E. Fuller Torrey

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Edwin Fuller Torrey (born September 6, 1937), is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher. He is associate director of research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute^[1] (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 severe mental illness to be involuntarily hospitalized and treated throughout the United States.^[2][3]

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, psychosis, is due to biological factors and not social factors as may be found in neurotic illnesses.^[4] 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 along with 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.^[5]

Torrey is on the board of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), which describes itself as being "a national nonprofit advocacy organization".^[6] 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 books on mental illness, including Surviving Schizophrenia. He is a distant relative of abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey and has written his biography.