especially where big $$$ are involved.

 

[cara susanna]

WHOA. Lisa Brenner? She was always one of my VA heroes. I applied (and interviewed) to work in her lab for post doc. This is bananas.

Edit: I didn't get the best vibe during my interview, tbh, but I know someone who worked in her lab and loved it. Granted, that person wasn't full time staff. Sorry if this comes across like I'm disbelieving or denying, I'm just trying to express how shocked I am.

 

[Sanman]

WHOA. Lisa Brenner? She was always one of my VA heroes. I applied (and interviewed) to work in her lab for post doc. This is bananas.

Edit: I didn't get the best vibe during my interview, tbh, but I know someone who worked in her lab and loved it. Granted, that person wasn't full time staff. Sorry if this comes across like I'm disbelieving or denying, I'm just trying to express how shocked I am.

Maybe dodged a bullet there.

 

[cara susanna]

Maybe dodged a bullet there.

Sounds like it. The interview did feel really high pressure and a little even combative. I loved the post doc I did get, too.

I'm glad that the media is reporting on this because it sounds like the VA was trying to sweep it under the rug (not surprising, given how influential Brenner is).

 

[summerbabe]

WHOA. Lisa Brenner? She was always one of my VA heroes. I applied (and interviewed) to work in her lab for post doc. This is bananas.

Edit: I didn't get the best vibe during my interview, tbh, but I know someone who worked in her lab and loved it. Granted, that person wasn't full time staff. Sorry if this comes across like I'm disbelieving or denying, I'm just trying to express how shocked I am.

Totally anecdotal but I feel like some researchers who do self perceived ‘intense’ or ‘important’ work are more likely to engage in behaviors like this.

I have on good word that somebody else significantly more prominent than Lisa Brenner in this space is also a bad actor (and probably worse).

I came from a career/voc research background and people are pretty chill because we don’t even really have external grants or high impact factor journals so there aren’t even huge mountains to summit lol.

 

[cara susanna]

Totally anecdotal but I feel like some researchers who do self perceived ‘intense’ or ‘important’ work are more likely to engage in behaviors like this.

I have on good word that somebody else significantly more prominent than Lisa Brenner in this space is also a bad actor (and probably worse).

I came from a career/voc research background and people are pretty chill because we don’t even really have external grants or high impact factor journals so there aren’t even huge mountains to summit lol.

I think I know who you mean and, if it's the same person, I've heard similarly.

 

[Sanman]

Totally anecdotal but I feel like some researchers who do self perceived ‘intense’ or ‘important’ work are more likely to engage in behaviors like this.

I have on good word that somebody else significantly more prominent than Lisa Brenner in this space is also a bad actor (and probably worse).

I came from a career/voc research background and people are pretty chill because we don’t even really have external grants or high impact factor journals so there aren’t even huge mountains to summit lol.

I don't think that it is limited to researchers. I do think it applies more broadly to those in positions of power and those that deal with large numbers of people. At a certain point, individuals feel replaceable and how you treat them becomes less important to you. There are plenty of people that feel this way about folks in the service industry and treat them poorly. Same applies here...oh it is just another extern, intern, post-doc, employee, etc. There are lots of those and they come and go. I have had folks like these forget meetings or supervisions feel no need to apologize for it because they are busy important folks and you are not. This is different from the axis-II folks that want to destroy your career because who looked at them the wrong way or made a comment they did not like.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

This is a wild article. I know of Dr. Brenner mostly from her research contributions and some division committee work when I was first starting out (10+ yrs ago). I’m really curious to read the details of the report bc those weren’t the vibes I got around her, but I never worked directly with her. Committee work was mostly email and phone conferences and usually 1-2 in-person mtgs a year.

Those all staff mtgs sound like nightmare scenarios though. Usually you hear rumors about toxic places and folks, but this is the first I’ve heard about this. I do know of some toxic research places, but I’m less familiar w VA/MIRECC labs. I just hope whatever the truth is can be heard and any problems addressed. What a black eye for psych at a rough moment for the field.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I’m really surprised. I’ve worked with Dr. Brenner a bit (not extensively), and she was nice almost to a fault in my experience (obviously, I’m not discounting other people’s experiences—just saying it wasn’t mine. I’ve had the opposite experience as well—having awful experiences with people others spoke very well of).